Over the last 2 years, I have come to grips with the fact that the iPhone is not for me. I can’t keep carrying around a device that screams “I am one of the mindless in the mass” when there are devices that stand head, shoulders, and torso above the iPhone. “Why?” Well this is the part where I sit down that single reader of my blog and break down the hard truths. Continue reading “HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4 – So Torn”
Category: Technology
Apps on your iPhone and iPad Home Screen – That’s So 2012
If you have always wanted to figure out a way to show your background on your iPhone or iPad, I have a method that has worked well for me over the last year, or so. The better part, it can be done in only a couple easy steps and doesn’t require any scary stuff like jailbreaking.
Firstly, you need to move all but one of your icons off of the main homepage. In this instance, I left the Google Search app. This app isn’t critical, but if you intend for it to stay on the dock, I would plan for that app to be used here.
Now that you have the screen relatively clear, hold your finger on the app icon until it starts wiggling, then drag it to the dock at the bottom. Press the home button so that the icons stop wiggling an d you will notice that nothing from page 2 moved back to page 1.
If you want to get real fancy, move the app from the dock onto another page and have a completely cleaned up home screen. Remember, this works on both iPhones and iPads. Have fun!
Because You Don’t Need to Read Email from the Grave
In a move that will probably make those squeemish about their privacy happy, Google has morbidly announced their afterlife data management called the Inactive Account Manager.
The tool, which is available on your Google Account settings page, will let you determine exactly what to do with all your data in the event you don’t log in for a determined period of time (3 months, 6 months, 9 months, or 1 year). You will have the option to either allow Google to delete all of your data in one fell swoop or transfer ownership of your digital footprint over to a trusted relative, confidante, or total stranger.
The services indicated to take advantage of this transfer/deletion tool are +1s; Blogger; Contacts and Circles; Drive; Gmail; Google+ Profiles, Pages and Streams; Picasa Web Albums; Google Voice and YouTube.
For those of you out there who might panic that Google will inadvertently delete all your data because you won a one year, all expenses paid trip around the world, you can set the tool so that it will notify you before it does anything.
Might I suggest that you don’t use your Gmail address for the message?
For Your Eyes Only (and the IRS?)
In a blog post by Nathan Freed Wessler, a staff attorney at the ACLU, it looks like Big Brother Government feels they have the right to read your emails without a warrant. How serious is this? Probably pretty serious, since it flies in the face of the Fourth Amendment (as confirmed by the 6th Circuit Appeals Court) and a portion of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). The the exclusions are email that has been opened but left on a server more than 180 days (considered to be abandoned) and email that is unopened. These two specific instances do not require a warrant. In the golden days of POP3 email delivery, where a user was expected to download every message, some of this made sense (except the unopened email part). However, in these days of remote mail access and nearly endless on-line data storage, it doesn’t.
This being said, Mr. Wessler admits that the documents don’t explicitly indicate that the IRS can bypass the constitutional requirements for probable cause and judicially sanctioned warrants. Conversely, they don’t say that the IRS can’t either. Before the 6th Circuit Appeals Court’s findings, the IRS’ own Search Warrant Handbook indicated the following:
“the Fourth Amendment does not protect communications held in electronic storage, such as email messages stored on a server, because internet users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.”
Folks can say what they want about the ACLU, mostly because of their continued work to maintain the separation between church and state, but I am personally thankful that they are helping to uphold our guaranteed rights.
Make Your Own Magazine (Well Sort Of)
Flipboard, the now infamous RSS and personal news aggregator has upgraded to version 2.0 of its software. Now, it is always a gamble when moving to version 2.0 of any software that has a strong following, especially considering that it might alienate the die hard or remove the features that users love the most. However, Flipboard looks to have gotten it right.
One of the complaints of many folks was the inability to share a craftily comprised collection of poignant or timely news sources. That concern has been taken care of via the ability of users to share their culled sources as a personal magazine. This means that if your have a group of horticulturists who have the same affinity for bug neutralizing fertilizers as you do, you could simply share out your news sources to those folks via the magazine feature.
Another feature that was added was the ability for individuals to quickly bookmark stories and sources that showed up in suggested feeds and news stories that originated through recommendations and suggestions via the Flipboard aggregator.
I know that I had quite a few uses for a feature like this when I would see interesting stories show up on the technology feed of Flipboard. I would have no way to add a new up-and-coming technology blog that wasn’t quite on my radar.
There are some other new features, like the ability to quickly add content to your Flipboard via the bookmarklet tool, integration with Etsy, a new content search, and some navigation logistics in the ribbon area.
The newest versions are out for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. There was no immediate indication of Android application changes or release dates.
Press 1 to Speak with a Representative about an Exciting New Opportunity…
We have all been there, picking up the phone after a long day of work, only to find that some swindler or politically-oriented campaign has decided to interrupt your evening with an attempt to get your time, money, or vote. It is the quintessential definition of annoying.
Like 220 million other Americans, you join the Do Not Call registry, but the slimy characters still seem to slip through. Their ability to circumvent the established safeguards can bring on stages of ire that can only be assuaged through anger management.
Continue reading “Press 1 to Speak with a Representative about an Exciting New Opportunity…”
iPhone 5 Coming to T-Mobile (Guess That AT&T Merger Wasn’t Necessary?)
After years on the market, T-Mobile will finally be getting the latest iteration of Cupertino’s little “engine that could”. The bigger surprise move is the shift away from a subsidized plan. However, all is not as it seems.
Typically with a carrier, the cost of these complex and costly smartphones is encumbered through the contractual agreement with the consumer. With T-Mobile’s plan, the device’s initial cost will be $99, which is essentially a down payment. The remaining cost of the phone is picked up through a contractual arrangement where the buyer pays $20 over a period of 24 months. The difference is that once that 24 months is up, the consumer’s monthly costs go down. With most other wireless carriers, the subsidy costs continue throughout the lifetime of service.
I know some folks are excited about the prospect of additional carrier options for a 4G LTE device that is near the cutting edge, so I will be curious to see how many adopters and carrier-switchers T-Mobile can pick up when the phone becomes available on April 12, 2013 (pre-orders will begin on April 4, 2013).
Researchers Get Data to Approach the Speed of Light, but that Constant May Be a Princess in Another Castle
In a story that will probably get latency junkies hurriedly excited, it was announced through a research paper that a fiber network was created that allowed for the transmission of data that traveled at 99.7% of the speed of light. The team of researchers at the University of Southampton in England did so by creating air-filled fiber optic cables. The data they sent through these cables did so at a mind-blowing bandwidth of 10 terabytes per second.
That’s almost fast enough to stop my Hulu playback on my Playstation 3 to stop stuttering when I watch episodes of Family Guy or The Office
In the ExtremeTech article, they mention the fact that “the speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second, or 186,282 miles per second”. However, that may not be true.
In an unrelated article that was published today, universities in both Germany and France have begun to question whether the speed of light is as constant as Einstein and pioneers before him thought it was. In the research by the two universities, a better understanding of vacuums indicate that some of the long-standing beliefs about their characteristics may be disputable. This is due to the presence and absence of particles on a quantum level.
Of course, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the original mechanisms and methods used to measure the speed of light in the first place