Exciting news huh? Well, unfortunately for those of you tuning in from a Windows XP machine, no, Microsoft did not extend XP’s support any further. XP is set to die in August of 2014; this means that Microsoft will no longer give updates to the already out dated operating system. What they did extend was support for Windows Vista and Windows 7. 

So what does all this news mean? Well at this point it means that if you get that Windows 7 upgrade in now you will have at least 8 more years of support from Microsoft. This support is what keeps your operating system secure. If you hang on to Windows XP past its extended support date you risk serious security problems. Taking bets now on how quickly XP will be overrun with Malware, spyware, etc! That’s right; it’s a pretty safe bet that as soon as support ends hackers will be working overtime trying to get around the unsupported operating system.

Now is the time to get that upgrade in! We’ve been saying this for a long time and time is starting to run out. In some cases depending on your computer it may be more cost effective to replace your computer altogether while you’re in the process.

If you would like some prices for a new computer or are curious what the process is on upgrading your computer don’t hesitate to call us!

If you're interested in reading more click here.

That’s right one of the worlds most loved mobile apps is going to Facebook. Angry Birds which first debuted in on iOS devices in December of 2009 is now making the move to one of the world’s leading websites. 

The new version of Angry Birds is going to offer social network goers some more features not included on the Mobile or other Internet platforms. Angry Birds on Facebook will offer power-ups to allow players to beef up their arsenal against the competition. While Angry Birds is free to play however, the power ups are not. Power-ups can be purchased at the rate of 20 per 1$.

There are some users that are not to terribly happy with the new version however. Many people are saying that this should have been designed on HTML5 code rather than Adobes Flash Player 11. Guess it goes to show that Adobes not entirely out of the game yet…

If you are interested in playing the game you can check it out here.

If you just want to read more about the new game click here.

A new study out is showing that you are far more likely to get a virus emailed to you in the morning hours than any other time of day. Many users around the world login to their computers first thing in the morning and review any emails they may have missed during the evening as well as those just coming in. 

According to a study by “Trustware” the time frame from 8 AM EST to 9 AM EST is the most likely time to come across an infection in your email.  According to Trustware, the amount of viruses being sent to users also begins to rise in August and peaks in September. 

The study also finds that Franchises are also one of the more likely targets due to the fact that if they are able to break into one location it is likely that multiple locations use similar IT configurations.

If you’re interested in reading more about the study click here.

Android is becoming more secure. Apple being known for their very locked down operating system is soon to not be the only “secure” device out there for consumers to choose. While no device is entirely secure, Android is starting to take steps to ensure its users that the software available from legitimate sources is just that, legitimate. 

In the past there have been many malicious programs introduced that can cause everything from privacy issues, identity theft, or fraudulent charges to the phone users phone bill. Google is now taking some initiative to help secure the Market. While Android remains open source meaning anyone can create an application for the Market for users to download, Google has begun scanning all applications and running them in a virtual environment to watch them for malicious intent. Google is not only monitoring new applications uploaded but is also monitoring those already in existence.

It is nice to see that Google is taking security a bit more seriously but not actually locking down their software entirely. With Android being open source it allows its users/developers a very fertile ground for development and advances. With that openness comes security risks though that needs to be monitored. Keep up the good work Google!

To read more on the topic click here.

Many people realize nowadays that being on the internet is a very public place. Most people however do not know just how public it is. The fact is that if you like many others on the Internet do not take steps to make yourself less exposed on the Internet, it is very easy for someone with a little bit of knowledge to see what you’re doing online, where you’re at, and in some cases who you are. While your everyday Joe does not possess this knowledge there are many people out there that either know how to find this information out, or know someone that does. At any rate it is a good practice to make this information as difficult to come by as possible.

The first major step in the right direction is, if you use Internet Explorer, make sure to set your browser to delete all after each browsing session. Yes, delete your history, cookies, passwords, page form data, etc….I know it is really convenient to have all this available at the click of your mouse but with that convenience comes risk.

