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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
You or your kids can go online and be harassed, abused, and bullied with no consequences. This is what was decided this week in federal court after Lori Drew had violated a law that was too vague to prosecute, according to Judge Wu.
According to prosecutors, Lori had pretended to be a 13 year old boy on My Space. She then coaxed a teenage girl into starting an online relationship with the fake boy. After a while, Drew allegedly told the teenage girl “the world would be better off without her.” The girl then tragically committed suicide.
Drew said it wasn’t her, but the internet provider pointed it back to her IP address and it couldn’t have been anyone else. Or could it? Your IP address is a unique number among four billion addresses worldwide. The internet provider is given a block of these numbers by the American Registry of Internet numbers. The provider assigns them dynamically to their customers when they log onto the internet. The number is then recorded as to which customer account it’s tied to, and there is your chain of evidence.
This is the same way that the music industry attacks people who allegedly download pirated software, but it’s nowhere near foolproof. If the person’s computer has been hijacked by a virus or malware, then the attacker controlling the computer could have been the one who broke the law. The network could also have a weak wireless security setup, and could have been compromised by anyone within 30 feet of the house. There are many more ways it could have happened, but let’s focus instead on the crime of cyber bullying and what this ruling means to you and your family.
Cyber bullying can happen either by email, public posts on social networks, or live in a chat room. You may think it’s easy enough to just ignore the person. There are plenty of tools to do this using ignore features in the programs and websites you go into. If the bully is determined, however, they can just create new accounts anytime they like, and start harassment using an alternative profile. Some of us may shrug off the importance of online relationships, but for those people who use them as a social lifeline, they can be everything to them. They are as real as any real world relationship to many people. And that list is growing. To make it even more a reality, 3D websites have popped up with moving pictures and voice chat that could be easily confused with a person standing next to you if you do it long enough (or have too much caffeine).
The government tried to create a law that prevented people from pretending to be someone else. That’s the law that was allegedly broken by Drew. There was no law that protected people from bullying. Since that time, states like Missouri have tried to create laws to protect people from this type of behavior, but critics say the laws are unconstitutional due to free speech. Apparently you can shout fire in a crowded theater, provided that it’s only a virtual one.
Our children are once again the most vulnerable in this saga. According to secure-kid.com, 20% of all children have said they have been solicited online for sex. Another 10% have been cyber bullied. This is going to be a difficult period for the growth of the internet and use by our children until this matter is resolved.
So, how do you stop it from happening in your home? The first thing I always tell parents is to not allow internet use in any other room but the living room, or use another room where there is almost always a parent to watch over them. I also recommend a content filter on the computer or on the firewall to keep kids from surfing anywhere they please. K9 is a good free filter from download.com. After installing the program, try to go somewhere you shouldn’t to test it out. Remember to think like a kid. You can then customize it fairly easily for additional protection.
If you suspect your children of doing something online that they are keeping secret, then you can also install a keylogger onto your computer. They have to be installed properly or antispyware and antivirus programs will detect them. This type of program will send you a detailed report of everything that has happened on your computer on a daily basis. Are your kids keeping passwords a secret from you? No problem. The keylogger will tell you. BUT, read the terms of service before installing. You don’t want to break the law and get yourself in trouble while trying to protect your kids.
Read all about keyloggers and how they work here before deciding which one to purchase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_logging
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com. To read my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator” go to Amazon.com and type in my name in the search bar.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
If you have a cell phone, chances are you are part of the growing group of consumers who want to use it to access the internet.
Q- “What are my different options for getting on the internet using my smart phone?”
Chas K. Portland, OR.
A- I like this question because many people think they’re all accessing the internet the same way, and they’re not. There are many different kinds of technologies and different cell phone companies that take advantage of each one.
Quick key-
Kbs= Kilobits or thousands of bits per second transfer rate. (Dial up is 56Kbs)
Mbs= Megabits or millions of bits per second transfer rate. (Comcast averages 8 Mbs)
Let’s do a rundown of each way your smart phone can access the internet using a built-in web browser:
GPRS- This is truly “old school” technology. If you have this type of phone then you need to recycle it. I had a phone that used this and I cried every time I tried to get on the internet with it. It averaged 43Kbs, and that’s slower than dialup. My blood pressure, however, went much higher than that. No current provider will sell you this service, but you may have a grandfathered plan that still uses it.
Edge- The Edge network has been around since 2003. Although technically Edge is a subset of 3G technology, it’s not presented that way by the cell phone companies. The speed is also published at different rates that vary by vendor, but you can expect between 70-200Kbs. This is a little faster than dialup speed. In other words: it’s painful to use but usually won’t cause heart attack or stroke. You will automatically switch to Edge when 3G is not available.
3G- This is the current standard for cell phone internet access. Most major carriers use the 3G standard and you can expect speeds of around 1.5Mbs per second. This makes the internet quite useable. If you want to test your speed, go to http://i.dslr.net/iphone_speedtest.html . My iPhone tested on 3G at 684Kbs. It’s faster if you’re outdoors, the wind is blowing right, and you have the right cologne and silk clothes on. (The test will work for all smart phones, so don’t be scared off just because it says iPhone in the URL.)
Wi-Fi 802.11 A, B, G, and N- This is by far the fastest way to access the internet but, unlike the other technologies, you have to be near a wireless access point to use it. If your phone uses 802.11 G, for instance, you should be able to communicate with it at around 30 Mbs. If your wireless access point is not connected to the internet at that speed, it will be less. A big advantage to Wi-Fi is that you don’t have to pay anything extra for this service since it’s your own internet connection (or your neighbor's) that you’re using, and not the phone company’s. You can also connect to public Wi-Fi or paid services like those at coffee houses and hotels. The only disadvantage to Wi-Fi is that when you walk more than 30 feet away from the access point, you lose internet access.
Other internet features to consider:
Skype- If you’re tired of paying those knuckleheads at the cell phone company for every call, then you can use your internet access to make phone calls using VOIP from Skype. In some cases, you need to jailbreak your phone to make it work (see previous Blog http://community.koinlocal6.com/blogs/current_hot_topics/archive/2009/03/09/3721779.aspx). You can call other Skype users for free. To call land lines there’s a nominal fee. Go to http://skype.com to sign up. It also works great on any laptop or netbook. You may see me occasionally on Koin News doing a live video Skype interview like I did last week.
BIS vs. BES- If you’re going to buy a Blackberry, then you have a couple of internet choices. Blackberry Enterprise Service, or Blackberry Internet Service. BIS is cheaper but it only lets you surf the internet. BES also allows you to connect to a Blackberry server for wireless syncing of email, calendar and contacts, but it costs more. Many people make this mistake and go with the cheaper service and end up not being able to use their email the way they want. Remember that Blackberry, through BIS, also does email, but it is email forwarding and not complete synchronization of all features like BES.
IPOD Touch- The IPOD Touch is the iPhone without the phone. Therefore, you can use it with Skype to make phone calls without needing a phone contract. Just be close to a wireless access point and you have a phone without the monthly expense!
Tethering- This feature allows you to be on the internet using 3G with your laptop when you can’t get access to 802.11 Wifi, or you just don’t want to pay for it. It’s very handy at hotels that charge for internet access. Some phones do this natively, like Windows Mobile. Other phones have to be broken out of jail to get it to work. I was able to tether quite nicely in Vegas last weekend and didn’t have to pay the $14 per day to surf the web on my laptop.
Cell Cards- A cell card is basically a cell phone for your laptop that’s just used for internet access. If you can tether your phone like I did, then it’s not necessary, but if you need to use a cell card, they’re a good deal. They run the same cost as a data plan for your phone, which is around $50 per month for unlimited use.
Clear- This is a product from Clearwire that can achieve cable broadband speeds wirelessly. It does cost more than a cell card but it is much faster. The downside is that you need to surf in the areas where you can get service. It will only be available in the Portland metro area, so travelers won’t get a lot of use with Clear until they expand the service nationwide.
