Most Advisable and The Best Free Antivirus Software 2015 Edition

This article contains best free antivirus software for Windows, Mac and Android. We have covered all the best ones and the free ones, our main criterion for each is protection, performance, and usability.

Windows’s particularly never had a reliable built-in antivirus. Same goes with Mac and Android nowadays. We have made this article extensively to find which of these best free antivirus software can withstand for 2015.


You may have come across various news articles about Malware that aim to make money. They have several ways to make those pennies, like – some steal and sell personal data, or they turn your computer as a bot sending malware to others.

Another type of ransomware attack has now been seen that encrypts all your data, important documents and after the encryption they demand a ransom. So, there are many ways you can lose money, but it is only wise to protect your computer with an best free antivirus that costs you a small fraction. However, today we will be looking out for cost effective; free solutions and few paid ones that has many reviews and authentic tests online.

Best Free Antivirus for Windows

This section contains best free antivirus for Windows 7 and Windows 8. The recently released Windows 10 will be covered in few more months and will be added to this list. So, keep this article in your bookmarks to visit later.

Avast Free Antivirus : avast! antivirus software is available for free and commercial use. It provides complete virus protection for your computer. Antivirus engine is complemented by anti-spyware, firewall and antispam modules to protect you against phishing schemes, identity theft and internet-distributed web viruses. Automatic updates for greater user convenience and safety. My second choice of Free Antivirus Downloads for Windows 7.




AVG Free Antivirus : AVG has been around in the Antivirus market from ages and gained lot of loyal users to their kitty. They also provide upgraded version which is very costly but I believe that their free Antivirus program is great for users having personal computers. AVG user interface is pretty simple and it takes a minute to install on your computer. Fully equipped free antivirus software for Windows 7.


Avira AntiVir Personal : One of the simple to use and light Antivirus software in the market. It works perfectly fine to detect virus, spyware, rootkit threats. The best part of Avira is that it is quiet outstanding in terms of finding malware. Few false positives about Avira is that it does not inlude E-mail scanner in free version, but if you open any infected E-mail, it comes again into action.


Panda Cloud Antivirus : The first free cloud antivirus against viruses, spyware, rootkits and adware. Panda Antivirus Beta3 supports Windows 7 (32 and 64bit). .  The antivirus carries out BackgroundScan by deactivating many unnecessary operations.


Comodo Firewall + Antivirus : Comodo Firewall and Antivirus is now Comodo Internet Security.Comodo Internet Security 4.0 includes a built-in sandbox which combines file system/registry virtualization and least-privileged user account principle in order to combat unknown malware.




ClamWin Free Antivirus : ClamWin is a Free Antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 7 / Vista / XP / Me / 2000 / 98 and Windows Server 2008 and 2003. It comes with an easy installer and open source code. Please note that ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an on-access real-time scanner. You need tomanually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware.


Free eScan Antivirus Toolkit Utility : eScan Antivirus Toolkit 12.x is compatible with Windows 7 – 32 & 64-bit OS. eScan Antivirus Toolkit is a FREE utility that enables you to scan and clean Viruses, Spyware, Adware and any other Malware that may have infected your computer. The eScan Antivirus Toolkit requires no installation and can be run directly from anywhere, on your computer, USB Drive or from a CD ROM. It can also be run even if you already have other antivirus software installed on your computer.


Microsoft Security Essentials : Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. For more details and how to download MSE, you can check our article totally dedicated on MSE. – The best antivirus for windows 7.


Best Free Antivirus for Mac

The best free antivirus software for Mac are more or less same. Here are those which have been tested by us. Another important tip for downloading these antivirus is to not use App store and download them directly from the Manufacturer’s website or box purchase it from a shop. This is because of restrictions of functions that may be there if you install via Apple’s app store.

Symantec – Also has firewall and a file watcher.

Bitdefender – another trusted name, having tons of features and user interface is quite easy to use. One of the most successful antivirus software on Mac platform.

Kaspersky – Kaspersky has made its mark with unique and fast scanning speed. The robust interface gives user a better feel than any other software in this list.

Avira – One of best software in antivirus business, with all round protection, this antivirus is worth a try.

Avast –Avast is something you might want to use, although it is famous, but it is in the budget. It has some exceptional features that are yet to come in any other competitors software. It functions in almost all the areas like webpages, downloads, Java files, email threads and attachment scanning each system thoroughly and swiftly. The company is working from past 25 years and have a real service, and significant user base. So, it’s reliable and has self-explanatory interfaces for ease of access.

ClamXav – does not slow the machine but has a poor protection rate of less than 40%, which means less malware are detected.

Best Free Antivirus for Android

360 Security (Free) – (Google Play)

Avast! Mobile Security (Google Play)

ESET Mobile Security & Antivirus (Google Play)

Avira Antivirus Security (Google Play)

AVL (Google Play)

Let us know, which free antivirus software you consider to be the best in 2015. We will be updating this post every month with latest updates and test results. So keep coming back for updates and new information on best free antivirus software.

How to add, remove and modify fonts in Windows 10

People often tell me I'm a font of wisdom, so allow me to share some wisdom about fonts. (Needless to say, I'm not a font of humor.)

In Windows 10, not much has changed about the way typefaces are installed, deleted and otherwise modified, but if you're not familiar with the processes, well, it's all new to you. Here's everything you need to know.

First up, you'll need to access the font control panel. Easiest way by far: Click in Windows 10's new Search field (located just to the right of the Start button), type "fonts," then click the item that appears at the top of the results: Fonts - Control panel. 
 






