We’ve always heard the phrase that there is strength in numbers right? Well, the folks from AVG Anti-Virus decided to go to the extreme and test that phrase out.

It takes millions of toothpicks to keep a tiger at bay, just like it takes millions of users to link together, stop digital threats and create strength in numbers with AVG Anit-Virus. The software is available for free download at www.weprotectus.com.

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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Using an iPhone 4S, Twilio, and an Insteon thermostat/appliance along with some serious coding, Chris is able to control appliances and his home thermostat via his mobile phone.

Check out all the great details on Chris’ personal blog here.

To keep up with Chris’ professional work, follow him at his consulting and software company, MakeRocketGoNow.com.

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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PC Keeper is your personal 911 agent for your PC.  Whether your computing ability is slowed, compromised or your computer is stolen, to PC Keeper is there to ward off such an attack with its built-in anti-virus program and related utilities that monitor for intrusions of bad code incessantly.

Let’s say you suffered the violation of having had your computer stolen.  Following the initial shock of that event, you might come to your senses enough to know that you had PC Keeper installed and your computer indeed has a web cam. You are in great shape then.  PC Keeper includes software for law enforcement when it comes to stolen computers.  Your thief’s glory is temporary because once they log in to your PC they will silently suffer the fate of photographic exposure!   Why?  Because PC Keeper reports the GPS position of the PC back to support who in turn report it to you and you to police.

What else can PC Keeper do you for you?  An in-depth review of PC Keeper has resulted in the following findings:

• Anti-virus software – this feature provides security protection for your PC to stop unwanted intrusions, applications, and attempts to get to your personal data and corrupt your data files. When compared to other integrated tools, PC Keeper’s marks for this feature scored the highest.
• One-click scan – this powerful tool provides an instant anti-virus scan of your hard disk and three distinct disk functions:  scan and fix system errors,  disk cleaner of old temporary and unneeded files, and defragment your hard disk as needed to close up extraneous file spaces for faster performance. When compared to other available optimizers, this feature easily leads the pack.
• File recovery – this feature scan and preview files that have been deleted that perhaps were done so inadvertently so you can recover them.   This feature is parallel to others reviewed.
• Data hider – this feature remove sensitive files and folders from public view.  This feature is common to numerous competing programs.
• Uninstaller – this feature removes unwanted application programs fully from your PC.  This feature parallels other companies’ software in this space.
• Startup Manager – this feature manage your start up files, applications and handlers to keep your computer’s boot time short.  This feature Is common to numerous programs in this space.
• Disk explorer – quickly find particular files you need to locate by extension or file type such as text, media or image. This feature, while common, appears to function rapidly with PC Keeper.
• Duplicate finder – this feature helps locate duplicate files on your PC that could be slowing it down, especially when backups are performed.  This feature is unique to PC Keeper.
• File Shredder – this feature completely removes files from your PC unlike the Trash can which simply removes the file from being visible to Windows explorer.   This feature is common to other programs.
• Geek on Demand – This feature allows you to file a report of your PC concerns back to PC Keeper’s technical gurus and a live call is then scheduled for you and a technician to go over and clean up all issues.

PC Keeper is a solid program built on a customer care team that is loyal to both the company and the product.  You can even try PC Keeper for free, with the same access to technical support that paid subscribers get. The trial period is for 15 days.  Use it fully during that period, all features possible to give it a good shake.

Check out online user experience and product reviews of this program to see if it might work for you.   To be fair to other programs, check them out too.  However, at the end of the day, you just might find that PC Keeper is indeed a keeper for your PC.

[Guest post by Flodner - SEO and online marketing specialist]

Guest

Contributing authors on the cutting edge of technology reporting.

If you have suggestions, questions or recommendations for my next piece of tech – or if you’re an organization looking to have your technology given an un-biased review – send me a note.

Note: I have not been compensated by any vendor/provider for this post – I’m just listing the stuff I use and think is cool !