The next step, use the “In-Private” browsing function. This function is designed to make your browsing more private…

The third step, if you really need to be private, use a proxy to browse the web. While you need to be careful and know that the server you are using to browse through is legitimate, with the proper configuration it becomes more difficult to track back your browsing to you specifically.

The last step you can take is to use a program like Tor. Tor allows you to use encrypted connections to make your browsing more secure. Tor also offers the proxy service talked about above.

All in all it is very important that you protect your online activities. Not only to protect you from the onslaught of advertisements you can get from browsers using your cookies, but, also to keep you protected from privacy invasion and the possibility of identity theft.

To read more click here.

Many people probably do not realize what is going on right now in the world of the internet, or its inner workings anyhow…SOPA the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is being heavily pushed by many Hollywood studios and other media production companies to allow government to basically make websites accused of housing illegal materials such as copyrighted media illegal and allow them to force the websites to be blocked.

Essentially this bill will allow the government to control what is allow and not allowed on the internet, long story short. Many people and organizations are opposing these bills as they fear they will cause severe damage to the internet’s inner mechanics as well as the fact that it doesn’t actually solve the problem at hand.

With SOPA the initial bill allowed government to force ISPs and other DN providers to remove DNS entries to websites accused of hosting pirated material. While this may sound okay it is cause for concern on many levels. One of which is the fact the simply removing the DNS entry is not going to correct the problem because the website can still be browsed to via its actual IP.

While I am not going to go into much detail on the bills for lack of time…it should be said that people need to be pushing their congressman to vote this down just the same as the many organizations are pushing against it. Many organizations are planning protests against the bills. Some of those companies are Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, etc. There is currently a list of some 500+ websites that will be shutting their websites off tomorrow in an effort to protest these bills.

To read more about Googles stance and others on SOPA and PIPA click here.

To read more about Wikipedias stance on SOPA click here.

To view the ever growing list of companies also joining in on the blackout tomorrow click here.

This past week a group of hackers from India indicated that they had found source code from Symantec’s Endpoint Protection software. Endpoint Protection is enterprise level antivirus software that is designed to be ran in a client/server environment. 

The hackers claimed to have source code from two older versions of Endpoint Protection, version 11.0 and version 10.2. While Symantec is currently on version 12.0 version 11.0 is still supported even though it is four years old. Symantec claims that even though the hackers have access to the source code they have no way (yet) of breaching their software. 

There are a lot of companies out there that try to hold on to everything as long as they can to try to avoid the various costs involved with replacing a product with a newer product. In the case of your antivirus software however, this is a dangerous practice. The longer a product is in existence the higher the chance is of someone finding a way to hack into it. In the case of Endpoint Protection this is particularly dangerous since it operates in a client server setup. Imagine if your server’s side antivirus agent was compromised. This could mean that your workstations are no longer receiving updates, and could potentially mean your entire network is vulnerable. 

We sell a better solution to client server antivirus solutions. Through Tech Experts Businesses are able to purchase our Managed Vipre Antivirus which does not have to operate on a client server setup, but can if you need it to function that way due to your networks bandwidth.

At any rate, if you have old antivirus software, I recommend updating it to something current so you are properly protecting your valuable assets.

If you would like to read more click here.

Many people know that whenever a file is downloaded to your computer it should be scanned with an antivirus program to ensure it is safe before opening it. The fact is, if the file you just downloaded and scanned has a virus that is new, your antivirus may not catch it before it’s too late.

So what’s a better way of going about scanning files that you’ve downloaded? Well one thing you could do is to use multiple antivirus products to scan your files. The main problem with this method is that for you to do this you would need to install and uninstall every antivirus software you wish to scan with since you can only have one antivirus software installed on your computer at a time. The reason for this is that having multiple antivirus products on your computer can conflict with each other and cause a lot of problems.

The best way to scan your downloaded file (provided it is under 20 MB) is to use this handy website: http://www.virustotal.com/ this website gives you the ability to upload your file and scan it against a list of major antivirus companies.

