Your leading outsourced IT services provider in Los Angeles County providing computer support services.
Category
It's Free!
Not many people actually realize that
Safari really is the world's fastest browser. It tends to get discounted
by a large crowd of people - as do many products with a cult-like following
- and whenever a new release comes out, Safari gets a chance to be in the
spotlight again. On top the speed, Safari is also quite efficient
when it comes to rendering a page correctly. Have you ever loaded a website
and found text not lining up or pictures that seem to be in a place that
looks "off?" The ability to load and display a page correctly
is measured with the Acid 3 test, and Safari is the ONLY browser to ever
pass it. If both speed and accuracy is not good enough for you, take a
look below. I'm not going to go over all 150
Features of Safari
listed at the Apple website, but
I will definitely mention a few of the newest additions here:
- Top Sites - See screen shots of your
favorite websites at a glance. Open one by clicking on the thumbnail.
- Cover Flow - Flip through your site
history or bookmarks like you flip through albums in iTunes.
- Full History Search - Easily retrieve
sites you've seen before. Spot the one you want in Cover Flow.
- Nitro Engine - Wait less. Browse more.
Surf the web with the world's fastest browser.
- Windows Native - Vista and XP users:
feel right at home in Safari for Windows.
- Developer Tools - Access the best suite
of development tools ever included in a browser.
Check out the Safari new
features site for the comprehensive
list of what you can look forward to with Safari 4.
Category
Cool Stuff
As you may know, Apple released it's
3.0 firmware update just two days ago. The new features not only please
the millions of current iPhone customers, but disarm the opposition by
taking most of the last valid arguments AGAINST owning an iPhone they have
left! In all seriousness, the reviews have been very positive over the
new features which include an improved calendar, enhanced stock application
and the addition of a voice recorder (one of my personal favorites). Below
is a condensed list of major additions, improvements and changes reported
on the Apple
website:
- Cut / Copy / Paste: Quickly and
easily cut, copy and paste text from application to application. Select
entire blocks of text or images from the web, too.
- Landscape Keyboard: Rotate iPhone
to use the larger keyboard in Mail, Messages, Notes and Safari.
- MMS: Send MMS messages that include
audio, photos, contact info and video taken straight from your phone.
- Spotlight Search: In one place,
find anything on your phone. Type in anything to see results for photos,
email, contacts, calendar entries etc.
- Voice Memos: Record anything
on the go. Voice memos work with both the built-in iPhone microphone or
with the mic on your headset.
- Improved Calendar: Create meetings
via Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and subscribe to calendars with new CalDAV
support.
- iTunes Purchases: Download movies,
TV shows, music videos and audiobooks from the iTunes store straight from
your phone.
- Enhanced Stocks: Get more at-a-glance
information and new charts when turning the phone to landscape mode.
- Safari Improvements: Enjoy faster
performance, autofill login credentials and more.
- Internet Tethering: Share your
internet connection with your laptop through Bluetooth or USB.
- Sync Notes: Sync all the notes
you writ eon your iPhone back to your Mac or PC.
- Shake to Shuffle: Give iPhone
a shake and it shuffles to a different song in your library.
- Find My iPhone: Using MobileMe,
find your iPhone if you lose it and protect your privacy with Remote Wipe.
The update is free for all iPhone users,
but will cost $9.95 for the iPod Touch. Just another reason to make the
upgrade to the iPhone now that the 3Gs
is out and the 3G
is only $99!
Category
Tips and Tricks
If you have a hi-fi audio system in
your car or expensive headphones, you can probably hear the "wisp"
of mp3s. While the iTunes AAC files are cleaner at the same bitrate, they
still do not have that perfect audio quality that many enthusiasts look
for. Now that mp3 players are growing in capacity, users have room for
what are called "lossless" audio files. Windows Media Player
and iTunes will allow you to import files as "WMA Lossless" or
"Apple Lossless." These files are as much as 10 times larger,
but they sound like the original no matter what you are listening on. FLAC
(free lossless audio codec) files are also very popular, but many mp3 players
do not play the format. See which lossless file types are compatible with
your digital audio player and try it out!
Category
Security Corner
I'm sure nobody has to tell you this, but
keeping your company's data secure is important. This is why I am taking
a moment to outline a few ways you can keep things tightened up around
the office without worrying too much about employee turnover or any other
factor interrupting your business.
- Use different passwords EVERYWHERE.
If your e-deposit machine password is the same as the password for your
time clock and exchange server, people will notice. It is easier to remember,
which is both the good and the bad thing. It will be easier for anyone
trying to get confidential information from your company to guess the password
you have a habit of using. Combat this with a password vault of some kind.
We recommend Password
Safe, a free utility that
requires you to remember a master password in order to gain access to its
database of passwords for your online accounts, servers or anything else
you wish to store. Take a look at the October 18th, 2008 article we posted
in the Security Corner section of this blog for more info.
