Data Recovery

Is your hard drive “clicking” or running slow? Friendly Computers: 281-554-5500

Have you lost access to precious photographs or important documents on your computer?

OVER 22,500 CLEAR LAKE AREA COMPUTERS, LAPTOPS AND NETWORKS REPAIRED!!

Friendly Computers provides in-house data recovery of hard drive failures.  With our advanced diagnostic and recovery tools, we can recover data from laptops, PCs, servers, digital cameras, and even cell phones. We can also transfer your data from an old system to a new system.

We are in the Clear Lake Center at I-45 and Nasa Pkwy in the same center as Burlington Coat Factory in Webster. 

Our state-of-the-art facility includes eight technologically advanced workstations designed to efficiently and effectively diagnose and repair a wide variety of computer hardware and software issues.  Each station is equipped with multiple proprietary tools and equipment.  In addition, all of our technicians are equipped with the same advanced tools to perform efficient and effective onsite service in your home or office.

Call today at 281-554-5500 or visit www.friendlycomputers.com/southhouston to schedule an appointment.

Proudly serving the Southeast Houston/Clear Lake area including Friendswood, Alvin, Pearland, Kemah, Webster, Seabrook, League City, and surrounding areas.

Technology at your fingertips

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28

Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.

AVG 2014 Version now available! We can install it for you!

On Wednesday, AVG released the 2014 versions of its antivirus and Internet security programs. Available for immediate download, the programs range from the no-cost AVG AntiVirus FREE 2014 to higher-end paid software such as AVG Premium Security 2014 and AVG PC TuneUp 2014.

The most notable new addition is PrivacyFix, an online privacy tool offered by PrivacyChoice (which AVG acquired in May). Branching out from its Web-only beginnings, PrivacyFix is now offered via Android and iOS apps as well.

PrivacyFix analyzes your account settings and alerts you of possible intrusions on your privacy. For major sites like Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn, it points out privacy settings or features that could impact you. It lists the settings, gives you some details about them, and when you click to fix a particular one, it takes you directly to that site's settings page. The Crowd Control function is updated to help you analyze your large list of Facebook friends and weed out those who’ve fallen off your real-life list of friends. If anyone objects, you can blame the software.

For thousands of other sites, PrivacyFix analyzes the tracking and privacy policies and alerts you of potential issues, like sharing your data with third-party organizations. A notable improvement here is that PrivacyFix will now notify you of sites that have had known data breaches.

Another new feature available in all the AVG editions is File Shredder. File Shredder lets you destroy files completely so they aren't recoverable by thieves or those who might inherit your PC in the future. In the premium AVG editions, Data Safe lets you encrypt sensitive files in virtual drives to protect against prying eyes or data thieves.

AVG also updated its mobile antivirus app. It now supports camera tracking, taking a photo of anyone who seems to be messing with your phone. It also adds SIM card protection, so a thief can’t replace your SIM and take over your device.

The paid PC Tuneup utility is offered as trial-ware in the free products. Among its updates, it now looks for duplicate files on your PC, helping free up disk space and reduce clutter. Additionally, the live optimization functionality includes better application definitions to enhance system speed.

AVG is keeping up with the times with its iOS and Android apps and its new raft of privacy settings. While you’ll enjoy the most benefits in its paid products, the free antivirus and security product is a well-regarded package as well.

Written by:

Eric Geier@eric_geier

Original Article Link: Here

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.

Next version of Android will be called KitKat!

ANDROID

• google

Google surprises Android users with Kit Kat

Florence Ion@Ohthatflo

• Sep 3, 2013 10:47 AM
• print

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. That's a robot-shaped Kit Kat bar, and Google's head of Android and Chrome, Sundar Pichai, has confirmed in a Google+ post that the next version of Android will be dubbed Android 4.4 Kit Kat.

Pichai posted a photo of the official Kit Kat-shaped Android guy on the Google lawn, adding that he "can’t wait to release the next version of the platform that is as sweet as the candy bar that’s one of our team’s favorites."

