Are you sometimes overwhelmed by the variety of gadgets, systems and software that is out there, all of them promising to be much better than anything that has been on the market before? How should you know which trends to follow and who to believe?

Here’s a list of 11 things that will improve your (technological) life that are easy to implement and mostly free. Let’s get started!

1. Get yourself a smartphone for immediate access to your emails, photos, calendars, friends and family. This is expensive we hear you say, but it really doesn’t have to be. A lot of phone plans let you upgrade to a smartphone with your current plan and if you’re not on a plan get an older version, like the iPhone 3GS.
2. Switch to Mozilla Firefox and ditch Internet Explorer. Firefox is fast, free and full with great features and useful things and applications.
3. Back Up your photos to the cloud; how would you feel if years of photographs suddenly disappear because you spilled your drink onto your computer or external hard drive. Be safe and use the convenience of the cloud to back up those memories. Picasa, a Google product, is a free service you can use. You can also privately invite people to view certain albums; makes sharing so much easier.
4. Use iTunes for your digital music and play it not just on your computer but everywhere you go.
5. Back up your data – similar to your photos you should back up all your data regularly. Simply install back-up software and let it think about the backup for you.
6. Use a file sharing service. Believe it or not there is a more elegant and easier way to move files than emailing them around. Set up a free account with Dropbox, another cloud based service. 2 Gig are free, 50-100 Gig cost between $10 and $20 a month. Set it up on all your computers so you have access to the same files from everywhere. You can also share folders with other people.
7. Protect your computer with free Antivirus Software. There are lots of products out there, like Avast Free Antivirus (for Windows) or iAntiVirus (for Mac users).
8. Review your phone and internet plan. A lot of times telecommunication companies can give you a free upgrade or a better deal – if you ask.
9. Stock up on charging cables and have one wherever you are, at home, in the office, in the car. We all know how annoying it can be to have your phone battery die on you. You can find cheap deals on eBay, especially when you buy them by the gross.
10. Calibrate your HDTV from time to time. Adjust colour, brightness and contrast to fit your needs. The factory settings your TV comes in are not necessarily the most natural ones.
11. Be careful what you click on, like email attachments or links on dodgy looking links on Facebook. Also, never install anything unless you really know what it is and where it is coming from.

Would you add any further tips to that list?

—

*Adapted from “10 Ways to Get the Most Out of Technology,” Sam Grobart, The New York Times

Don’t we all love our infographics these days… we’ve found a nice one from onlinegraduateprograms.org on the impact of website speed on browsing habits and furthermore how this translates into every day (offline) life with a majority of people (in the USA) refusing to wait in line longer than 15 minutes.

(Credit http://www.nbnco.com.au/our-network/rollout-plan.html)

NBN Co has released an update to its 12 month rollout schedule, released last October, on their website. The updated rollout schedule issued on 15 February 2012, includes an additional three months of rollout information covering the period to the end of 2012.

The new rollout plan increases to 758,100 the number of premises covered, including those areas where the network is active, where rollout activity is currently underway, and where work is due to start up until the end of the year. This is an increase over the October plan of 191,000 premises across Australia. This plan shows work commenced in areas to cover 58,000 premises during the previous three months, taking the total premises in areas where work is underway to 121,500.

Most of the growth in premises covered in the rollout plan comes in areas where work has already started. This is because NBN Co has said it needs to manage the rollout of the network as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, and deploy contractor resources in a logical, sequential way.

It is estimated that the average time from work commencing to NBN services being available is 12 months.

As a part of their ongoing commitment to the industry and the Australian public, NBN Co is now providing regular updates where each quarter they will update information on the rollout of the National Broadband Network. In addition to quarterly updates they will also be releasing a three-year rollout plan in the 1st Quarter 2012.

Rollout activities

If you live or work in one of the 66 towns or localities within the current rollout plan, keep an eye out on the Rollout maps page. Every month the site is updated with detailed maps at the commencement of work in these areas. If the plan indicates work will commence in a given month (for example February 2012) detailed maps will be posted on NBN’s website during that month. The estimated average time from then to completing work and providing services is 12 months.

Building the NBN

NBN Co is rolling out the fibre network to existing communities in Fibre Serving Areas (FSA) of up to 40,000 premises that are made up of up to 12 modules (Fibre Serving Area Modules or FSAM), each module consisting of around 3,000 premises.