- When an employee leaves,
delete them! We are very strict about our procedures with our clients
when it comes to terminating an employee. Not only is it smart to delete
the user immediately, but add his / her login information to a "deny
access" group if applicable. Regardless of whether the employee is
leaving on good terms, it is better to be safe than sorry.
- Stop ignoring your security
logs. As your first line of defense, your security logs will point
out bad password attempts, unknown username errors, and many other events
that should raise alerts to someone trying to gain access to your data
that should not have it. Randy Franklin Smith has published a website
that clearly defines almost all Windows Security Log Events
to help you decipher the activity on your server. Pass this info on if
your system Admin is not already monitoring for you.
- Patch and update your computer
as often as you can. If you are a DCG St. Bernard customer, you do
not have to worry about this one. We do this automatically for all of your
covered machines and we only install the the updates that are "white-listed"
(or pre-approved) for you hardware / software environment. For those who
aren't as fortunate, Keeping your operating system up-to-date is the number
one method of staying protected from exploits that aim to compromise your
data. Using products like Microsoft
Baseline Security Analyzer
or heading over to Secunia
are the best ways to stay current.
Visit our website dedicated to IT
consulting in Los Angeles if you
have any questions.
Category
Tips and Tricks
If your organization has a document library
of any kind that shares documents for reading and editing, it can become
hard to find out where the last changes were made and if anything was omitted
completely. There is a tool called track changes that helps, but people
forget to use it in the same way they forgot to turn on auto-save before
a big computer crash. Here is a good solution that will prevent you from
intensely analyzing a document to find out what is different from its original
version:
- In Word 2003 - Go to Tools > "Compare
and Merge Documents"
- In Word 2007 - Go to the Review tab and
select "Compare" or "Combine"
The Word 2007 option will provide a dialog
box (see above) in which you specify the original document and the more
recent one. The result will be an interface that shows where all text was
moved, edited, deleted or added. This proves to be a valuable tool to many
users, especially after the slight learning curve when deciphering the
way the changes are displayed for heavily-modified documents.
Category
Tips and Tricks
When you are trying to keep
an eye on your header data in Excel or trying to compare two parts from
different locations on your spreadsheet, use the simple concept called
"splitting." Splitting in Excel allows you to divide your spreadsheet
into multiple panes so you can independently scroll through different parts
of the residing data. Each pane that the sheet is split into is navigable
and you can drag the dividing column and row to any point on the screen
you like. Follow these easy instructions to start using this tool yourself:
-For Excel 2003, select "Window"
and choose "Split."
-For Excel 2007, select the
"View" tab and choose "Split."
-Both horizontal and vertical
bars appear. You can drag them to any position you like and double-click
on one to make it disappear.
You can also use the "Freeze"
option in the same menus to freeze various rows or columns based on what
you have split. Test out the various options and remember that you can
use the "Unfreeze" and "Remove Split" options to undo
anything you have done.
Category
Tips and Tricks
I'd like to take a minute
to share a really handy tip for all of you Microsoft Word users. Have you
ever been working on a document (resume, research assignment, business
proposal etc.) and what you wrote just barely spills over to another page?
Not only is having a nearly blank page at the end of your document unprofessional
looking, it wastes paper! Extending your margins can only get you so far
and adjusting your paragraph / header spacing doesn't always cut it either.
Take a look at the option
in print preview called "Shrink One Page" in Word 2007 (as shown
in the screen shot) and "Shrink to Fit" in Word 2003. Clicking
on this prompts Word to adjust your font size marginally until the whole
document fits onto one fewer page, both saving you paper and making your
document much more presentable. If the adjustment is too extreme for you
liking, you can simply click the undo button (Ctrl + Z) and your work is
restored to its original size.
Category
Coming Soon
Three months ago, we mentioned in an article
that Windows 7 was in the works; an official announcement has been made
regarding its release date, so we are coming back to provide you with an
update. Microsoft is projecting that the new operating system will hit
retailers on October 22nd both in box form and pre-loaded on PC systems
for sale. There are many signs that the new Windows 7 will be much more
pleasing to users of all kinds than Vista and even Windows XP, so we are
still crossing our fingers that all of the hype and positive rumors are
true.
For those who are in need of a new PC before
then,there will be free or discounted upgrades from Windows Vista will
be available to anyone who purchases a machine shortly before the release
date. While the PC manufacturer supplies these, there are rumors that Microsoft
will be offering some kind of discount to all Windows Vista users. This
has been left open and is yet to be confirmed. Want to test it out to see
if Windows 7 is something you will be in line to buy this holiday season?
Head over to the Microsoft
website, where they are providing
the Windows 7 Release Candidate download.
