Over the past few weeks I've been hearing stories of stolen laptops and iPhones. And extremely worried victims were asking what to do. Some people entrust virtually all their personal data to their portable devices, and a theft can be very traumatic. The list of emergency measures is often huge, and can require taking a day or two off work to get done.
One person had his iPhone stolen out from under him. He'd grabbed an armful of things from his car, taken them to the house, then returned for the last couple of things. In that minute or two, someone stole his iPhone from the car. What was on it? Pretty much every important detail of his life, both personal and work.
You better pray that you can access your data from somewhere within minutes of a theft. Log in to your email accounts, save everything, and close the accounts before thieves delete it or send spam... turn off Facebook and Twitter updates... tell banks and credit card companies (and possibly cancel cards & close accounts)... tell all your friends, family, work associates, clients... tell your ISP... tell your workplace network admin... cancel your iTunes account... and so on. This post isn't about the endless number of things you may need to do in case of theft. Just stop and ask yourself - What kind of nightmare would it be if your device was lost or stolen?
The problems start with how people use portable devices:
1) Usernames & passwords stored on the device. Do you have usernames and passwords stored so you can access email, bank accounts, Facebook, Twitter, iTunes, or other sites quickly? Within minutes, thieves can delete your accounts (or keep them and change the passwords), message your friends, and rack up charges like you wouldn't believe. You are much safer using passwords you can remember, typing them in each time.
2) Phone numbers, including friends, family, work. If you use one-touch dialing, or use a contact list/application, thieves just got a list of everyone important in your life. For indentity theft, prank calls, or to keep for later.
3) Email stored on the device. For the record, I've never in my life used a "storage" type of email service on any computer, like Outlook or Mac Mail. Web-based email, like Hotmail or Gmail, doesn't need to store anything on any device. If someone stole any of my computers, they wouldn't have a single email or piece of data about any of my contacts. In fact they wouldn't even know what email services I use. Plus if one of my computers caught fire 2 minutes from now, I could access my email using another one and nothing would be any different. I suggest either a password-protected email program on your device, or using a web-based email service that stores nothing on your device.
These are just some of the bigger security problems with portable devices, all caused by how people use them. The list of issues and solutions is really endless, but your headaches will be in direct proportion to how much data you store on your device in the first place. Portable devices can be handy tools, but they can also be lost or stolen in the blink of an eye. And keep in mind that some of the best security tips are equally useful in cases of a device freezing or crashing.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Back Up Your Files
This is a public service announcement. A reminder of something you already know.
You need to back up important files regularly. How often will depend on how you use your computer. For instance, I create tons of original code, graphics, and notes every few days. Because of this, I make a backup a couple of times a week, or risk losing days and days worth of stuff that I'd have to create all over again. You may not need to back up this often. Think about what's on your computer. Maybe there are things that could be downloaded again if something bad happened, but what do you have that is truly priceless? Pictures? Home movies? Graphic design? Email? School work? Business contacts? How often do you create or save new things on your computer? These questions can help you decide how often to back up.
Here's how to make backups fast and easy:
A) All you need is a thumb drive or a couple of rewritable CDs/DVDs.
B) Keep all your files organized in one main folder. Use your name or something simple, then make separate sub-folders inside it for pictures, videos, music, school work, or whatever. A backup requires nothing more than saving this one single folder, because all your files are somewhere inside. It couldn't be easier than that. Macs are generally set up like this by default, while Windows has a whole bunch of places it saves files. But there are programs on both operating systems that put files in strange places, so do what you can to override this and keep all your files somewhere within your top-level folder. Especially with Windows, pay attention every time you save anything, because your files may end up on the Desktop, Documents folder, Program Files, or a hundred other places, making backups a headache.
C) One more suggestion - For really important data, store backups off-site. If a fire destroys your computer, and the backups are sitting on a shelf in the same room, you've still lost everything. You could use an online storage system, or keep copies in another physical location.
