Latest Tech News
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Rabid Consumer Watchdog Attacks Google CEO
Friday September 3, 2010 14:42
Consumer Watchdog, a privacy advocacy group, is running a 15-second spot on a 540-square foot digital display in Times Square to promote a longer video the group made highlighting what it perceives to be Google's intrusions on privacy. Both the 15-second spot and the longer video feature a ghoulish caricature of Eric Schmidt driving an ice cream truck, offering "free ice cream" to children.
Source: TechNewsWorld.com
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Can Spam-Swamped Ping Survive Without Facebook?
Friday September 3, 2010 13:17
Facebook has reportedly shut off access to its friend search feature for subscribers to Apple's newly introduced Ping social music service. The social networking apparently giant did this by denying Ping access to its application programming interfaces, AllThingsD reported.
Source: TechNewsWorld.com
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Tablet Skirmish Heats Up With Toshiba Entry
Friday September 3, 2010 06:00
Toshiba has announced its own entrant into the tablet market with the Folio 100, which will run on the Android 2.2 operating system. Sporting a screen just over 10 inches, the device will be larger than other early competitors to Apple's iPad tablet computer, such as the Dell Streak. The Folio will debut in late October in Europe as a standalone device with WiFi capability.
Source: TechNewsWorld.com
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Windows Phone 7 Could Bring a New Look to the Smartphone Show
Thursday September 2, 2010 14:30
Microsoft has released the code for its latest mobile operating system to manufacturers. That means U.S. consumers should be able to purchase smartphones running Windows Phone 7 during the upcoming holiday shopping season, while European consumers could have those new devices in their hands as early as next month. The question now is how many consumers actually will want a new Windows-based smartphone?
Source: TechNewsWorld.com
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Apple Teaches Old iPods New Tricks
Thursday September 2, 2010 09:51
Apple put a charge in its iPod line Wednesday, but it remains a holdout in the "all you can ear" music subscription market. Apple revamped its flagship player, the iPod touch, so it's now essentially an iPhone without the phone. It also brought buttons back to the iPod shuffle and a touchscreen to the iPod nano.
Source: TechNewsWorld.com
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Samsung's Galaxy Whirls Into the Tablet Universe
Thursday September 2, 2010 08:55
Samsung has unveiled its much-discussed Galaxy Tab Android-powered tablet at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Germany. The device runs Android 2.2, has a seven-inch display, and focuses on connectivity and entertainment. It also enables video conferencing and can be used as a mobile phone.
Source: TechNewsWorld.com
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LOCAL SOLUTIONS
It’s 3:45 pm on Thursday afternoon at a medium sized company. The payroll department is in the middle of printing the paychecks every employee is counting on receiving tomorrow morning. The computer crashes. Thomas gets a frantic phone call and arrives in their office 20 minutes later. The entire office breaths a sigh of relief when he solves the problem and checks are printing again by 4:15 pm. There is plenty of time for the payroll department to finish their task without anyone having to work overtime.
A high exposure attorney begins to gather his supporting documents for the trial set to begin at 8:30 am in the morning. He discovers that all of his supporting document files are nowhere to be found on his computer or in any data backups. There is no time to recreate over 100 hours of work between now and early the next day. The panicked lawyer dials Thomas in a complete frenzy. Thomas calms the man down and arrives on the scene a half hour later. The lawyer is ecstatic when Thomas recovers the missing files and trial begins without a flaw.
Frank Adoption Center relies on Thomas for all of their IT needs. He has been their computer solutions and tech support guy since 2002.
Thomas Forrester also builds custom computers. One woman had him build a special computer in 2004. He has done all needed maintenance on the client’s machine over the years. The client has never needed any type of tech support until the beginning of 2009. Thomas was there right away to provide the solution for her emergency when she called for assistance.
GLOBAL SOLUTIONS
After spending countless hours preparing a movie to be shown at his parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. The family is leaving for the celebration to be held in Virgina in less than 5 hours. The client gets ready to perform the simple task of writing the movie file to a disc and his computer crashes. He reboots the computer and the computer of course quickly crashes again. With no hope of getting the PC repaired in time, the guy locates our website and sees that I am available for instant chat and remote support.
I give instructions to the horrified client in Kansas (1000 miles away) on how to direct the PC to share itself with me. Then I locate the software glitch causing the crash, fix the problem and remain connected with the client until he has the memorable movie burned to DVD. I have him play the disc in the DVD player to ensure everything is now repaired. The movie plays flawlessly in Kansas! The man can’t thank me enough for coming to his rescue and his parents are overjoyed about the video when it is played at their golden anniversary party.
The mother of a middle school student contacted me through the website worried about her daughter’s Internet habits. It seems the girl is routinely found at the wee hour of 2:00 or 3:00 am chatting online with “friends who should be in bed themselves”. The woman also has two other children and is worried about their Internet use as well. I explain to her that I can put a software lock on the PC that will not allow the computer to access the Web during certain time periods.
The client then instructs each computer to share itself with me and I install the locks appropriate for each child’s bedtime. The woman tests it out that night and can finally get a good night’s rest knowing that her children are sleeping and not surfing the Internet at an indecent hour.
A woman who was assigned the task of giving a Power Point presentation to her office in one week contacted me over the website. Her dilemma is that she has never used Power Point before and she has to make a lot of changes to the basic pre-assembled presentation her boss gave her. Obviously, she has given presentations before, but has never had to use Power Point until this assignment.
We get her PC connected to mine remotely and I give her a basic lesson on editing Power Point slides. Over the course of the next few days, the lady has a few more questions and I am again able to help her with each of them remotely. By Wednesday, she had her presentation completed and I gave her a lesson on controlling the slide show. This allowed her to practice doing her presentation and be completely confident in doing so at work on Friday. She was amazed at how easy it was for me to help her through the entire experience. Friday arrived and her presentation went so well that she was given a promotion. Because of her slide show presentation the company it was prepared for became a multi-billion dollar account for the woman’s employer.