WireMeDigital

Steve Jobs Has Passed Away

2011-10-05T18:34:00.000-07:00

Today the world has lost a brilliant man. Since the '70s Steve Jobs has helped to shape the computer and electronics industry. I for one owe my start in computers to Apple. The products that Steve was responsible for creating have really changed how we all interact with technology.

He will be missed.

Some links about Steve:

Apple
Wikipedia
Engadget
Gizmodo

How to open an archive or personal folder in Outlook 2003

2011-08-27T22:17:00.000-07:00

How to open an archive or personal folder in Outlook 2003

Click the “File” menu:

Then hover your mouse pointer over the “Open” menu item:

Then click on “Outlook Data File...”

When the window appears you should already be in your “Outlook” folder:

In the main section of the window there should be a file named “archive”. If you have extensions turned on then there will be a “.pst” after the file name. You may also have a file named “Personal Folders”.

Highlight the file by clicking once with the left mouse button and then click on the “OK” button:

On the left side of your “Microsoft Outlook” window you should see a new “Archive Folders” icon with a plus sign next to it:

Click the plus sign to expand the folders within the archive:

The folders you see are dependent on the setting for your email archiving. Click on each folder to start browsing the information held within.

Can You Disable Facebook Facial Recognition?

2011-06-08T07:52:00.001-07:00

The answer is simple, YES you can. Facebook has a new facial recognition feature that will find pictures of you by using your face and recommend to your friends that they tag you in that photo. Basically any picture of you on Facebook can be tracked and pointed out to your friends. I personally do not need EVERYONE I know seeing EVERY picture of me on Facebook ever. Luckily we can disable this feature with a few easy mouse clicks. This will force friends to manually tag your pictures versus Facebook automatically suggesting pictures for people. Common are we getting that lazy that we can't search for pictures and manually click TAG?

1. Open your Privacy Settings
2. Click Customize Settings (it is towards the bottom)
3. Scroll down to the "Suggest Photos of Me to Friends"
4. Click Edit Settings
5. From the drop down box click disable

Done and done.

Remember it is a good idea to take a spin through the Privacy Settings every so often to see what else Facebook has snuck in under the "Radar."

iOS 5 Preview at Engadget

2011-06-07T09:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to an Engadget post regarding the iOS 5 preview for iPhone and iPad. I am a little busy today so I will not do my own write up with gleaned information.

iOS Preview

You will notice its cloud features that tie into the new and coming OS X Lion. Also, there appears to be additional multitasking features and notification features that were previously lacking.

Microsoft System Sweeper

2011-06-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a PC so infected it would not boot? Perhaps this machine is so infected that scanning from within Windows, or even, Safe Mode will not succeed. We in IT have all tried various scanning utilities to get a PC to boot from outside of Windows. Well it seems that Microsoft is taking their AV tools a step further than their rather GOOD Security Essentials and giving us an easy solution.

I introduce you to System Sweeper Beta from Microsoft. This tool creates a bootable CD, DVD, or USB media that you can load into the machine. From there you can boot to this utility and do a malware scan while Windows lies dormant. Currently this tool is in Beta and comes in both a 32 bit and 64 bit flavor. System Sweeper is OS agnostic, but does have to match the OS architecture.

Japanese Science Fiction to Become Reality

2011-06-06T06:52:00.000-07:00

Japanese Shimizu Corporation has a plan straight out of anime science fiction to create 13,000 terawatts of power by turning the moon into a giant solar collector. After the tragic meltdown of the Fukushimi nuklear power station Japan has begun thinking outside the box, or to say, outside the globe for another save solution with no adverse effects on our planet.

The plan is to wrap the moon in a 12 mile wide 6,800 mile long ring of solar panels dubbed the "Luna Ring." Using either microwaves or lasers this energy would be "beamed" to the planet to base stations that would be able to transform that into usable power. I hope this will not cause any other issues with the atmosphere, Ozone layer, or climate.

Follow the link: Japanese Corporation Plans to Turn the Moon Into a Massive Solar Power Plant

Don't Take The Bait

2011-04-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

Do to the recent activity with companies being breached and email databases being stolen I thought it would be a good time to remind email users to be careful when reading email.

