Information Technology Consultant Updates - IT Consultant Updates

Are You a Cognitive Miser?

2009-11-07T03:36:00.000+02:00

Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?

A) Yes.

B) No.

C) Cannot be determined.

This is from this month’s Scientific American — article unfortunately costs money. It’s about “dysrationalia,” which is what happens when people with nominally high IQ’s end up thinking irrationally. A phenomenon I’m sure we’ve all encountered, especially in certain corners of the blogosphere.

And the answer is the first option. But over 80 percent of people choose the third option. Here’s the solution: the puzzle doesn’t say whether Anne is married or not, but she either is or she isn’t. If Anne is married, she’s looking at George, so the answer is “yes”; if she’s unmarried, Jack is looking at her, so the answer is still “yes.” The underlying reason why smart people get the wrong answer is (according to the article) that they simply don’t take the time to go carefully through all of the possibilities, instead taking the easiest inference. The patience required to go through all the possibilities doesn’t correlate very well with intelligence.

Transparency, choice and control — now complete with a Dashboard!

2009-11-07T03:30:00.000+02:00

Transparency, choice and control — now complete with a Dashboard!: "Today, we are excited to announce the launch of Google Dashboard. Have you ever wondered what data is stored with your Google Account? The Google Dashboard offers a simple view into the data associated with your account — easily and concisely in one location.

Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data. In the past, we've taken numerous steps in this area, investing in educating our users with our Privacy Center, making it easier to move data in and out of Google with our Data Liberation Front, and allowing you to control the ads you see with interest-based advertising. Transparency, choice and control have become a key part of Google's philosophy, and today, we're happy to announce that we're doing even more.

In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings. Today, the Dashboard covers more than 20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude and many more. The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is unprecedented, and we're delighted to be the first Internet company to offer this — and we hope it will become the standard. Watch this quick video to learn more and then try it out for yourself at www.google.com/dashboard.

Posted by Alma Whitten, Software Engineer, Yariv Adan, Product Manager, and Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products and User Experience

Fortune names Jobs "CEO of the Decade"

2009-11-06T17:38:00.000+02:00

Fortune names Jobs "CEO of the Decade": "

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Steve Jobs

~~Forbes~~ Fortune bestowed a significant honor on Steve Jobs today, naming him their CEO of the Decade. Fortune outlines the incredible leaps in business, technology and industry Apple has made since Steve's return. For anyone who might not remember, the 90's were not kind to Apple and nearly everyone thought the company was finished.

Consider this incredible fact: Apple launched OS X and iTunes, opened the first two retail stores and introduced the first iPod ... all in the same year (2001). Fortune also goes on to describe how Steve changed the film industry with Pixar, the music industry with the iTunes Store and the cell phone industry with the iPhone and the App Store.

He also kicked cancer's ass.

This is precisely why I'm excited about the prospect of a new piece of hardware from Apple. I won't call it a tablet because that's not what it will be. Apple didn't invent the digital music player, the mobile phone or mass distribution of media. But, they did demonstrate how to do those things the right way, which no one else could come up with.

If there's a new product coming, comparing it to contemporary tablets or netbooks is a huge mistake, because it won't behave like any of them.

Click below to watch Fortunes' video on this announcement.

[Via MacDailyNews]

Continue reading Fortune names Jobs 'CEO of the Decade'

TUAW Fortune names Jobs 'CEO of the Decade' originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dropbox - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy.

2009-11-02T17:22:00.000+02:00

Dropbox is the easiest way to store, sync, and, share files online. There's no complicated interface to learn. Dropbox works seamlessly with your operating system and automatically makes sure your files are up-to-date. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

disclosure: I will get bonus space if you join via the link below. still it is a great service even without the bonus.

https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTI3NTkzOTM5

Gmail account security tips

2009-10-31T20:19:00.000+02:00

Gmail account security tips: "Posted by Sarah Price, Online Operations Strategist

As part of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, we recently posted about how to pick a smart password. Having a strong password goes a long way in helping to protect your data, but there are a number of additional steps you can take to help you keep your Gmail account secure:

1. Remember to sign out. Especially when using a public computer, be careful to sign out of your Google account when you're finished. Just click the 'Sign out' link at the top right corner of your inbox. If you're using a public or shared computer and want to be extra thorough, you can also clear the browser's cache, cookies and history. Then, completely close the browser. On your personal computer, you can also lock your computer with a password-protected screensaver if you need to step away momentarily. Learn the best ways to lock your screen in Windows or in Mac OS X. Forgot to sign out? Open up a new Gmail session on another computer and use Gmail's remote sign out feature to close any sessions that might still be open elsewhere.