As you can see, there's no clearly identified option to add new fonts, but the process is easy: just drag any TrueType font file to the main window containing all your other installed fonts. (See screenshot at top.) When you drop it, you'll see a brief "installing font" message, and then, presto, you're done.
Removing a font is even easier: Click one, then click Delete. Just be careful not to remove any important system fonts like Calibre, Microsoft Sans Serif and Tahoma.

Finally, if you want to make systemwide changes to your font settings, you can do so here by looking to the toolbar on the left side of the Font control panel. For example, to increase or decrease the font size for, say, menus and icons, click Change Font Size. Choose the item you want to change, then select a size. (You also have the option of ticking the Bold box, which is actually kind of a nice tweak for things like title bars.)

After making your selection, click Apply, noting that it'll take a few seconds for the change to go into effect.

And that's it! Now you know the basics of Windows 10 font management.

How to install Windows 10 on a Mac

If you haven't already heard, Windows 10 is pretty great and worth installing on your PC. Apple fans won't miss out either, since the new operating system can be installed on your Mac as well.
To install Windows 10 on a Mac, you will need the following:

• The Mac you plan to install Windows 10 on
• A thumb drive with at least 5GB of free space (for reference, I named mine "WININSTALL")
• A second computer that runs Windows already
• A fast Internet connection

Note that you won't need a Windows 10 license for the installation, but you will need to buy one if you want to continue to use it on your Mac after the 30-day trial period.

Following these instructions will install Windows 10 on your Mac in a dual-boot configuration, meaning you'll have the option to choose which operating system (Windows 10 or Mac OS) to use each time you turn on the computer.
This guide is for a Mac that doesn't have already have Windows installed. If yours already has Windows 7 or Windows 8 installed, you can upgrade it to Windows 10 the normal way.

Part 1: Getting the Windows 10 file on your Mac 

Step 1: Insert the flash drive into your Windows computer and download Windows 10's media creation tool from Microsoft. There are 32-bit and 64-bit versions, depending on which Windows system you intend to use the tool on. If you're not sure whether your computer is using 64-bit or 32-bit Windows, here's how you can find out. Only the version compatible with your system will actually run.

Step 2: Open the downloaded media creation tool, choose Create installation media for another PC then click Next.

Step 3: Select the Language, Edition and the 64-bitArchitecture for Windows 10, then click Next. It's important that you select the 64-bit Architecture, unless your Mac specifically supports only the 32-bit architecture (very few do). If you select the 32-bit or both option, you may run into problems later on.
As for what edition of Windows to get, check out this chart to find out if Pro or Home fits you best. Keep in mind that you will need to buy a license later when you need to activate Windows and the Pro edition is more expensive than the Home edition.

Step 4: Choose to save Windows 10 installer as an ISO file then click on Next. Don't worry, you won't need a DVD burner or a DVD disk at all.
You'll want to avoid using the USB Flash drive option since, in my experience, the Windows 10 USB installer drive created using Windows has trouble working on Macs.

Step 5: Choose a location to save the Windows ISO file. For this guide, I choose to save that file on the flash drive, but you can save it anywhere on the computer and then copy it onto the flash drive later.
Depending on your Internet connection, this will take between a few minutes and several hours. Once the file has been saved on the flash drive, remove it from your Windows computer and insert it into your Mac.
You will not need the Windows computer again for the rest of the process.

Part 2: Getting the flash drive and your Mac's partition ready

Note: At times you'll be prompted to type in the password for your Mac's admin account. Make sure you have that ready.

Step 1: Insert and then open the flash drive. Copy the Windows ISO file onto the Mac's desktop. Leave the flash drive connected to the Mac for the rest of job. Make sure there are no other flash drives or external hard drives connected to the Mac.


Step 2: Run Boot Camp Assistant, then click on Continue. Boot Camp Assistant is located in Applications\Utilities folder. You can also quickly search for it using Spotlight.


Step 3: Make sure all three tasks Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk, Download the latest Windows support software from Apple and Install windows 7 or later version are checked. Then click Continue.

Step 4: If you've copied the Windows ISO file to the Mac's desktop, it will be automatically located. If you haven't, you'll need click on Choose and browse for it. The flash drive will be automatically chosen as the install disk if it's the only flash drive plugged in.

Verify everything then click on Continue. Boot Camp Assistant will then confirm the erasing of the flash drive before turning it into a Windows 10 install disk. It will then download the latest Windows support software.

Step 5: Boot Camp Assistant will prompt you to choose the size of the partition that you'll use for Windows. Use the slider to select the size. Windows 10 itself requires at least 20GB to install, so you'll want more than that to make room for software and data.

Note that you can't change this later, so make sure you pick the right partition size for Windows. Once done, click on Install. It will then start partitioning the Mac's drive and will restart your Mac. This is the end of part 2. Make sure you don't remove your flash drive from your Mac.

Part 3: Installing Windows 10 

Step 1: The Mac will automatically boot up from the flash drive and start the Windows Setup process. You'll be prompted to choose the Language, Time and currency format, and Keyboard settings for Windows. Do this, then click on Next.

Note: If somehow the Mac doesn't boot from the flash drive, just restart it, hold down the Option key after the Apple startup sound and then choose to boot from the flash drive.

Step 2: Enter the Windows 10 product key if you have it or click Skip, then click on Next. The installation process will then ask you to confirm the Windows edition you want to install. Agree to the terms and conditions.


