Microsoft to launch Windows Phone 7

Looks like the announcement for which carriers will be making & selling handsets for Microsoft's newest operating system will be Oct 11th. AT&T is one of those carriers!

Windows Phone 7 is Microsoft's complete do-over of its mobile operating system previously dubbed Windows Mobile. Microsoft established an early lead on mobility with its older mobile operating system, but in recent years the company has suffered substantial losses in market share.

Windows Mobile hasn't been upgraded substantially in several years, and more user-friendly competitors such as Apple's iPhone and Google's Android OS have taken market share away from Microsoft. As a result, Microsoft scrapped the Windows Mobile project and redid the entire OS into a tile-based interface incorporating elements of the Zune media player and Xbox Live gaming.

Though the company will announce details about Windows Phone 7 at the October 11 conference, multiple reports have claimed that the official shipping date of the first Windows Phone 7 devices is Nov. 8.

Dell Ships motherboard with malicious code

Ut Oh! This is not good for business!

Recently published in ZDNet and other technical publications, Dell ships motherboards with malicious code.

Dell has confirmed that some of its PowerEdge server motherboards were shipped to customers with malware code on the embedded server management firmware.
The issue affects a limited number of replacement motherboards in four servers - PowerEdge R310, PowerEdge R410, PowerEdge R510 and PowerEdge T410.

ODI is a full service IT/Web & Programming company, if you're not aware of the services we provide, please feel free to call or email us. We can quote servers of all brands, sizes and customize them to your needs!

Better yet, check us out at www.ODIConsulting.com!

Sarasota's Google Bid makes it into CNN

In a news article printed by the Herald-Tribune (published: Saturday, March 27, 2010):

Sarasota sprinted toward a Friday deadline for applications to become Google Inc.'s high-speed Internet guinea pig with an appearance by its mayor on CNN.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based search-engine company, meanwhile, said it has fielded more than 600 applications since its Feb. 10 announcement that it wanted to work with a U.S. community to push Internet speeds to the home and office to roughly 100 times the current U.S. average.

The company will narrow the field in the months ahead and expects to make a decision by the end of this year, according to a Friday update from Google’s product manager James Kelly.
Sarasota Mayor Dick Clapp, jumped into a tank filled with bonnet head sharks at Mote Marine earlier this month to drive home the point that Sarasota has educational, eco-minded groups that could benefit from Internet speed.

In a Herald-Tribune interview, Clapp indicated that officials have been inspired to gather more information regardless of Google's decision. The chief information officers from both the city and county "are trying to get an inventory of dark fiber that FPL put in that is not being used," Clapp said. FPL Group, parent company of Florida Power & Light, operates a wholly-owned fiber optic cable unit. "It is not in the interest of Comcast, Verizon or Bright House to lower prices or give away speed," Clapp said. "Google is out there stirring the pot saying, 'If you aren’t going to do it, we are going to weigh in."

In overall presence, Sarasota comes in fifth, bettered by No. 1 Grand Rapids, Mich.; No. 2 Duluth; No. 3 Topeka, Kan.; and No. 4 Baltimore. Sarasota was ahead of other major contenders, including No. 6. Fresno, Calif. and No. 7 Madison, Wis.

Sarasota's attention-getting actions -- temporarily renaming City Island as Google Island and having singer/song writer Lindsey Ray record a song about its efforts -- have pushed the community to fourth place in the entire nation for a metric Greiner calls "activation." Greiner even provides an activation timeline showing spikes in digital activity related to specific stimuli, such as the naming of Google Island. Greiner said Sarasota has a real edge in this regard.

Google "loves theatrics," he said.

Summer is here! Free internal cleaning

Summer is here!

We all love the heat during the summer, lounging out by the pool or basking in the sunlight on the beach. And my favorite... summer bbq's and grilling outdoors. But heat can be deadly, especially to your costly computer components.

Computers are built out of many digital circuits. These circuits are constantly switching state; i.e., when doing calculations. Heat is a by-product of these calculations. Computer chips, central processing units (CPUs), and graphic processing units (GPUs) are getting more powerful every day. With newer technology comes faster processing. Faster processing leads to more heat being generated. Without proper heat dissipation, components can be damaged beyond repair.

Our computers have cost us our hard-earned dollars. We save up to buy the very best and we expect reliable performance. But, just like a car, a computer requires proper maintenance. Keep them cool and clean and they’ll last you a lifetime. Ignore them and you they will start costing you more in the long run. Be cool and keep it cool!

In the summer you may notice your computer freezing and crashing. This could likely be caused by heat build up. Dust, pet hair, smoke residual, and faulty cooling components in the computer can cause excessive heat build up and possibly lead to catastrophic failure.

During the summer months ODI is offering a free internal cleaning of your computer and inspection of its cooling components. Bring your's in today! Don't let your computer get beat by the heat!

Sarasota Sheriff Press Release

If you're new to ODI's blog, then great news is to be read today!

ODI Consulting has completed and launched the new website for the Sarasota County Sheriff Department!
This new website offers the public and media access to a ton of great information and services to the public.

Read the Press Release submitted May 5th, 2010

Sunbelt MVP!

A Huge congrats to our very own technician Tim Gardner for being nominated as Sunbelt Software's MVP!!!

Nick Hallin, a Tier III Customer Support Technical at Sunbelt, has nominated Tim Gardner for their MVP program.

"We greatly appreciate all the time you spend volunteering on our forum helping others and would like to reward you .... As a MVP on the Sunbelt Support Forum, Tim will have the title “MVP” beneath his author icon and a MVP icon added to his signature."

Another outstanding reason why ODI's technicians are the best at what they do! Call us today to find out for yourself!

Rogue Antivirus'

Thank you to our friends at Sunbelt:

All antivirus companies are being hit with the next wave of malware: Rogue antivirus tools like Antivirus 2010. This code throws messages on the user's screen that they are infected, and "download here to get rid of the malware". Sure enough, that gets the Trojan installed.

The reality is that no AV vendor, ESET, McAfee, Sunbelt, Sophos, Symantec, etc. can give you 100% coverage against it.These new fake antivirus variants are some of the most vicious, polymorphic Trojans this industry has seen. They use extremely complex obfuscation techniques which make detection quite challenging by even the best antivirus engine. Many of these rogues are also service-side polymorphic. That means every time an exe is downloaded, it's recompiled on the server-side into a different piece of code.

There are about 75,000 new tier-1 pieces of malware coming out every day. Educate yourself! The vast majority of infections these days are caused by social engineering. A user will get a funny video link on Facebook or some other social networking site, click on it, and it will say that they need to "install a special codec", or "update Flash". Or they will be doing a Google search and a malware site will have attached itself to an innocent keyword. The user will click and start getting crazy warnings that their machine is infected. This is the malware trying to get the user to install. If something does not look right, it probably is not right - DON'T CLICK ON IT!

Be sure you have a current version of your AV program installed or updated. If you’re not sure what you have, throw caution to the wind and consult an ODI rep. Too often we’ve found clients have not 1, but 2 AV programs installed and more times than not, they either hog up space on your computer- slowing it down something terrible, or they conflict with each other! Give us a call today!