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Apple has since improved the way it handles battery life, though it doesn’t do everything it could to ensure your phone stays on. There are a few more tricks of the trade you can use to keep your iPhone alive as long as possible. Below, nine foolproof options:

Low Power Mode Is Your Friend

When your battery hits 20% (and subsequently 10%) you’ll be prompted to either enable or dismiss Low Power Mode. Enabling the power saving feature will lower your screen’s brightness; disable features like Airdrop, iCloud sync, and Continuity; minimize system animations; and reduce device performance. You’ll see your battery icon change from black to yellow. When you charge your phone again, Low Power Mode will turn itself off.

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Well, you should.  It’s a gold mine of data, passwords, and secrets, all on the other side of a four-digit passcode or a fingerprint scan—locks that can easily be picked by someone with the right tools. “If the entire United States government wants to hack your phone,” says Alex Thurber, general manager of mobile solutions at BlackBerry, “they’re going to get in.”

While no smartphone is truly unhackable, they’re not all equally porous. Lots of companies are working to build devices that make it very hard to peer inside

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We already knew that Internet Explorer (Exploiter??) was finally being replaced with a new much more modern browser called “Spartan”, which will bring Microsoft much closer in line with Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. What we did not know, but it has now been announced on Microsoft’s Windows 10 Specification Page, is that the long standing Windows Media Player (WMP) – mainstay in the Windows operating system since being introduced in Windows 95 – has been depreciated from the OS.

Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 users who choose to install the free OS update, will now have to install separate software to playback DVDs, while most streaming video content will play natively in HTML5-enabled web browsers.

Also on the chopping block for Windows 10, are the Sidebar Gadgets that were introduced in Windows Vista.

Windows 10 users will have updates from Windows Update automatically available to them, while Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise users will have the option to defer the updates.

While there is no immediate need to update to Windows 10, if you are currently running Windows 8 or 8.1, (insert sympathy here .. ), you might want to update as soon as possible, so knowing ahead of time what will and wil not be included in the features of Windows 10, will help make that transition as smooth as possible, and avoid unexpected surprises.

Feature deprecation section

• If you have Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8 Pro with Media Center, or Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center and you install Windows 10, Windows Media Center will be removed.
• Watching DVDs requires separate playback software
• Windows 7 desktop gadgets will be removed as part of installing Windows 10.
• Windows 10 Home users will have updates from Windows Update automatically available. Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise users will have the ability to defer updates.
• Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Hearts Games that come pre-installed on Windows 7 will be removed as part of installing the Windows 10 upgrade. Microsoft has released our version of Solitaire and Minesweeper called the “Microsoft Solitaire Collection” and “Microsoft Minesweeper.”
• If you have a USB floppy drive, you will need to download the latest driver from Windows Update or from the manufacturer’s website.
• If you have Windows Live Essentials installed on your system, the OneDrive application is removed and replaced with the inbox version of OneDrive.

The post Windows Media Player joins Internet Explorer on Windows 10 MIA list appeared first on .

If you currently use a Windows 7 or Windows 8 desktop or laptop computer, you may have seen a Windows logo pop up in your tool tray beside the volume icon and the clock. Clicking on the same, will take you to a webpage inviting you to reserve your copy of the upcoming Windows 10.

Taking it’s cue from Apple – who’s last 3 versions of it’s OS-X operating system have been offered to users as a free upgrade – the Microsoft desktop upgrade will only be free for the first year. This aggressive move is a first for Microsoft, which has traditionally made most of its money from Windows sales, but is forecasting to put Windows 10 on a billion devices in three years or less.

The operating system marks a radical departure in other ways, as it will be a unified platform across computers, phones, and tablets, simply iterated according to screen size and processing power. Through a feature called Continuum, users of some phones will even be able to connect to a monitor and work as if they were on a PC.

Windows 10 has finally killed of the Internet Explorer web browser, replacing it with a brand new, built from the ground up browser named Edge, which Microsoft pledges will give the user a much improved web browsing experience, utilizing the latest web browsing technologies.