You need to back up important files regularly. How often will depend on how you use your computer. For instance, I create tons of original code, graphics, and notes every few days. Because of this, I make a backup a couple of times a week, or risk losing days and days worth of stuff that I'd have to create all over again. You may not need to back up this often. Think about what's on your computer. Maybe there are things that could be downloaded again if something bad happened, but what do you have that is truly priceless? Pictures? Home movies? Graphic design? Email? School work? Business contacts? How often do you create or save new things on your computer? These questions can help you decide how often to back up.
Here's how to make backups fast and easy:
A) All you need is a thumb drive or a couple of rewritable CDs/DVDs.
B) Keep all your files organized in one main folder. Use your name or something simple, then make separate sub-folders inside it for pictures, videos, music, school work, or whatever. A backup requires nothing more than saving this one single folder, because all your files are somewhere inside. It couldn't be easier than that. Macs are generally set up like this by default, while Windows has a whole bunch of places it saves files. But there are programs on both operating systems that put files in strange places, so do what you can to override this and keep all your files somewhere within your top-level folder. Especially with Windows, pay attention every time you save anything, because your files may end up on the Desktop, Documents folder, Program Files, or a hundred other places, making backups a headache.
C) One more suggestion - For really important data, store backups off-site. If a fire destroys your computer, and the backups are sitting on a shelf in the same room, you've still lost everything. You could use an online storage system, or keep copies in another physical location.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Top Sites - Spam, Scam, and Identity Theft Links
If you use Facebook, you need to understand that every single third-party company and individual who makes those cute little games and gadgets gets all your personal data for no good reason. And I guarantee you there is essentially no security on the servers where that data is stored. Even if you delete your Facebook account, all your personal data is still out there in the hands of total strangers, unprotected and waiting to be stolen. On top of this, Facebook is still being criticized for having horribly inadequate data protection of their own, so you should be using fake personal info on the site for a whole bunch of reasons.
Anyway, here's their security page - Facebook.com/security.
And user safety page - Facebook.com/safety.
And inadequate - privacy policy.
Twitter users, you should be checking the spam/scam alert page.
How many of these email & phone scams listed on the RCMP Phonebusters site have you come across?
Here's a great internet intrusion/attack testing tool. It checks your computer's ability to deflect and ignore communication attempts. It's called Shields Up, from security company Gibson Research. No downloads or anything are required, get simple File Sharing and Common Port vulnerability reports in about 10 seconds.
(MySpace is beyond help as far spam, profile hacking, and identity theft goes, so I'm not wasting my time putting links here. If you still use that site for some reason, good luck.)
Anyway, here's their security page - Facebook.com/security.
And user safety page - Facebook.com/safety.
And inadequate - privacy policy.
Twitter users, you should be checking the spam/scam alert page.
How many of these email & phone scams listed on the RCMP Phonebusters site have you come across?
Here's a great internet intrusion/attack testing tool. It checks your computer's ability to deflect and ignore communication attempts. It's called Shields Up, from security company Gibson Research. No downloads or anything are required, get simple File Sharing and Common Port vulnerability reports in about 10 seconds.
(MySpace is beyond help as far spam, profile hacking, and identity theft goes, so I'm not wasting my time putting links here. If you still use that site for some reason, good luck.)
Friday, October 9, 2009
My Main Computer Hardware
For you techies out there, here are the details of my primary system:
MBD - Elite (A780GM-A)
CPU - AMD (quad-core Phenom)
RAM - A-Data (4gig)
P/S - Cooler Master (600w)
HDD - Western Digital (160gig)
Video card - ATI (Radeon HD 4650, 1gig)
Display - two x 22" (Acer x223w)
Keyboard - Logitech Access
Mouse - Logitech Trackman Wheel
Router: D-Link (DIR-615, wireless N)
And never a single hiccup with any of it.
