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Google seems poised to hire more than 6,000 people this year if Google meets projections. This was posted on the company’s website by Alan Eustace, Google’s senior vice president of engineering and research.
“In 2010 we added more than 4,500 Googlers, primarily in engineering and sales: second only to 2007 when we added over 6,000 people to Google. I love Google because of our people. It’s inspiring to be part of the team. And that’s why I am excited about 2011-because it will be our biggest hiring year in company history,” Eustace wrote.
The hiring figure is based on Google’s growing efforts in mobile display advertising and the cloud to name a a small number of accomplishments, Eustace stated. “Amazingly, Android now runs on over 100 devices with more than 300,000 activations each day. Chrome has at least 120 million active users and it’s growing quickly. Last year more than 1 million businesses switched to Google Apps and embraced its 100% web approach. ”
The executive went on to say the company will be looking to hire “across the board and around the globe,” for a variety of jobs. The company is looking to tackle “some of the toughest challenges in computer science: like building a web-based operating system from scratch, instantly searching an index of more than 100 million gigabytes and even developing cars that drive themselves.” He noted that the average number of software engineers on a project at Google is 3.5.

The hiring spree brought a variety of observations:

From the MercuryNews.com: “With the hiring plans, Google will have more than 30,000 employees by the start of 2012, a workforce still significantly smaller than Silicon Valley giants like Intel, Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard, but more than double the size of rivals like Yahoo, and more than six times the size of the company that has become its most formidable competitor — Facebook.”

From the Wall Street Journal: “Last week Google said it was testing a service that offers consumers deals to local businesses such as restaurants. Last year it hired several hundred sales representatives to call U.S. businesses such as spas, restaurants and hotels to promote new advertising initiatives. Google has been opening its wallet to keep key executives, according to recruiters and people familiar with the matter. Google executives have said the company engaged in a “war for talent” with the likes of social-networking site Facebook Inc. Last fall, Google announced a 10% raise for all of its employees.”

From MarketWatch: “Wall Street has long raised the issue of aggressive hiring at Google as a potential concern, given the expenses involved. The company has countered that hiring in large numbers is necessary, as it intends to move aggressively into multiple new markets.”

Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) is a new version of the Android platform. This new platform has been developed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets. It introduces a brand new holographic UI theme and an interaction model that builds on the things people love about Android multitasking, notifications, widgets, and others and adds many new features.
Above and beyond the user-facing features it offers, Android 3.0 is also specifically designed to provide developers the tools and capabilities they require to generate great applications for tablets and comparable devices, together with the flexibility to adapt existing apps to the innovative UI while maintaining compatibility with earlier platform versions and additional form-factors.
Here is a preview of the Android 3.0 SDK, with non-final APIs and system image, to permit developers to establish testing their existing applications on the tablet form-factor and start on getting familiar with the fresh UI patterns, APIs, and capabilities that will be accessible in Android 3.0.
Here are some of the highlights:
UI framework for creating great apps for larger screen devices: Developers can use a new UI components, new themes, richer widgets and notifications, drag and drop, and additional new features to craft rich and appealing apps for users on larger screen devices.
High-performance 2D and 3D graphics: A new property-based animation framework lets developers add vast visual effects to their apps. A built-in GL renderer lets developers request hardware-acceleration of general 2D rendering operations in their apps, across the entire app or only in specific activities or views. For adding rich 3D scenes, developers can gain benefit of a new 3D graphics engine called Renderscript.
Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the greatest possible performance.
Rich multimedia: New multimedia features such as HTTP Live streaming support, a pluggable DRM framework, and easy media file transfer through MTP/PTP, give developers new ways to bring rich content to users.
New types of connectivity: New APIs for Bluetooth A2DP and HSP let applications offer audio streaming and headset control. Support for Bluetooth insecure socket connection lets applications connect to straightforward devices that may not have a user interface.
Enhancements for enterprise: New administrative policies, such as for encrypted storage and password expiration, help enterprise administrators manage devices more effectively.
Note that applications developed with the Android 3.0 Platform Preview cannot be published on Android Market. A special thanks to the Android developers for giving a preview of what is to come with the Android 3.0 platform.

Verizon is now sending more information out about the iPhone launch. Verizon is offering existing customers of  corporate accounts a chance to buy the Verizon iPhone on February 3rd, a week before the general public.

Based on sources, Verizon will begin pre-order sales at 3am Eastern on February 3rd.

Please note a few things about pre-ordering the phone if you are existing customer of Verizon Wireless.

