Extra, extra!! Read all about it!!

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

I started reading online blogs about fifteen years ago. I had a bookmark folder of blogs and I would routinely check each and every one to see if there had been an update. Eventually blogs and newsy websites started allowing the reader to sign up for an email each time they were updated and this made following a blog that updated rarely even easier. But I was not crazy about receiving emails daily from the more frequently updated blogs.

Enter the RSS feed. An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an automated web feed format used to populate a reader with updates from a website. You might have noticed the orange logo in the upper left hand column on your favorite websites. Clicking it will provide a link to add to your favorite RSS reader. In my case I got hooked on Google Reader‘s format years ago and never looked back. The opportunity to have all of my interests in folders, neatly organized and sorted. It was perfect.

However, once I started doing the majority of my web browsing via my phone I realized that I was missing out! Without the ease of Google’s Reader at my fingertips I was back to either bookmarking my favorite websites or signing up for email updates. Until recently!!

Google has released a new application Newsify!! It is free for a limited time. I encourage you to download it if you are an iPad or an iPhone user. It syncs with your Google Reader account and provides a user interface that looks much like a magazine (similar to Flipboard.)

Now I don’t miss a single blog post regarding a sewing project I will never have time to complete OR a house and garden renovation I can’t afford.

 

 

Shameless promotion: Straight Tech’s RSS Feed can be found to the right by clicking “Entries RSS” – http://blog.tmiva.com/feed/.

 

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Google, you can drive my car!

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

Image courtesy of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles

Beep, beep, beep and YEAH!

Nevada has long since been a state renowned for its opportunity for R&R. Whether it is skiing in Tahoe or luxury golf courses outside of Reno the fine state of Nevada has more to offer than just the Vegas strip.

This week the state of Nevada has added one more reason to pay them a visit in the future. If your idea of R&R includes actual rest then you might be just the consumer Google has in mind.  If driving your own car sounds like too much trouble the Google Self-Driving Car may sound like a dream come true.

But don’t go hopping on a plane to Nevada tomorrow!  The Nevada DMV does have plans to issue a special driver’s license and license plate to drivers of privately owned self-driving cars but it is still a long way off.  In the meantime Google has applied and been granted the very first license to test their self-driving Toyota Priuses on the open roads.  General Motors predicts this will be standard technology in an automobile by 2020.  Several other major car manufacturers have a prototype in the works.

To be approved for road travel, autonomous cars must have a combined minimum driving time of 10,000 miles. Nevada also requires autonomous car operators to submit a complete description of their self-driving technology, a detailed safety plan, and a plan for hiring and training test drivers. The state requires a $100 licensing fee plus $13 for each set of license plates, but companies must also purchase a surety bond of $1 million to put up to 5 vehicles on the road. Nevada says a number of other unnamed companies are looking to follow Google and test self-driving cars on the state’s public roads. ~ Ian Paul, www.pcworld.com

I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but hum the theme song to The Jetsons.  Would you be interested in a self-driving car?

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Will Blackberry 10 save RIM?

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

Tens of thousands of Spring Breakers headed to Florida this week to let loose.  All those people in the Orlando airport with a briefcase instead of a beverage, where were they headed?  If they had a BlackBerry in their hands there is a good chance they were headed to BlackBerry World 2012, the “largest annual gathering for the BlackBerry® ecosystem, and the place where the community behind innovative BlackBerry solutions comes together to learn, share and network.”

If you are a committed fan of the BlackBerry you will be pleased to know that BlackBerry 10 has some exciting changes.

  • BlackBerry 10 will be keeping the physical keyboard they are known for –  unless you’d prefer an on-screen keyboard available on some of their models.
  • The updated operating system will provide a more simplistic flow between applications.
  • An exciting development to the BlackBerry camera will allow you to snap a picture and then scroll forward or backwards in time to capture the moment you “just missed.”

So, it sounds like RIM (Research in Motion) has plans to stay in the game!  Don’t believe me?  Maybe you’d rather hear RIM President and CEO explain his plans for the future of his company and the Blackberry 10 himself.

