It’s one of the most useful concepts or ideas, being able to store all your files, docs, pictures etc. all in one place easily accessible, provided you have internet access, on many different platforms and devices. “Cloud computing” is not an exceptionally new term, but in the last 6 months or so it has been trending worldwide. There are many players in this market and for once Google have taken their time to jump on this particular bandwagon. Google Drive is certainly not revolutionary then, but can it stack up to the competition and is it worth switching to?

According to Google, Google Drive has been designed as a collaborative tool to work with Google Docs, but there are quite a few other useful features that we have picked up. Apart from creating your documents directly in Google Drive, you can share these documents with multiple users and it even allows all these users to work on the same document at the same time, updating changes on the go. Google Docs on its own is being phased out and soon it will only be accessible from Google Drive. There is also excellent Google Drive integration with Google+ and Gmail, allowing single-click file sharing.

As with Gmail, Google Drive has a powerful search feature, helping you locate any file even to the point of recognising objects in pictures and text in a scanned document! You can view more than 30 types of files even if you do not have the program or application installed on your device. As with its competitors, Google Drive allows you share files with others, but Google Drive gives you three levels of additional access on-top of the sharing aspect, namely whether the user can view, edit or comment on the files. Probably the most impressive feature is that Google Drive tracks all changes from up to 30 days in the past which you can revert to if you feel like it.

Google Drive is already being criticised as “protectionist” when Google’s products are normally revolutionary. It’s more of a customer-retention product than something that will steal the loyal Dropbox, Box and iCloud users. Loyal Google Docs and Gmail users will find the most excitement and usability with this product. So don’t think that you will have to switch straight away if you do not already use Google Drive, but if you are into specs and stats, here is a useful table which compares the top players in this market. (source: www.gizmodo.com)

Cloud Storage Specifications

Phishing, Viruses, Worms and Trojan horses, these are some of the threats that are out there, ready to manipulate or completely destroy your precious data. If you are idly surfing the internet and opening every email attachment you had better be prepared with a solid and reliable virus protection program. Which virus protection offers best value in terms of security versus price? That is what we will attempt to discover.

The first point worth mentioning is that the free versions of this type of software are definitely better than no protection at all. Most of the big players in this market offer either a scaled-down free version of their main product or at least a trial package. Testing in Germany has shown that the free versions actually received a slightly better rating than some of the paid versions. Here is the top 10 list of paid antivirus software that was taken from www.toptenantivirus.net. The prices are for a 1 year license per user.

1. BitDefender Antivirus ($24.97)
2. Vipre Antivirus ($39.95)
3. Perfect Antivirus ($24.99)
4. Kaspersky Antivirus ($39.95)
5. Norton Antivirus ($39.99)
6. ESET Nod32 Antivirus 5 ($39.99)
7. F-Secure Antivirus ($39.99)
8. TrendMicro Titanium Antivirus ($39.95)
9. Zonealarm Antivirus ($19.95)
10. McAfee Antivirus Plus ($39.99)

The best free virus software options:

1. Avira Free Antivirus
2. Microsoft Security Essentials
3. Avast Free Antivirus

With all this in mind it is important to note that there is no such thing as 100% protection and that is why constant updates are needed for this software to perform optimally. Once the developers discover new threats they send updates and add these to their ever-growing database of viruses. This is where the free versions come short as they do not get these paid-for updates.

In conclusion, there are a vast number of virus protection options out there, all of which should provide you with solid protection. The onus rests with you to make sure that you have at least some form (paid or free) of protection and also that you use common sense when downloading files. If the site looks dodgy, it probably is, and also watch out for email attachments, especially from financial institutions which you have no affiliation to.

Before you go, you might want to know which is the safest browser out there? One of the market leaders in virus protection, Kaspersky, recommends Google Chrome and that is after extensive testing, not from a paid-for endorsement.

Apple announced on Wednesday that they would be releasing the third generation iPad to their Retail Stores & the Apple Online Store in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK; along with Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands today.

From March 23 the new iPad will be available in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

The new iPad features a stunning new Retina™ display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics and a 5 megapixel iSight® camera with advanced optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video and still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life* while remaining amazingly thin and light. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G supports ultrafast 4G LTE networks in the US and Canada, and fast 3G networks around the world including those based on HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA.** Additionally, iPad 2 is available at a more affordable price starting at just $399.

The Wall Street Journal reported that consumers were lining up outside Apple Stores around the world looking to buy themselves the computer device, furthering Apple’s lead in the fast growing Tablet Market and sending the company’s share price to a record $600.01 (R4587.72) extending the market worth of the world’s most valuable company to almost $560 billion.

The official launch date for the iPad 3 in South Africa is yet to be announced. So we wait for the beloved iPad to hit our shores in anticipation.

