This is what we know about the new system.
1. In place of a taskbar full of applications and a desktop packed with shortcut icons, your screen consists of a grid of tiles.
2. As with icons, clicking or tapping a tile launches an application; unlike icons, the tiles display useful data. An example, the weather tile, for instance, displays the current weather even when you don’t launch the weather app.
3. If you’ve seen Windows Phone 7, you’ll immediately recognize this new design style, which Microsoft calls “Metro.” In Windows 8, whether you’re using a touchscreen tablet or a powerful keyboard-and mouse desktop PC (or anything in between), the default interface is a horizontal Metro-style grid of tiles that are arranged into customizable groups.
4. Applications made for this new interface work like tablet apps and display well on smaller screens with finger driven interfaces.
5. What does that mean? It means no minimize or maximize buttons, no scrollbars, and no drop-down menus. Swipe in from the right side of your tablet or touchscreen PC, and you’re presented with Windows 8.

If these five points don’t make you get your blanket’s out to stand in line for the newest operating system. A comparison of the system requirements and improvements will have you finding your hand warms to defend against the cool and rainy October fall weather off. The system requirements are an improvement in system requirements, hardware support, cloud features, security, and performance. Here is a summary of the improvements.

System requirements
Windows 7: IGHz processor, IGB of RAI^, 20G8 of hard-disk space, DirectX 9 graphics card.
Windows 8: Same as Windows 7, though it may use even fewer resources. Also supports select ARM system-on-chips.

Hardware support:
Windows 7: Needs third-party drivers for USB 3.0, printers, orientation sensors, and cellular data modems
Windows 8: Built-in support for USB 3.0, many printers, lots of sensor types, and cellular data modems

Cloud Features:
Windows 7: Users must install third-party apps to sync files or settings: cloud data not universally accessible to applications
Windows 8: Log in with Live ID, and settings, data, and Metro apps sync automatically. Some cloud services’ data available to all Metro apps.

Security:
Windows 7: Windows Defender combats spyware only. TPM for encrypted hard drives. SmartScreen filter in IE 8 and IE 9.
Windows 8: Defender upgraded to fight all malware types. TPM extends to hardware verification. SmartScreen filter throughout OS.

Performance:
Windows 7: Faster and more efficient than Vista.
Windows 8: Faster and more efficient than Windows 7 (in prebeta form).

Windows 8 is a lot more than a new interface. It has features to benefit everyone, even if you’re using a standard PC with no touchscreen and you plan to spend most of your time in that good old desktop environment. Thanks to a new memory manager and serious optimization efforts, the current early version of Windows 8 actually uses fewer resources than Windows 7.

The Windows 8 systems—prebeta, to be sure—with boot times so fast that we could hardly believe they were running Windows. If you are tired of managing printer drivers, Windows 8 introduces a “class driver” for printers, like those used today for keyboards, mice, and USB devices. Just plug in your printer, and it should work; most printers that support Windows 7 work with the class driver USB 3.0 gets native support, too. As for developers, they can look forward to standardized interfaces to deal with touchscreens (such screens are far more responsive in Windows 8 than in Windows 7) and with a wealth of sensors found on mobile devices—accelerometers, gyroscopes, electronic compasses, and so on.

The new Restart and Refresh features should prove popular Restart returns your PC to its out-of-the-box condition in 10 or 15 minutes, wiping all user data—perfect for selling or donating a computer you’re replacing. Refresh keeps all your user profiles, data, and Metro-style apps from the Windows Store, while returning everything else to a clean slate. It’s like reinstalling Windows and copying back all your data, but it will be one-click easy and considerably faster Power users will Love the new Task Manager I t has received a face-lift that displays useful data about your running processes, gives better at-a-glance info on system performance, and incorporates the startup configuration capabilities of Msconfig. Multimonitor users can better control how the taskbar operates, and easily choose which display the Start screen appears on.
For businesses and IT managers, Microsoft throws in a host of new tools. including built-in Hyper-V virtualization on the client, enhanced remote desktop capabilities, and the ability to run Windows 8—complete with applications and data—from a USB device. Explorer has a new layout and Ribbon interface to make more-common commands easier to access, and you can directly mount VHD and ISO files without needing any extra software.
Microsoft has yet to reveal all the tricks in the Windows 8 goody bag. Even so, it’s easy to be positive about the bold direction that Microsoft is clearly taking. And although such dramatic changes are sure to alienate some users, they are needed if Windows is to remain relevant as an operating system for the next several years.

In addition, RAID was intended to assist with redundancy. This process is called failover protection or fault tolerance. The function was to make sure the information and data on the system continue to be usable if and when the drive fails. Many times in this system environment, you might hear the term 1-disk or 2-disk redundancy. This defines the number of drives that can go down and the array of the system operations continues to be viable.

The operation of redundancy is crucial for small businesses. A day without data is devastating to organizations that depend on it and drive failure does occur. One point to note, RAID’s data redundancy does not offer protection against information lost to malware, natural disaster, or theft. Therefore, a good backup system and practice is important for all organizations. RAID will provide a safeguard against lost data due to hardware failure.

