Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Microsoft’s quarterly profits have soared 35% as Windows 7 provided the firm with a much-needed shot in the arm.

Revenue at the Redmond giant hit $14.5 billion on the back of strong sales of Windows 7, which is now running on 10% of all PCs worldwide, according to Microsoft.

The figure doesn’t include $305 million in Office sales that Microsoft is deferring due to its Office 2010 upgrade scheme – which guarantees people buying a copy of Office 2007 a copy of the new release when it ships in June.

Business customers are beginning to refresh their desktops and the momentum of Windows 7 continues to be strong

Microsoft said PC sales rose 25% during the third quarter, pushing sales of Windows 7 to manufacturers up by 30%. "Business customers are beginning to refresh their desktops and the momentum of Windows 7 continues to be strong," said chief operating officer Kevin Turner.

"We are also seeing tremendous interest in our market-leading cloud services for business."

Net income hit a healthy $4.01 billion, up 6.2% on the same quarter last year. No doubt a few sighs of relief will be heard around Redmond. This time last year, the company was posting its first year-on-year revenue decline, as sales dropped 6%.

The results follow similarly healthy figures from Apple, which saw quarterly revenue jump nearly 50% to $13.5 billion.

McAfee has offered to pay for the PC repairs of consumers affected by last week’s faulty antivirus update.

The problematic patch falsely identified the SVCHOST.EXE Windows file as a virus, causing PCs running Windows XP SP3 to crash or enter endless reboot cycles. Among those affected were US police forces and Intel.

If you have already incurred costs to repair your PC as a result of this issue, we’re committed to reimbursing reasonable expenses

In a blog post addressed to "Home or Home Office Consumers", the company offered to reimburse PC repair expenses, though there was a notable caveat.

"If you have already incurred costs to repair your PC as a result of this issue, we’re committed to reimbursing reasonable expenses," the company said.

We’ve contacted McAfee to clarify what it means by "reasonable expenses" and whether a similar programme will be extended to business customers. We were awaiting a response at the time of writing.

In a canny bid to stop customers deserting the software en masse after the problems McAfee’s also offering "a two year extension of your existing McAfee subscription free of charge."

There’s still no word from the company on how such a serious fault managed to slip through its quality control process.

Sony is to discontinue production of 3.5in floppy disks, as the ageing technology slides towards its inevitable demise.

The company called time on floppy disks outside of Japan back in March, and now a "lack of demand" has prompted Sony to claim it will cease production within its home market in 2011.

Given that Sony is the last major manufacturer of floppy disks, it seems the final days are dawning for the storage technology.

The 3.5in format arrived as a successor to the 5.25in floppy disk back in 1981, and swiftly became the most popular way of transferring files between computers.

However, as Zip drives, CDs, DVDs and USB sticks offered increased storage capacity at lower prices – not to mention the transfer of files over the internet – the floppy market quickly diminished. According to Sony, it shipped more than 47 million disks within Japan in 2000, compared to 8.5 million by 2009.

Apple dropped the floppy disk as early as 1998, when it released the first edition of the iMac, followed by Dell in 2003.

(taken from PC Pro – 26/04/2010 by Stuart Turton)

Modern cars are incredibly difficult to break in to and steal, so much so that thieves often find it easier to break in to a house and steal the car keys to make off with it. Hackers targeting your website are faced with a similar problem when it comes to getting access to your website.

Few hackers target the web host directly, with all the money large web hosts such as ourselves spend on security and monitoring it is simply too difficult to gain access. Instead they go directly after the webmaster by downloading a virus on to their PC and getting the FTP log in details so often stored as an unprotected flat text file within software such as Filezilla.

What do they do with the information?
Once they have direct access to your website’s files they are any number of actions they can take:
- Insert links in to your site & create link farms
- Capture your member’s information
- Links to malware
- Spread viruses
- Destroy your site

How do you stop them?
Because they are targeting your PC make sure your virus protection up to date. Don’t put off the updates until ‘next week’ or when you can be bothered, get in to a routine of installing the latest patches e.g. on a Sunday afternoon whilst you are out or at night when you are asleep.