- Make sure you have your My Verizon self-serve account set-up online. Orders can only be placed through your my Verizon account. You can register/setup your account at… myaccount.verizonwireless.com

- On February 3rd at 3am EST, Verizon Wireless will allow current customers to order upgrades or new lines to their accounts through your My Verizon online account (make sure you have registered before the 3rd).

Verizon also states pre-sale inventory is limited, so when that inventory is depleted, customers will have to wait until the February 10th which is the public launch date.

Verizon is also allowing some existing AT&T iPhone customers to trade-in their iPhone for credit when buying a new Verizon iPhone 4. We are not sure if this will be offered to non-corporate accounts, but the trade-in price list is as follows:

iPhone 2G – 16GB: $60
iPhone 3G – 16GB: $105
iPhone 3Gs 32GB: $160
iPhone 4- 16GB: $280
iPhone 4 – 32GB: $360

Customers, of course, could do better selling their iPhones themselves, though this could provide a relatively low-hassle way to switch carriers. (trade-in prices are subject to change.) New Verizon iPhones will be shipped 2 day FedEx by default or optionally next day air.

Here at Geek Choice we try to help the people who might not be so computer-savvy or people who are new to using them. At this blog, that is our mission: to instruct, to teach, and to educate everyone who is interested in knowing certain tips, tricks, and general information from everything to viruses and security to basic functions.

For today, let’s look at taking “Control” of your computer. The key located directly at the bottom left of your keyboard has the letters CTRL on it. This little button lives up to its title, as it controls many short, quick actions to help you move around the computer more efficiently.

Below is a list of the CTRL functions you can use:

Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Insert

Copy the highlighted text or selected item.

Ctrl + V or Shift + Insert

Paste the text or object that’s in the clipboard.

Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y

Undo any change. For example, if you cut text, pressing this will undo it. This can also often be pressed multiple times to undo multiple changes. Pressing Ctrl + Y would re-do the undo.

Ctrl + F

Open the Find in any program. This includes your Internet browser to find text on the current page.

Ctrl + P

Print what’s currently being viewed in programs such as Microsoft Word or your Internet browser.

Ctrl + Left arrow / Right arrow

Move the cursor one word at a time instead of one character at a time. If you wanted to highlight one word at a time you can hold down Ctrl + Alt and then press the left or right arrow key to move one word at a time in that direction while highlighting each word.

Ctrl + Home / End

Move the cursor to the beginning or end of a document.

Page Up / Space bar and Page Down

Pressing either the page up or page down key will move that page one page at a time in that direction. When browsing the Internet pressing the space bar will also move the page down one page at a time.

Alt + Tab or Alt + Esc

Quickly switch between open programs.

F1

Open help for the program you’re in.

Now that you know how what the pro’s know, let’s move on to programs that everyone should have downloaded to their computer.

Anti-virus and malware protection

Anti-virus: Avast! or AVG

Malware / Spyware protection: Malwarebytes

Browsers

Although Microsoft Internet Explorer comes pre-installed on Windows computers, there are several excellent free alternatives that everyone should try. These free alternatives can often be faster, have more options, and in many cases be more secure than Internet Explorer. Try Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, you will be impressed.

Backup

There are dozens of free and commercially available backup programs for computers. Unfortunately many of those backups are stored locally, meaning if your house were to catch fire, get robbed, or if you simply lost your backup discs all your data would be lost. This is why when dealing with important data we suggest users use online backup services. Mozy or Dropbox are two options that give you the necessary solutions to make sure that accidents don’t turn into disasters!

This scenario is played out everyday across the world: you’re working, surfing the internet or writing an email and your computer locks up, frozen.

This happens when the computer does not respond to the inputs, for instance when you are trying to move the mouse around to restart the system and nothing happens when you click on it. It is different from a crash, when the whole system shuts down. With hangs you have the ability to recover the by ending the task and restarting the program.

One main cause of hangs is called a deadlock, in which one process may send a signal to a second process then stop execution until it receives a response. If the second process is busy the signal will be forced to wait until the process can get to it. However, if the second process was busy sending a signal to the first process then both processes would wait forever for the other to respond to signals and never see the other’s signal.

Sometimes it is just one program that hangs, or it could be the whole screen, regardless there are ways to recover from it.

One of the first things you should try in attempting to recover from a lockup is ending the application which has caused the freeze. You can do this by using a native program called Task Manager. To bring the Task Manager up press CTRL then while holding CTRL,press and hold the ALT key, next reach over to the top right of your computer and press the DEL key. Once you release the keys a window should open giving you a view of running applications.

