2009 November | Bay Geeks Computer Repair Services

November 19, 2009

Macs not all that for reliability

Filed under: General, apple, microsoft — admin @ 8:39 am

Digg me

A survey of 30,000 laptops has found one in three machines die within three years and netbooks do even worse, suffering 20 per cent more hardware failures than larger laptop machines.

Apple is fourth placed for reliability behind, in ascending order, Sony, Toshiba and in first place Asus. To be fair to Apple there’s not much in it - 15.6 per cent of Asus machines are expected to malfunction within three years, compared to 17.4 per cent of Apple laptops. Worst performer is HP - 25.6 per cent of its machines are expected to break within three years.

Firmly in the middle is Dell with an expected failure rate of 18.3 per cent, Lenovo with 21.5 per cent and Acer with 23.3 per cent failing within three years.

It seems for laptops, as so much else, you really do get what you pay for. If you buy a nice cheap netbook then just over a quarter, 25.1 per cent, are expected to fail in three years, compared to 20.6 per cent of entry-level lappies. Premium machines on the other hand suffer only an 18.1 per cent failure rate.

The research, from SquareTrade which flogs extended warranties, found overall 31 per cent of machines will fail within 36 months - which is worse than most consumer electronics.

The company noted that netbooks have only really been around in volume for about a year - so it will be interesting to see how their reliability performs over the longer term.

Source

Comments (0)

November 16, 2009

Internet Takes Another Step Toward Being Truly “Worldwide”

Filed under: Internet — admin @ 11:45 am

Digg me

The World Wide Web is about to go global. Countries have been invited to propose internationalized domain names based on non-Roman characters and Egypt has proposed the first domain name to use the Arabic script.
The move comes less than a month after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the Internet’s naming and numbering systems, approved a plan to permit Web addresses in characters other than the Roman alphabet, including Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and Korean.

The first official international domain names are expected to begin appearing sometime next year.

Last month the 15-member ICANN board, meeting in Seoul, South Korea, voted unanimously to allow scripts other than Roman characters in domain names. The move came after six years of debate and technical work on the issue.

Until now domain names have been limited to the 26 characters in the Latin alphabet, A through Z, as well as the numerals 0 through 9 and the hyphen. That’s forced Internet users with no understanding of English to type in Latin characters to reach Web sites that use non-Latin scripts.

Monday ICANN launched the IDN (Internet Domain Name) ccTLD Fast Track Process through which it will accept requests from representatives of countries and territories around the world for new Internet extensions made up of non-Roman characters. Once the requests are evaluated and approved, they are expected to come online during 2010, according to a statement issued by ICANN.

“This is the biggest technical change to the Internet’s addressing system ” the Domain Name System ” in many years,” said Tina Dam, ICANN’s Senior Director of Internationalized Domain Names, in the statement. “Right now, it’s not possible to get a domain name entirely in for example Chinese characters or Arabic characters. This is about to change.”

Egypt said it is launching the first Internet domain name to use Arabic script, according to a report published by TGDaily.com. The new suffix is pronounced “masr’ which means “Egypt.”

Altogether there are about 1.5 billion people online who use languages based on non-Latin scripts.

Source

Comments (0)

November 8, 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 8:07 am

Digg me

Seven Improvements in Security in Windows 7
Jayesh Limaye
Nov 05 2009

Windows 7 does come with a lot of eye-candy, but the beauty is not just skin deep. This new OS has got some enhancements in the security features and here is a list.

Spanking new Action Center

You can access the various security configurations in Vista by opening Security Center in Control Panel, but Windows 7 has done away with this in favour of a new Action Center. Here, you have security configurations as well as options for administrative tasks such as Backup, Troubleshooting And Diagnostics and Windows Update - everything at one place.

UAC with better malware protection

Ever since User Account Control (UAC) introduced in Vista, people have been complaining about how finicky it is because it keeps asking for permissions. UAC was designed to provide better protection from malware. Not just standard users, it bothers even administrator accounts when you need to do something requiring admin privileges. The only solution for users was to turn it off completely, which results in exposure to potential threats.

While UAC is still very much present in Windows 7, it can now be configured by the user at four different levels, which decide how bothersome it would be. The four settings are:

Always notify when programs try to install software or make any changes to computer settings, or if you try to make changes to Windows settings (UAC completely ON).

Notify when programs make changes but not if you make changes to Windows settings (this is the default).

Notify you only when programs make changes but do not dim the desktop (turn off Secure Desktop) while the UAC prompt is displayed. (This would be preferred by most users as it is a good balance of protection and nagging UAC prompts)

Never notify you. (Not recommended, as it is the same as turning UAC completely off.)

These settings can be adjusted by means of a slider.

AppLocker - Control your applications

To prevent people from running certain applications that may pose a security threat, XP and Vista had Software Restriction Policies, which can be configured by the administrator. This was a bit difficult to use for many people and was therefore not used much. Windows 7 comes with a new feature known as AppLocker, which does exactly the same thing, but it is easier to use and is more flexible to control. AppLocker can be used with domain Group Policies or on the local machine with Local Security Policy snap-in. You can see it in the left pane of the Application Control Policies node snap-in. Please note that old Software Restriction Policies is also still supported in Windows 7.