In line with network design and planning rules, NBN Co will generally continue work of new modules next to existing modules (where practicable) until the entire fibre footprint in a Fibre Serving Area has been completed.

NBN Co will name the start date of any applicable modules in a given area as part of the one-year plan. Most of the sites where work will commence involve multiple modules and several may start around a given area over the course of the year. The estimated build time for a Fibre Serving Area Module, from the issuing of detailed design documents to our suppliers to when it is ready to connect consumers and businesses, is an average of 12 months.

According to an anonymous post on Pastebin on February 12 ‘Operation Global Blackout’ a cyber attack on the root Domain Name System server is planned for March 31.

“To protest SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun, On March 31, anonymous will shut the Internet down.”

Operation Global Blackout

They are threatening to cause an Internet-wide blackout by disabling the core DNS servers. DNS is the phonebook of the Internet that translates machine names (like “www.facebook.com”) to network addresses (like “66.220.158.25″). If hackers can disable the global DNS name system, then typing in your favourite website into your browser will produce an error.

This all sounds quite scary but according to security experts the attack is very unlikely to cause much damage. Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security, lists several factors why such an attack won’t cause a global blackout:

First of all, hundreds of internet security experts will notice a hack straight away and will start fixing it – this all happens so fast the majority of people won’t even notice. Defenders are able to source where the attacks are coming from and can therefore prevent them from reaching the DNS servers.

There are currently also 13 different root domain servers, managed by different organisations, using different hardware, software and policies. So, a hack that might take out one of them very unlikely has any effect on the other 12. There are hundreds of other servers worldwide that hold the same data as the root servers, which increase the resiliency of DNS.

ISPs also tend to cache DNS data for a while, Graham writes. ISPs may cache data for a day or two before needing to do a fresh lookup, a time period that can be set on servers known as “time-to-live.” It means that even if a root server was down, it would not necessarily immediately affect an ISP’s customers.

So, the ‘Anonymous’ hacker group can certainly cause local disruptions but it is very unlikely they are able to shut down the entire Internet. If something happens, most people won’t even notice any disruptions.

If you are interested on whether the DNS servers are coming under attack, you can check out this site from Team Cymru who monitor the health of the root DNS servers. They repeatedly query all the root servers from several locations around the Internet and measure how long it takes for their queries to be answered.

For lots of people, the terms ‘3G’ and ‘4G’ are not fully clear. On a fundamental level, we appreciate the terms as “3G less than 4G”, but this isn’t always the case, especially when you start differentiating Telco’s networks and their mobile broadband plans.

It’s getting even foggier with manufacturers branding 4G onto products and using it as an advertisement ploy specifically for whatever device is out there; i.e. you’ve probably seen products advertised as “Fastest 4G Phone”. To clear the confusion up, 4G is actually just another network added to the Telco’s ‘bag of tricks’ to charge you with; it’s even loosely used to define 3.5G which is yet another labeled network defined as achieving faster speeds than 3G. Although it is a helpful step into a fully functional 4G Network with all the bells and whistles, 3.5G and 4G shouldn’t be compared to each other.

So what’s the difference now between 3G and 4G?

They all run on different levels based on coverage, speed and price on devices.

Let’s take Telstra as an example: Telstra’s 3G network currently makes use of High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and operates at 850MHz (=the frequency used to communicate). Because this infrastructure was rolled out, end users are able to access the internet at an affordable price. The technology was available across the board, with each Telco trying to achieve what other Telco’s couldn’t do and the competition involved only meant cheaper mobile plans across the mobile plan scheme.

All this for users to access the internet on the go without being tied to a computer, opens another doorway for interacting with data online, 4G. Although this means higher speed, the coverage bottlenecks its performance with Telstra switching back to 3G. If it’s needed, or if it’s not available, yet another marketing ploy to seamlessly change your speed in accordance to coverage or price.

Manufacturers play a part in some of this ‘smoke and mirrors’ with devices branded for 4G use. If a device claims to be 4G, it falls back on the Telco its using to make up for the coverage at the expense of its speed that it probably boasted about when you read all those fantastic reviews about soaring speeds.

