Itunes Match

Do you have a lot of music on your computer? Have you ever wanted to back it up on the cloud and be able to access it from anywhere? If you answered yes to both questions, consider looking into a service called itunes match. For only $24.99/year, you can store all of your music in the iCloud. In my opinion, this service is one that is well worth the price tag. $24.99/year is a very reasonable price to pay, and itunes will even upgrade your songs if they have a higher quality available.

In addition, instead of putting music on to your iphone, ipad, or ipod touch, you can access the songs you have stored in itunes match as long as you have an internet connection. Songs stored on itunes match can even be played though apple TV. However, itunes match can only be used on devices that use iOS 5.0.1 or newer which shouldn't be a problem if you have newer device. The service also supports up to 10 devices.

Itunes match can store a large amount of music, as well. You can store up to 25,000 songs in iCloud. I know all of the music that I have is no where near that number so space shouldn't be too much of a concern. Match also supports
AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF file types.

As a user of multiple apple devices, this service would work great for me so I do not have to devote valuable storage space on my iphone or ipad to music and can utilize it with more apps and photos.


-Curt R.

Need Power??

The holidays are just around the corner. If you're like me, that means I'll be spending a lot of time sitting on a couch next to Aunt Shirley while she drones on about her cats. Meanwhile, I'll be staring at my phone, checking email, playing a few games, deleting old apps and killing my battery in the process. The best way to survive is to keep a steady inflow of juice into your battery. I did a little research and found some options that will not only save Christmas, but could work for a few quick gift ideas for the equally tech savvy friend or family member.

This Window Cling Solar Charger is an awesome gadget that combines new technology with the rapidly growing sustainability concept. It can be used to charge your electronics by attaching to any window that offers light for it to collect solar power. Price $69.95 (I was able to find other brands and model types for various prices.)

http://www.likecool.com/Window_Cling_Solar_Charger--Tech--Gear.html

Although the Orca PowerStrap gadget charging wristband looks a little geeky, it definitely has its uses. Start by charging the device itself, and then take it wherever you go for power on the go. This device can charge everything from phones to tablets and even Nintendo products…just don’t let your friends see you wearing it. Price $64.00

http://www.geekalerts.com/gadget-charging-wristband/

This Mobile External Power Battery Charger is made for a number of various mobile phones and digital devices. Its main feature is that it is small enough to fit in any pocket or purse and it comes in a number of styles and colors. The pack has a 2500mAh power charger external battery bank. Price $10.59http://www.everbuying.com/product172197.html

Node Electric Outlet eliminates the need for a power strip. Just plug it in anywhere on the square! As of November 2011, the Node is in the conceptual phase, so I wasn’t able to get information on surge protection or plugs requiring a ground pin. However, the designer, Metaphys, does sell actual products. So, keep an eye out! http://www.incrediblethings.com/tech/node-electrical-outlet/

Lastly, if you are handy there is a way to develop your own small and simple, but very powerful DIY USB Charger for any gadget you can plug into a USB port to charge. The charger circuitry and 2 AA batteries fit into an Altoids gum tin, and will run your iPod for hours which is 2.5x more than you'd get from a 9V USB charger. So, what’s the catch? Well it doesn’t look easy… but if you are adventurous and know your way around a soldering iron and a set of schematics, follow the link below. And while you’re at it, make me one cause they are very cool.

http://www.ladyada.net/make/mintyboost/process.html


-DN

Google Across America

Have you signed up for Google Fiber yet? While you probably won't get Google Fiber in your neighborhood for the next few years, Google HAS taken the first step in the ISP industry. Is this just another step forward into taking over the world? You might think so...but Google has introduced its new fiber optics to Kansas City with Internet speeds up to 1 Gbps (gigabit ~ 125 megabytes) which is much faster than current ISPs in the area.

To sign up for Google Fiber, you first sign up, and agree to enter a contractual agreement (when Google decides to bring their fiber service to your area). They are offering multiple plans which can be found below.



