Google has been making many different changes lately. Some changes are great others are not. Google has made changes in their search engine, Gmail, and now their Privacy Policy. There are a number of users however that are very much against these policy changes but why? 

Opponents to Google’s new policy change claim that the new policy’s conflict with old policy’s already agreed upon by its users and as such should not be allowed to take place. There are a number of problems with this though. First problem is that every time a user uses one of Google’s services they are agreeing to the new Policy changes and everything that goes along with it. Many users love Google’s free services but do not like the new policy as they feel it is an invasion of their privacy rights.

Google gave a lot of notice before they made the policy changes so it is not like its users did not have time to find different service providers if they do not agree with the new policy they just chose not to.

Several groups are in the process of suing Google over these changes and some are even pushing for a class action suit.

If you are interested in reading more click here.

Google is now making some updates to their popular email system. Gmail now offers increased spam blocking protection. Historically Gmail has had a reasonable amount of spam protection and only allowed in items that the user normally signed up for. Gmails new Spam system is going to deliver mails marked as spam (that fail their new standards, old email spam protection still will block the true spam emails) and allow the user to see why they marked it as spam. It will then allow you to unmark the item as spam or keep it as such.

This new feature is going to allow Gmails users more flexibility and greater usability of their popular service.

If interested in reading more click here.

Google Docs is now offering Real Time collaboration with their popular Google Docs software. Google Docs which became popular for its web based productivity tools now allows users to see edits other users of the documents are making in real time, a feature that wasn’t previously offered.

Google Docs, while not offering the same amount of features that are in the ever popular Microsoft Office suite does offer one clear advantage, cloud storage. While this is not always a good thing, say when you’re out and about and do not have an internet connection, it does have its benefits.

Google Docs does offer many of the most commonly used basic features such as, bold font, italicized text, bulleted lists, and colored fonts. The other benefit is that these features are all now available on the Google Docs application for Android! 

If you’re interested in reading more 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.

After months of delay, Google this week will let people use Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar even when they're offline, a key feature for making the company's cloud-computing vision more practical. 

Gmail Offline is a separate Web App that runs only in Chrome for now.  It stores about three to seven days' worth of messages right now and lets people read, write, and organize messages even when there's no Internet connection.   Years ago, the company had enabled offline access to the applications using in-house technology called Gears. This time it's trying a different route that uses a variety of Web standards--some descended from Gears--but some proprietary elements of Chrome, at least for now.  Along with the ability to have your email stored for offline use, you will also be able to view / edit your Google Calendar and, Google Docs as well.  Right now this feature is only available to limited users but soon will release to the public.

This is going to be short and sweet this week folks. Ever been typing on your laptop and once you looked up realized you just type half of what you wanted to say in a completely different spot on the page than you thought you were typing? I know I have… The BEST solution I’ve found for this is a very small program called “Touchfreeze” What Touchfreeze actually does is disables your touchpad while you are typing. When you begin typing you are no longer able to move the mouse and as soon as you stop (within a few milliseconds anyhow) the touch pad begins to function again. I have personally tested this program on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 and it seems to work on all of those platforms without any problems. Installation is very easy, pretty much just download it, and follow the prompts selecting all default values.

The reason I wrote about this is that most people have experienced this issue at one point or another and wished there was a way to solve this issue...and…there is! If you’re not sure how to install this yourself or are just not comfortable doing it and would like us to setup for you, we can definitely do it for you just give us a call.

To download click the Touchfreeze Logo below.

For the past 7 Months Yahoo! has been busy working hard on improving the way their E-Mailing services are setup claiming to be 2x faster than before.  Email messages and attachments come and go at high speed so no more waiting 10+ minutes to send/receive Email.   With the latest new and improved spam protection Yahoo! Mail on average blocks more than 15 billion spam messages daily.  For anyone who receives a lot of spam, this is good news!  Yahoo! Mail also now enables its users the ability to send and view videos and slideshow pictures right in your inbox via Flickr, Picasa, and YouTube.  So no more will you have to click a link with the worry of mistakenly clicking on an infected website link.  A huge improvement I feel is the ability to now check your email from any mobile device with web capabilities.  Before users could not check their email without third party software, but now it is made possible and easy!  Also you can quickly reply to your facebook notifications and email as well which I believe is really cool.

Yahoo! is rolling out the update to its users in the next few weeks but if you want to give it a go now visit Here and enroll in the beta program.

Regardless of whether or not Windows Phone 7 becomes a huge success among the average Joes, Microsoft has already written the next step in its playbook, trying to woo the nearly impenetrable enterprise market. With its social media integration and the ability to connect to Xbox Live, it is being geared toward everyday consumers more than any Microsoft mobile platform before it.