MBD - Elite (A780GM-A)
CPU - AMD (quad-core Phenom)
RAM - A-Data (4gig)
P/S - Cooler Master (600w)
HDD - Western Digital (160gig)
Video card - ATI (Radeon HD 4650, 1gig)
Display - two x 22" (Acer x223w)
Keyboard - Logitech Access
Mouse - Logitech Trackman Wheel
Router: D-Link (DIR-615, wireless N)
And never a single hiccup with any of it.
Monday, September 21, 2009
More About Me
Here's a little info about me. The profile section on Blogger is sort of lacking, and I didn't want to make a whole page just for this. And one benefit of using a regular blog post is I can link directly to this message from elsewhere.
My name is Jeff. I'm the owner of Second Glance Digital Media, and author of this blog. I'm a Search Engine Optimization specialist with a proven track record, and have been doing web design and graphics for about 10 years. Lately I've been building sites for small local businesses and getting them top 10 rankings on Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.
You can read more on the Second Glance Digital Media site.
I also trade forex, and enjoy bicycling and sometimes video games. My pet peeve is local (Peterborough) "web designers" who don't know anything about web design. Especially the ones who say they do SEO, yet don't show up in searches because they haven't even coded their own sites properly! I hate the fact that business owners are being ripped off by amateurs. GRRRR! So I try to educate people the best I can.
You should also know that my brother Scott is an online marketing specialist, with about 12 years experience. He'll organize an entire online advertising campaign, do testing and tracking of different strategies, generate leads, and take commission from the new business he brings in. He currently works with a select few clients as a marketing consultant.
My expertise is building sites and getting them ranked high through proper design principles, and understanding how both people and search engines look at websites. Scott's expertise is finding out where your customers are, advertising to them in ways they'll respond to, and driving them to your site. So between us, you can get maximum traffic from both sides of the equation: organic and paid advertising.
If there's anything on your mind you'd like some advice on, leave a comment or drop me an email.
My name is Jeff. I'm the owner of Second Glance Digital Media, and author of this blog. I'm a Search Engine Optimization specialist with a proven track record, and have been doing web design and graphics for about 10 years. Lately I've been building sites for small local businesses and getting them top 10 rankings on Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.
You can read more on the Second Glance Digital Media site.
I also trade forex, and enjoy bicycling and sometimes video games. My pet peeve is local (Peterborough) "web designers" who don't know anything about web design. Especially the ones who say they do SEO, yet don't show up in searches because they haven't even coded their own sites properly! I hate the fact that business owners are being ripped off by amateurs. GRRRR! So I try to educate people the best I can.
You should also know that my brother Scott is an online marketing specialist, with about 12 years experience. He'll organize an entire online advertising campaign, do testing and tracking of different strategies, generate leads, and take commission from the new business he brings in. He currently works with a select few clients as a marketing consultant.
My expertise is building sites and getting them ranked high through proper design principles, and understanding how both people and search engines look at websites. Scott's expertise is finding out where your customers are, advertising to them in ways they'll respond to, and driving them to your site. So between us, you can get maximum traffic from both sides of the equation: organic and paid advertising.
If there's anything on your mind you'd like some advice on, leave a comment or drop me an email.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Couldn't Function Without My Trackball Mouse
I realized the other day that most of my friends are still using the "classic" style of computer mouse, the kind you have to move all over the desk. I haven't used one of those in years.
It's hard to imagine having to physically move a mouse around to play games, trade forex, design graphics, or even surf the internet. Especially with two 22" monitors. I often need to move the pointer across an enormous chunk of space really quick, and having to move a mouse around on my desk would drive me mad. At least the newer optical/laser models had better sensitivity, and got rid of those ridiculous mouse "pads" from back in the day, and the dust-collecting rubber balls. Those seem like humorous relics of a different era. Stories to tell our kids.
Anyway, I just want you to know that my trackball mouse is awesome, and warn you about some issues with other models.
