Apple’s ipad set off one of the biggest tablet crazes ever. But what are the real benefits, if any, to owning a tablet over a netbook or laptop? Obviously, one big selling point is compactness and light weight. But you can enjoy similar benefits with a netbook. Let’s begin by breaking down what each device is good for.
What are Netbooks?
A netbook is essentially a light-weight, compact laptop. They are designed for basic computing and surfing the internet, and have their limits. This is not a PC that you can game on. It’s great for keeping up with social networking, email, general web surfing, chat and IM programs, and working on documents one might use related to school and work. You can watch youtube videos, listen to music, and even run movies local to your PC or stream video on websites such as Hulu, though things are slower and choppier than on a standard PC. The machine is not powerful enough to run high definition video, but you’ll have decent luck running .avi file attachments with VLC media player. The light weight and small size makes it extremely travel friendly. Some people might be dissatisfied with the lack of a CD drive, the small screen size, and low level configuration. There are some issues related to the screen size that cannot be corrected, such as the website for yahoo games. The applet ends up being cut off at the bottom, making it difficult or impossible to play some of the games. Also missing, is an HDMI port. For Microsoft documents, chat programs, social networking, and general web surfing, however, this device is ideal.
What are tablets?
A tablet is a compact sized electronic device that offers many of the same features as a computer or laptop. Tablets use touch-screen technology, and their primary purpose is to surf the internet. “Apps” are the big selling point for a tablet. These “apps,” or applications, are special programs designed by many different developers to serve many different purposes. There are apps to unlock your car and check tire pressure and oil, apps to teach your 4 year old the alphabet, apps that mimic the sound of a dog whistle to aid in training your pet. If you can dream it up, there is probably already an app in place for it.
So which one is better? Different people have different opinions. Tablet PC’s are a good choice for someone who needs a lot of portability and needs a fast and responsive gadget responsive to the touch of a finger. The iPad or Android tablet start up is quick, a mere seconds as opposed to minutes, making it convenient to quickly check email or Facebook. The browsing experience is nice because the touchscreen is very good, and it’s great for watching movies and videos. The portability is nice, and it doesn’t overheat with prolonged use like laptops and netbooks can. The iPad operates on a closed system, so you can’t get viruses and malware, but you also can’t download torrents. Also, the iPad refuses to support Flash, so a huge number of webpages will load incorrectly, and that’s pretty inconvenient and annoying. The Android tablet is open sourced, making you more vulnerable to viruses and malware but permitting the downloading of torrents. Flash is supported by Android. The tablets are easier to carry than a netbook or laptop, but you still can’t slip one into your pocket.
Netbooks are much more similar to your at home PC, just much smaller. You have an actual keyboard, which is probably necessary for you if you are a student or you take office work home or on trips with you. I can’t imagine anyone having much luck trying to type out a school essay or any sort of report for work on a touch screen keypad of a tablet. You might be missing out on all the cool apps on the tablet, but you have access to the entire internet, so you can still find most of that stuff online. Applications are more entertaining and convenient than they are practical. You can do a lot of cool, entertaining stuff with them, but it’s nothing important in relation to work, school, or productivity. Apps are more of a novelty than anything else.
It comes down to content creation versus content consumption. Content creation is the time you spend on your computer writing reports, creating spread sheets, adding music and photos, etc. Content consumption is the time you spend looking at data, primarily surfing the internet. Netbooks are more ideal if you create a lot of content, since you require a lot of use of the keyboard and the bigger screen is more helpful to you. Tablets are great for content consumers, people who will primarily be surfing the internet, fiddling with applications, recalling photographs and music already organized and in place. Are you primarily a consumer, or a creator?
Tools like RSS and Google Reader are useful because they allow you to subscribe to updates from many different websites and read them all in one place. This prevents you from having to manually check out multiple blogs and websites and saves your email inbox from unnecessary clutter. You’ll find icons on many of the websites you visit allowing you to sign up for an RSS feed, and often times these feeds allow you to access the information in different formats like text, audio, or video. This convenient tool allows you to read a lot of information in a short amount of time. To get started, check out some websites with feeds such as USAtoday.com, yahoo.com, Amazon.com, and abcnews.com.