4G- This technology has been used as a big consumer scam. There is no 4G standard as of yet. You can read all about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4g . The issue I have is that several companies like Clearwire are claiming their product is using 4G, but it’s not true. Even Google is said to be making the next 4G, but they won’t. This is an evolution to 3G and it’s a future standard that several companies are working on. They’re trying to get the speed up to 100 Mbs, which will be amazing if it works. However, it is still years away before it will be ratified. In the meantime, if anyone says they are 4G, just tell them they’re full of megabits.
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru I’ve received many questions about the brand of smart phone a person should get if they’re looking for a business phone. I have many years of experience with all types of smart phones and here is what I’ve found.
Q- “Should I get a Blackberry for my business phone?” Claire B. Portland, OR.
Well Claire, here’s the scoop. A lot of people have the Blackberry phones and most seem happy enough, but I think it’s because they don’t know enough about what else is out there on the market.
Here is a rundown of the other smart phones that are most used by business people:
Apple’s iPhone, Windows Mobile (lots of different brands), Android G1.x, Palm Pre and older models, Blackberry of all flavors.
I have installed dozens of Blackberry servers as well as Exchange Mobile and Novell’s GroupWise. I speak from years of experience as both an IT consultant and administrator.
A smart phone is defined as any modern phone that can receive email, surf the web with a built in browser, make phone calls, send texts, take pictures or video, and install useful applications. All of these phones can wirelessly synchronize your email, calendar and contacts. There’s no big difference in the functionality of the different phones when it comes to your email.
Let’s discuss each of the different features and how Blackberry stacks up:
For internet surfing, Blackberry’s late to the market web browser appears to be kluged together compared to other brands. Most people complain it’s too slow and you have to disable photos to make it work. By comparison, iPhone’s Safari web browser is very fast, even with pictures. G1 is also receiving good reviews.
The camera isn’t all that important for most business users, so let’s just say if it has one that’s great, but it’s not a necessity that it takes great pictures. If you’re taking a lot of pictures and video with your smart phone at work, then your boss will eventually want to know why.
The quality of the phone itself is something that appears to have escaped most business users because there is a general consensus that they are all alike. Well, they aren’t. My experience is that the average Blackberry user breaks their phone far more often than any other brand of smart phone. I have some users that break it several times a year. Are they clumsier than other cell phone owners or are Blackberry phones just poorly made? (Neither answer would be good).
The Blackberry Storm that came out at Christmas had so many dead phones out of the box that they discontinued it after less than one quarter. Shortly after that, they were in the “2 for 1” bargain bin. Now the Storm 2 is about to be released. Don’t make the same mistake twice.
Many of our customers claim the Blackberry call quality is so poor it’s hard to hear, and the volume levels won’t go high enough. The icons on the desktop constantly disappear, causing a reformatting of the phone.
Blackberry is the only service that requires all of its emails to go through a bank of servers on the East Coast before they get to you. There have been several outages over the last few years that have caused the entire country to be without email service for hours and sometimes days. With Exchange and GroupWise, the email sends and receives directly from the local server itself.
Blackberry synchronization is also a little tricky. If you buy the cheap plan, you synchronize by connecting a cable from your phone to your computer to sync calendars and contacts. The wireless synchronization plan is more expensive ($20 more per month per phone). This allows you to connect to a Blackberry server which sites on top of Exchange or GroupWise, so you end up paying twice just to use the wireless service. None of those fees apply to any other type of smart phone.
Well, how about security? Is that why business owners get Blackberry over the competition? Absolutely not! In fact, we have to lower the security in Windows just to make Blackberry work. By default Windows has higher security, but the design of the Blackberry is so archaic we have to allow the Blackberry account to have full send access to every email box. This means that if the Blackberry account gets hacked, the attacker can send email and SPAM out from every address in your company.
While every other smart phone manufacturer has created new features and more security for business customers, Blackberry continues to just ride the wave that marketing has set up for it. In 2008, we visited the Blackberry booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. They literally had no new products to show us since 2007. In 2009, all they had to show was the poorly designed Storm which people were exchanging in droves by the time the show began.
The last area is applications. The iPhone has over 15,000 of them. G1 is not far behind. Windows Mobile has very useful applications, but not as many as iPhone and G1. Mobile does allow you to copy your documents from your computer to your phone wirelessly for free using Live Mesh.
Palm has been a disaster the last few years and the Pre is their last hope before filing bankruptcy. It looks and feels like a combination of an iPhone and a tiny G1. It’s hard to say if it will be enough to save them since their applications have been nonexistent, but there is hope.
Blackberry applications were a complete afterthought. There’s not that many available and most people say they slow the phone down when you use them. The Blackberry website shows about 40 applications, which is not enough to excite the market.
So why do business owners buy Blackberry after all of the failings mentioned here? I’m sure that it has to do with a lack of education on the subject by the average user, and the marketing machine that RIM has to advertise. It also doesn’t hurt that president Obama loves his. That isn’t saying much, however, because I remember when peanuts went up four fold when Carter was president, and Jelly Belly’s made a huge franchise from President Reagan’s endorsement. Don’t buy your phone because a commercial told you to. Buy it after talking to a professional.
By the way, they took away the president’s Blackberry his first week in office and gave him a more secure wireless phone. That should tell you something.
For more great tips, check back here and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10 AM in Seattle on KOL, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com. If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
Although I recently spoke with Bill Lake who is the FCC head of the DTV switchover, I’m not going to talk about DTV (even though the cutover is in less than two weeks). I believe we’ve all been reminded until we’ve shut our brains down when the topic comes up.
I’m also not going to talk this week about the Conficker virus, despite the fact that it has been stealing millions of people’s identities over the past month. It’s been the most successfully evil virus of all time, and it’s not even technically a virus. It’s a worm. If you haven’t listened to what I’ve said about it by now, well, I guess you’re on your own.
Even though these once popular topics are in the present, we’re going to pretend they’re in the past. Let’s move forward and talk about how to save money. A topic that’s always in vogue. Now that gas is once again bordering on being unaffordable, it’s a great time to learn new ways to use the internet to avoid going anywhere, but still get everything you need to do done. Here is a list of things you can do on the internet safely, assuming that Conficker and any of the other hundreds of thousands of viruses, malware, and spyware programs aren’t on your computer.
Buy and Sell a House- If you live in Oregon, you can shop for houses at your leisure by going to the quick search button at RMLS.com. Just pick the city or county and type in your parameters, such as how much you want to spend, how many bedrooms or bathrooms, house or lot size, and even the school district of your choice. The great thing about this site is that you don’t have to sign up or register to see the information.
If you want to see how badly the recession has hit your home’s value, then go to zillow.com. This is another site you don’t need to login to see the good stuff. You can check out your home’s value and see what your neighbor’s is as well. Also see taxes, photos, and comp values. If you ask a realtor, however, they will warn you that the prices are not all that accurate. Use it as a rule of thumb rather than an actual value. The tax and previous sale info is accurate, and you will find it very useful. Warning: You may have to leave your current home to move to a new home.
Secure your Home- A security camera can help you see if anyone is hanging around outside your home, or in your home if you’re away. You can place wired or wireless cameras anywhere you like and see everything that’s going on from your computer or television. For more details, check out a previous article I wrote on this subject here: http://community.koinlocal6.com/blogs/current_hot_topics/archive/2009/04/13/3878444.aspx
Order Food and Groceries- Believe it or not, you can still order your groceries online and most people are saying they really love the service. The biggest concern is always going to be about the meat and veggies, since picking those are subject to your own quirkiness (is it ripe if I thump it and it sounds like a C#?). www.newseasonsmarket.com and www.safeway.com are still in the delivery business. I have heard a lot of people tell me they didn’t know this was still available when homegrocer.com exploded in the Dot Bomb era. Albertsons no longer delivers in the Portland area. The prices are the same as going to the store, but “at home” delivery is an additional $10. For a lesser charge you can have them do all the shopping and you can pick it up, but if you’re unable or unwilling to leave your home, then $10 is a small price to pay. Now you, too, can be an Agoraphobic and still eat.