Honestly, a lot of trackball mice are horrible. The biggest problem is many of them require you to use your fingers to move the ball rather than your thumb. This is a very poor design if you ask me, having the ball where your fingertips rest. As you can see by looking at your fingers, they have hinged joints that move back and forth in a straight line, and will cramp after a few minutes of side-to-side motion. However, your thumb is jointed differently and moves in all directions. Fingers are better for clicking buttons, so why would you want them on the trackball?
The most bizarre design has the ball stuck right in the middle, under your palm, with buttons around the edges. Moving the ball around with your palm requires you to move your entire arm, which is no advantage over traditional mice. It's the most spastic way to move anything, ever. And since your whole hand is moving around to spin the trackball, your fingers are also moving around instead of resting on any buttons. If you see one of these, throw it in the nearest lake or river, quick.
If you want to try a trackball mouse, get the Logitech Trackman Wheel. When you rest your hand on this mouse, your thumb lands on the ball, and your 1st and 2nd fingers each rest on a button (with a scroll wheel/3rd button in between). You can whip the cursor across a vast distance instantly, yet you'll be amazed by the precise tracking. The ball pops out easily so you can wipe off your potato chip grime. You don't even need the included Logitech software, as your O/S mouse settings are more than adequate to fine tune it. Straight out of the box it works on any Mac or PC. It's a right-handed USB device, and also comes with a ps/2 port adapter.
Check your favorite online store, or go here: Tiger Direct
It's hard to imagine having to physically move a mouse around to play games, trade forex, design graphics, or even surf the internet. Especially with two 22" monitors. I often need to move the pointer across an enormous chunk of space really quick, and having to move a mouse around on my desk would drive me mad. At least the newer optical/laser models had better sensitivity, and got rid of those ridiculous mouse "pads" from back in the day, and the dust-collecting rubber balls. Those seem like humorous relics of a different era. Stories to tell our kids.
Anyway, I just want you to know that my trackball mouse is awesome, and warn you about some issues with other models.
Honestly, a lot of trackball mice are horrible. The biggest problem is many of them require you to use your fingers to move the ball rather than your thumb. This is a very poor design if you ask me, having the ball where your fingertips rest. As you can see by looking at your fingers, they have hinged joints that move back and forth in a straight line, and will cramp after a few minutes of side-to-side motion. However, your thumb is jointed differently and moves in all directions. Fingers are better for clicking buttons, so why would you want them on the trackball?
The most bizarre design has the ball stuck right in the middle, under your palm, with buttons around the edges. Moving the ball around with your palm requires you to move your entire arm, which is no advantage over traditional mice. It's the most spastic way to move anything, ever. And since your whole hand is moving around to spin the trackball, your fingers are also moving around instead of resting on any buttons. If you see one of these, throw it in the nearest lake or river, quick.
If you want to try a trackball mouse, get the Logitech Trackman Wheel. When you rest your hand on this mouse, your thumb lands on the ball, and your 1st and 2nd fingers each rest on a button (with a scroll wheel/3rd button in between). You can whip the cursor across a vast distance instantly, yet you'll be amazed by the precise tracking. The ball pops out easily so you can wipe off your potato chip grime. You don't even need the included Logitech software, as your O/S mouse settings are more than adequate to fine tune it. Straight out of the box it works on any Mac or PC. It's a right-handed USB device, and also comes with a ps/2 port adapter.Check your favorite online store, or go here: Tiger Direct
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Some Sites Are Irritating On Laptops
Web sites should be designed so they are easy to use on all browsers, on all platforms, at all resolutions. But many sites are very irritating to use on a laptop.
The biggest problem is wasted space at the top of a page. A good example of this is mapquest.com vs. maps.google.com.
Along the very top, Google maps has a small line of text links and the search box, and about 3/4 of the page is a map. No scrolling required. Brilliant, since that's why you go to a map site, right?