Wanting to test this out, I hunted down a virus on the internet (Not to terribly difficult) and once I found out where it installed itself on my computer, moved it to my flash drive and used it to test their website. After uploading I was able to see what antivirus programs were currently able to detect this particular virus. Only 5 of the 42 it looks at were currently able to detect the virus.

Needless to say, always be very cautious about what you open (even if it appears someone you know sent it to you). As this website shows, just because you have an Antivirus installed, doesn’t mean that yours is able to detect everything.

If you are interested in reading more click here.

If you would like to check out the “Virus Total” website, click here.

That’s right, scammers are out in full force to steal anyones credit card information they can get their hands on. The sad thing is most times, including this attempt, consumers freely but unknowingly give the information to them with little to no hesitation.

Hitting just after Christmas is over is an email scam that is targeting new Apple product owners. The email is designed to look as if it is a legitimate email with carefully written grammar and official looking links to an even more official looking website.

Unsuspecting users are directed to the fake website and instructed to login to their account and update their billing information. Logging into the users account immediately sends the user to a account update page that asks the user for the normal billing information and pretty much gives the scammers full access to use your credit cards how they like.

As we’ve said many times, you have to be very, very careful with your personal information. Generally, due to scams like this, it is a good idea to go directly to their website and login to your account to do updates rather than following any links contained within emails. Links in email can easily hide malicious websites which can harm you simply by browsing to them.

If you are unsure if they really need your information, look up the customer support number on the legitimate website and give them a call. If you speak to customer service more than likely they can clear up any confusion as well. Better safe than sorry always.

If you are interested in reading more about this scan or seeing some of the scammers emails/websites click the link here.

As many of you have heard by now Windows has been working on their new operating system “Windows 8”. While I still do not feel this is going to be a very business friendly operating system due to drastic changes in the layout/design, I do think Microsoft is coming up with some good ideas to build off of.

As the title states, once of the new technologies Microsoft is testing for possible release with the new operating system is the use of picture passwords. These “Passwords” can be personalized using your own pictures rather than a predefined group of pictures. Being able to use your own personal pictures, such as a family portrait, allows users to make unique and hard to guess picture passwords.

The way the password is designed to work at this point is by allowing a user to draw three separate images (either tapping on the screen, drawing a line, or drawing a circle) on the picture with their finger for touchscreen devices or with the mouse for computers to allow access to the computer. Users can use this alongside a normal password to make their computer more secure. This not only records what you have drawn on the image but the order you did it in as well as the direction of your drawing strokes.

One thing is for sure, Microsoft is developing some great technology that will improve overall security (though I still have my doubts about the operating system as a whole).

If you’re interested in reading more click here.

The answer to this is question is ultimately no. That being said what’s the point of securing your network? Well, if a network is properly secured it will take a very skilled individual to successfully break into a secured network. 

Network security is a must for every business whether you have your own server or not. Those using a server need to put as much security in place as possible since your resources are all accessed and managed centrally (or at least they should be as that’s the whole point of having a server…).

We speak about security a lot as an IT services provider and that is because it is extremely important. The fact is however that just like good antivirus software is for viruses and malware, good security is simply a preventative measure and needs to be monitored and kept up on to ensure it is working properly. A skilled hacker can infiltrate even the most secure network given enough time to do so. The key to stopping an attack is not what you had setup at prevent the attack but rather the constant monitoring of your network to watch for attacks taking place and stop them before they make it through your defenses, then make some changes after an attack to prevent any headway they may have made on your network.

We have had attempts by hackers at a number of clients sites which is pretty common and thanks to our monitoring system, were able to detect the attempts and block them BEFORE they were able to access anything. Having good security in place allows you time to react to attacks. Having poor security generally means you never even have a chance to see the attack and they can walk off with everything saved on your network. If someone was able to gain access to your network they could potentially have access to your business contacts, contracts and company files, customer credit card data, etc…needless to say this could wind up costing your company tens of thousands of dollars or more.

It pays to have a properly designed security solution in place. If you have any question as to how secure your network is or is not…give us a call for a full security audit and lets us have a few minutes to speak with you about some of the ways we can help you protect your company.

