iPad: Here and Back…

About a week and a half ago, I stood in line for about an hour and a half waiting for an iPad at the local Apple Store. I brought it home and Mrs. Digitante was very excited, as was I.

Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out and I’m going to share with you why. First though, let me tell you that this is my opinion of why it didn’t work for ME. However, it may fit your needs great and I already know of a number of people who have an iPad and love it and are spending many hundreds of dollars buying apps and accessories for it.

The Pros:

• The screen is amazing. You really haven’t ever seen a screen that is this crisp and pleasant to look at.
• It is super fast. Granted it can only run one application at a time, but I never had to wait for anything other than webpages to load.
• Simplicity is the name of the game. One button on the device, little icons on the screen, and minimal options to change are all Apple hallmarks. There really isn’t much thinking or learning involved.

The Cons:

• Lack of Flash video. Honestly, I didn’t think this would be a huge deal, but the problem is that it ruined my flow of work. I enjoyed reading Twitter on the iPad, but during a reading session, I would come across at least one or two videos that I wanted to watch, but wasn’t allowed to. This means that I had to mark the tweet as a favorite, get on my laptop later, and then watch the video. It just wasn’t convenient.
• Basic staples such as a file system are missing. I purchased an eBook in pdf format on my laptop and put it in my Dropbox because I knew there was a Dropbox app for the iPad. I was sorely disappointed when I found that I couldn’t just save the pdf to my iPad and open it with the default pdf program. Instead, I had to purchase an app that would allow me to access the files in my Dropbox app and open it in the pdf reading app. I only knew this because I know other techies that have had to do this. Otherwise, I would have been stuck. For all the simplicity Apple loves, this simple task was really complicated.
• The iPad costs $500. Over the last week and a half, I’ve tried to come up with $500 worth of usage scenarios and I just can’t do it. If this thing was $300, I wouldn’t have even thought twice about buying it, but $500 really makes me hesitate.

So after a couple of days of both me and Mrs. Digitante playing with it, I asked her what she thought. We were on exactly opposite ends of the spectrum but came to the same conclusion: it was more than she needed and it was less than I wanted so we decided to eat the $50 restocking fee and return it.

When I say “it was more than she needed” she was looking for an eReader like the Kindle. Having all the apps and other features weren’t appealing to her and really over complicated it for her. When I say “it was less than I wanted” I wanted to be able to pick up a device and have it do everything I required. Type a reply to a  Wordpress forum post? Nope, no text boxes were editable. Watch video linked in Twitter? Nope, sorry, Flash doesn’t work. Install any number of applications that I wanted? Nope, only what Apple approves through the App Store using their clandestine and inconsistent rules.

Will I miss it? Most likely not. It’s been sitting in our bedroom, unused, for the last three days. Normally I get all giddy and can’t put gadgets down, but this thing turned old hat very quick.

Did you buy an iPad? What was your opinion? Let me know what you think of the iPad, even if you don’t have one.

Nasty Viruses Going Around…

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve heard about some nasty computer viruses that have been popping up on people’s systems. These are the normal “run some anti-virus software” type of infections; they are the “boot into safe-mode or nuke your hard drive” type.

So what can you do to prevent these types of things? What steps can you initially take to try to clean up the mess? We’ll cover that plus I’ll give you my contact info and you can let me deal with the headache of removal.

Preventative measures

There are a couple of things you can do to prevent these sort of things from happening: some are easy, commonsense, others are fairly drastic. And they are by no means comprehensive.

1. Go to sites that you trust – Everyone has heard of cnn.com, youtube.com, and facebook.com. If you haven’t been there before, please ask around to your friends or do a Google search to see what a site is. Just like you shouldn’t just go perusing around a foreign country without researching first and knowing the local terrain and cultures, neither should you visit a website without know what is in store first.
2. Avoid “free” on the ‘net – Trust me, I can show you some incredible free software such as GIMP, Mozilla Firefox, and Open Office, but putting the word “free” in a Google search should not be allowed. If you type in a search for ‘free ipod’ in Google, there is a 100% chance that you are ending up with a virus on your computer if you click all the links on the first page. If you want to find virus-free apps, start from a trusted source such as Download.com or Lifehacker. Lifehacker has a great feature called Hive Five which highlights the best programs in a number of different categories. You can also ask me for recommendations.
3. Install Linux or use a Linux LiveCD – This is a bit more involved that the first two and I’m not going to get into installing Linux on this post, but downloading an ISO file from Ubuntu and burning it to a CD is simple. Once you’ve downloaded and burned it to a CD, you can simply restart your computer with the CD in the drive and it will run Linux without changing anything about your Windows setup. Since it runs on a CD, no viruses infect the CD.

