May 2012
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Facebook sets I.P.O. price
On the afternoon of Thursday, May 3rd, Facebook set its expected price range for its initial public offering at $28 to $35. The news is being reported by all major media and news outlets, from the standard networks such as FOX, ABCand CNN; Financial reports like Forbes, Wall Street Journaland Yahoo! Finance; and, of course, countless tech companies, pundits and blogs. If the price were $31,...
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April 2012
19 posts
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WWDC dates announced and tickets sold out
Apple announced that their yearly Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will be held June 11-15 this year. The five day event is most well known for the keynote speech held on the opening day each year. Historically, the keynote (done by Steve Jobs every year until now) is where they would announce the newest iPhone model. Last year, it was all about iOS 5 (since the iPhone 4S was delayed until...
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Facebook buys AOL patents from Microsoft
Just earlier this month Microsoft spent $1 billion on on 800 patents and 125 patent applications that belonged to AOL. AOL only kept 300 patents for itself that represented its core businesses and technologies. That sell took place on April 9, 2012. It was a tremendous weight lifted off of Facebook, who has just been sued by Yahoo! and feared AOL may do the same. Facebook and Microsoft have always...
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Facebook gives IPv6 access to developers
IPv6 is the next generation of IP addressing that will be used across the Internet. We currently use IPv4 and it is what we have been using for a very long time. An IP address is simply the way your computer is addressed so other computers and network devices can find and speak to it. It consists of four numbers that range between 1 and 255, all separate by dots. Your home router will likely have...
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YouTube adds an audio editor for your videos
This is the YouTube generation. Everyone is able to record content with cell phones having high definition cameras and camcorders being so cheap that everyone can afford one. Not everyone has video editing software or the knowledge to do it either. YouTube has been consistently striving to make that possible for everyone. They have slowly been adding features for video editing directly into their...
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Facebook Offers
The one thing Facebook has not done for us, until now, was help us shop, at least not directly. We have been using this social network to reconnect with people, such as friends, family, co-workers and others. We have shared interests in movies, music, hobbies, places, activities and causes. We were then granted the ability to check in to locations and share out whereabouts with the world. Along...
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Facebook toys with trending articles in newsfeed
Facebook is known for making changes and its user base is known for not liking them. However, shortly after the change is implemented, most people tend to forget what it looked like before the change and adapt to the new way of life on Facebook. This may be happening again, although on a much smaller scale than recent changes (Timeline) and the complainer may have a valid point this time.
When...
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Swipe your phone and pay with NFC by Nokia
Near Field Communications, or NFC, has been around for a long time in stand-alone items. If you have ever seen the swip to pay systems in retail stores (McDonald’s also had them) then you know what it is. Mobil gas and Sheetz gas also had them. Mobil called it the SpeedPass and it was a wand what got waved in front of the pump to pay.
It is a device - wand, credit card, etc - that has your...
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IBM named Jeff Jonas newest fellow
When you work for a company like IBM as an engineer or a scientist, the competition is pretty stiff. In 1962 Thomas Watson created the fellow program. It is the highest honor one can achieve at that company. Fellows are appointed by the CEO and there are only an average of 6 new fellows per year, totalling 231 in the company’s history. Today there are 64 active fellows in a company that...
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Happy Foursquare Day
On April 16, there’s only one thing in tech to write about and it’s foursquare. Two years ago, adoring fans of the popular geolocation, check-in service names today Foursquare Day. Naturally, the date is important. If the service is called foursquare, the square of four is 16. So, April 16th or 4/16 is, naturally, Foursquare Day. That means that today, of all days, you should check-in...
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New Mac trojan - SabPab
Last week, the big news in the Mac community was the arrival of the Flashback trojan. For so long, Mac users lived under the pretense that they could not get a virus. The Flashback proved that wrong. For years, it was a numbers game. There is no sense in writing a virus for the Mac when the PC had such a large market share. Virus writers are looking to achieve something on a massive level and the...
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Contact lens of the future may be here
Science fiction movies have long shown us futuristic example of augmented reality without the use of a handheld device. Arnold Schwarzenegger sported a heads-up display as a cyborg in the Terminator series, but that may not be too far off from what is coming to an eye near you. Innovega, Inc. has created the iOptik, an amazing feat that allows users to wear contact lenses and receive images and...
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Facebook email uses your Timeline name
In 2009, Facebook first gave vanity URLs. Before that your profile was reachable at an address that looked something like http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1234567890. The arrival of vanity URLs allows us to customize it for convenience and simplicity. Mine is http://www.facebook.com/jason.t.viglione. Not everyone has set that.
Since November of 2010, if you have a Facebook account, you have...
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Apple account security increased
The growing popularity of the app store has made Apple ID’s a target for scammers, hackers, phishers and every other digital scoundrel. With that ID, they have access to your library of music, movies, books, and apps as well as personally identifiable information and financial information. The stories of people having their Apple ID hacked have not happened frequently, but as with the new...
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Smartphone apps and the update process
I often get questions about apps that are not working correctly for people and they want to know when it will be updated and what is taking so long. At times, the user has even submitted a negative review or an email directly to the app developer “days ago” and they have not seen an update yet. This seems to happen frequently with big apps like Facebook and is often met with responses...