2. Be careful about sending certain sensitive information via email. Once you send an email, you're no longer in control of the information it contains. The recipients, if they so choose, could forward the email or post its contents in a public place. Even if you know and trust the people you're emailing, that information may become exposed if their accounts become compromised or they get a virus on their machines. As a rule of thumb, should you need to provide a credit card number or financial account number to respond to a message, provide it over the phone or in person — not over email. And never share your password with anyone. Google does not email you to ask you for your password, your social security number, or other personal information — so don't send it!

3. Enable 'Always use HTTPS.' Any time you visit a webpage, your computer needs to send and receive information across the Internet. HTTPS is used to encrypt data as it is transmitted between computers on the Internet, so look for the 'https' in the URL bar of your browser to indicate that the connection between your computer and Gmail's servers is encrypted. We use HTTPS on the Gmail login page, and you can choose to protect your entire Gmail session with HTTPS as well. HTTPS can make your mail slower, so we let you make the choice for yourself. Open Settings and choose 'Always use HTTPS' on the General tab if you want to turn it on.

4. Be wary of unexpected attachments.To help protect you from viruses and malware, Gmail automatically scans every attachment when it's delivered to you, and again each time you open a message. Attachments you send are also scanned. That said, no system is foolproof, so if you happen to get an email from a friend with an attachment you didn't expect, don't be afraid to ask the sender what it is before you decide whether to open it.

5. Make sure your account recovery information is up-to-date. Your account recovery information helps you regain access to your account if you ever forget your password, or if someone gains access to your account without your permission. We currently offer several paths to account recovery. Every Gmail user must select a security question and answer — be sure to choose a combination that is easy for you to remember, but hard for others to guess or come across by investigating. Don't choose a question like "What is my favorite color?" as others may easily guess the answer. We also encourage you to provide a secondary email address and/or a mobile phone number, so we can send you a link to reset your password if you lose access to your account.

You can find additional security tips for Gmail in our Help Center. Learn more about protecting your computer, website, and personal information by checking out our security series on the Google blog or visiting http://www.staysafeonline.org.

Chart Of The Day

2009-10-31T18:24:00.000+02:00

Chart Of The Day: "

By Jessica Hagy.

Death by PowerPoint

2009-10-28T01:33:00.001+02:00

Again, This is for anyone thinking about making a presentation. Re-Think it and make big changes.

Death by PowerPoint

View more documents from Alexei Kapterev.

Book Review: "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs"

2009-10-28T00:57:00.000+02:00

Book Review: "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs": "

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Steve Jobs, TUAW Bookshelf

In 'The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs,' Carmine Gallo provides a framework for you to deliver a keynote like Steve does. The book provides both an Al Michaels and John Madden perspective of Jobs's keynotes: a play-by-play account of events married with analytical insight.

While rich in detailing the stylistics of Jobs's presentations and the empirical evidence supporting it -- for example, limiting bullet points on slides, using simple language, and using the rule of threes to enhance a narrative -- the most captivating portion of the book is how it details Steve Jobs's preparation for his keynotes. Yes, even Steve Jobs, like the rest of us, must prepare for his ~~preparations~~ presentations.

And prepare he does, which is evident in the stories of Paul Vais. An executive at Jobs's former company NeXT (that Apple later acquired, which brought Jobs back into the Apple fold), Vais recalled that 'every slide was written like a piece of poetry...[and that] Steve would labor over the presentation. We'd try to orchestrate and choreograph everything and make it more alive than it really is.' However, Gallo says that 'making your presentation 'more alive' takes practice. Once you accept this simple principle, your presentations will stand out in a sea of mediocrity.'

Gallo's book follows many of the 'Jobsian' presentation mantras he preaches. Like a Steve Jobs keynote, the book is simple to read and provides an easy-to-follow roadmap for a reference-minded reader. The one thing that most readers will walk away with is that Steve Jobs's on-stage presence evinces a style similar to that of Apple's products when they're on the stage of the showroom floor or marketed on Apple's website. As a result, as much as it serves as a Steve Jobs presentation guidebook, 'The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs' in many ways is a Steve Jobs biography.

'The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs' is available at many booksellers, including Borders, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

TUAW Book Review: 'The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs' originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Research finds that IT departments are thinking in the cloud

2009-10-20T23:36:00.000+02:00

Research finds that IT departments are thinking in the cloud: "Google recently sponsored a global, multi-industry research project surveying 1,125 IT decision-makers and their perceptions about cloud computing and the key drivers behind the growth of cloud-based IT solutions.

