5 Tips To Secure Your Android Device

When it comes to securing your android device it takes more than just placing that lock on your home screen. You need to be able to protect your device even in the event of them guessing your password. These five tips are essential when it comes to protecting your android device. These apps can all be used together, and they all have their own unique ways of protecting your android device.

1. 360 Mobile Security

 This is a free antivirus app that is meant to block malicious apps from getting onto your device. It has a very clean interface and also has some tools for speeding up your Android Device. This app is great at keeping out malware, but there are some things to note. This app is very new to the market place, but the developers are working to add new features some that we are familiar with, and some that might be unique. However we can be sure that this app has a long way to go, and it is heading there at a faster pace then most of the other android antivirus apps that are on the market. The one issue with this app is the enhanced graphics which use a slightly higher battery amount then other android antivirus apps. But since it can protect you from various vulnerabilities it makes this app worth it.
Download The App Here

2. App Lock

This app lock app comes with various protection features such as anti uninstall and administrator rights. This makes the app much more difficult to remove, and it can prevent anyone from accessing your apps or system settings. Essentially removing this app is very difficult, and you will be protected from most people. However a more advanced user might be able to bypass it or essentially hacks into the device and remove the app forcefully. 

Download The App Here

3. Encrypt External SD Card.

This feature is built into newer Android devices, and it allows your to encrypt your SD card so that it can protect the information that you might be storing in it. This is almost necessary because your SD card is so easy to remove and transfer into other devices that you want that important information to be secured from any hackers or those looking to use the information for nefarious reasons. If your device is not able to have a SD card 

4. Encrypt Your Device

This is probably the most important of the above features, and that is because your physical device or internal storage will hold the most vital information. Such as your files, or your Apps. This is the one thing that you don't want to be vulnerable so the first thing that you must do is have your device encrypted this will prevent anyone from accessing your device, however if they know your password for your home screen then they will be able to get past the encryption password. Make sure that your password includes the following. Letters, numbers, special characters, and Capital letters.

5. Request To Write To SD Card

This is another important feature for your android device and while it offers little protection, it is still a great thing to have. It will basically say you want to write to the SD card? If the app says yes then you will be warned.

Read More

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer Is To Retire Within 12 Months

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer is set to leave the company within the next 12 months. He is doing so so he can go into an early retirement, and this has caused the Microsoft stock to surge. Why is this happening, this is because Steve always had a different way of looking at things and now that he is on the way out we can expect Microsoft to evolve and move on past the decisions that many investors hated. However, how will this turn out for Microsoft?


Why Is he Leaving?
At this point it is unknown for the exact reason why he wants to retire, but he might just want to relax and enjoy the rest of his life.  He has been CEO ever since Bill Gates left. He has held this position for nearly 13 years, and he has had one of the longest lasting relationships with Bill Gates. Ever since he became the CEO back in January of 2000. This is a very long lasting position that he has held, and despite all of the criticism he still managed to revolutionize the way software is built.

Was Windows 8 A Mistake?
Some would say that this was Steve's biggest mistake, but was it. From the number sold and the poor sales of tablet sales some would argue yes. But when you look at the Surface Pro, and look at how software is adapting to Windows 8, you can clearly see that Windows 8 had its place in the market, but it was done very poorly.

Read More

Google Palestine Hacked

Google Palestine was hacked Monday by an unknown group of hackers in another political stunt by a hacking group. The names of these hackers are unknown but their given screen names are Cold z3ro, Haml3t, Sas and Dr@g. These hackers even threatened Google in the form of a strange question that was translated through Google Translate. The question remains, do these hackers have the guts to hack into Google Maps, and why did they do it in the first place.


This was the message that the hackers sent to Google

This message was very clear to Google however this political stunt has not stopped Google who is investigating this hack, and plans to protect it's self from the potential of a future attack. Now why was this stunt even done? The political issues between Palestine and Israel have existed ever since the United States and other countries gave the land which is known as Israel to the Jewish faith as an apology for the massacre from the Holocaust. Well the Palestinians feel that they deserve the land and the entire fight has been based around religion. No one wants to share, and they can't really win a war with Israel so it is mostly a constant political debate.

The hack that was launched did not get into Google's servers but was rather in the form of a redirect. This means that no personal information was extracted but also shows that these hackers were not after anything other than to make a statement. However,blackhat hackers are a big issue for Google, since the tech giant is constantly in threat of being attacked by some political move.