Google buried the official announcement on the new name inside a clever marketingcampaign illustrating a "sweet new treat," along with the news that Android had just recently passed 1 billion device activations. The page depicts a timeline that carousels through the different versions of Android, including the new Android 4.4 Kit Kat. You can also enter in the code from any specially marked Kit Kat wrapped onto the site to check and see if you've won a Nexus 7 or Google Play store credit.

This is the first time that Google has partnered up with a company to name its operating system. Many Android faithful were expecting that the company with stick with a dessert like Key Lime Pie for the next iteration of Android, but Google may have made a smarter move by sticking with a well-known global brand name. There are no details on when the new operating system will surface or what it will feature, but today's announcement will likely kickstart the rumor mill.

Original Article:http://www.techhive.com/article/2048054/google-surprises-android-users-with-kit-kat.html

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.

Patriots deploy free stadium-wide Wi-Fi to compete with the comforts of home

Nothing can replace watching a sports game at the local stadium—except for HD TVs, warm living rooms and nearby snacks. A recent ESPN poll found that 41 percent of fans would rather watch a game at home than at a stadium.

“You have your own bathroom, the fridge is 10 feet away and the cost of a big-screen TV is less than it ever was,” says Fred Kirsch, publisher and VP of content at the New England Patriots football franchise. “Those are really hard to compete with.”

But the Patriots are hoping to do just that by rolling out free Wi-Fi at Gillette Stadium this season to give fans a more connected experience at the team’s eight home games. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell endorsed this idea in May, saying every NFL stadium should have high-speed Wi-Fi for its fans.

Too many stadium selfies for cellular networks

The Patriots’ stadium used to rely on cellphone networks for mobile traffic, but that approach couldn’t handle the large number of photo uploads and status updates fans transmitted during games.

After piloting Wi-Fi in 2012, the team and networking vendor Enterasys are rolling it out in full for the upcoming 2013-14 football season. The network will have 360 access points and enough bandwidth to handle at least 16,000 concurrent users.

The app will include live play-by-play, bathroom wait times, a tool for ordering concessions from your seat, and access to NFL RedZone.

Along with the Wi-Fi network, the Patriots developed a mobile app called Patriots Game Day Live, available to anyone attending a game at Gillette Stadium. The team tested a version of the app last season with fans in luxury club seats and although only 10 percent of those fans used it, Kirsch says the team hopes to see that number increase by offering content that’s only available through the app.

“We are trying to give things here that you can’t get in your living room,” he says.

The app will include live play-by-play, bathroom wait times, a tool for ordering concessions from your seat, and access to NFL RedZone, a live compilation of all the scoring plays from games around the league.

The Wi-Fi network is expected to allow 40 percent of the 70,000 fans in the stadium to connect simultaneously. Kirsch says that, down the line, the team hopes to add unique content such as audio from players wearing microphones and video from the sidelines or locker room.

Written By:

By Lauren Brousell, CIO

Original Article: Found here

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28

Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.

Linus Torvalds celebrates 22 years of Linux with nostalgic message

IDG News Service - It was 22 years ago on Sunday that Linus Torvalds announced in a newsgroup posting that he was creating a free operating system, a message he echoed in his announcement Sunday of the latest Linux kernel release candidate.

"Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones," Torvalds wrote on August 26, 1991, asking people to send in feature requests.

[TRASHED: Old electronics don't die, they just pile up]

On Sunday, Torvalds announced the Linux 3.11-rc7 kernel release in similar fashion.

"Hello everybody out there using Linux -- I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, even if it's big and professional) for 486+ AT clones and just about anything else out there under the sun.A This has been brewing since april 1991, and is still not ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in Linux 3.11-rc7," he wrote on Google+.

"I originally ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), but others have taken over user space and things still seem to work. This implies that I'll get the final 3.11 release within a week, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)," he added.

Torvalds was also quick to add, in a comment on his post, that any feature requests would be a bit late. "Yeah, I don't really want to get feature requests this late in the rc series... But itA isA 22 years today since that email, and IA wouldA like people to try the current 3.11-rc7 kernel I just cut and uploaded to the usual places," he wrote.