This tool has saved many a file and application, as well as the whole computer, giving us the ability to recover from what seems like a random occurrence.

Assuming Task Manager will open, check the list of applications for any programs that say “Not Responding” under “Status”. If Internet Explorer or any other applications you had open read “Not Responding”, then you may Right-Click on them and select “End Task” from the menu. This should close the running application, if you are prompted to “End Now” or “Wait for it to respond” choose to “End Now”. By doing this you may lose any work you had open in this application but it will normally allow you to save anything else that was open at the time of the freeze.

If Task Manager is not working for you and you have no other way of closing the frozen computer programs then you may try powering down the computer. The easiest way to do this when the computer is not responding is by holding the power button in for about ten to fifteen seconds. The machine will power down, if it does not your last resort is to physically unplug the computer from the wall. Once powered down you may turn it back on and resume working, hopefully problem free.

If you continue having problems with the laptop or computer you may want to call a computer repair technician. The technicians at Geek Choice know how to get in and get out leaving your computer feeling healthy again!

When we used a dial-up connection to the Internet, security was not a significant problem. With today’s “always on” broadband connections, security has become a major concern. This discussion applies only to broadband connections like DSL or cable modem connections. Many broadband connections come with a router built in to the modem.

If the box that came from the telephone company or cable company has more than one plug that looks like a wide telephone jack, chances are that you have a built in router.

This is what a DSL Modem/Router looks like from the back.

To check your computer’s security, go to Hacker Watch for a free security check.

To secure your computer, the first thing you need is a router. Every router has a hardware firewall. A router is the only device to appear on the Internet, and the router is a dumb device with no important data. Without a router, your computer is on the Internet, and there is important data on it. There are software firewalls but they are not nearly as effective as a routers hardware firewall. The built in firewall in Windows XP is particularly ineffective.

A router is not expensive, and it’s easy to connect. There are two basic types of routers: wired and wireless. A wired router may be purchased for as little as $10, while a wireless router for as little as $30. Every wireless router also has wired connections – usually 4 wired connections. For current prices, check your local office supply store.

A router connects with standard Ethernet connectors, sometimes called Category 5 Patch Cables. It simply connects between your cable or DSL modem and the computer. Some early modems connected with a USB connector instead of Ethernet. If you have one of these, call your DSL or cable provider and they will replace it. Many DSL modems have both USB and Ethernet connections. If yours is connected with USB but the modem has both USB and Ethernet connectors, you just need to find the original box – there will be an Ethernet cable in it, or you can buy one at any office supply store for about $5.

If you have a cable connection and a wired router, you’re done. If you have DSL, there is one more step.

Since DSL uses your telephone line, there are more than one ISP’s on the line. A DSL connection has to connect to the right ISP. You will have to uninstall the connection software that came with the DSL package and tell the router how to connect. To uninstall the connection software, click on “Start”, click on “Settings”, click on “Control Panel”, click on “Add/Remove Programs”. Find the software that came with DSL modem and remove it. To tell your router how to connect, bring up your web browser (usually Internet Explorer) and go to 192.168.1.1. That is the standard router address. If that address does not work, find the address of your router in the router manual. Also find the router password. You now need to define the connection type. It will be called DSL or PPPoE. Select that type of connection and enter your DSL account name and password from the paperwork that came with your DSL package. You’re done for a wired router.

If you have a wireless router, there is another step.

Since a wireless router broadcasts a signal over the air, it should be secured through encryption. The signal can travel about 300 feet under ideal conditions. Also, the router password should be changed to prevent a hacker from taking over your router. Standard passwords are well known. If you choose not to secure the signal, someone could park in front of your house, and hack into your system or download hours of illegal music and you would be liable.

To secure your wireless router, you need to activate WEP, WPA, WPA2 or encryption. Every router is a bit different, so check the router manual for instructions. You can also turn off wireless operation and use the router as a wired router.

The day of the desktop tower is coming to an end as PC’s and Mac’s try to keep up with their competitors: smartphones, touch-screens, and tablets.

Desktops used to be the only face for computers, now there are many different types of technology that offer access to all the same features the desktop used to have a monopoly. It would seem that desktops are heading for the basement, where all the old dinosaur equipment go, extinct as the new and fresh technology moves on and evolves.

Well that is what the desktop is doing: evolving from the basic, simple, boring model of a monitor, keyboard, mouse and keyboard with five wires going every where cluttering up space to something new, innovative, and exciting.

