Author: admin

How You Can Speed Up Your Browsing Using Vimium

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Trackpads or mice aren’t very helpful when it comes to browsing the Web with speed, and which is why keyboard shortcuts will come in handy.

Of course, it isn’t easy to memorize all the keyboard shortcuts. It’s just as painful as moving your hands from the keyboard to the mouse and back again.

This is where Vimium comes in – a browser extension for Chrome which will help you control all your browsing from your keyboard.

The first thing that you will have to do is download and install this extension from the Chrome Web Store. You can find a similar version from Firefox’s add-on repository.

Now all you have to open a website, and check if a couple of shortcuts work. For example, type ‘G’ and watch to see if you drop to the bottom of the site. Alternatively, if you type ‘gg’, you should you go back to the top of the page.

There are a number of shortcuts that you can use when you install Vimium that could be anything from switching between tabs to even opening links.

While the majority of sites will work perfectly with Vimium, a number of Google properties such as Gmail, Chrome new tab page as well as the Chrome Web Store don’t. There are other websites that won’t because they have their own shortcuts.

After you’ve tried the first two commands, type ‘?’ in any website where Vimium works, and you should get a complete list of commands.

What You Need to Know About “Should I Remove it?”

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Most people will agree that trying out new apps might be fun. However, the consequences of using one that clogs your PC quickly can hardly be considered as fun as well.

And which is why a number of people have no other option but to go through one’s list of apps so as to remove them and therefore free your computer up.

Yet there’s a caveat: the Windows built-in application, known as Control Panel, does not give you enough information that can tell you what a program does.

Thankfully, there’s also another option known as “Should I Remove it?” (which we will SIRT henceforth) that does provide you a bit more information but will not overwhelm the user much like PC utilities do.

When you run it, it will not only display a simple list of every application run on your PC but will give you a rating of 5 stars or less that will indicate whether other users liked the program or not. It will also give you the percentage of users that uninstalled the program as well.

As for an app’s installation, you can do it directly from SIRT with the extra feature of scheduling SIRT to review your list of apps regularly.

However, there is one issue with this application: it directs you to ShouldIRemoveIt.com to display detailed information about an app instead of doing this from the desktop program.

If you don’t mind that, you’ll find that SIRT is definitely a user-friendly program to use.

Use Technology to Improve Attendance

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A company is full of moving parts and it’s important to stay on top of all of them if you want to experience nay degree of success. Most people would agree on many factors that are important to a company’s health. Things like their market share, research and development status, the economy, etc. But I’d offer up that time and attendance are as important as these things if not more so.

If a company can’t count on its own staff to show up to work, they won’t get very far. And while most employees do just that, far too many cut corners by showing up a couple minutes late, taking off a few minutes early, etc. That time adds up and can have real effects on the company employing these people.

Fortunately, this need not be an issue thanks to modern technology. Whether we’re talking soft or hardware, there are countless options for asserting the important of being punctual without needing extra staff to commit themselves.

For example, there are plenty of timeclock options available these days for you to choose from. You can even sync them up to all kinds of software, so everyone’s punches are kept in the same database. This makes it incredibly easy to look for patterns.

Those of you who have resolved to make this the best year of your company’s journey, think about starting with attendance.

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Article submitted by Allied Time. They sell all the time keeping options a company needs to stay up and running including fingerprint time clock options.

4 Smart Tech Resolutions to Make it a Happy 2014

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Giving your tech habits a makeover as you ring in the New Year is hardly as difficult as your other New Year’s resolutions.

Most if not all of them require only a few moments of your attention after which it can be forgotten. But attend to them you must…

So, here are 4 smart resolutions that can make it a happy 2014:

#1: Make security a priority

Since there cannot be any compromises with security, make sure that you either choose a strong password or a password manager such as 1Password or even LastPass. That said, try and use the password reset feature as often as possible on websites that you visit regularly.

#2: Two-factor authentication is a must

This is the year for two-factor authentication. All your accounts such as Dropbox, Twitter, Facebook, Paypal, Google and Microsoft all offer this feature for added protection. Simply put, not only will you have to enter your username and password but a security code which will be sent to your phone too.

#3: Find storage for your photos

Most people keep photos on their since it is their main camera. However, it takes up valuable space when you have a number of options such as Dropbox, Facebook and Google+ to save them to. This is advised since if something happens to your phone, you’ll lose all your photos.