For those that may not know there have been security breaches at multiple marketing companies. These include Play.com, Silverpop and more recently Epsilon. One of the services that these marketing companies provide is email distribution for their customers. The customers of these companies include but are not limited to McDonalds, US Bank, JPMorgan Chase, TiVo, Capital One, the Home Shopping Network, LL Bean Visa Card, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, Best Buy, Disney Destinations, Walgreens, Citi, College Board and many more. If you have ever signed up with one of the above companies you may receive an email from them stating that your information may have been exposed to unauthorized access. It is being reported by some of the companies that only names and email addresses were compromised and no personally identifiable information was released.

Because of the recent breaches you may receive more spam and phishing emails. Click here to see a short guide that will help you to identify email scams.

As a precaution, I also recommend taking this time to review all of your online accounts to make sure that complex passwords are in use.

Google Chrome Cr-48 Notebook Piolt Program

2011-02-10T10:24:00.001-08:00

I signed up for the Chrome OS Pilot program a couple of months ago and was blessed with receiving a Cr-48 notebook from Google. Google has this idea that computing is moving to the cloud (online hosts) and that most of what typical users do is online anyways. Think about how much you use youtube, facebook, web based email clients, online docs, online file storage, online banking, etc. The benefits are things like always having your data and apps saved online so that each time you log on to any Google Chrome OS machine your experience is exactly the same. Chrome OS is basically a Chrome browser on steroids. If you are familiar with the Chrome browser you would do just find on Chrome OS. You get the same themes, tabbed browsing, and apps from the Google App store. What you will not find on the Cr-48 is a local file browser (or at least one that is more powerful than the downloads menu) any or any local computing like a cache of your Gmail.

Over all I am really pleased with the hard ware. If is finished in a matte black rubberized finish, includes a MAC like touch pad, and a built in webcam. What i find odd is the SD card port that I can not access without using a web based photo app like Picasa web.

The full specs include:

Intel Atom Processor N455 1.66Ghz 512K Cacke

Tripod Motherboard MARIO

Hynix 2GB DDR3 PC3 RAM

ITE IT8500 Flash ROM

SanDisk sdsa4dh-016 16GB SATA SSD

Qualcomm GObi2000 PCI Express Mini Card

AsureWave 802.11 a/b/g/n/ PCI-E Half Mini Card

Atheros AR5BBU12 Bluetooth V 2.1 EDR (it is listed as hardware, but no software support has been found

So far using the notebook as an "always with me browser" has worked fine for what it is for. If users expect to use this for ONLINE ONLY Activities then this may be a success. My worry is that since it is a "laptop" people will expect it to perform like a standard laptop running Windows/OS X/Linux it will fail. Google has put a lot of effort into making this work out like the Google Cloud Print which allows you to print to your network printer from anywhere including the Chrome OS.

I would like to see some type of local dashboard that you log into before starting the Chrome browser which can give you basic local access to files, cached email, and shortcuts to apps (local or online). Also I would expect to see a real file browser, it does not have to be super complicated, just copy, paste, move, etc. would be needed. Configuration is also not something that is easily done...if at all. I do enjoy what they are getting at and I can see the purpose, but I am left feeling trapped inside of my browser, heh I keep trying to minimize it for Pete's sake. I hope that Google uses this Beta program well and makes some of the changes that its users are surely coming up with. I am not against cloud computing, I just do not want to be trapped in it.

BTW: This post was written on the Cr-48.

EDIT: I attempted to watch Netflix videos. Currently Netflix is not supported on Chrome OS however the Netflix website says the following:

Watching instantly on your computer

Dear Chrome Pilot user,

Streaming is not currently supported on your device. We're working with Google to ensure that Chrome Notebook users can instantly watch TV shows and movies from Netflix. More details will be announced in the coming months.

Note that your current Internet browser is fully compatible with adding titles to the Instant Queue for later watching on compatible devices.

Complete System Requirements

To watch instantly, you'll need a computer that meets the following minimum requirements:

Windows
- Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Vista or Windows 7
- Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher; or Firefox 3 or higher; or Chrome 7 or higher
- 1.2 GHz processor
- 512 MB RAM
Mac
- An Intel-based Mac with OS 10.4.11 or later
- Safari 3 or higher; or Firefox 3 or higher
- 1 GB RAM

This had to be shown to the World!!

2011-02-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

I do not know what else to say but bravo. bravo good sir.