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CISPA in the hands of the Senate

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

CISPA was passed in the House late yesterday afternoon.  Here’s an article summing up where we are now.  Long story short, if you have not done so already I urge you to contact your Senator and express your views.

If where you stand on the passing of CISPA is still up in the air – consider this excerpt from the above linked article quoting Michelle Richardson of the ACLU.

“If we’re going to be real people online, we need real protections. While this may be an abstract concept to politicians too busy or wary to spend a lot of time online, it’s a hardcore fact for their constituents. You don’t need a computer science degree on whether the government should be collecting information on its citizens,” Richardson pointed out. “It’s not a cyber issue, it’s a constitutional issue, and all of these members (of Congress) took an oath to uphold the constitution.”

 

 

 

 

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CISPA? No, thank you. I think I’d rather it not pass.

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

Intelligence.  Sharing.  Protection. As a parent, these are all things I think about often.  Good things.  Right?

Don’t be so quick to answer that.  What if you add a word at the beginning and at the end? Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.  Suddenly those three words become a lot more dangerous.

CISPA is an act proposed in November of 2011 that proposes to let companies collect data and information on their users and share it with the government as long as it “directly pertains to” a “cyber threat.”  In theory, that doesn’t sound so bad.

But what exactly is a “cyber threat?”    As of right now the definition of “cyber threat” is so vague that this act reads like the beginning of a slippery slope in my opinion.  Is CISPA a fancy way to let Big Brother monitor your computer activity?

In researching my thoughts on this I can’t help but note that the big companies supporting CISPA (Microsoft and Facebook) seem to be be turned on by the fact that CISPA would protect them from any potential litigation resulting from the information they share.

Wherever you stand on this issue I encourage you to read the act for yourself.  You’re reading this now, which means technology is a part of your life.  You can’t afford not to have an opinion on this issue.

If reading up on CISPA makes you cross eyed you might rather watch this quick You Tube video explaining the ins and outs.

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Let’s Move! Wait, just let me get my phone…

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

There is plenty of research that points to the many ways that technology has made us lazy. It is relatively easy to stay indoors. You can order groceries, buy a new outfit, book your vacation, chat with your friends, even telecommute to work.

Everywhere children are being encouraged to put down their hand held video games, turn off their TVs and get moving!! Children and adults alike could stand to unplug every now and again.

It is not just our physical health but our mental health that can suffer from too much screen time. I need only look at gorgeous place settings and gourmet dinner recipes on Pinterest for a few minutes before it is tempting to just order a pizza and throw it on the kitchen floor and let the family have at it like a pack of wolves. Because I can’t ever measure up, right?

I was thinking this morning about all the ways that technology has changed my life. And frankly, they have not all been damaging to my health, physically or mentally.

This morning my newborn is three months old. I took a quick video and sent it to our whole family.  I felt connected even though we are hundreds of miles apart.  I considered taking her out for a walk in the stroller (beneficial to me both physically and mentally) and then tried to talk myself out of it due to the pollen count. I checked my Pollen.com app on my phone and discovered that it is actually lower today than it was yesterday and we spent two hours sitting in the grass at a soccer game yesterday with no ill effects.

I posted to a group of friends on Facebook that I was contemplating not doing a thing today. In less than five minutes three of my girlfriends reminded me that I had promised myself that I’d take a walk at least four of the five school days this week.

And so I did. It was only 1.7 miles and I know that because mapmyrun told me. I listened to the rest of Killing Lincoln while I took my walk (a pretty good book even if it was written by Bill O’Reilly.) I’d never have had the time to read it but I have listened to the whole thing in under a week while running errands in the car and taking my newborn out for a walk. Let’s be honest, if I’d not made a Voice Memo about the book the moment it was recommended to me I’d have never remembered in my new mommy delirium to read it at all.

My older daughter will be getting off the school bus in ten minutes. If it rains this afternoon we will likely have an epic battle of “Just Dance” in our living room. MyFitnessPal says that will burn somewhere between two and three hundred calories in an hour. And what it does for my mental health to jump around my living room and watch my six year old shake her thang? Well, that is immeasurable.