The easiest way to prevent access is to not have the information to be found in the first place. Don’t store log in details on your local PC unprotected e.g. in the FTP software’s auto login. Having to manually log in will literally add 10 seconds to your day and when you think of it like that its time well spent if it means your site in not compromised.

Regularly change your FTP password with a strong, and ideally random, password using capitals, numbers and extra characters. As well as a strong password, rather than have FTP access permanently enabled disable FTP access when you don’t need it.

As mentioned above, hackers will identify the vulnerabilities found within popular 3rd party software such as WordPress. If you use any CMS that allows plug-ins to be installed make sure you only get them from trusted sources and research them fully online (i.e. don’t do it blindly). This is also true of any 3rd party scripts you choose to use from sites such as hotscripts.com.

How to monitor if your site has been hacked?
One of the most popular reasons hackers go after sites is to essentially create a massive link farm to boost the search ranking of another site they own which is the money maker. A good example of this in action is the recent Haiti disaster which was targeted by fraudsters capturing bank details of people wanting to donate money to the relief programs. Many started by searching for charities through Google and clicking on the highest ranked sites, some of which were fraudsters boosted by their hacked site links. Monitor your website’s outbound links by checking Google webmaster tools or using a tool like http://validator.w3.org/checklink. It is also worth checking your directory in an FTP client on regular basis to spot any irregularities or any files/ folders that you didn’t create.

What to do about it if you have been hacked?
If you find out your site has been hacked the first step is to turn off FTP access to prevent them gaining further access. Once you have done that change your FTP log in details and run a full virus scan on your PC.

To remove any changes they may have made, rather than manually editing your files and risk missing anything, restore the website using the version you have backed up. Backing up your website is really quick and easy and completely free through your SureHOST control panel. To make sure you always have the latest version of your site we strongly recommend you back up your website using this facility whenever you make a change to your website.

A US consumer group has called on the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Attorney General to investigate Google under anti-trust laws.

In a letter sent to both authorities and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Consumer Watchdog advocate John Simpson called on them to break up the search giant, claiming it exerts monopoly power over the market.

“The DoJ and FTC have taken a reactive approach to Google’s activities,” he wrote, highlighting the investigations into the proposed Google Books deal and the planned $750 million acquisition of AdMob. “However, the time has come to actively restrain Google’s broader ability to abuse both users and advertisers.”

The reality is that for many small online vendors Google is the only way to develop traffic to their services. Google’s dominant search position allows it to charge high ad prices and it uses these monopoly revenues to subsidise its other lines of business

He said the huge share of the search market it held (85.75% global share according to NetApps) gave it far too much control over people’s access to the internet.

“Google is the gateway to the internet. How it tweaks its proprietary search algorithms can ensure a business’s success or doom it to failure. Google’s business practices to maximise its profits determine much of the internet experience for most consumers by determining what they view.

“The reality is that, for many small online vendors, Google is the only way to develop traffic to their services. Google’s dominant search position allows it to charge high ad prices and it uses these monopoly revenues to subsidise its other lines of business.”

He added the way in which Google uses its free services to advertise and push forward its other ventures meant it shut other firms out from the market, stifling competition.

Simpson said courses of action which the DoJ could take included “breaking Google into multiple separate companies or regulating it as a public utility”. He added that by breaking up the firm along its lines of business, it would weaken its monopolistic hold.

The ongoing battle

Google has fought an ongoing dispute with consumer groups both in the US and Europe over its practices. In response to Simpson’s letter, a spokesperson from the firm said: “We totally understand that with size and success comes scrutiny. Although given their track record, even if we broke Google in half tomorrow, Consumer Watchdog would probably insist that we split halves into quarters.”

