Students Can Get Unlimited Google Drive Storage for Free

Are you a student? If so, you can get unlimited cloud storage for the very low price of free.

Google on Tuesday announced a new version of Drive that is free for students. Described as an "infinitely large, ultra-secure and entirely free bookbag for the 21st century," the new Drive for Education offering will be available to all Google Apps for Education customers at no charge.

It includes unlimited storage (with a 5TB per-file size limit) plus access to the Google Apps Vault for your message archiving needs.

"No more worrying about how much space you have left or about which user needs more gigabytes," Ben Schrom, project manager for Google Apps for Education, wrote in a blog post Tuesday.

Google stressed the security of Drive, noting that every file uploaded to the service is encrypted both while it travels from your device to the company's data centers, and also while at rest on Google's servers.

"We want educators and students who use Google Apps for Education to be able to focus on the learning experience — not the technology that supports it," Schrom wrote. "With Drive for Education, users can put an end to worries about storage limits and more easily maintain a safe, effective and compliant learning environment."

The move comes after Google in May unveiled Classroom, a free tool in the Google Apps for Education Suite that aims to make teachers' lives a little easier and more organized. Classroom is integrated with Drive to automatically organize assignments into folders.

Google also recently launched Drive for Work, a premium offering for businesses that includes unlimited storage, advanced audit reporting, and new security controls for $10 per user per month.

Windows 9 may be a free upgrade for Windows 8 users

Multiple Windows 9 reports have suggested that Microsoft is considering releasing the upcoming platform as a free download to certain existing Windows users. Some said that Windows 8 will get Windows 9 free of charge, while others claimed the company is also considering some sort of special offers for existing Windows XP users. A report from Indonesian online publication Detik said earlier this week that President of Microsoft Indonesia Andreas Diantoro has confirmed this particular Windows 9 feature.

According to Diantoro, the Windows 9 upgrade will be available free of charge to all existing Windows 8 users once it’s released. Apparently, users will be able to easily install the Windows 9 update after downloading it from Microsoft, which is how Apple’s OS X updates have been rolled out to Macs for a few years now. For what it’s worth, some of the recent Windows 9 leaks did say that Microsoft already has a tool in place that will allow users to easily perform software updates.

It’s not clear whether other Windows users who are on older versions of the OS will get any other special offers, and actual prices for Windows 9 have yet to be revealed. Microsoft is reportedly interested in moving many people from the older, and no longer supported, Windows XP and offering Windows 9 as a free download might be a great incentive for some.

Microsoft is going to soon unveil Windows 9 and release a technical preview of it. Recent leaks, including many videos, have revealed some of the major features coming to Windows 9, including the return of the Start menu, the Cortana voice-based search assistant that’s currently available only on Windows Phone, the Notification Center, support for multiple desktops, and several other UI enhancements.

AT&T doubles data plan sizes in huge limited-time promo

Here’s a nice surprise for current and prospective AT&T customers that will brighten up your weekend: AT&T is offering a special limited-time promotion that will double the size of your data plan. Beginning Sunday, September 28th, and running through October 31st, Mobile Share Value plans with between 15GB and 50GB of data per month will see those data buckets double in size. This means that subscribers with accounts with two or more lines will have twice as much data each month without subscribers having to pay an additional penny.

This is how the promotional data plans break down:

This is a promo that families and big data users will undoubtedly appreciate, and it is available to new and existing AT&T subscribers alike. Of course, if you’re a current customer with a plan listed above and you want to see your data doubled, you’ll need to contact AT&T customer service or go to an AT&T store to switch to the new promotional plan.

Of note, while these new plans are part of a limited-time promotion, the increased data plan sizes do not expire; if you switch to a promotional plan before November, the size of your data bucket will remain doubled until you cancel your service or switch to a new plan.

Each plan still comes with unlimited talk and text, and more information can be found on AT&T’s blog.

FBI is upset that Apple and Google made it harder for them to spy on you...

FBI Director James Comey has, unsurprisingly, come out and slammed Apple, Google and other tech companies for offering encryption on devices such as smartphones. Comey said he was "very concerned" about strengthened encryption in mobile OSes, saying it could work against his organization in the event of a terror attack.

In his statement, Comey took issue with the marketing of smartphone OSes from major tech companies. By saying that their smartphone products could be encrypted without access by agencies like the FBI, Comey said it was like the companies were saying "buy our phone and law-enforcement, even with legal process, can never get access to it".

Comey's words come after the launch of iOS 8, which for the first time offers device and data encryption that Apple cannot decrypt, even if ordered to do so by a warrant. Google also has plans to implement similar encryption methods into Android L, keeping the power of access firmly in the hands of users. No longer will there be a simple backdoor that can be accessed by an FBI agent in possession of a warrant.

The new encryption methods could hurt the FBI and leave them powerless in investigations into serious crimes. While privacy is still important, Cowey believes the FBI should have access in dire circumstances.

"I like and believe very much that we should have to obtain a warrant from an independent judge to be able to take the content of anyone's closet or their smart phone. The notion that someone would market a closet that could never be opened -- even if it involves a case involving a child kidnapper and a court order -- to me does not make any sense."

However in the wake of widespread government surveillance and increasingly serious privacy breaches by people with malicious intent, it looks like tech companies will continue to close down ways to access private data, even if that means shutting off access from law enforcement agencies.

A simple math equation Comcast does not want you to compute

Broadband modem rental fees are usually around $8 per month regardless of provider. Although it is cheaper in the long run to buy your own modem, most people would rather simply pay the fee each month to not have to fool with it which is exactly what ISPs like Comcast want you to do.

As it turns out, modem rental fees are an absolute cash cow for ISPs. A recent Forbes article estimates that a staggering 90 percent of Comcast's broadband customers rent their modems.

Doing a bit more math, the publication surmises that cable modem rental fees contribute between $275 million and $300 million per quarter to Comcast’s bottom line. And if recent rumors in the DSL Reports forum are accurate, the monthly fee could be increasing by $2 in the not-too distant future.

The good news is that you can avoid this monthly rental feel altogether simply by supplying your own modem (if you haven’t already). They’re readily available at retail stores like Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart or online at any number of sites. A basic modem will set you back around $80-90 which, while more expensive up front, will certainly save you money after the first nine months.

If you’re really curious as to the potential cost savings, just do the math based on how many years you’ve been paying the rental fee.

And if you do decide to go the DIY route, be sure to check your bill each month thereafter to make sure your ISP doesn't try to sneak the fee back in.

Simple equation:

$8 (average monthly rental cost for a modem) x 12 months = $96 a year

2 years=$192

3 years=$288

add $96 for each additional year.

Cost to buy a standard Cable Modem (the same kind Comcast is renting you) = $40-100 (general Internet search of various places online)

So ask yourself, why are you giving your money away?

Why are some hard drives more reliable than others?

This is of particular interest to me as one of my customers had a complete failure this week.  The question gets asked," why did this happen?"  Most of the time I have no answer.  In most cases, there are no answers to the question.  Extremetech has a nice article talking about this specific question.  Click here for more.