Software posts

While a major disaster, such as a tornado or hurricane, is unlikely, it’s best that businesses prepare for such catastrophic events. Doing so can minimize the negative effects of what could otherwise be a door-closing disaster. A disaster plan for the business should include ways to keep not only employees safe, but also the data and equipment necessary to keep the business running. With a little planning, any business can create a solid disaster plan for any situation that arises. Global Disaster Recovery Management recommends that businesses start with a disaster risk assessment….

The professionals and individuals working in offices need to know the importance and benefits obtained from the Virtual Private Network (VPN). Most of the employees of an organization use an Android based smartphone or electronic gadget to stay up to date about their work through emails and the company’s network. In general, VPN is a private network that creates a secure connection using a public network with the reduced costs due to the internet facility. For all the Android users, it will get simpler and easier to stay connected with their office network at lower cost with the secure connection…

Whether it’s because they want to keep the branding unified (highly unlikely) or they simply didn’t want to pursue a row with German retailer Metro AG (nearly certain though still a rumor), Microsoft is officially dropping the moniker of “Metro” from all forms of communication, marketing, and product naming. Now, it’s simply going to be “Windows 8″. Just when we thought Microsoft was getting creative… According to ZDnet: Here’s the official guidance, my sources say: Anything currently/formerly known as a “Metro-Style application” (with or without a hyphen) will now be known officially…

Mobile may be the talk of the web-browsing world, but computers still dominate. For now. As full-scale web browsers go, Chrome continues to dominate, and that is appearing to be the trend now and going forward. The latest news from reports from StatCounter show that in July, Chrome continued to push Internet Explorer and Firefox down on the scale by accounting for 33.8% of the worldwide browser traffic. Safari continued its slight upward movement, while Opera took a downward turn after making gains in May. According to TheNextWeb: StatCounter’s data has been openly questioned before, but…

Ouya is a new video game console powered by the Android platform. Developers of Ouya are seeking an open gaming platform for developers and gamers alike. One of my friends linked me on Facebook to the Ouya Kickstarter campaign one day after it was launched, at which point it had already raised over $1 million. At this point, Ouya has been featured on many top blogs and news outlets. While their pitch hit all the right spots, I have some lingering doubts about Ouya’s ability to make a lasting impact on the gaming industry and I want to share my doubts from the perspective of a console gamer. Ouya’s…

It’s understandable when a Twitter account or other social media profile is hacked when a current employee gets their computer or cloud service hacked. It’s unforgivable when the accounts are taken over because a  former employee gets hacked. Gizmodo learned that lesson the hard way when their account was taken over by “foul-mouthed hackers” as reported by Mike Isaac at AllThingsD: The technology site Gizmodo’s Twitter account was taken over on Friday evening for a brief period from approximately 5:15 to 5:30 PT. The hijackers appear to be part of a hacking group named “Clan Vv3,” and…

The Romney campaign announced today that those who download the “Mitt’s VP” app for iOS and Android will be the first to know who his choice is for running mate in the upcoming presidential election. The app will push the name of the GOP vice presidential nominee directly to mobile devices as soon as word comes out from Romney campaign headquarters. “The first official way to learn the name of the Republican vice presidential candidate is by using our new ‘Mitt’s VP’ app,” said Romney digital director Zac Moffatt in a statement. “Users of the app will be the first to get the news on the biggest…

For every valid, working app on the App Store, there are two apps that are considered “walking dead” by German mobile analytics firm Adeven. By their count, there are 400,000 apps that do not get downloaded, are invisible to users, and have no ratings. “The reality is there are only a couple of thousand apps that really make some kind of downloads,” Christian Henschel, Adeven CEO, told David Meyer at Gigaom. “This is based on Apple’s closed system — it’s tough to discover those kinds of apps. You don’t have proper search, so the only way to discover new apps is through the top listing.”…

Upon walking into a business or home office, you might notice a key component that appears to be going extinct before our very eyes. That piece is the office filing cabinet. It’s being replaced by new technologies that make it easier for us to store files and data in places that can be accessed easier. Digital storage is the new filing cabinet, and it takes up a lot less space in the office than a clunky metal filing cabinet. Digital storage comes in many forms. It includes physical storage devices, such as external hard drives and USB flash drives. It also includes the larger physical servers. But…

The news of Google’s purchase of the 5-person Sparrow team struck me as a bit odd. Sure, they’ve done some great things in email with their native iPad app, but the concept that they were purchased “to bring polish, ‘beauty’, and ease of use to all of its Gmail experiences” isn’t jiving. Google has been in email for a long time now and they have a lot of really smart people working on it. It wouldn’t be hard to reverse-engineer anything that anyone is doing in email (it’s not rocket science, after all). Why buy a team? Some would say it’s a value-buy; $25 million is a drop in the bucket for the Mountain View…