Step 3: You will be presented with the all existing partitions, one of which is marked as BOOTCAMP. This is the partition you want to install Windows 10 on. Select it then click on Format.

Step 4: Windows Setup will then ask you to confirm, click on OK and then click on Next.

Step 5: Windows Setup will continue the rest of the setup process by itself. This should take about about 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the speed of your Mac. After that, the Mac will start up with Windows 10. You will be asked to go through with the normal steps of setting up a new Windows computer including creating an user account.

Step 6: As you log in for the first time, you will be greeted with this Boot Camp installation message. Click on Next and follow the rest of the installation, reboot the computer, and you're done!
If you don't see this message, open the flash drive, and double click on the Setup file inside the BootCamp folder.

While you have both Mac OS and Windows 10 on the same machine, you can only run one of them at a time. To manually select which operating system to run, during the start up, hold down the Option key after the Apple startup sound and then use the left and right keys to select which one you want to boot into, then press Enter. To set which operating system to boot up as default, use the Boot Camp control panel (Windows) or Startup Disk in System Preferences (Mac).

How to get free help from Microsoft on Windows 10 and more

Having trouble with Windows 10 or other Microsoft products? Microsoft can help.

Updated since the launch of Windows 10, the Microsoft Answer Desk page describes all of the support options available to you as a Microsoft customer. You can chat with someone online, pick up the phone and call or visit your local Microsoft store for help. Some of the support options will cost you money, but some are free, especially those concerning Windows 10.
 
Microsoft is offering Windows 10 as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users for the first year. To snag the free upgrade, you can reserve your copy through the "Get Windows 10" icon that appears in the Windows taskbar in the lower right corner, and then wait for it to show up.

Alternatively, you can manually upgrade to Windows 10 using Microsoft's free media creation tool.
But what if you're a little skittish about upgrading to Windows 10 on your own? Maybe you're concerned about losing your existing files or settings? Or perhaps you're just worried that something may go wrong. Never fear. Microsoft is here. As part of Microsoft's support options, you can take your PC or tablet into a Windows store, and a store employee will help you upgrade to Windows 10.

As the Answer Desk page explains:

Visit a Microsoft store near you for FREE upgrade services. Come into our store with your device and we'll help you get to Windows 10. Our Answer Desk will evaluate your device, make sure you have everything you need for an amazing experience, and take you through all of the new features of Windows 10.

So what other services does Microsoft offer for free? You can chat with someone or call the company's support line. Microsoft can help you with questions concerning accounts and billing, services and apps, and devices such as mobile phones and the Xbox. Just click on the specific category and then a subcategory and you can open up a chat or schedule a call.

But the company also offers free in-store support. Whether you purchased your computer from Microsoft or another retailer, the Answer Desk folks at your local Microsoft store can assist you for free with the following issues:

 1) extended diagnostics on any device;
2) software repair or support;
 3) virus and malware removal;
 4) PC tune-ups for increased performance; and
5) Recycle for Rewards appraisal, which offers you a Microsoft Store gift card for trading in certain products.

And what if you need more extensive help? That's where you'll have to cough up some money. Certain in-store services as hardware upgrades and data backups will cost you $49 a shot, while recovering deleted files or formatted drives will cost you $149.

Microsoft also offers paid plans that are more comprehensive or allow you to stay at home to get help. A one-hour, one-time support session via chat or phone call will cost you $99. Extended protection and accidental coverage for your laptop along with unlimited software support will cost you $129. And a full year of unlimited personal one-on-one in-store training sessions and software support via online chat, phone or in-store help will cost you $149.

Whether you have questions about Microsoft products, want help with Windows 10 or need more extensive support, you can peruse Microsoft's online Answer Desk page to review all your available options.

How to stream Xbox games to a Windows 10 PC

Windows 10 has arrived with a handful of new features. Microsoft added the Cortana voice assistant to the desktop, a new Web browser, and we can't forget about the return of the Start button. One of the coolest features, however, has to be Xbox One game streaming. This is built directly into the operating system and allows any PC running Windows 10 to stream games from their Xbox One console.

Here's how to set it up:

Step 1: Launch the Xbox app. This is preinstalled on your computer with Windows 10 and can be found by typing "Xbox" in the search field next to the Start button.

Step 2: Sign in with your Xbox account and click the "Let's Play" button.

Step 3: Turn on your Xbox One and make sure it is connected to the same network as your computer. You can check the network on the Xbox One by going to Settings, followed by Network. You will also want to make sure that game streaming is enabled. This can be found in the Preferences section of the Settings menu.

Step 4: Select the "Connect" option from the left side bar of the Xbox app. Your Xbox should appear on the screen. If it doesn't, click enter the console's IP address. You can find the IP address for your Xbox One by going to Settings, clicking on Network, followed by Advanced settings.

Step 5: Plug the Xbox One controller into the computer, select Stream, and begin gaming.

How to disable Windows 10's Wi-Fi Sense password sharing

Windows 10’s new Wi-Fi Sense feature is a powerful tool that takes the headache out of managing Wi-Fi connections on the run. With Wi-Fi Sense enabled, Windows 10 will automatically sign you into open Wi-Fi networks, as well as private networks that your Outlook.com, Skype, and Facebook contacts have logged into—so you won’t have to manually sign into the network when you visit your buddy’s house.



As convenient as Wi-Fi Sense is, however, not everyone’s thrilled with it. Windows 10 enables Wi-Fi Sense by default, but you can disable it. Here’s how.