The issue with this attack was that they attacked the Palestinian page. Why would a hacker send a message against Israel on the Palestinian home page. This is puzzling quiet a bit of people, and it was probably something simple such as. "It sounded like a good idea at the time" or  "That didn't come up". The fact is that Google needs to up its security from attacks like this to prevent protests like this, because the fact is that they broke the law, and they need to handle the situation in a diplomatic way, and their threat to remove Israel from Google Maps does not scare Google. Now we need to wait and see if the hackers make the move, or will Google make the move and prevent the hack or track it back to them?

Read More

Playstation 4 Launch Titles

There has been word of 15 launch titles for the PlayStation 4. We are currently unaware of any DLC that will go along with these titles, but this is a little unimpressive compared to the 23 that are being released on the XBOX One. These titles as you can see are mostly tied to sports such as the madden series and the Fifa series which are published by EA. We can see little "action games" however the long awaited Watch Dogs is going to be released as well as the critically acclaimed Call Of Duty Ghosts.

Titles Being Released

1. NBA 2K14 (Visual Concepts, 2K Sports)
2. Call of Duty: Ghosts (Infinity Ward, Activision)
3. Skylanders Swap Force (Vicarious Visions, Activision)
4. Need for Speed: Rivals (Ghost Games/Criterion Games, EA)
5. Battlefield 4 (EA DICE, EA)
6. Madden 25 (EA Tiburon, EA)
7. FIFA 14 (EA Canada, EA)
8. NBA Live 14 (EA Tiburon, EA)
9. Killzone: Shadown Fall (Guerilla Games, Sony)
10. Driveclub (Evolution Studios, Sony)
11. Knack (SCE Japan, Sony)
12. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft, Ubisoft)
13. Watch Dogs (Ubisoft, Ubisoft)
14. Just Dance 2014 (Ubisoft, Ubisoft)
15. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (TT Games, Warner Bros. Interactive)

Why Are There Less Titles Than The Xbox One?

This question is quite difficult to answer but to do so we have to look at it from the view of a developer. Which platform are people most likely going to move to, and do we have the resources to do both. Most game developers worked on the Xbox 360 before the PS4, and that is how the industry was setup the Xbox community was larger and therefore developers targeted if for more sales. Now if the tables are flipped these publishers will have to higher more developers to make their games available on the other console as well as the other. So the main reason that the Xbox One has more games is because of the Xbox 360. 

F & Q

Are They Going To Be More Expensive Then The Xbox One Games?

No they should be the same price as the Xbox One game prices if they want to stand a chance in this market.

What are the items in parenthesis?

These show the developer, then the publisher for each of the games.

Which Console Should I Buy?

It is not my place to judge, but the software capabilities of the Xbox One entice me more than the PlayStation 4. Not only that but the Xbox One is more secure then Sony which seems to be hacked quite commonly. 

Which Console Has Better Graphics?

The graphics should be very similar so that should not be a deciding factor for your choice of game or console. 

Read More

Microsoft Announces 23 Launch Titles

Microsoft has announced that there will be 23 games on launch day. The games come from a variety of publishers, and some of them already have DLC. These games come from a variety of publishers including Microsoft Studios, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft. The highly anticipated Call Of Duty Ghosts is set to be released the same day, and Battlefield 4 already has DLC under the hood, but what more could we expect from EA.


These are the 23 Titles To Be Launched Same Day

1. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft)
2. Battlefield 4 (Electronic Arts)
3. Call of Duty: Ghosts (Activision)
4. Crimson Dragon (Microsoft Studios)
5. Dead Rising 3 (Capcom)
6. FIFA 14 (Electronic Arts)
7. Fighter Within (Ubisoft)
8. Forza Motorsport 5 (Microsoft Studios)
9. Just Dance 2014 (Ubisoft)
10. Killer Instinct (Microsoft Studios)
11. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (Warner Bros. Interactive)
12. Lococycle (Microsoft Studios)
13. Madden NFL 25 (Electronic Arts)
14. NBA 2K14 (2K Sports)
15. NBA LIVE 14 (Electronic Arts)
16. Need for Speed: Rivals (Electronic Arts)
17. Peggle 2 (Electronic Arts)
18. Powerstar Golf (Microsoft Studios)
19. Ryse: Son of Rome (Microsoft Studios)
20. Skylanders: Swap Force (Activision)
21. Watch Dogs (Ubisoft)
22. Zoo Tycoon (Microsoft Studios)
23. Zumba Fitness: World Party (Majesco)

As you can see a majority of these games come from Microsoft Studios, and Electronic Arts. A lot of these titles are familiar, and some of them we have word on.

