If Columbus Had a GPS by Bill Adler
Before I launch into the heart of this column about how to buy a GPS, I want to follow up on something from last week's column and also mention a tech tidbit:
The saga of the mouse continues. The people who answered my query on the human-powered search engine, Aardvark, http://www.vark.com, were right. It's a mouse. We even found a hole in the wall under the kitchen sink. (We have a broken garbage disposal to thank for helping us find that hole; we never would have looked under the sink for a hole in the wall if our 7 year old disposal hadn't decided to ring in the new year by giving us the gift of having to find a plumber on New Year's weekend.) Three traps later, the mouse remains at large.
There's a terrific article on The Consumerist blog about Best Buy's so-called optimization of computers at http://bit.ly/7pEe2t . For $39.99, Best Buy will "optimize" your computer by installing a number of utilities, tweaking settings, and removing some icons from the computer's desktop. One problem with this optimization is that it actually makes some computers run more slowly. Another problem is that Best Buy sometimes refuses to sell non-optimized computers, essentially tacking on $39.99 to the advertised price. The Consumer article has the details, but the bottom line is avoid buying any optimized computer from Best Buy: Only buy a computer that's factory sealed in the box.
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The world would have been vastly different if GPS had existed centuries ago. Or even decades ago. How different would history have been if Columbus knew exactly where he was going? What would have been my fate in 1992 if I knew where I was going when I tried to navigate along Glebe Road in northern Virginia on my way to dinner with friends? (Answer: I might have arrived on time, and not walked through the door just as everyone was ordering dessert.)
The world is different now from the way it was in 1492 and 1992. Paper maps have become art relics of the pre-digital era. Paper maps look pretty framed, but are cumbersome and comical to unfold and refold. Paper maps don't know your current location, a variable that's kind of handy when it comes to figuring out how to get from here to there. Coining a cliche: How can you get to where you want to be if you don't know where you are? Paper maps are often provincial, offering a limited geography: When your proud New Hampshire map quits at the border, you'd better have a Vermont map, or you'll be taking unplanned sightseeing trips. But what the heck, Vermont's a pretty place.
The GPS, global positioning system receiver, is the way we find our way from here to there in the 21st century. No longer do we have to fear Glebe Road. The GPS has made Glebe road our friend. Unlike any map --even a map with easy-to-fold creases-- a GPS will, with a few button presses, show you the nearest hotel, restaurant, hospital, sightseeing spot, or gas station. Paper maps are pretty, but pretty won't find you the nearest bathroom.
There are three kinds of GPS you can get: A stand-alone GPS, a GPS that's built into your car, or a GPS application for your cell phone. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, and what I'd like to do is offer some thoughts on how to choose among these three options.
Many cars come with the option of having a factory installed GPS. Factory-installed GPS systems are hard to steal and easy to use. Integrated GPSes work in conjunction with the car's speaker system, have relatively large screens and don't have to be removed every time you park on a street where GPSes are prone to theft (which is to say just about every street in North America.) Built-ins are the most expensive to update with the latest map and point-of-interest data; this updating usually has to be done at the dealer. If you don't mind paying about what it costs to buy a stand-alone GPS every time you want to update your maps, the option of getting a GPS with your car is worth considering.
What about a stand-alone GPS? These are several features that favor a stand-alone GPS: They're inexpensive, portable, and easy to use. Portable GPSes come in a variety of screen sizes. Updating the maps on a portable GPS isn't all that expensive, but the price --and complexity-- of updating the GPS' map varies considerably by manufacturer, so be sure to read some reviews before you plop down $100 - $200 for a GPS. If you rent cars often, having your own portable GPS to take along and use in the rental car can save you money because rental car companies charge extra for cars that have a built-in GPS. There are a few downsides to stand-alone GPS devices. First, you have to reattach the suction cup holder to the windshield and wire up the GPS every time you want to use it. Yes, you have to. GPSes are among the most frequently stolen devices in cars. A GPS on your windshield is a magnet for thieves. You also need to wipe off the ring that your suction cup holder leaves: That ring is a sign to would-be thieves that there's a GPS hiding underneath a seat or in the glove compartment. They will break into your car to look for the GPS if that telltale suction cup ring remains behind. And it gets worse. Some thieves don't just pawn stolen GPSes. They use your own GPS to rob your house: The Go Home button helpfully tells the thief how to navigate to your house -- a house that's probably empty since your car is at the mall.
If you opt for a stand-alone GPS, consider getting one with real-time traffic information.
The third option is to add GPS software to your iPhone, Android, Blackberry or other smartphone. Turning a smartphone into a GPS is handy: If you have your phone, you always have a GPS with you. As with the other GPS options, there are plusses and minuses to using a smartphone GPS application. Accessibility is at the top of the plus list: One device, your phone, does it all. You can use your GPS for walking directions, too, once you have a GPS program on your phone.
The software is easy to update on a smartphone GPS. Because you're not buying any hardware, this is the least expensive GPS option. There are lot of different GPS applications; if you don't like one, you can easily try another.
The same minuses that apply to stand-alone GPSes afflict smartphone GPSes. You need a way to install the GPS in your car, and that often means a break-this-windshield suction cup holder. (You can buy a custom car mount that attaches to the interior of your car at http://www.proclipusa.com ; a mount that doesn't attach to the windshield isn't as visible to passersby.) Another downside to using your smartphone as a GPS is battery life: Turning on the GPS will suck the life out of your smartphone's battery, so if you plan to navigate any greater distance than from Cleveland Park to Glebe Road, you'll need a car power plug.