Samsung just released a concept video of their new “Flexible Display Technology” that though it isn’t expected to be out until 2012 (which is actually pretty soon…) is very impressive and may become the new standard for mobile devices according to many different articles I’ve read over the last few months.

Even though Samsung has not officially released this technology it is very impressive and the possible uses are endless. If you have a spare moment check out the video released by them that is designed to portray the devices possibilities. This device being flexible is very durable. Those of you that always drop devices, such as phones, tablets, etc. don’t need to worry about dropping one of these. One of the cool possibilities this device will offer is augmented reality which allows the user to basically see an image in 3D off of the tablet itself.

Pretty interesting technology that could also have benefits in many different fields when it comes to training with the use of augmented reality. Surgeons could learn about various surgeries via the augmented reality and would be able to see what should happen in a surgery without actually having to be present in a surgery.

If you want to read more click here or check out the video from Samsung below!

The debate is on! Will Solid State Drives become cheaper than the current mechanical hard drives? Depending on who you talk to that answer is yes, but not initially. Due to the large amount of damage done in Thailand in recent months Mechanical Hard Drive prices have be slowly and steadily rising in price due to availability. Thailand manufactures roughly 70% of the world’s hard drives and because of the damage there many of the supplies have been cut off.

Micron, a major manufacturer of Solid State Hard Drives that they are actually seeing an increase in SSD demand from what they can only assume is due to the flooding in Thailand. Micron’s Kevin Kilbuck says that he feels their SSD fill the void nicely. 

SSD’s are still considerably more expensive than the normal mechanical Hard Drives are but with prices on the rise for Mechanical Hard Drives it’s anyone’s guess how much longer that will last. If Mechanical Hard Drive prices continue to increase more buyers may decide to spend a little bit extra money to get a SSD and have a faster performing hard drive.

If you’re interested in reading more click here.

Black Friday is THE day to get the best deals according to both consumers and resellers alike. Every year after Thanksgiving millions of people take to the streets in the search for the best deals on what for some is an after Thanksgiving treat and for others the gifts for the upcoming Christmas holiday. While these deals are hyped up by resellers as begin amazing deals at great prices, are they really just that?

As far as the computers most resellers put on sale go, they are generally great deals. While shopping for a new computer on Black Friday it is a good idea to keep in mind that most of the bargain priced $200-$300 laptops and towers are, while very affordable, often times made with cheaper parts than the computers you see every day. This being said most of them will run a little slower and may not offer the same features as the computers you normally see on the market. 

If your searching for a new computer this holiday season make sure to compare the systems specs to those of the other computers you have been looking at over the year. Also remember that Hard Drive space isn’t everything. Many of the bargain computers skimp in a very important area that is often hard for consumers to distinguish any difference till they get the computer home and use it, the processor.

Keep informed on the various types of computer hardware that is being sold today so that when you make your purchase you are not disappointed with the performance expecting something better.

There is a new bill that has been introduced in the House of Representatives last month that could damage the Internet as we know it.

SOPA, or the “Stop Online Piracy Act”, was designed with good intentions in mind. The goal of the bill is to force ISP’s and DNS providers to remove entries of websites or block access to websites identified as allowing piracy to take place via court orders from the Justice Department.

Many companies that provide DNS services (the services that translate a website url such as www.mytechexperts.com to its servers IP address) do not want this to pass as it forces them to police their DNS entries. DNS providers state that the way this bill is currently written will cause a lot of damage to the DNS system that everyone uses which could potentially make it unreliable.

While DNS providers agree something needs to be done about piracy on the internet as it is clearly hurting artists, production companies, software providers, etc. they feel that this bill is going about it in the wrong manner.

There are many other opinions on the implications of this bill as well ranging from the stability of the DNS system as stated above, to the security of the United States Internet services, to possible job loss created by US DNS companies moving overseas to avoid such laws. It appears at this point that this bill has too many problems with it to become a law..

If you’re interested in reading more about this topic click here.

