vt220

Looking Fit, Technology

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:55:43 +0000

About fifteen years ago I went on a mission to change my life forever. I was tired of being overweight and unhappy. I made a goal to get into shape, eat healthier, and run. Well, I did all of those things and it was not easy for me. I struggled to get to where I am today. Now, along with my regular full-time job, I am a personal trainer. I still maintain my healthy living and I get to help others do the same.

Is it just me or is it easier than ever to get healthy and stick to it? Now I know it is still tough, but thanks to technology you can have all sorts of tools that will keep you on track and fit for the long haul. Yesterday Nike released the Nike+ FuelBand for pre-sale, and it is one of the coolest gadgets for fitness I have seen. But there are so many other gadgets and apps that can help you on your journey to being fit.

Civil Unrest = Social Media Meltdown?

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:51:45 +0000

Here in the United States, everyone’s minds are on jobs, the stagnant economy, and the upcoming presidential election — but some concerning sideshow items include a series of protests known as Occupy Wall Street, which have at times become violent and endangered the general public. Often, protest groups both in the US and abroad have used social networking to coordinate gatherings and activities. Do you think that in some circumstances it is okay for the government to temporarily lock down the social networks during times of civil unrest, for the safety and security of the country and its citizens? Or do you think that there is never a good reason to hamper the Internet and any communications that take place over it?

A recent poll Europe revealed that the majority of British people do support shutting down social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter during times of civil unrest. Prime Minister David Cameron made a statement in August that the government would resort to temporarily blocking social media to prevent protesters from organizing. His threat spurred a flurry of discussions on free speech and the rights of people to organize.

Even so, some seventy percent “completely agree” or “agree somewhat” that social networking sites are fair game to be shut down by the government in order to prevent coordinated criminal activity. In the poll, most young people responded that they are not in support of shutting down the social networks — and most who were in favor of government access and control were older. You can learn more about this on directv.

New Options for Direct Payments

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:02:50 +0000

I am not a fan of carrying around cash. Honestly, that stuff burns a whole in my pocket so fast that I am liable to buy the most useless junk ever just because the cash is right at my fingertips. With my debit card I have to think about the money I spend. I visualize my money coming out of my checking account, and usually that can keep me from making some pretty impulsive purchases. Seriously, once I bought more than a fair amount of incense so I am set for years, no need for legalherbsdirect.com. I also like the convenience and ease of using my debit card, but could it be that making purchases might be getting even easier with smartphones?

Mobile payments are soon going to be available to anyone who owns a smartphone and wants to use the technology. Imagine, just waving a code on your phone in front of a scanner to pay for a treat you picked up at Starbucks. Or think about those trips where your hands are full and reaching into a wallet to pull out cash or a card just seems so inconvenient. Simply wave your phone and voila, a payment is made. Starbucks, Amex, and Intuit have already started to come up with some technologies, and hopefully other places will quickly follow suit.

Learn more about the new technologies of mobile payments from the infographic below.

iMessage in iOS 5

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:29:08 +0000

One of the coolest new features in iOS 5 is the inclusion of iMessage, which is similar to Blackberry’s messaging service and allows anyone using an iOS 5 device to send and receive messages over the iMessage network. This happens independently of carriers and their texting plans, and is completely free. It also works automatically, so that anytime messaging takes place between iOS 5 devices, iMessage is used.

In order to activate iMessage, go to Settings, then Messages, and drag the iMessage slider to the “on” position. You can also activate read receipts and have it show a subject field if you like. iMessage takes iOS 5 users to the next level of Apple mobile services, even though the premise is nothing new. RIM has offered its Blackberry messaging service for years, but this is the first time the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch have gotten in on the action.

You can tune in to the latest tech news with Dish Network New York, but for now, enjoy this video explaining how iMessage works:

Get LinkedIn

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:41:54 +0000

And use it to you benefit.

LinkedIn is a network tool that is starting to revolutionize how people look for jobs, potential employees, and/or keep up with professional achievements. There are many features though that people are not as familiar with, and that might mean that you are not getting all that you possibly can from the LinkedIn network. Here are some really great things that you might not have known that LinkedIn can do for you.

Let potential employers find you. Employers are starting to look on LinkedIn for potential employees. You will want to let your LinkedIn profile stand out from the rest to these employers even if you are not looking for a job at the moment. To make the effort to stand out, you can include certain keywords in the heading, summary, and more that will capture the attention of those looking for someone like you.
Show off a little. To add documents to your LinkedIn profile you can actually use Box.net. These documents can be PDF, Excel, or Word files. You can also add pictures of current or past projects and more. This will help show those who find you what your skills are.
Plan for success. Many people who use LinkedIn do not take advantage of the Career Explorer tool. This function is a way to help you find other people in your profession and see how they got to where they are currently. You can use that as a way to model your own career path and plan for success in your own professional life.

For other tips and tricks when it comes to your professional networking you can also ask other LinkedIn users with great profiles how they managed to get to that point. Your professional profile is a lot like home security, because you don’t always think about needing it until the day comes that you do.

Students and Their Technology

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:31:50 +0000

College students make up a huge segment of technology consumers. It probably comes as no surprise that technology use among college students has skyrocketed in the last twenty years, culminating in a crescendo that many find slightly concerning; are college kids really addicted to their gadgets, PCs, Macs, game consoles, and smart phones? Or are they just using the tools of the 21st Century the way we should all hope that they would. Being able to adapt to ones’s surroundings is an important sign of resourcefulness, and a forerunner of survival — and college aged consumers find themselves at this point in history surrounded by technology everywhere they turn. The reasonable conclusion is that they should be quite adept in putting that technology to good use.