With many smartphones you have a choice of two different kinds of GPS software. There are apps that download the entire map and point-of-interest data to your phone -- these apps can exceed a gigabyte in size. Alternatively, there are apps that use your phone's cellular network to send your phone the map data as you drive along -- these apps are about 100 times smaller. So consider the amount of memory on your phone when considering GPS applications. One disadvantage of using an application that sends your phone map data as you need it is that if you lose your cellular connection, the GPS won't work. On-demand map apps cost less than the apps that fully download to your smartphone, but they require a (usually modest) monthly fee. But you never have to update the map data --that is, you don't have to pay for new software-- with an on-demand GPS application because the maps that are sent to your smartphone are always up-to-date. Both kinds of GPS smartphone apps can offer live traffic information, but not all GPS applications have that built in.
Car GPS systems are worthless if you don't arrive at your destination safely. Pilots prioritize their actions according to the principle: aviate, navigate, communicate. Navigating and communicating are secondary to flying the airplane safely. The same is true for driving: Your attention belongs on the road. At 60 mph, it takes less than 3.5 seconds to travel the distance of a football field, and 1.75 seconds for two cars traveling in opposite directions to arrive at a head-on collision midway though that football field. Somebody's world could end in the time it takes to glance at your GPS or program it. Your GPS probably has a soothing voice. Listen to it, and look at it only when you can do so safely.
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Bill Adler is the co-publisher of the Cleveland Park Listserv, http://www.cleveland-park.com , and the author of over 20 books including "Boys and Their Toys: Understanding Men by Understanding Their Relationship with Gadgets," and "Outwitting Squirrels."
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Passwords Made Easy, I Promise
I have two tech tidbits before I get to the meat of this column, how to create and use secure passwords easily.
The first tech tidbit concerns the continuing saga of the animal that's invaded our house. As you may recall, the smart people at Aardvark, www.vark.com, the human-based answer line, all said that it was a mouse that was stealing the Perugina Baci chocolate. Nothing else in our kitchen was touched and there were no, um, droppings, so the only clue as to what it was came from the stolen Perugina Baci chocolate, with the shredded remains of the wrapper. Last week my daughter said she saw a mouse in our kitchen, apparently confirming what the helpful people at Aardvark had already told me. Just to be sure that my daughter hadn't mistaken the mouse for something else, I asked her what it looked like. She replied, "a mouse." Fair enough. I guess that's definitive. (She is, after all, a mouse expert, having seen a myriad of Disney movies.) A few days ago we baited a Have-a-heart trap with Perugina and peanut butter. The mouse, apparently too light to trigger the trap, stole both the chocolate and peanut butter on subsequent nights. We're awaiting the arrival of a more mouse-oriented humane trap.
Tech tidbit number two: If you haven't thought about using Picasaweb, Google's online photo sharing service that can also be used to back up your photos, here's another incentive: For a limited time Google is giving away a 4 gigabyte Eye-Fi memory card if you purchase 200 gigabytes of storage for $50. An Eye-Fi card is a secure digital memory card, normally $60, which goes in your camera. It has a unique feature: An Eye-Fi card lets you wirelessly upload your photos to your computer and to one of several online sites. No wires, very handy! You can read more about this offer at http://picasa.google.com/eyefi.html.
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Passwords. Let's talk about passwords for a moment. There are two rules that everyone should follow when it comes to passwords. No, not should. Must. The first rule is never, ever use the same password in more than one place. If you use the same password in more than one place, all a crook has to do is figure out your password and then everything you own that's online becomes that crook's. Using one password requires that you trust every employee at every company where you use that password, too. And trust that people who work for that company won't lose the passwords on a stolen laptop. Et cetera, et cetera. You get the idea: One password can expose your whole life to permanent misery.
The second rule is to make all your passwords strong, using random letters, numbers, and characters. Passwords should be impossible to guess or predict. This is a good password: Iiomh!8H. This is a bad password: Palin2012. Some services bar the use of insecure passwords. If you sign up for Twitter and try to use an insecure password (insecure = stupid), you're barred from using that password. Some stupid passwords are "password," "naked," "beavis," "123456," and "secret". Insecure passwords come in all flavors. What's an insecure password? Anything that somebody can guess based on personal knowledge of you. Any word in the dictionary. Any password that does not contain at least some upper case letter, punctuation mark or number. A friend of mine used his son's name followed by his own birth year as his Facebook password. A hacker guessed his password and broke into his Facebook account. Worse still, my friend used the same password for his Gmail account. The hacker promptly impersonated my friend on Facebook and Gmail.
Here's a short article on how to make strong passwords: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/create.aspx (http://goo.gl/JDBD).
So how do you use a unique, hard-to-guess password everywhere? Get a password management program that generates passwords, stores them, and logs you into websites automatically. I use the password management program, Lastpass, http://www.lastpass.com . With Lastpass all you need to remember is a single password, and that password opens the door to all of your other passwords. Lastpass recognizes websites, so it knows to log you in: One click and you're logged on to any website. Lastpass keeps a copy of your passwords stored on your computer and on their server, encrypted, so that you can access your password-protected websites from anywhere. All of your computers and browsers are synched. Lastpass also has an anti-keystroke logger to thwart programs that are sometimes installed on public computers to record passwords by recording all keys pressed on that computer. (Oh yes, Internet cafes and hotel business center computers are popular among crooks as places to steal logon information.) Lastpass will not log you into fake websites, helping to prevent you from being phished.