Bing Caught Looking Over Google's Shoulder

2011-02-01T16:54:00.000-08:00

Google set up a sting operation to verify some suspicions that Bing was cheating off of them. According to an article at Search Engine Land, Google noticed that Bing's search results started to become very similar to their own when misspelled words were entered. Google devised a way to create synthetic results to test their theory. Using highly misspelled words, Google engineers ran test searches from their homes using Internet Explorer and the Bing Toolbar. By the end of December some of the results started to show up in Bing search results.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself "Who cares" but the search engine wars are still going on. This shows that the information that people put into a search engine is valuable and companies are willing to fight for it. With only two major search engines in the US, since Yahoo uses Bing's results, these kind of tactics are not going to go away. Is this right or wrong or are you indifferent as long as you get the results that get you where you want to be? After reading the article let us know what you think.

Facebook is Up to Some Naughty Shenanigans

2011-01-25T15:58:00.001-08:00

All i can say is that this is bad. Datronacon brought this to my attention a short while ago, I then read it, and am passing it on to you. Just think about what you "like" on websites or on Facebook. This is a new ad feature that appears to remove alot of privacy and freedom from the user to pad the pockets of companies that would use this "service." They call these sponsored stories. Basically if you were to "like" something from a vendor the example in the article was Starbucks then an ad shows up as a sponsored story and on your wall as if you typed it yourself. You can say ADS CAN SUCK IT and the post will say Omnivox says ADS CAN SUCK IT at Starbucks. To add insult to injury if someone wrote something negative about a product (as it is free to do) the vendor can delete that "sponsored"story so they don't look bad. The user has NO control and this simply will not do.

Irina states, "The unit will give brand-related action such as a "like" or a check-in a lot more visibility on Facebook by adding them to an ad unit in addition to users' news feeds.

For example, if Starbucks buys a "sponsored story" ad, the status of a user's friends who check into or "like" Starbucks will run twice: once in the user's news feed, and again as a paid ad for Starbucks. Though clearly marked with the words "sponsored story," the ad -- which will includes a user's name, just like the news feed -- is not optional for Facebook users."

and

"The way that the product is today, a check-in post will show up in the ad feed exactly as the user wrote it. So if a user checks into Starbucks with a "I hate this place, but it's the only coffee around" then that's exactly what the "ad" turns out to be.

Facebook is aware of this possibility, because people will be people, and it has left a "flag" button for "inappropriate content." Advertisers that don't want to take the chance of having negative sponsored stories pop up about them can limit their buys to likes. "As a marketer, you can say that I'm only going to do 'like' stories, since there is no way to change that," said Facebook marketing lead Jim Squire. "So you can figure out which is the best option for your organization.""

Please follow the link to adage.com to read more. I feel this is important for everyone to see and understand.

Even an Android Needs Protection

2011-01-04T15:34:00.000-08:00

You may not realize it but even mobile phones can become infected with malware. Smart phones run on an actual OS that is very similar to a desktop computer or laptop which makes them vulnerable to the same type of attacks. One such attack is currently happening in China with Android powered phones. There is a sophisticated Trojan that has botnet-like capabilities that is being called "Geinimi".

This Trojan is being grafted into legitimate applications and then distributed in a third-party Chinese app market for Androids. According to the mobile security company Lookout, this trojan has not been found in any applications in the official Google Android Market. Below are some tips from Lookout on how to stay safe.

Only download applications from trusted sources, such as reputable application markets. Remember to look at the developer name, reviews, and star ratings.
Always check the permissions an app requests. Use common sense to ensure that the permissions an app requests match the features the app provides.
Be aware that unusual behavior on your phone could be a sign that your phone is infected. Unusual behaviors include: unknown applications being installed without your knowledge, SMS messages being automatically sent to unknown recipients, or phone calls automatically being placed without you initiating them.
Download a mobile security app for your phone that scans every app you download. Lookout users automatically receive protection against this Trojan.

Trendnet AP Ups the Ante with 450Mbp/s Hotness

2010-12-22T10:44:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I ran into this little gem at Engadget.com. They got their hands on a press release from Trendnet regarding the TEW-690AP. I believe the below quote speaks for itself.

TRENDnet® Launches First to Market 450Mbps Wireless Access Point

Trendnet (12/20/2010)

TORRANCE, Calif. –December 20, 2011–TRENDnet, a best-in-class wired and wireless networking hardware brand today announces the launch of the first to market 450Mbps Wireless N Access Point, model TEW-690AP, which supports Access Point, Wireless Distribution System (WDS), and Repeater mode functionality.