In addition to the incredible fast download and upload speeds, customers who pay for Internet, will receive a Network Box and 1TB of Google Drive space. Customers who agree to pay for Internet and TV will receive, in addition to the Network Box and 1TB of cloud storage: a free Nexus 7 tablet (to use as the remote control), a TV box, and a Storage Box. It is also worth noting that those who receive the free Internet connection are only guaranteed the free service for 7 years, and will be limited to 5Mbps download/1Mbps upload speed.

With Google penetrating the ISP industry, it will definitely give current ISPs a run for their money. Companies like Verizon have also started planning for similar services via using cellular network towers as primary Internet access for its users.

It will be interesting to see how far along Google comes with this project. I sure hope they come to our area sometime in the near future!



CR

How Much Information Does the Internet Have on You?

Have you ever heard of the web site spokeo.com? Just earlier today I stumbled across this website when I was doing some research on Facebook's proposed policy changes and boy was I surprised. Spokeo is a social network aggregator. This means that the site searches social networks and other sources of record on the internet (ex. Online Phone books, mailing lists, etc) and complies all of the results in one place. When a user searches a name, information such as social networking data, demographics, estimated property values, and even personal wealth. None of the information returned in the searches is originated by Spokeo and they cite that the search results are "only as good as their source."

On June 12, 2012, Spokeo was fined $800,000 by the Federal Trade Commission for collecting information about people's personal lives and selling the information collected to prospective employers without protecting the people's privacy.

After running a quick search of myself on Spokeo, it turned up a satellite view of my house, my address, relatives related to me, as well as other information from social networking sites. Additional information such as my phone number, an estimate of my income, and ethnicity was available for a fee as low as $3.95/month. This search was very eye opening to me. Of course, anybody could find out my address and search my house on Google Maps, or find my phone number in a directory with a little effort. However, Spokeo made obtaining this information a little too easy. In addition, Spokeo does allow a person to remove their information from the website. It also states that because they do not create any of the information, it will still be available through the originator of the data.

I encourage anybody who reads this blog post to go to Spokeo and search for themselves. While searching myself it gave me an uneasy feeling, it is also definitely going to make me more aware of what I put on social networks and whether I tag my location or not.

-Curt R

Open Source Software and Its Benefits

Defined by Google,Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is available with source code: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under an open-source license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software. There are many examples of open source software that you might not be aware of. For example, Mozilla Firefox, Linux, and some sections of android are open source. OSS has many benefits that include but are not limited to security, cost, quality, and flexibility.

Open source software has the potential to be more secure than its proprietary software counterpart. It may seem backwards, right? How can the software that is written and designed by thousands of people be safer and more secure than the software that is designed by paid developers? Well here is how. OSS can be seen and looked over by thousands. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, said it best when he said, "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." With open source, thousands of people can look at the code and find security problems. Proprietary software on the other hand only has its developers to look at it and find the security risks.

Open Source Software costs a significant amount less than its counter part. OSS can be developed by up to thousands of individuals that do not get paid. This reduces the overall cost of the software and because OSS doesn't have any licenses, users avoid paying a licensing fee.

Quality is also another major benefit of OSS. Users and developers are able to modify the code to make the software do the functions that benefits their needs best. In fact, in an article from PCWorld.com, it is said that a recent study has shown that enterprises are beginning to choose open source software more because it has more technical superiority than proprietary software.

Flexibility is the last benefit that I will cover. Open Source software requires fewer resources to run than proprietary software. This means that OSS can run on older hardware. Now you will no longer be forced to upgrade your hardware just because your software vendor thinks its time.

These are just a few benefits of Open Source Software. You can find many others in the PC world article, "10 Reasons Open Source is Good for Business."

Thank you for reading and in closing I will provide you with a joke.