Lastpass will also disable the insecure password system in your web browser. That's a handy feature: If a thief steals your laptop, without the master Lastpass password, that thief can't get into any of your password-protected services. There's a mobile version for Lastpass that fits on a thumbdrive, as well as an iPhone app. You can create secure, encrypted notes using Lastpass, too. Your confidential information can be protected and available to you everywhere. I like it. Lastpass serves me well.
Lastpass isn't the only password management software, either. Keepass, http://www.keepass.info , and RoboForm, http://www.roboform.com , are two other password management programs that get terrific reviews.
There's a bit of a learning curve involved with any password management program. But once you get the hang of it, you'll not only be protected, but you'll never forget another password again.
The first tech tidbit concerns the continuing saga of the animal that's invaded our house. As you may recall, the smart people at Aardvark, www.vark.com, the human-based answer line, all said that it was a mouse that was stealing the Perugina Baci chocolate. Nothing else in our kitchen was touched and there were no, um, droppings, so the only clue as to what it was came from the stolen Perugina Baci chocolate, with the shredded remains of the wrapper. Last week my daughter said she saw a mouse in our kitchen, apparently confirming what the helpful people at Aardvark had already told me. Just to be sure that my daughter hadn't mistaken the mouse for something else, I asked her what it looked like. She replied, "a mouse." Fair enough. I guess that's definitive. (She is, after all, a mouse expert, having seen a myriad of Disney movies.) A few days ago we baited a Have-a-heart trap with Perugina and peanut butter. The mouse, apparently too light to trigger the trap, stole both the chocolate and peanut butter on subsequent nights. We're awaiting the arrival of a more mouse-oriented humane trap.
Tech tidbit number two: If you haven't thought about using Picasaweb, Google's online photo sharing service that can also be used to back up your photos, here's another incentive: For a limited time Google is giving away a 4 gigabyte Eye-Fi memory card if you purchase 200 gigabytes of storage for $50. An Eye-Fi card is a secure digital memory card, normally $60, which goes in your camera. It has a unique feature: An Eye-Fi card lets you wirelessly upload your photos to your computer and to one of several online sites. No wires, very handy! You can read more about this offer at http://picasa.google.com/eyefi.html.
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Passwords. Let's talk about passwords for a moment. There are two rules that everyone should follow when it comes to passwords. No, not should. Must. The first rule is never, ever use the same password in more than one place. If you use the same password in more than one place, all a crook has to do is figure out your password and then everything you own that's online becomes that crook's. Using one password requires that you trust every employee at every company where you use that password, too. And trust that people who work for that company won't lose the passwords on a stolen laptop. Et cetera, et cetera. You get the idea: One password can expose your whole life to permanent misery.
The second rule is to make all your passwords strong, using random letters, numbers, and characters. Passwords should be impossible to guess or predict. This is a good password: Iiomh!8H. This is a bad password: Palin2012. Some services bar the use of insecure passwords. If you sign up for Twitter and try to use an insecure password (insecure = stupid), you're barred from using that password. Some stupid passwords are "password," "naked," "beavis," "123456," and "secret". Insecure passwords come in all flavors. What's an insecure password? Anything that somebody can guess based on personal knowledge of you. Any word in the dictionary. Any password that does not contain at least some upper case letter, punctuation mark or number. A friend of mine used his son's name followed by his own birth year as his Facebook password. A hacker guessed his password and broke into his Facebook account. Worse still, my friend used the same password for his Gmail account. The hacker promptly impersonated my friend on Facebook and Gmail.
Here's a short article on how to make strong passwords: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/create.aspx (http://goo.gl/JDBD).
So how do you use a unique, hard-to-guess password everywhere? Get a password management program that generates passwords, stores them, and logs you into websites automatically. I use the password management program, Lastpass, http://www.lastpass.com . With Lastpass all you need to remember is a single password, and that password opens the door to all of your other passwords. Lastpass recognizes websites, so it knows to log you in: One click and you're logged on to any website. Lastpass keeps a copy of your passwords stored on your computer and on their server, encrypted, so that you can access your password-protected websites from anywhere. All of your computers and browsers are synched. Lastpass also has an anti-keystroke logger to thwart programs that are sometimes installed on public computers to record passwords by recording all keys pressed on that computer. (Oh yes, Internet cafes and hotel business center computers are popular among crooks as places to steal logon information.) Lastpass will not log you into fake websites, helping to prevent you from being phished.
Lastpass will also disable the insecure password system in your web browser. That's a handy feature: If a thief steals your laptop, without the master Lastpass password, that thief can't get into any of your password-protected services. There's a mobile version for Lastpass that fits on a thumbdrive, as well as an iPhone app. You can create secure, encrypted notes using Lastpass, too. Your confidential information can be protected and available to you everywhere. I like it. Lastpass serves me well.
Lastpass isn't the only password management software, either. Keepass, http://www.keepass.info , and RoboForm, http://www.roboform.com , are two other password management programs that get terrific reviews.
There's a bit of a learning curve involved with any password management program. But once you get the hang of it, you'll not only be protected, but you'll never forget another password again.
Turn Your Old Computer Into a New One
Before I launch into this week's tech column, I'd like to offer two tech tidbits. After last week's column in which I praised Aardvark, www.vark.com, a human-backed Internet query system, I received some emails in response to my question, "what was that animal that was stealing our Perugina Baci chocolate (and only that)?" Several helpful Aardvarkers insisted that it had to be a mouse. My wife and I set a humane trap baited with Perugina Baci chocolate, but as of today the bait hasn't been taken, so we just don't know the answer yet. Curious. My next Aardvark query may be about hyper intelligent mice that can avoid traps -- could they take over the planet?