On the other hand, I see nothing on Mapquest other than their huge logo and buttons across the top, some links that take you off the map page, several search boxes, and the top inch of a map. Plus a massive ad to the right, which literally takes up a quarter of the screen. So I type a location, but when the result comes up, I have to scroll down to see the map. Then scroll back up to search again. Then scroll back down. This wouldn't matter on a home computer, with a mouse and bigger monitor, but when I'm using my laptop in a car or other awkward place (the only reason I ever got a laptop), I don't have time to screw around scrolling up and down for no good reason. I'm not lounging around on a couch like some college kid. I want the map.
Another problem with some sites is when you have a page you sign into, and the cursor is NOT automatically in the text box. So you have to click the cursor into the box before you can type anything. Go to Twitter or Facebook and the cursor is waiting for you in the sign-in box. But go to Compete.com and there's no cursor at all. This site has 3 boxes where you type sites to compare, but no cursor anywhere. Pressing the TAB key does nothing, the cursor simply doesn't exist until you click within a text box. This can be solved with one line of code.
Now the unfortunate part of all this... I noticed that some sites I've built are pretty irritating to use on a laptop as well. When designing sites on a 22" monitor, it's easy to get lost in that environment and forget that few people have such a big display.
I went back through all the sites I've built over the past few years and reconsidered some things. I got thinking - how many visitors would be using laptops? This might vary depending on the site, and analytics show it's a small percentage of visitors, but I decided to err on the side of caution and make some simple changes.
I changed some sites so the header area was smaller, and more useful content was shown immediately. I made some text bigger, some smaller. Some navigation buttons were moved. Navigation buttons that work better down the left side are now nearer the top and visible without scrolling. These changes made a few sites easier to use on a laptop, but they also made them cleaner and more immediately useful on any size monitor. If you are a designer, I encourage you to use a small laptop display in your development, it's a good tool to help keep sites as simple and useful as possible for the end user.
The biggest problem is wasted space at the top of a page. A good example of this is mapquest.com vs. maps.google.com.
Along the very top, Google maps has a small line of text links and the search box, and about 3/4 of the page is a map. No scrolling required. Brilliant, since that's why you go to a map site, right?
On the other hand, I see nothing on Mapquest other than their huge logo and buttons across the top, some links that take you off the map page, several search boxes, and the top inch of a map. Plus a massive ad to the right, which literally takes up a quarter of the screen. So I type a location, but when the result comes up, I have to scroll down to see the map. Then scroll back up to search again. Then scroll back down. This wouldn't matter on a home computer, with a mouse and bigger monitor, but when I'm using my laptop in a car or other awkward place (the only reason I ever got a laptop), I don't have time to screw around scrolling up and down for no good reason. I'm not lounging around on a couch like some college kid. I want the map.
Another problem with some sites is when you have a page you sign into, and the cursor is NOT automatically in the text box. So you have to click the cursor into the box before you can type anything. Go to Twitter or Facebook and the cursor is waiting for you in the sign-in box. But go to Compete.com and there's no cursor at all. This site has 3 boxes where you type sites to compare, but no cursor anywhere. Pressing the TAB key does nothing, the cursor simply doesn't exist until you click within a text box. This can be solved with one line of code.
Now the unfortunate part of all this... I noticed that some sites I've built are pretty irritating to use on a laptop as well. When designing sites on a 22" monitor, it's easy to get lost in that environment and forget that few people have such a big display.
I went back through all the sites I've built over the past few years and reconsidered some things. I got thinking - how many visitors would be using laptops? This might vary depending on the site, and analytics show it's a small percentage of visitors, but I decided to err on the side of caution and make some simple changes.
I changed some sites so the header area was smaller, and more useful content was shown immediately. I made some text bigger, some smaller. Some navigation buttons were moved. Navigation buttons that work better down the left side are now nearer the top and visible without scrolling. These changes made a few sites easier to use on a laptop, but they also made them cleaner and more immediately useful on any size monitor. If you are a designer, I encourage you to use a small laptop display in your development, it's a good tool to help keep sites as simple and useful as possible for the end user.
Monday, August 3, 2009
An Inevitable Look At Google Wave
Google seems convinced that real-time communication will change the world. As opposed to the current, and absolutely intolerable, 3-second delay in uploading blog posts, emails, or tweets.
(Some of my friends have actually discovered something called the "telephone", which is truly brilliant for "real-time" communication. I've even heard tales of multiple people using this device to chat at the same time! Don't look up "Skype" or "iChat" unless you are prepared to be amazed.)
- OMG, they're having a live chat!? That's MAGIC!
- Build your own blog... you mean like Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr, and a dozen others? Amazing!
- Embed stuff like videos, pictures, links, and feeds into your blog? Uh... you mean like Facebook, and Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr, and a dozen others? Incredible!
- Share photos? Sure, I'll believe that when I see it! Wow, you people must be on drugs!
- Real-time collaboration tools? You mean like the business software that has been around for years, that only a tiny fraction of the market ever has, or ever will, use? Genius!
Sites like Plaxo and Friendfeed already aggregate your content from multiple other sites. Almost all of the blog and social sites I've joined have asked for a dozen other logins during the signup process, so I could do everything from that site without logging into the others. All my blogs, messages, pictures, video, audio, and friend updates from all over the web can all be organized by any of these sites. Kind of like Wave, except they really exist.
Pretty soon Google will "develop" something that is simply Skype, but they'll have a big press release, call it Google SpeakBonanza, and tell everyone it's groundbreaking for some reason.
Here's why I think Wave will suck by trying to cram everything you could ever do into one window:
1) If your browser crashes, everything you are doing crashes all at once. How dumb is that?
2) It takes away the freedom of being able to move any window anywhere on your desktop (two desktops in my case).
It won't make anything faster, or easier, or safer, or cheaper, or more fun. I honestly don't understand what they're thinking. It's lame, limiting, and a step backwards compared to what already exists.
Or maybe there's something I'm not understanding. We'll see what happens over the coming months.
(Some of my friends have actually discovered something called the "telephone", which is truly brilliant for "real-time" communication. I've even heard tales of multiple people using this device to chat at the same time! Don't look up "Skype" or "iChat" unless you are prepared to be amazed.)
- OMG, they're having a live chat!? That's MAGIC!
- Build your own blog... you mean like Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr, and a dozen others? Amazing!
- Embed stuff like videos, pictures, links, and feeds into your blog? Uh... you mean like Facebook, and Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr, and a dozen others? Incredible!
- Share photos? Sure, I'll believe that when I see it! Wow, you people must be on drugs!
- Real-time collaboration tools? You mean like the business software that has been around for years, that only a tiny fraction of the market ever has, or ever will, use? Genius!
Sites like Plaxo and Friendfeed already aggregate your content from multiple other sites. Almost all of the blog and social sites I've joined have asked for a dozen other logins during the signup process, so I could do everything from that site without logging into the others. All my blogs, messages, pictures, video, audio, and friend updates from all over the web can all be organized by any of these sites. Kind of like Wave, except they really exist.
Pretty soon Google will "develop" something that is simply Skype, but they'll have a big press release, call it Google SpeakBonanza, and tell everyone it's groundbreaking for some reason.
Here's why I think Wave will suck by trying to cram everything you could ever do into one window:
1) If your browser crashes, everything you are doing crashes all at once. How dumb is that?
2) It takes away the freedom of being able to move any window anywhere on your desktop (two desktops in my case).
It won't make anything faster, or easier, or safer, or cheaper, or more fun. I honestly don't understand what they're thinking. It's lame, limiting, and a step backwards compared to what already exists.
Or maybe there's something I'm not understanding. We'll see what happens over the coming months.
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