This week was an interesting week... Just wanted to write this week about a sudden rash of computer viruses we have been seeing. We have had a number of clients hit with this virus recently and you don’t want to be next so pay close attention.

There is a newer virus going around that appears to have several different strains, some not as bad as others but they all have one thing in common. When a user is infected with this virus they were browsing their favorite website at the time. I have heard users getting infected with this from doing their normal Facebooking, YouTube, etc. So…there is no defined website that users are getting this from.

When a user is infected it causes all icons on the desktop and the start menu to “disappear” (Basically it hides everything). The virus in some stains delete all of a user’s programs from their start menu folders, and opens a door for other infections to enter. All of the infections I’ve seen so far make fake errors stating that you are having a hard drive error. If you notice any of the above shut your computer down immediately and bring it in and we can take a look at it. In some cases if the infection has not progressed too far damage can be reversed. In most cases however the user waits too long and there is too much damage caused for it to make sense to just do a virus removal and users end up having to format their machine and reinstall everything. Don’t get too worked up if you do get this virus, either way we can save your data, pictures, etc.

One note, it has been noted that this virus appears to come into computers via unpatched Adobe Flash and Java components so make sure you are keep them up to date to try to prevent this from happening to you.

Everybody knows the little pictures with numbers and letters on websites that need you to read what they say then type in the letters and numbers seen in them, and boy can they be annoying…that aside, are they really doing what they were intended to do successfully?

A new study finds “Captchas” (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), are at least on most websites, not well designed or even functional at all.  Captchas are suppsed to be put in place to prevent bots from accessing certain parts of websites by making it physically read the text within the picture and input it to allow further access. Unforunately only two websites tested were not able to be decoded with the proper setup. Both Google and Recaptcha’s captchas were found to be not decodeable by a bot. What were other some of the other contenders rankings? Well, some of the major ones that were easily decoded were, Blizzard which was decoded 75% of the time, eBay which was decoded 95% of the time, and Baidu which was decoded 98% of the time.

Though it’s amazing how easily many of these companies captchas were decoded, one thing is for certain, more rigorous testing needs to take place by organizations implementing them to ensure they are doing what they need them to do.

If you would like to read more about the study click here.

Say hello to the new breed of budget phones! While in the very recent past a budget cell phone offered little, if any features other than calling and texting (it wasn’t that long ago when they didn’t even offer texting) users of this type of phone may soon be able to access many of the features offered on the higher end phones.

Since phone manufactures consider a phone with the price tag of under $150 a “Low Cost” phone the users of phones in this category may be getting more choices of smart phones in the near future. Android, one of cell phones most popular operating systems, is yet again breaking new barriers. Many carriers are going to start offering phones in the “Low Cost” category with many of the same features of their more costly versions. Just this past week AT&T (Pictured) began advertising for a $29.00 smart phone featuring the popular Android operating system.

Keep in mind, you get what you pay for…While many computers can run an operating system for instance with say 512 MB RAM, it doesn’t mean you’re going to approve of the performance you get with that hardware. The same will apply with many of the budget phones…they have cheaper components in them and well…won’t run as well as the more expensive Android devices will.

My advice, save up a little extra money and spring for a decent phone if you think you need a phone with Androids feature set.

If you would like to read more about the upcoming Android devices expected to becoming out click here.

Those of you that have not yet heard, an Ultrabook is similar to a netbook in that it is a small portable computer and that’s about it. Ultrabooks are known to be very light weight and offer very similar features to a laptop with a fraction of the weight. They are the ultimate in portable computing.

Until recently Ultrabooks used primarily sold state hard drives (SSD) which made them very expensive. Acer just released an Ultrabook that gives its users the best of both worlds, SSD speed, but a cheaper price point only associated with cheaper and slower mechanical hard drives. 

Many people are wondering if the idea of these hybrid drives will catch on. Most experts agree that it would be in Ultrabook makers best interests to go in this direction as it offers a small amount of hard disk space for the operating system to function off of which increases speed but also offers a lot of storages space economically due to the mechanical drive portion.

If you’re interested in reading more on this topic, click here.