Tech tidbit number 2: A few days ago my daughter's cell phone ended up in the wash. This was not a happy moment in our family, but I remembered reading a tip about how soaked electronics can sometimes be saved by immersing the device in uncooked rice. So with nothing to lose, I did just that, and to my surprise, my daughter's cell phone is not only clean, but it works fine. If your cell phone or other small electronic device gets soaked, be sure not to turn it on before you cover it with rice because you don't want the water to cause a short, which would mean permanent damage. Leave it in the rice overnight. Hey, this tip actually works!
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Pick me! Pick me! That's what nearly every program that's installed on a Windows computer seems to be saying. Many programs not only install themselves on your computer, but like to be running all the time. They think it's a benefit to you to have the program in your computer's memory so it can load faster. Maybe, but if you only use that program infrequently, the program is just hogging RAM and causing your computer to boot more slowly. The more programs that are running, the greater the chance your computer will crash, too. The only benefit that all these auto-loading programs have is that they give you time to brew a cup of coffee --or two-- while your computer wakes up in the morning.
You can reclaim considerable computer memory and speed up your computer's start time by turning off the automatic loading in these programs. You can do that through a program that's built into Windows, MSCONFIG. In the start menu (for Windows Vista and Windows 7), type MSCONFIG and open it. If you use Windows XP, go to Start, then Run, then type MSCONFIG. Go to the Startup tab. If your computer is more than a few months old, you'll find a lot of programs listed. Uncheck all of those programs that you don't want loading every time you boot your computer. Don't worry about unchecking a program by mistake. You're not uninstalling any programs, you're simply telling programs not to start with Windows. You can always re-check applications you want to run all the time.
How to choose which programs to uncheck and which to let load with windows? Google (or Aardvark) to the rescue. Just search for the name of the program and you'll be able to read about what it does and whether or not that program is important or essential. There's also a handy list with descriptions of the 13,000 programs that like to start all the time with Windows at http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php. (Don't worry, not all 13,000 programs will be starting up on your computer all the time, even though it may feel like that.) If you're still uncertain, you can uncheck it and see what happens.
Some programs, such as iTunes, insinuate themselves into loading with Windows every time you update the program. (iTunes adds Quicktime; there's no reason why you need to have Quicktime running all the time.) Another program that creeps into Windows' memory is Adobe Acrobat, which doesn't need to be running all the time, either.
Once you've parsed your computer's startup list, you'll have a faster, spiffier computer. (If you want a shinier computer, you could put it in the wash and then dunk it in rice, but a little dirt is probably a good idea when it comes to computers.) Ditching startup programs is almost like getting a brand new computer.
Tech tidbit number 2: A few days ago my daughter's cell phone ended up in the wash. This was not a happy moment in our family, but I remembered reading a tip about how soaked electronics can sometimes be saved by immersing the device in uncooked rice. So with nothing to lose, I did just that, and to my surprise, my daughter's cell phone is not only clean, but it works fine. If your cell phone or other small electronic device gets soaked, be sure not to turn it on before you cover it with rice because you don't want the water to cause a short, which would mean permanent damage. Leave it in the rice overnight. Hey, this tip actually works!
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Pick me! Pick me! That's what nearly every program that's installed on a Windows computer seems to be saying. Many programs not only install themselves on your computer, but like to be running all the time. They think it's a benefit to you to have the program in your computer's memory so it can load faster. Maybe, but if you only use that program infrequently, the program is just hogging RAM and causing your computer to boot more slowly. The more programs that are running, the greater the chance your computer will crash, too. The only benefit that all these auto-loading programs have is that they give you time to brew a cup of coffee --or two-- while your computer wakes up in the morning.
You can reclaim considerable computer memory and speed up your computer's start time by turning off the automatic loading in these programs. You can do that through a program that's built into Windows, MSCONFIG. In the start menu (for Windows Vista and Windows 7), type MSCONFIG and open it. If you use Windows XP, go to Start, then Run, then type MSCONFIG. Go to the Startup tab. If your computer is more than a few months old, you'll find a lot of programs listed. Uncheck all of those programs that you don't want loading every time you boot your computer. Don't worry about unchecking a program by mistake. You're not uninstalling any programs, you're simply telling programs not to start with Windows. You can always re-check applications you want to run all the time.
How to choose which programs to uncheck and which to let load with windows? Google (or Aardvark) to the rescue. Just search for the name of the program and you'll be able to read about what it does and whether or not that program is important or essential. There's also a handy list with descriptions of the 13,000 programs that like to start all the time with Windows at http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php. (Don't worry, not all 13,000 programs will be starting up on your computer all the time, even though it may feel like that.) If you're still uncertain, you can uncheck it and see what happens.
Some programs, such as iTunes, insinuate themselves into loading with Windows every time you update the program. (iTunes adds Quicktime; there's no reason why you need to have Quicktime running all the time.) Another program that creeps into Windows' memory is Adobe Acrobat, which doesn't need to be running all the time, either.
Once you've parsed your computer's startup list, you'll have a faster, spiffier computer. (If you want a shinier computer, you could put it in the wash and then dunk it in rice, but a little dirt is probably a good idea when it comes to computers.) Ditching startup programs is almost like getting a brand new computer.
Better than Google
You may not have even noticed that it, but you already prefer ways of finding out the answers to questions other than using Google. If you're scratching your head and thinking, "Wikipedia?" you're wrong. If you think the answer is a trip to the public library, you're wrong. (Though the library is still a great place to get answers!) If you think that the best place is one of the other terrific reference or news websites such as www.nytimes.com, www.infoplease.com, or www.britannica.com -- you're not even close. If you think it's your mom, because she always knows best -- then you're actually close to being right.