So… technology. Maybe it’s not making us lazy afterall? What do you think? How has technology changed your approach to looking after your health?

Iris

The iris I might not have seen if I'd not taken a walk.... a walk I might not have taken if someone on the internet had not talked me in to it.

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Digital Legacy

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

Source: http://www.newscientist.com

You’ve probably thought about what might happen to your business if your office network goes down.  In my office we often jokingly say “if you get hit by a bus today will we be able to keep the project going tomorrow?”  We have back ups and digital copies of things and we make sure that our records are accessible to everyone.  Our email passwords are all the same, our voicemail box codes are all the same.

But if I got “hit by a bus” at home would someone know what to do?  My “project” would keep going.  My husband would feed the kids.  My six year old knows my iPhone password so my voicemails would be returned.  I have shared accounts for my banking and insurance with my husband.  He could access those.

My grandfather passed away this year and my mother and I were talking about how grateful she was for all of Pop-Pop’s neat piles of paperwork.  She mentioned that she wasn’t sure what to do about his computer files, if any would ever need to be accessed.  This got me to thinking – I don’t save any paperwork.  None.  My life is completely digital in that respect.  My bank statements, health records, tax records, all of it is in a digital filing cabinet.  It is organized and accessible only to me.

So what do you do?  If your first thought as mine was is to put your passwords in to your will you’d be mistaken.  A will becomes a matter of public record after probate and that could cause a world of trouble.  I will be recording any necessary passwords elsewhere for those responsible for my estate.

But what about the rest of my “life?”

When my second daughter was born there were more women holding my pregnant digital hand via facebook than there were women supporting me in “real life.”  As the line between your “real life” friends and your “online friends” gets blurrier doesn’t it get more important to decide what will happen to your “virtual life” after you are gone?

To many the answer is yes, yes it is important.  Would you prefer your facebook page stay as it is now, the minutiae of your day available for all to see forever or would you prefer your page be memorialized or even deleted?  If you blog does someone know your password, so that the people you never knew at all that cared enough to read your words can read of your passing?

We are creating a digital legacy for ourselves every minute of every day.  The digital trail of breadcrumbs we leave grows longer as more and more of our lives are online.  Sociologists and archeologists will someday have a good time examining the dawn of the digital age and the information we left behind.  But long before scientists are researching our lives in anonymity our children and our grandchildren will likely give us a google.  How comfortable are you with what they’ll find?

There seem to be two schools of thought regarding the digital legacy.  The preservationists that believe we owe it to future generations to leave all that we can.  And the “deletionists,” those that wish the internet could learn to forget.

I am hopeful that my oldest daughter, the one most likely to someday have to handle my affairs, will appreciate my tidy online records and forgive me for spilling the intimate details of our lives all over my little corner of the internet.

 

 

 

 

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Help!

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

When I was younger so much younger than today, I never needed anybody’s help in any way… The Beatles, 1965

Sitting in front of my computer, staring at the pop-up that I can’t make disappear, selecting the “Ask again later” option so that I don’t have to determine whether or not I should update something or wondering why all of a sudden the font on every website I visit is tiny – the lyrics to Help! go through my mind (along with plenty of other colorful language, I assure you.)

Perhaps you have this same experience from time to time.  If you’re lucky you have an IT person or a teenager in your life that reaches over your shoulder and with several strokes on your keyboard and a click of your mouse they have solved your problems.  You pause, wondering if you should ask them to explain what they just did, knowing full well the same issue is not likely to arise again and wondering if you’d even remember the solution if it did.

What if you could you get that same help without having to chat with the technologically inclined person in your office for twenty minutes about their dog or their grandchildren?  Or without enduring the eyeroll from your teenager? You can!

TMI has an icon you can download right to your desktop for support when you need it.  Simply go to tmihelp.com/ and  agree to some conditions and you will be prompted to  allow the installation of the TMIcon on your desktop.  Once installed, this will connect you directly to TMI’s Help Desk for remote support.

