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A lot of the reason we see people buying Mac’s over PC’s is not just because of its ease of use but also because it has been virus free for the most part. Well now that might start to change as there are reports out there that a backdoor Trojan is floating around. The Trojan is a variant of a well known remote access Trojan *RAT*, it is known in Windows as the darkComet. It has come to be known on the MAC as the Blackhole RAT. The problem that can happen with Mac users is the Black Hole name is already being used by legitimate application that will increase security on your Mac. It helps you get rid of sensitive information like recently used file lists, data that is on the clipboard and much more.

It has been known to do these types of things to your PC:
Place text files on your desktop
Sending URLs to the client to open a website
Sending a restart, shutdown or a sleep command
Running arbitrary shell commands
Obstructing what you are doing by placing a full screen window with a message that only allows for you to click a reboot option only
Possible the worst of them all, using a pop up fake admin password window to try and phish out your password

It looks this Trojan is able to get on your system main through pirated software downloads, torrent sites, or anywhere you may download applications that need to be installed. So be careful where you download your applications.

Apple and Intel presented Thunderbolt on Thursday, which is a new wired connection technology that combines data transfer and video output capabilities. It seems that this will actually be standard on the new Macbook Pro models, and will be replacing the Mini Displayport. Thunderbolt like Firewire allows users to transfer lots of media very fast between devices and with a very low latency and extremely high data preservation. What this means is that what you put in through one end will come out exactly the same on the other. This is what professional photo; video and graphic design professionals need to do their jobs at the best of their abilities.

The next thought is that this technology will take off and be put in digital cameras and recorders. Thunderbolt will also be able to use optical cables which can be built longer than copper-based ones, for example a hardwired networked studio or office.

Another big deal with Thunderbolt is that it supports daisy-chaining and display connections. So you can plug a hard drive into a thunderbolt port and then plug a monitor into that drive if it also has a Thunderbolt port and get this with no loss of any bandwith!

This is just some of the amazing things Thunderbolt can do. I will be keeping an eye on this technology and give you anymore updates I have as they come along!

We try to reach our customers in many ways; it can be through direct visits, social media, through search engines, ect. Google is now making frequent changes to their search engine. So now Google is changing their search engines to improve the experience.

Google has announced an algorithm change to about 12% of their U.S. query results. It is hard to say whether or not these changes will impact any online businesses in the long term but at this time there hasn’t been seen material impact on content and media business. It difficult to see how much this change will impact businesses that are trying to make a presence online or even the tons of SEO companies out there that help with your Google searches etc. I am not sure exactly how big of an impact 12% actually will be but over time I am sure we will see where the impact truly lies.

It has been reported that mobile application developer Shapsavvy has reported that their Android applications have been actually tested on many Blackberry units. There was a report from BGR last month that RIM, the makers of Blackberry are working on a solution that would allow Android Applications to run on its Blackberry Playbook tablet. It does seem now that RIM maybe doing more extensive testing what the Android applications and may even go beyond the Playbook tablet. Shapsavvy’s analytical states the following devices accessed its servers while running the Shosavvy app for Android. The phones that have been tested are as follows
The Blackberry 8300
The Blackberry 8600
The Blackberry 8520
There is still no answer on why these old devices would be used for testing. It does seem like things will become more clearer in the following months.

The Mac OS X Lion is set up for a public launch in the summer of this year. There are a few new features that I found that I wanted to share with you. The thought is that the Lion takes some of the best ideas from the iPad and brings them to the Mac for the eight OS release for Mac. Lion will have such features as mission control which is the new view of everything that is currently running on your Mac. The Launchpad that is the new home for all of the Mac apps and full screen apps that use the entire Mac display, the Mac App store, the best place to discover, install and automatically updated the Mac apps.
Here are just a few more items that are going to be included in the new Lion OS. A new version of the Mail that has a new widescreen layout that was inspired by the iPad, It also groups related messages into one easy to read timeline, it comes with a more powerful search and will support Microsoft Exchange 2010. The airdrop is a simple way to copy files wirelessly from one mac to another without having to set anything up. An auto save feature that will automatically save your work. The Mac OS X Lion server will be making setting up a server very easy to do and it will also have support for managing OS X Lion, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch devices. This could in fact be the best OS to come from Mac.

It has been reported that the Apple is holdings it’s always anticipated event on March 2nd of this year. Many sources have stated that the company will be unveiling the first look at the iPad 2. The thoughts on the iPad 2 are simple, it will be thinner than the iPad 1, and it will have an improved display and will also have a front facing camera for face to face video chat. It is also said that the 2 will be running on a Qualcomm multimode chip with GSM and CDMA based network support around the entire world.

This show will be a very big deal for Apple. With competition finally hitting the tablet market we will be seeing Apple trying to show off how great the iPad can really be. Every other tablet is running the Honeycomb version of Google’s Android mobile OS. And with nearly 25 million iPads sold since its inception last spring will the iPad 2 be able to reach the same plateau with all of this new competition? As I always say, time will tell.

If you use hotmail and the Windows Live features that are offered with it you got a nice surprise yesterday, the ability to Facebook message your friends through your hotmail account. Now in the hotmail inbox you are able to chat not only with any MSN messenger friends but also your Facebook friends as well. The big thing is when this was actually announced about 2.5 million people connected their Facebook accounts to with Windows Live. Now there were about 6 regions in the world that could already do this but now it is worldwide. Now it makes the total number of people linking Facebook and Live to over 20 million.

It is very simple to set up. First link your Facebook account to Windows Live and just check the box that states chat with my Facebook friends in messenger. This will give you the ability to start chatting with Facebook friend’s right through hotmail by clicking on their Facebook contact name. Sometimes you do have to log out and then log back in to get it to work for the first time but once it’s up you can have all the chats you need in one place. This is a new convenient feature for all of you hotmail users out there.

Some people have been awaiting the arrival of the Motorola Xoom, a possible alternative to the iPad. Well it looks like those people who wanted the Xoom so bad will have to wait for one little thing. Well maybe it’s actually a big thing. It will ship on February 24th with NO flash support. If you look above at the Verizon sheet for the Xoom in very small print you will see * Adobe Flash expected Spring 2011. So you won’t have to wait very long to get flash support but shouldn’t the Xoom had been prepared for this? This was supposed to slay the iPad and be its first real competition. Yet it won’t have flash at launch. So maybe the only positive thing to come of this is that people using the Xoom won’t have to worry about annoying flash ads popping up while surfing the web.

Google announced that it is rolling out a new tool for you to import your Delicious bookmarks to Google Bookmarks.

Delicious is a bookmarking website to store your bookmarks online. This allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks anywhere that you go. You can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.

This importer takes your login credentials and imports all your bookmarks while it preserves your labels and tags. It is very interesting on the timing of this announcement as it looks like Yahoo is going to sell Delicious.

Apple is considering changing its 15 minute purchase windows for people to buy successive apps or purchase in-app items with only one password sign-in. They are considering this because as of right now it holds your password in place they want to change that in efforts to stop unwanted app purchases.

Multiple companies are asking that Apple make it standard that any in-app purchases requiring a password for each individual purchase. So at the moment you only have to sign in once to buy apps and if you buy another app within 15 minutes you don’t need to put a password in for it. This problem stems from a lot issues with children buying in game items that are aimed at children and with those orders have reached in the thousands of dollars purchased.

With the fact that the developers of these games are also behind the consumers on this to change the application purchasing system, well I think Apple may have to look long and hard on doing this change in there next OS update.