DROPDOWN__PAGETITLE__Windows 7 security improvements __/PAGETITLE__DROPDOWN

Natively supported Biometric security

One of the best known methods of security authentication is biometrics, which includes the use of fingerprint scans, retinal scan, or other physiological features unique to the user to determine his/her identity. Windows 7 comes with built-in support for fingerprint readers. While you may point that Windows did have this feature earlier, and even Windows XP laptops came with such a feature, they did require a third party application to be installed to achieve this. In case of Windows 7, there is native support for this, so you do not need to install any driver or software. You can configure fingerprint readers in the Biometric Devices applet in the Control Panel.

Improved BitLocker

While Vista did come with BitLocker, it allowed you to encrypt only the drive on which the OS was present, and after SP1 came, it would allow you to encrypt other fixed drives as well. But in Windows 7, you can use BitLocker to encrypt even your removable drives. This is a great feature since it is the removable drives that are likely to get lost or stolen than your fixed hard drive. Therefore, an encryption of this kind is warranted, especially if there is important data on the drive.

To access BitLocker, all you need to do is open the BitLocker applet in Control Panel, pick the drive you want to encrypt and click Turn On BitLocker. Better still, you can even right-click on the drive icon in Windows Explorer and do this. The removable drive then appears in a section called BitLocker To Go.

PowerShell v2 - Powerful UNIX-like scripting

Windows PowerShell is a tool to automate tasks using cmdlets (commands that perform single tasks) and scripts made up of multiple cmdlets to perform complex and multi-step tasks. It is essentially a powerful UNIX-like command-line shell interface and scripting tool, as can be seen in the figure, and is for those with a penchant for programming. While this tool can be downloaded and run in Windows XP or Vista, it comes bundled with Windows 7. PowerShell v2, which is the newer version that comes in Windows 7, has an additional 240 new cmdlets and new APIs. It also has features such as the ability to invoke PowerShell scripts and cmdlets even on a remote computer. It also lets you manage various Group Policy security settings. PowerShell is considered very powerful because the cmdlets method requires fewer steps than using the GUI method.

DirectAccess

Another nifty new feature of Windows 7 is DirectAccess. This feature allows remote users to connect securely to their corporate networks over the internet without using a VPN. The administrator can apply Group Policy settings and manage the mobile computers or even update them whenever the mobile machines are connected to the internet. The user need not be logged in on these machines for this. Multifactor authentication with smart cards is also supported by DirectAccess and it uses IPv6 over IPsec to encrypt the traffic. This feature is available only in Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Source

Comments (0)

November 2, 2009

Windows 7 upgrade problems vex users

Filed under: Computer Advice, microsoft — admin @ 1:30 pm

Digg me

Microsoft’s new operating system (OS), Windows 7, has been out since a week now. Though the product had a successful launch, and the early sales appeared strong, things do not seem to be working very well for the OS.

Citing a number of reasons ranging from upgrade issues to risk of losing data, even the experts have warned that users should be careful before installing the new operating system

Much of the talk about Windows 7 now seems to revolve around problems encountered while installing the operating system. Moving to Windows 7 hasn’t been as easy for the users as it initially seemed.

Citing a number of reasons, ranging from upgrade issues to risk of losing data, even the experts have warned that users should be careful before installing the new operating system.

Josh Kaplan, president of Rescuecom, was quoted by PCWorld as saying, “From the calls we’re getting, as well as our own experience in the past with all Microsoft’s operating systems, we’re recommending that people stick with their time-tested OS and wait for the dust to settle.”

With so many complications involved, many PC users have decided to cling to the older versions, Vista’s predecessor, Windows XP.

End users voice annoyance
Majority of the users who have tried installing Windows 7 have encountered numerous problems, sparking annoyance.

On a Microsoft support forum, where users are discussing the endless reboot problem, a user named jmps stated, “I stupidly tried to updgrade my Vista 64 today. The upgrade hung with an error message with NO error code. It said it would restart and reinstall Vista. Instead it continued with the install only to fail later. Now I no longer have Vista either and am in a reboot loop. I now have to go back to the Vista that came on my machine. This is horrible. How can something so bad be released?”

Another user named MJMacinhack commented on the same forum, “I’ve got the same problem. Tried to upgrade last night, upgrade failed, reeboot, reboot, reboot…”

“Boy oh boy, this is way too much trouble than it’s worth,” stated a user named JSchneider21.

Cautiously upgrade to Windows 7
With upgrade snags and reboot problems being fervently talked about, users need to be cautious before advancing to Windows 7. The first step is to ensure that the system is ready for the upgrade and to handle the new operating system.

To check if the system is ready for Windows 7, users can download the free Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. It scans the system for potential issues related to hardware, devices, and installed programs, and also suggests what a user can do before he upgrades.

As one upgrades, it is always a good idea to backup all files.

Since there are two versions of the operating system available, 32 bit and 64 bit, users need to be cautious regarding which one to install.

The 64-bit version of Windows handles large amounts of random access memory (RAM) more effectively than a 32-bit system.

To run 32 bit version, the system must have 1 GB of memory, at least 1 gigahertz processor and around 16 GB space on hard drive. For the 64 bit version, your computer must have a 64-bit-capable processor, GB of memory, and 20 GB of hard drive space.

In case some software is found incompatible to run on Windows 7, Microsoft has created Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode. This allows users to run many older XP applications in Windows 7.

Comments (0)