Sources:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/03/14New-iPad-Arrives-in-the-US-Nine-Additional-Countries-on-Friday.html

http://www.euronews.com/business-newswires/1439175-apple-touches-record-high-as-ipad-3-sales-run-hot/

http://www.ponder.co.za/ipad3-release-date-and-what-to-expect/

This week I finally upgraded my Internet Explorer for test purposes and it prompted me to look into the web market share. The last time I did so was about two years ago and I reckon it might be interesting to investigate the latest browser war statistics, as it seems to me that more and more people are switching over to Chrome and Firefox (with the increase of Mac users – and subsequently Safari – also playing a role). SAbest also asked the following question on our Facebook page this week: “Browser wars! What’s your favourite browser – Firefox, Chrome, or Explorer?”. We should perhaps have added Safari, but no biggie. The overwhelming majority of people voted for Chrome (including me – I will briefly discuss at the end of this article what my reasons are).

So let’s take a look at the latest (February 2012) stats from W3Counter. (http://www.w3counter.com)

These stats reflect a different picture than the one that was prevalent about two or three years ago. I think it is safe to say that, unless Microsoft comes out with a totally fresh and usable product, both Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox will surpass it in the near future. Chrome is by far the fastest growing browser, having gone from nearly non-existent in early 2008 to the browser with the second biggest share in 2012. In that same time period Internet Explorer’s usage has nearly halved. It should be noted that these statistics represent all the versions of a given browser as a collective whole. For example: Internet Explorer 8 usage is at 14.71%, Chrome 17 at 14.4% and so on – with the total for all Internet Explorer versions making up 30.7%, Chrome 25.1%, Firefox 24.4% etc.

I am sure many web developers and designers would smile when looking at the latest Web Browser Market share statistics. It seems as if the days of endless struggle with older versions of Internet Explorer might be a thing of the past very soon.

Personally, I use and prefer Google Chrome. What first drew me towards it back in 2008 was the screen real estate. The bottom bar disappeared and the top and navigational bar minimalistic, allowing for an overall clean and visually pleasing browser. Secondly, I loved Chrome’s speed.

In the end however, the important thing is that the game has changed. Microsoft no longer has monopoly, competition is healthy.  Who knows – Microsoft might still come back and surprise, but at the moment the picture is different. The browser war has been fought again and again and it seems there just might be a new winner soon.

Whist the Apple iPad and iPad 2 have helped cement Apple’s worldwide dominance in the exploding tablet market, this hasn’t led to them resting on their laurels. Rumours are floating all over cyberspace of the next Apple tablet offering. Will it be called the iPad 3 or just an update, called iPad 2S? No one can say for sure yet (let’s just call it iPad 3 for now), but what is for sure is that the excitement is building. As a loyal Android tablet user myself, even I must say I cannot wait for this next Apple tablet. “Why am I excited?” you ask, because every feature, design and benefit Apple puts into its products instantly becomes an industry benchmark that every competitor tries to beat. This creates progress! Here are the rumoured features of the iPad 3.

Firstly, there doesn’t seem to be much talk of a design update, which would make sense as it currently is one of the lightest and thinnest 10 inch designs available anyway so why change that? Also, the iPhone 4S matched the previous model’s design which could be further confirmation of the unchanged design rumour. The resolution is set to almost double to an incredible 2048 x 1536, which would give the iPad 3 the highest resolution of any tablet out there currently. I seriously question this though, is this really necessary? I mean, there is nothing wrong with the current screen and also what will this do to the battery life? Apple’s über-engineers will have their hands full with this challenge, I feel.

The camera will get a relook which is very necessary as the iPad 2’s camera is seriously lacking in features and quality. You can probably expect to see the same camera from the iPhone 4S used here along with a LED flash. This will also improve the video quality to take it up to the 1080p HD level. The iPad 3 will be able to run on the 4G network as well, improving the connectivity speeds for online usage. However 4G is not going to be available in SA for quite some time and connecting to the 4G network will also increase the load on the battery life.

Expect to find Siri, Apple’s intelligent personal assistant that helps you get things done simply by asking, in the iPad 3. Again it must be said that SA’s unreliable networks will hamper Siri’s performance as already noticed by many local iPhone 4S users. Siri will definitely improve the usability of the iPad 3 allowing you to open applications and navigate easily. I really hope that Apple also includes their latest chipset, the quad-core A6, in the iPad 3. This would make sense to me as any update needs to be faster and more powerful to handle that daunting screen resolution.

That’s a brief summary of the rumoured top features for the iPad 3, which is set for announcement in March and release in October. There is also talk of Apple releasing a cheaper format iPad to compete with some of the high-end tablet / e-readers like the Amazon Kindle Fire. You can also expect the old iPad prices to drop when iPad 3 is launched. So going back to my original question, “Is another Apple masterpiece on its way?” it would seem so, but I will continue admiring Apple’s genius from afar and spending my money on Android tablets, because I believe “once a droid, always a droid!”