Communicate with People- If you like people but have a hard time dealing with them in person, then online communities may be for you. No Swine Flu transfer going on in here. Facebook and My Space allow you to create your own homepage and show your personality. Twitter allows you to send short messages to groups of people, but for interactive communication you should choose an Instant Messaging community. AOL’s Instant Messenger, or Yahoo’s IM, among others, are great for this. They allow you to choose a category such as gardening, or a location such as Portland, and then you can find other likeminded people who want to chat about it. You can even use your web cam or microphone to talk, if you choose to have a personal chat. Typing the communication is easier if you want to address a room full of people and see multiple responses. For example: if you can’t figure out why the leaves of your Japanese Maple have yet to grow, you can get a lot of opinions all at once by typing the question in a chat room. The programs are free and there are lots to choose from.
Travel to 3D Worlds- If you want more than just a 2D screen where you just type and instant message other people, then consider a 3D world like the ones from there.com and secondlife.com. You can have your own home and lot where you can decorate it to your heart’s content. Maybe you can’t afford a mansion in real life but, for just a few dollars, you can have one in the world of 3D. You can fly, hover, or go to virtual parties. The options are endless. Your entire social life can be virtual if you like. No one will ever complain about your lack of bathing while living “In World,”, as they call it. You can use a headset to talk to people one on one or to a bunch of people in a room. You can go to their homes and check out their décor or clothing. It’s really an amazing experience.
Shop for Anything- Amazon.com is the king of all shopping sites. Of course, every brick and mortar store has a website as well, but some sites will search for you and find the best price from all popular websites in one click. Pricegrabber.com and shopzilla.com make it easy to find the best deal. They don’t always take into account a special coupon offer or sale price, but in general they are good places to go to have them do the research for you.
Read Anything- You may already know that google.com has thousands of books you can read for free. If not, then go there and click on the More section and then choose Books. You can also read books on the new portable Kindle from Amazon.com. It does run hundreds of dollars, but you no longer have to carry around bulky books or newspapers. There is another group of free nonprofit sites that will give you all known books in history (that are out of copyright protection) and allow you to read them, or they can read them back to you. In some cases, the readings are done by real people while others are digitized and sound like the Macintosh from the 1980’s. www.gutenberg.org is the best site for this.
Find a Soul Mate- Many years ago when America On Line first came out, I used to use the Instant Messaging section mentioned earlier while I was at work.
I was self employed so no one could be mad at me about it, except me. One day I came across someone I found very interesting and we struck up a conversation. A month later she agreed to meet me in person and batta bing we were married 18 months later. There are now a lot of dating sites online. Most of them require a fee and a profile. Match.com is one of the biggest as well as eharmony.com, but for a lot less money you can find your mate in the personals of Yahoo or even the newspaper’s online classifieds. You can even try out craigslist.com for free, but watch out for the scammers.
Work and Make Money- Many employers are offering their office workers the ability to work from home. There are all kinds of dangers from hackers or thieves if you have a laptop, but with the proper precautions, it’s still a great way to work. In some cases, if you pick the right employer from places like dice.com and monster.com, you can do your entire job from home. When you do a job search, just put in “remote work” in the search box when you’re looking for that dream job in your fuzzy slippers. If you already have a job you love but hate going there, then talk to your boss about what it would take to set up a remote workspace. Tell them they will be able to use your desk at work for storage and they may just love the idea. Using the internet, they can even transfer your phone to your home as if you were actually in the office.
Bank Online- You may already be banking online, but if not, then it’s very simple to go to your bank’s website and choose the sign up option. After you create a login, the site will ask you what your account number is. Within a few minutes, you will be viewing your transactions and balances securely online. Besides just logging in, you can link up all your accounts and move money between them without ever going to a bank. You can also sign up for Bill Pay and send out all your checks for free. It costs the bank less money than when you use paper checks, which is why they encourage you to do this. If you don’t see all your accounts in the one login, then you should call your bank and ask them to link them up for you. In some cases, you can even use a fax/scanner to deposit paper checks from home. The banks don’t want you there because it costs money to keep staff to help you, and they will find any way possible to keep you from coming in. That’s fine by me.
Trade Stocks- It’s so easy to make and lose a fortune by trading online, you’ll think you’re already in Vegas. Signing up is easy at places like Ameritrade.com or Scottrade.com. You can now even link up your bank account to it and transfer money into your stock trading account without having to send them a check (like you had to do in the old days of 2003). If you’re new to stocks then it can be scary, and you can make a very expensive mistake. I suggest you take an online course first at a place like www.tradingacademy.com.
Well, there’s a lot more you can do online so you never have to leave your home again. The internet has brought all kinds of disabled people into a social life they never thought possible, but it also gives busy bipeds a way to solve their problems and do things they had to drive around town to do before. Take a trip inside rather than out, and see how much you can save by never leaving your home again. It’s too scary outside anyway.
If you want to know how to do something online you didn’t see here, just send me an email.
For more great tips, check back here and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10 AM in Seattle on KOL, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
This week I published my first book on the internet, and I didn’t have to get an agent or be rejected by any publishers. Thanks to websites like Amazon.com, you can now make money even in a down economy by publishing your own book.
First, I’ll give you a little background. I wrote a short story for my youngest kids when we moved from one part of Beaverton to another a few years ago. Since that was the only house they had known, there was a lot of anxiety over the move. I wanted to help them by creating a story that would tie them to the new house and give them a reason to be excited. Our boy’s names are Matt and Josh, so the title of the book was called Matt the Muscle and Josh the Brain. Together they fight bad guys and save the neighborhood. You can check it out on Amazon by going to http://www.amazon.com/Super-Adventures-Matt-Muscle-Brain/dp/1440435502/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242599731&sr=1-4
The official website I created for the book is at http://mattthemuscleandjoshthebrain.com
They enjoyed it so much that I wrote several more stories with the same theme. I started doing some research into finding an agent and a publisher for a computer book I wanted to write (I’m almost done with it) and I came across a crop of websites that do something new called “on-demand publishing”. You write the story and create the graphics in a word document program like Microsoft’s Word or Publisher. Then you save it as a PDF and upload the cover and the book file to the publishing company for free. Once it’s approved, they will send you a proof copy for a few dollars and you get a chance to okay it before it hits the market. Once approved, you decide the price and what websites you want to sell it on, and with the Amazon Kindle you can even distribute it electronically.
This is a lot different than the type of publisher where you have to pay a bunch of money to publish your book and they mail you all the copies for you to sell. These new companies don’t charge anything up front, and they print them one at a time as people order them online. They can do this very quickly because of computers. The customer doesn’t even realize it because it can show up in as little as two days. You can order as many wholesale copies for yourself as you’d like and then sell them on your own, if you’re so inclined. You can definitely make more money that way, but it is more work.
We chose a company called Create Space because they are tightly integrated with Amazon. You can get to them by going to createspace.com. Lulu.com and cafepress.com are two others that offer a similar service. More are popping up all the time. Check with bbb.org to make sure they are legitimate and get a good grade before signing up.
So, it wasn’t all peanut butter and banana sandwiches as the king would say. We had our share of problems while doing this project. Amazon does take a pretty high percentage which caused us to raise the price a couple dollars more than we would have liked to, but it’s not a bad trade off since we didn’t have to pay anything to get it started. We also discovered that making graphics isn’t an easy thing. Fortunately my sister Kate does this professionally so we struck a bargain with her to do the pictures while we handled everything else.
Original artwork takes time for a kid’s book so we worked on revision after revision from December until April. After the pictures were done the formatting can also be a trial. Our submission kept getting rejected because of a formatting issue. We discovered that even though the spacing and text boxes in Publisher were exactly correct when we created it, the sizes got slightly bigger when converting to PDF. We fixed this by reducing the original format by around ten percent so when increased, the size would be equal to what was required. That slowed down the project by an entire month! When we got our first proof we were very excited, and when we showed the boys their story in print they believed they had become famous.
