Monthly Archive for July, 2007

Your first girlfriend — and the other things search engines store about you

Published
by
Graham
on July 11, 2007
in Computer News
. 0 Comments

From ComputerWorld:

What if there were a giant database that contained your hidden insecurities, embarrassing medical questions and the fact that you still think from time to time about your high school girlfriend? Well, such a data store does exist — if you’ve ever plugged such private topics into a search engine.

The fact is, search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search all record and retain in their vast data banks any term that you query, in addition to the date and time your query was processed, the IP address of your computer and a cookie-based unique ID that — unless you delete it — enables the search engine to continue to know if requests are coming from that particular computer, even if the connection changes…

The upshot: If someone were to ask one of these search engine companies to produce a list of IP addresses or cookie values that searched on a particular search term, they conceivably could. Or, conversely, given an IP address or cookie value, the search engine firm could produce a list of terms searched by the user of that address or cookie value.

Where are your high-tech manners?

Published
by
Graham
on July 9, 2007
in Computer News
. 0 Comments

From CNN:

Just because you live in a high-tech world doesn’t mean your manners can sink to new lows when using your personal technology, experts say.

“No doubt there’ve always been stinkers from the start of time,” says Honore Ervin, co-author of “The Etiquette Grrls: Things You Need to Be Told” and “More Things You Need to Be Told.”

“But all of these mobile, technological gadgets that are so prevalent now — somehow [people] just get sucked into their own little world of their cell phones, iPods, wireless computers. They’re not existing in a society and realizing that their actions affect anyone else.”

A poll last year by Pew Research, The Associated Press and AOL (which, like CNN, is owned by Time Warner) found that 81 percent of the people they surveyed were irritated at least occasionally by loud and annoying cell phones in public places.

New Paragon Drive Copy 8.5

Published
by
Graham
on July 5, 2007
in Software Tips
. 0 Comments

drive_copy_box.gif

Paragon Software has released a new version of their Drive Copy software, version 8.5:

Paragon Software Group, the technological leader in innovative data security and data management technology, announces the release of Drive Copy 8.5 – the ideal software for real-time hard disk copy, personal data and applications migration, disk-to-disk backup, basic and advanced hard disk partitioning operations.

Paragon Drive Copy provides the user with simple and easy product that provides fast data migration, especially when upgrading from one hard drive to another. The exclusive One Button Copy Wizard makes the product easy-to-use even for novices. With this version of Drive Copy, users can now make a quick backup to an external USB or Firewire drive. Drive Copy allows the user to easily copy and backup individual partitions. Also new in this version is Paragon’s exclusive Incremental Hard Disk Copy. This revolutionary new feature allows users to simply make incremental copies once the main copy has been created.

Strobist.com - Lighting information for everyone - Digital Photography Tip of the Week

Published
by
Chris
on July 4, 2007
in Digital Photography Tips & Info and Recommended Web Sites
. 1 Comment

I would like to thank everyone for their patience over the past little while when I was getting married. I know that the tips had stopped, but hopefully the reviews Graham included in the newsletter were beneficial. I had very little activity on my own website in that time as well and have resumed regular postings their as well.

In past tips I have spoken about the quality of light and how the relative size of your light source affects the quality of light. I have also talked about using on camera flashes.

There is another website that I follow very closely that offers a wealth of information on lighting, and more specifically, lighting with small strobes or external on camera flashes. David Hobby is the creator of Strobist and is also a professional photographer. He has more than 600 articles and postings on his website all about lighting your subject with small, inexpensive off camera flash units. Last summer he ran a series called Lighting 101: Lighting Boot Camp and is currently running Lighting 102. His work and examples can even help photographers with point and shoot cameras and just a few controls on their cameras.

He makes this stuff easy.

I encourage everyone to visit his site, read through his article, read Lighting 101 and follow Lighting 102. Do the exercises. They will make you a better photographer.

Until next time, happy shooting.

14 Personalized Homepages Compared, Feature by Feature

Published
by
Graham
on July 4, 2007
in Internet Tips and Recommended Web Sites
. 0 Comments

mashable_logo.jpg

I’ve seen this mentioned in a couple of places, but Mashable has an article that compares 14 different personalized home pages. The homepages are:

  • Netvibes
  • Pageflakes
  • iGoogle
  • MyYahoo
  • yourminis
  • WebWag
  • Schmedley
  • Eskobo
  • Windows Live
  • Favoor
  • Gritwire
  • Inbox
  • Protopage
  • It’sAStart

I haven’t heard of a bunch of these, but I’ll probably check them out now that I’ve read a bit about them.

Televison History

Published
by
Graham
on July 4, 2007
in Recommended Web Sites
. 0 Comments

I came across this interesting web site the other day that has a lot of information about the history of television

One of the greatest 20th century inventions.
Learn about the history of TV-set design, development and marketing.

Once you are inside a major time period, you will find photographs of television sets from around the world, year-by-year links to important facts, magazine covers and advertising. See examples of the world’s first television sets, up to and including HDTV models.

They have some great pictures of very old televisions, as well as a lot of trivia type information.

Curious gadget fans smash, dissect iPhones

Published
by
Graham
on July 2, 2007
in Computer News
. 0 Comments

From the Toronto Star:

It took Apple Inc. more than six months to build the iPhone but curious gadget fanatics needed only minutes to tear one apart.

Within hours of the first iPhones going on sale Friday, enthusiasts scrambled to be the first to discover what makes the devices tick, posting photos and videos of disassembled phones on the Internet.

The information is more than just academic. Apple keeps a tight grip on information about parts suppliers so “tear downs” of its products are closely watched by investors keen to figure out how to place their bets.