How to disable Wi-Fi Sense in Windows 10

First, open the Start menu and head to Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi > Manage Wi-Fi settings. In here, you basically want to disable every option you see, as well as tell Windows 10 to forget any Wi-Fi networks you’ve signed into in the past.

The Wi-Fi Sense settings screen in Windows 10

That’s easy, and all well and good. But what if you don’t want your friends sharing the information about your network’s password with their friends? That takes some additional tinkering, and it’s not obvious. There isn’t a mere option toggle in Windows 10 itself.

Instead, you need to dive into your actual router’s settings and give your network a new name with “_optout” at the end. For example, a network called “WiFiSenseUgh_optout” wouldn’t be stored by Wi-Fi Sense, while one that’s just called “WiFiSenseUgh” would be usable with Microsoft’s sharing feature.

Yeah, it’s a pain, but if you don’t add “_optout” to your network and want to stay out of Microsoft’s Wi-Fi Sense database, you’ll need to manually enter your password on your friends’ devices when they pop by your house and make sure to uncheck Windows 10’s “Share network with my contacts” box when you do so.

Learn How to Clear Cache in Chrome

Every browser does the same thing; that is connecting to a website’s server and downloading those files to display them to the end users. For that functioning, any browser will maintain a folder where all the cache will be saved, its also known as the temporary Internet files.

That folder named cache will store images, audio, video, CSS, web pages and other locally saved content that helps in displaying web pages more quickly and swiftly.

Now, before moving ahead and learning about the clearing cache in Google Chrome, you need to understand the basics, pros and cons of clearing that cache.

Advantages and disadvantages of Removing files from Cache folder:

• Cache folder over the time will collect an enormous amount of files, and it may eat a lot of you disk space which in turn can slow down your PC or Laptop.
• It may happen that while browsing websites you may be displayed with older content, and fresh content is getting ignored completely, all this because of cache.
• You may be storing files that are incomplete and corrupt, it means website displayed on your browser are not up to the mark.
• Now if you clear all the cache than all the browser memory will be cleared and if you removed everything from your system, you may lose some of your username/passwords for your frequently visited sites.
• After clearing the cache, any website will be loading at a slower rate due to no cache files and they have to be downloaded again, which is done automatically.

Here are simple and quick steps for clearing cache in Chrome

All the steps are specifically for the latest version of Google Chrome, but they may be similar to another version as well.

1. Click on Chrome menu icon, located the extreme top right corner of your browser, after the address bar.







2. Next you will see options and many menu items, one of them is More Tools > Clear browsing data. These two steps can be shorted out by using Ctrl+Shift+Delete on your keyboard.





3. Another screen will appear as a popup, shown below. It will give you options to select other browsing data and cache files that can be deleted.

4. To clear only the browser cache, tick mark option that reads “Empty the cache” and leave all other unchecked. From the drop down menu, we would suggest using ‘beginning of time.’ Then, click on clear browsing data once you have done everything else.



Shortest way: In your browser URL bar cop-paste (without quotes):
“chrome://chrome/settings/clearBrowserData”
OR
“chrome://chrome/history/”
plus click on Clear all browsing data key.

Conclusion:
With all the pros and cons of clearing cache, it will all depend on how your computer is behaving. If it is fast enough, then you will never want to remove that cache, and for any reason it goes slow then always make sure you clear the cache before trying any more tricks for computer speed.

In the end, if you face an issue regarding browser cache, you can open a private/incognito mode. If your concern is not resolved, then you have to look forward to something other than clearing the cache.

Apple App store, iTunes back up after outage

Apple's App store, iTunes, Apple Music and Apple TV suffered a four-hour long outage Tuesday morning.

The problems began shortly before 10:00 a.m. ET, and the issues appeared to have been resolved by 1:30 p.m.

Although not all users were impacted, a system status report showed that all of Apple's store services were affected. There were no issues with programs that rely on iCloud solely.

The downtime coincided with the announcement of MTV's Video Music Award nominees, which were set to be broadcast exclusively on Apple's Beats 1 radio station.

Apple (AAPL, Tech30) will also release its quarterly results in the afternoon.
The company did not respond to request for comment.

In March, several Apple services, including iCloud backup, the App Store, and iTunes and iBooks, went down for a day without explanation.

Dell tries stealing creative pros away from the Mac

Dell's Precision M3800 workstation laptop is designed to attract customers using Apple's MacBook Pro. Dell

Adam Wrigley, a product designer at Frog Design, is the kind of creative professional you might expect to see using a Mac. But when choosing between Apple and Dell for his most recent laptop, he settled on the Dell.

"I wanted to get as much hardware as I could," he said of his choice. "With the Mac, I couldn't afford a bunch of features."

That's music to Dell's ears. For decades, a core group of creative professionals sustained Apple's personal-computer business by buying Macs for editing photos, producing videos and designing ads. It's a lucrative, loyal base of customers with a taste for high-end hardware -- and a potentially critical market for Dell to target as it tries to rebuild its PC business.

"I don't think it's a big focus for them," Chief Executive Michael Dell said of Apple's efforts in the market for high-end machines for design professionals. Dell, in contrast, has 40 percent to 45 percent of the market for workstations, Dell said. Combined with its high-resolution external monitors, it's "a special focus market that we're clearly doing well in."

Sensing a potential vulnerability, Dell representatives are showing up at film festivals to court the creative folks, and Dell engineers are designing machines like the M3800 laptop to try fulfilling their need for horsepower and style.

