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Daylight Savings Time and the Auto-Scan

Posted by susabelle at 5:51 AM on March 14, 2010

So, this morning, I get up and wake up my laptop. I have a big meeting later this morning and I need to finish up some notes and gather some other information together. I check the clock, and note that it has already adjusted for daylight savings time. That’s good, I can move on.

Then I realize that my Microsoft Security Essentials icon is yellow with an exclamation point. This means something is amiss, and I click it to see. It says I haven’t done a scan since last Sunday March 7th, and I might be “at risk.” That’s odd, as I have it set to auto-scan every week, on Sunday. At 2 a.m.

But there was no 2 a.m. today, as it got bumped by Daylight Savings Time to 3 a.m. What a funny fluke. I had to run a manual scan this morning to take care of it. I am pretty sure the Sunday 2 a.m. setting was the default when I loaded MSE, so I’m wondering if anyone else running the program may end up having a little yellow caution note this morning as well.

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Maybe It’s Not the Provider, Maybe It’s the Phone

Posted by susabelle at 9:17 PM on March 13, 2010

I hear lots of people complain about the reception their iPhones get. Lots of complaints about dropped calls seem to make their way to me from many iPhone users. They readily blame ATT for the issues.

I have had ATT wireless service for about 8 years now. I have had multiple phones during those years, as have my family members who’ve had phones on my plan. Some phones get great reception, others drop calls constantly. My daughter’s Samsung Propel had terrible reception. We could be sitting side by side on the couch and I had four bars on my Sony Ericcson Walkman phone, and she had no bars on her Propel. Same service, same contract, same couch, same house. Big difference in reception. Prior to my Sony phone, I had a RAZR, and its reception was awful most of the time.

I have since replaced her Propel with a Pantech Insight. I also have the Insight. These get amazing reception even with only one bar, or a bar coming and going, while my husband’s LG flip phone is only adequate with five full bars.

So I’m wondering, maybe the poor reception on the iPhone has nothing to do with the service provider, but instead with the device itself. I hear so many complaints, so often, I have to wonder if the device is to blame, and not always the service provider. And if this is the case, then why aren’t we making the complaint known to ATT and to Apple: if a low-end smart phone like the Pantech can get better reception and fewer dropped calls and 3G than an iPhone, on the same service provider in the same location, then maybe the device needs some tweaking.

Something to ponder.

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No Podcast Tonight!

Posted by geeknews at 9:04 PM on March 11, 2010

Hey folks, did not get any sleep on the red-eye out of Honolulu last night. Hit the wall here about an hour ago when I got to about 30 hours of no sleep. Will work on a mashup podcast for you of events here at SXSW tomorrow.

Todd..

Tags: Podcast

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Lisa Tickled Pink Hates Technology: The Social Experiment

Posted by Jeffrey Powers at 11:29 AM on March 9, 2010

If you by chanced checked out “This Week in Tech”, you watched as Leo Laporte talked with Kevin Rose, John Dvorak and Clayton Morris talk about events in tech. I had the show on live as I was working on other projects as they did something that was not only interesting, but also shows how someone can turn from a nobody to a social mediate. Someone who didn’t even expect to become one.

They were talking about how Conan O’Brien had announced he was following a random person. They decided that this group could do the same thing. Therefore, Kevin Rose got onto twitter and looked for someone that only had 2-3 tweets. But what he found was the perfect twitter account.

@Lisatickledpink Hates Technology

The foursome started talking about this Twitter, in which all the viewers (about 1,700 at the time) started to follow Lisa Etheridge. They realized that she was in New Zealand and had notifications turned on. Therefore, she got an interesting wakeup call to everyone following her on Twitter.

By the end of the show, she had over 2,000 followers. The news instantly topped on Digg, which helped with more followers. Her count right now? 12,526.

Yep, she did in 2 days what most of us couldn’t do in 3 years. And while a lot of those followers could be bots and soon-to-be-dead profiles, she still has a considerable audience that will receive her status updates throughout the day. An amazing feat and a great way to start her iFame.

I mentioned Conan O’brien before. His experiment has netted a couples’ wedding to be paid in full. Of course, Conan wasn’t the first to turn a nobody into someone. However, with Twitter gaining more users than it ever has before and an average of 600 tweets a second, the world is getting more connected than ever. Where as my Twitter hits something like 0.00002 percent of the population, Lisa has an ear of 0.00025 percent. To put into perspective, @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher) has 0.092 percent (Based on 4-5 Billion user accounts)

So to Lisa Etheridge – Enjoy this new fame and use it wisely. You have been put in a position that can mean people are listening to you. Don’t forget to mention my twitter handle every now and then, too – @geekazine

Tags: "Leo Laporte", aplusk, kevin rose, lisatickledpink, this week in tech, tweet, Twitter

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The Underground Guide To The iPhone!