The desktop has come a long way from its days filling up a room, to fitting on a desk in the form of a calculator, to a personal machine with a monitor thanks to Apple and Windows in the early 80′s. From that point on it has been the upgrade and improved model, trying to change the look, feel, and performance as technology advanced.

With the history in mind, and the retrospective look at it, gives us a gauge to measure progress with. Measure the use of desktops today with the use of it 10 years ago. Big change. Now we have computers in our hand and sitting on our laps, the desktop is more like a dust-top, as people favor mobility over ability.

Ability is perhaps the key to desktops surviving. They never really lost the ability to deliver the most power in one machine, that fact has remained the same, the need for powerful performance in video, graphics, space, and speed, the desktop still sits on top. The market always changes and the big change that affected the desktop was the touch screen, which is run by the system-on-chip (SoC).

Touch screens are just cool, the way one can push a button on a screen and it presses down as if it was real, who wants to play with a mouse after that?

In comes the All-In-One PC. The idea was to follow the trend of the touch screen and the smaller, more compact design.

So developers picked up the CPU sitting in the desktop tower and shoved it into the monitor, kicking the tower out of the window. There you have it.

Now we have the iMac Core, the Gateway ZX6900-01e, and the HP TouchSmart 600 Quad. The pluses are worth considering, as Microsoft has big plans on improving their Windows 7 to work better on the touch screen. Another plus is the mobility of these All-In-One PC’s. A lot of them come with handles and carrying cases, there is only one plug so it is easy to disconnect, pack it up from your office and carry it home to use it there!

The desktop has become a better version of the laptop.

So stay tuned in to the Geek Choice Blog to find out the newest developments on this topic!

Most people who use the internet know that certain sites are slow, and others are fast. Only some really know why. The reason is, yes you guessed it, too many people overloading the web page, but it goes deeper than that. Your Internet Service Provider is behind the scenes controlling the speed of the internet, they are the reason why this blog loaded so slow. It is not because so many people are reading the interesting articles at Geek Choice, it is because the ISP only lets the user a certain amount of bandwidth or access to the web.

The name for it is data transfer cap, they are almost the norm now, which means that high speed cable Internet isn’t as high speed as it used to be.

When cable Internet was new, it was not uncommon to realize download speeds of over 2 or 3mbs. In fact, I remember one user who was downloading at over 10mbs! Of course, in those early exciting days, the cable subscribers were few and shared bandwidth wasn’t a problem.

So many people access the internet every day, it is no wonder all these pages are slow since you and the rest of the world are zooming around downloading, uploading, and sucking up all the speed that is limited.

Many ISPs engineered their facilities in the 1990s to use dynamic capacity allocation to serve multiple bursty users. Each user is expected to use high speed transmission for only a short time, for example to download a megabyte web page in less than a second. When use is continuous, as for file sharing or Internet radio or streaming video, a few users who use the connection at high rates for hours at a time may seriously impair the service of others.

One type of bandwidth cap, administered by an Internet service provider simply limits the bitrate or speed of data transfer on a broadband Internet connection. The purpose of bandwidth capping is to prevent individual users from consuming the entire transmission capacity of the cable, a shared resource. Critics have charged that it is a method to charge consumers more by introducing tiered bandwidth caps.

Cable is a shared service which works like a LAN—a local area network. Your cable performance varies depending on how many people, in your neighborhood, are using the cable service at the same time.

If your whole neighborhood is using the cable service, then your Internet speed drops. However, if you are the only one using the cable service, your Internet speed could increase dramatically.

So your bandwidth could vary widely throughout the day. At least, with this shared bandwidth model, you have the chance to realize higher Internet speeds. Typically, early in the morning or late in the evening, you would notice better performance. However, this is changing. And the reason is due to capping.

As the broadband market increased, many cable providers began imposing data transfer caps. This goes back a few years, but many subscribers weren’t even aware of it—not aware why their download speeds seemed slower than originally advertised. Data transfer caps prevent you from exceeding a certain speed limit. Depending on your provider, the download caps could be under 256kbs or over 1.5mps.

What this means is that the shared bandwidth system no longer gives you any potential, at all, to achieve faster speeds. Even if you are the only person on the Internet, your bandwidth will never increase.

Again, consider yourself lucky if you have or can find a cable service provider that does not impose capping and that guarantees a minimum data transfer rate, not just a maximum one.

By the way, at the present time, my maximum cable download speed is 64kbs, but averages more often at 10kbs. I’ve been capped for the month by going over the transfer limit quota.