"Rich content is a high-growth market, and it's one where Apple is very strong," said Andy Rhodes, leader of Dell's Precision workstation business. "They have high market share. But customers are telling us Apple is not investing in the future of that market."

It's no wonder Dell has Apple envy. In 1997, Michael Dell said Apple should "shut...down and give the money back to shareholders." Two years later, Dell had clawed its way to the top of the PC market, beginning a long reign there. But fortunes have reversed now: Dell is struggling to rebuild in a faltering PC market while Apple's Mac revenue grew 9 percent in the last quarter and unit shipments grew 11 percent.

Apple is still strong with the creative professionals, but Dell is smart to pounce. More than two years ago, customers started telling Dell that Apple wasn't serving them well, in particular because of Apple's botched transition from its respected Final Cut Pro 7 video-editing software to its radically different Final Cut Pro X. Dell spun up what it calls "customer-inspired roadmap creation" to make products that would get creative pros to switch off their Macs, said Rhodes.

Dell is trying to bring style and polish to its products for the market, but Dell's core values -- performance at the right price -- remain at the center of the sales pitch. That's compelling for companies like video production firm Dawnrunner Productions, whose video-rendering times dropped 25 percent to 30 percent after switching from Macs to Dells, according to Chief Executive James Fox.

"It was a very scary move," Fox said. "When we pulled the trigger, we all said, 'Wow, that was really easy.'"

'Slow exodus'

Apple, which didn't comment for this story, is a very different company now than even two or four years ago. The lion's share of Apple's business is now selling iPhones, a much more mainstream business than courting graphic designers and musicians. In the first quarter of 2015, Apple generated $5.6 billion in revenue by selling 4.6 million Macs.

By comparison, it sold 61.2 million iPhones for $40.3 billion and 12.6 million iPads for $5.4 billion.
Nowadays, creative pros are slipping over to the Windows side of the PC industry, said Jon Peddie, who's tracked the workstation market for years at his firm Jon Peddie Research.
"It's a very slow exodus, no stampede," Peddie said, but Dell is the top beneficiary. "Dell is making the most aggressive moves in screen resolution, power-performance and price. Dell is probably Apple's biggest threat in the professional space now, with (Hewlett-Packard) No. 2."

Michael Dell believes his company's outsized presence in the workstation focus is contributing to its comeback. "There are three companies that are gaining share. We're certainly one of them."
But if Frog Design and Dawnrunner show Apple's vulnerability, Jessica Ruggieri of ad and film agency Sleek Machine shows the company's enduring strength.

What would it take to get her to switch to a Dell? "Maybe if they were bought out by Apple," she quipped.

"I will be anti-PC forever," she said of her disdain for Windows machines. She imprinted on the Mac lineage when she first learned how to use computers. "I'm very comfortable with it. Not only is it a beautiful workspace, it's beautifully designed, aesthetic and streamlined. Compatibility with Mac hardware and software [makes a Mac] one clean system."
 
Apple's momentum also ensures any industry transitions won't be fast. Take the case of advertising and marketing firm Deep Focus, which plans to continue using Macs. "The main reason is continuity -- partners are on Mac, vendors are on Mac, and most of our team is on Mac at home," said Ken Kraemer, the company's chief creative officer.

Apple's increasingly consumer-oriented business cuts both ways, Kraemer added. On the plus side, it makes it easier for creative pros to tap into new technological abilities. On the minus side, it means Apple's attention is elsewhere.

"In the very long term, this apparent focus will probably undo the dominance Apple has in creative fields," Kraemer said. Windows PCS are cheaper and faster, particular for 3D graphics work that's becoming more important, he said, but for now "Mac hardware is great for 90 percent of the creative tasks we do."

Dell tries getting stylish

Dell's success was based on operational efficiency, a direct-to-customer sales model that plumped up profit margins and a reliance on Microsoft and Intel to shoulder most of the research and development burden. Apple, by comparison, always had its own operating system, and it increasingly designs or tightly controls its hardware, too. Where Dell accepted the "Intel Inside" stickers and marketing money from Intel, Apple kept its machines pristine and left customers recognizing only its own brand.

Dell's recipe didn't work, though, as evidenced by a sliding share price that forced the company to go private in 2013. Apple was partly responsible for Dell's decline by diverting people's spending toward smartphones and tablets. But the company had plenty of other troubles, including the rise of Asian PC manufacturers like Lenovo and Asus and Microsoft's market-chilling missteps with Windows 8.

For its comeback, Dell is hardly trying to transform itself into Apple. It's still reliant on Intel and Microsoft, it sells heavy-duty server computers that Apple lost interest in, and it's small potatoes in the tablet and smartphone market. But it's not afraid of aping Apple's success where it makes sense.

The Dell M3800 is 18mm (0.71 inches) thick and includes a high-speed Thunderbolt port to make it easier for Mac users to move to the Windows machine. Dell

"We've made good-looking machines again," Rhodes said. "The creative types care about look, feel, lightness."

Dell's newest M3800 also added a Thunderbolt 2 port to appeal to Mac customers using the high-speed port for storage and monitors.

One convert is Drew Wolber of film, photo and graphic design agency Sparksight, which switched from Macs to Dell machines.

"Macs do a great job of having form and function, but Dell seemed more about function than form," he said. But no more. "The M3800 looks cool, which was a huge thing. This is a pretty sexy-looking laptop, and the 4K screen is even cooler."

Not everyone is so convinced. "The Dell is twice as thick and heavy as the Mac laptop," Wrigley said. "Even though I couldn't get the processing power, the sleekness almost swayed me to get the Mac laptop."

