This postcard from PostSecret made me laugh.
PostSecret’s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.
Using a wi-fi sniffer from Errata Security, anyone can see what you are doing while you are using that unsecured wireless network at the coffee shop or airport.
Are you at risk? What about at home? Should you make sure your home wi-fi is encrypted to protect yourself. The article isn’t really clear. It has one good piece of advice:
“In general, experts advise against using wireless networks to connect to sensitive Web sites such as online banking. However, it is risky to use any online service that requires a password.â€
The truth of the matter is: wi-fi IS vulnerable. We all are vulnerable. Think of it this way: at any time, a person could walk into a gas station, buy a five gallon container of gasoline and a lighter and use them to set your house on fire. The technology is available, but people never really worry that someone is going to set their homes on fire unless there is an arson on the loose.
Articles like these are more about paranoia than reality. Every day we are at risk in a thousand different ways. We could spend our days worrying about all the ways that someone could harm us. Are there hackers out there? Yeah. How can we protect ourselves?
Use a password protection on your home wi-fi connection.
Use encryption on your home wi-fi connection.
Don’t access sensitive websites at public wi-fi spots.
Right now, that’s about it. As wi-fi gains in popularity, more security will be built-in, but right now, we ARE at risk. Just be careful out there and be on the lookout for people with canisters of gasoline and lighters.
It’s not like a Tivo. It won’t record all the episodes of Friends that play on every channel at all times of the day. You have to tell it specific times and dates for what you want recorded. It’s more like a VCR for your iPod than a Tivo for your iPod. Even still, being able to tell it to record House every week and automatically put it onto your iPod is a great leap forward in technology. Another cool thing about it is that this is no ordinary iPod accessory. It can record to a Sony PSP, SD cards, Memory Stick, a USB device and a bunch of other card formats. I love that they have made it capable of saving my shows so I can watch them on my Treo if I want. My only wish is that Apple would come out with something like this for me. I would willingly watch local commercials so that I can easily record television shows to my iPod. Via: A New Video Device That Is Not Quite a TiVo for the iPod, but It’s Close – New York Times February 28, 200710 Greatest Gadget Ideas of the Year from the New York TimesSo many of those year-end articles sound really dated when you give them a couple of months to ferment. How did this New York Times article age over the last two months? Here’s what they gave a good rating for 2005:
So, what do you think? Two months after they first posted this list, do these ideas really seem all that great? Some of them are. I would have chosen differently on others. Of course, you can get twenty people together and you would have twenty different lists for the greatest gadget ideas of the year. What would you choose? First iPhone CommercialThe first iPhone commercial showed during the Oscars. It’s a brilliant tribute to both the movies and the telephone. “Hello†was the first thing that the Mac said to the world. Now, we’ll be saying it to the iPhone. Cool… February 27, 2007Birdwatching Goes High-Tech
Instead of that bulky Audobon book in your pocket EVERY bird on the planet can fit in your Treo. Instead of a sketch pad and waterproof ink, a camera can capture the bird far better. Instead of memory and stealth, you can listen to the bird calls from far away. Sounds like birdwatching has gotten a whole lot more interesting… February 26, 2007digitalthom.com Reviews the T-Mobile MDA
I like his comments on the “plasticy†keyboard:
I am excited that the Smartphone industry is really picking up. Personally, I’ve found that the “plasticy†keyboard on my Treo is VERY useable. I’m wondering if Steve Jobs might have made a mistake. How can a virtual keyboard compete with the tactile response of the buttons on a keyboard? I guess we’ll have to see. February 23, 2007Linde Werdelin’s Biformeter
Let’s look at some of their ad-copy:
It continues like that for NINE paragraphs and doesn’t tell me ANYTHING about the digital portion of the watch. It’s kind of a novel idea. The digital portion of the watch clips over the analog watch. Most of the time you can have your snooty watch, but when you’re skiing, you can use your digital portion. Of course, I’m only guessing that the digital portion might have anything to do with skiing since they haven’t told me anything about it. Someday, a watch company is going to stumble onto what I have been saying for years. They are going to design a digital watch that is beautiful and be completely perplexed when they sell it out. Via: Dream Watches Blog February 22, 2007The Return of the Pocket Watch
Mike and I were talking about why watches have become completely useless pieces of jewelry instead of beautiful AND helpful timepieces. He nailed it right on the head,
He’s right. I’ve seen the nervous habit of the youth in my area: the constant checking of the cellphone. When he said that, I realized that they are probably checking the time, not for messages. Cellphones are perfect for timekeeping. They tell the time, date, month and day of the week. They also tell you where your friends are and how to find them if you use services like Dodgeball. The cellphone has sparked the return of the pocket watch. No wonder I can’t find a good wrist watch to save my life… February 21, 2007Death of the Inventor of the TV Remote
The inventor of this beautiful piece of machinery died last Thursday. He was ninety-three years old.
I remember the loud clicking noise that pushing the buttons on that remote made. To this day, I have no idea how it worked. There were no batteries in that remote control. When we received it, it was already 20 years old, but it still worked like a dream. Eventually, the Channel Up button stopped working, but we just pushed Channel Down through the seven stations that we had (we were too d*mn poor to buy the 8-Track tapes… err… cable). I used to wonder if the loud clicking was some sort of magnet that gave the remote power to change the channel.
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You are looking at the Zenith Space Command Remote Control. Even though I am only 37 years old, I actually have fond memories of this remote control. We inherited a TV from my mom’s friend that was a Zenith. We were so happy, but mostly because it was a color TV that turned on in less than forty-five minutes. Our previous TV had a bit of a problem with its tube.
Our old Zenith was eventually replaced by a “real†TV when my mom got a better job and we felt like we were rolling in money. It had a “real†remote that took batteries. Robert Alder was an inventor and held over 180 patents. Unlike the old Zenith, he was an irreplaceable member of the human race and he will be missed.