At times --maybe most of the time-- asking a question of another human being is better, because it's more accurate than Google.
And we already do. The Cleveland Park Listserv is a great example of tapping into the collective wisdom of over 8,800 neighbors. Google "plumber washington dc" and you'll get plumber listings. But Google won't necessarily tell you if that plumber is prompt, creative, and pleasant to have in your home. The Cleveland Park Listserv is an example of an online forum that taps into the richness of human experience and knowledge.
There are hundreds of thousands of specialized forums that also let you tap into other people's wisdom. YahooGroups is the world's leader in online forums. When I have a problem with my computer, I search for a specific YahooGroup that deals with the issue I'm having, be it with Microsoft Outlook, an aging Windows XP computer, or my iPhone. There are forums on YahooGroups about health, fitness, travel, parenting, language learning, nature -- everything.
Not everyone on these forums is imbued with expertise, however. So you have to use your own brain power to figure out if the answer makes sense. Or ask your question in another place, too. It's also the case that the answers to questions that come from Googling, Wikipedia, or other static online sources aren't necessarily right. (The only two online sources that I trust with my life are the New York Times and Encyclopedia Britannica.)
What if the question that you're looking to answer doesn't lend itself well to a particular online forum, or you can't find a forum? For those problems, there are answer services. Yahoo has its own service called Yahoo Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com . Post a question and somebody will answer it, usually very quickly. Perhaps the best online answer service is Aardvark, http://vark.com. Anyone can ask a question. If you sign up to offer your expertise, you can tell Aardvark what subjects you'd like to answer questions about. The questions are then sent to you by email or IM. There's an Aardvark application for the iPhone so you have access to experts in almost every subject, wherever you are. I've used Aardvark to get answers to obscure foreign language grammar questions and to try and figure out what kind of animal was finding its way onto our kitchen counter and shredding the wrappers of Perugina Baci chocolates without eating the candy. Aardvark's uses are limitless: Imagine -- you're standing in line at the airport and see somebody wearing a type of outfit you've never seen before. Fire up your Aardvark app, describe what you see, and within minutes somebody will tell you what country that person is from. I like Aardvark so much that I created a Cleveland Park Listserv Network on Aardvark: http://vark.com/g/39fd04.
What about those questions that require an opinion, not a precise answer? For that there's Instant Jury, http://instantjury.com. Instant Jury members decide cases that people submit to the Instant Jury website. I was recently a juror in a case that tried to settle the question of whether or not emailed holiday cards are okay to send instead of paper cards. (The eCards side lost.) There's a case currently pending between a husband and wife about whether they should let their kids to crawl into bed with them in early in the morning before school.
Google is great. But people are even greater.
At times --maybe most of the time-- asking a question of another human being is better, because it's more accurate than Google.
And we already do. The Cleveland Park Listserv is a great example of tapping into the collective wisdom of over 8,800 neighbors. Google "plumber washington dc" and you'll get plumber listings. But Google won't necessarily tell you if that plumber is prompt, creative, and pleasant to have in your home. The Cleveland Park Listserv is an example of an online forum that taps into the richness of human experience and knowledge.
There are hundreds of thousands of specialized forums that also let you tap into other people's wisdom. YahooGroups is the world's leader in online forums. When I have a problem with my computer, I search for a specific YahooGroup that deals with the issue I'm having, be it with Microsoft Outlook, an aging Windows XP computer, or my iPhone. There are forums on YahooGroups about health, fitness, travel, parenting, language learning, nature -- everything.
Not everyone on these forums is imbued with expertise, however. So you have to use your own brain power to figure out if the answer makes sense. Or ask your question in another place, too. It's also the case that the answers to questions that come from Googling, Wikipedia, or other static online sources aren't necessarily right. (The only two online sources that I trust with my life are the New York Times and Encyclopedia Britannica.)
What if the question that you're looking to answer doesn't lend itself well to a particular online forum, or you can't find a forum? For those problems, there are answer services. Yahoo has its own service called Yahoo Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com . Post a question and somebody will answer it, usually very quickly. Perhaps the best online answer service is Aardvark, http://vark.com. Anyone can ask a question. If you sign up to offer your expertise, you can tell Aardvark what subjects you'd like to answer questions about. The questions are then sent to you by email or IM. There's an Aardvark application for the iPhone so you have access to experts in almost every subject, wherever you are. I've used Aardvark to get answers to obscure foreign language grammar questions and to try and figure out what kind of animal was finding its way onto our kitchen counter and shredding the wrappers of Perugina Baci chocolates without eating the candy. Aardvark's uses are limitless: Imagine -- you're standing in line at the airport and see somebody wearing a type of outfit you've never seen before. Fire up your Aardvark app, describe what you see, and within minutes somebody will tell you what country that person is from. I like Aardvark so much that I created a Cleveland Park Listserv Network on Aardvark: http://vark.com/g/39fd04.
What about those questions that require an opinion, not a precise answer? For that there's Instant Jury, http://instantjury.com. Instant Jury members decide cases that people submit to the Instant Jury website. I was recently a juror in a case that tried to settle the question of whether or not emailed holiday cards are okay to send instead of paper cards. (The eCards side lost.) There's a case currently pending between a husband and wife about whether they should let their kids to crawl into bed with them in early in the morning before school.
Google is great. But people are even greater.
