Archive for category: Neat Tech & News

There’s a 7% chance that “1234” or “0000” is the code you use to unlock your iPhone. This article reveals a massive problem we’re having with passwords. Lets face it, they are a pain and you can’t possibly have a complex password for every single website you visit AND make sure to change it every 60 days. So what we all do (excecpt, ahem, me, of course) is come up with easy-to-remember passwords or passcodes and then use them everywhere. It’s a bad idea but the simple fact is we have little choice. Until bio-recognition gets built into all hardware (like fingerprint or face or voice or whatever) the problem of bad passwords and even worse security breakins will continue, unfortunately. But until then, if your passcode is any of the top 10 listed, CHANGE IT!

Google is just not going to lay down to Facebook and this +1 feature is its attempt to put the camel’s nose in the tent. The +1 feature lets you recommend content throughout the web and view your friend’s recommendations. The key word here is “Friends”, i.e. social network.

My advice to webmasters (including me) is to put this +1 on your website asap as it will affect SEO in some way (though of course Google won’t say specifically how). And start microwaving the popcorn for the action packed thriller (FB vs. Google) that’s sure to play out in front of us

From one view, this looks like a nice feature that shows people relevant to the email you’re processing within Gmail. I think it’s Google’s latest attempt to put the camel’s nose in the social media tent. Google absolutely must stop the Facebook freight train because as soon as Facebook starts offering search, it will be the beginning of the end of Google

My Mac friends *used* to boast that their Macs never got viruses to which I used to smugly respond, “That’s because there’s so few Macs, no one cares”. But it’s different now as Macs are the new hip cool in thing. Along with popularity comes virus targeting and I assure you this is just the beginning. Welcome to the world of popular computing platforms Mac peeps!

Yesterday, 25 days after the Mac Defender malware began to appear in the wild, Apple finally responded. In a technical support note, “How to avoid or remove Mac Defender malware,” the company posted instructions for users to follow if they’ve encountered this malware specimen in the wild. It also promised a security update to remove infections automatically.

File that memo under, “Too little, too late.”

I SO love competition! While I’m going to stick to my current contract with Sprint, it looks like I’ll have two other high speed 4G carriers to consider next year: Verizon’s LTE (22mbps) and Tmobile’s HSPA+ (apparently 42mbps). I can’t wait to try them out! Truly amazing how speeds can increase so dramatically in such a short time. Only last year June, I bought the world’s first 4G phone which was about 4-5 times faster than 3G networks (about 4-5mbps vs. the 1mbps). One year later we’ve got networks almost 10 times faster than my 4G. Got to love technology!