And Dell's trackpad just can't match the Mac's, something Rhodes says Dell is working on.
Dell also has improved its desktop workstations, models with more horsepower that sit in the office for jobs like rendering video to apply special effects or coloring styles. Dawnrunner's Precision T7500 workstations couldn't match the clean interior of Apple's Mac Pro models, but with the newer T7600, Dell fixed the problem, he said.

"I went through film school and started my business all on Mac," Fox said. "I never in my wildest dreams expected to move to an all-PC shop."

Final Cut fiasco

One big trigger in particular was Apple's release of Final Cut Pro X in 2011, a major departure from the Final Cut Pro 7 that had revolutionized film and video industry by dramatically lowering prices for what had been rarefied technology. FCP X's shortcomings opened the door for Adobe Systems' rival Premiere Pro, which runs on both Windows and Mac.

"In high-end post-production [video editing] we never used to see Windows," said Bill Roberts, senior director of product management for Adobe's video tool business. "We see more and more of that now, in particular in higher-performance rooms."

Fully half of Premiere Pro's double-digit growth comes from customers switching from Final Cut Pro, Roberts said. "When FCP X came out, it was a boon to us," Roberts said. Adobe woos customers to the point where it put engineering staff on site for editing of the 2014 movie "Gone Girl."

Though Apple shored up FCP X's initial shortcomings and touts that it was used for editing major motion pictures such as the Will Smith vehicle "Focus," some customers were displeased by the new version's differences, by the fact that FCP X couldn't import files from FCP 7, by plug-ins that stopped working and by having all the changes come by surprise.

The demise of Apple's Aperture software for editing and cataloging photos, while less abrupt than the FCP X shift, also didn't help. Even those who are sticking with their Macs, like Xanthe Wells, chief creative officer of ad agency Pitch, were distressed.

"They tried to oversimplify some of their Pro products and wound up removing features that are needed for creative professionals," she said. "With the tremendous growth the company has seen over the last 10 years -- especially following the introduction of iPhone and iPad -- there is no question they've stopped focusing as much on the Pro user."

For Wolber's film-school days, buying a Mac and Final Cut was a prerequisite. An entire generation emerged knowing Final Cut Pro inside out.

"The logic and intuitiveness was ingrained in us," he said. "When Final Cut Pro X came out, it was such a departure from everything we knew. It was a glorified iMovie."

It's no wonder Dell is taking the offensive trying to win over the Mac faithful.

"In the battles we're in, we win 9 times out of 10," Rhodes said. "We're trying to get into more battles."

Three IT Consulting Services That Every Company Needs

We all know how annoying it can be when a personal computer malfunctions. But imagine if you owned a business whose practices relied on computer support, and its computer network malfunctioned, an event that could also cost thousands of dollars in lost work within a matter of hours, not to mention the anxiety of what lay behind the malfunction, such as a hacker's attempt to access proprietary data.

Do situations like the one above really happen? Unfortunately, they occur daily, but not because they can't be prevented. Businesses can take steps to protect their computer networks from various malfunctions, a process that begins with hiring an IT consultant to analyze their computer needs.

Different IT services offer different services, but four IT services that no business should go without are: spam filtration, firewall management, data back up, and IT system configuration.

Three IT Consulting Services that Every Business Needs
Some IT consulting services target companies according to their unique needs, while others specializing in helping all companies that need to keep their computer processes and networks functional and safe from attack. Below, we list four services that fall into the latter category.

1. Spam Filtration
At its best, spam is an annoyance. At its worst, it can arrive in such volume that it keeps you from accessing and responding to business emails in a timely manner. For example, if your email service's spam filter were to fail-as happens on occasion-the failure could result in thousands of spam mailings reaching your inbox until the problem is fixed, which typically takes hours. The optimal way to prevent this debacle is to back up your spam filtration remotely through an IT service.

Hardware spam you can use

If you are looking to purchase a hardware based spam filter, and you are not sure how to judge capabilities against price, then you have come to the right place. There are a lot of hardware spam filters out there, and they are based on many factors. One of these is the system that you are using, depending on whether you run Windows, Linux or Apple's Macintosh OS, there are hardware spam filters which are either bespoke to these systems.

Some of the hardware spam filters you can use also include features like virus filtering, and anyone in the know should know that spam and viruses come together, especially when a lot of hackers use worms and Trojans to harvest email lists and re distribute them to other sources or spam operators.

So the best advice is that when you do look at hardware spam filters, you should look at the strength of the features and top of the list should be how customisable the spam options are and how strong the virus filtration and protection system is. Also, it should also be a question of price.

Systems like the Barracuda are one of the used systems out there and its specs make it a very good hardware spam filter. Other spam filters like SpamTitan are also good in the sense that it allows alot of customisation and options when it comes to your filtering needs, meaning that you can set things like prompting, storage of junk mail and spam, listing of origin I.P's and a whole host of other security options.

Another brand name that comes to mind is the PineApp mail-Secure system, which is a dedicated mail based spam filtering hardware, managed but their own security networks and all the hassle is taken out. All you need to do is to tell the company what you need and it will set the options down for you. The good thing about hardware spam filters is the fact that they add another level of capacity and since the emails are being handled by the dedicated server, this means that your own email servers are not being stressed by their operations.

They do everything in real time, which means that your 'allow' list will be immediately forwarded to you while dubious sources and generic mails will be scanned before being given the go ahead to go to your inbox.