In conclusion, 4G will play a big part in the upgrade of our mobile networks and will reach for horizons promised by our Telco’s, but don’t be fooled by what your buying versus what you are actually getting.

So, what’s the truth about the March 8 Internet Dooms Day where the FBI will apparently shut down the Internet.

Well, yes, some people might end up offline but only because they are still infected with malware that controlled people’s computers using a family of DNS Changer viruses. The malware operates by replacing the Domain Name System (DNS) servers defined on a victim’s computer with fraudulent servers operated by criminals. Most of the time victims are unknowingly redirected to websites that distribute fraudulent software. In addition to that the malware also prevents security updates and disables installed security software.

The FBI has been aware of the problem and has reacted by replacing the rogue servers with legitimate ones to give victims the chance to sort things out in a timeframe of 4 months (120 days).

Now, these 120 days are running out and – believe it or not - half of Fortune 500 companies and government agencies haven’t removed the malware from their computers yet, which means they could be the ones being without an internet connection as per March 8.

“So, how do I know if my computer or router is infected?”, we can hear you asking. According to the FBI the best way to find out is to get them checked by a computer professional. So, if you are worried please let us know, we are more than happy to make sure your systems are clean.

Alternatively, there is also a resource paper PDF with guidance on how to check your systems yourself, although even if you find out your system is infected you will still need a pro to fix your computer.

You could try to run Avira DNS Repair Tool to figure out if a computer is using one of the temporary DNS servers. Unfortunately, the tool only works on Windows and again doesn’t actually remove the Trojan.

Removing malware from an infected machine is challenging and time consuming if you are not entirely sure what to do. For peace of mind, please don’t hesitate to contact us at CVW Technology.

The Metro-style SkyDrive app.

(Credit: Microsoft)

The idea, laid out in the Building Windows 8 blog, is that if users can access cloud-stored files from any app or any PC, then they won’t have to convert files or copy them from one place to another, or from one cloud to another, as they’ll be accessing them all the time from the same drive. Instead of copying files over when they open a new PC, the files will be available immediately. All that users need to do is register their email on the PC running Windows 8, and then, when they save files on SkyDrive, every Windows 8 device will provide access to the files.

Files can be browsed and accessed through the SkyDrive Metro-style app, but can also be picked from the drive or saved to the drive through apps.

Developers won’t have to labour to support the SkyDrive functionality, according to group program managers for SkyDrive, Mike Torres and Omar Shahine. They said that any app that supports ’open’ and ‘save’ for documents and photos will enable this file sharing.

Microsoft Windows 8 uses a concept called charms, wherein “charms” can be dragged on to the screen to complete functions. SkyDrive files will be available through the Share charm, enabling users to share documents or photos through Windows 8′s mail app, negating the need for attachments.

Users will be able to access files offline with the desktop app, which will also run on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Once installed, it will sync your SkyDrive into a chosen folder, and keep it up to date in both directions as files change. This app will also help users when they migrate to Windows 8.

SkyDrive for the desktop will also support uploading large files of up to 2GB through Windows Explorer.

Given that not everyone will want to put all of their files in to the cloud straight away, Microsoft has also announced a feature that enables users to access files from any remote PC that is running SkyDrive on the desktop.

“We realise this is more of an enthusiast feature, as most people won’t have an always-on PC at home, but for those who do, fetching files works like magic,” Shahine and Torres said.

They also acknowledged that accessing a PC from a web browser could be abused, and said that Microsoft is adding another layer of protection, with users having to go through a second factor of authentication (a code sent to the user’s mobile phone or email) to access the remote PC.

These features will become available in the next few months.

Check out below article on the World’s smallest, largest and thinnest gadgets.

Some very funny items here, like the smallest washing machine or the largest IPod dock – because everyone wants an IPod dock to sit behind – right…?

http://www.gizmowatch.com/worlds-smallest-largest-thinnest-ces-2012.html

Splashdata, an internet security company, has compiled the worst passwords of 2011. Prepare for some surprises as you discover that that super-secure passwords of yours is not so secure after at all. So here we go:

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football

There are only 2 ingredients to a good password, security and being able to remember it. A combination of upper and lower case letters, symbols and numbers is the best way to create a secure password. And ideally you should have a different password for every account – something that can get a bit tricky these days with dozens of platforms requiring you to set up a password.