Version 3.11 of the Linux kernel has been given the codename Linux for Workgroups, a reference to Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, released by Microsoft a little over 20 years ago.

One of the bigger changes from version 3.10 of the kernel is improved power management in AMD Radeon graphic chips.

Loek is Amsterdam Correspondent and covers online privacy, intellectual property, open-source and online payment issues for the IDG News Service. Follow him on Twitter at@loekessers or email tips and comments to loek_essers@idg.com

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

Full Article Here

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.

The PC monitor is dead. Meet the new smart monitor

We worry far too much about the desktop PC becoming a relic of a bygone age. Our focus, instead, should be on the monitor that the PC connects to. Indeed, as we use more and more mobile devices with integrated screens—notebooks, tablets, and smartphones—we pay much less attention to the aging, dumb monitors sitting on our desks.

But monitor makers know the score—and now they’re fighting back. Meet the monitor of the future: It's smart, connected, and in some cases portable. Inside isn’t just an LCD panel, a backlight, and some logic tying it all together. Instead, it’s looking more and more like a tablet, complete with a CPU, a touchscreen, storage, and a full-fledged Android operating system.

Wait-wait-wait, you say. What’s the difference between a smart monitor and an all-in-one PC? Or a portable display and a tablet? Today, not much. And doesn’t connecting a keyboard to a smart monitor reproduce the functionality of a docked notebook? Yes, absolutely. But as computing components shrink in size and become more modular, manufacturers of all stripes (and this includes monitor manufactuers) gain the flexibility to try out new concepts.

Here’s what it means for you: Over time, manufacturers hope the smart monitor will replace the traditional family desktop PC. By itself, the smart monitor will serve as an inexpensive, casual computing environment for Web browsing and simple games. Connected to a laptop or tablet, however, the smart monitor becomes “dumb” at the touch of a button, letting the laptop or tablet's CPU and OS run the show.

And over time, as embedded CPUs become cheaper and more prevalent, smart monitors will simply push older, “dumb” monitors aside.

Read Full Article Here.

Written By: 

Mark Hachman@markhachman

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.

Wikileaker Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years

A military court judge has sentenced U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison on Wednesday on charges related to his leaking a large store of classified documents to Wikileaks, according to a number of published and broadcast reports.

Manning had faced a maximum potential sentence of 90 years. The judge in his case reduced the maximum sentence from 136 years earlier this month.

Manning was also dishonorably discharged from the military. He will reportedly be credited with about three and a half years of time served in detention while awaiting trial.

In July, Manning was acquitted of the most serious charge against him, aiding the enemy, but found guilty on a series of lesser ones, including 10 he had pleaded guilty to earlier this year.

The documents Manning gave to Wikileaks included details of detainee abuse in Iraq as well as an airstrike in Baghdad that resulted in the deaths of civilians.

Manning, who worked as an intelligence analyst, was arrested in 2010 after giving Wikileaks the documents earlier that year and in 2009.

A change of tone?

In a pretrial statement, Manning said he believed releasing the information “could spark a domestic debate on the role of our military and foreign policy in general, as well as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

But Manning reportedly expressed remorse at a sentencing hearing held last week, saying he was “sorry that my actions hurt people,” and “sorry that they hurt the United States.” However, Manning also said he believed at the time his actions would help people.

Wikileaks posted a statement in response, saying Manning’s court martial was “pursued with unprecedented prosecutorial zeal” and that his “apology was extracted by force.”

“In a just court the U.S. government would be apologizing to Bradley Manning,” Wikileaks added.

Manning attorney David Coombs is expected to hold a press conference later Wednesday, during which he will “respond to the sentence and discuss upcoming legal avenues of redress for his client,” according to a press release from the Bradley Manning Support Network, an organization that has supported his legal defense.

Manning’s defense will immediately pursue a clemency appeal, and the Support Network’s website will soon contain a copy of his application for a presidential pardon, according to the group.