Rounding out the short list of notable new features, is Cortana – the previously mobile-only voice activated personal assistant, which will now be included in all desktop and mobile flavors of Windows 10.

I have been playing with the Windows 10 Technical Preview since mid-March, and I must say, that if it is a sign of great new things to come, I am so far quite impressed. Microsoft has brought back the desktop environment that we have come to know and love since 1995, while integrating the Modern UI “tiles” into the start menu, which makes much more sense than the radical touchscreen inspired tiled start screen of Windows 8.

If you are a Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 user, you can reserve your copy of Windows 10 now by clicking on the new Windows logo in your tool tray, or alternatively by visiting the Windows 10 Q & A page here.

The post Microsoft announces July 29 launch date for Windows 10 appeared first on .

This isn’t simply a bug in some app that can quickly be updated. The vulnerability is in the machines that power services that transmit secure information, such as Facebook and Gmail.

What is the Heartbleed bug?

Heartbleed is a flaw in OpenSSL, the open-source encryption standard used by the majority of websites that need to transmit the data that users want to keep secure. It basically gives you a secure line when you’re sending an email or chatting on IM.

The post How To Protect Yourself From the Heartbleed Bug | What you need to know appeared first on .

You can change the settings and limit your contact options, but the “Anyone can email me” option is turned on by default. Do you want to turn it off? Here’s how:

1. Open Gmail by going to mail.google.com
2. Click the gear in the top right corner of the Gmail window.
3. Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
4. Scroll down to the Email via Google+ section, which is under the “General” tab.
5. Click the drop-down menu and choose “Anyone on Google+”, “Extended circles”, “Circles” or “No one”.
6. Click the”Save Changes” button at the bottom of the page.

I recommend selecting No one as that blocks the feature completely. You can select Circles if you want the people in your circles to be able to email you or Extended Circles if you want friends of friends to message you. The default option Anyone on Google+ is for those who don’t mind being contacted by any random person/mailbot.

If it were not for the fact that Gmail has the best out-of-the-box spam filters on the internet, I’d probably think long and hard about dropping my Gmail accounts for iCloud …

The post How to turn off new Gmail option that allows strangers to email you appeared first on .

If you are using Windows 8, then this is the update you have been waiting for, and yes you should download it now.  Windows 8.1 update is the first major update to Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system since it’s release 12 months ago.

It’s a solid, necessary update – and did I mention a free one to boot? The Windows 8.1 update has features that will please longtime Windows users who had difficulties adapting to Windows 8, as well as features that push the concepts behind Windows 8 even further forward.

“If you absolutely hate Windows 8, this upgrade probably will not change that, but it might help you to hate it a little bit less.”

The past 12 months have not been particularly smooth sailing for the computer software giant.  Just after the less than spectacular release of Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft’s longtime Windows chief got the axe, and just 2 months ago in August, it was announced that longtime Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was on his way out too.  Alongside of this personnel shake-up, Microsoft took a $900 million write down on Surface RT, the computer that was meant to be the physical embodiment of its new, stripped down Windows operating system. Disgruntled PC Manufacturers have been openly criticizing the software giant and its next generation OS.

If Windows 8 has had a defining cultural moment, it wasn’t its lavish launch, or any number of commercials, but this YouTube video of a befuddled senior trying to use Windows 8 for the first time.

Windows 8.1 gives long time windows users their beloved Start Button back … well sort of.  Other notable updates include a more customizable metro tile interface. For instance, if you create a tile for one of your favorite websites, Windows 8.1 will pull content from the site’s RSS feed and creatively display it in the tile.  Windows 8 Mail and Windows 8 Music also got much needed overhauls.

If you absolutely hate Windows 8, this upgrade probably will not change that, but it might help you to hate it a little bit less.  It is a very necessary update, and Ordi-Guru recommends that you download it now to enrich your Windows 8 experience.