What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A: FSH


-Curt R

5 Obsolete Technologies We Won’t Miss

With new technology being added to our lives, workplace, homes, vehicles, backpacks and purses every day, it is easy to forget about the little details of our daily life that are slowly being transitioned out. Depending on your age, some of these technologies may not have been as predominant in your daily life. Either way, let’s take a moment to remember and give respect to these passing trends and fads and be thankful for the new and emerging technologies that have replaced them.

• Waiting over an hour to get photos developed – Unless you are getting professional photos from an actual studio, this fad is basically dead.  Nowadays, we get the instant print variety, opt for the one hour printing or never get them developed at all. Digital format photos are easily sent via email and there are programs such as Instagram, iCloud Photo Streams and Flickr that allows image sharing to be instant.
• Running out of hard-drive space – Obviously, Cloud computing has nearly eliminated this concept all together. However, how many of us can remember the transition through the varying types of memory storage? Floppy, hard, compact, memory cards, zip drives, external hard-drives, passport mobile storage devices… With all the newest options, there are tons of options for storage of even your most unimportant data.
• Busy signals – This pesky, annoying sound seemed to find its way out with house phones. Multiple lines are a given with any phone line these days. And to be honest, who actually has the potential of two people calling them at one time, rather than sending a quick text? Either way, thank goodness we don't have to hear that anymore.
• Paying for long distance – This is a treat that I’m sure none of us miss. I also find it funny that as cell phones emerged as a common device for the majority of the population, their nationwide plans were still costly. At this time, I remember many people owning a cell phone, home phone and keeping a calling card around for cheaper rates on call abroad.
• Fuzzy reception on televisions – Since our wonderful United States of America switched over to an all-digital broadcasting system, there are no more antenna adjustments, aluminum foil, beating the side of your television or standing on one foot in the corner of the room to fix the picture. We definitely don’t miss it. 

This is just a few of the many inconveniences that have been booted from our already busy and distracted lives as students, professionals and humans, overall. A few more I brainstormed while coming up with this list was the screeching of a modem as it connects to the internet, removing the paper feed strips from the side of printed documents, and rewinding VHS tapes. Remember when having a "tape rewinder" was the newest, coolest thing? 

Furthermore, for some of us in the slightly older generation, a few items ARE missed. For example, being able to be somewhere and not be reachable from a cellphone or tracked down on FourSquare. Today’s day-in-age calls for constant updating and the only valuable information is whatever makes it to the source first. There is a lot to be said for the value of our privacy and how rare of a commodity it has become. And for some of us slightly older folks, we just miss spending time at the video arcade…wait, do they make those anymore?

DN

Combining services to create synergy

Using services like cloud storage can add many benefits to you or your company. It allows you to store a number of files on another server, where you can access those files at any given time and from any computer or device that can connect to the Internet. Services such as Amazon Cloud Storage and SugarSync, offer a free starting storage of 5 GB. For most people, this is more than enough to hold their documents, but pictures and music may be another story. What I have found, is that cloud storage such as Google Drive (5 GB) and Microsoft SkyDrive (7 GB) are the best place to hold my Google Docs and Office documents, respectively. Cloud storage such as DropBox (2 GB) and SugarSync (5 GB) can be used to hold other files such as music and pictures. You could even go as far as keeping only pictures on DropBox, while music is located on SugarSync's cloud storage servers. These services can also be expanded for free, DropBox offers a max of 18 GB for free, for referring additional friends to use the service (500 MB per referral). You can also gain additional storage by signing up for other offers, such as Netflix. Below is a table that shows popular cloud services, the amount of free storage they offer, and the minimum/maximum data available for users who would like to pay for more space.

The biggest concern with cloud storage is security. It may have you wondering "who can see my data that is on the cloud?" DropBox has claimed that they do encrypt your data, but they are also able to decrypt, or review, the data at any time. This has created a lot of concern by consumers for services, like cloud storage. One way to combat this, however, is to use a product that was not meant for use on the cloud, but certainly can be; that product is TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt is defined, via their website, as "free open-source on-the-fly disk encryption." It is a tool that allows the user to create encrypted files or container/folders of files. It is similar to creating a password protected .zip file, but offers more than just that. TrueCrypt allows you to create a folder (within a cloud storage service, such as DropBox) so that only those with the password, can view what the volume contains in your cloud folder. TrueCrypt also allows for customization of your encryption, meaning you can use different algorithms like AES, Serpent, Twofish and 5 combinations of these algorithms. You can also use TrueCrypt on your personal computer to encrypt the entire hard disk, so that a password is required to boot.