When my sister saw her graphics in the book the joy quickly evaporated when she discovered that the pictures were not as sharp due to us changing the sizes to fit the new smaller format. Kate then fixed the originals to match the new size and the second proof came out the way she expected. That’s a good lesson for you when you do your book. Save the pictures to the exact sizes you need. Otherwise they get pixilated or fuzzy.
Kid’s books are probably the hardest to self publish because it takes a team of at least semi professionals to do it right. Novels or other books that don’t require a lot of graphics are a lot easier. For the cover you should consider hiring a professional graphic artist. There are lots of them out of work right now so I would think a Craigslist ad would get you what you need for a reasonable price.
So now it’s time to sell some books! I will explain in a future article what we did to market the book and generate sales.
For more great tips, check back here and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10 AM in Seattle on KOL, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
Facebook, My Space, and Twitter are all examples of the burgeoning social networking phenomenon that’s happening all across the world. For those of you living under a rock since 2005, I will give a brief history. The rest of you can skip down to the paragraph that says “Free beer.”
My Space was the first giant social networking company that briefly became the website with the most hits in the world after beating out Napster (remember them?). For the first time, anyone with the ability to spell could make a web page that could easily be customized and shared with friends and people you don’t even know, but would like to. All kinds of gimmicks are used to keep people interested in coming back to update their page and tell their friends what they’re up to. Money is made by ads that My Space sells to put on your page every time that page is visited. The most interesting thing about this technology is that many people have broken up with their significant others using this site because it’s easier than facing them.
Facebook is a similar social networking site, although it started as a “college only” membership. A couple of years ago they opened it up to everyone and it has stolen the crown with the most users. My Space still leads the way in the US, but Facebook has more users worldwide. They touted an easier and cleaner interface for creating custom pages, but then ruined it by changing the interface until it caused an uproar. They have since started listening to their members and have tried to undo some of the damage. (God forbid someone makes an easy to use product. We can’t leave that unbroken.)
That leaves us with Twitter. This social network product has a twist. It currently makes no money, but they are being incorporated into many commercial programs that may give them a bright future. With Twitter, users can send Tweets of up to 140 characters to anyone who is following them. One of the good things about Twitter is that lives have been saved by being able to send tweet messages to multiple people simultaneously when someone gets into trouble. A feat that was previously not possible. But now you have to break up with your significant other using a much smaller amount of text that has to be more creative. I personally like “It’s not me. It’s you.”, and “Your dirty laundry and your computer are in the front yard.”
So now we get to the scary part. When you have tens of millions of people using anything, the bad guys come out to see what all the fuss is about and try to exploit it. In the past few weeks, the big news has been all about Phishing. This is a type of attack that attempts to get you to click on a link that will infect your computer or try to get you to give out your credit card or other personal information. This has been happening by email for years, but new technology allows it to happen by simply visiting a web page. This week, the scam involved having what appeared to be a friend or celebrity send a fake Facebook link for you to click on in your email.
It actually takes you to a Facebook look alike site, and when you type in your username and password, you can say goodbye to your identity. They will log into your account and get all your personal information. Within days, credit cards will be opened in your name and your credit rating will be ruined. Within weeks, phone calls will come to your house asking why you haven’t paid your bills and lawsuits will be filed against you. This ultimately will lead you to living in a box on the side of the road, unless you take precautions.
Twitter is having a different problem but with similar results. Their network keeps getting hacked. The accounts of celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher (the person with the first million followers) and our own president have had their account information compromised.
So what should you do about it? Well, if you insist on telling everyone who follows your tweets when you’re eating a sandwich using Twitter, or showing us your latest lampshade on your head pictures on My Space from your last party, then you have to do some things that may cost you a few bucks.
The first thing is to enroll in a legitimate identity protection program. Bbb.gov can help you determine this by allowing you to check up on companies that offer one of these programs. Then you need a good antivirus and anti malware program that will keep your computer from getting infected. You should also take away administrator rights to your account on your computer. This will keep most programs from installing without your knowledge. Turn off file and folder sharing in the properties of your network card unless you need it. Make sure your computer account has a complex password along with any websites you sign up for. A complex password is a minimum of eight characters with at least one capital letter and one number. Make sure it doesn’t spell a known word. All hackers are aware of this trick.
Turn on the anti phishing filter in your web browser. It’s not 100% effective, but it mostly works. Make sure your Windows updates are patched to the latest level and update your web browser. IE 8 was just released and has great protection along with Firefox 3.0.4. Make sure your firewall is turned on, and don’t click on links in emails. Copy the link into Google and do a search on it. Then you’ll know if it’s safe.
Free Beer.
For more great tips, check back here and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10 AM in Seattle on KOL, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
In the early 1990’s when consumer use of the internet was new and was all done by dial up, we were used to paying for the internet by the hour. I remember some of my bills ran over a hundred dollars a month. Plus, we had to pay for the phone usage as well.
Fast forward almost twenty years and we see a different world. Besides phone bills dropping by 80% over what they were back then, we have unlimited and 'always on' internet capability. But a new ugly term came into being a few years ago and congress is once again taking up sides as to which way they should vote on it. It’s called internet throttling. Is your internet use being throttled by your internet provider? Let’s find out.
Q- “I’m confused as to why my internet is slower at times than others. Is my internet provider slowing me down on purpose?” Paul V. Portland.
A- Well, Paul, it could be a throttling issue or it could be the type of internet service provider you’re using. It could also be your computer or router (or gremlins). Let’s first look at your type of broadband internet connection. If you’re using DSL, one of the most common reasons for fast and then slow connectivity is going to be the fact that you share your bandwidth with your phone. When you pick up your phone to take a call, your internet speed will drop in half. That’s because you use two pairs of lines when using DSL, but if the phone uses one of those pairs you only have one left. See how easy math can be? If you need further proof, just buy me a cherry pie and watch me eat half of it. You will clearly see what you have left.
If you use cable for your high speed internet, you have a different reason for speed going up and down. With cable you’ll experience fast speed when everyone in your neighborhood is off to work or school and it will slow down dramatically from around 3-9 PM, when everyone wants to use it. You share the cable coming into your neighborhood with all your neighbors. DSL does not and neither does FIOS.
You should also check your Ethernet cables to see if they got pinched by any furniture, although sometimes they go bad with no visible scars. It could be a virus that activates periodically to avoid detection. I think you’ve read my blog long enough to know how to check for that. You could also be running a background program that is slowing the entire computer down. You can use the task manager to see what programs may be using up much of your resources when you notice the slowdown. The antivirus scan is a big speed killer. You can disable the scan if you need to work and run it later.
Comcast does have a limit to how much data you can download before you either get throttled or charged a surcharge on your bill. You can check with them to see if you have reached the maximum metered amount to find out. Time Warner also tried a meter with their customers this week and withdrew it immediately when not only customers got upset, but congress started complaining about it. TW didn’t want a law passed over this that would keep them from ever bringing the issue back, so they temporarily withdrew the meter. Eventually, all internet service providers will charge a surcharge or throttle our bandwidth- unless we stop them. The reason they give for this is that the prevalence of video streaming is putting a strain on their networks and it is unfair to the people who don’t use the internet that much.
I have kids and I know what whining sounds like. This sounds like a lot of whining from the internet companies when the answer is simple: Upgrade the system. The US is way behind in our high speed usage compared to the rest of the civilized world. According to tech_sassy, we have the 15th fastest speed despite having invented the technology! The leader is South Korea. Their average speed is around 50 Mbs compared to our paltry average of 4.9. I realize that many of us have faster than this in the Portland area, but not all of us live in population dense areas.
Many people still cannot even get high speed internet in our country. They’ve had phone and electricity for over a century, but broadband is not an option like it should be. Congress said we all had to have at least DSL capability as of 2006, but there were no teeth in that bill. President Obama has picked up the ball on this and is running high speed to everyone as fast as he can get congress to move.
Throttling and surcharges will be the norm for the next few years, and possibly forever if we let it happen. We need to incentivize our internet providers to upgrade their systems. You do know what happens when you let a toll road go up, don’t you? It never, ever, ever goes away. The gremlins are actually the internet providers. Let’s shut down the meter.
