Computer Repair Experts in Phoenix, Arizona. my PC Techs Presents:

Please visit our latest client blog, And Then There Was One. Charlotte Fox provides end-of-live planning via an easy to use and very informative workbook. While the blog is brand new, we know that Charlotte will be working hard to jam-pack this with useful planning information soon. If you’d like more information about her end-of-life workbook, please visit the And Then There Was One website.

If you haven’t already switched to Firefox as your default internet browser of choice, there is no better time like the present. It is faster and more secure than Internet Explorer and it “just works better”. One of the huge advantages that Firefox has to Internet Explorer is a free add-on called NoScript. You are far less likely to be infected with spyware or viruses by using Firefox under default settings than you are with Internet Explorer. Even so, Firefox takes protection even further with free tools available for download called Add-ins. The best of these security add-ins is NoScript.

To install NoScript, all you have to do is visit the website https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722 and click the “Add to Firefox” button. It’s that easy! There is no time better than the present to install and use NoScript, especially considering the rise of harmful password and information stealing traps on the internet. NoScript will protect you from most of the bad stuff on the internet that can harm your computer and steal your data. One caveat to using NoScript, there’s a bit of a learning curve associated with it. It can be a pain at first getting used to the add-on, as it blocks the usage of many legitimate websites you might use on a daily basis. You have to ‘teach’ NoScript about the sites you use and how you use them, but once it learns them, everything works great and you’re more secure than ever on the internet.

If you’re interested in protecting your computer and would like additional help and/or training to install and use this software, please give us a call. We can help you switch to Firefox, install NoScript and will teach you how to use NoScript to configure it to work for the sites you do trust and use, but block the bad sites that can harm your PC.

This article brings to mind mind the chorus from an old Alan Parsons Project song: “I am the eye in the sky, looking at you”. A new super high resolution satellite available to Google truly makes Google the eye in the sky. The GeoEye-1 is the world’s highest-resolution commercial satellite. Using technology previously only available to spy agencies like the CIA, the article states that the satellite can zoom in with enough resolution to capture the detail of a baseball diamond. While this brings a number of practical improvements to existing technologies such as Real Estate mapping, it also raises some interesting privacy concerns. Who’s going to be looking at high resolution photographs of you while you float around in your backyard pool? I guess from now on it will be best to save those types of activities for cloudy days. 🙂

For those of you who haven’t heard of cloud computing before, wikipedia has a good write-up that talks about it in more detail.  Cloud computing takes applications and provides them as a web based service (think Gmail for email, Google Docs for word processing, etc.). While some foresee Cloud Computing to be the only future for computing, others aren’t so quick to jump on board. One of the main disadvantages to Cloud Computing is that it requires you to give up personal ownership and control over your own data. You release your data to a third party who will often charge you a monthly fee to be able to continue using that data. On the other side, the biggest advantage to cloud computing is ease of use. The company you pay a monthly fee to will maintain the applications and data and you will not have to worry about the technology side of data management.

Now, Microsoft has announced it will soon release a cloud computing Operating System of it’s own. Read more:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows_clouds_are_rolling_in

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/10/01/microsoft-to-launch-windows-cloud-operating-system-soon/

http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/10/amazons_cloud_n.php

my PC Techs is currently hiring for computer support techs in the Phoenix, Arizona metro area. If you have at least 5 years of hands-on computer repair experience and can pass a criminal background check, please email us today for more info.