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.

Written By: Chris Kanaracus

Original Article Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2047122/bradley-manning-sentenced-to-35-years-for-classified-document-leaks.html

The worst deals in tech: Are you being fleeced by these 7 overpriced products?

Full Article!

Christopher Null@christophernull

• Aug 19, 2013 3:00 AM
• print

The coolest running shoes at the Nike store this year are the Nike Air Max+ 2013. They retail for $180, but when you break down the costs for the materials and the manufacturing and labor at the Chinese factory where the shoes are made, you’re looking at a product that costs less than $10 a pop. The remaining $170 covers marketing (to make you believe the shoes are worth the premium price) and a handsome profit for Nike. The company reports revenues of about $25 billion a year.

It works the same way for many products in the tech world. As gadget enthusiasts, we accept the idea that products are worth what we’re willing to pay for them, and not what they cost in terms of product development, manufacturing, and materials. Nonetheless, it’s time to name names. Here are some of most egregiously high profit margins in the world of consumer tech.

Text Messages

Average cost: $0.20 per text

Average cost to provide: virtually nothing

The cost of text messages often gets a bad rap, and for good reason. Our tiny missives—160 bytes in size, at most—typically cost us 20 cents each to send and receive (assuming you don’t have a text messaging plan or haven’t gone over your limit). They cost essentially nothing to deliver, however, making the markup for an SMS message essentially infinite.

GET ALL THE DETAILS HERE

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28

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No more service updates for Windows XP after April 2014!

Microsoft has reminded, cajoled, and pleaded with users to move off of Windows XP before support for its old OS expires next year. Now Microsoft warns users that they may be subject to “zero-day” threats for the rest of their lives if they don’t migrate.

After April 8, 2014, Microsoft will halt support for Windows XP. That means Microsoft won’t issue patches or other security fixes for its opeating system.

What does that mean, in terms of security? Tim Rains, director of Trustworthy Computing for Microsoft, sums it up:

“The very first month that Microsoft releases security updates for supported versions of Windows, attackers will reverse engineer those updates, find the vulnerabilities, and test Windows XP to see if it shares those vulnerabilities,” he wrote. “If it does, attackers will attempt to develop exploit code that can take advantage of those vulnerabilities on Windows XP. Since a security update will never become available for Windows XP to address these vulnerabilities, Windows XP will essentially have a ‘zero-day’ vulnerability forever.”

Zero-day vulnerabilities refer to the way in which hackers can attack an operating system or other code before a patch is released, fixing the vulnerability. Since Microsoft will never patch Windows XP again after April 2014, eventually some vulneability that affects XP will be found.

Between July 2012 and July 2013, Windows XP was an affected product in 45 Microsoft security bulletins. Thirty of those also affected Windows 7 and Windows 8, Rains wrote.

MICROSOFT

Windows XP was a prime target for malware, according to Microsoft.

Rains acknowledges that some protections in XP will help mitigate attacks, and third-party antimalware software might offer some protection.

“The challenge here is that you’ll never know, with any confidence, if the trusted computing base of the system can actually be trusted because attackers will be armed with public knowledge of zero day exploits in Windows XP that could enable them to compromise the system and possibly run the code of their choice,” Rains wrote.

That’s the same argument that some have recently used, claiming that hackers will “bank” their zero-day XP attacks until after next April, then unleash them on the unprotected herds of XP machines. As Rains notes, the sophistication of makware has only improved, meaning that your XP machine s even more vulnerable, not less. PCWorld’s Answer Line columnist, Lincoln Spector, agrees.

The problem that some XP users have is that they’re so in love with the way that Windows XP does things that they’re reluctant to migrate, especially to Windows 8. Well, Windows 7 machines do exist, that offer functionality similar to XP: here’s how to find them.

The bottom line is this: while Microsoft stands to gain from arguing that consumers need to upgrade, the truth is: they do. So if you are still on Windows XP, start thinking about a migration strategy. Now.

