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Viruses are a form of malware. They often times replicate themselves and hijack your computer. A computer that has a virus may behave in such a way that websites visited are redirected to a site that is inappropriate for younger viewers (or any viewers), or it may redirect to a site that informs the user of the infection and offers a solution for a price.

The goal is to get your money.

Either directly by way of provoking you to purchase the supposed antivirus software or unwilling visit websites that generate ad revenue for the virus maker.

Google has recently rolled out a new service that informs users of malware-infected machines of their infection as they use the popular search engine. They also offer a link to a help article to help fix the problem. That was nice of them. See the post on the Official Google Blog

My personal preference in the way an antivirus software should behave is described as “Shut up and do your job.” I prefer it doesn’t bother me unless there is a real threat. However some antivirus will bother you with minor details that the user does not need to know, and may not even understand. You’ll probably have that from time to time with any antivirus.

Orange Bench likes McAfee for Desktop and Laptop Computers, Symantec Endpoint Protection for network workstations, and if you insist on keeping your money, AVG Free is a fine solution.

Do you suspect your computer is infected? Contact us.

I was an early adopter as I had the opportunity with my employer’s cellular plan to get the new phone of my choice. I had the iPhone 2g. However, I kept my personal cell on Verizon.

Having had the iPhone 2g for a couple of weeks, I had decided that Steve Jobs was a jerk because his company, Apple Computers, had made such a wonderful toy but then they blocked things that people who spend a lot of money on toys would do. Such as sending picture messages.

I thought it was kind of ridiculous how much it cost versus what it couldn’t do. However, the reason my personal cell stayed on Verizon was because I had a deep hatred for AT&T. It seemed they operated under the policy “the customer is always wrong”. Assuming you make it through the automated calling system to a real live person, then you would have to convince them that it really isn’t working. Sometimes it took several calls.

According to surveys done by Consumer Reports, this wasn’t just my own opinion.

Then the iPhone came to Verizon. My response to that was:

“Apple had their chance with me and they blew it by being exclusive with AT&T.”

Now the Droid is available in several shapes and sizes and I like it better. The commercials for the Droid said “Droid Does” and in most cases this was true. For the iPhone lovers, there is plenty you can do as well, and with the introduction of the iPhone 5, the list is growing. There is a rumor that Apple has ordered 15 million iPhones to be manufactured and shipped in September of 2011. That’s just a few months away.

Among the features to be introduced with the iPhone 5 are cloud-integration, voice interface, 8MP camera, and an embedded social networking tool (all of which my Droid X has already, no big deal).

I really do like the iPhone, though. If there was no such thing as Droid, I would be an iPhone junkie.

If you happened to be interested in buying an iPhone 4, check ebay in September.

Gambling.

By gambling, I mean having a risky strategy, or worse, no strategy for protecting your data. Many businesses have taken a gamble on their data protection to save money in the short term. In the end, it could cost everything.

At the beginning of my career in IT Computer Support I was managing a network for a company headquartered in Carmel, Indiana just north of Indianapolis, and 5 branch offices in several states. Our backup strategy was similar to many other companies our size. We had Veritas Backup Exec 10.0 software, now owned by Symantec, and AIT 3 tapes. Every day, the tapes were replaced and last nights tapes would be taken to different site.

A primitive solution, yes, but still a good idea.

Another solution similar to this is the ol’ hard drive swap. As we did with the tapes, one would have multiples of these hard drives, replace it every night and take last nights hard drive off site.

This is a reasonable solution if you do it.

But you don’t.

Most of the businesses that I have come across who have this strategy don’t do it everyday. Sometimes it could be a couple weeks in between hard drive swaps. If a disaster occurred that ruined all the data, they would have to redo everything that happened in the last two weeks or more. For a successful business, this is a pretty big deal.

With the cloud gaining popularity even in the enterprise size businesses, naturally there would be a backup solution in the clouds. Norton 360 antivirus includes a backup with their software. Other backup-only options are Mozy and Carbonite or you can Sign Up for Orange Bench’s own cloud backup service.

No backup could be a disaster. T-Mobile’s Microsoft Servers Crashed without a backup.

I like Google. A lot.

Not everybody agrees with me. Especially those who are trying to be Google, or at least take a share of the same market. Google gets in legal trouble a lot. Of course many of these cases are probably just people who want a get-rich-quick scheme so they go after Google’s deep pockets.

Some of them may be legitimate.

The New York Times published a piece called “We’re Google. So sue us.” that talks about the intellectual property disputes against Google. This includes a pending dispute against YouTube, a video-sharing website purchased by Google. The acquisition of YouTube has made them a bigger target as YouTube has plenty of user generated material including some copyrighted material uploaded by users.

