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Later this month, Microsoft will be releasing its newest Operating System for sale to consumers and small-to-medium business customers.  Large Business customers had access to Vista the end of November 2006.  If you run any custom or special software or if you use any older hardware on your computer, do not rush out to upgrade to the new OS without spending time to test to ensure that your current software and hardware are compatible with Vista.

 

Many companies that provide software and hardware use upgrades like this to ‘coax’ one into upgrading to the latest versions as well by declining to add the support to the new OS.  If everything is working on the current OS, take your time before you rush to upgrade.  Also coming out with Vista, is Microsoft Office 2007.

Office 2007 is a major upgrade to the Office suite of products.  It does offer full backward compatibility with older versions of Office, but care needs to be taken as they are also supporting a new file format.  If one is not careful, a critical file could be saved in the 2007 format and be unreadable if the reader is not running the newest version.  But, set the default save file format to the Office 97-2003 version, and you have full compatibility for all versions of Office from 1997 to 2007.  If you utilize macros in your Office programs, they should be supported in the new version, but as always, a wise upgrade is one that is thoroughly tested before making the leap.

One of the bigger annoyances we face has to be spam email.  All of us have likely seen a major increase in the number of spam email we are getting at the office and at home.  Spam, electronic junk mail, was hidden from most of us by some very aggressive efforts by our Internet Service Providers and corporate technology departments.  However, a number of spammers have gotten together and made some fundamental changes in how they send out spam to the point of using tools to cripple the anti-spam efforts.  These steps have negated much of the effectiveness of the blocking and unfortunately, we will need to adjust and delete these annoyances in greater numbers until the anti-spam forces regain the upper hand.

Security is very much a tug-of-war type of approach, each side gaining a temporary advantage until the other compensates.  This is one reason why it’s important to regularly check and update your security software and use common sense when reviewing email from unknown senders.

If you need any assistance or information on evaluating your security protection or determining when and if upgrades are warranted – please call RJM Technology at 661-254-2017.

Santa Clarita Magazine

Santa Clarita Magazine