A new year is upon us and it’s an opportunity to make a fresh start, this time with a plan. We live busy lives, and it’s entirely too easy to get caught up in a heavy work load and neglect to leave time for essential planning. Having a plan is important. The trick to being successful and organized is to begin with a plan, map out progress, and stay on point of that plan. Below is a useful checklist for any small business reliant on computers to operate, and that’s most businesses these days. These items are not in any specific order, and they’re all equally important. You might wish to expound upon this list to personalize it for your own specific business needs.
1) Manage your data by removing old data you no longer need.
2) Setup a sound data structure (filing system) on your drive or server drive and make it repeatable for all folders.
3) Use tools such as a LAN Discovery to understand what data is on your computer/network as well as its age and last time accessed.
4) Institute and document a backup and recovery plan.
5) Document and communicate your acceptable usage policy for data storage for all employees and contractors.
6) Think about where your servers are. Is there a sprinkler system above them?
7) Don’t count on anyone else to backup your data for you (remove the human element).
Use an automated managed service like eTegrity.
9) Determine the best schedule for your data backup. It is important to know how often your data changes. If your data changes weekly, a daily backup might be overkill. If you have critical data that updates every hour, you may need to back up several times a day.
10) Be sure to plan for restore testing. There is nothing like not being able to restore your data because you never tested the process.
11) Store multiple backup sets daily, weekly and monthly so you can go back to a point in time.
12) Roll off older data into archive, or as we call it, Tier II, which is less accessible, but cost less to maintain and makes the Tier I data set smaller for a faster recovery time.
13) Plan for compliance if you are in a regulated industry.
14) Lock your server access down to only people that need access.
15) Use encryption on all sensitive data.
16) Use only reputable companies for on-line data backup and recovery.
17) Evaluate your progress quarterly or semi-annually and make adjustments.
18) Ensure data on laptops and portable devices are in your backup plan.
19) Understand what your Recovery Time Objective is. This can make or break your business if you need to be up and running in 4 hours and your backup plan allows for your recovery in two days.
20) Consult with an expert on how to best manage your data. That could be your MSP (computer guy), a company like eTegrity or just a fellow colleague.
By following these steps, and adding more of your own to create a personalized plan, you will ensure that 2011 will be a good year for you and your business.
Microsoft Security Essentials is a free antivirus software product created by Microsoft that protects against varying types of malware, such as computer viruses, spyware, rootkits, and Trojan horses. It works for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. It’s an upgrade from Windows Live OneCare, which was subscription based and meant for primarily commercial use, and Windows Defender, which only provided protection against adware and spyware. Microsoft Security Essentials is geared towards consumer use, though now licenses are available for small businesses who have 10 computers or less, making it an ideal cost saving, user friendly solution to computer and internet security.
As every small business owner knows, their business information is critically important and any computer downtime related to data loss or security threats can cost a business big. That’s why we recommend you upgrade to Windows 7 Professional, and add Microsoft Security Essentials into the mix. Windows 7 Pro prioritizes reliability, speed, compatibility, and connectivity in order to keep computers up and running. Microsoft Security Essentials offers FREE virus, spyware, and malware protection, and it’s a good product with excellent reviews. Windows 7 is not a system requirement for Microsoft Security Essentials, but the two are ideal together.
If you aren’t at all familiar with Microsoft Security Essentials, there are many reasons why it is a great solution for your small business’s virus and spyware protection needs. For one, it’s very simple to get and similarly as user friendly, which is important in a climate where many small businesses cannot afford to hire a full time dedicated IT person. Anyone even vaguely internet and computer literate in the office should be able to figure this out. This software requires no registration, trials, or renewals, and you can find the download directly at Microsoft’s website, here: http://www.microsoft.com/security/products/mse.aspx
Another advantage to Microsoft Security Essentials is that you’ll have no need to download other cumbersome security programs. MSE provides real-time protection to address the ongoing security needs of a genuine Windows PC, continuously protecting against viruses, spyware, and other malware. Most conveniently of all, this program is designed to run quietly in the background, without frequent prompts and interruptions, so your time is spent running your business rather than fiddling with your antivirus protection.