For more great tips, check back here and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10 AM in Seattle on KOL, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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Monitor Your Home on the Internet
By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
Most of you have heard about the Florida woman who had a funny feeling about her home so she logged into her web camera to see it being robbed. Since then, I’ve been asked multiple times if people should do this with their home. I’ll show you several ways people are successfully doing this. You just need to have a high speed internet connection to get started.
Q- “Should I have a webcam monitor my home when I’m away? Is it expensive?” Jermaine K Portland, OR
A- Jermaine, this is a timely question and I think many people would benefit from knowing the possibilities. First off, the answer is a definite yes. You should monitor your home, especially if you have large pets that can knock things over and cause fires or water damage (anyone see Marley and me?). That being said, I would like to discuss the ways to do this. Assuming you have a high speed connection in your home, such as DSL or Cable, you’ll need to buy a web enabled camera. This is commonly called a webcam (just like you were commonly called “Jermy” when you were a kid).
A webcam can be wired, wireless or both. You should get a camera that costs in the $100 range or higher, rather than the less expensive $50 models because of a huge difference in quality. Of course, if you decide you need to protect several areas of your home, this could get expensive. I personally like the wired webcams for reasons I will explain shortly, but first, let’s discuss the difference between a computer webcam and a security webcam.
A computer webcam is a USB connected device you plug into your computer for web chatting using Skype, or an instant messaging program like AIM or Yahoo Messenger. This is not the type of camera you want to buy to monitor your home. You need to buy the type that has an Ethernet connector in the back or is wireless. The packaging should say it does security video for monitoring. An example of these types of models would be the Linksys WVC or Dlink DCS 3420. Some are for indoor use while others are used outdoors and include a weatherproof housing. The outdoor models also have an infrared option for nighttime recording that is amazingly clear.
The best scenario would be to have an Ethernet wire run to each of the cameras rather than using wireless, because it will be a lot more fluid and less jerky. Wireless connections have a hard time keeping up with the 30 frames per second we need to see in order to perceive a video as being as “normal”. If you have multiple wireless cameras, this can get even worse. This is a valid option, and if you’re happy with the quality, then it’s better than nothing. You can hire a person to run the cable, or do it yourself if you’re handy. If you decide to run any wires into the ceiling, you may need to get plenum rated cable in order to meet code. This type of cable won’t give off harmful gases if you have a fire. Unfortunately, there are no codes for gassy relatives when they come over for holiday dinners.
Once you have your security camera, you’ll need to decide if you’re going to buy a software package where you upload the video to a paid service, or use your computer or a DVR to record the video. The cameras themselves don’t have enough memory to hold all the video you may need in order to hold evidence of a crime. An offsite service that stores the video and feeds you live images is great for the non-techy person because the setup is very simple. You’ll have to pay a fee of a few dollars a month for the service, but it may be worth it.
For those technical minded people (those of you who have watched the new Star Trek trailer over and over online) you could set up a computer in your home as a digital video recorder. This would not only record the video but also give you a way to view it live through your router. You’ll have to edit your router to allow the http traffic to your camera (or monitoring DVR device for multiple cameras). If you don’t have a static IP address, you’ll have to use dynamic DNS. If you don’t know what this is, then you don’t have a static address. Google it. You know you want to.
Having direct access to your camera is a lot better quality. The offline services tend to only let you see a smaller video picture than you would see direct from the camera or DVR. It’s also closer to real-time because you don’t have to wait for it to go to an offsite location before you see it. It may only be a few seconds of a delay, but for some people that would not be acceptable.
Besides monitoring your home for burglars or clumsy pets that are too big for your home (and should be on a farm), you could use it to monitor your children. It’s also good for monitoring fire, flood, or nosy neighbors that still have your key you forgot to get back after your last vacation. If you have a security monitor for your home and you get a call while you’re away, this could be a big help in deciding if the police should be called, or if your spouse accidentally tripped it and can’t remember the password to save their life. (Its rosebud, remember?)
Some come with a microphone so you can hear what’s going on even if the picture of a disaster is out of the reach of your camera. I personally like the kind that can pan, tilt, and rotate. This allows you to use fewer cameras because they cover a wider area.
If you get that funny feeling about something happening at your home while you’re away, you may need to get a security webcam set up before it’s too late. But then again, I may just be scaring you because I like to do that sometimes. Boo!
For more great tips, check back here and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10 AM in Seattle on KOL, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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Don’t be Fooled. Conficker is Just Getting Started
By Robert McMillen- Koin’s Tech Guru
Last week, the big hoopla about Conficker (aka Downadup) activating on April 1st was thought to be a dud. Reverse engineering showed that something was going to happen on that day, and some people said the virus was going to activate while others said it may be Y2K all over again. Conficker is no dud, and it’s just gaining momentum while the world media feeding frenzy has just been diverted elsewhere. Read on and I will explain what did happen on 4/1/09. In Paul Harvey’s absence, I will tell you the rest of the story.
On 3/30/09, Symantec Corp. warned that all the searching for solutions in Google and other search engines for the repair tool to fix Conficker was causing people to be directed to sites that were really agents for spreading other viruses just by visiting the infected site. That would be an indirect, although powerful, casualty to the Conficker tale.
However, the real story is that the Conficker.C worm continues to spread throughout the world through many un-patched computers helped along by (strangely enough) Microsoft. Because of the “Windows Genuine Advantage” program, computers that have an illegal copy of Windows are unable to get updates that secure their computers. The computers that are infected can’t get updates and they are the ones that will attack us worldwide (an estimated 10-20 million so far). Although Microsoft does make certain patches available without WGA, the people who would normally get a hacked copy of Windows by unscrupulous resellers aren’t going to know enough to get the patches (in most cases).
CNET.com (a division of CBS) is speculating that the Chinese government was behind Conficker and is using it as a test bed for cyber warfare. The code embedded in the virus is proving that to be a real possibility.
Another interesting fact is that the IP addresses of the Ukraine are the only ones not on Conficker’s attack list. That leads me to think of the possibility that China either hired or duped people in the Ukraine to host the mother ship that will ultimately control the attack.
So what did happen on April 1st? A lot more than you think. Up until that day, the virus was generating a list of website addresses to contact the attacking computer in the amount of 250 per day. After April 1st the list went to 50,000 per day. That can be really confusing. I remember trying to explain this to my wife and my sister while we were out to dinner on Saturday night, and their eyes glazed over like drizzle on a pound cake until I got to the end of the story. Just hang in there while I do my best to explain.
First, the virus got released into the wild last October. This is referenced now as Conficker.A. It spread by USB and CDs inserted into Windows computers and launched during the Autorun feature. People installed the virus without realizing it. Turning off Autorun became the single most important task of any IT administrator. It then spread by seeking out other computers in the network that have weak passwords.
Conficker.B got released a couple of months later. As long as you have your computer up to date with Windows Updates, then you’re considered safe. If not, you need to eradicate the virus through an antivirus or virus removal tool. Still, nothing happens to your computer other than blocking Windows updates and antivirus websites.
Conficker.C started popping up in February. It spread the same way and the fix was the same, but it was tweaked just enough to cause antivirus companies headaches as they came up with another patch.
There was a mathematical equation in the virus. On every infected computer, it started to look for the mother ship computer to tell it what to attack. The equation caused a random generator to look for 250 different websites every day until April 1st. Governments started to coordinate blocking those addresses. The infected computers had no way of connecting to the mother ship using one of those addresses. Thanks to the coordinated effort there was no way for the mother ship to launch the attack.
Some people who were able to reverse engineer parts of the virus realized something big was going to happen on April 1st, but they weren’t sure what that would be. The media perked up its attention after CBS 60 Minutes devoted a lot of time to exposing the virus.
April 1st came and went, and people thought nothing happened, but the virus became a larger threat because it had changed from looking for the mother ship computer on 250 websites, to 50,000 different websites every day. There’s now no way that governments and security experts can block this many websites without knowing the mathematical equation to which site will be used to coordinate the attack. For now, we have lost.