Vodburner is an application that can record your Skype video chats and conferences, with the added benefit to edit the recorded video. You can save all of those important business teleconferences or personal conversations for future reference.

USB Safe Guard is a free portable program that will encrypt all of the files on your flash drive very easily, anyone can do it. You can also set this tool up to shred your files in case you lose your flash drive.

To get the program installed onto your flash drive you simply download it from the following website http://usbsafeguard.altervista.org/download.html, then you drag the program onto your flash drive. From here all you do is launch the software from your flash drive, then you should be prompted to create a password. Once you do you are then able to encrypt the entire flash drive or specific files or folders, in which all you do is drag into the interface. This program also gives you options on what to do when someone tries to access your data and does not know the password. You can set it to shred all of the data, leave it alone, plus a few more options.

 You can also enter in your phone number or email in case your lose your memory stick. Most other programs like this do not have this option, which is very nice to have when you leave your flash drive at a clients site. This program will work on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Most of us have experienced grazing the touchpad on our laptop as we are typing up a long story, then looking up at your screen and realize that the cursor has jumped around several times. Yes it is very frustrating and there is a easy fix for it. Touchfreeze is a free open-source utility that disables your touchpad as soon as you start typing, and then it will re-enable it as soon as you stop typing. Yes you can go into your Control Panel and disable your touchpad, but when you want to use it next time you have to go back in there and re-enable it. This tool saves you alot of time and no longer will you have to worry about that cursor moving around on you when you are typing.

 Touchfreeze sits in the system tray and you can have it auto start when your system boots up. Touchfreeze works with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003/2008, and Windows 7.

There are alot of great Anti-Virus programs out there that help to keep your computer safe from viruses, but what happens when it just isn't enough and your computer is now infected with tons of Trojans and you can't use it. Well thats when you would use a Rescue CD, and the free AVG Rescue CD would be your best bet. The AVG Rescue CD comes as an ISO Image that can be burned to a disc or you can download a compressed version that can be installed on to a bootable flash drive. Then you would boot the computer from the CD or Flash Drive, which ever you prefer.

Once you decide on how you want to boot the program up you will see a menu like the one I have below, from here you can simply scan for viruses, edit files, and even edit the registry.

The AVG Rescue CD is free to download directly from AVG's website at http://www.avg.com/us-en/avg-rescue-cd#tba1. This is a great tool for any IT Professional and something you should add to your tool kit. If you have any problems installing the AVG Rescue CD you can find a complete walk through on AVG's website. They even have video tutorials to walk you through the whole process.

This great adware removal tool named (Ad-Aware) just added Outlook email scanning and live download verification, and a rootkit removal system to its standard scans for infected files. If you are like me and leave your Outlook open all day during your work day or while at home, Ad-Aware 8.2 will monitor your emails as they come in and it will also catch the bad attachments.

Ad-Aware 8.2 is available as a free download, or they also have Plus and Pro Licenses for $27 and $40.

Microsoft's super popular mail client Outlook will now have some new integration with social networking sites.  For all you Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and LinkedIn junkies, you can now read those precious updates right from Outlook.  "The Outlook Connector brings together communications, history, contact information, and professional and social networking information into the Outlook experience," Microsoft spokesperson Dev Balasubramanian stated.  Some of the sites will even provide the ability to transfer contact data right into an Outlook contact card.  For a little taste of what's to come, you can download the LinkedIn Outlook connecter at http://blog.linkedin.com/2010/02/17/linkedin-microsoft-outlook/ for Outlook 2007. 

As most of you have come to discover, email is the lifeline we all cling to.

But what do you do when you buy a new system, or change computers and you need your email. Well, if you have a web based email account such hotmail or yahoo, those accounts are web based and reside on a server. Those emails will always be accessable from any computer that has Internet access. The email accounts you have up set up through Outlook or Outlook Express, require an expert to transfer them. We at Tech Experts have trained professionals to handle your email needs. Call us, or email us....

Apple has just officially announced the Apple iPad, their tablet device that aims to bring the best of the iPhone and laptops to a slim, very attractive device. The iPad is very thin, roughly about 10 inches wide. The hardware is a lot better than predicted. The iPad acts just the the iPhone with multi touch capabilities and also has the sliding touch features plus more. The iPad like expected has more processing power then the iPhone. The device looks and acts just like the Iphone.

Windows operating system has a utility called system restore that allows you to restore your computer to a previous day and time.

The only thing most users do not know, in the event that your system becomes infected, chances are the system restore files are infected as well. The latest malware infections that claim that your system is vunerable, and you must protect it, can be hidden on your system for an extended period of time. To just restore the system to an earlier day and time will not remove the infection. It will more times then not be restored along with all the other files. Your best bet is to have a Tech Expert remove the infection.