Backups Made Easy, Part 2
Last week I wrote about using online services to back up your data. In between that column and this one about local, in-home backups, I discovered an additional, and mostly free service that I hadn't thought of as backup service: Picasa Web Albums can be used to back up your photos. If you use Picasa as your computer's photo organizing program or editor, you can easily and automatically upload your photos to Picasa online every time you add photos from your camera or smartphone. Google recently lowered their price for online storage: 20GB costs $5 a year; 200GB is only $50 a year. Here are a couple of tips about Picasa: If you use Picasa Web Albums to back up your photos, be sure to change the setting to use the photo's original size (the default is to back up at a lower resolution), and make your online albums not automatically viewable to the world (unless you want your photos to be seen by everyone). Sign up and download Google's free photo editing and organizing software at http://picasa.google.com.
If something's good, then two of them may be even better. That's true for cheesecake and backups. Everyone should use at least two backups. Why? Because backups can fail, just as your main drive can fail. And unless you regularly check your backup software's logs, you may find yourself unpleasantly surprised one day when you discover that your backup has failed. A second backup helps prevent disaster, and preventing disaster is why we do backups.
I also strongly suggest having at least one remote backup and one local backup. A remote backup for total peace of mind, and a local backup so you can back up and restore files at lightning speed.
Backing up to an external drive is easy and fast, but not without problems. A virus that infects your computer, wiping out files, can easily destroy your external drive's backup, too. External drives aren't immune to fire or theft. External drives wear out and can die a sudden death. And the software you can get to back up your photos, music, emails, wordprocessing documents, spreadsheets and other data can simply decide not to work one day. (A program crashing and burning -- say it ain't so!)
Here's all you need to know to use an external drive as your primary or secondary backup. Buy the largest external drive drive you can afford, but at least double the size of your current hard drive. (Why double? Because that gives you the ability to back up multiple revisions of a document.) Plug the drive into your USB port, run your backup software, and that's it. The process of setting up an external drive backup should take all of 5 minutes.
For backup software, I use SecondCopy, http://www.centered.com. There are lots of other excellent backup programs for PCs and Macs including GFI Backup, http://www.gfi.com , Paragon Drive Backup, http://www.paragon-software.com , and SyncBack, http://www.2brightsparks.com. These programs vary in price and features. In addition to SecondCopy, which is very easy to set up, I've used SyncBack and can recommend it for reliability and ease of use.
Backups can be even easier with hard drives that come with a "one touch" or automatic backup program. These drives will either automatically backup your computer --no extra software needed-- or will back up your computer when you press the backup button on the drive. The TranscendStoreJet 25 Mobile, available on Amazon.com in hot red, is a 500GB drive with one touch backup. If you're a laptop user and always on the go (and don't have that much to backup), you might want to give the SanDisk 8GB Ultra Backup USB 2.0 Flash Drive, a pocketable thumb drive that does automatic backup.
It's easier than ever to back up. If you're taking pictures of your family this holiday season --and you like your family and want to keep those pictures-- then take time now to implement a backup plan.
If something's good, then two of them may be even better. That's true for cheesecake and backups. Everyone should use at least two backups. Why? Because backups can fail, just as your main drive can fail. And unless you regularly check your backup software's logs, you may find yourself unpleasantly surprised one day when you discover that your backup has failed. A second backup helps prevent disaster, and preventing disaster is why we do backups.
I also strongly suggest having at least one remote backup and one local backup. A remote backup for total peace of mind, and a local backup so you can back up and restore files at lightning speed.
Backing up to an external drive is easy and fast, but not without problems. A virus that infects your computer, wiping out files, can easily destroy your external drive's backup, too. External drives aren't immune to fire or theft. External drives wear out and can die a sudden death. And the software you can get to back up your photos, music, emails, wordprocessing documents, spreadsheets and other data can simply decide not to work one day. (A program crashing and burning -- say it ain't so!)
Here's all you need to know to use an external drive as your primary or secondary backup. Buy the largest external drive drive you can afford, but at least double the size of your current hard drive. (Why double? Because that gives you the ability to back up multiple revisions of a document.) Plug the drive into your USB port, run your backup software, and that's it. The process of setting up an external drive backup should take all of 5 minutes.
For backup software, I use SecondCopy, http://www.centered.com. There are lots of other excellent backup programs for PCs and Macs including GFI Backup, http://www.gfi.com , Paragon Drive Backup, http://www.paragon-software.com , and SyncBack, http://www.2brightsparks.com. These programs vary in price and features. In addition to SecondCopy, which is very easy to set up, I've used SyncBack and can recommend it for reliability and ease of use.
Backups can be even easier with hard drives that come with a "one touch" or automatic backup program. These drives will either automatically backup your computer --no extra software needed-- or will back up your computer when you press the backup button on the drive. The TranscendStoreJet 25 Mobile, available on Amazon.com in hot red, is a 500GB drive with one touch backup. If you're a laptop user and always on the go (and don't have that much to backup), you might want to give the SanDisk 8GB Ultra Backup USB 2.0 Flash Drive, a pocketable thumb drive that does automatic backup.
It's easier than ever to back up. If you're taking pictures of your family this holiday season --and you like your family and want to keep those pictures-- then take time now to implement a backup plan.
Backups Made Easy, Part 1
I'm going to be straight with you. If you don't have a backup plan for your data, you'll eventually lose your data. Your emails, your photos, your movies, your music. It will all be gone one day unless you have reliable backups.