#4: Maintain backups and get rid of clutter

Among the types of data that should be kept safe at all times, photos are the most precious. However, don’t forget the other types on your phone, tablet and PC and so on and so forth. Make sure you also remove applications that you really don’t use very often too.

How IT Companies in Los Angeles Can Help Solve Crimes

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It was finals week, December of 2013. Students at Harvard were just getting started with their exams when something quite unexpected happened. Meanwhile, student Eldo Kim was logging into the school network via a browser he thought was obscuring his location. It was campus IT, in cooperation with police, who ultimately compared time stamps of the emails to police with time stamps of anonymous browsers.

IT infrastructure is increasingly becoming an integral part of solving crime. How companies deal with cyber security will only improve as more industries enter the digital age.

Network Monitoring

Hospitals in Irvine are adapting to changes in the health care laws. That means more patient information is going to the cloud, and these medical facilities are not equipped to deal with data breaches. There are also problems with staff training. Part of the solution is computer support in Irvine to help deal with the flood of new issues. That support also includes network monitoring that will help these businesses detect and react to data leaks faster.

The reality is that security comes down to how quickly you can detect someone is trying to breach your system. Antivirus programs attempt to shield us from these attacks, but sustained attacks will collapse most systems. Monitoring helps detect these breaches as they happen, and emergency response teams can assess the risk and deal with the problem.

Risk Management

Risk management means assessing a company’s likelihood of being attacked, and knowing what the business stands to lose. IT companies in Los Angeles that offer hardware and software consulting base their careers off of making recommendations on the best solutions. These businesses look at the size of the customer base, analyze the access points needed, and craft a system that caters to different “levels” of user.

Emergency Support

Emergency support comes into play when there is a breach in the early hours of the morning, or late in the evening. Companies can maintain staff in-house, and many do. Paying that staff overtime to remain on-call is expensive, so around the clock response is usually outsourced to a firm better equipped to deal with it.

Data Management

In-house teams tend to work with a business’ data sets and create the applications needed to work with that data. They manage the customer and business side of the application, and are better equipped to respond to technical issues that may occur on-site. A combination of these services helps relegate the cost of IT, and keep data manageable as the business scales.

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This guest post is brought to you by Cal Net Technology Group, a firm of Los Angeles computer consultants specializing in data management and emergency response. Cal Net offers on-site training for employees, as well as a risk assessment for businesses concerned with digital security.

What You Need to Know About Backing Your Computer Up

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Without a doubt, backup is the most important thing to keep in mind when using a PC. However, even though most people consider this task to be difficult to carry out, nothing can be further from the truth.

Since there are a number of ways by which you can back your computer up, there’s only one thing that you should keep in mind when doing so.

Ensure that you have three copies of your files in three different locations. In other words, the original, a backup of the original and a backup of the backup.

That said, here are 2 simple methods (which can be used as a combination as well) to back your computer up:

#1: An online storage service

There are a number of services that one can use namely Carbonite, iDrive, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Mozy and iCloud. Pick a service (which would cost anywhere between $50 to $100) that can sync with most if not all of your devices. Also, use the downloadable app provided by the service you pick and which will create a mirror of all your files online.

#2: Two external hard drives should do

Buy the largest external hard drive that you can possibly afford – in fact, two would be better than one. Now use the Windows built-in app so as to create a system image and a recovery CD or USB drive. Now, Windows Backup to backup your files to the hard drive, be it daily, weekly or monthly.

One advantage of using local backups is that it can be restored as quickly as possible even if using a combination of both methods is successful 99% of the time.

Facebook on the verge of acquiring Little Eye Labs, its focus on mobile devices clear

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A little company called Little Eye Labs, based in Bangalore, and which analyzes the performance of Android apps will be acquired by Facebook with a deal ranging between $10-15 million.

It’s isn’t surprising that this acquisition came about considering how Facebook has been lagging behind when it comes to its focus on mobiles, and with almost 874 million of its users now accessing Facebook through these devices.

Of course, Facebook has been on the lookout for startups such as Little Eye Labs and before which, it had already acquired Parse in April this year, which is a mobile-backend-as-a-service startup.

This comes as good news not only to Little Eye Labs but also to a number of Indian startups for whom, progress in the form of acquisitions have been difficult to come by.