If you catch the bug

If you happen to notice strange things happening on your computer such as pop-ups saying “Your anti-virus is out-dated. Please enter credit card information blah, blah, blah” you definitely have a virus and you should definitely not enter any information. Instead, follow these instructions:

1. Shutdown your computer.
2. When the computer first turns on, start pressing the F8 key repeatedly before Windows ever starts. It should end up at a black and white screen that has an option labeled ‘Safe Mode with Networking.’
3. Select Safe Mode with Networking. It should then start up Windows. It may look funny. You can see in the screenshot that things are blurry. This is because minimal drivers are loaded. Your regular video driver is one that isn’t loaded.
   
4. Once you are in windows and connected to the internet, head over the the MalwareBytes Anti-Malware site and download the latest version. A very typical set up will ensue.
5. Update and run MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. Whatever it detects, remove it. If you want a more in depth look at MalwareBytes, I may cover it in more depth soon.
6. Restart your computer.

And what if that doesn’t work?

More drastic measures, including erasing EVERYTHING and starting from scratch, maybe in your future. In this case, you need to be sure you have all your documents and spreadsheets backed up in Dropbox and all your larger files backed up in Google Docs. Any files too large for Google Docs such as movies and Linux LiveCD images should be held on an external hard drive or a USB thumbdrive.

This has really just been a very light overview of things to watch out for. If you find your computer is slowing down and pop-ups are occurring, just remember that it isn’t a normal thing and if caught quickly may be easily remedied.

If you need help with keeping your computer running in tip-top shape, you should fill out the contact form below or use the Google Voice widget to contact me and set up a time we can meet to discuss your computer issues.

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Google Docs: Upload Anything…

If you’ve ever been to a cheap Chinese restaurant, you’ve probably used the wooden chopsticks that come in a reddish-orange sleeve. If you paid close attention to the sleeve, you would have read something pretty amazing. After learning to hold one stick with your thumb and the other like a pencil, the sleeve informs you that you can now pick up ANYTHING!

Mrs. Digitante and I regularly joke that we can change the oil in our car using the chopsticks to pick it up and drain the old oil.

While that sounds ridiculous, it doesn’t sound ridiculous to Google Docs. Recently Google changed the way Google Docs works to allow users to upload any type of file, not just documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Got some mp3s you want backed up? You got it. Want to share a program installer with others? No problem.

While chopsticks can handle anything, Google Docs does have a restriction that the file must be less than 250Mb (smaller for Google Doc files).

What about Dropbox?

The biggest advantage Google Docs new upload feature has over Dropbox is price. Dropbox is $19.99 a month (yes, per MONTH) for 100Gb. Recently, I purchased 200 Gb of space from Google for $50 for the year (yes, the entire YEAR). That means Dropbox is nearly 10x as expensive.

Do recall though that Dropbox comes with 2Gb of space for free versus Google which only offers 1Gb free. Any paid space you purchase from Google, including Picasa, Gmail, or Google Docs is available for any of the other Google services.

However, Google Docs requires that you sign into your browser (not a huge deal), but it certainly isn’t as slick as the Dropbox folder that acts just a like a normal folder on your computer and also syncs across the web.

A great feature of both services is the ability to publicly share your uploaded files.

You can send an invitation for people to view your shared file, send a link to the shared file, check out who can view and download the file, or email it as an attachment which will basically just move it over to Gmail for you. Note that Gmail has a limit of 25Mb for email attachments.

Anybody used the new Google Docs feature to upload their files? Got any tips or tricks that helped you manage your files?