Remember when you had to drive across town to get a signal from wireless connections coming out of cafe’s or someone’s house? It seems like a faint memory now, as technology speeds on with or without us, those days are done. Today there is a way to carry a Wi-Fi signal with you. This is a growing trend that will only keep getting more use because people need connections, and they need them now. Not down the street, not at home, todays consumer of electronics and web media needs access to the world every second of the day. Just what is mobile wireless, how does it work, and how can I get connected?

This device right here is from Novatel, and it is called Mi-Fi – a compact wireless router you can pocket and walk around while producing a wi-fi signal.

It is a new day and a completely different age for using the internet. Mi-Fi gives the user an option of connecting up to 5 devices to it, whether that be your smartphone, laptop, desktop, or gaming device. No more having to sit in a noisy Starbucks or try to connect to a weak signal from someone else’s router. You can go anywhere where the signal can backconnect to a cellular network (Sprint, ATT&T, Verizon) and then frontconnect to local Wi-Fi devices. So the signal is sent to the cellular network, then sent back through a Wi-Fi device to create a local area of shared internet connections.

Sprint will actually be offering the capability to connect this Mi-Fi device with 4G speed. This blog talked about the real difference between the regular third generation speed and the new fourth generation, coming to the conclusion that the only difference is in faster download speeds for websites and media. The catch is finding a device and a network that supports the 4G connection, so good luck as it is still very new.

There are other devices that create a mobile Wi-Fi spot, such as ATT&T’s 3G which connects via USB to your laptop. Apple came out with an app called MyWi, which turns your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot.

However, beware of security issues that could leave you wishing you had not opened up this mobile hotspot. Hackers and anyone who can search the internet for ways to get into your Wi-Fi connection can access personal information. Already there have been accounts of Wi-Fi signals being breached by hackers and information such as security keys and GPS locations were  compromised.

Mi-Fi from Novatel is for the consumer who is always on the go and cannot spend hours at the various locations for Wi-Fi connections. It is expensive, you must activate it through a contract with Sprint costing $60 a month. The device itself costs about $100.

What does this say about the future for Wi-Fi and the internet? It is saying that laptops are becoming less of a necessity as smartphones offer the same functions but with easier access and portability.

As technology speeds up, can we keep pace with the constant updates and improvements and releases of everything new? Better tighten up those running shoes!

The reason we secure a wireless network is to stop people from using the services of our network who don’t have permission to utilize them. It is harder to secure a wireless network from hackers as compared to a classic wired network. This is due to the fact that a wireless network can be accessed anywhere inside the range of its antenna.

In order to secure a wireless network from hackers, we should take proper steps to save ourselves against security issues. If you don’t secure a wireless network from hackers, you might end up without its service. The consequence might also include the utilization of our network to attack further networks. To secure a wireless network from hackers, you should follow these simple wireless networking tips.

The first thing you have to do is to position the access point’s antenna in a place which restricts the range of its signal to go further than the required area. You should not put the antenna close to a window because glass can’t obstruct its signals. Place it in a central location of the building.

But you can go even further.

Use WEP:

WEP stands for Wireless encryption protocol.  It’s a customary technique for encrypting traffic on a wireless network. You should never skip it as that will allow hackers to get instant access to the traffic over a wireless network.

Change the SSID, disable the broadcast of SSID:

SSID stands for service set identifier.  It is the recognition thread utilized by the wireless access point due to which the customers are capable of starting connections. For every wireless access point arranged, select an exclusive as well as unique SSID. Also, if it’s attainable, hold back the broadcast of the SSID out over the antenna. It won\t appear in the listing of offered networks, while being able to provide services as usual.

Disable DHCP:

By doing this, the hackers will have to decode the TCP/IP parameters, subnet mask as well as the IP address in order to hack your wireless network.

Disable or modify SNMP settings:

Change the private as well as public community settings of SNMP. You can also just disable it. Otherwise the hackers will be able to utilize SNMP to get significant info regarding your wireless network.

Utilize access lists:

For additional security of your wireless network, and if your access point support this feature, employ an access list. An access list lets us determine precisely which machinery is permitted to attach to an access point. The access points which include the access list can employ trivial file transfer protocol (TFTP) now and then in order to download modernized lists to steer clear of hackers.

Wi-Fi and other wireless connections are all open to attack from outsiders and hackers. With this new and easy internet comes new and threatening risks. Hackers can get into your information and find out everything about you, including financial and personal, things you do not want out in the open.

By taking these steps, you can make sure that hackers stay on the outside.