Posted by geeknews at 8:40 PM on March 8, 2010

Download The Unofficial Guide to the iPhone both for not only the new iphone user but also those that have long time experience with the device, this guide is really good. You can also get daily updates on new websites and applications via e-mail as well. My friends over at Netline turned me on to this, and I think your going to enjoy this resource.

Tags: iPhone

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Why Ad Blocking Hurts Sites like this one

Posted by geeknews at 11:53 PM on March 7, 2010

The folks over at Ars Technica of which I am a personal fan, put out a post today titled “Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love“.

There is no way I could have expressed as elegantly as they did what I have felt for a very long time. I am not sure I would have done the experiment that they did, but I have to admit I bet a few folks eyes bugged out of there heads when they were the recipients of the experiment. Do you Love us? Please white list us and don’t block the ads, those ads help keep the lights on!

Tags: advertising

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A Personal Reality Check for Bandwidth Caps

Posted by Andrew at 3:35 AM on March 5, 2010

Over the years of GNC, I’ve heard Todd rail on about broadband bandwidth caps and while I’ve enjoyed his rants, it’s been low priority topic for me. Why? Because I think I’m a power user with a good selection of podcasts, a fair bit of online TV viewing, some (legal) music downloads. However, in a single month, I have never got anywhere near 50GB. I think 30-something gigs was the most.

And then came the email from my service provider telling me that if I continued as I was going, I would exceed my bandwidth cap shortly. Although I wouldn’t be cut-off, daytime bandwidth would be throttled. I was a bit surprised but when I checked the firewall logs, it was correct – if anything, they were under-measuring by a few GB.

So, looking back, why the surge in data usage? Well, I’m going to blame Todd and the Tech Podcast Network coverage of CES. It was so good, I downloaded every single one of the videos, watched a few of them on-line, just couldn’t get enough. I even downloaded some of the them twice, once for my PC and once for my Palm Pre!

Removing tongue from cheek, yes, it was the coverage of CES that bumped up the stats but it showed me that a bandwidth allocation of 50GB per month doesn’t actually go that far once you start getting into video.

Recently, I’ve also bought an Archos media player that can go online and stream content direct to my TV. I’ve been pretty impressed by the viewing experience, even with only a wireless connection. Although I can do the same with my laptop, having a dedicated appliance is far move convenient.

I don’t have any doubt that online distribution of films and TV programmes will take off in a big way, especially when it comes built-in to the TVs. As an aside, a built-in media player is far more attractive to me than 3-D! It’s also clear to me now that the telecoms companies are going to have to up their game to cope. If they’re smart, it’s an opportunity to make money and the competition for broadband services in the UK is pretty healthy.

For consumers like me, it’s time to start looking for deals with caps bigger than 50GB.

Tags: broadband, Broadband Caps, Media

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Firefox Addon Site Launcher

Posted by KL Tech Muse at 7:58 PM on March 3, 2010

I am a member of a Web site called MyLikes, it was previously called Likeaholixs. As a member of the Web site I signed up to do sponsor ads for them on my personal Web site, Musing and Gadgets. Yesterday I was sent a message that a sponsor ad was available and it was for a Foxfire add on called Site Launcher. This is an add on I had not tried before, so before I did a sponsored it, I wanted to make sure I tested it out. So since yesterday I have been testing it on Firefox and I have to say I really like it. It is an app I would recommend to any Firefox user. It allows you to easily open up a favorite Web site using three key strokes. This video shows how to set it up and use it. I hope you enjoy it.

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Geek News Central at SXSW

Posted by geeknews at 12:29 PM on March 1, 2010

I will be in Austin for SXSW from March 11th to 15th. Unlike CES I will be going Solo and this will change the way I cover this event. Expect more intimate interviews some audio and some video dependent on the situation, location etc.

I am also going to try and live stream some of the events as well but this year is more exploratory to see what we can do next year on a larger scale.

If you would like to meet with me at SXSW please contact me as soon as possible so I can get you written in.

Tags: SXSW

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Trouble with iTunes!

Posted by geeknews at 6:17 PM on February 26, 2010

Over the past 4-5 days for some unknown reason iTunes has not been updating my Podcast Listing in the application. Current and New subscribers can hit refresh in iTunes when they load my show in there podcast subscription page on iTunes as outlined below. I have been trying to get someone at Apple to check and see what is going on without a lot of luck. This event is impacting a lot of subscribers from getting the show. So if you are subscribed you can refresh the listing to get the latest show.

Tags: Apple, itunes, podcasting

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Apple thinks Skin is Porn!

Posted by geeknews at 11:23 PM on February 20, 2010

Someone over at Apple is a bit nervous about women in Bikinis. As they have banned “every” iPhone app that shows any skin. The rumor on the street is that if you have a picture of a woman in a Afghani Burqas you are good to go. All pictures of men, require that they be wearing long sleeve shirts, any hint of chest hair requires that the shirt be buttoned all the way to the top, ties are optional.

