This update also includes the ability to sync opened tabs across Android devices as long as Chrome is being used. The option is also available at the bottom of any new tab page where the “recently closed” menu and “applications” menu are now featured. You will be able to click a button and have all active tabs resumed on your phone’s browser.

When the tabs are opened on a different platform, they will also include your browsing history. You will be able to click back and forth just as if you were on the original computer that brought up the tabs in the first place. This feature was not due out for several weeks; Google just announced that the feature would be rolled out next month. However, Chrome 19 was available mere hours after the update announcement was made.

Chrome 19 also included many security updates that fixed bugs found mostly by the Chrome development community. They awarded over $16,000 to members who caught some 400 bugs since Chrome’s last update took place.

Even more surprising is that when over 200 businesses across the nation were asked to participate in an emergency preparedness survey, 51% never had practiced evacuation drills and 47% had not assigned employee rolls in case of a major disaster. 77% of these businesses also said they had not encouraged employees to create disaster preparedness plans on their own, and a few companies even stated that such plans were “a waste of time”.

The question is not so much why people haven’t gotten plans together, but why they think disasters won’t happen to them. Another study done by the SBA indicates that over 25% of companies – large and small – will be affected by a major disaster at some point in any given year. Even though 50% of business owners don’t think they could recover from a disaster in less than six months, only 39% are prepared to handle more than a week’s worth of disruption in their usual schedules.

Sometimes the lack of such preparation is completely justified – lack of resources and expertise is becoming more of a problem for many businesses. However, there are some easy, simple, inexpensive steps that can protect a business from the worst case scenario. Having a plan can make the difference between losing your entire company and just suffering a small inconvenience.

One of the easiest ways to plan for disasters is using another company’s disaster recovery plan. Our company can of course help with that – we offer incredibly affordable prices and customized packages so your back-up plan won’t break the bank. If you still don’t think you can afford professional recovery plans, look at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to find valuable worksheets and information on recovery planning, including sheets on risk assessment and insurance reviews.

Take a few days and really plan out your disaster recovery – after all, protecting everything that you’ve worked so hard for should always be one of your first priorities.

An inside source to the company says that there’s absolutely no reason the tablet won’t be released on time, even though it will be a tight squeeze. The tablet is not only running on a completely new OS, but the OS runs on three ARM’s, AMD, and Intel to boot. In addition, the tablets don’t just stop at “tablet”; users should expect designs that combine aspects of an old-fashioned keyboard with those touch screen features of a tablet. There are over a dozen designs scheduled to be released as well.

Intel’s new “Clover Trail” Atom chip will likely be the center of attention for all new tablets. It’s Intel’s first dual-core Atom design and is incredibly small in size, but small size doesn’t sacrifice power in this case. The single-core version of the chip is already slated for phones from Motorola and Lenovo, even though it hasn’t gone live yet.

In many ways Windows 8 is much like Windows 7; it runs on chips from Intel and micro devices that will be able to run almost any older application still available to the public, though it will be able to run any new software thrown at it as well. A different release of Windows called Windows RT will not have this backwards-compatibility feature and will not run older applications.

The source also had a bit to say about the new 22-nanometer Bay Trail chip that’s supposed to be a follow up to the 32-nanometer Clover Trail in the new tablets. The biggest adjustment, other than the actual size of the chip, is the built-in security features. Bay Trail will also be using Intel’s own designs for graphics instead of Imagination’s, which have historically been used with Intel’s technology. The release of this chip is still up in the air, but it will likely be sometime late next year.

The patent market has been incredibly active in the past few months. Google’s $12.5 billion investment in Motorola Mobility has certainly not gone unnoticed, nor has the $1 billion that Microsoft has given AOL for patents. The market has been active in not only buying and selling patents, but lawsuits over them, too; Oracle, Apple, and Samsung have all dived into patent violation lawsuits. That being said, the purchase of so many patents over such a short period of time doesn’t seem out of place in today’s world.

How the patents were bought or what the terms and conditions are hasn’t been disclosed; however, the ownership of the patents will be split by Nvidia and Intellectual Ventures. IPWireless has also retained the rights to have royalty-free access to every patent they sold.

Intellectual Ventures has been around for over a decade and was founded by Nathan Myhrvold, a former Microsoft executive. The company’s patent holdings are both extensive and impressive; however, critics have often dismissed the company as a “patent troll” that only exists to take licensing fees from every other company it can. Intellectual Ventures says its aim is to “protect the industry from costly lawsuits”.