Hardware

• Apple MacBook Air | 11″ | 1.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo | 2GB RAM | 120GB SSD HDD
• iPhone 4 | 16GB | Verizon (I’m sticking with the 4 and not upgrading to the 4S just yet)
• iPad 2 | 16GB | WiFi (I tether using my iPhone if ever in a jam for connectivity)
• Epson Artisan 810 All-in-One printer
• Logitech Revue: Google TV with Dish Network integration
• External Storage: AcomData 350GB MiniPal | Western Digital 1TB My Passport Portable
• Apple Bluetooth keyboard
• Netgear N300 wireless router

Software

• Postbox: Cross-platform (Mac/PC) email client
• Apple Mail – I love Postbox, but I’m cheap. The recent update to v3 requires us to pay for the update
• Seesmic: iPhone, web and desktop social aggregator client
• Until Microsoft releases v5 of Silverlight Seesmic doesn’t work on Macs running Lion (not good, thus back to TweetDeck as a desktop client and TweetBot as my iPhone client)
• Evernote
• Adobe Creative Suite CS5
• WordPress CMS | primarily using StudioPress and the Genesis Theme Framework
• Clicky: Real-time web analytics | Chartbeat real-time analytics
• Google Chrome
• Apple Safari (decided to go purely Apple)
• FileZilla: FTP client
• UStream
• SpreeCast | Stickam – haven’t completely finalized on a video platform just yet (waiting for the awesome updates expected out of SpreeCast soon)
• Mint
• MailChimp
• Plancast
• Instapaper
• CoveritLive: Liveblogging Platform
• BigDoor: Website gamification (the “check-in and sharing bars you see at the bottom of our sites)
• Livefyre: Interactive blog conversation platform – drop everything else you may be use for online comments – this is the one you want PERIOD !
• Skype
• Jing: screen capture utility

Top Mobile Apps

• Instagram
• 360 Panorama
• TwitCasting
• Pandora
• Skobbler: Open-Source turn-by-turn GPS navigation
• Cinch: Audiocast
• Footfeed: Geo-location check-in (multiple services: Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places, Google Latitude)
• ClickyTouch: WordPress blog real-time analytics
• IntoNow: Social engagement tied to your TV viewing

Gadgets | Misc

• Nikon D3100 DSLR: 14 Megapixel DX-format CMOS image sensor | 1080p HD video | 18-55mm standard zoom | 32GB Class 10 SDHC high speed SD
• Powermat: Wireless charging mat, receiver and case (unfortunately the portable charging station gave out and stopped working; however I’m still using the desktop charger)
• Nintendo Wii
• Sony Playstation 3 w/ 600GB HD
• Samsung 61″ DLP: HL-S6187W
• SlingBox Solo: TV place-shifting
• ZaggMate: Aluminum iPad case/keyboard
• Bose 3-2-1 GS Series III home entertaining system
• XM Satellite Radio

Services

• Pagely: Premium WordPress hosting
• Klout: Social media influence and reach measurement (Twitter and Facebook)
• Surewest internet (15 Mbps up/down)
• Dropbox: Cloud storage
• AT&T Wireless: iPhone and iPad cellular service
• Verizon Wireless – I got tired of not being able to use my devices so had to leave AT&T (Yes, I can hear you now!!)
• Dish Network

[my original inspiration for this post comes from webpreneur Paul Stamatiou | Last Updated: July 4, 2011]

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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Let Picaboo choose photos for you with BookGenie, or choose Auto-Create to have a ready-to-edit book in seconds. Get those precious photos off hard drives and into beautiful custom books that friends and family will love.

BookGenie

Scrolling through years of digital photos to find the best shots can be overwhelming. Let BookGenie do the heavy lifting using data stored in digital photos to group related pictures, omit duplicates, and hit highlights during a date range for fully customizable one-of-a-kind keepsakes. Enter the dates into BookGenie — for example, last summer’s vacation — and it will automatically choose up to 100 photos based on the groupings and detected patterns.

Auto-Create

If you prefer to select the photos for your book, but want a quick way to lay them out on pages, choose the Auto Create option. Picaboo automatically creates a ready-to-edit photo book with the selected photos within minutes. Choose from a variety of professionally-designed book themes to get started, and whether making a travel, wedding, or baby book, there is one for every occasion. Adding captions, more photos, and different backgrounds is also simple with Picaboo.

For great holiday gift ideas starting at $6.99, visit the Picaboo site here.

Holiday Promotion

From now until December 30th, customers receive 30% off Classic Books and Calendars (Code: HOLIDAY30), and 15% off all Cards (Code: GREETING15). “Like” Picaboo’s Facebook page for additional discounts and promotions.

