SMF 9/9/12 Facetime and Google Hangout/chat

Hi everybody,

It's here.  Phones now have service that is fast enough to stream a videoconference call.  If you have a new iphone, you can use facetime with other people who have new iphones.  If you have an android, you can "hangout" with anyone with a computer and a webcam/mic setup, as well as anyone with an android.  Now, I can't claim to have fully investigated the apple products, especially since my wife now has a droid razr, but I did see it in action and it seemed to work.  I'm excited about the hangouts mostly for the possibilities.  I'm not sure how secure they are, but I bet it will be a nice solution for friends who haven't gotten together in a while to chat face to face (almost).  The group conversation is also easier when you can read facial cues to figure out who's about to speak.  I'd like to set up a test of the system with a couple other droid users and make sure it works when it's more than just me and another person. This also has the ability to TOTALLY alter the face (lol) of communications, because I'll be paying for very few minutes.  Most of the people I talk to have a computer or a droid, so I can call them with a hangout whenever I want, instead of having to use my verizon minutes.  And since, for the moment, I have unlimited data, I'm going to be pressing my cheap button and doing THAT a lot.

Also, a question: do any of you know anything about the bluetooth watches that synch with droids?  I know some of them can check time, email, texts, facebook updates, etc.  I was thinking it might be a sneaky way to check stuff during the day while NOT pulling out my phone in front of my class, but I'm not sure it's worth the $150 for a gizmo that might not last very long.

What do you all think?

~Mark

SMF 9/8/12 Severe Weather alert

Hi Everybody,

There was a severe weather warning today - so severe that my smartphone actually told me to take cover!  I was listening to google music, and then it just stopped - and the alert tone came on to tell me that I was in a tornado warning area.  How cool is that?  I mean, you expect local radio stations to help out with things like that, but severe weather alerts sent to your phone during a tornado watch?  Very cool.  Luckily, I didn't need the alert, but it was nice to know that it would come to me no matter what I was listening to.

Does anyone out there know how this technology works?  Does it get in touch with us based upon the tower we're currently connected to, the place we have the phone registered to, or what?  Would I have gotten the warning if I was in the next state because my home address was registered?  Was it Verizon, or some weather app I have installed?

Anyhow, whoever it was, I was glad it happened.  Though it meant that I didn't get to go out to dinner, it also meant I was safe.  We can add life saving info provider to the long list of what our smartphones can do for us.

~Mark
  

SPF 9/6/12 my wifi dongle's broken!

Good morning all,

My new phone has a broken wifi dongle (I think it's really called a radio, but saying dongle is more fun).  Every time I connect to a network, it flashes between connected and saved, never actually connecting or saving.  My 3g just isn't cutting it, so what's a tech-weenie to do?  I mean, it's only a couple months old at this point, and it's the Droid Razr Maxx.  I did all the normal tech support things, turning wifi on and off, rebooting the phone, deleting the network and asking it to find it again fresh.  None of these tactics have worked yet.  Does anybody  have any suggestions?

Thanks,

~Mark

SMF 9/5/12

SMF 9/5/12 - Check deposits wherever, whenever.

So, I'm a Bank of America Customer.  It's convenient, and generally they're on the cutting edge of all things technological.  I discovered the other day that I can TAKE A PICTURE OF A CHECK AND IT WILL BE AUTOMAGICALLY DEPOSITED.  Did everybody get that?  You don't have to fill out any forms, go to a branch, or even get out of your recliner.  How cool is that?!?  This may save a couple bucks in gas, but more importantly, it saves your time.  Yesterday, I had a check written out to me, and before I left I had deposited it.  Right there.  If it's not a huge money saving tip, it's at least worth a shout out - because it will save you time, and as they say, time is money.

I think there's also a feature where you can "bump" people money with ING.  It seems that if someone has a phone that has the app too, you could send money via bluetooth or something by having the phones in proximity.  This is cool, but it scares me a little.  What if I forget to turn off my bumping and everyone I pass can just grab a couple bucks?  My cheap button hurts.  I'm sure they've got fail safes for this type of thing, but I'm just a bit tight fisted, as I'm sure you've realized by now.  Anyhow, talk to you soon.