With Windows 8 releasing a developers version several weeks ago people are already beginning to form conclusions to the success and usefulness of this new operating system. Many users complain that the new GUI is not user friendly stating that it looks like a big mess of icons with little to no organization at all.

Many users want to have their old start menus back, or at least have it as an option. A lot of users are complaining that this drastic change to the way Windows functions will cause a huge drop in productivity as it will take many users longer to get to the programs they normally use.

Microsoft, though defending the design of Windows 8, is beginning to take some of the criticisms into consideration since there are so many people angered by the new design. Though Microsoft does see the comments being made they are not getting rid of the new “Metro” interface entirely, or even giving you the option to replace it with your old start menu. Instead, they are adjusting the GUI they have already designed to allow you to group your programs based on various factors to allow you to more easily navigate. If you haven’t gotten to see the new Windows 8 start screen just take a look at the picture posted with this article.

In my opinion, unless Microsoft changes the way this OS is designed drastically, or at least allows its users to use the old style start menus, I think this OS is going to flop horribly just like Vista did several years ago. While I think many home users may like the new GUI, I do not think this will be adopted to businesses as it is just too different. At this point it seems that Windows 7 is going to be the new Windows XP and will stick around for years to come.

To read more about Windows 8 and to see other links to more articles about it click here.

Ever since technology has been becoming more entwined with our society people have wondered just who is watching. As a matter of fact this idea of “Big Brother” has been around for years. Anyone remember “1984” by George Orwell. Seems the government and other organizations are stepping closer and closer to the ideas portrayed in this book in many different ways every day.

Over the past year there have been numerous occasions with various forms of technology that have been caught tracking its users without explicit permission to do so. Apple, Android (Google), and many others have all done this and now you can add one more to the guilty list. That’s right; everyone’s beloved Facebook has been caught using tracking cookies after its users logged out of their website which the company claims it was only using to improve their users experience on their webpages.

So are you being tracked right now? In my opinion, since it seems like everyday people discover other ways that companies can track users of their items, possibly. Due to the fact that our country uses so much technology and companies try to find out how the technology is being used to “improve customer experience” then I think it’s probably a pretty good chance that something you are using now, or at least later, will track your behaviors in some manner.

If you're interested in reading more click here.

You may or may not have heard all the buzz about the wireless spectrums “running out of space”. If not then let’s play catch up, there are a number of companies stating that they need the government to step in an auction of some of the currently unused spectrum that other companies currently own or have rights to. That’s about it…

Anyhow, many of the large wireless carriers have high utilization on the spectrum ranges they are allotted but want to be able to purchase more of the spectrum (to the tune of billions of dollars) to increase their ability to provide newer services. Right now the largest carriers primarily use their spectrums for older wireless networks ranging from 2G to 3.5G and because of this do not have the available spectrum to expand to 4G and further on a large scale.

Several companies have a lot of spectrum available to them but do not have the financial capabilities or the business plan to expand on to these networks further. These are the types of companies the large wireless providers are pushing to sell of their unutilized spectrum.

For more on this story click here.

So you’re having issues with your computer and you, being a bit of a do it yourselfer, decide to “fix” your computer on your own and save yourself some money. There is a high likelihood that if you do not have experience working on computers that you may wind up costing yourself a lot more money that if you had just brought the computer in to begin with.

A few weeks back we had a client that brought their computer in and needed us to recover their pictures. The reason for this was that they tried to fix their computer by themselves. When they tried doing this they had read to just “restore the computer” well not knowing what was meant exactly they did restore their computer….to factory defaults. This action caused them to not only deleted all of their pictures by overwriting them on the hard drive but also eliminated any chances of us being able to recover the pictures using any of our techniques.

Long story short, if you are not 100% certain what you are doing is going to fix your problem your best bet is to not do it. You see in the above situation the client lost their pictures which to someone people are far more important than the cost to fix the computer but there are a lot of times when your actions can wind up costing you more money and time to correct the problem. So pretty simple, if you “think” you can fix it…DON’T. Make sure you know you can or just bring it in to us and we can get it fixed for you.