Holiday Shipping Deadlines

For Christmas delivery, order Classic Books and Calendars by Tuesday, December 14th at midnight PST with Ground Shipping (US Only), and Saturday, December 18th at midnight PST for Next Day Air. For shipping deadlines, visit here.

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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Partition Magic – Partition Assistant Server Edition has reliable and suitable disk partition manager options, which may allow for many disk styles including IDE, SATA and SCSI. In the mean time, Partition magic – Partition Assistant Server Edition is capable of supporting quite a few OS which includes 32 or 64 bit windows 2000/2003/2008/XP together with the most advanced Vista and Windows 7.

Ordinarily, we should resize Windows server 2003 partition, together with the main thing will be to find partition magic server 2003. There are several windows server partition products available for purchase. Most popular is Partition Manager, Partition Magic and Disk Director, Partition Master, with easy to understand interfaces, has disadvantages in supporting operating system. Disk Director, highly effective and high-priced. Then is there a powerful and cost-effective windows server partition software?

Partition magic – Partition Assistant Server Edition, windows server partition software, isn’t just powerful but additionally cheap. It both supports just about all Windows operating systems and several file system formats for example FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, Ext2, Ext3, Linux Swap, NTFS and NTFS5 File system. What is more important is its power-off protection, which could ensure your computer data safety regarding unexpected blue screen, shutdown and reboot.

Undoubtedly, partition magic – Partition Assistant Server Edition is a powerful Windows server partition manager software. It is practical for windows server 2003. You can enjoy discount of no less than 5% if you buy it on the site of Partition Manager Software for you.

Looking to find the best deal on partition magic server 2003, then visit www.extend-partition.com to find the best advice on resize partition server 2003 for you.

Related articles

• Disk Partition Manager – Partition Assistant v2.6 (lockergnome.com)
• Free Partition Manager for Windows (32 and 64 bit) (5dollarsorless.com)

Guest

Contributing authors on the cutting edge of technology reporting.

Without the user noticing or even uncovering it, spyware and adware applications do distressing and bothersome things that hinder the operator from properly making use of the features of the workstation. Problems may additionally include a chance to access private information and archives, change of the records, operating of intrusive and nuisance software applications. Quite a few adware and spyware software applications occasionally avoid the recognition of anti-virus firewall packages.

Illegitimate activities that may be reached with adware and spyware are almost always linked with personal identity fraud. A handful of spyware and adware applications , by way of example, come with keyloggers, which may determine the key strokes you render on your computer key pad. The confidential data accessed like security passwords to e-mail, net savings data, or other sources are subsequently made accessible to others.

One more strategy is cookie-tracing, which specifically discovers, saves, as well as puts out a person’s browsing routines. It will also end up in admission to classified details principally regarding security.

When your PC has been assaulted by spy ware, be thoughtful the very next time around. The initial thing you ought to do is understand the attacker. Opponents such as these are very easily inherited, tough to determine, and offer continual intrusions. You have to know them, most specially the methods for safe guarding your laptop or computer from these. Recognize the moment, the place, and also the way these spy ware software applications could ravage.

Elementary safety measures include things like not getting into shady online sites. These websites could perhaps be infected themselves, although detection is not really carried out. The managers of the website may not be conscious that the visitors browsing the website get viruses installed to their PCs.

You must also be cautious about installing computer data such as zipped files. Recognition of these types of spy ware is generally done along with the existence of an antivirus firewall software. Do ensure that there is an active defense function feature.

At first chance you had a spyware and adware invasion, maybe you just weren’t fortunate to set up antivirus firewall software protection systems. Or, if perhaps you possessed one, you’re most likely not attentive to it and weren’t equipped to make use of it fully. At this point, have 1 running and understand how it operates. There are lots of anti-malware software applications available for sale or 100 % free for down load. Another shield would be putting in a firewall program to bar online criminals from getting into the PC.

John Roy Foley is a laptop or computer protection professional who incessantly encourages the utilization of the best antivirus firewall software to keep your portable computer secured. Choose a good antivirus software package or learn even more about computer system safeguards by surfing Foley’s online site.

Guest

Contributing authors on the cutting edge of technology reporting.

Microsoft recently announced the general availability of Microsoft Lync, the next generation of communications that connects people in new ways.