When will it stop.

It seems that the rouge antivirus programs have been finding their way everywhere. I have seen infections before, but this one keeps on making itself known, over and over again. I can not stress the importance of watching every window that pops up and be careful. The malware that can infect you happens so quick, you have to pay attention, and realize what they are trying to do. They are trying to infect your system. It is like a bad practical joke. I just wonder... when will it stop. 

Well, you knew it was coming.

With the economy being so bad, software corporations have to find new ways to offer their products. Microsoft as always, is on the cutting edge. For the past few years, Microsoft has been conducting experiments in various countries as to how and whether “renting” software could become a viable business model. The answer seemingly must have been yes, since Microsoft quietly added rental SKUs, as of January 1, to the list of license types available to customers worldwide. Making software available under a rental license shows that Microsoft sees this as something that small companies or even big ones might want to do.

Well this is getting out of hand.

You think the box that just popped up is asking you to protect your computer. It says you could be at risk. You will be if you click.

The box that just opened may look legit, but it is not. The fake antivirus programs change so fast it is hard to keep up with them.

I just had one try to infect my system during a download of a driver I needed. We all have to watch and be carefuel not to click to fast. Because the program you think may be trying to keep you safe, is in fact the virus itself.

Software giant Microsoft releases yet another version of its email software known as Microsoft Exchange, with some key new features and functionality.  Microsoft claims this is hands down, its best release since the Exchange products have released.  Ranging from cost savings, to productivity increases, the newly designed package is setting the bar high in the market. There are several new features, here are some of my favorites!   

1) Outlook Web Access (OWA) - Yes, the access of your exchange mailbox through a web based login, rather than from Outlook.  Now OWA has multiple browser supports, where in previous versions, users' would run Internet Explorer in a Windows Virtual Machine if they were running a non-Microsoft operating system, but not any longer!

2) Mail Tips - Similar to what Google has with G-Mail.  Ever send an email on accident to the wrong person?  Well now Exchange will ensure that you are not doing so, and double, and even triple check that you want to send an email before you accidentally send that personal email to your boss. Finally!

3) Conversation View - Ever get involved in an email chain with lots of different people responding?  Well we all know these chains can become very irritating, and make reading them very hard, and sometimes even impossible with all that extra information.  Now you can have all your contacts in one place, on one node, like a chat room. 

4) Sharing - Now you can share your contacts and calendars with co-workers, family, or friends with the click of a button. 

5) Voice Mail Preview - By far one of my favorite new features.  You now can get a text preview of your voice mail messages to your email.  Not sure how good this feature is really going to work, but it sure sounds good!

If you want to learn about all the new and exciting features, just visit www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/default.aspx and download a free trial today!  

Over the Halloween weekend, and even continuing into early this week, G MAIL users' have been unable to access their web mail.  This incident is no where near as bad as the September 1st outage, but users' have every right to complain.  Google's support forums were blasted over the weekend with hundreds of upset users.

 Apparently users were experiencing a 502 error when attempting to log in from the web interface.  To make matters even worse, even the customers who pay for 24/7 phone support could not get through to anyone, despite paying $50 per year.  Google stated that about 0.001% of G Mail users world-wide are effected, and they should have this issue resolved late Monday afternoon.

So I’m sure at one point or another we have all heard the words archiving relating to email, but a surprisingly high number of users’ are not even educated on this.  A number of computer users’ abroad use mail clients such as Outlook, OE, Lotus Notes, Thunderbird, Eudora, and yes even Apple Mail to sync their personal and/or business related email accounts all to one centralized location.  The problem lies in the demand for storage space by some of these mail clients.  With some of the mail clients, you are limited to a certain amount of data in a given folder.  What is happening is email is being dumped in order to fill the demand for storage in the folder. 

For example, a client of ours was using Outlook Express, and could not figure out why months and months of random emails were suddenly disappearing from his folders.  I immediately found the problem, which was due to each of the folders were at their max capacity for storage, which is GB for OE.  After consulting with the client on this, I suggested an archiving solution to free up those folders, and make room for the new mail to come in without losing what they already had.

Remember not all mail clients have a limit, but some do and in this case the client was familiar with the client, and did not want to change or upgrade.  So archiving works beautifully, and not only have we prevented his email from being lost in the future, we’ve increased performance for the application, and even added some rest assurance that his important emails are safe and backed up.  For an extra piece of mind, users could even have their email archives sent to a secure off-site backup. If you’re curious to know more about e-mail archiving, give this a try.