CR

Sources: http://lifehacker.com/5794486/how-to-add-a-second-layer-of-encryption-to-dropbox
All table data was taken directly from websites on 10/10/2012.

There's an app for that!

As an iPhone user, I'm always looking fot that cool new app. I've come to realize there are apps for just about anything you could imagine. I anticipate that with the creation of passbook on iOS 6, that more and more companies are going to develop apps for their customers that have coupons stored in passbook, tickets for concerts or sporting events, or  customer loyalty programs. This is yet another convenient way to use your iPhone (and stop carrying around papers). While looking online for new app reviews, I can across a list for the "The New Top 100 iPhone apps" on a site called http://www.blogtrepreneur.com. I was highly skeptical that any of the apps that were listed would be all that great. However, what I found surprised me. I would just like to highlight a few of the apps that I have found off the list and give a few features of each.

1. CamCard

With the CamCard app, all you have to do is take a picture of a business card with your iPhone, and the app will sort all of the information on the business card into a contact on your phone. Pretty cool, huh? Good bye to the days of the Roll-A-Dex and business cards cluttering up your wallet.This app could get a lot of use after a long day at the career fair.  This app does cost $2.99 for the full version, however, a lite version is available for free.
CamCard

2. Expensify

This app is aimed at eliminating paper receipts to keep track of. Expensify can be synced up with your credit cards and provide you with an e-receipt and track your purchases. Receipts from cash sales can also be tracked as well. This can be done by taking a picture of the receipt (the same method as in CamCard) and the app will document your receipt. You no longer have to spend countless hours looking for that all important receipt! This app is free from the Apple App Store.
Expensify

3. Flight Track

This app might only apply to those that travel often, however, it could end up being pretty useful. This app will provide you with real-time updates on departure times, arrival times and even show the progress of your flight while you're in the air. Flight Track also has international coverage so you can use it in your travels abroad. This app sells for $6.49 from the Apple App Store.
Flight Track

4. Aroundme

Aroundme will help you find restaurants, gas stations, hotels, places of entertainment, and supermarkets that are around your current location. This could be very useful if you ever find yourself on a business trip and are looking for places to eat or catch a movie without traveling too far. Aroundme is free from the app store.
Aroundme

5. Find Your Car

If you're like me, sometimes you forget where you parked your car. This app will solve that problem. Just open the app once you park your car and save the location. Now if you can't remember where you parked, just open the app and it will show you where it is. Just remember, this app does not use the GPS in your car, so if it gets towed or stolen, you're out of luck. This app is also free in the app store.
Find Your Car

These are just a few of the apps that I found interesting from this list. There are 95 more that may interest you. You can see at 100 at Top 100 iPhone apps.

-Curt R

Spam vs Your Inbox: The Battle Continues

A friend of mine just let me in on two great tricks that can assist in creating a "spam-free" environment for your inbox.

~ Find the culprit:

When giving out your email address to a company for promotional purposes, there is a way to find out whether that company is selling your information resulting in spam mail. When you give the email to the company, add a plus symbol and something that will remind you of who the company is. For example, if you fill out a promotional card for Pita Pit, you would give them the following email:

JohnDoe+famous@gmail.com      

(original email: JohnDoe@gmail.com)

Adding the plus sign does not affect the sending capabilities, it just creates a flag for you. Now, if you receive spam to your email, and the sender has the adjusted email address as the recipient, you know who sold or handed out your information.

