Even if you have a computer at home, on occasion you'll find you need to use the public computers at a library, internet café, or your local copy shop. Traveling, technical glitches at home, or the sheer convenience of checking on something right now brings almost everyone to a public computer once in a while. It brings a few people -- whether they own computers or not -- to public computers daily.
I have a confession to make. In a former life, I was a systems librarian. I know what's on public computers. No, I don't have your personal information. I removed that from the public computers, along with a lot of keylogging software, viruses, and spyware. What I do have is a few little tricks to keep your private information private.
The cardinal rule of public computing is the most obvious. It's also the one most often broken. Sometimes there's no avoiding breaking it. Sometimes, though, it seems there is a digital variety of the "belief in immortality" that's usually attributed to young adults. This digital immortality seems to affect people of all ages.
Feeling a little lonely as you type away on your keyboard? How about adding a little friend that you don't have to feed, water, or take outside for walks. Keyboard Characters simply slide into the keys of your keyboard and add a little color to your workspace.
Set 1 of the Keyboard Characters comes with 10 friends that include a monkey, robot, fish and a dragon. The price is a little steep at $9.95, but they are cute. The printing quality is supposedly pretty high at 300lpi with UV coating. The characters range in size, with exact sizes shown online under each preview image.
Google has another aquisition under its belt and this one is a little green. Not in the environment sense, but in a secure sense.
GreenBorder, based in Mountain View, California, has developed a way to isolate each internet session from the rest of a users PC. This way threats like viruses, spyware, trojans and malware can be secluded and tossed when users close down their browser window instead of potentially infecting machines. A green border displays around safe pages, and files that are downloaded from the internet can be opened in a virtual environment so as not to infect the rest of the user's machine.
The application is available for use in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. With over 100,000 downloads since October 31st 2006, the Windows version of the software is currently available on Download.com for $29.95, but knowing Google, this will be down to free in no time at all.
There is no word yet on the final purchase price of GreenBorder.
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative is planning to ship nearly 5 million XO model PCs this summer to mostly third world countries. There are rumors floating about that the OLPC folks may offer the laptops for sale to the public as well. Consumers would be able to buy the laptops in pairs, and only receive one of them, with the other one going to a child in a third world country. Sure it is a bit unorthodox, but forcing philanthropy on the public when they purchase is simply brilliant. I don't think many people will have a problem with this method of helping others. You would even get to keep in touch with the child your laptop went to, to see how they are, and what they are up to, sponsoring them, in effect. eBay is also rumored as a seller to help the sale of laptops, since supply chain costs are high and the foundation need to keep costs down to continue producing low-price PCs. Seriously, what is $100 in the grand scheme of things? Would you 'buy 2 get 1' to help out your own kid and the kids that need a PC in third-world countries? I would.
Edubuntu, a nine year old, and savvy parents--sounds textbook right? Next, the headline: Pentagon Hacked by 9-year-old. This guy has an interesting idea though, put his nine year old on an inexpensive Linux machine for his school, gaming, and general computing pleasure. Not a bad idea, and it does give him the advantage of doing something with an old PC he had lying around. Is it an option for most people with older computers? I think not. Linux is great, but it can be tricky. Sometimes it isn't worth the hassle, but for this nine year old it seems like it will work well. What would you give your kids, and why?
This holiday "gift" for you and yours comes from PC World. Their new video area offers practical guides on the small screen (PC that is) on how to replace a graphics card, set up a wi-fi network, and others. The gift part is that you can enjoy a nearly "my-new-technology-doesn't-work" phone-call free holiday season. Okay, I am dreaming a little bit here, but you get the idea. The videos are fairly good, and actually do offer some help for the average to beginner PC user. There was adequate detail on the video I watched, but it wasn't too drawn out, for example they showed going to the nVidia and ATI websites to download drivers, but since that was self-explanatory they whizzed by it, which was fine with me. These videos are obviously not for the uber-all-hours geeks and modders that hang out here, but for those you invariably end up supporting, most likely during a holiday family gathering, to do it themselves.
Posted Nov 25th 2006 4:28PM by Ryan Carter Filed under: News
So, I want to know today is: what technology did you buy yesterday? Did you buy any software for your loved ones, or for yourself? What do you consider the hot items this season? Is Zune at the top of your list, or anywhere else? What about cell phones, PC's, printers, software? What does this holiday season look like for you and those you are buying for? I am thinking about buying a new PC, but only because the prices are good. I just wondered what your technology forecast was the holiday season. Feel free to give it to me, which software and tech products will do well, survive, not be around next year? Thoughts?