In previous months, the groups have clashed over Google’s troubles in China and its release of the Google Dashboard, a system for users to monitor the information stored on their various Google accounts. While US groups praised Google’s exit from China, the spokesperson said Watchdog claimed it “did it for the wrong reasons”. In addition, the release of the Dashboard was branded as “flawed” and “not really transparent”.

Microsoft’s Touch Pack for Windows 7 is now available for download to any compatible computer.

It was originally released in May 2009, but was only available to OEMs to preinstall on touchscreen devices. The suite can now be downloaded onto any PC with a multitouch screen.

The pack consists of a series of programs and games created to use the features of a touchscreen.

Microsoft Windows 7

The complete guide

“If you have a Windows 7 PC or a multitouch monitor that supports Windows Touch in Windows 7, the Touch Pack for Windows 7 is a good way for you to be able to truly test the multitouch investments we’ve made in Windows 7,” Microsoft Windows Communications Manager Brandon LeBlanc said in a post on the Windows blog.

The available programs include Microsoft Surface Globe, which allows users to explore the earth as a "multitouch 3D experience", and Microsoft Surface Collage, a touch program for interacting with photos. Games include the Microsoft Blackboard and the Japanese-themed Garden Pond.

Microsoft Office 2010 has been "released to manufacturing", the last major milestone before release.

RTM occurs when Microsoft officially signs off the code, and the company will now allow Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010 and Project 2010 to be installed on new machines by PC makers, burnt to CDs and uploaded to Microsoft’s servers ready for download.

"RTM is the final engineering milestone of a product release and our engineering team has poured their heart and soul into reaching this milestone," said Microsoft’s corporate vice president Takeshi Numoto in a blog.

Complete guide to Office 2010

Discover what works, what fails and whether you should upgrade to Office 2010

"Since the start of our public beta in November 2009, we’ve had more than 7.5 million people download the beta version – that’s more than three times the number of 2007 beta downloads," he added.

The software giant plans to release Office 2010 in stages, beginning with volume licence customers – representing 250 or more PCs – with Software Assurance who will be able to download the suite on 27 April.

Volume customers without Software Assurance will be able to get the products on 1 May, followed by business customers on 12 May. Office 2010 will be offered at retail in June.

Perhaps the most significant new feature of Office 2010 is Web Apps, separate browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

Businesses looking to make use of Web Apps will need to host the software on a SharePoint server, while consumers will be able to access the suite through Windows Live.

The Barton team are all celebrating our 10th birthday this month. It only seems like yesterday when the business was incorporated, and a decade later we are still going strong and growing steadily.

Keep a look out for updates to our services portfolio which are going live this year and special events, competitions and offers during the year to celebrate our first decade.

Finally, I would like to thank all our clients, suppliers and staff who have contributed to Barton Technology?s success.

Dominic Jones
Managing Director

(original article: Barry Collins @ PC Pro)

Orange is to abandon its own faltering fixed-line broadband network and instead move to BT.

The mobile network has spent hundreds of millions of pounds on installing its own broadband equipment in telephone exchanges, but admits the investment hasn’t paid off. "We are not satisfied with where we stand with broadband, as our customer base is declining and our performance is poor," Bruno Duarte, Orange’s vice president of strategy told The Times. "But we need to remain in fixed-line broadband so decided to fundamentally change what we are doing."

We are not satisfied with where we stand with broadband, as our customer base is declining and our performance is poor

Instead, BT will take over Orange’s fixed-line business, with 61 Orange staff moving to BT as part of the process.

Orange entered the fixed-line business with the purchase of Wanadoo in 2005. Wanadoo previously operated under the name of Freeserve, the pioneering ISP of the late 1990s that was the first to offer free internet access.

Orange has long had a reputation for patchy fixed-line broadband. Last year’s PC Pro Service and Reliability Awards saw Orange score only two out of six overall, scoring better than only two of the 17 ISPs that earned sufficient votes from our readers.

Orange has more than 800,000 fixed-line broadband customers, although its network only covers around 65% of the country. The move to BT will not only increase Orange’s coverage, but will also free up resources to invest in its broadband products and customer services, according to The Times.