Read More

Yahoo beats Google in Traffic

According to Comscore Yahoo has surpassed Google in search traffic by about 4 million views. The amount of times Yahoo services was viewed was 196.6 million while Google only had 192.3 million. How is this possible is Yahoo truly becoming more popular than Google? Was it rigged? Or is there something else at work here. These have been the many questions that people have been asking because the numbers don't seem to add up.

Was Tumblr Counted?
Tumblr is the 28th largest website according to Alexa and according to Comscore the views from Tumblr were not factored into this count. I found this to be strange because Yahoo did purchase them a while back which would make sense for them to count it. However,since they are picking and choosing services what did they choose from Google or Yahoo.

How Were The Numbers Counted?
We don't know where these numbers are coming from, is Comscore monitoring all of this, or are the numbers being sent from Yahoo? If the numbers were being sent from Yahoo then they would want to place themselves higher than Google. What services did they count we only know of 2 services counted for Google and Yahoo, and that is their search engines. The question remains, "Is This Real" we don't really know. If you were to go onto the Alexa ranking you can clearly see a mile of Google.

Google vs Yahoo Alexa Rankings

Search Engines (English Only)
Google: 1 Google is the most used website according to Alexa.
Yahoo: 4 Yahoo.com is gaining popularity according to the statistics.
Google wins in this category.

Blogging Service
Blogger: 12
Tumblr: 23
Google wins in this category by a large margin.

Video Service
Youtube: 3
Yahoo: 4
Yahoo does not have a direct youtube like service instead their videos are offered under a subdomain from Yahoo.com this site is http://screen.yahoo.com/.

What Does This Tell Us?
This quick comparison shows us that these results are not fair. Even if it was just between Google.com and Yahoo.com Google has the higher rank and therefore it should have won. But if they factored in subdomains then they would need to factor in the services that Google offers under a different url. Yahoo screen would need to be replaced by Youtube. Essentially the testing was unfair because it only factored in one domain and it's subdomains and since Yahoo has more it was going to win.

Was It Rigged?
That is hard to say what needs to happen is clarification on how these numbers were released because this does not sound right. Everyone is trying to pick sides on this debate because it does not make sense Marissa Mayer has turned Yahoo around, but these numbers sound a little ludicrous.

Read More

Google Now To Be Integrated Into Google Search

Google has finally announced that they will be integrated into Google search. This means that Google Now can do everything that it can on your phone, but from your favorite internet browser. This has taken Google about a year to work on its speech recognition software, but now they claim that it is ready to be released to public. You will be able to expect all of your favorite features from the Google Now on your Android device as you would on the desktop, but lets take an in depth look.


Google has been working on this project for over a year now, and they have wanted to integrate it with their search engine ever since it was launched. Now they are ready to launch the project to the public so we can get our hands on it and test it out.

"What can we do this new search technology?"
You will be able to do the same tasks as you would on your Android device, but now they will work together. You will be able to ask Google questions directly, and if it can it will try to answer the question. For instance if you ask "How Far Is The Earth From The Sun?" then Google will be able to respond with the answer given. Now Google has said that this search will be linked to other Google services. It can get queries from Google+, Gmail, or your Google Calender. It will vary depending on how you phrase the question, but certain phrases are the same. For instance if you say "How old is the Earth?" or "What is the approximate age of the Earth?" then you should expect a similar answer.

The technology is also smart enough to remember past questions and give answers for the follow up questions. This will allow you to ask questions in a far more comfortable manner, and to get your answers in a timely fashion. For instance if you ask "When is my five o'clock appointment?" then Google will give you that information from your calendar. If it has enough information, then you should be able to ask it a follow up questions such as "Where is it?" then if it can it will tell you the location of that same appointment.

It is important to remember that there are still some features in testing that wont be available to the public such as the Google Drive integration,and the only way for you to gain access to it is to be part of their testing group. We will expect such features as those to be integrated at a later time, and for more features and integration to be added.

"What about Bing or Yahoo?"
As of now there is no word if they are developing technology on this scale, but I am willing to bet that within the next few weeks we will see a new "Scroogled" campaign about this to point out whats wrong with the system and then have them promote their own product.

Are you pleased with the direction that Google is headed with search? If so then what do you want to see them add or integrate.

Read More