Going forward, Conficker.C can use these millions of infected computers to attack in any way it chooses. Your computer may be safe from attack if your Windows updates and antivirus patches are up to date, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be affected when these millions of computers decide to coordinate an attack. Register.com went down on April 1st and continues to have problems. Although it was thought to be Conficker, it wasn’t, but it does go to show you that even a small amount of zombie computers can bring down many large websites at once any time they want.
How can we keep this from happening indefinitely? For Pete’s sake, this gets worse every year! There is one hope and that is the switch from the antiquated IPV4 to IPV6. We are expected to make that change in 2-3 years when we run out of the paltry four billion IP addresses the world now shares. The new version will give us trillions of addresses and have built in protections against these types of attacks that we currently don’t have with IPV4. Unlike the metric system, which we were never forced to adopt (sorry President Carter), IPV4 will be more easily retired because internet service providers will jack up the rate to not switch, according to many experts.
We will have several more attacks and spotty internet outages until then, and maybe the big one, Conficker.C, will push us there even faster. It sure isn't over yet. The ride is almost at the top of the hill. I hear the chain clattering against the cart as it struggles on the rusty internet rails. Conficker and other viruses are waiting for us at the bottom. Baring their teeth and looking hungry.
For more great tips, check back here and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10 AM in Seattle on KOL, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
It’s coming this week! The Conficker.C (aka Downadup) virus that has been infecting computers worldwide for the past month or so has been lying dormant waiting to attack. The first version came out last year, but most computers eradicated that virus and the B version by updating their computers. Anyone with Windows Updates turned on and installed and patched to the latest level is most likely safe. If you have an antivirus program that’s up to date and working, you’re also safe. This new version C that has come out recently is estimated to have infected more than ten million computers, and one of them may be yours!
Some really smart people have been able to determine the virus will be activated on April 1st. However, they were unable to determine what will happen when it’s awakened. We have some speculations below, so read on.
If you have a Macintosh or Linux operating system on your computer, then just go have a cup of coffee. Better yet, do something that will help the economy, like leave your house and consume something.
How do you know if you’re safe? The simplest thing to do is to go to Windows Update and check to see if you have the latest patches installed. In Windows XP and older, just open Internet Explorer and go to Tools- Windows Update and Microsoft will check your computer. If you have Windows Vista, then go to your control panel and then Windows Update. You will then be told if your computer is up to date. If you have an antivirus program, then open it up and run the update and scan your computer. If the update program was able to get the latest antivirus signatures and install them then you’re safe. Check the date on the last successful update to know for sure.
If you are unable to run these updates, then you can go to this link from Symantec (aka Norton)
http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2009-030614-5852-99&tabid=3
If you can’t get there, than go to http://trendmicro.com and in the search box type “Housecall” for a free online scan.
You can get a free desktop version of antivirus from http://download.com and type in AVG free antivirus.
If the virus keeps you from going to these sites and you have another computer, then go to these links mentioned above on the second computer and learn how to manually remove the virus, or take your computer to a Microsoft certified repair center (Email me for a list).
Symantec is saying the hype might be worse than the actual infection because of people doing searches on the internet that may lead them to other compromised sites. Those sites may cause people to download other new viruses and compound the problem. Make sure you have your Anti-Phishing filter turned on your web browser to help keep this from happening.
So, now that all the serious stuff is done, let’s talk about what might happen if you don’t check to see if you’re protected. Here are some speculations that many professionals think may happen, but no one knows for sure:
1. The infected computers may turn into zombies that start to send SPAM to sell products all over the world, causing a major internet slowdown. If your company has a mail server on your network, then you may end up getting black listed because your public IP may be sharing the IP address of your workstations that are sending out the SPAM. Then you won’t be able to send legitimate email.
2. If you have a home PC, then your internet service provider will be on the lookout for unusual traffic coming from your computer, and they may shut off your internet access.
3. The infected computers may erase everything on your computer, although this is less likely. There’s no money in it for the virus writers to do this, but you never know.
4. The added traffic from the millions of computers may make it difficult to do work online and will cause new vulnerabilities to be exposed and exploited.
Here’s what I think will happen, just because it’s April fool’s Day: Your infected computer will hack into the phone lines. It will call your boss and tell her that you’ll be out today because you have the flu. It will also say that she has stinky breath causing you to be fired. It will then Twitter your teenage daughter and tell her you don’t know why anyone likes her and she will hate you even more than she already does (as teenagers already do at this age). It will also call the golf course and change your prime tee time to 9 PM. It will reach into your wallet and hand your credit card numbers over to a 900 number calling service which will max you out over the limit. It will send your social security number to Russia where your identity will be stolen over and over by Boris and Natasha from the Bullwinkle show. It will digitally alter pictures of you in “gender incorrect clothing” and send them to all your ex’s, which will confirm everything they ever thought about you and why they no longer date you. It will make you smell bad. It will give you a new strain of Chicken Pox. In a stunning climax, it will make you think you’re Superman and cause you to jump out a window.
Whew! Wouldn’t it just be easier to make sure your updates are done, or just shut the thing off?
For more great tips, check back here and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10 AM in Seattle on KOL, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
How many times have you been at the airport with your laptop and thought, “I wish this thing wasn’t so big”? Well, cue the Superman music, because almost everything you ever wanted in a tiny laptop has hit the store shelves. Prepare to be underwhelmed!
What? What do I mean by that? I ask myself this a lot when I have these conversations with myself. Let’s get to the question of the week and see if I make any sense. And, if I don’t, then I blame it on the cold I caught after getting off the plane last week.
Q- “I am looking for a cheap laptop and I see these little netbooks for a few hundred dollars. Should I get one of these? How do these compare to regular laptops? The guy behind the counter wasn’t able to explain much.” Jeremiah P. from Portland
A- Well, Jer, can I call you Jer? You don’t have to answer that. (Whew! That cold medicine is good stuff.) Netbooks are a whole new breed of small computers utilizing new technology because of small power sipping processors which are mostly made by Intel. I’m sorry the guy behind the counter wasn’t nerdy enough to answer this for you, but I don’t have that problem.
The plus side to netbooks is that they are very small. This makes them easy to travel with and whip out at the airport security line. They also help out when I have that guy in the airplane that always sits in front me who reclines as far back as his chair will allow (you know who you are). With a regular laptop, I would be so jammed up against it I couldn’t get the angle right to even see the screen. Don’t worry, though, because I always jam my knees up into the back of his chair and hum “It’s a small world” in his ear until he puts it back up.
Netbooks are lightweight and pretty fast too. Some have solid state drives that are small but very fast, while others opt for a big hard drive that runs a little slower. Most have network, wireless and Bluetooth connections to get you on the internet in multiple ways. They’re also very inexpensive, and I will give you some examples later on. The batteries can last the entire work day, depending on how you setup your power settings. They can run multiple different operating systems including Windows XP, Vista, and Linux of many flavors. They’ll also run Windows 7 when it’s released. You can download books on them and turn the netbook sideways to read it like a vertical page. This is a lot less expensive and more versatile than a Kindle from Amazon. Most netbooks come with built in cameras for quick and easy video conference meetings on the go, although resolution won’t be very high.
One of the big downsides to netbooks is that they have no CD or DVD player, so watching movies on them will only work if you lug around a USB CD/DVD drive. You can pretty much forget about installing high end programs on them as well. You’re not going to be editing movies, CAD drawings, or websites much on these guys. They are mostly good for sending and receiving emails and surfing the web. Sure, there will be people who figure out a way to install some of these programs and get them to work, but it won’t be at the same speed, and that could drive you crazy. And this week I know crazy.
Plus, the great advantage of them being small is negated if you can’t see things that tiny. The screen sizes vary from around 7-10 inches. If you already need coke bottle sized glasses to read this article on a regular sized screen, then you can forget about a netbook.
Don’t buy a netbook to save money. You will just be frustrated about all the things you can’t do on them.
Don’t buy a netbook for kids, because they won’t be able to load all their obnoxious games on them or play their videos. They won’t have a very good time editing their My Space and Facebook Pages on such a small screen either. (But if you’re a really mean uncle, then by all means go for it. Watch their faces go from being all lit up to being all bummed out. It serves them right for breaking all your stuff.)