Go to www.lync.com and download a free trial version (business customers can purchase Lync beginning Dec. 1).

What is Lync

Lync is a single platform that integrates instant messaging, presence, audio, video, web conferencing and voice to bring people together in the ways they communicate best, with one interface that works with the applications businesses know and use today, including Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange.

To put it plainly for those familiar with Microsoft products – Lync is the new family brand for the products formerly known as Microsoft Communications Server, Microsoft Office Communications Online and Microsoft Office Communicator

“Lync delivers on our vision to unify all of the modes of modern business communication, giving people a more collaborative, ‘in person’ experience with features like HD video, conference recording, and social features like status updates and activity feeds,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Lync & Speech Group. “In addition to transforming how people communicate, IT departments are also looking to Lync to evolve their infrastructure and enhance or eliminate their traditional PBX systems, saving money and saving time.”

Microsoft recently commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact study that found that for a composite organization Lync 2010 offers a risk-adjusted ROI of 337 percent, including $6.35 million in hard cost savings over three years, with a payback period of 12 months.

Choice and Value With Partner Solutions

Today, more than 70 new devices optimized for Lync, including a variety of IP phones, headsets, speakerphones and webcams, are being announced by Polycom Inc., Aastra Technologies Ltd. and other device partners.

Polycom is announcing the industry’s first telepresence solution designed to interoperate with Lync, through the Polycom HDX Series and Polycom UC Intelligent Core. Both solutions enable individuals and groups to collaborate naturally and effortlessly across any distance.

In addition, more than 30 partners are launching applications on the Lync platform for public and private organizations of all types and sizes. Solutions include contact centers, call recording, accounting, performance monitoring services and new applications that embed communications within business processes. Partners include Aspect Software Inc., Convergent Media Systems Corp., ProtonMedia Inc. and Wortell.

Video Demo

Listen as Mr. Microsoft himself, Bill Gates, discusses how Lync builds off his vision to use software to improve the way people communicate.

Product Availability

Microsoft Lync 2010 and Microsoft Lync Server 2010 will be available for businesses of all sizes to purchase on Dec. 1, 2010. Microsoft Lync Online will be available as part of Office 365, with voice capabilities available in 2011. Lync Online will include instant messaging, presence, audio and video conferencing, and PC-to-PC voice calls.

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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The fast-paced games pit the best young minds in cyber security against each other in a race to solve a series of simulated real-world security crises.

Other highlights include a keynote address by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Sean Paul McGurk, Director of the Control Systems Security Program.

Top cyber security professionals will also be available for interviews between judging.

The CSAW Games are part of Cyber Security Awareness Month, and were created to engage elite computer science students in an increasingly critical career field—experts estimate that America has only 1,000 cyber security elites but that it needs 20,000 to 30,000.

Video showing the student perspective

Video showing the judge perspective

Logistics

WHERE:
NYU-Poly
6 MetroTech Center
Downtown Brooklyn

WHEN:
Friday, October 29, 2010
8:00 AM – 3:00 PM

CONTACT:
Kathleen Hamilton
718.260.3792 (office)
973.997.0416 (mobile)

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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Salesforce.com is arguably the textbook model for Software as a Service (SaaS) deployments. The extensive catalog of modules and functionality that are available through their portal really bode well for the individual users capability to make a Salesforce.com deployment “their own”.

Oracle, with their CRM On Demand product is not something that should be overlooked. When you have Larry Ellison in the mix, to use a sports analogy, you either go big or go home. – Meaning that the vast resources in the Oracle talent pool and bank account allow for them to create products that provide extendability into many aspects of a businesses operations. Oracle’s CRM product is making huge waves and gaining traction, primarily with existing Oracle DB users.

Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) – Ellison and Benioff just simply can’t get along. I don’t know if any bit of the rivalry is personal, but the on-stage antics are priceless. Case in point, check out this video from Oracle’s OpenWorld Forum.

If you use a CRM what is your preference: Oracle or Salesforce.com? Or are you leaning more towards the offerings from SAP and Microsoft?

Before you answer that question, check out a very thorough analysis from one of my collegues that is dedicated to the CRM industry. She has a side-by-side comparison of the default features included with both Oracle and Salesforce.com. She also brings some attention to the viability of Microsoft and SAP as worthy alternatives.

See that post from Lauren Carlson of CRM Software Advice here.

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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