SONY PICTURES SECURITY BREACH – HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF

Following a series of hacks on the Sony website, the latest being the Sony Pictures website where a group claims to have stolen personal information of millions of users including names, addresses, passwords, birth dates and e mail addresses and phone numbers. If your personal information is among those stolen, you should take the following precautionary measures to safeguard yourself.

1. Change your password immediately if you use the same one to enter in to other websites, and avoid using the same password for multiple purposes.

2. Be careful of suspicious phone calls trying to sell items and asking for personal information such as credit card numbers.

3. Look out for suspicious emails pretending to be from your bank and asking for personal details and do not follow any links in these emails.

4. Monitor your bank details. The hackers may have accessed credit card details. Inform the bank immediately of any unknown payments.

5. If you are concerned about identity theft, consider registering with an ID fraud monitoring service that will monitor credit checks in your name such as opening a credit card account or filing a loan application.

How a USB Serial Adapter Can Help You

Ever since it was first used in 1995, this simple method by which you can connect peripherals to a computer has literally taken the lion’s share of the market and has opened users to a whole new method of data transfer.

To put it simply, this technology is simple to use and is versatile to say the least. Take for example, a USB serial cable adapter that is used to provide users with more than just the two serial ports on the system.

One can imagine how easy it becomes for used to connect communication and other computer-based devices to your PC, and you get to pick how many serial ports you might required as you can get a USB serial adapter that has anywhere between two to sixteen serial ports for you to use with your computer.

But this isn’t just about connecting communication but also storage devices as well such as those which commonly use the IDE format. Since users normally use the hard disk to store all their materials, there are others that might need to use external storage to handle all the data that they need for their day to day work.

USB technology plays a key role here as USB IDE adaptors can turn a simple USB port into one that is capable of storing large amounts of data on an external disk which can be carried around, if required.

This is the reason why USB technology is so popular because it was designed not to take care of the need of high data transfer but also to do it efficiently and without requiring you to restart your PC either.

So much for plug-and-play devices, right?

Reasons Why You Should Outsource IT Support Orange County

The IT manager of any company, whether a small or medium business, often has important decisions to make, and one of the most crucial ones is to decide whether to opt for external IT support orange county or to create an in-house department instead.

Since this is about new projects or even carrying out important maintenance tasks, well-equipped personnel can make a difference to the company’s productivity, and since it all adds up to greater profitability, it is therefore an important decision to be made.

The pros in favor of hiring outsourced computer support Orange County far outweigh that of hiring an in-house department and here are some reasons why:

#1:  Lesser costs

Not only is it labor-intensive to hire an in-house unit, but also expensive to pay and retain them year after year. This problem is completely taken care of by IT consulting firms that take care of these tasks for a monthly retainer fee. Staffing can be a cause for issues, and while it isn’t possible to replace an employee on leave, the same issue will be resolved by the consulting firm you work with, as they will replace their employees with another one until he or she gets back.

#2: Vast amount of experience

Most professionals who work with consulting firms often have a vast amount of experience across several skill-sets and industries. This comes in handy, especially when you have new IT projects that need to be rolled out, since their skill-set is versatile enough to handle all tasks.

#3: Greater profitability

Efficiency is one of the biggest plus points with some of these IT consulting firms. For example, if PC updates or network support Orange County maintenance needs to be carried out, it is normally done after hours, and this means that there will be no interruptions when employees are in the office.

A Note on The Growing Popularity of Touchscreen Monitor Technology

Apple changed everything yet again. It’s called the tiny-button problem which customers did not find very engaging, and the iPhone rewrote the history books as a ‘smartphone’ on the day it was released a few years ago.

Until then, touchscreen monitor technology was only used for industrial and business applications, such as airport kiosks, industrial keypads, and food service, but has now become the fastest-growing electronics market segment.

Then the tablets were released by Apple among others, and this has led to a diversification of touch screen monitor technology to cater to customers like never before. And due to Apple’s iOS, the user-friendliness of this operating system changed people’s attitudes towards this kind of technology as opposed to earlier models where standard operating systems were used and didn’t work very well.

Such is the popular response to this kind of technology that experts predict that by the end of this year, the market of both touchscreen tablets and smart phones could reach about $10 billion, thanks to orders made by customers of about 60 million tablets and 400 million smart phone units this year alone.

Since the operating system is the key to this kind of technology, several competitors such as Blackberry, Windows, and Google’s Android phone have also developed operating systems that offer customers the same capabilities that the iPhone currently offers.

Ever since the launch of the Apple iPad 2, the general notion is that tablets (and smart phones) might phase out laptops and desktops in the next few years, and while that remains to be seen, you can’t help but wonder whether digital signage player and display technology will also be transformed to suit customers’ needs.

Is Hiring Los Angeles Computer Consultants a Good Choice?

Very often, a business owner or an IT manager of a firm has to make a choice when it comes to either hiring an in-house IT department or employing the services of staff provided by IT consultants Los Angeles for a retainer fee every month.

Both of these options have their pros and cons. For example, an IT consultant who does not understand their client’s needs can frustrate their client and lose their business in the process. Yet for those who do, there are several benefits that these Los Angeles computer consultants can provide to their clients that can help them make substantial gains.

Here are some advantages of hiring consultants that fall into the latter category:

#1: Experienced Professionals

Most professionals who work for these IT consultancies often have different skill-sets and a vast amount of experience across several industries. This might not be true of company employees who are hired for a particular skill-set. More often than not, the versatility of consultants comes in handy sooner or later.

#2: Cost-Effective

As opposed to hiring, retaining, and paying permanent employees, which not only adds to your list of things to do, it can also be expensive. Hiring an IT consultant requires you to clearly state your needs while also paying them a retainer fee every month or so. The fee for this is much less than running an entire IT department with benefits and compensation.

#3: Greater Productivity

Since these Orange County IT consulting firms have been in the business of running updates, maintenance, and setting up new IT projects for a variety of companies, these tasks are normally carried out after most or all of the employees of a company have left for the day. You can be sure that there will be no IT-related interruptions during office hours, thus ensuring greater productivity.