There are lots of ways you can lose your data. Hard drive failure is at the top of that list. Every hard drive that's made will eventually fail, some sooner than others. Whether your hard drive's number is up today, tomorrow, or years from now, that's it -- everything is gone. Computer viruses are another way that your data can go poof in the blink of an eye. Theft, especially if you own a laptop, is among the most common reasons for data loss. Software run amok is yet another way data disappears: Misbehaving programs can delete data as easily as they can create it. You can lose data and not even know it, too: Sometimes everything can seem to be fine on your computer, except for that one spreadsheet or address book that somehow got zapped. By the time you notice that it's gone, there's no hope of recovery.
There are two kinds of backups you can have -- onsite backups (external drives, network backups, USB drives) and offsite backups. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. This column will focus on remote backups; next week I'll describe some onsite backup strategies. First the negatives of remote backups:
* Offsite backups are more expensive in the long run than using an external drive, because you have to pay an annual fee. * Offsite backups are a lot slower than onsite backups. If you have tens of gigabytes of data to back up, it can take weeks to copy all of your data to an offsite backup service. * A remote backup service won't be around forever. Nothing lasts for eternity, and on the Internet a decade is a lifetime.
But on the plus side, offsite backup services are catastrophe proof and that's the idea: If the worst happens --fire, theft, a virus, a small nuclear explosion-- your data is safer than Dick Cheney was in his secure location. Many offsite backup services use incremental backups, which means that if you want to recover the version of a Word document that you saved 12 days ago, you can find that exact version.
Remote backup services vary not just by price, but by feature, too. Here are some of the features you need to consider when you compare offsite backup services.
* Does the service back up external drives? If all of your data is on your computer's main drive, that's not an issue. But if you need to back up data on external drives, that is an essential feature to have.
* How easy is it to add files and folders? Many backup services provide software that automatically selects and backs up what it thinks are important files. That's both good and bad: The automated aspect makes it easy to run the backup, but you sacrifice the ability to specify anything you particularly want backed up.
* Does the service provide alerts if backups are not completed? There's nothing worse than discovering later on that your backups never happened.
* How much space does the remote backup service allow? Some remote backup services provide unlimited space for backups -- not a bad thing if you have a lot of multimedia files.
* How easy is it to retrieve your data if you need to? How easy is it to download individual files if all you want to recover is a single file? These services vary tremendously, not only when it comes to the ease or difficulty of retrieving your data, but also the speed at which files can be retrieved.
* Is the data encrypted before it leaves your computer? If all you're backing up is music or photos, you might not need to encrypt the data. But if you are backing up private or personal information, then encryption is a must.
Here are some remote backup services you might want to look into. I've opted not to review each individually, other than a few notes about the ones I've used, since the features and pricing change regularly. Over the years, I have used Elephant Drive, Mozy, Carbonite and Livedrive. I currently use both Mozy and Livedrive, while the other members of my family use Carbonite. I like Mozy because it offers unlimited backups and will back up my external drives, too. Mozy also encrypts the data. Livedrive, which is relatively new to the backup world, also has unlimited backups (I have over a terabyte of data stored there).
Even though Livedrive doesn't store data in an encrypted form, it's great for backing up multimedia files, and it stores your backups in the familiar file folder format in a way that you can access your data from any computer's web browser. The rest of my family uses Carbonite, which I think is the easiest to use. Carbonite does not back up external drives. I've tried Elephant drive, which is among the least expensive remote backup services, but I've found their software cumbersome.
Mozy, http://www.mozy.com
Carbonite, http://www.carbonite.com
LiveDrive, http://www.livedrive.com
ElephantDrive, http://www.elephantdrive.com
Crashplan, http://www.crashplan.com
Dropbox, http://www.dropbox.com
Sugarsync, http://www.sugarsync.com
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Augmented Reality
I know I'm going to have to rewrite this column completely in as little as six months, but that's fine. Augmented reality is so fantastic, so impressive, so useful, that I won't mind exploring it again in a short while. What is augmented reality? Remember the Terminator? He could see data superimposed on top of an image, such as car model, a person's weight and height, even their name. How cool is that? The Terminator was released in 1985, and I'm happy to say that augmented reality --Terminator vision-- is available to all of us on our cell phones. (Take a peek at the world through the Terminator's eyes here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MeaaCwBW28.)
Today's augmented reality does even more than the Terminator could conjure. The Terminator might be able to tell if a particular person is a friend or foe by comparing the image of that person to what is in its database. But with an augmented reality app for the iPhone, like Yelp, you can tell if a particular restaurant you're looking at has received good or bad reviews, even if you're too far away to read the restaurant's name. (I presume that since the Terminator didn't need to eat, "restaurant vision" wasn't built into him.)
This is how augmented reality works in its simplest form, using the Yelp application as an example: Point your cell phone at something. Press the Monocle button, which starts the augmented reality component. If Yelp "sees" a restaurant where your camera is pointing, it will display text information superimposed on what you see through the phone. Move your phone in another direction and new restaurants pop up. If you spot something potentially delicious, click on that label and a review pops up. Here's what Monocle looks like:
One evening I was lying in bed playing with my iPhone and turned on Monocle. To my surprise, the iPhone "saw" through the walls of our house, and superimposed the names of the restaurants I was aiming the phone at, about a quarter of a mile away. Excellent -- the iPhone has x-ray vision!
Augmented reality applications for smart phones phones make use of the phone's GPS, compass and accelerometer to figure out what the phone is looking at.
Yelp is just one of a growing number of augmented reality applications. Cyclops, Bionic Eye, Urbanspoon and Robotvision are other augmented reality apps that add data to what the phone sees.