Advanced Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna technology with three spatial streams per antenna, generates a maximum theoretical wireless throughput of 450Mbps and exceptional wireless coverage.

A Gigabit Ethernet port maintains high performance wired connections. Advanced features include 4 SSIDs per wireless band, unique encryption for each SSID, WMM Quality of Service (QoS) data prioritization, WPA2-RADIUS encryption, and a convenient on/off power switch.

Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) integrates other WPS supported wireless adapters at the touch of a button. Gone are the days of entering complicated encryption codes; simply press the WPS button on the TEW-690AP, and then press the WPS button on a compatible wireless adapter-the devices automatically exchange information and connect.

"TRENDnet will be the first brand to bring a full portfolio of 450Mbps solutions to market," stated Zak Wood, Director of Global Marketing for TRENDnet. "Expect more first to market announcements in the coming New Year at CES."

The 450Mbps Wireless N Access Point, model TEW-690AP, comes with a three year limited warranty and is currently shipping to TRENDnet's online and retail partners.

The MSRP for the TEW-690AP is U.S. $ 199.99.

Change Your Internet Account Passwords

2010-12-22T08:49:00.000-08:00

Lets be honest, no one uses "strong" passwords on personal Internet based resources. Following some basic rules to creating strong passwords can help keep your accounts safe. A recent post at Slashdot.org states that 26% of users use the same password for multiple important web based resources. Recently Gawker based websites were hacked by the Anonymous group associated with 4chan. If you had an account with Lifehacker or Gizmodo and used the same password for your email or banking site, then you may have a big problem.

Here are some simple guidelines for creating a strong password:

Use 8 characters with one capital, at least one number, and one special character. IE: Netw0rk!
Do not include personal information such as a name or address.
Do not use the same password on multiple resources such as email, social network, or bank website.
Try not to use the same password or variants when resetting the password on a web resource
If you have any suspicious activity on a resource be safe and change the password quickly. Also, if you share that password with other web based resources like mentioned above change them as well.

Steam Gears Up For the Holidays, Discounts 1000+ Games

2010-12-22T08:25:00.001-08:00

Valve's Steam platform is an immensely popular way to deliver digital content to a PC. Using Steam is much like that of Xbox Live, but for the PC rather than the console. You get many of the same features, friends lists, voice chat, and online gaming. What sets Steam apart besides being geared for the PC is that their store prices are super competitive. Also, using Steam one can "gift" a title to a friend. The store is constantly putting titles on sale especially around the holidays and this Christmas is no different. Tomshardware.com reports that the Steam Holiday Sale is offering up to 80% off of selected games. Trust me it is easy to go a little crazy and gobble up more games than you can play at these prices.

The sale does have an interesting twist. Each day of the sale has a special bonus on one selected title. Valve says, "The twist: Players must qualify for the Holiday Bonus by owning another Steam game. For example, the first Holiday Bonus is Portal--save an extra 10-percent if you own Half-Life 2. If you already own the title, Steam will automatically detect this and offer you the 10-percent savings during check out."

So, follow the link to the Steam site to see what gaming goodness you can get your hands off. Remember it is the season of giving....so feel free to gift me something nice ;-).

Chrome for a Cause

2010-12-22T07:56:00.002-08:00

The folks at Google are trying to save the world one Chrome tab at a time. I have always been impressed with the work at Google as they strive to make solutions to improve our daily lives, or just to show off what the human imagination can come up with. Recently they have earned my respect a second time. Today they posted the results for a project titled Chrome for a Cause.

Basically users could install an extension in their Chrome browser for Chrome for a Cause which would "donate" each opened tab to charity. Each person can choose which causes their tabs would support. At the end Google made a donation to the charities using the results of the Chrome for a Cause project. Mashable.com calls the project Innovative Charity and I could not agree more. One million dollars has been donated and allocated to the causes based on the results from the browser extension. Innovative Charity indeed.

Google went on to say at the end of their blog post that they are already thinking of more Chrome for a Cause projects in the future. Is this the future of charitable works?

Android Gets More Swype Love

2010-12-21T09:09:00.000-08:00

Swype has become a verb associated with Android phones as a way to type that is not your traditional method. Since its appearance in 2009 Swype has made headlines as being a revolution to how we text or email on our Android phones. Even the world texting record was made on a Swype keyboard by Melissa Thompson, a 27 year old woman from Britain. The problem is that Swype was not made available for all Android platforms and had to be installed from hacks or ports that other more advanced users had created.