The Digitante's Password System…

After taking my sweet time in implementing some stronger passwords, I wanted to make sure I could develop a system that I would stick with and wouldn’t be so cumbersome that I would want to stab myself in the foot.

Here are the tools that I ended up using to get things going:

• KeePass – I wrote about this last night. It is super easy to use and gets praise from all corners of the web.
• KeePass Mobile App – I downloaded the version for my BlackBerry, however, you can get it for the iPhone, PalmOS (should run on the Pre), Android, and there is even a J2ME version which should run on most mobile phones that aren’t smartphones.
• Dropbox – I wrote an initial Dropbox article and then followed it up with some updates including access to Dropbox Mobile. Get a Dropbox now if you don’t have one already.

Get it all setup

The first thing you need to do is when you are setting up KeePass, save your database to your Dropbox. This will allow your KeePass database to be accessible on all computers you have your Dropbox on (the laptop and desktop at my house), as well as via the web and mobile Dropbox (m.dropbox.com).

While that is syncing up, you can install Dropbox and KeePass on any other computers in your household. Additionally you can get your mobile KeePass application installed on your phone. If you have an iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm, or Android phone, you should be comfortable with installing apps on your phone. If you have a regular flip, slide, or candybar phone, you might not be used to installing applications, but it is fairly quick and painless. Simply navigate to m.keepassmobile.com. Note if you don’t have a data plan, you may get charged for data, but the amount of data will be tiny and it shouldn’t cost more than about 10 or 20 cents.

Finish up

Now that you have Dropbox, KeePass, and KeePass mobile installed, wrapping up consists of loading the database which is in your Dropbox into KeePass. On your mobile phone, you will need to take one extra step and download the database from m.dropbox.com first before loading it into KeePass.

If you ever add a new password to the database, it will automatically show up in any other KeePass instances that are directly linked to your Dropbox. However, you will need to re-download the updated database to your mobile phone and re-load it in KeePass.

The concern

As I was talking with colleagues about this setup, concerns kept coming up about the security of keeping your passwords online.

What you need to realize is that your passwords are already stored online. Every site that you login to has your password stored on their server. They should have it encrypted and the company’s employees should never have access to it, but not all companies follow these rules very closely.

As long as you have a strong password on your Dropbox (layer one) and a different, strong password on your KeePass database (layer two), you should be in good shape.

Using strong passwords and keeping them accessible and safe can be a daunting task. Hopefully this will make things easier on you.

Anybody have any recommendations for making this easier? Anybody want to be the tester and get it working on a regular flip phone? Let me know in the comments if you do.

Upgrade Checklist…

This past week, I helped my mom upgrade her laptop to Windows 7. Everything went swimmingly, however, since we did a clean install, there were some programs and other odds and ends missing. The experience caused both of us to think that a little checklist would have been nice. We came up with a number of things that are pretty much a given when firing up a new computer or installing a brand new copy of Windows on your current machine.

1. Flash – I wanted to start off with this one for a very important reason. When you head to your first Flash site (YouTube for example), you are going to be prompted to install flash. If you mindlessly click through the next few screens, you are going to be unpleasantly surprised to find that you have installed McAfee Security Scan inadvertently. It annoys me to know end when you want to install a program only to have some junk additional junk installed in the process. I’ve mentioned this before from Apple. Barf!

   

2. PDF reader – Alright, this is going to start looking like an Adobe bashing session, but it really isn’t. Typically people just install Adobe Reader for PDFs because that is what most people use. However, Adobe Reader suffers from bloat. It does too many things when it really should just do one: Show me the PDF. I’m a fan of the PDF X-Change viewer. It is lightweight and has some robust editing tools.
3. PDF creator – Want to make your own PDFs? Its a great way to save paper and expensive printer ink. Pick up the aptly named PDFCreator and it will install just like a printer would.

   

   From there, you can print out any document or web page as a PDF file. Additionally, this software is free and open-sourced! WARNING: Unfortunately it also tosses the Yahoo! toolbar by default, so be sure to uncheck that box during installation.

