Bill Mullins' Weblog – Tech Thoughts

Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – November 23, 2011

Advertisements

Most Popular Online File Storage and Syncing Service: Dropbox – When you want to store your data somewhere online where you can get to it from multiple other devices, there are tons of great options available to you, each with different features, storage limits, security features, and in some cases, bonuses for referring your friends.

Top 14 Kindle Fire Android Apps – Just bought an Amazon Kindle Fire? Jump-start your experience with these excellent apps.

How to Use ScummVM to Play Classic Games – Old-school adventure games such as The Curse of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and Full Throttle are hard to find–and even harder to play on modern computers. If you have a classic game you’re itching to play, follow this simple guide to run it through the ScummVM emulator.

Do Android Antivirus Apps Actually Do Anything? – If you’ve been watching tech news headlines over the past week, you’ve likely heard that Android malware is growing at an alarming rate, up something like 472% from May of this year. Should you be worried and run off to purchase and install an antivirus package for your Android phone? Not so fast, there’s just as much controversy over those utilities as there is over the malware itself.

The Ultimate PC-to-Mac Web Resource – If you’re making the switch from a PC to a Mac, bookmark this must-have website. It offers everything you need to know to be a Mac.

Task-Killer Apps: Will They Help or Hurt Your Battery Life? – Lots of Android users say apps such as Advanced Task Killer help save a phone’s battery life. Others are convinced that task killers use more juice than they save. The PCWorld Labs investigated.

Fake FBI email threatens recipients with jail – An email purportedly coming from the FBI Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division has been hitting inboxes and threatening recipients with jail time if they don’t respond, reports Cyberwarzone.

AT&T notifies users of failed “organized” attack – A failed attempt at accessing and stealing AT&T customer information has been made public as some of its users received an official email from the company notifying them of the fact.

WineLibrary.com breached, credit card info compromised – Popular e-commerce site Wine Library has started notifying its customers of a breach that resulted in the compromise of their credit card information, TechCrunch reports.

Company News:

New IP geolocation technology – ReD announced an upgrade to its IP Geolocation detection technology which enables ReD to track fraud threats using IP identification and geolocation information. This is an important development for retailers because the use of IP geolocation technology as part of a risk strategy means that the genuine origin location of an online order can be quickly and accurately checked. Mercha

Microsoft to Deliver Windows 8 Upgrades Online – Microsoft wants to make upgrading to Windows 8 from older Windows versions easier and faster through online delivery, no product key entry for at least one installation method and a process that involves 82 percent fewer screen clicks.

Amazon Kindle Fire 8.9-, 10.1-Inch Versions in Development: Report – Whether Amazon’s Kindle Fire proves to be the iPad challenger expected by pundits and analysts, the next version of the tablet may already be in development: According to the Taiwanese publication DigiTimes, the online retailer is working on 8.9- and 10.1-inch models.

Microsoft Giving Away $25 in Apps – Thinking about buying a new Windows Phone handset before the end of the year? If so, Microsoft will sweeten the deal with a prepaid $25 apps card. The card can be used to purchase Windows Phone apps or Xbox Live games. The offer is good in the U.S. and in Puerto Rico, according to the Windows Phone blog. In order to receive the card, fill out an online form before February 14, 2012.

Off Topic (Sort of):

Lifehacker: How Can I Get Out of Doing All My Family’s Tech Repair? – There are a few things you can do and they come down to teaching, practice, and tough love. With a good amount of each, you should have no trouble weaning your family off of your assistance. You’ll still have to help them sometimes—as you should, since they probably help you with non-tech-related things here and there—but you can use those moments to your advantage. This is what I did with my family and I’m happy to report they’re much more self-sufficient. Here’s how you can get your family to be the same.

Facebook will no longer tell you everything it knows about you – Instead of sending CDs, Facebook is now directing users to a page where they can download a personal archive, but that archive is now covering only 22 categories — less than half of the 57 categories received by early requesters in the Europe vs. Facebook campaign, according to a report from ITworld.

Small PC Makers Hiking PC Prices on Hard-drive Shortage – The early brunt of a hard-drive shortage resulting from widespread flooding in Thailand is falling on small PC makers, who are raising computer prices to stem losses. Analysts expect PC prices to continue rising as the severity of the floods are assessed, with prices expected to stabilize as shortages end by the first half next year.

Collaboration Is Overrated – The promise of social media helped make “collaboration” a buzzword. Books have been written, processes have been preached, and the term took hold, trumpeting the value of working together in an automated fashion. What’s not to love? Well, there must be something. Because while many companies offer collaboration tools on their intranets, not that many information workers are actually taking advantage of them.

Today’s Quote:

“Now Tom said: “Mom, where there’s a cop beatin’ a guy

Wherever a hungry new born baby cries,

Where there’s a fight ‘gainst the blood and hatred in the air,

Look for me Mom, I’ll be there.

Wherever there’s somebody fighting for a place to stand

Or decent job or a helpin’ hand,

Wherever somebody’s strugglin’ to be free

Look in their eyes Mom, you’ll see me…..”

–   B SpringsteenGhost of Tom Joad

Today’s Free Downloads:

PDF-Xchange Viewer – In addition to letting you mark up and annotate PDFs, PDF-Xchange Viewer creates PDFs from text, RTF, image files, and scanned materials–something that you just can’t do with Adobe Reader. This process is quick and easy, just select File, New Document and select your source file.

Process Hacker 2.24 – Process Hacker is an application which helps users to view and manage the processes and their threads, modules and memory from their computers.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Advertisements

Advertisements