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What the Facebook purchase of Instagram means
The news today is all about Facebook spending $1 billion dollars in cash and stock to acquire Instagram and its team. The team, by the way, is only two people, according to Instagram’s website. If you don’t own a smartphone or stay away from the social side of things, Instagram is a photo sharing social network that allows the relatively unexciting practice of adding filters to your...
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The Mac is just as vulnerable
One guiding principle and sales tactic used by Mac evangelists and Apple fanboys over the years is that if you own one, it can’t get a virus. This has been purported as true for many years. The real truth is that you can and will get a virus with a Mac the same way as with Windows. The story of invulnerability did not come out of nowhere, however. There was some statistical truth to it.
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Almost got me, Google
Years ago when Google started April Fool’s Days pranks we all fell for it - and it was a single prank. By now we are ready for Google’s shenanigans each year. I have spent some time scouring the web to see what they’ve been up to. I have found EIGHT pranks this year. Check them all out below.
1) They have always had advanced search, but now there’s REALLY advanced search...
January 2012
5 posts
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SOPA/PIPA stopped
Earlier in the week, many website around the Internet “went dark” to show the world what the Internet may look like if SOPA and PIPA were passed. For those that missed the news, SOPA was Stop Online Piracy Act and PIPA was Protect IP Act. PIPA was in the Senate and SOPA was in the house. The problem was that if gave such sweeping power to the US government that it scared most of the...
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Apple and education and the poor reporting that...
Information moves very quickly in the information age. People are reporters every snippet, quote, fact, spec sheet, and everything else they can if it deal with technology. It is super saturated. Only the biggest names get exclusives interviews, hands-on product times and invites to the announcement events going on. One thing that everyone seems to have taken to is reposting tech stories without...
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Thinking about SOPA
SOPA is all over the place, as is its twin sister PIPA (not the Middleton kind). What most people don’t know is that this bill, PIPA, sailed easily passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year. PIPA is in the Senate and SOPA is in the House. All of a sudden, everyone has heard about it and, rightfully, has freaked out.
Without getting too technical, here is the purpose. The...
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2012 technology predictions
It’s 2012 so that means it is time to post my predictions for the year.
Facebook meets its match. However, Facebook will not die in 2012. This is a planning phase prediction. Whoever will ultimately oust Facebook from the throne of social networking will spring up today and prey on FB’s on vulnerabilities.
Google+ finds its niche. Clearly, G+ does not fit the description to be the...
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December 2011
6 posts
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What does your wireless carrier say about you?
Technological zealots, pundits, and old fashioned fanboys will argue which wireless carrier is the best for days on end. They all have reasons to switch and cannot fathom how anyone could betray their preferred carrier by using anything else. Nobody takes into account the most important factor when stating their case, which is - coverage maps. For the most part, all carriers are similarly, each...
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UP is down
The Jawbone UP has been making big news. It was even #1 on my list yesterday of top holiday gifts for the tech geek in your life. The week it launched, it was nearly impossible to find on shelves. The UP is a small bracelet that tracks your habits - eating, movement and sleeping. It tells you when you’ve been idle too long and suggests you move. Wear it when you eat and tell the app on your...
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Top 10 tech toys for Christmas
It’s that time of year again. The geek in your life has a wishlist so to make shopping easier, here are some items that are sure to be on his or her list. Good luck, Santa.
Jawbone Up Price: $99 The newest innovation from Jawbone (makers of the best bluetooth headsets and speakers; #4 on this list) bring us a new device that inspires healthy living. This small bracelet and app combination...
November 2011
7 posts
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Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg own up to privacy...
Anyone who has been online or on Facebook for a minute during the last few years will remember one thing. Facebook changes… a lot. Whether it’s tagging or photos or the newsfeed or privacy, there’s one thing Facebook does well and that’s change. The general public complains anytime there’s a change and then a few weeks later can’t remember what the old version...
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Facebook makes the change everyone wants
When Facebook makes a change, the world loses its mind. The latest uproar happened just over a month ago when the newsfeed was altered. In the top right corner there is a small feed of everything your friends are doing. It annoys many people, but the point of it is that it finally takes the small, innocuous changes are out of the primary view, yet still available.
The biggest change was the...
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October 2011
6 posts
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Siri is amazing
By now, almost everyone has heard of Sir, the new virtual assistant Apple has included on the iPhone 4S. I’ve been getting to know her for the last 45 minutes or so and I have to say that it’s amazing. Siri was initially the company that developed the artificial intelligence and launched an app with it. Apple snatched them up and integrated Siri into the new version of iOS and made...
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Upgrade app from AT&T
If you have an iPhone and you’re looking to upgrade, there are several options. You can visit a store, call AT&T or log into ATT.com and check your account. With over 500,000 apps on the app store, and a long relationship with Apple, it stands to reason that AT&T has made it easier still. The ATT Upgrader app allows you to input your number, last 4 of social security number and...
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Netflix changes its plans again
Netflix has been making news with its major changes lately. Today it is making news by not changing anything. Back in July, the price point changed by up to 60% for some users when Netflix jacked everything up. Their reasoning at the time was that they are a DVD rental service that offers streaming. However, according to their stats, users were utilizing streaming with DVDs on the side. Netflix...
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September 2011
8 posts
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