7 Tips to Keep Your Smartphone Safe

01/27/2012 2 Comments

Smartphones are great! Apparently I’m not the only one that thinks so…more people are using smartphones to connect to the Internet than PC’s in key markets. Consumers have discovered the convenience of having mobile “mini-computers” and are using them to take full advantage of apps and access to instant information. Unfortunately the scent of success has attracted the attention of Internet predators, so a focus on mobile security is becoming increasingly important. The easy access to information we enjoy on our phones can be a prime target for hackers taking advantage of this new frontier. Keep these 7 tips in mind to keep yourself protected when you’re on the go: Read more of this post

Filed under Industry, Security, Software, Tech Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Windows XP hits 10, and is still the most used OS

10/27/2011 1 Comment

Windows XP BirthdayMicrosoft released Windows XP on Oct. 25th, 2001…10 years ago this week. You can’t buy it anymore, Microsoft was forced by consumers to extend support for it until 2014 (despite the pleas to upgrade), and it’s still being used by the majority of the world’s PC’s. Why is a decade-old operating system still being used by so many people? Users will say things like “It’s simple. It’s reliable. It’s familiar…”; but the real reason Windows XP is still around: Read more of this post

Filed under News, Software, Tech Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Windows 8: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

09/19/2011 10 Comments

A hybrid cold/bubonic plague bug hit me last week. While sitting at home and throwing back doses of NyQuil, I had a chance to try out a preview of the upcoming Windows 8. Microsoft released a “preview” version through its testing channels to get some feedback on its progress. We’re in for some big changes — mostly good ones from what I could see, and a few annoyances to make things interesting. It seems Steve Balmer finally decided to get rid of the Windows 95 coding team and get some fresh talent as this new version is showing off something you don’t normally associate with Microsoft: polish.

Windows Vista, Google, and Apple all smacked some sense into the Redmond headquarters over the last few years. They managed to prove people don’t want a bulky and overloaded operating system. Consumers want an OS that starts instantly, navigates quickly, and shows relevant information. Windows 8 is the fruit of these hard-taught lessons, and has the potential to bring Microsoft back into the limelight. Read more of this post

Filed under Industry, Software Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

The New IT Department – Focused, Smaller, and Possibly Non-Existent

08/11/2011 Leave a comment

Are IT Departments Needed Anymore?IT Professionals aren’t as comfortable as they used to be.

During the technology boom of the mid-90′s, those working in IT were looked upon as the top of the food chain. They were amazing! They were miracle workers! They could accomplish anything using little more than their pocket protectors and some magic DOS commands.

Times are a changin’. PC’s are as user friendly as ever, cloud computing is replacing complicated office network setups, most hardware is to the point where you plug it in and it works…a lot of IT workers are starting to look like the Maytag Repairman. As a result, many small and medium businesses are focusing their computer staff on development, putting them on a contract basis, or getting rid of internal IT staffing all together. This is a great money saving idea in theory, but there is a flaw in the logic — with nobody running maintenance on the hardware, problems inevitably creep up and costly repairs can result. Read more of this post

Filed under Cloud, Industry, Security, Services, Software Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

New Look to Google Docs!

08/10/2011 Leave a comment

Last month, Google lets us preview their new revamped email interface with good results. The improvements in readability, functionality, and efficiency were evident right away. This week, the interface update is being applied to Google Docs (video). Read more of this post

Filed under Cloud, Industry, Services, Software Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

New Gmail Feature – Preview Pane!

08/05/2011 Leave a comment

Currently, TOAST.net’s Gmail and Google Apps email accounts allow you to see “snippets” of your messages so you can figure out if they’re worth opening or not. However, sometimes a snippet is not enough.

Starting today, a new feature is available in Google Labs that allows for a full preview pane. You may be familiar with the preview pane feature if you have ever used Outlook or Windows Mail — it allows you to see your message in a “split screen” view, allowing you to sort through email faster.

To enable this feature, log into your email account, then head over to Read more of this post

Filed under Cloud, News, Services, Software Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

TOAST.net’s Back to School Tools

07/29/2011 Leave a comment

It’s about that time again. Grills and patio furniture are being replaced by 3-ring binders and pens in stores. The shorts are coming off the shelves and being replaced by dress pants. Children are watching the calendar as if it’s a count-down to the end of the world. Yes…it’s time to get ready for school again.

Classrooms have evolved over the last 10 years. The introduction of email and interactive websites has changed the way students operate. The “new” traditional way of typing up reports, term papers, and other fun things that are normally done last minute on a Sunday night require software. A lot of people use Microsoft Word, which can cost upwards of $150 to purchase. Documents in Word are saved on the computer’s hard drive, then either emailed to the teacher as an attachment, copied to a USB drive and carried to school, or printed out and popped into a folder.

This traditional method is also wrought with problems. Students tend to be the forgetful sort, so forgetting to send a paper or forgetting to print it out leads to trouble. There’s also the “My computer ate my homework” excuse, “I hit delete instead of save on my paper,” and the ever popular “My house was robbed last night and my laptop was stolen” story. TOAST.net has a better way to get homework done, and it’s already included with all residential TOAST.net accounts! Read more of this post

Filed under Cloud, Services, Software Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Microsoft Office 365 vs. Google Apps. It’s ON!

07/11/2011 4 Comments

Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office 365Microsoft recently put the Open for Business sign on it’s Office 365 product, and it seems to be targeted directly at Google Apps. Office is still Microsoft’s bread and butter, so it didn’t take kindly to Google muscling in on its document domination. I had a chance to try out the new Office 365 service this week, and while it appears it and Google Apps do much of the same thing, there are several key differences (and price tags). Let’s examine both products to see how they compare. Read more of this post

Filed under Cloud, Industry, Services, Software, Trends Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mozilla: We Don’t Do Enterprise. Google: WE DO!

06/29/2011 1 Comment

The IT world is mad at Asa Dotzler, and with good reason.

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox web browser, has increased it’s production schedule in a big way: it’s pushing new versions out the door in months instead of years, and ending support on it’s previous versions in the interim.

This is great for home users as they get the latest and greatest on a regular basis. In the business world however, rapid releases are bad news. Web browsers have to be tested for compatibility and security by IT departments, and this process can take weeks…months…even years in some cases. So what happens when the browser manufacturer your company bases its web platform on decides to create major releases every few months? Chaos. Read more of this post

Filed under Industry, Software Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Firefox 5 Now Available – Top 6 New Features

06/22/2011 Leave a comment

Firefox 5Firefox 4, we barely knew ye.

Firefox 5 is now available on Mozilla’s Web Site for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android only three months after the release of Firefox 4. The latest version of the popular web browser adds a few interface tweaks, security enhancements, and revamped add-on updating to smooth things out. Firefox 5 keeps a lot of the new interface enhancements from the last version. Most of the changes seem to be either bug fixes or minor changes. The Mozilla Blog claims that the new version introduces over “1,000 improvements and performance enhancements,” but I’m not sure I could find them all. There is some Foxy goodness under the hood though. Here’s six features that drew my attention: Read more of this post

Filed under Industry, Software Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 972 other followers