The TMI Help Desk will be able to see your screen and help you out.  Any question asked of the help desk which can be resolved in less than ten minutes will be rendered FREE.  And free is good.

As always you can feel free to call us directly at 703-467-4TMI and select 1 to reach the Help Desk.  


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Has technology touched any of your interests in a way you never anticipated?

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

Several of my interests  (ethical and responsible consumerism, theatre and technology) collided in January when I read an article about  Mike Daisey’s one man show “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.”

Beginning in the late 90s Daisey started to make a name for himself as a monologist and writer.  His topics ranged from Walmart, L. Ron Hubbard to the history of the New York transit system.  When he made the decision to tackle Apple and the conditions of their production workers in China he opted not to do it from afar.  He went to China and did his best to get an insider’s viewpoint.

His show “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” was a success by many standards of measurement.  Excerpts from his production were aired in January on NPR’s “This American Life.” This particular podcast became the most widely listened to podcast in This American Life history.  If his intent was to draw attention to the factory workers’ conditions he succeeded.

But… and there is always a but… what if everything he said in his show was not exactly true?   What is the difference between sensational journalism and performance art?  Do each have different standards for truth?

This week Mike Daisy issued a statement on his website after it was revealed that many of the “truths” in  his show were fabrications.

“I would also like to apologize to the journalists I gave interviews to in which I exaggerated my own experiences. In my drive to tell this story and have it be heard, I lost my grounding. Things came out of my mouth that just weren’t true, and over time, I couldn’t even hear the difference myself.”

On March 16th “This American Life” retracted their story, claiming that they were unable to stand behind the facts detailed in Daisey’s story.  When fact checkers went to work on his story many of the things he claimed to have experienced happened to someone else entirely.  Or the conditions he described in the factory he visited were actually details from another factory altogether.

This is the perfect storm of navel-gazing for me.  Daisey’s debacle prompts endless questions.

Does it matter that the details were exaggerated if even some of it is true?  And the end result, Apple agreeing to allow an outside third party to audit working conditions, doesn’t that make it all worthwhile?

Do you think that a “buy local” trend will ever emerge on the technological front the way it has in produce?  What’s next?  Maybe every fourth Sunday in the parking lot next to the Farmer’s Market the Technology Tent will set up and let you buy a laptop made just down the street?  Is that so unreasonable?  I don’t know.

I never imagined I’d buy my produce right from the farmer.  Or that my friend would be dropping off my eggs once a week.  Anything is possible, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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AIM

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

You get up in the morning and you can’t decide if it is more of a Nirvana day or a Spice Girls day.  You opt to wear  your Doc Martens.  You never miss an episode of Friends.  And you get all your news from Jon Stewart.

You probably go to work and spend a good part of your day chatting up your friends and colleagues on AIM.  And you record every episode of VH-1 I love the 90′s?

You might be surprised to find that thousands of people that have left the rest of the 90′s behind them still rely rely on AOL’s AIM chat client.  If you were one of them you have probably been following the rumors regarding AIM closely.

Technology based gossip spreads faster than news of who’s taking who to the prom in your local high school.  When AOL laid off the great majority of their AIM division last week rumors spread like wildfire that the end was in sight for their popular chat client.  AOL insisted that with their west coast AIM support staff still intact they had no plans to pull AIM from their supported services.

Yesterday afternoon many users experienced an inability to log in to their AIM account.  Whether you currently use AIM through Adium, Pidgin, Google Talk or iChat, it didn’t seem to matter.   AIM support staff needed you to verify the email address used to set up your account.  Where were you twelve years ago?

AOL reports that they are “working on a fix.”  But it feels like the writing is on the wall.   It might be time to consider a new chat client.

Have you experienced trouble with your AIM log in? Feel free to contact TMI’s Help Desk. 703.567.4864 and press 1.    We can’t help you remember the email address you had twelve years ago but we’d be glad to help you get set up with a chat client that will serve your current needs.  

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