One of the complaints against Google is from French search engine 1PlusV. Their claim is that Google is kicking butt without the courtesy of taking names. Google is taking over the search market and shoving others out of their way. That’s how 1PlusV feels about it.

People who use Google are not forced to do so. They do it at their own free will. That said, Google should feel free to make search however they want it. If their competitors don’t like it, then they should get better marketing and a better product.

That’s what Google did.

The web is incredible. Of course it has always been incredible in its own time, but it got better with introduction of Google Apps.

Google Apps is a collection of web apps designed for business productivity. Email, Spreadsheets, Documents, Instant Messaging, Calendar and all of this in your own custom domain.

Previously Microsoft had the market for Email, Calendar and Office Applications like Spreadsheets and Rich-Text Documents. These were available in software that you install on your PC computer. Google took the same concept and put it on the web making it accessible from anywhere over the internet, across platforms on Windows, Macintosh, Linux and even on a cellular phone. Microsoft has recently taken the challenge and created their own software as a service productivity suite.

I heard that on WIBC Indianapolis this morning.

Microsoft Office 365 is a hosted solution for documents and spreadsheets, email and calendar. It is similar to Google Apps, but I’m sure it is bloated with too many graphics, and back-end software. Office 365 is available for $6 per user per month.

$6 x $12 = $72

Google is $50 per user per year. So by going with Google you get a cleaner look and you save $22 per user per year over Office 365.

Check out this comparison of the two services.

Google knows that Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office are still popular. So they made it easy for those who use these softwares to also use Google Apps.

Google Cloud Connect is a plugin for integration with Microsoft Office. It allows MS Office users to open Google-hosted documents inside their locally installed Office Suite.

It is notable that The State of Wyoming has converted all of their employees to Google Apps for Government. Nice going, Wyoming!

One of the functions of the cloud that has become especially popular lately is file synchronization. A directory on your computer (and all of its contents) can be synchronized between all of your computers. This is a great function for small business partners in the beginning stages of their business who may work out of separate homes or coffee shops but share the same files as if they had an office with a server and networked computers.

Synchronization of files is a common feature. Each service comes with their own additional features such as interactive editing, integration with third party services, or restore from backup to a specific date.

Amazon Cloud Drive is exceptionally cool in my opinion because of the Amazon Cloud Player, a music player that functions inside the browser. This means that you can upload your own music to your Amazon account and then play it directly in the browser like Pandora or YouTube.

Apple recently announced a cloud service, iCloud, to be released this fall. At first glance, it appears to be competing with Amazon Cloud Player, as it syncs your music, you could expect that it would have a player for the browser too.

It doesn’t.

But one thing that makes iCloud great is iTunes Match. For all the songs in your library, iTunes will recognize them and if they are in the iTunes store they will automatically be added to your iCloud account. All songs added from the iTunes store are 256kbps quality even if your copy was not. This significantly decreases synchronization time.

Another service worth noting is Box.net. Box.net integrates with Google Apps, an alternative to Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Exchange.

Currently I use Dropbox.

See LifeHacker’s comparison of Windows Live SkyDrive, Amazon Cloud Drive, and Dropbox here.

A popular function in mobile devices is the “App Store” or “Market” which is a place where you can download apps for your smartphone. Apple has recently added this function to their desktop OS and now Google has added an app store to the Chrome browser. I think this a good move. I enjoy the ability of adding functions to my browser with the click of a button.

What is your favorite browser?

It’s not Internet Explorer. Microsoft’s IE browser had some 85% of the market share earlier this century, but with the introduction of Firefox, IE started losing fans. In 2008 IE and Firefox had an equal piece of the pie. Internet Explorer is hovering around 25% now.

What makes one browser better than another?

Speed and Appearance.

According to this, IE9 lost the speed battle.

I personally prefer Google Chrome, however I would recommend Firefox as well.

EDIT 09/15/11: Interesting Info on the Evolution of the Web.

I’ll say it again, though. I didn’t hate the Blackberry.

It had its pros and cons. More pros than cons. But the fact is, once I started using something else, I appreciated the user interface and the availability of apps on another device.

In the past couple of years we have seen the Apple and Droid phones flood the marketplace, and with that I assumed that Blackberry was dead. But then I read this article regarding tablet computers on TechCrunch that predicted that Apple would lose 40% of their market share and Blackberry would double their market share by 2015. Blackberry is third in market share this year. In their prediction Blackberry remains in third with a bigger piece of the pie.

I realize that the tablet is in a different market than smartphones, but it seems like they would go hand in hand as they are both mobile, and being similar operating systems, they would integrate easily.

I am not surprised at their prediction. I personally prefer the Droid over Blackberry or iPhone.