In fact, Little Eye Labs had already pitched to Twitter but then agreed to a deal with Facebook since the offer was much better.

According to certain sources, the team that formed this startup will move to Facebook’s headquarters in the United States and will continue to work as part of the company’s mobile engineering team.

The startup first gained visibility in Seedcamp, London where it was refining its product along with 20 other companies. What was notable was the way the tool created by this startup fixed a bug in Google I/Q app, and was the reason why Gaurav Lochan, who worked with Flipkart earlier, moved on to work with Little Eye Labs.

All the startup’s founders worked at IBM together, starting Little Eye Labs in August 2012.

3 Ways By Which You Can Reduce Clutter

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A hard drive that gathers much clutter tends to be slow but most of all, is a security hazard. Especially if this pertains to software that has been installed and used only once.

This means that if you rarely use it, there’s every chance that it isn’t patched or updated leaving your computer vulnerable.

That said, here are 3 ways by which you can reduce clutter:

#1: Applications that aren’t used

In using Windows, go to Control Panel, Programs and hit ‘Uninstall a program’. What you will see is a list of application that are currently installed on your PC. Look for unwanted applications that are taking up too much space by sorting this list out by size. You can use the uninstaller that Windows offers or even a more comprehensive tool such as Revo Uninstaller.

#2: Services that aren’t required

Windows services are usually programs that, while not being used, run in the background. Among the many functions that they carry out, performing core system functions and helping software applications to interact with Windows are two important ones.

Yet a number of them need not run and identifying these services can be a bit of a challenge. Look for services that aren’t required in the Services panel by opening the Charm bar, and remove them. For example, Bluetooth devices or even Remote Desktop services among others. Look for assistance over the internet for this.

#3: Obsolete data

All of us are guilty of having duplicate copies of videos, music and other files on our system. This slows your system up for the simple reason that your RAM depends on unused storage space affecting its performance due to too much clutter. You can do a Disk Cleanup or even defragment or optimize your hard drive. You’ll find it in the Tools section.

Why Google+ is the Best Social Network for Photo Sharing

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It was in October that Google claimed that its social network, Google+, had 300 million active users.

While critics laughed it off, there is some truth to the fact that the two-year old social network does have some loyal fans.

While no one is leaving Facebook for Google+, a number of people aren’t hesitant to open a Google+ account, considering how tied it is with popular services of Google such as Gmail, Maps and Google Drive and so on and so forth.

Much like any other social network, Google+ only works if you build up a profile, and which using the ‘Circles’ option can control who sees what information of yours, there’s very little between these social networks except for a few tiny things.

However, there’s one aspect that sets it apart from the rest – photo sharing. It is for this reason that almost 1.5 billion photographs have been uploaded to Google every week.

Not only is it really easy to upload the photos via Chrome but you can drag and drop them onto Google+ as well. In fact, the Android and Google+ iOS apps lets you enable a feature of auto-backup for your images which are saved in a private album every time you take one.

But that’s not all – once your photos are on the network, you can use Lightbox to edit your photos, and which are better than most photo editing tools you’ll find on any other social network.

All in all, even Google+ has too many options, it still is the best social network if you’re looking for an excellent place to share your photographs.

What You Need to Know About Cleaning Up Your Public Profile

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Removing private information from a people search site isn’t difficult yet there is no doubt that you will have to deal with a lot of hassle in order to get it done.

For starters, you’ll have to visit the site, and look for your information there and after which, you’ll just have to read and understand the site’s privacy policy. Of course, that part isn’t so easy not unless you are a lawyer…

One of the most popular sites is Intelius, where the section “How to remove your information from the Intelius Public Records Databases” runs into about 611 words. Once you’ve read the information, you’ll have to fill up an online form.

Not only will they require you to photograph your driver’s license while crossing out the license number and uploading the photograph for confirmation to the site. An email address is also requested.

There’s no doubt that the first step is a bit of a headache to get done (use a Post-It to cover the license number) but once you’re through, you’ll receive a confirmation email soon enough.

With another site like Spokeo, the process is much more simpler: you’ll have to provide a profile URL and an email address and filling out a CAPTHCA to prove that you are human.

As soon as you click the ‘Remove this listings’ button, you’ll be asked to check your email further instructions. However, all you will receive is a notification that your private information has been removed.

That said, if at any point of time, if any information you’ve posted has gone viral, it may be more difficult to clean up your public profile than you think.