We're sharing the results of the study in a new whitepaper: the Google Communications Intelligence Report. The findings provide some insights on what types of organizations are moving to the cloud, what value they find there, and what the key drivers for and barriers to adoption are. Some of the key takeaways follow:

More than 60% of respondents indicated that the IT department holds the majority of the responsibility for communications security and compliance, but fewer than 20% feel they are well equipped to handle it.
Email security, web security, and messaging are the cloud applications most widely adopted, and organizations using these applications in the cloud report higher satisfaction than users of traditional platforms.
Ease of use is cited as the key motivator for transitioning to cloud-based applications.
Although price is mentioned as a key deterrent for respondents who are not yet using cloud-based apps, value is cited as a key benefit by respondents who already work in the cloud.

In these findings – and in our conversations with businesses of all types and sizes – we are seeing that more and more businesses are finding enhanced productivity and IT efficiency when they move their applications to the cloud with services such as Postini or Google Apps. That the cloud movement is more than just a trend is validated by our research findings, which indicate that 50% of the respondents who were aware of but not currently using cloud-based apps are planning to deploy a cloud solution within the next 12 months.

Read more about how your organization (or business) might benefit from the research in the Communication Intelligence Report.

Posted by Adam Swidler, Google Postini Services team

Mini gets a server-style upgrade

2009-10-20T23:30:00.000+02:00

Mini gets a server-style upgrade: "

Filed under: Xserve, Apple, Mac mini, Mac OS X Server

Apple has given the mini a bit of a bump this morning, including a mini without an optical drive, twice the storage and of course a copy of OS X Server. It is meant to be a solution for those small businesses out there that are too small to need an Xserve, as well as media enthusiasts who are looking for a quick and easy way to share their stuff. Since it lacks an onboard optical drive, it works with the USB Super Drive, originally meant only for the MacBook Air, for disc-required functions. The Mac mini server sells for $999US.

TUAW Mini gets a server-style upgrade originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments"

Choosing a smart password

2009-10-09T21:19:00.000+02:00

Choosing a smart password: "Posted by Michael Santerre, Consumer Operations Associate

As part of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, we'd like to take this opportunity to remind you about smart password practices. Help ensure you're protecting your computer, website, and personal information by checking out our security series on the Google blog or visiting http://www.staysafeonline.org.

Phishing, a topic that's been in the news, is unfortunately a common way for hackers to trick you into sharing personal information like your account password. If you suspect you've been a victim of a phishing attack, we recommend you immediately change your password, update the security question and secondary address on your account, and make sure you're using a modern browser with anti-phishing protection turned on. Keep an eye out for the phishing warning Gmail adds to suspicious messages, and be sure to review these tips on how to avoid getting hooked.

Creating a new password is often one of the first recommendations you hear when trouble occurs. Even a great password can't keep you from being scammed, but setting one that's memorable for you and that's hard for others to guess is a smart security practice since weak passwords can be easily guessed. Below are a few common problems we've seen in the past and suggestions for making your passwords stronger.

Problem 1: Re-using passwords across websites
With a constantly growing list of services that require a password (email, online banking, social networking, and shopping websites — just to name a few), it's no wonder that many people simply use the same password across a variety of accounts. This is risky: if someone figures out your password for one service, that person could potentially gain access to your private email, address information, and even your money.

Solution 1: Use unique passwords
It's a good idea to use unique passwords for your accounts, expecially important accounts like email and online banking. When you create a password for a site, you might think of a phrase you associate with the site and use an abbreviation or variation of that phrase as your password — just don't use the actual words of the site. If it's a long phrase, you can take the first letter of each word. To make this word or phrase more secure, try making some letters uppercase, and swap out some letters with numbers or symbols. As an example, the phrase for your banking website could be "How much money do I have?" and the password could be "#m$d1H4ve?" (Note: since we're using them here, please don't adopt any of the example passwords in this post for yourself.)

Problem 2: Using common passwords or words found in the dictionary
Common passwords include simple words or phrases like 'password' or 'letmein,' keyboard patterns such as 'qwerty' or 'qazwsx,' or sequential patterns such as 'abcd1234.' Using a simple password or any word you can find in the dictionary makes it easier for a would-be hijacker to gain access to your personal information.

Solution 2: Use a password with a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols
There are only 26^8 possible permutations for an 8-character password that uses just lowercase letters, while there are 94^8 possible permutations for an 8-character password that uses a combination of mixed-case letters, numbers, and symbols. That's over 6 quadrillion more possible variations for a mixed password, which makes it that much harder for anyone to guess or crack.