Do buy a netbook to travel with and get work done if you live and die by email, and your smart phone is just too small for you to type on. Another great use is for college students when taking notes in class.
Here are a few examples of some netbooks on the market:
HP 2133 Mini-Note - C7-M 1.2 GHz - 8.9" TFT Price $279.99
1.2 GHz - RAM 1 GB - HDD 120 GB Hard Drive- Gigabit Ethernet - WLAN : 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 - XP Home Basic - 8.9" Widescreen TFT 1024 x 600 ( WSVGA ) – camera
Acer Aspire ONE A150-1049 - Atom N270 1.6 GHz - 8.9" Price $325.99
1.6 GHz - RAM 1 GB - HDD 160 GB Hard Drive- WLAN : 802.11b/g - Win XP Home - 8.9" Widescreen TFT 1024 x 600 CrystalBrite - camera
HP 2140 Mini-Note - Atom N270 1.6 GHz - 10.1" TFT Price $573.99
1.6 GHz - RAM 2 GB - HDD 160 GB Hard Drive- Gigabit Ethernet - WLAN : Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, 802.11 a/b/g/n (draft) - Vista Business / XP Pro downgrade - 10.1" Widescreen TFT – camera
For more great tips, check back here and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10 AM in Seattle on KOL, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen- Koin’s Tech Guru
I’m on the airplane taking my family and I back to Portland from Disneyland. This article focuses on using technology that will keep you from ever being embarrassed again by driving up to the gas station to ask for directions, but I need to point out a few truths I’ve discovered from my trip:
There is no recession at the House of Mouse. The Disney Hotel was packed even though this was the off season. The rides had waiting times into the next decade. I couldn’t get a table at Goofy’s Kitchen without at least a two day prior reservation (and they laughed at us for even asking). A small bag of chips costs $2.75 (I picked up popcorn off the ground for free). A bottle of water costs $3.75 (I drank from their hose). Ounce for ounce, souvenirs cost more than gold- as long as the Disney label was on it. Room service for one meal cost the same as a week’s worth of groceries for four people (it was too late to send it back). I did get the last laugh, however, because I used every one of their complimentary tissues in the bathroom, and I didn’t even need them! I also drooled a little on their pillows, but I didn’t do that on purpose.
So, back to the purpose of our story. Because I was away this week I didn’t read my emails for questions to answer, so I thought of a topic all by myself (I can also dress myself, too). There are a lot of new toys you can use that can keep you from getting lost and that don’t cost as much as a one hour stay in Disneyland. Especially in an area new to you- like, say, Anaheim. All this traveling started me thinking that until a couple of years ago, I was always getting lost. I even printed off directions from MapQuest, but sometimes it just wasn’t right. The one-way streets or the new construction sometimes made even the 'turn by turn' directions difficult.
Even if you do have a GPS, I still recommend printing out directions, because even the GPS is often wrong. Every new GPS owner has at least one story of turning right when the melodic voice told him to, despite the fact that he was turning before the intersection, or into a river. I received my talking Garmin GPS a few years ago and found that it is already horribly outdated. Even though it would only cost around $175 to replace it, Garmin requires an annual fee of $70 to keep it up to date. Why? Oh yea, there is no recession. I forgot.
Tom Tom has a talking GPS, but you can also talk back to it. Of course, you likely already talk back to it anyway, but this one actually listens. It costs a couple hundred extra bucks, but if English is your native tongue, it may be worth it. If you have any kind of accent, then trust me when I say, you should not try this model.
You can also get a smart phone with a built in GPS where you get charged an additional $10 per month for 'turn by turn' directions with every major cell phone carrier. What makes this helpful is that it’s always up to date, and in some models you can get real-time traffic and road closures. Should you choose an Apple iPhone, a Windows Mobile phone, a T-Mobile G1 Android, or a Blackberry, you can also get the free Google Maps application. With this application you can see street level views with or without map overlays. With the iPhone, you can even speak the location you want, and most of the time, it will take you there.
So, as long as you have a talking GPS, printed directions, and Google Maps, you will never be lost again. Here’s a case in point. We were driving to Lego Land and didn’t have the address. We did know it was on I-5 south, but we didn’t know the exit. I spoke into my Google Maps application and up came the address. We could have followed the directions on the iPhone but we decided to punch them into the GPS, and presto! No embarrassing gas station visits trying to pretend we needed to buy something.
Of course you now have hundreds of dollars worth of technology you’ll need to worry about every time you leave the car.
By the way, for better GPS reception, be sure to wear a tinfoil hat. Trust me when I say the ladies love it.
For more great tips, check back here and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10 AM in Seattle on KOL, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
I hear a lot about people “jailbreaking” their phone and their reasons why, but even more people don’t exactly understand what it is.
Q - “I have an iPhone and my co workers have been telling me I should jailbreak it, but I have no idea if there’s any advantage to it, or if it could cause me trouble. Also, I don’t completely understand what it is but I just nod my head like I understand. So what is it? Trent H. Tigard, OR.
A - So Trent, you want to break your phone out of the slammer, do you? Well, we have ways of dealing with troublemakers like you.
I can picture Trent’s phone right now in a little prison cell screaming for a lawyer and asking for his one phone call. Then he realizes he’s a phone and he can call as many people as he wants. Then, he just feels silly.
Here is the explanation for all the talk about “jailbreaking” your phone. When a phone is purchased by you from a cell phone company, you can buy it one of two ways. One way would be to buy it for a ridiculously low price (or even free), as long as you sign up for a two year agreement. If not, then you’ll pay a higher price for an unattached or a “no contract” phone. This is because with a contract, the cell phone company pays for most of the cost to the cell phone makers. This is called a subsidy.
For example, an iPhone can now be purchased for as little as $100 but ATT pays $400 to Apple to make up the difference. ATT makes up their money every month when you send them a check for the service you use.
When you sign the contract, you agree to stay with that phone company for the length of the contract or you’ll pay a hefty fee for breaking it. The phone is then locked into that phone provider and can only be used by that provider during the contract. If you jailbreak it you can use it with any other provider whenever you want. Here is where it gets sticky, because Apple had turned the first generation of iPhones into unusable “bricks” when they pushed out an update to the phones. If you had altered your phone by “jailbreaking” it, then it became unusable. (They have since changed that practice.)
You jailbreak your phone by typing a code and pushing a series of buttons that unlocks the phone, and can then be used by any carrier. The ways of doing this are all over the internet, so I won’t go into them here. You can, however, just type “jailbreak” and your phone model into Google and you’ll find lots of sites. T-Mobile does a nice thing for its customers by sending you the code and instructions for a mere $35. Some think that this only applies to smart phones (phones that have a web browser and email), but you can jailbreak any phone.
The next big question is dealing with the legality of it all. There have been rumors of phone companies adding to the contract that if you try to unlock the phone in an unauthorized way you could go to jail. So far, I haven’t heard of this happening to anyone yet, but for many people the threat alone may be enough to keep them from doing it. Just ask the folks who were successfully sued by the recording industry for downloading music without paying for it. The record people sued everyone, including the parents and grandparents of the kids who downloaded the music on their computer.
So, why risk all this just to change phone companies? For most it’s not about the phone provider. Let’s face it. They’re all pretty much alike. When have you ever gotten off the phone with one of them, feeling like you had a pleasant experience like this? “Wow! My cell phone company made me feel so good about myself. They answered my call on the first ring, and gave me a break on my bill because of a few dropped calls. I felt like they really cared about my satisfaction with their product. Oh, look at the butterflies and rainbows!” Most people I know have a slightly different experience from that. I have heard it’s more like “Wow! Now I understand why people go postal.”