What are You Trying to Do?

When you’re trying to think of a good name that really tells a potential client that you’re the right company, think about what you do and what your mission is. The president of Tungsten Branding, Phillip Davis, says that a good start to naming your company is to try and create something called a “pivot point,” or quality that your company revolves around. Are you speedy? Is your price point exceptional? Are you the first of your kind in your market?

Once you know what you’re all about, you can try a number of creative strategies. While you’re brainstorming, create as many names as you can with as many strategies as you can to give you a wide choice. You can try a metaphor (think “Amazon” – from A to Z), a descriptive hybrid (“LendingTree”) or a blend of words that people associate with positivity (“OnStar”). You can even try naming your company after its key attributes, so if you’re fast, “SpeedyTech” may be something you would consider.

How are You Different from Your Competitors?

Standing out in a particular market is a delicate and difficult thing to do, but the more ways you can find to do so, the more likely your company will find success. To guarantee your name is different from your competitors, find them. Write their names down. Now, when you have a list of names you want to consider for your own company, cross out any that sound even a little like a competitor.

A descriptive naming strategy is a good place to start, but that doesn’t mean you should always describe what your business does with your name; this could cause you to fade into the background with all of your other competitors, which would be a waste of the time and energy you put into naming your company.

Can Your Name Grow with You?

Choosing a name like “20^th Century Carpets” can really put a damper on how people interpret you. And you must also keep in mind that somewhere along the way, you may want to change the focus of your business. A great flexible business name example is “Midas”. Being named after a Greek king with the touch of gold denotes quality service and attention to detail, but not necessarily anything else. So when Midas expanded their services past mufflers and into other automotive parts, their name could come with them.

“We know professionals rely on their mobile devices every day to conduct business and to stay prepared for their work day. We’ve been working hard to make this new LinkedIn app best-in-class in the Windows Phone marketplace,” says Tomer Cohen, a mobile product manager that works for LinkedIn, “LinkedIn For Windows Phone makes it easy to get on-the-go access to your professional network and [offers] all the rich LinkedIn insights to help you be great at what you do.”

The new Windows app joins the iPhone and Android applications, even though the company insists that the Windows version is the most sleek and sophisticated version they’ve ever created. “We are now making it possible for even more professionals to gather the important insights they need to make smarter business decisions right from their Windows Phone device – and you’ll find that the Windows Phone app offers even more functionality than its iOS and Android siblings.”

The purpose of this application, LinkedIn says, is to connect professionals with other professionals. The app is designed to include a real-time update stream with news and information from a number of connections and groups. The application is free and takes around thirty seconds to download because of its compact 1MB size.

Even though LinkedIn is growing every day, it’s still only around 150 million users strong. Compared to Facebook’s near billion users, this number doesn’t seem very impressive, and LinkedIn appears to have a lot of catching up to do. With all of their recent updates to its site and mobile applications, however, they aim to show both users and potential users just how vital the information on their site can be. With a little luck, LinkedIn will grow into the advanced networking system it’s trying to be.

HP has expanded their line of Ultrabooks from two to five. An Ultrabook is basically a thin, light laptop with an incredible hard drive, RAM speed, and features that are specifically designed to help employees be more productive. The new computers released last week are the Envy Spectre XT, the Envy Sleekbook, and the Envy Ultrabook.  All three notebooks come fully loaded with Windows 7 premium, 4 GB of memory, and an eight hour battery life, and come in a 14-inch model and a 15.6-inch model. Prices range from around $700 all the way to $1000 for the top-of-the-line Spectre with an HP TrueVision HD webcam and a full version of the new Adobe Photoshop included.

However, there is some question whether even these exemplary machines will get the attention they deserve from companies. Most of the time, companies won’t upgrade a computer until it’s at least ten or fifteen years old, and if an employee isn’t happy with that, they can buy their own computer and bring it to work instead. School districts, which used to be one of the largest buyers of computers, are also sticking to their guns when it comes to upgrading; the average age of a computer in a California school district is nearly nine years old.

The reasonable price point of the new HP laptops makes them stiff competition for MacBook Air computers. HP also offers corporate discounts for those companies who do choose to upgrade to the enterprise line of their new computers, so companies have plenty of incentive to recycle the old and come in with the new.