For many, it is a question of control, because while you do want to filter out the useless and junk emails, you also need to do that there is nothing that was missed out. Also, it depends on what you do, and from business owner to casual home user of the internet, there are different sorts of hardware spam filters that are bespoke for your own needs.

Don't make the mistake of buying the first one you see, or being impressed by features that you don't need. Make the right decision and one that matches you needs, and you will soon see more than 90% of your spam problems disappear.

2. Firewall Management
Companies often conduct firewall management onsite, an arrangement that, unless a company has an IT security team, often fails to account for the latest firewall penetration strategies. Trusting your firewall management to an IT service, on the other hand, ensures that the latest hacking strategies, as well as internal sabotage attempts, are countered by advanced firewall strategies. As with Spam filtration, conducting firewall management remotely brings added security that could preserve your business's functions.

3. Data Back Up
According to a recent study, most companies report collected data as their most valuable asset, making data back up a primary focus of IT services that target sustaining and improving business. In the past, companies performed data back up onsite. But today, remote data back up is increasingly favored due to its ability to save data from anything could destroy or remove a company's onsite data, such as flooding, fire, or theft. With your data backed up remotely, you can rest assured that, no matter what happens at your office, your data is retrievable.

The good and the ugly about drones

Both the good and bad sides of drones were on display over the weekend in the U.S., with a drone delivering medical supplies to a remote area in Wise, Virginia, even as some other drones were obstructing the fighting of a wildfire in far away California to apparently shoot videos.

The delivery drone from Australian startup Flirtey made the first authorized delivery in the country on Friday, transporting 24 medical packages to patients in Wise County. The Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership at the Virginia Tech Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, which is an approved drone test location of the Federal Aviation Administration, oversaw the research flight.

Earlier, a fixed-wing aircraft, operated remotely by pilots from NASA Langley Research Center, was to deliver medical supplies to Lonesome Pine Airport in Wise, which would then be transferred in small packages by the Flirtey drone.

In startling contrast, InciWeb, an interagency all-risk incident information management system, reported Sunday that a drone had obstructed fire fighting work after a fire over the weekend in San Bernardino County.

A drone, also referred to as an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), halted tanker operations for about 25 minutes on Friday afternoon, according to an update on InciWeb. It added that incident commanders have no choice but to suspend air operations and ground aircraft until a hobby drone that flies into a fire area is removed, to avoid damage to aircraft, and injuries to crew and ground fighters from collisions.

As hobby drones have become more popular, firefighters have seen an increase in drones interfering with firefighting operations, InciWeb said. Drone operators, flying in the area, could face criminal charges as a temporary flight restriction of the FAA kicks in for most wildfires.

The “North Fire” destroyed 20 vehicles and damaged 10 more on Interstate 15, after the fire jumped over the highway.

There were five drones in the area, presumably taking close-up videos of the fire, CNN reported.

The San Bernardino County Fire Department tweeted at one point that firefighting aircraft had been grounded due to drone activity in the area.

The FAA has previously issued guidelines for people flying UAS as hobbyists and for recreational purposes, including the requirement that the drone should not be flown recklessly and endanger people or other aircraft. The rules on model aircraft also require that the UAS, weighing 55 pounds (25 kilograms) at the maximum, should be flown below 400 feet (about 122 meters), within visual sight of the operator, and 5 miles (8 kilometers) away from airports.

The FAA launched a “Know Before You Fly” campaign to advise users on the safe and responsible use of drones, in tandem with the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA), and the Small UAV Coalition.

The agency is also approaching the issue of commercial use of drones with some trepidation because of safety and other issues involved. It has proposed rules, which would possibly allow programs like those of Amazon.com for the commercial delivery of packages by drones to take off. But the drones would operate under restrictions such as a maximum weight of 55 pounds, and rules that limit flights to daylight and visual line-of-sight operations. For now, the agency has provided exemptions, including for research, under strict conditions to some companies.

6 best practices for email security

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server to conduct State Department business has left IT pros dumbfounded. They thought the days of executives acting autonomously were over and that governance within organizations was sound enough to prevent these actions.

"When you're doing official business for an organization, you should use an official account," says John Pescatore, director of emerging security trends at the SANS Institute. Otherwise, organizations cannot follow regulatory and compliance mandates, protect intellectual property or maintain proper records.

But Pescatore acknowledges that progress still has to be made in the email best practices arena to ease the burden on users and IT. For instance, mandating that someone use two devices -- the issue Clinton cited as reason to circumvent State Department policy -- is antiquated thanks to software that supports secure access to multiple accounts on a single device. "IT no longer can say ‘this can't be done'," Pescatore says. "There has to be a compromise and then a recommendation from IT."

At the same time, hacks like the one at Sony Corp. have organizations on edge about email security. Craig Gormé, information security manager at academic health center University of Florida Health, says organizations must adapt their policies and practices to the changing threat landscape. "We used to be concerned about malware and anti-virus coming through email, but tools have solved that. Now the biggest threat is phishing," he says, adding that best practices must reflect this evolution.

Here are some ways to update your email best practices.

1. Re-evaluate the role of email in your organization.

"Companies understand that security is important, yet they still do email in an insecure way," says Seth Robinson, senior director of technology analysis at CompTIA.

He recommends studying how your organization uses email and ensuring that it matches your risk tolerance. "What do you need to accomplish with email?" Robinson says to consider and then protect the entire system, including application, server and connection, accordingly. He adds that many organizations built their email infrastructure long ago and have not reviewed their vulnerabilities since.

Companies understand that security is important, yet they still do email in an insecure way.