Although many of us would like it if the world was safe and full of friendly honest people,  as e-mail, on-line shopping, and more financial transactions are being completed by automated billing and email.  This new way of life has become a way of life for criminals too.  The number of cyberspace crooks and criminal activity has increased. That’s why it’s important to protect your password.

Think of the information about you someone can get with your password.  If an individual is able to read your messages:  here are some of the things they might find 1) tax information, 2) your contact information, 3) contact information for all your personal and business emails, 3) confirmation and account information for all bills paid online, 4) personal information and demographic information from your emails, 5) information about your children if discussed in emails to their schools, other loved ones, or doctors.  Another aspect of this type of criminal activity is scamming the individual’s contacts for money or buying products. 

Truth is, most people do such a bad job of creating a password, guessing is easy.  Topping the list of bad passwords are: the name of a spouse, your house number, a child’s name, the digits of your birthday or the name of a pet. I once knew a fellow who used his own name for a password, Jason Mayer, CEO of www.mtitechs.com  said.   This is one of the worst password security breaches an individual can make.

Password Strength

Password strength is a gauge of the ability of the password to word off others from a brute-force attack against your email and computer.  Typically a passwords’ strength can determine how many attempts an invader has to make to have absolute access to the unique password the individual selected.  This is based on an average number of guesses.  What elements are important to a secure password?  The strength of a password is a comprised of complexity, length, and unpredictability.

Why is this important?

The utilization of a strong password decreased the danger of a security breach.  Although the password is important, it does not substitute the importance of other security measures and controls.  The value of a strong password is solidly established in the authentication system software.  Typically, the authentication system software will analyze how often password guesses can be accessed and tried by an invader.  In addition, authentication system software can determine how safe passwords information is transmitted and stored.  Other dangers to computer hackers unrelated to password breaching are dumpster diving, keystroke logging, phishing, side-channel attacks, social engineering, and software vulnerabilities.

Below is an image of what the email looks like:

According to Apple, the upgrade was supposed to remedy the battery life concerns users were already experiencing. However it seems to have done just the opposite and add a few more pesky issues.

Stay tuned for the latest updates on this issue.

The recently launched Google music store provides a good iTunes alternative for Android Users. Simply create a free account at music.google.com. You must have a valid Gmail address (which you more than likely do if you are using an android device).

Once you’ve set up your Google Music account, you’ll have the option to download Google’s music manager software for your computer allowing you to upload the contents of your music library to your Google Music locker. You are limited to storing 20,000 songs in your Google Music locker, but any music you purchase through Google’s music store won’t count against that number.

Account created; now visit market.android.com/music to start browsing through music offerings. Currently users can only purchase music through the Android Market website via a PC. However, an update to the market is sure to roll out soon allowing you to browse and purchase from your mobile device as well.

Song prices range from $0.99 to $1.29 and show up instantaneously across your devices. Install the app on your phone and you are able to stream over the air. Songs can also be saved to your SD card so you can still listen to your music even in low signal areas.

Stay tuned for more updates about Google Music from MTI.

For you, the consumer, it means an increase in price for the cost of
hard-drives, pc’s, servers etc in the very near future and possibly become completely unavailable.

If you are thinking of upgrading your equipment or purchasing a new computer or laptop now is the time to do it. Contact MTI to discuss your options.

The majority of your options on the browser interface are now housed under 3 symbols: home, star and gear.

The home symbol: If clicked, this symbol will take you to your homepage. You can manually set your homepage to a website of your choice or leave it on the default.

The star symbol: This symbol allows you to add websites to your favorites and view your browser history.

The gear symbol: Users can edit internet options, print, view downloads via I.E. and much more.
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Pinning Your Favorite Sites:

Pinning is simple, just grab the tab of the site you’re on and pull it down into the taskbar (Windows 7). With pinning, you can also get notified when activity happens on the website you pinned i.e. Facebook notifications just like your mobile applications. To unpin, simply right click on the icon and select unpin.

The One Box:

IE9 now has a single text box for website addresses and search, too, called the One Box. This box also includes your refresh and stop icons.

Do you have additional questions about the new IE browser or are you interested in upgrading?, contact MTI today.

The developer preview is set to release soon; here are just a few of the highlights:

*Touch screen, Mouse or Pen, you decide, how you interact with the OS changes i.e. start button will appear in a different location when using a mouse.

* Windows 8 comes equipped with Internet Explorer 10 allowing for a full screen view of websites.

*Picture Password allow for you to select a photo for your password. Confirming your login will require you to perform 3 simple gestures.

*Smarter touch keyboards similar to that on a windows phone, but with more features i.e. wider display.

* Windows App Store that will promote Metro-style, full-screen applications, Categories shown off included games, social networking apps, productivity, education, and finance. You’ll be able to see screen shots, view descriptions, and try apps before you buy them.

Excited about Windows new OS? Stay tuned for more updates from MTI.