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March 3, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Windows 10 has seen the fastest rate of adoption of any OS in Microsoft’s history. It’s unquestionably a good product, and even better, at least for a limited time, it’s a free product. That’s a hard combination to beat, but for a variety of reasons, some people just don’t want to upgrade, and that’s their […]
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March 2, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Are you planning to file your taxes online? If so, you may see some delays in getting your refund. The IRS has been experiencing intermittent problems with their eFile system that has been making it impossible to take the final step in online submissions. This requires online filers to save their returns and try again […]
March 1, 2016 by Vertical Axion
How long has it been since we’ve seen a full week go by without another headline of yet another data breach? Far too long, and this week is no exception. The latest victim? High-end retailer Neiman Marcus. Fortunately, at least in terms of scope and scale, this breach is a relatively small one. A spokesman […]
February 29, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Everybody’s always looking for new ways to save money. A little here, a little there, and before you know it, you can realize significant savings. The problem with that approach, however, is that sometimes, the quest to save a few bucks can wind up being much more expensive in the long run. Take, for example, […]
February 27, 2016 by Vertical Axion
If you use Microsoft products, you’ve no doubt made at least some use of Cortana, the company’s digital assistant function. If you’re in the Apple camp, then Siri has become an increasingly important part of your life. These digital assistants began as small components of a much larger ecosystem, and in their earliest iterations, were […]
February 26, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Smartphones rule the world. Even a few years ago, a statement like that would seem silly, but today, silly has become fact. There are more smartphones in active service today than there are human beings living on planet earth, and we use them for just about everything. People watch videos, stream music, do work, play […]
February 25, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Have you been hacked? Has your personal information been compromised? If so, what are you worth? What’s your information selling for? If you’re curious, take a trip to the Dark Web to find out. The Dark Web is the “underground” internet. All of the servers are hidden and encrypted. The only way to access them […]
February 24, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Have you heard of Hot Potato? It’s the latest security exploit that Windows-based machines are vulnerable to. Note that this doesn’t target a particular version of Windows, but rather, spans everything from Windows 7, forward to Windows Server 2012. The exploits take advantage of hooks and weaknesses built into the core of the OS itself, […]
February 23, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Ransomware is shaping up to be the most significant threat from the hacker community in 2016. Over the last few days, Locky, a new piece of malware has been spreading like a wildfire across the Internet. The problem began February 16, when Locky was sent to 400,000 unlucky potential victims. In its first form, it […]
February 22, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Do you own a Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, or Surface Pro 3? If so, and if you made your purchase before March, 2015, you should know that Microsoft has just issued a recall for the AC power cords for those devices. According to a spokesman for the company, the recall was issued because over […]
February 20, 2016 by Vertical Axion
A health insurer based in St. Louis, called Centene, has “misplaced” six hard drives. Normally that would not be a big deal, but these particular hard drives happened to contain the personal data of around a million patients. The missing data includes patient names, addresses, birthdays, and social security numbers, but thankfully, not payment information. […]
February 19, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Since 2011, a company called SplashDash has posted a “Worst Password List” based on data mined from hacks and data breaches. What’s remarkable about the annual list is how little it changes from one year to the next. In the age of weekly, high profile hacks, in the age of rampant identity theft, one would […]
February 18, 2016 by Vertical Axion
For many months, Amazon has been planning to take the retail game to the next level. Their ambitious plan first became visible with the inclusion of mysterious “Dash Buttons” on various classes of products. Mysterious, because at least until now, those buttons didn’t actually do anything. Clicking on them would get you absolutely nothing. Quietly, […]
February 17, 2016 by Vertical Axion
As almost everyone is aware, Email was the first “killer app.” It very quickly went from being an expensive, idle curiosity, where users had to buy digital stamps in order to send each and every email, to something so ubiquitous that on average, people have 3 email addresses, even if they don’t regularly use them. […]
February 16, 2016 by Vertical Axion
As the economy continues to improve, and labor gets tighter, wages start to rise. It’s inevitable, and that reality sends shock waves of fear through the small business community. After all, they can’t hope to compete with the big players in their industries, and let’s face it, the lure of a significantly bigger paycheck can […]
February 15, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Back in September, not long after Apple started selling the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, users began complaining of a strange problem with their batteries. You may have experienced this yourself. One minute, you’ll be using your phone, and the next minute, it will simply shut down, citing low battery power. It turns out that […]
February 13, 2016 by Vertical Axion
When Google Chrome was first released, it was hands down the fastest browser on the web. Nothing else even came close. Over time, other, competing browsers began to catch up, speed-wise. In fact, recently, when Microsoft released Edge, their new offering that replaced the beleaguered Internet Explorer, the new browser actually clocked in as being […]
February 12, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Is your company considering “going wireless?” If you haven’t taken the plunge yet, then it’s something you should strongly consider. It’s not as simple as just buying something off the shelf and plugging it in though. There are a number of considerations, and we’ll go over the basics just below: Security With security being on […]
February 11, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Most businessmen and women have an email signature, but have you given much thought to how effective it is? If it’s been a while since you’ve given any thought to the email signature you’re using, now might be a good time to revisit the issue. So what makes a good, effective signature? We’ll outline several […]
February 10, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Security firm Fire Eye has reported on a new and disturbing Trojan making the rounds, called SlemBunk. Unlike so many of the other Trojans we’ve heard about, this one specifically targets handheld devices, and Android devices in particular. Most often, the app is downloaded by users visiting certain websites. It is especially prevalent on pornography […]
February 9, 2016 by Vertical Axion
A few cities across America are currently offering ultra-high-speed broadband connectivity. Many more cities have plans to do so in the near future. Here, we’re talking about speeds of up to 10-gigabits, which is nearly a thousand times faster than the speeds offered by the broadband connections in most homes across the nation. In business […]
February 8, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Most credit card companies are hastening to replace their old style magnetic stripe cards with the new EMV chip-embedded ones. The new embedded chips are designed with one purpose in mind: to add an extra layer of security to credit card purchases and to make fraud much less likely. The good news is, the new […]
February 6, 2016 by Vertical Axion
2016 is off to a rough start in the world of internet security. Just seven days into the new year, and Time Warner has reported that a small subset of its customer data was hacked. Unfortunately, since Time Warner has a massive customer list, their “small” breach is at least 320,000 accounts in size. Granted, […]
February 5, 2016 by Vertical Axion
This year for Christmas, many children around the country, and indeed, the world, got a shiny new smartphone under the tree. It’s not hard to see why; they have become, in a relatively short span of time, one of the most popular, ubiquitous devices on earth. In fact, the number of smartphones in service today […]