Mandates like HIPAA have forced Gormé's organization to revisit email guidelines, especially when it comes to those that include personal health information (PHI). "Users can only send emails with PHI internally. They cannot send it to outside email addresses and we prohibit the use of third-party email systems," he says.

If they need to send communications with PHI, then they must find another more secure method such as encrypted messages or secure file transfer. Another option, Gormé says, is to deploy automated policy-based encryption, which scans all email for medical record numbers, Social Security numbers or other personally identifiable information. If it is found, the data is held for inspection or re-routed to an encrypted pathway.

Duke Prestridge, CIO of Community One Bank in North Carolina, says his institution has had to be very clear with users: "Corporate email is just that -- corporate email. It's not to be used for personal use."
He credits regulatory oversight for his ability to keep a tight rein on email and to keep users from litigious situations. "FINRA standards dictate that we have to manage all email and save it for seven years," he says. The organization itself, though, has to determine how to deal with the influx of embedded video and attachments. "We need more policies around how to handle them," he says.

2. Revisit governance.

As he grapples with federal and financial industry mandates, Prestridge says he is glad that his bank's executives have his back. "Email policies have to have teeth in them," he says, and the only way to do that is with proper governance, enforcement and solid backing from business leaders.

Like many of his peers, Prestridge believes Clinton's situation could have stemmed from the CIO not having adequate support to uphold email policies. "When we first established our corporate standards based on regulatory guidelines we got pushback, but not since then," he says. Executives fully endorse his position as CIO and as a risk manager. "As things change risk-wise with public breaches like those at Target and Home Depot, the position of CIO must be elevated and given the authority needed to protect the organization," Prestridge says.

Peter Firstbrook, vice president at research firm Gartner, says a finely tuned governance body could help broker a tricky situation like when an executive uses rogue resources. A cross-functional body (with representatives from departments such as legal, IT and human resources) could explain the compliance risk of using non-compliant resources to the executive while encouraging IT to help find a secure workaround.

Pescatore says governance bodies also can help ensure that if an organization switches to cloud-based email, incident response processes are tested regularly. If a server is on-premises and something bad happens, IT can turn it off quickly. Organizations must understand and test the equivalent process in the cloud, he says.

3. Make acceptable use policies usable.

Governance bodies also can ensure that acceptable use policies are updated to address mobility, the cloud, social networking and other essential topics.
"We have found that organizations don't have thorough acceptable use policies and that they don't train users well enough on them or remind them enough about them," says Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research.

Gormé believes acceptable use policies should be refreshed annually and should become more user friendly. "Customers need to clearly understand what and what not to do and more importantly why," he says.
For instance, many acceptable use policies are presented blandly on a Web site or on paper. In the future, he would like to see them shared in ways that users communicate, such as text.

Also, he feels users should be made to take a quiz to show their understanding of the policy. That, he feels, would help IT fill the gaps in user knowledge.
To Prestridge, it's important for users to understand the delta from previous acceptable use policies. "We need to explain the business reason and risk of why they can't do certain things with email anymore," he says.

For instance, users might not fully understand that when they forward an email, they might be forwarding an entire thread that includes sensitive or confidential information. By pointing it out as an example in an acceptable use policy, users might comprehend the risk and avoid doing it.

4. Consider educated users your best weapon against phishers.

Hand in hand with acceptable use policies should be education about phishing, according to Osterman. "People are still very gullible and don't think hard enough about the content they receive," he says.

While technology such as data loss prevention (DLP) can help detect phishing attempts, users need to be the first line of defense, according to Osterman. "The integration of email and social file sharing is opening up possibilities for bad things to happen," he says.

Educating users also helps you plug more security holes with less budget. "Organizations sometimes feel training is too expensive, but avoiding one average-size phishing incident every five years puts you ahead of the game cost-wise," SANS' Pescatore says.

5. Personal email and corporate email can coexist… on the same device.

Like Clinton and the State Department, Prestridge and his bank faced the multiple device issue. Users did not want to carry two smartphones or tablets but Prestridge didn't want personal and private email accounts to co-mingle insecurely either.

Rather than saying no and risking data leakage, Prestridge deployed Good Technology's container service on users' personal devices. He did away with corporate Blackberrys and the Blackberry Enterprise Server and reallocated that money to subsidizing users for a portion of their iPhone and Android devices as well as supplying the Good application.

To access corporate data, users must download the Good app onto their mobile device. Good ensures that personal email accounts are apart from corporate accounts and that users are not able to copy or forward corporate data. Good keeps a record of user activity so if data is leaked or stolen, IT can backtrack to find it.

Also if the device is lost or stolen, it can quickly be located and/or scrubbed.
"Users still have full functionality of their devices without compromising data security," Prestridge says.
While Prestridge has addressed email security and compliance for now, he knows email best practices will change again in the near future as technology evolves.

Take unified communications. He wants to see what regulators will require for voicemail integrated with email systems. Would financial institutions have to save them similarly as traditional email? If so, best practices would be needed for that realm as well.

Gormé is expecting two-factor authentication, such as having a code sent to your phone, to be a best practice for email systems soon, especially in the healthcare arena. "I see us getting away from passwords and more into tokens and the like," he says.

There are many instances, Firstbrook says, where a best practice could be not to use email at all. For example, if a board wants to discuss the latest financials or executives and the CFO have to work with a rival company on a purchase, then email is just not a secure option. Instead, users should go out of band to a private portal or a confidential platform that erases data as soon as the session ends and does not allow for copying or forwarding.