Here is an infographic from onlineeducation.net that shows us just how much the college kids actually love, use, and depend on technology to do the kinds of things that have been traditionally approached in other ways. It is interesting to note that many students, due to the ease of technology, have developed less formal relationships with their professors. Many students regularly use text messaging to communicate with professors — which was unheard of in ages past. Technology is making the world pleasantly smaller, it seems. Click to expand the graphic:

Netflix Stock Takes a Dive

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:41:24 +0000

Netflix, hello! Are you listening to the customers who literally turned you from a struggling DVD by mail rental outfit into the number one site for streaming video? Obviously not. And it’s not just last time you had cotton in your ears that has us all scratching our heads. It’s your repeated announcements of how unimportant we, your customers, are. Lately, you’ve spoken of us as a sort of unfortunate liability, something to be tolerated, yet not indulged. We have become like a noose around your neck, to hear your representatives speak of how much it costs you to support combined streaming and DVD rental subscriptions — and now, you are forced by us to raise the prices. Oh, cry me a river, Netflix!

Honestly, by breaking your plans in half and offering each service at a separate price of $7.99, you’re injuring your reputation more than you can afford to. A couple of years ago, maybe you could have strong-armed your way through the crowds and gotten your way without much complaining, but times have changed. You’re no longer the only kid on the block. There are some better business models than yours out there now, from brands more long standing and trusted than yours (think Amazon.com.)

Netflix, can you really afford to further attract the ire of your customers by threatening to not only change the plans as you have done, but to start charging a per user fee within accounts? Because, that’s what we are hearing on the steet. That if I have a Netflix account, and I want to use it on my Wii, my laptop, the iPad, and my iPhone, I’ll soon have to pay for each device? You’ve got to be kidding.

Last night I watched a lot of great programming on Hulu, for free. There is a lot I can’t watch there, true — but then, Netflix doesn’t have the most stellar library of titles either, despite what it likes to have people think. I’m considering all the other ways I can stream video, ways that don’t include Netflix. If you have any ideas and would like to share, please feel free.

Get a home security system today.

Google+ Overview and Introduction

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:59:42 +0000

So many people have joined Google+ in the last month, it’s almost sure to overtake Facebook as the number one social networking service in the world, eventually. In the meantime though, the early adopters are having a hard time convincing people they want to invite to Google+ why they even need another social networking site. Google+ has grown faster than any social networking site in history (which, granted, isn’t impressively long at this moment) and when it is finally opened up to the public, we fully expect it will grow exponentially.

Until then, if you’re one of those early adopter techie/artist/visionary types who have been evangelizing Google+ as best you can, only to be met with indifference from most of the people you approach, here is a resource you can share with people when the questions come at you. This explains it all, basically. Refer them directly to this, and you won’t have to risk leaving out a description of any of the exciting features of Google+.

Be sure to also check out some great deals on home security systems in your neck of the woods or city high rise. You can never be too careful.

Sifteo Cubes: Hands Back On Gaming

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:36:50 +0000

Sifteo cubes don’t involve a touch screen, and yet are among the most innovative new digital games. These blocks that players move around and touch to each another to create patterns or solve puzzles bring back a physical element in an imaginary world of abstract game play. Sifteo cubes have accelerometers inside them and can detect when they are tilted and moved.

They also possess NFC sensors so they can detect when they’re touching other cubes, which lets objects and characters move from one cube to another. The cubes are pretty expensive. A $149 set of them comes with three cubes starter and a charging cradle along with a small USB dongle. Siftrunner is a free App that has be downloaded onto a computer, and the USB dongle attached, in order to run the games.

The amazing Sifteo cubes were origianlly shown at TED talk back in 2009. They are small, white cubes with 128×128 resolution LCD screens embedded on the top side. Although these tiny screens are not capacitive, they do work as buttons when depressed, producing a clicking sound. The viewing angles leave much to be desired, and you may find you constantly need to move and tilt the cubes in order to see what is going on.

The minimum system requirements for Sifteo Cubes are as follows:

Mac

1.5 GHz or faster Intel Core processor
Leopard 10.5 or Snow Leopard 10.6 with 1GB of RAM

Windows

2.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or faster processor
Windows XP SP3 with 512 MB of RAM, or
Vista/Windows 7 with 1GB of RAM

In Either Case

1024×768 or larger display
Available USB 2.0 port
200 MB disk space (500MB recommended)
Internet connection (for software download and setup)

Sifteo cubes feature a 32-bit ARM CPU, 128 x 128 color TFT LCD displays, a 3-axis accelerometer, 8MB Flash, a lithium polymer rechargeable battery, and built in 2.4 GHz wireless radio.

Be sure to check out the latest Direct Satellite TV deals in your area to learn more about breaking technology news on satellite channels.

Apple and Microsoft History

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:39:58 +0000

Every book ever written about the history of computing would be missing a ton of pages if they didn’t include the compelling struggle for dominance between two of technology’s founding giants: Apple, and Microsoft. Somehow, these companies have managed to capture and keep the attention of geeks and mainstream folk alike over the decades in an almost sports-like fashion. (Check out some great deals on Direct Satellite TV for more sports.) Fans from both camps have kept up with Apple’s innovations, and Microsoft’s continued bid to monopolize the business side of an industry that is increasingly competitive.

While the Age of Microsoft appears to be nearly over, or fast approaching an end, Apple seems to be doing better than ever before with a line of mobile multimedia devices that continue to outpace any competitors’ offerings. iPad brought us into the Post PC Era, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs calls the current time we find ourselves in. I think it was really the iPhone that heralded the era, but the iPad certainly sealed off its boundaries in a clear and definitive way.

Below is an infographic you will find informative and entertaining, outlining the History of Computing (primarily between Apple and Microsoft.) Enjoy it.