~Mark

SMF 9/4/12 Ubuntu vs. Windows, which leads to droid vs. iphone

Hi everybody,

Apologies in advance: This isn't (mostly) about phones.  But it's still about cheap, so I guess it's ok.   I'm a bit of a dweeb.  And a bit of a cheapskate.  Which means when somebody says, "it's free and open-source" I generally jump on it.  Hence, as I learn more about ubuntu and debian, I start putting it on all of my machines.  Here are the benefits:

a) Free.
b) Open-Source - meaning I can look at the code and change/modify things if I want to spend the time.
c) More free software than you could use in several lifetimes.
d) It works, with a little tweaking, nearly as well as mac OS (which by the way is linux based)
e) No virus protection needed

The detriments are as follows:

i) It's a little harder to get used to
ii) The software doesn't always work, since it's designed by whoever wants to do it.
iii) tech support generally means you have to use google and your wits.
iv) Not all hardware is supported, meaning your printer might not work right away.

Given all this, I still put ubuntu on all of my machines.  Sometimes I dual boot with windows or virtualbox into a windows install.

This does segue quite nicely into the apple vs. android debate.  The basic difference between apple products and android products is that ANYONE can write a program for android.  No quality checking, no worries.  For apple, development is a bit more restricted and they check the quality of a program before they'll roll it out.  This is not so much good or bad as a ideological difference.  Apple wants to protect people from themselves (don't break your phone with this crappy software) whereas droid and google are basically saying the opposite: try whatever you want, we trust you, and if you break it, just come grab a new one or restore it to factory settings.  This difference in ideology leads to a difference in cost and reliability.  Apple products generally cost more, but last way longer, because they don't get tampered with or upgraded much.  They're great for tech-newbies or people who just want a very reliable phone which can browse the web and text.  Androids in general have a slightly shorter life expectancy, but they're a whole lot more useful while they're alive.  In the animal kingdom, this might be like comparing a tortoise to a tuna.  Tortoises live forever, not changing much, but they're nigh unto indestructible.  Tuna live a much more active life, moving and shaking, and then they might end up on a sushi menu (to extend the analogy, the sushi menu = best buy's wall of shame).  I'm sorry if you're a biologist and this analogy offended you, I'm just trying to make a point here.  Please correct my errors and take it with a pinch of wasabi.

SMF 9/3/12 Keep your files with you and backed up.

Hi everybody,

http://www.hot-deals.org/deal/398d9d8eb56405a3aa2d2c4321cdbbca/

There are 25 gigs of online, backed up storage with your name on them.  Go get 'em.  Because when your stuff is on the cloud, anything with a web browser can access them.  That's right.  Your tablet, your laptop, your desktop, your droid, even your iphone and kindle fire I think.  More importantly, you won't be one of those people paying hundreds of dollars to tech support the next time your computer fails, or smartphone gets hit by a bus or bent between the spokes of your bicycle (see previous articles for THAT story).

When I worked at the Bates helpdesk, the toughest calls were the people who had their thesis all saved on one floppy disk.  The only copy.  Now, back then, dinosaurs roamed the earth, but they did have flash drives and CDs.  They also had email, so the people could have emailed themselves.  But instead, they would prowl around the helpdesk just before we opened, and then give us long sob stories about how they couldn't possibly put in that much time again, so could we please do anything we could to fix their problem.  Well, we did.  And sometimes we were able to fix the issues.

Long story short, don't use floppy disks.  Ever.  They're not floppy anymore so that's no fun, and they break a lot.  Don't use only flash drives or hard drives either, because they fail too.  Use the free 25 gigs of storage that's up there today, or google drive, or microsoft's version of it.  You don't have to put all your files up there, but at least the ones that you will really miss like your photos and your SENIOR THESIS.

One last time, here's the deal: for online, backed up cloud storage to fail, redundant servers in several places would all have to die at once.  If CA fell into the sea, iron mountain was nuked, and the zombie-pocalypse got the rest of us, maybe the data would be gone.  But by then, all any of us would be thinking about was BRAINS!, so your thesis on the calculus of the pygmy aboriginals would probably not be read anyway :)

~Mark

SMF 9/2/12: Saving money by checking in.

Hi all (and by all I mean all 2 of you that read this:))

I recently saved half of my money in a store by checking in on Foursquare.  It was only a $5 off $10 coupon, but all I had to do was check in to get it.  So, in addition to letting others know where you are when you feel like it, you can also save money by using coupons that foursquare gives you.  I'm not sure I've paid for the extra cost of my smartphone yet, or the monthly data plan, but between Mastercard and Foursquare, at least $5 were saved this month.  I'm going to keep doing this, using craigslist and groupon and livingsocial until I eventually make my money back.  At least that's the hope.  If not, I'll just keep deluding myself into believing that so that I can feel good about spending money on having the internet in my pocket.