There are other advantages to unlocking your phone, especially if it’s a smart phone. You can download applications that you couldn’t otherwise get. ITunes has so many complaints from developers that they’re starting their own app store, but you have to jailbreak your iPhone first. With this and other smart phones, you can also add VOIP calls to your phone and bypass the cell phone company altogether, as long as you’re within the range of a wireless access point you can connect to. There are all kinds of tools and applications that are not authorized, but people who bought the phone feel they are entitled to. What? You mean they pay for something and expect to feel like they own it and aren’t just renting it? That’s what most of the “jailbreakers” say about the experience. They feel as though they paid good money for something they don’t even control. And I think they’re right, but shhh! Don’t tell anyone I said that. The phone companies hear everything. Fortunately, the rumor is they can’t read.
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com. If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
I think I’m in pretty good shape. I exercise every day and keep my daily calories around 2,000. But a question came up that made me think about how we can use the internet to check on our health and see where we compare to other people in our age range.
Q- “I am over 40 and female. I want to see how healthy I am compared to what the government says is “healthy”. What internet sites do you recommend for checking fitness levels?” CathyAnn B. Portland
A- That is such a great question! I decided to do this myself and report back my results. There are many different ways on the internet to see how healthy you are and how to stay that way. For instance, on the iPhone there is a free application called “Lose It”. This tells you how many calories you need to eat in order to reach your desired goal weight over a specified time. There are also a lot of websites like http://www.webmd.com/diet/ and http://weightwatchers.com to tell you how to eat healthy.
There are BMI calculators to tell you how healthy you are based on height and weight. You can check yours out at http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_bmi/english_bmi_calculator/bmi_calculator.html . I did my BMI and according to that calculator I was one point away from being obese. It seems like there’s something off here because I put in the height and weight from various athletes who publicize these facts and found them all to be obese as well. That calculator seems to be broken. Yea… that’s it.
You can also test your fitness by measuring heart rate after activity listed in this website: http://www.ekho.us/heart-rate.aspx .
But that doesn’t really answer CathyAnn’s question. She wants to see how she compares to others in her age range. I did some additional checking and found some great calculators for the Army, Air Force and Marines. The tests are found here at http://apftcalculator.com/ http://military.plainfacts.net/air_force_fitness_calculator.php and http://usmc.pftcalculator.com/ .
I then got to work doing all the sit-ups I could do in a minute. I got to 41. “Not bad”, I thought to myself. Then I did all the pushups I could do in a minute and I made it all the way to 40. I started to see stars, and not the Oscar winning kind. Lastly, it was time to do the running. That’s where I fell short, despite the fact that I run a mile and a half every day.
It showed I would almost make it into the Army and Air Force, but I would fail miserably trying to get into the Marines. But these levels show if you’re ready to fight, and not sit behind a desk. I would still be able to fight for my country, but I would just get tired after a little while. Maybe I could find a soft spot away from the fighting and take a nap. Just for a little while. They wouldn’t mind, would they?
I did really well in the area of sit-ups and pushups, but the Army wants to know your speed on a two mile run. The Air Force lets you get by with one and a half. The Marines want three miles and add pull-ups. Pull-ups? How many of those will I do when I fix servers and computers? Ok, I guess if I was going into combat I may need to pull myself up a few times, especially when I get up from those sanctioned naps.
So, let’s move away from the military and see what the American Heart Association says about how healthy I am at http://americanheart.org. For my age range, I just need to do a mile in under twelve and a half minutes in order to be in excellent shape. I can do that in my sleep. It just goes to show you that if you look long enough, you’ll find someone to say what you want to hear! The lawyers are telling me I have to say that you need to check with your doctor before you do any of this crazy testing stuff.
I recommend to all of you who have read this article to check out the various fitness sites listed here and see if you’ll live long enough to have your grandchildren borrow money from you and not pay it back.
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com. If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen- Koin’s Tech Guru
Web browsers have lots of functionality that we never use. It may be that we don’t want to mess with something that works, but for others it may just be fear.
Here are a list of questions I’ve received over the past few weeks.
Q- “Which web browser should I use? Internet Explorer (IE) or Firefox?” Steve A. Portland
A- There are several popular web browsers currently out there. Besides the two listed, there’s Opera, Safari, and Chrome. Opera has been around for a while and has some unique features that IE and Firefox eventually adopted. That says a lot for the little guy. Safari is almost forced on us if you have installed ITunes. It’s not all that innovative, but it is fast. Internet Explorer is no longer supported on Macintosh, so Safari or Firefox is your best bet. Chrome was put out by Google to make more money in ad revenue (in my opinion), and there’s nothing compelling to use it over the leaders. You really should have both IE and Firefox. The reason is that approximately 10% of all websites (at last count) won’t run on anything else. There are also websites that won’t run on anything but Firefox. So if you have both, that should cover 100% of the market. The also-ran browsers are mainly used by non conformists who rarely ever listened to their mothers.
B- Q- “Why do I get a blank black box when I try to play a video in my browser?” Lynne I. Beaverton
A- Ahh, the dreaded blank boxed video. If you’re in IE, it’s probably because you don’t have JAVA turned on. You can download this for free from http://sun.com. If you’re in Firefox, then it could be that you don’t have the missing plug-in installed. You can get the plug-ins by going to the Tools menu and then choose Add-ons. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that even that will work. For instance, the Windows Media player plug-in almost never works in Firefox. You may just have to go to the same website in IE. If you get the black box in both web browsers then you might be missing QuickTime. Go to http://apple.com to download that. It’s just a different file format some websites choose to use to feed you video. There’s also Flash from Adobe and Silverlight from Microsoft that needs to be downloaded in some instances. These usually cause a pop up prompting you to install it if you need it, but for some reason QuickTime doesn’t always do this. It depends on your security settings. I think it’s all about market share. If they really wanted this to work seamlessly, it would. I used to have a Y2K emergency kit. It consisted of one number 2 pencil, and I’m thinking that may have been a more seamless way to go.
Q- “How can I narrow my searches in Google so I don’t get a bazillion responses that don’t mean anything?” Sarah J. Seattle
A- Sarah, we will never get this economy going again if you don’t let yourself be bombarded and manipulated by advertisers. That’s how Google makes money. But if you insist on keeping our economy down, then I will tell you, but you have to keep it a secret. ::Big Sigh:: Ok, when you put a search into Google one of the tricks I use is to go to the Advanced Search Option button on Google’s home page. Don’t be scared. If you’re looking for a new stainless steel refrigerator, and who wouldn’t be with all this stimulus money floating around, type in the line that says “any exact wording or phrase”. If you get a bunch of unwanted searches, then go back and choose to exclude any words you don’t want to see. You may not want to shop at a particular store, so place the name of that establishment in the box that says “any of these unwanted words”. That should narrow down the searches for you. Now open your wallet and buy something. You knuckles are white from holding that thing too tight.
Q- “What is tabbed browsing?” Sarah O. Tigard
A- If you have IE 7 or newer- or just about any other web browser- you can use tabbed browsing. This allows you to open as many websites as you want within one browser. This is great if you hate to see all those Internet Explorer sessions eating away at your RAM. A couple of suggestions for you: If you like several web pages to open every time you open your browser, you can now set multiple home pages by going to the Tools Options menu. That’s a big time saver. If you’re having trouble with new sessions opening every time you click a link in a website, then try right clicking that link and choosing “open in new tab”. To open a new tab, just hold down the Ctrl button and hit the T key, or go to the file menu and choose “New Tab”. Or you can go to the grocery store and buy new TAB, but to me it still tastes like the old TAB.
Q- “Why does my Internet Explorer hang up and no longer launch?” Huntley F. Portland
A- This is a tricky one. Of course you could have a virus or spyware that keeps it from opening properly. You could also have a broken program. The thing that works for me, in most cases, is to go to the Tools menu and choose Internet Options, Advanced, Browsing, and uncheck the box that says “Enable Third-Party Browser Extensions”. Sometimes your tool bars or other add- on programs are what is causing the problem. This allows IE to open first and then you can see what you are missing from your browser. Make sure you do a scan for viruses and spyware. If your antivirus/spyware programs are no longer working, then go to http://trendmicro.com and choose “Housecall” to do a free scan and virus removal. If it was one of those pesky things, then that should fix you up, and you can now update your programs.
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column I will always answer by email.
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