Swype allows the user to draw words across the keyboard without the requirement of lifting a finger. The keyboard then inserts the word you drew, if for some reason it is not able to get the correct word you would be greeted bya popup box with selections that closest match the drawn word. The system has been ported to other android phones such as my original DROID, but has not been developed to much, that is until today. An announcement was made that the Swype Beta has opened up on Swype.com. The sign up process is ridiculously simple. You register at the website they will automatically detect your screen size and send you an email with installation instructions. If there is a problem with the installation follow the step-by-step install details link.

I have been using the new Swype keyboard for a couple hours and based off my initial tests, I like it. The keyboard "feels" a little more responsive and more forgiving on errors. Also, the pop up menu for suggested words has been tweaked which I find easier to interface with. Before when I would tilt my phone for a landscape mode the keyboard would not display correctly which I assume was a resolution issue. At this current time I find the new Swype Beta improved from the previous version and not "nerfed" in any way.

*Note* If you already have Swype installed you will need to uninstall the old version before installing the new beta.

Absolutely Incredible Video Editing

2010-12-21T08:01:00.000-08:00

I found this amazing video this morning on Gizmodo.com. The tagline from the video on Vimeo.com says, "Made with no money, just a little time and a lot of passion." After watching this short video a few times, yes i agree it has a lot of passion. This is the kind of video editing that can be done with tools like Final Cut Pro HD, HD cameras, and the right skilled people. Hats off to BC2010 for his work.

MODERN TIMES from BC2010 on Vimeo.

When the Battery Vampire Strikes

2010-12-20T22:32:00.000-08:00

For me it was last week. I own an original Droid that has served me well for about a year now. I was happy to get the latest Android update, which is 2.2.1. Everything had been working fine until last week when I noticed that my phone was a little warm. Having learned the qwerks of this phone I know that if the phone is warm then it is doing a lot of processing. So, I checked the battery level and the processes that were running. The battery was already down to 50 percent and the day wasn't even half over which is odd for this phone. The running processes looked a little odd to me also. Near the top of the list was "Android OS" and "Email" which is usually closer to the bottom of the list.

Now I'm not saying that the update is the cause of this but it did come to mind. So, over the weekend I did a little research. I found that there are some other people that started having a problem with this also. Nothing that I read clued me into what was going on until I came across this post on the Android Forums. I gave the suggestion a try and I disable syncing for just the calendar on my Exchange account. It worked! I was excited but still baffled as to why this would have happened. The next day everything was good until the evening and I noticed that my phone was a little warm again. I checked and my phone was at it again. This time I decided to disable automatic syncing and it stopped the constant data flow. Phew. I started to think back to when I noticed this problem and what it was that I had done in my Exchange account. I remembered on the two days that this had happened I entered a couple of appointments into my calendar through Outlook 2007. It didn't make any sense that my phone would still be acting up without the calendar being syncronized.

I decided after playing with a few more settings to just remove my exchange account off of my phone and then recreate it. When I added the account back in I left the boxes unchecked for syncronizing the calendar and contacts just to see what would happen. For now everything is working as normal but I can't continue without my calendar and contacts being synchronized. I will continue diagnosing this problem and update this post when I learn more. If anybody else may know what caused this or how to fix it please leave a comment.

Don't Miss the Lunar Eclipse

2010-12-20T12:37:00.001-08:00

Tonight will be the first lunar eclipse on winter solstice in over 300 years, complete with meteor shower. Don't miss it as it won't happen for another 400 according to another source.

SPACE.com -- Tonight's Lunar Eclipse Comes With a Rare Twist

*UPDATE* The eclipse last night was beautiful. It is always humbling to witness something so grand and reflecting on the size of our world as humans. Here is link to a photo gallery at Life.com with some amazing photos of the eclipse for those of you who missed it. Remember a lunar eclipse on winter solstice will not happen again for many lifetimes.