4. Firefox – Let’s face it, the world would be sadder place if you had to look at ads all day and log in and out of your Gmail every 10 minutes. Internet Explorer just doesn’t do the job like Firefox does. Firefox is my first install (before anything else on this list) when I get a new computer.One extension that will save you a ton of heartache (and was the inspiration for this post) is Xmarks. I plan on covering this extension extensively in a future post, but suffice it to say, it could have saved my mom’s 50 bookmarks.
5. Anti-virus – You might remember me posting about anti-virus software a couple of months ago. Well, things have changed since then and a new player has entered the free virus scanning software arena: Microsoft Security Essentials. MSE is a great lightweight virus scanner. You will most likely never notice it is running unless you need it (hopefully you won’t).

From here on out, you can begin installing your other basic software bits such as Microsoft Office ($150) or OpenOffice.org (free), ImgBurn for burning CDs, and of course, my favorite, Dropbox. You can find all my Dropbox posts at this link.

Hopefully this will help you get up and running on your new or upgraded computer quickly and efficiently. If you feel like you might need some help figuring out what to do, feel free to contact The Digitante by using the contact box on the top right of any page or head to the About page for contact info.

Dropbox Update…

You may have read my article from a month or two back regarding Dropbox (both Back to School and the Dropbox post), the file syncing tool that I use to coordinate files between my home theater PC (HTPC) and my laptop. Since I follow Dropbox on Twitter, I keep an eye out for new features to drop. A couple of months ago the Dropbox team released an update that allowed computers that were on the same network to sync locally, speeding up the sync between computers significantly.

Most recently, today actually, Dropbox released a mobile optimized site which can be accessed from your cell phone at http://m.dropbox.com. You would want to make sure you have a data plan (unlimited recommended) and then you can surf on over to the above link, type in your username and password, and suddenly you can see all the files that are shared on your other Dropboxes.

If you click on any item on the Dropbox mobile site, you should be able to save it to your phone assuming you have added some memory such as a microSD card to your phone. Today I downloaded music files from my Dropbox to the microSD card in my BlackBerry Pearl. I then was able to listen to music at work on my headphones.

I would like to apologize for the quality of pictures, but below you can see some screen shots of the address bar, the login page, and a couple of files in my Dropbox. I would like to also apologize for any Jesse McCartney paraphernalia that might be found littering my Dropbox. Umm, its not mine. Or something.

The word from the Dropbox creators is that they are currently working on making native applications for most smartphones. Currently they offer an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Palm WebOS should be coming along in the future.

In the meantime, you can navigate to http://m.dropbox.com. If you still need Dropbox, you can always use The Digitante’s download link to get Dropbox for yourself. If you use that link, you will get an extra 250Mb of space for your stuff (and The Digitante will as well!). If you are not sure how Dropbox can help you or you want to get started and aren’t sure what to do, you can always email me from the About page or you can call by clicking the Google Voice widget to the right.

Back to School: Your Data…

So you’ve picked out the computer you are going to have for the next 4 years. In an ideal world, you would just use that computer, store all your documents on it, and live happily ever after. In reality, you will end up in the computer lab, on your friend’s computer, on the library computer, and in the worst case, your hard drive will crash along with all your papers for the semester.

For these reasons, you need to have a scheme for protecting your data from loss and have consistent access to your needed data.

Kickin’ it old school…

You are more than welcome to carry around 3.5″ floppy disks with you, but it could get inconvenient when you find that hardly any computers have those disk drives on them. A better bet is a USB thumbdrive. USB slots on a computer are ubiquitous and thumbdrives are cheap. If you are carrying a limited amount of data, you could probably find an 8Gb or larger flashdrive for less than $20 by digging through some deal sites.

The big downside is that if your flashdrive gets left in the computer you are using or you lose it out of your pocket, it is gone. You certainly should keep back ups of all your data and you should definitely encrypt the drive with a program like TrueCrypt. That way if anyone gets their hands on your drive, they can’t access any of your data. The last thing you need is a classmate turning in YOUR paper with THEIR name on it.

Drop it like its hot…

I’ve discussed Dropbox before so this will be cursory. Dropbox ties the files on multiple computers together. As I mentioned, I use it to sync my music between my media center PC and the laptop. For a college student, the most useful aspect would be the web interface. After you’ve dropped your files in your Dropbox, you can head to campus, open the Dropbox website, sign in, and view all the files on the web that had been added via Dropbox in your dorm room.