Once again Apple proves that if you have a business model that they suddenly feel is impacting their idea of appropriate you are going to be out of business. Odd that the Playboy application is still online? Maybe Apple has just signed a multi-billion deal with the Porn Industry, with the porn industry magazine sales down, and with the iPad coming online it could be pre-cursor to being able to pick up Playboy on the iPad / iPhone. After all I bet those applications will sell and bring in more revenue for Apple than the Bikini applications.

Those bikini application companies are now out of business probably the folks that have puppy apps are next. Sucks to be them, but come on did anyone think it was really going to last. Apple has thrown the morality flag, any image in any application that may be considered titillating in any way will be rejected.

Did I say the Playboy application was still available!

Ohhhh I almost forgot you do remember that you can go to any website in the world with Safari.. After all the Internet is a completely sterile place. I suppose they will have to remove Safari from the iPhone as well. Ohh and might as well remove the camera from the iPhone after all someone may take a picture at a swimming pool. Jeez I wonder if they are going to start searching my Macbook for pictures as well?

Tags: Apple

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“We Want to See!”

Posted by susabelle at 8:05 AM on February 18, 2010

A local case is making the news here, and I suspect, will hit the bigger news feeds soon. A fight outside a bar in November, 2008, is at the center of the case. An off-duty, and now fired, police officer is being prosecuted for a shooting that happened during that fight. And the police officer’s lawyer wants to see what the other police officers who were investigating the case said to each other on facebook during the inquiry. He believes it is evidence that shows police officers investigating the case were not only biased, but may have been influenced by status postings or comments to status postings that flew back and forth on Facebook during the investigation.

Facebook, of course, is fighting the request to turn over the evidence, citing the Federal Stored Communications Act. This is one way to go about it, and it will be interesting to see if this will be challenged successfully by the police officer’s lawyer. Interestingly enough, the prosecutor in the case can ask for, and receive, those records from Facebook, but the defense attorney cannot. And the prosecution in the case has rebuffed the defense attorney’s attempts to get them to request the records.

The stakes are high for the police officer, who faces up to 30 years in prison for aggravated battery with a firearm. The stakes are also high for Facebook users, as this challenge could open many of them (me included) up to having records snatched by non-law enforcement in the event of a criminal matter. I’ll be watching this one closely. The police officer’s defense attorney in the case, Albert Watkins, is one of those lawyers you see on the news all the time. We have about four or five of those running around here, always talking about the innocence of their client and how the prosecution is doing them wrong in some way or another, so some of this is posturing, I’m sure. But the case’s outcome could make a much bigger impact on all Facebook users.

The judge has taken all the arguments into consideration and has said he will be researching the matter before making a decision. I hope he has good legal research assistants to help him out.

Tags: Privacy

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Nuance Snaps Up MacSpeech

Posted by susabelle at 4:32 PM on February 16, 2010

Nuance Software, makers of Dragon Naturally Speaking for the PC and the iPhone, has purchased MacSpeech. MacSpeech was voted Best of Show at MacWorld 2008, but that’s not saying a whole lot, because there just aren’t any other products like it for the Mac. But then again, there really isn’t any other product like Dragon Naturally Speaking, either.

One thing that has existed in all our future computer dreams is true voice-activated software. We can have voice-activated dialing on our cell phones, but none of us can walk into an elevator and say “Floor 18″ ala Star Trek. But when it comes to Dragon Naturally Speaking, we are closer to getting there than we ever have been before, it’s just not going to be working in an elevator. A person using Dragon Naturally Speaking on a computer can provide simple commands to direct the program to do what the user wants, including editing a document (“delete that”) and opening menus (“open file…open new”). The latest two incarnations of Dragon Naturally Speaking (v. 9 and now v. 10) are almost perfect out of the box, allowing even a new user to get the product up and running effectively in a short amount of time.

MacSpeech’s “Dictate” program was never quite there, although the product is better than nothing at all. Having it owned by Nuance will likely lead to large leaps in development, bringing it up to par with the current Dragon Naturally Speaking product rather quickly. And that can only be good news for everyone. If Dragon Naturally Speaking can work on the iPhone, then why can’t it work on the Mac? With MacSpeech in the stable, all things are possible for Nuance now.

And to think, a few short years ago, Dragon Naturally Speaking was in limbo, as its original owner faced charges of impropriety in financial dealings, and was effectively dissolved through a bankruptcy. Scansoft purchased the product, but it sat in limbo for several years as they did not have the means to develop the product. They eventually merged with Nuance, taking their line of optical character recognition software like Visioneer (PaperPort), TextBridge, and OmniPage to a whole new level. With renewed purpose, Nuance/Scansoft was finally able to continue development on Dragon Naturally Speaking.

The company is now a bit of a powerhouse in the disability services industry, where they have had their hands in the development of Kurzweil in addition to their optical character recognition programs. My academic environment uses an awful lot of Nuance/Scansoft products in providing services to disabled students.

With Nuance grabbing up another piece of the market, this can only bode well for everyone, even the non-disabled. Voice recognition could now conceivably be in wide-spread use in the next few years, if the product continues to be developed. I only see good things from such a joining of efforts.