Blue Line Helps your Bottom Line

2010-12-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

A recent trip through the Internets has led me to a green concept that is picking up steam. The concept of a "green" house is not necessarily new, but I don't think certain aspects have been caught in mainstream. Most new home buyers know to look for the latest in Energy Star appliances, energy efficient windows, and the latest insulation to save money on that energy bill. My question is how many home buyers / owners know that they can monitor their power consumption so they can learn where to save on the monthly power bill? Utility companies will begin rolling out smart meters on homes across the land that more accurately measure power consumption. Currently the smart meter technology is not nation wide, being adopted so far in Northern California, L.A, San Diego, Austin, Houston, and Dallas. Each region is in different phases of implementation with the California regions making the most headway. In the Houston area the estimated completion of CenterPoint's smart meter roll out is slated for 2012. These smart meters talk to a Home Area Network wirelessly using the ZigBee Smart Energy Protocol and will allow utility companies to better see what home power use is and at what times of the day. One aspect that I am wary of is remote disconnects which are made available by the technology. The one benefit of such a quick disconnect remotely is that if you need to be reconnected to the grid, they can simply reconnect you at the click of the mouse rather than sending a tech out to your house. Each smart meter network may be implemented differently, but are still similar in functionality and idealogical.

Lets say you don't have a smart meter and would also like to monitor your power usage some way, enter Blue Line Innovations. They have a product called the PowerCost Monitor 28000 which can work with either a digital smart meter or the standard analogue power meter on most homes in the U.S. Blue Line claims on their website that buy using their device you can save up to $250 pear year on your home electricity bill. Reaching a feat of saving $250 a year or more is only achieve able by measuring your current usage and using that new knowledge to make educated changes to your home making it more efficient. By itself the PowerCost Monitor 28000 will read your meter and display its readings on a wireless hand held remote. For a cool $250 the PowerCost Monitor WiFi edition can be had which bundles the PowerCost monitor and the WiFi Gateway together. In my opinion the WiFi bundle is the only way to purchase this solution. It comes with a device that straps to your existing power meter which monitors your consumption and sends the results to the LCD handheld. One reason to seriously think about using a product like Blue Line is that you can keep the power company honest. If there is a discrepancy you can now have information at hand to work with. To take the functionality up to the surreal Blue Line offers the WiFi Gateway which interfaces with the PowerCost Monitor as well as Either Microsoft Hohm or Google PowerMeter.

The idea is simple, use the PowerCost Monitor to send its data wirelessly to the WiFi gateway which in turn allows either of the above mentioned web services to display the data in a way that is understandable to the home owner. Both services are free to use in and of themselves. Also, both Google and Microsoft are partnered with Blue Line Innovations which translates to tight integration.

Microsoft Hohm allows you to search your home from their homepage and it will give you an estimate of your possible saving with Hohm. My home in Texas can save a possible $1370 a year according to the website with an Average Energy Home Cost of $2760. From what I have seen the Hohm product is a little more in depth than the Google product. My goal today is not so much as to write a review or even an in depth product comparison. I merely wish to make the power monitoring solution known. Here is a sample usage report from the Hohm website. As you can see it breaks down the energy usage data daily well. One thing i like about the Hohm project is the energy breakdown by type such as heating, cooling, and lighting. Both products give you daily, monthly, and yearly data complete with averages yet Hohm seems to delve de

eper. With Hohm you get more interesting interface choices such as recommendations for power savings. MS Hohm tries to create a more home profile based experience that is also a social experience allowing users to share energy saving tips online. You can also start using Hohm without purchasing a monitoring device by answering the setup questions about your home.

Google did come first in the race for the web based Energy monitor console (only by a few months). With Google's PowerMeter the home owner gets a cleaner interface albeit with less to do. The PowerMeter can also be added to a users igoogle page as part of their daily workflow. Checking your power consumption can be as easy as checking new headlines or the weather. This Google PowerMeter sample page shows a description of a typical Home seen by the software. Keep in mind that to use this product one must have a smart meter or a third party monitor such as the Blue Line product. PowerMeter has a rather nifty budget tracker that will actively tell the home owner if they are over or under the daily budget. This along with the Always On Power bar can help a user track their possible power hogs. Google has also linked some testimonials to their website for those interested in saving on power as well.

PowerMeter does a very good job at tracking the power usage of a home but doesn't offer as deep a feature set as Hohm. Both products track power trends well, but Hohm has that something extra. If one wishes to have quick at a glance power usage data that is easy to navigate then PowerMeter is the one for your however if one wishes to really get their hands dirty and drill down into their homes power consumption then Hohm may not be a bad place to start. Either way you go I would highly recommend installing a Blue Line PowerCost Monitor behind it to really save on your bottom line.

*Note* Below are two videos one for each of the web based power monitor products.