~ Find out if a spam bot is sending emails (from "you") to your contacts list:

Create a dummy contact (SomeFakeEmail@whatever.com) and send them an email. You will receive an email from your email provider saying the message was undeliverable. (If you are using a gmail account, you may receive the undeliverable notification up to three times because they will try to send out the email once a day for three days.) 

Make sure the fake email is added as a contact on your email's address book. Now, if you receive an undeliverable email in the future you will know that something someone has sent an email to ALL of your contacts, including the contact that you have already established is an undeliverable address.

DN

Internet Hoaxes on the Rise

We've all seen them. The innocent reference to the newest current event posted on your friend's Facebook feed or in a tweet from a co-worker. Sometimes it's faster to find out the latest news tidbit via the dynamic, ever-changing social networking web. In fact, news related posts have a way of going completely viral on the internet. Unfortunately, it spreads so quickly that they aren't always thoroughly filtered and researched by the individuals re-posting the story, if any scrutiny is given at all. These fabricated stories are internet hoaxes, and although they have been around for a while, I noticed they seem to become more predominant as social networking sites gain credibility as a viable news source.

An internet hoax is a lie that has been fabricated by someone who knows it is untrue when they decide to spread the false information. The technical definition of an internet hoax is “to deceive or trick people into believing or accepting something which the hoaxer (the person or group creating the hoax) knows is false.” 

Here are a few that you may have seen in your latest feeds:

• Samsung paid Apple $1 billion dollar fine in coins

This hoax originated on August 27th, where is was posted on Spanish site, El Deforma. The story was was soon re-published in English on various other humor satirical websites, before finally escaping its satirical origins and making its way around the Internet via blogs and various social media. 
 

• Morgan Freeman is dead

He is indeed alive and well. Although the latest death hoax for Morgan started in August of 2012, this isn’t the first time he has been a victim. In December 2010, he was said to have died in his Burbank home. Other actors death hoaxes: Robert Duvall has died after falling from a cliff while filming in New Zealand, Adam Sandler dies in snowboarding accident, Bill Nye “Science Guy”, WWE Wrestling star The Undertaker, Tom Kenny Voice of Sponge Bob, Bill Cosby, Tony Danza, Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Eddie Murphy and others. I'd like to note that many of these individuals allegedly "died" on the same New Zealand cliff. Climbers beware!

 

• Heineken supports dog fighting

The photo that has been circulated on Facebook has been taken out of context. The signs were left at a club location in Mongolia from a previous event and the club was not open for public business when the dog fighting was taking place. Furthermore, Heineken has now ceased its relationship with the club entirely and taken steps to ensure that its products will never be sold there again.

• The Tree Octopus

This brings us full circle to one of the original internet hoaxes: The Tree Octopus. This hypothetical creature was invented by Lyle Zapato, a Washington-based author and Web publisher, in 1998. He created an Internet hoax website to draw people's attention and is often used by instructors for students to learn to think more objectively and not believe all that they find on the web.

 

After reading these, you may be asking yourself the same question: Why?

Unlike a scammer, whose efforts may be rewarded in the form of stolen funds or stolen identities, a hoax writer does not stand to reap a tangible reward. Hoaxsters have motives that are less transparent. These people may attract a sense of power or cheap thrill when they see how many times their hoax has been forwarded or “liked” by viewers. By making up a celebrity death, the hoaxer may suddenly use the celebrities’ popularity to attract people to their malicious attack pages. They may also feel "successful" by their own twisted standards by how many people they are able to trick into believing the story they have woven. Many hoaxers use it as a venting of anger against a society they resent.

 How can you help?

The best step we can take as responsible internet users is to not further agitate the situation or enable the internet hoaxer by refusing to feed into the hype and spread the lies. Overall, the main lesson to gain from the deliberate deception is that you should never re-post, share or display information that has not been proven to be true. As we learn in school, research the information, know your sources and be prepared to cite them. 

DN


Images and hoax details were obtained from the following sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_hoax
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/celebritydeaths.asp
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/latest-information.html
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/tree-octopus-facts.html
http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/