Thanks Dropbox!

I had a very nice surprise email this morning from Dropbox notifying me that they doubled the sized of my Pro Account storage. It may be a promotion from them to have solicit your friends and family to join up for a Dropbox Pro account but that’s fine with me. So now the Pro Account gives you a base of 100GB’s storage which will help me out quite well.

You can get a 3 month free subscription to a Pro Account as well for up to 3 friends by submitting their email to Dropbox for an invitation for the service. The Pro Account is now available in 100, 200, or 500GB Plans at $9.99, $19.99 or $49.99 respectively. You can also add on their Packrat Plan for $39/year that gives you unlimited undo history. Packrat Safeguards files you delete in case you need to undelete them and Saves old versions of files in case you need to view them later. Dropbox's "Packrat" feature keeps an unlimited number of these deleted files and old versions. So if you are putting things up for long term storage or you are constantly editing documents that you may want to go back to earlier versions, this could be a very important addition to your plan purchase.

The free plan is still available and provides you with 2GB’s of storage and you can increase that up to 18GB’s for each referral you provide them. They allocate 500MB’s for each referral.

Dropbox’s third option is Dropbox for Teams. Get dedicated phone support and as much space as you need for your team, starting at 1000 GB. Manage licenses as your team grows, and monitor activity and storage usage per person. Get a single centralized bill for your team. Your files are accessible from any device (Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, and BlackBerry) and synced to your computer so you can work both online and offline! Share and collaborate instantly with your team or keep certain files private. Send large files to clients and partners with a link — even if they don't use Dropbox! Get more information here.

Dropbox for Teams starts at 5 users with 1TB of storage allocated for the group. It also includes Unlimited version history, phone support and administrative tools.Priced at $795/year each additional user costs just $125/year and adds another 200GB’s to the pool of storage. Compared to an equivalent Dropbox Pro account this is quite a savings.

Windows 8 to arrive late in October

Microsoft says its on course to RTM (release to manufacture) Window 8 in the first week of August which should put product on the shelves in October. Business user who have volume licenses with Software Assurance will have access to the final Windows 8 release as early as the beginning of August. No word yet on availability for TechNet and MSDN user.

Reller also announced at the partner show that Microsoft has sold 630 million Windows 7licenses to date, up from 600 million at the beginning of June.

DNS Changer Malware

If you are protected with our CCI Security Service Suite you could breathe a sigh of relief this morning because we would have already known and taken care of anyone that was infected with this malware program. If you don’t have this product on your systems maybe you should consider it. This is the type of incident that protects you company, proactively. If you are interested on what this product can do for you give us a call. 1-800-640-7506 and talk to one of our security specialists.

The FBI has warned that millions could lose internet access on July 9^th 2012 if their machines are infected with the DNS Changer Malware. More information is available at http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/november/malware_110911

Click on the following link to learn more information about DNS Changer Malware.

http://www.dcwg.org/

How can you detect if your computer has been violated and infected with DNS Changer?

http://www.dcwg.org/detect/

We have checked the DNS Server settings across all of the machines with the our support agent. We  If you want to manually run this check please visit http://dns-ok.us/. If the DNS Resolution is Green, your machine is safe. If the DNS Resolution is Red, let us know so that we can help you fix this problem.

EasyPen M610A Tablet

If you have a need for a graphic tablet input device you may want to consider the Genius EasyPen M610XA. If you are a design creator or work with photographs this tablet may be just the device to give you more control over what you get with a mouse. for a list price of $169.99 you not only get the tablet but some useful software as well.

The latest version of Adobe Photoshop Elements software is included in EasyPen M610XA, making it easy to quickly and professionally edit photos and create digital artwork. Also bundled is Corel Painter Essentials 4, an easy-to-use home art studio for drawing and painting from scratch, and turning photos into stunning paintings.

Features List

• 6” x 10” working area for drawing and handwriting
• 4000 LPI high accuracy and sensitivity
• 1024-level pressure sensitivity for all shapes and thickness control
• Four express keys: Undo, Eraser, Zoom in & Zoom out
• Programmable software shortcuts for easy and efficient control
• Pen clip design for easy storage

Specifications

• Interface USB
• Digital Pen-Pressure Sensitive 1024 Levels
• Digital Pen-Number of Buttons 2
• Express Keys 4
• OS Support Windows® 7/Vista/XP/Mac OS 10.4 or above
• Report Rates (RPS) 200 PPS
• Resolution(LPI) 4000 LPI
• Wide/4:3 Screen Wide Screen
• Active area 6” x 10”
• Digital Pen-Accuracy ±0.25 mm
• Pen clip YES
• Software hot keys YES
• With Cordless Pen YES
• Transparent overlay sheet YES

The Genius PenSketch M610XA Graphics-Design Tablet's bundled software includes:

• Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 (PC & Mac) – allowing you to quickly and professionally edit photos and create digital artwork.
• Corel Painter Essentials 4 – allowing you to draw and paint from scratch as well as turn photos into stunning paintings.
• PenDrawer (Windows only) – allowing you to make personal annotations on your favorite photos and save to popular file formats to easily share with your family and friends.
• PenSign – allowing you to add your digital signature conveniently.
• Pen Toolbar – allowing you to hand-write notes and sign documents in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and emails.

Verizon’s Family Share Plans

I have recently noticed Verizon running a lot of new ads on Hulu showing a new data share plan allowing up to ten devices to be share a single data access plan. After reading Marguerite Reardon’s July 6 article “Is Verizon ‘shaking down’ customers with family plan?” I could begin to see some of the problems associated with changing to this service. If you are a current unlimited data plan customer now think about the fact that by adding more people to a shared, fixed size data plan might cause a problem with data overage charges for you little group of people. You need to look carefully at how everyone is using their devices and how much of the device usage is through the cellular network vs. your local WiFi access. Personally, I am well under any the plans because I don’t do any streaming unless I am on a WiFi network. I am very careful about that. But are the people in your plan that responsible? You might get stuck with a large bill one month because someone on your plan decided to watch the entire episode list of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while at the beach. If this isn’t  a worry then maybe you will want to consider this new plan type but remember this is Verizon’s way to charge you for your usage of their data network just like a utility company charges you for the use of electricity, gas or water. While I don’t think the concept is especially a bad thing it will directly impact your pocketbook.

Related stories

• Verizon unveils 'Share Everything' family plans for data
• Confused about Verizon's Family Share plans? You're not alone
• Why Verizon's shared data plan is a raw deal