Wolfram Alpha Search Engine for Math?

2010-12-20T07:11:00.000-08:00

Recently I witnessed a colleague doing a search online. I know that this may not be ground breaking or surprising in this day and age, but what caught my eye was what he was searching for. This person was not searching for a simple text string, but rather an exact conversion formula. Actually, he was searching for the conversion of gigabits per second to megabytes per second. The think to remember is that bits are smaller than bytes as there are eight bits in a byte, but you already knew that right? This morning I was reading headlines as I always do and came across an article at Lifehacker titled "Top 10 Ways to Find Better Answers Online (That Aren't Google)" and number seven on this list was WolframAlpha which is the same site I saw in use the other day. The fact that I am now reading about this search tool days after seeing it in action for the first time made me think that it is God's way of telling me to share it with the world. It is an obscure tool as of recent.

Now, WolframAlpha is not the same type of search engine as Google or Yahoo. Rather than searching for popular restaurants, shopping ideas, or a historical article you would search for data transfer times (networking reference). In my example (see image below) I searched for data transfer time 1.5GB, 5Mb/s. What I am asking is for the time it takes to download a 1.5 gigabyte file over a five megabit per second connection. My example is just the tip of the iceberg as your equations can be more precise and cover fields from mathematics, physics, chemistry, weather, materials, to dates & times. If you are not sure how to ask your question there is a example by topic link on the home page.

Good luck balancing that check book now or that tricky math homework. ;-)

Google Maps Human Culture Through Written Words

2010-12-17T12:42:00.000-08:00

Today I stumbled across an interesting find at slashdot.org, well I didn't so much stumble as i read their posts every few days. Google has been working on a project called the Google Books Ngram Viewer that has basically converted the human history worth of books into a digital format so that the text could be studied. This marks a breakthrough for social scientists, linguists, and a world worth of scholars. The tool is fun to play with as well. Since 2004 Google has indexed 5 million books with over 500 billion words into their databases. Since the advent of the Encyclopedia Britannica the English language has evolved and our daily lexicon has changed by leaps and bounds since the turn of the millennium. In the day of texting, emails, and heavy use of acronyms our language has become vastly different than the spoken English of the 1900s. This link to Discover Magazine delves deeper into the rabbit hole that is the cultural genome. The reading may be on the dry side, but it is no less exciting. I could easily geek out at explaining the feat it is to document and index so much knowledge, I am then reminded of an episode of Eureka that featured a similar phenomenon. So, follow the link and enjoy searching through HISTORY!

*Note* At the bottom of the search there is a grid filled with links of time periods, click the links and you will receive a list of books from that era.

Crazy Awesome Human Anatomy Browser

2010-12-17T07:28:00.000-08:00

Google Labs who is always creating experimental pieces of software has created the Google Body Browser. Think of the Body Browser as Google Earth, but for the human anatomy. Using WebGL (web based 3D graphics rendering) over HTML5 combined with Zygote 3D artwork the Google team has created a web application that allows you to search the human body. One can zoom in and rotate various systems in the body using an intuitive interface. By using the search box in the upper right of the screen you can search for say, liver, and from there the display will zoom in on the liver in exact detail. This system is detailed enough to drill down to nervous system pathways, pretty cool if you ask me. I know we at Wiremedigital talk allot about Google, but they create such neat toys that are easily accessible to anyone. So far this app requires Firefox 4 or Google Chrome to work, but who is not using Chrome these days?

Future Tech to Protect The Borders

2010-12-15T21:06:00.000-08:00

Patrolling the US borders is no easy task. Keeping track of the vast expanse of land takes allot of man power and frankly not everything can bee seen all of the time. No matter what your politics may be concerning border/immigration control we can all agree that the drug cartel tunnels need to be stopped. By digging tunnels past our borders drug runners have setup a network that can facilitate various illegal activity such as smuggling drugs into our country or even people. Worst case scenario is that these tunnels are an open conduit to our country that a terrorist organization can utilize.

The people at the University of Arizona College of Engineering have developed a system known as Helios that can track movements above and below the ground surface. Using laser pulses through buried fiber-optic cables the system can detect the movement of humans or vehicles. Not only can it detect movement, but the system is sensitive enough to tell the difference between humans, animals, and vehicles while also displaying whether or not they are running, walking or digging. It is actually not the newest technology to be implemented, but the scale is greatly increased due to the size of the geography. Follow the link above for more details.