Download Windows 8.1 Update

** PLEASE NOTE: This update is for Windows 8 users only … It is not compatible with Windows 7, Vista, or Windows XP **

UPDATE: Some users have been reporting upgrade issues with the Windows 8.1 Update. The Microsoft Answers forum is abuzz with a problem that seems to affect many people trying to update from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1. It’s a show-stopper that throws up two Blue Screens when the Win 8.1 installer reboots. Microsoft has a couple of suggestions for recovering from the problem, but at this point it doesn’t look like the solutions fix the problem. Further confounding the situation, the problem existed back in June, with the Windows 8.1 Preview Milestone, and apparently hasn’t been fixed.

Martin Dixon posted the seminal question shortly after Microsoft released the Windows 8.1 bits. Here’s how he describes his update:

I have downloaded the Windows 8.1 update from the store but cannot get it to install. Each time I try, I get to the point where it is “getting my devices ready”, then the PC restarts to a blue screen with error message. It then tries to recover the installation, fails, then restores Windows 8. When the system boots up after this, I get a message saying:

“Couldn’t update to Windows 8.1

Sorry, we couldn’t complete the update to Windows 8.1. We’ve restored your previous version of Windows to this PC.

0xC1900101 – 0x40017″

There is no explanation as to why the update could be completed.

Ordi-Guru suggests that all Windows 8 users create a system restore point before attempting to to update their OS, so that in event of any issues, you can roll back to a functioning state. Hopefully Microsoft can solve these issues — which appear to be graphics card related — in a timely manner.

The post Windows 8.1 Update is available for download now! appeared first on .

This is the EOL (End of life) for Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system which was released in 2001. Officially, support for XP was to end in 2009, but with the popularity of netbooks – which ran the operating system quite well – Microsoft extended the support of XP for an additional 5 years.

In a blog post, a senior Microsoft executive has warned users of Windows XP to get a move on and upgrade to shinier, newer versions of Windows.

The post, by Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Director Tim Rains, points out that after the end of official support for XP, the company will be basically forced to pass on details of likely XP vulnerabilities to potential attackers, without providing users with the means to defend themselves.

One risk is that attackers will have the advantage over defenders who choose to run Windows XP because attackers will likely have more information about vulnerabilities in Windows XP than defenders.

The problem is, of course, that once patches stop being provided for newly-discovered vulnerabilities, any problems that are found for more recent versions may well be backwards-compatible with XP.

As details of these issues will be widely publicised, for very good reasons, there’s bound to be plenty of research going on into which ones can be used to penetrate the systems of anyone still clinging on to XP.

It has been widely speculated, that hackers are already stock-piling potential bugs and vulnerabilities. Once the April 2014 deadline has passed, the world of Windows XP will be a perpetual zero-day, with no hope of relief from danger.

If you are running Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional, and you have not yet made a contingency plan to upgrade yet, NOW is the time to begin preparing for it.

Ordi-Guru has in stock, several fully-transferable and 100% legal Windows 7 Premium (64-bit and 32-bit) Certificates of Authenticity – obtained from purchasing broken computers. You can purchase a digital download (or DVD – you pay additional postage) and a Certificate of Authenticity (serial number) for $60.00 – and we will be happy to assist you with the upgrade!

Windows 7 minimum requirements (your computer must satisfy these requirements to be able to upgrade it):

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

The post Bleak future for XP users after patches run out April 8 appeared first on .

Here is a wonderful tutorial on how to uninstall McAfee Antivirus, done by none other than McAfee founder John McAfee … Yes this really is the one and only founder of McAfee Antivirus, and yes he really is a first class asshole.

Ordi-Guru.com strongly suggests removal of any and all McAfee products – as well as all Norton Antivirus/Security products. There are several much better, more effective products out there – many of them are FREE – and their founders have never created YouTube videos blatantly flaunting how much money they made by selling shitty software to people!

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