If you have many things to remember, and don't want to clutter your desk and computer with a sticky note mess, try out Helipad. Their online hosted note application makes it easy to create notes and tag them with keywords for easy locating. With the free online application you can draft up anything that you normally would in a word processor--all you need is an internet connection. Helipad's auto save timer helps you remember to save your document in intervals you set. It also has support for mobile devices, and in true Web 2.0 fashion, you can share your documents with your friends.
Take a peek at some screenshots of the Helipad interface after the jump.
Teleflip allows users to send messages from computers to cell phones. It is extremely convenient, and the ability to utilize this application without requiring software installation is beneficial in keeping some hard drive space left on your computer. So how does it work? Pretty simple stuff, just open any email application or webmail that you use, and type in the recipients area code and cell phone number, then type @teleflip.com. [555 555 5555@teleflip.com]. Sorry, Teleflip currently supports only North American providers.
FreeComputerBooks.com has many free resources clumped into compact pages, so you so whiz through them quickly to find what you want. The site is ad supported but most of the content I found actually was free. There are links to many tutorials, books, articles, and other resources online that may be of use to programmers, database developers and such. I found a good article on AJAX that contained some info I needed for a project I am working, so my visit to the site proved useful. Only one link I clicked on went somewhere to buy a book, but the rest I clicked on were free resources, FYI.
The National Codes Center at BlentchleyBletchley north of London, has unveiled a WWII Computer replica that was once used to go sort through encrypted German messages during World War II. The replica model which was built by more than 60 volunteers using original blueprints took over 10 years to complete. The Turing Bombe computer was developed by Alan Turing, who is otherwise quite commonly knows as the father of the modern computer. The computers main job was to decrypt messages from German machines. I'm sure Mr. Turing would be proud that everyone is sitting on their computers right now, surfing YouTube, and reading Download Squad.
In an effort by Dell to increase customer service, a proposed alliance is a no go. The deal would have seen the potential dispatch of field technicians nationwide, and would have been an official extension of Dell's service and support. The company shooting for the alliance, Reliable IT, has said that they did not land Dells book of business. Reliable's IT partners include OnForce, which has over 10,000 nationwide IT service providers on call. This deal could have been a big help to Dell's lack of customer service, long wait times, and support issues. During the past while, it has been reported that in the past few years, Dell has been increasing its spending to correct customer support issues.
If you have a Blackberry PIN addiction, then you aren't alone. Pinppl is a meeting place for Blackberry PIN addicts. You can browse through registered users' profiles and find PIN people that seem interesting to you to chat about your similar interests. When you register at Pinppl, you are given a unique pinppl.com address for your Blackberry PIN. (Check out Paul's profile, pinppl.com/203EAE43, for a sample.)
Pinppl is designed especially for Blackberry access. The only time that you need to access pinppl.com through a computer will be to upload images.
Zapr lets you create links to files on your PC, and then send them out to friends and contacts via email or IM. These links that are sent are a direct conduit to your computer. The recipient of the link can then view the files directly in their browser.
Sharing folders with friends and contacts sounds pretty simple. Simply drag and drop your folder into Zapr. Zapr then creates a special link you can send out to friends. Zapr file links are made by setting up your friends contact info, and dragging the file onto Zapr, which spits out a special link that your friend can open and view in a browser. The specific file is then downloaded through the browser window, with no file size or attachment restrictions. There is only one drawback. It's currently for users on Windows XP only. Zapr is currently in beta, and it's free to sign up.
Having access from your computer desktop anywhere there is a connection and a computer is a dream for some, and a reality for some early beta testers of Desktoptwo.
Created by Sapotek, Desktoptwo is a free web based service that allows complete access of your desktop wherever you are. It has a web instant messenger using the Jabber platform, email, search, MP3 player, address book, WYSIWYG web editor, blog publishing platform, rss feed, layout templates, and 1 GB of free storage.
Subscribers of the tool will find out that Desktoptwo could be very valuable and useful if you're moving from computer to computer. If anyone has experience in using this tool, please let us know how it worked out for you.
Even if you have a computer at home, on occasion you'll find you need to use the public computers at a library, internet café, or your local copy shop. Traveling, technical glitches at home, or the sheer convenience of checking on something right now brings almost everyone to a public computer once in a while. It brings a few people -- whether they own computers or not -- to public computers daily.
This holiday "gift" for you and yours comes from PC World. Their 