If you want to try Dropbox, be sure to use this link to get it.

Use what you’re paying for…

When you head to college, you pay a lot of money for a variety of things. One of the things is web storage space on your schools network. Be sure to take an intro-level class on building websites so you can have your own public site (including a link to The Digitante of course) and a private site that can hold copies of any important files you might need while out.

Back it up…

The last thing on your mind when running out the door, late for class AGAIN, is whether you have appropriate backups of all your data. It is amazing how quickly backing up becomes a priority when you switch on your computer and find that nothing happens. The rush of panic could have easily been squashed if you had full, regular backups of all your data.

The most popular forms of online backups are Carbonite, Mozy, Amazon S3, and BackBlaze.  Out of those, Carbonite seems to be the most popular. I haven’t personally tried any of them since I back up my data at home on an external hard drive which is much cheaper than any of the online backup services, but it is also kind of risky in the event my house were to burn down. My data isn’t all that important. Those of you working on term papers and theses might have career changing data.

Don’t get caught without your data

Following these steps, you will have access to your data whenever, wherever you need it.

If you need help getting your data setup and portable, let The Digitante know by heading over to the About page and emailing or calling.

Dropbox

Ever have those files that you wish you could get to from any computer? For me it is new music that I download to my laptop that I want on my media center computer. For others it is photos and videos to be shared with relatives. I’ll share with you the best tool I’ve found, as well as a nifty alternative.

So what is this thing?

Dropbox is a small program that you install. Once installed, it puts a folder on your computer in your Documents folder called My Dropbox. The contents of your My Dropbox folder are then uploaded via your internet connection to the Dropbox website. That content is then synchronized to any other computers that are linked to this Dropbox account.

More detail on the example I mentioned at the beginning of this post: I download music on my laptop. The default folder for my newly downloaded songs is My Dropbox. I have also linked my Dropbox to my Home Theater PC (HTPC) that is in the living room. As soon as the song is finished downloading to the laptop, it is automatically and instantly copied to the HTPC. A little green check mark shows that the syncing is complete.

Another useful Dropbox operation would be to link computers at Grandpa and Grandma’s house with your computer. Then you can place videos and pictures in the folder and they will appear on Grandpa and Grandma’s computer. Since you can hook up multiple computers to a single Dropbox, you could also have a Dropbox to Aunts , Uncles, and Cousins as well.

A free Dropbox holds 2 gigabytes of space which is enough to hold 2,000 pictures or 400 songs. There is also a 50 gigabyte version that is $99 for the year.

By going to the Dropbox website, you can also login and access your files from any computer, even if it doesn’t have Dropbox installed.

Lastly, Dropbox can be used on any operating system: Windows, Mac, and Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc) all have a version, so you can share with people who don’t have the same operating system.

My work won’t let me have Dropbox! I need files at work!

Now for the nifty alternative: at work, I’m not allowed to use Dropbox. However, I have full access to Gmail. Gmail can hold files up to 25 megabytes. For reference, a photo is about 1 megabyte and a song is about 5-7 megabytes. Most files (aside from larger video files and songs longer than about 20-25 minutes) can be sent by this method. Instead of actually sending the files to yourself, you can simply click “Compose mail”, attach the files, and save the draft. Later, when you open your email, the attached files will appear in your Drafts folder!

Anything else?

For the moment, Dropbox is pretty basic. However, they are constantly taking suggestions on new features to add. Some possible future enhancements may be multiple Dropboxes on one computer, sizes in addition to the 2 and 50 gigabyte Dropboxes, and Dropbox on your mobile phone.

If you feel like signing up for Dropbox, you can use the following link. This link will get you to a download page for Dropbox and has the added benefit of adding more storage space to The Digitante’s Dropbox. Lord knows The Digitante has a bunch of crap in his Dropbox and could use the space!

Download link: https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTEwNDkyNjY5

If you think that Dropbox is something you might be interested in, but don’t know where to start, or if you would like help signing up for and using a Gmail email address, feel free to head to The Digitante home page and either email or give me a call!