Written By:

Mark Hachman@markhachman

Original Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2046839/zero-day-forever-move-away-from-windows-xp-now.html

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28

Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.

IBM, universities partner on 'big-data' skills training

IBM hopes to help create the next generation of “big-data” specialists through a series of partnerships with universities around the world, as well as influence the curriculum.

Nine new agreements announced Wednesday involve Georgetown University, George Washington University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Missouri, and Northwestern University in the U.S. IBM is also beginning big-data programs at Dublin City University, Mother Teresa Women’s University in India, the National University of Singapore, and the Philippines’ Commission on Higher Education.

They will result in a variety of programs, including a master of science degree in the business analytics track at George Washington University; an undergraduate course titled “Big Data Analytics” at the University of Missouri; and a center for business analytics at the National University of Singapore.

What is big data?

Big data refers to the massive amounts of structured and unstructured data being continuously generated by websites, social media, sensors, smart devices, and other sources. A wide range of software, hardware, and consulting companies have been bringing products and services to market that they say customers can use to derive valuable business insights from such information.

Participants in the academic programs will get access to a “wide spectrum of IBM Big Data and analytics software solutions,” as well as case studies, guest lecture appearances by IBM “thought leaders” and case study projects, according to an IBM spokesman. Some 1,000 schools are now involved with IBM regarding big data, according to a statement.

Such programs have clear benefits for both sides, with potentially cash-strapped schools getting access to technology and other resources, while IBM helps seed the market for future big data consultants, data scientists and developers that know its technology.

In its announcement, IBM cited U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics that found there will be a 24 percent rise in demand for people with “data analytics skills” over the next eight years.

Big data is also the fastest-growing job category on tech jobs board Dice.com. There are some 1,500 job listings in the area on the site daily, a 127 percent rise compared to a year ago.

Employers are looking most often for people skilled in Hadoop, the programming framework for large-scale data processing, said Scot Melland, CEO of site owner Dice Holdings, in an interview Wednesday.

Big data is still a “relatively small category” among Dice.com’s 84,000 job listings, Melland said. However, it’s telling that other major categories have remained largely flat year-over-year. For example, ads for Java programmers rose just 2 percent in contrast to big data’s triple-digit rise, he said.

While companies are managing to fill big data positions, there’s a caveat. “They are finding the candidates but a lot of what they’re doing is poaching candidates from other companies,” Melland said. “One of the reasons I would expect IBM is making these partnerships to make sure there’s enough engineers to meet the demand they’re seeing.”

Also Wednesday, IBM announced the winners of an awards program aimed at university professors. Fourteen were awarded $10,000 for their work developing curricula “designed to develop the business and technical skills required for data-crunching jobs.”

Written By:Chris Kanaracus

Original Article Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2046675/ibm-universities-partner-on-big-data-skills-training.html

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.

A new way of exploring Wikipedia.

Check out the page Here!

When you go to Wikipedia, you’re probably going to do one of two things; fall down a rabbit's hole of trivia and information or edit the crap out of said information. Listen to Wikipedia, on the other hand, offers a completely different —and calming— experience from the bustle of information bits and inappropriately cited information.

Developed by Hatnote, Listen to Wikipedia takes data from Wikipedia's recent changes feed and converts that data to sounds. Bells signal additions, while strings denominate subtractions. The pitch of each note also depending on the size of the edits—the larger the edit, the lower the pitch.

A color-coded visualizer consisting of overlapping multicolored circles shows you which article’s has been changed and the editor's user status: Green circles represent anonymous additions, white is for registered users, and purple indicates a bot is hard at work.

All together, Listen to Wikipeida creates a zen-like experience that’s very different from sound of keyboards clacking beneath the hordes of volunteer information experts. While it’s nice now, we would really like to know what it sounds like during a flurry of activity, where thousands of new changes are all happening at the same time.

[Hatnote via The Verge]

Written By:Kevin Lee

@baggingspam

Original Article Link: http://www.techhive.com/article/2046452/listen-to-wikipedia-turns-heated-edit-wars-into-soothing-music.html

By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28

Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.