Augmented reality isn't limited to terrestrial pursuits. With the iPhone app SkyVoyager, you can point you camera at the night sky and see the planets and stars superimposed on the screen. As you move your phone, the objects in your phone's screen also shift. Tap on an object to get more information about that star or planet. Wondering if that bright object is Mars, Venus or an alien spacecraft on final approach to earth? Wonder no more.
For skiers, climbers, hikers, adventurers -- there's an app for you, too. Curious about what that mountain that is? Fire up the augmented reality application, Peaks, and it will reveal everything about what you're looking at.
Perhaps the most powerful augmented reality app currently available for the iPhone is Layar, which lets developers create their own augmented reality apps on the Layar platform: This single app can have a multitude of augmented reality displays. Using Layar you can point your phone anywhere and see restaurants, nearby Tweeps, and hotels. You can also visualize where the government is spending recovery dollars -- if a building or building's occupant has received taxpayer dollars. You can find apartments for rent just by aiming your phone at a building (how great is that!) And more.
Retina is an augmented reality application for color-blind people. The app displays the actual name of the color:
Dishpointer is an app that shows you what satellites are where in the sky. It's fun, but also handy if you want to align your satellite TV dish. Perhaps the most useful (sort of) augmented reality app is Car Finder, which, as you probably suspect, lets you zero in on where you parked your car. Okay, yes you could write down your car's location on a piece of paper, but now you have an excuse never to tote a heavy, bulky pen around:
Augmented reality is still in its early stages. But what's coming next to cell phones will blow your mind. Imagine visiting Athens, New York City, or Washington, DC. Point you phone that-a-way, and it will display what the city looked like 100, 500, or 2,000 years ago. As you move your phone, the image will change, showing you exactly what was there. Now that's an amazing way to look at history. Or before you leave your house for work, you point your iPhone or Android phone or Blackberry in the direction of your office and instantly see where traffic is backed up. (And of course, you can add a weather layer to show you what the weather will be by the time you get to the office.) By moving your finger you can plot out an alternate route. Before you leave for home from the office, you repeat the same process, only this time you tell your phone to display take out restaurants along the low-traffic route back. If the Terminator doesn't need to cook, neither do you.
Today's augmented reality does even more than the Terminator could conjure. The Terminator might be able to tell if a particular person is a friend or foe by comparing the image of that person to what is in its database. But with an augmented reality app for the iPhone, like Yelp, you can tell if a particular restaurant you're looking at has received good or bad reviews, even if you're too far away to read the restaurant's name. (I presume that since the Terminator didn't need to eat, "restaurant vision" wasn't built into him.)
This is how augmented reality works in its simplest form, using the Yelp application as an example: Point your cell phone at something. Press the Monocle button, which starts the augmented reality component. If Yelp "sees" a restaurant where your camera is pointing, it will display text information superimposed on what you see through the phone. Move your phone in another direction and new restaurants pop up. If you spot something potentially delicious, click on that label and a review pops up. Here's what Monocle looks like:
One evening I was lying in bed playing with my iPhone and turned on Monocle. To my surprise, the iPhone "saw" through the walls of our house, and superimposed the names of the restaurants I was aiming the phone at, about a quarter of a mile away. Excellent -- the iPhone has x-ray vision!
Augmented reality applications for smart phones phones make use of the phone's GPS, compass and accelerometer to figure out what the phone is looking at.
Yelp is just one of a growing number of augmented reality applications. Cyclops, Bionic Eye, Urbanspoon and Robotvision are other augmented reality apps that add data to what the phone sees.
Augmented reality isn't limited to terrestrial pursuits. With the iPhone app SkyVoyager, you can point you camera at the night sky and see the planets and stars superimposed on the screen. As you move your phone, the objects in your phone's screen also shift. Tap on an object to get more information about that star or planet. Wondering if that bright object is Mars, Venus or an alien spacecraft on final approach to earth? Wonder no more.
For skiers, climbers, hikers, adventurers -- there's an app for you, too. Curious about what that mountain that is? Fire up the augmented reality application, Peaks, and it will reveal everything about what you're looking at.
Perhaps the most powerful augmented reality app currently available for the iPhone is Layar, which lets developers create their own augmented reality apps on the Layar platform: This single app can have a multitude of augmented reality displays. Using Layar you can point your phone anywhere and see restaurants, nearby Tweeps, and hotels. You can also visualize where the government is spending recovery dollars -- if a building or building's occupant has received taxpayer dollars. You can find apartments for rent just by aiming your phone at a building (how great is that!) And more.
Retina is an augmented reality application for color-blind people. The app displays the actual name of the color:
Dishpointer is an app that shows you what satellites are where in the sky. It's fun, but also handy if you want to align your satellite TV dish. Perhaps the most useful (sort of) augmented reality app is Car Finder, which, as you probably suspect, lets you zero in on where you parked your car. Okay, yes you could write down your car's location on a piece of paper, but now you have an excuse never to tote a heavy, bulky pen around:
Augmented reality is still in its early stages. But what's coming next to cell phones will blow your mind. Imagine visiting Athens, New York City, or Washington, DC. Point you phone that-a-way, and it will display what the city looked like 100, 500, or 2,000 years ago. As you move your phone, the image will change, showing you exactly what was there. Now that's an amazing way to look at history. Or before you leave your house for work, you point your iPhone or Android phone or Blackberry in the direction of your office and instantly see where traffic is backed up. (And of course, you can add a weather layer to show you what the weather will be by the time you get to the office.) By moving your finger you can plot out an alternate route. Before you leave for home from the office, you repeat the same process, only this time you tell your phone to display take out restaurants along the low-traffic route back. If the Terminator doesn't need to cook, neither do you.
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