Microsoft Security Essentials uses advanced system scanning and removal technologies that employ a definitions database that details the characteristics and behaviors of known malware. Threats are collected every month from more than 600 million PCs around the world and are assessed by the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, and new signatures are written and deployed daily. The antimalware engine used in MSE and in all Microsoft security products is tested regularly by numerous organizations around the world, and has consistently been certified by the industry’s leading independent certification authorities: International Computer Security Association Labs. If you are a small businesses with 10 or fewer computers and looking for a cost free solution to computer security, this is a great option for you.
Cloud computing is a term used to describe internet based computing. This involves shared servers providing resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, similarly to how the electricity grid works. It’s a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on the internet; a byproduct of the easy to access remote computing sites provided by today’s internet. These tools, available to anyone and useful in a variety of ways, typically allow a user to access web-based tools or applications via a web browser as if it were a program installed locally on their own computer. The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines the “cloud” of cloud computing as a metaphor for the internet, based on the cloud drawings used in the past to represent the telephone network, and later to depict the internet in diagrams of computer networks. The average providers of cloud computing services provide common business applications online that are accessible from another web service or using a web browser, while the software and data remain stored on servers.
The majority of cloud computing infrastructures consist of services delivered via common centers and built upon servers. Clouds are usually single points of access for the computing needs of the consumer. Commercial providers are expected to meet general quality of service requirements of their customer base and usually include service level agreements. Some major cloud service providers include Amazon, Rackspace Cloud, Salesforce, Microsoft, and Google. A few larger IT firms actively involved in cloud computing are Fujitsu, Dell, Red Hat, Hewlett Packard, IBM, VMware, and NetApp.
What do you typically use for a password? If your reply is “password,” or “12345,” or a birthday or family member’s name, you’re in trouble. We live in a world today where even our most sensitive data is available on the web. Passwords might seem commonplace now, but they are important. We use them for our online banking and bill paying, our email, social networking websites, and countless shopping websites such as Amazon .com. It’s easy to become complacent and choose a simple to remember password to make it more convenient for yourself, but this can put you and your private information at great risk. Below are a few quick tips to ensure that you are choosing a secure password:
- It should contain AT LEAST 8 characters.
- It should contain upper case, lower case, number, and symbol characters, if possible.
- No names, try to avoid words, or any part of your name or email address. You want to avoid words if possible because many password thieves run programs that try seemingly endless different word combinations based on the dictionary. If you have trouble remembering non-words, try making words using replacement characters for some of the letters, such as “3x@mp!3″ instead of the word “example.” Replacing even a few letters in the word will help.
- Stay away from birthdays, pet names, family member names, and maiden names.
Also, be careful with ‘security questions,’ used by most sites as a method of password recovery. You know what I’m talking about. You forget your password, and in order to reset it, a website will ask a security question that you answered previously such as “What is your favorite color?” or “Where did you go to high school?” You would actually be better off to answer these security questions with an answer that doesn’t make sense, or a string of numbers, and write that down somewhere, but don’t label it as a security question answer so that it will be assumed that it’s an actual password if ever compromised. Security questions and answers are much weaker than passwords, and in the age of social networking, the answers to your questions can easily be gleaned by perfect strangers just by poking around in your Facebook profile.
Follow these easy tips and protect yourself from potential identity theft and data loss today!
Hello, and welcome to the home of I Fix Computers, Inc. We are a work in progress currently under construction, so bear with us. Eventually this will be a place where you can learn all about our business and what we do, contact us, learn technology and computer related tips, and keep up with notable technology stories in the news. We will also be posting a digital copy of the articles from our monthly “Techno Info” newsletter here. Come in, look around, and enjoy your visit!