Problem 3: Using passwords based on personal data
We all share information about ourselves with our friends and coworkers. The names of your spouse, children, or pets aren't usually all that secret, so it doesn't make sense to use them as your passwords. You should also stay away from birth dates, phone numbers, or addresses.

Solution 3: Create a password that's hard for others to guess
Choose a combination of letters, numbers, or symbols to create a unique password that's unrelated to your personal information. Or, select a random word or phrase, and insert letters and numbers into the beginning, middle, and end to make it extra difficult to guess (such as 'sPo0kyh@ll0w3En').

Problem 4: Writing down your password and storing it in an unsecured place
Some of us have enough online accounts that we may need to write our passwords down somewhere, at least until we've learned them well.

Solution 4: Keep your password reminders in a secret place that isn't easily visible
Don't leave notes with your passwords to various sites on your computer or desk. People who walk by can easily steal this information and use it to compromise your account. Also, if you decide to save your passwords in a file on your computer, create a unique name for the file so people don't know what's inside. Avoid naming the file 'my passwords' or something else obvious.

Problem 5: Recalling your password
When choosing smart passwords like these, it can often be more difficult to remember your password when you try to sign in to a site you haven't visited in a while. To get around this problem, many websites will offer you the option to either send a password-reset link to your email address or answer a security question.

Solution 5: Make sure your password recovery options are up-to-date and secure
You should always make sure you have an up-to-date email address on file for each account you have, so that if you need to send a password reset email it goes to the right place.

Many websites will ask you to choose a question to verify your identity if you ever forget your password. If you're able to create your own question, try to come up with a question that has an answer only you would know. The answer shouldn't be something that someone can guess by scanning information you've posted online in social networking profiles, blogs, and other places.

If you're asked to choose a question from a list of options, such as the city where you were born, you should be aware that these questions are likely to be less secure. Try to find a way to make your answer unique — you can do this by using some of the tips above, or by creating a convention where you always add a symbol after the 2nd character in the answer (e.g. in@dianapolis) — so that even if someone guesses the answer, they won't know how to enter it properly.

iTunes U

2009-10-09T09:20:00.001+02:00

iTunes U

iTunes U, part of the iTunes Store, is possibly the world’s greatest collection of free educational media available to students, teachers, and lifelong learners. With over 200,000 educational audio and video files available, iTunes U* has quickly become the engine for the mobile learning movement. It puts the power of the iTunes Store in the hands of qualifying universities so they can distribute their educational media to their students or to the world.

iTunes U has content created by Yale, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, PBS stations, and some of the most creative K-12 state projects in the country.

iTunes U sites are not just available to universities. Many museums, public broadcasting stations, and state education organizations also make education content available to the world through iTunes U in the iTunes Store.

Many schools choose to create both an internal site with a greater amount of course materials available exclusively to enrolled students with a user account and password; and an external site that provides a publicly accessible subset of those resources.

http://www.apple.com/education/mobile-learning/

TEDTalks : Seth Godin on the tribes we lead - Seth Godin (2009)

2009-10-08T05:22:00.000+02:00

TEDTalks : Seth Godin on the tribes we lead - Seth Godin (2009): "Seth Godin argues the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change. He urges us to do so."

TEDTalks : David Logan on tribal leadership - David Logan (2009)

2009-10-08T04:52:00.000+02:00

TEDTalks : David Logan on tribal leadership - David Logan (2009): "At TEDxUSC, David Logan talks about the five kinds of tribes that humans naturally form -- in schools, workplaces, even the driver's license bureau. By understanding our shared tribal tendencies, we can help lead each other to become better individuals."

Use Spreadsheets to Teach Mathematics and Meet Standards

2009-09-26T00:48:00.000+02:00

Use Spreadsheets to Teach Mathematics and Meet Standards: "Integrate Spreadsheets and Mathematics

Use the power of spreadsheets to teach Mathematics. Spreadsheets are a powerful learning tool for primary, elementary and middle school students.

Spreadsheet assignments offer concrete ways to explore abstract concepts in mathematics and other subjects. Mathematical ideas are conveyed in several different ways--using pictures, colored squares, and number lines. Counting on a number line or a number chart, or using pictures to count in a pictograph helps make the process of counting with numbers more meaningful.

A spreadsheet is a helpful tool for visual learners. Students use color and pattern to shade areas of the grid to visualize addition and subtraction. The use of borders and colors helps to organize and highlight data in unique ways. The formatting of font, size, color and pattern fill of cells and borders helps focus student attention on key elements of an assignment. A spreadsheet helps convey the meaning of Decimal numbers as students arrange them in ascending order on a number line."