Many companies do seem to be thinking about upgrading their corporate laptops, but not in a way that would benefit HP’s laptop efforts. New data seems to indicate that tablets are the wave of the future business world, especially as technology for such tablets continues to strive forward.

Twitter wishes to “give every person on the planet a consistent Twitter experience,” and because of this new initiative, it’s standardizing the program for all platforms including all browsers and phones. This means good things for people who have limited Web access or can’t always connect to the internet via their smartphones. It also speeds the program up so that even slow connections can access the site to send out a tweet or two.

The mobile upgrade uses the newest version of Twitter which was announced and implemented in December. Some of the useful new features include being able to view every available tweet from the “Home” page by clicking a tab, see who’s mentioned you under the @mentions tab, and even a new implementation that allows you to see which of your tweets are trending and work best for you when you post them.

Low-bandwidth networks, feature phones, and even older versions of any browser can simply visit mobile.twitter.com to experience a comprehensive version of Twitter that doesn’t compromise speed for style.

Twitter plans on continuing to make their media platform a “more accessible way to connect the world,” even as technology plunges forward. Twitter doesn’t plan on leaving anyone behind and wants everyone to enjoy their network.

So for those of you who refuse to upgrade to new phones or are stuck on an old version of Firefox, fear not – Twitter will look just as sleek and will run just as fast for you as it will for the next person with all of the perks.

Business Speed Equals Information Speed

Your business works just about as fast as information is exchanged between people at your office. For example, someone may have to run a piece of work through an editor before they can publish it, or a project proposal may have to get your final approval before it can go into full swing. Nothing can happen until that information has passed through the right hands. When information flows smoothly within an organization, decision makers will have the right facts they need to make an accurate call.

Pretty much every organization has a way they communicate, whether it’s through means like Cloud computing services or e-mail distribution lists. Having this can help everyone in the organization stay up to speed in a formal manner. However, real communication happens behind the scenes when people talk in more informal ways, such as person-to-person or through text messaging. Encouraging a casual and friendly work environment can help people feel like they can drop by anyone’s workspace at any time to ask a question.

How Do You Create an Efficient Information Exchange Network?

An easy way to encourage employees to talk to one another openly is to start a workgroup program. Have a list of questions everyone can ask one another to get to know each other on a more personal level. Knowing the people you need to work with on a daily basis makes it easier to talk to them, especially if something is needed right away to get a job done quickly.

If your employees are still having trouble communicating in an efficient manner, sometimes mapping out the way your office communicates can help find your barriers. For example, if a particular person or department seems to be holding up the line, then usually outlining the communication structure in a meeting will show you exactly where that holdup is. You could also be having a problem with communication only going one way; when the outline is finished, that communication hurdle should be clear as day.

Remember to Be a Good Example

Even if communicating with your employees is a weakness of yours, putting some effort into making sure you do your best will show them that they need to do their best, too. Even conducting daily huddles or talking to everyone in the break room can help break the ice and form a better two-way channel between you and your workers.

It all comes down to improving the stability of your business, both long and short term. Cloud can help you accomplish that goal, especially if you need a more efficient approach to keeping your data and other files secure.

Cloud Computing is basically a service that hosts data. Even an e-mail server such as Gmail can be considered a Cloud-like program. Basically, even if your entire network goes down and your building burns in a fire, you’ll still have access to your data and thus the ability to rebuild. Cloud has evolved quite a lot over the past few years and is now more secure and advanced as ever.

One of the best features is that Cloud is completely scalable. You’ll never wind up with too much or too little space for your business. You won’t need to have a bunch of IT people building your infrastructure from scratch only to wonder later what other important assets you could have spent all of that money on. With Cloud, you just pay for what you need, upload, and walk away. You can even upgrade in the middle of the month if business starts booming and you suddenly need more room.

If you think that it’ll continue to be a hassle to update your systems every day, you’re mistaken; you can schedule automatic updates once, twice, three times a day so you know all of your data is safe. You don’t even have to worry about updates or upgrades; that’s all automatic when you pay your third party provider to give you virtual space and data security.

Best of all, Cloud is always 100% customizable. If you need your service to take data from every company mobile device, laptop, and desktop every hour, then you can set it up to do that. If you want to connect Cloud to other applications (like a document creation application, or a fax application) then you can do that, too. You can even combine it with customer management tools that will help you form stronger business relationships between you and your customers.

So instead of continuously increasing the size of your server, turning to the Cloud next time you need an upgrade will likely benefit your company.