Zotero | An Excellent Easy Free Bibliography and Citation Manager

2009-09-26T00:27:00.001+02:00

Zotero | Home: "Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself.
Zotero screencast
Features

* Automatically capture citations
* Remotely back up and sync your library
* Store PDFs, images, and web pages
* Cite from within Word and OpenOffice
* Take rich-text notes in any language
* Wide variety of import/export options
* Free, open source, and extensible
* Collaborate with group libraries

* Organize with collections and tags
* Access your library from anywhere
* Automatically grab metadata for PDFs
* Use thousands of bibliographic styles
* Instantly search your PDFs and notes
* Advanced search and data mining tools
* Interface available in over 30 languages
* Recommendation engine and RSS feeds"

Mikey Review: Fine-Tuning the iPhone's Audio Recorder

2009-09-25T02:37:00.000+02:00

Mikey Review: Fine-Tuning the iPhone's Audio Recorder: "

Mikey is an external microphone for the iPhone/iPod with three sensitivity settings that allow you to record everything from lectures to rock concerts.

Sensitivity settings work great for various types of recordings

Looks and feels really solid

Push Gmail for iPhone and Windows Mobile

2009-09-24T17:54:00.000+02:00

Push Gmail for iPhone and Windows Mobile: "Posted by Marcus Foster, Product Manager, Google Mobile

Those of you who live in your Gmail inboxes usually want to know what's happening with your email more instantly than standard fetch mail on your phone allows. Sure, using Gmail in your mobile browser gives you all the benefits of conversation threading and starring, but you still have to refresh every time you want to check for new mail.

When we launched Google Sync for Contacts and Google Calendar earlier this year, an over-the-air, always-on connection to sync mail was noticeably absent. We heard your requests loud and clear, and starting today you can use Google Sync to get your Gmail messages pushed directly to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or Windows Mobile device.

You can set up push Gmail by itself or choose to sync your Contacts and/or Calendar as well. If you're using an iPhone, make sure you're running iPhone OS version 3.0 or above (on your device, click Settings > General > About and scroll down until you see Version). If your software is out of date, follow Apple's upgrade instructions. Then, visit m.google.com/sync from your computer for set up instructions. If you're already using Google Sync, you can just enable push mail.

Once you're set up, new messages are normally pushed to your phone within seconds. While this type of speed is pretty awesome, push connections tend to use more power than fetching at intervals, so don't be surprised if your battery life isn't quite what it used to be. We've done a lot of work to optimize power usage, but if you prefer to save battery life, you can always turn off push in your phone's settings and fetch mail every 30 or 60 minutes instead.

Twitter API Wiki / FrontPage

2009-09-19T04:41:00.001+02:00

Twitter API Wiki / FrontPage: "Welcome to the Twitter API wiki. What are you coding?

Twitter API Documentation

* Getting Started
* Frequently asked questions
* API Changelog
* API Blog
* Known Defects and Enhancements List
* Long-term Enhancements

*

Support
*

Security Best Practices

OAuth

* OAuth FAQ
* OAuth Examples"

Facebook Developers

2009-09-19T04:41:00.000+02:00

Facebook Developers: "Build social applications on Facebook Platform

The web is social. Developers just like you have built applications on Facebook Platform that millions of people use everyday. Join our developer community and help make the web even more social.
Develop Meaningful Apps

Connect users and solve real-world problems with your applications. Build a business by offering users valuable experiences.
Join an Active Community

Building great applications is easy when you combine an active, passionate community with our forums, wiki, resources, and developer tools."

Truely Open and Freeware street maps

2009-03-20T22:06:00.001+02:00

"OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you.

OpenStreetMap allows you to view, edit and use geographical data in a collaborative way from anywhere on Earth."

Best of all it allows you a free license to use the data in your applications and websites and any other form.

Note for Cairo, Egypt it has much better street detail than Google maps.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/

How to Diagnose Sleep Disorders : Obstructive Sleep Apnea Treatment

2009-03-13T23:31:00.001+02:00

More info on diagnosis and treatment of Sleep Apnea. Very informative.

Sleep Apnea

2009-03-13T23:22:00.001+02:00

Sleep Apnea is a silent killer. Get it checked and treated now

Here is how the iPhone touch screen works!

2009-03-09T20:20:00.001+02:00

the iPhone's touch screen is said to have revolutionized the user interface for mobile phones, here is how it works.

On Collaboration and a Bit of Philosophy

2009-03-01T13:05:00.001+02:00

Please read the Wikipidea article then watch the video.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma