Ty's Tech Blog

For those of you who have been using FaceBook for a while, it is likely you still have posts popping up on your News Feed that you don’t want to see any more.  Whether it is a friend that you have lost interest in or a fan page of a business you don’t like anymore, it is very simple to remove these posts so that your FaceBook experience is more enjoyable.  Here is a video on how to remove or hide posts.

Everywhere I turn, I hear “iPad this….”, “iPhone that…..”. While I don’t have anything against Apple products, I know not everyone has one of these devices.  I don’t.  But I do know that many people have an Android based device (mostly phones) and they can be every bit as useful as their Apple counterparts.  The Android Market is growing exponentially every month and offers many of the same apps as the iTunes market.  Some Android apps are even better and/or cheaper than similar Apple apps.

Case in point.  CamScanner and SIGNificant are two FREE apps available in the Android market that work great.  CamScanner allows you to take a photo of anything and turn it into a .pdf file.  SIGNificant is an application that gives you the ability to physically sign a .pdf file.  The two applications are developed by two separate companies, but they work hand-in-hand.

Here is a video demonstration of how you can take a paper document, scan it, sign it and e-mail it, all from your Android OS device.

Not many people have to work on public computers. However, when you have to use a public machine, whether it is a friend’s computer, a work computer or a machine at an Internet cafe, there are a few things to remember to keep yourself (and others) protected.

First, if you are going to use a public machine, it is likely to check e-mail or one of you social media websites. Most people just close their browser when they are done working. I can attest to the fact that this does not always guarantee that you have been “logged off”. On NUMEROUS occasions, I have accessed a public machine at my work, opened a website only to see that I am signed in as someone else. I HAVE TOTAL CONTROL OF THEIR ACCOUNT!!!! Obviously I have no intentions of doing anything within another person’s account without their permission, but there are people that may not feel the same way. To avoid this scenario, there are two things to remember.

1. NEVER select a box that says, “remember me” or “keep me logged in” when entering in your user name or password on ANY website. Some websites even make you de-select this option, so BE CAREFUL.

2. When you are done working within a website, ALWAYS click the “sign out” or “log out” link on any site where you have to sign in. The option is usually in the top right or left corner of the website.

Another important thing to remember when working on a public machine is that if you are going to download a file or scan an image or document onto a computer, remember to DELETE the file when you are done (unless you need it for later and the information is benign in nature). Not only does the build up of files on a computer potentially slow down the machine, you are also making the information accessible to ANYONE else who uses that computer. All you have to do is remember where you downloaded the file, find it, delete it and MOST IMPORTANTLY, empty the Recycle Bin when you are done. Just because you deleted a file, doesn’t mean it has been removed from the computer. Just right-click on the Recycle Bin (which is usually found on your desktop) and select “empty recycle bin”. That should take care of it.

In a digital age, it is more important now than ever to make sure you take every precaution necessary to keep your information from falling into the wrong person’s hands. It is easy to forget things like these and I hope that if nothing else, this will act as a reminder to help keep yourself protected when using a computer, other than your own.

For those of you involved in social media, you have probably seen the evidence of a social media scam. I admit, they can be pretty easy to fall for. However, knowing what to look for will help you avoid these traps. Here are some samples of what to look out for.

Back when Osama Bin Laden was captured, there was a video scam going around on FaceBook that when someone clicked on the video, the user’s account would be hacked and then the scammer would have access to all of their information. It would also post the video on the user’s “wall”, hoping some of that person’s friends would click on the link as well. The reason this particular scam worked so well was because it took advantage of our own inquisitive human nature. The video Supposedly showed the actual video of Osama being killed. So naturally, A LOT of people clicked on the link to the video and then BOOM, they lost control of their account.

One way to tell if a video or link is a scam is to see if a lot of other people have posted the same link. The more people who post it, the more likely it is a scam. Also, looking at the content of the message will help as well. If it looks fishy, it probably is. Some other links that get a lot of attention are borderline pornographic, so definitely beware of those. If you are really curious, search Google for the video or article and see what happens. If it is a scam, a blog post or article that provides details about the scam will be one of the top results. You can also contact the person who posted the information either via phone, e-mail or direct message. They will likely say either “I don’t know what you’re talking about” or “yeah, it’s a scam”.

I have seen some strange things on Twitter as well. Here’s a good one. You may receive a notification that you were mentioned in an article and there is a link to it. The alert you receive would look something like this.

“@YourTwitterHandle check out this article you were mentioned in! http://bit.ly/adi234″ (note: this is not a real link)

Beware. Because of URL shortening services like bit.ly and others, it is very hard to tell if the link is real or not because it doesn’t show you where you are being directed. A simple rule is, if the message is pretty vague or if you don’t know who the sender is, move on. The more generic the message, the more suspicious you should be.

Common sense should rule when engaging in your social media. Always think twice about clicking on a link, because you never know what dangers lurk behind that seemingly harmless URL. Hopefully these examples which I have provided will help keep you and your accounts safe.

For a while, I had a tough time getting my arms around the idea of telling people where you are via services like FourSquare, FaceBook Places, Glympse, etc.  But I think I am starting to see the benefit of these services on a couple different levels.

 All three of the aforementioned services are very similar.  They allow you to “check-in”, or in other words, show  your network (ie. followers, friends, etc) where you are.    Here is how these services can benefit you.  Say you are  looking for a good place to eat while you waiting for a show.  You can quickly pull up all of the restaurants that are  near you, and some of them might have special offers (which are clearly marked) if you “check-in” with them.  For  instance, I was at a deli the other day and was able to save $1 off my meal because I “checked-in” there.   Also, when  you check-in to a place and your network sees this, you may get a response from them about their experience at  that establishment.  You may even find out that a friend of yours is nearby and they may want to meet up with you.  That “friend” could also be a potential or current client.

Another benefit of using one of these services is that you are opening a bit of a window to who you are without saying it which is a big component of social media as a whole.  For instance, one can imply that by checking in at a baseball stadium that you might be a fan of baseball.  This is good to notice when you see other people checking in at a venue, particularly your clients, good friends or family.  When it comes time to get them a gift, you can purchase a gift card from one of their favorite businesses.

Glympse is a tad different from the FourSquare and FaceBook Places concept  in that it shows your followers a real-time map of where you are.  So if you’re driving to meet up with people, they can see where you are and estimate how long it will be before you arrive.  Now, this takes a bit of pre-planning on your part as you have to register where you are going before you start your journey.  This could be useful way to track your kids or other family members as well.

Please take note that it is important that you control where these things post and who has access to see them.  I personally keep it limited to FaceBook because there I know who is going to see the information whereas on Twitter and other social media platforms, I don’t always know who is watching me.  So I have to be careful.

I suggest that you try these services out and see what you think.  They are all free and you don’t HAVE to check-in anywhere.  You are in total control.

Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your news feed  from the same people?  Do you ever look at FaceBook on your phone and you see a ton of information/posts that you don’t see when you are on your computer?  Don’t worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is due to some setting changes implemented in a recent FaceBook update.

The “New Facebook” has a news setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you’ve recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa – you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!!

HERE’S THE FIX: On your FaceBook homepage, click the “Most Recent” title on the right of the news feed, then click on the drop down arrow beside it and select “Edit Options”, click on “Show Posts From” and change the setting to “All Of Your Friends and Pages” (you can also access the “Edit Options” link at the very bottom of the facebook homepage on the right)
Note: Business pages do not have a news feed, however, page owners should adjust the settings on their personal accounts.

The good news is: now you can now view all of your friends and fans again. The bad news is: YOU ARE STILL INVISIBLE to a large portion of your list. You must get the word out to ALL of your friends and fans by forwarding this information to them so they can adjust their settings.

You can create your own event by clicking on the “Events” link on the left side of your page, and then click on the “Create New Event” button.  Set the date of the event a couple of weeks ahead, name the location “Internet” and put the information above in the “More Info” box.  You don’t need to invite all of your friends but you can, just to make sure they get all of the information.  Just make sure that you keep the event “Public” and remove the guest list option.  Your fans will see the information.

Hopefully this will help you get more out of your FaceBook account and also allow your followers to re-connect with you if you haven’t interacted with them in a while.

Because of the world-wide impact of the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death, doors of opportunity open for criminals and hackers to compromises the general public, their computers and social media accounts.  As with any other e-mail or link in Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Be very careful what you click on.  Anything that seems to provide further information about how Osama was killed, ie, videos or photos, will very likely be links to viruses or phishing scams that could compromise your e-mail and social media accounts.  When in doubt, pick up the phone and call the person who posted the link or e-mailed it to you and ask them if it was real.  It is very likely they will know whether or not it was real.

This is the universal symbol for paper loading

This is going to be a very short post and should also help a TON of people.  Around my office and even at my house I’ll hear, “which way am I supposed to insert the paper?”  Sometimes there are some more “colorful” words included in the sentence but the question remains the same.  ”How DO you tell which way to insert paper when going to print, scan or fax?”  It is easier than you think.

On the bottom of every paper drawer, tray, flap, etc. you will see an icon similar to this on the right.  This is how you tell which way to put in your paper or envelope.  Look for the lines, that tells you whether the paper should be face-up or face-down.  Then, a corner of the paper will be folded, that will tell you if the paper should go in top first or bottom first.  The image to the right tells us that the paper should go print side up, top first.

With this information, you should save yourself a lot of frustration when printing on letterhead, scanning or even faxing.  And with saved frustration comes saved time which everyone can enjoy.

This is a great, quick tip that is sure to save you some time. 

Do you have a website or a few websites that you consistently visit, but you don’t want to open your browser and search through your “Favorites” list to find them?  I have a quick solution that will allow you to create a desktop shortcut to ANY website.

Go to your desktop and right-click anywhere on the screen where there are NO icons.  Then select “New” and then select “Shortcut”.  Now, in the box provided, type in the FULL website address that you want to add (including the http://).  You can copy and paste this from your browser address bar if it is a long URL.  Once you have typed in the address, click “Next”.  Now, type in what you want to call the link (ie. FaceBook, My Website, etc).  Click “Finish”.

You should now have an icon on your desktop that when you double-click on it, it will take you straight to that website.

This is a great little tip that in the long run will save you some time and frustration.

I get asked quite often what I think of a particular phone or which phone I would recommend when someone is ready to make a change.  It is a tough question to answer since I have not had the pleasure of using every phone made.  That would be pretty sweet though.  However, I think that each person is going to want different features in a phone, so it really doesn’t matter what I think.

What I may want or dislike could be the exact opposite of what the person asking wants or needs.  So I take a different approach when handling the question “what phone should I get?”.  I ask questions, such as.

1. Do you want a phone or a toy?
2. Do you want a keyboard?
3. Do you care what kind of operating system it uses?
4. Do you want a camera and if so, how are you going to use it?
5. Is battery life important?

These questions give me a pretty good lead into the type of device I would recommend.  Here is what I’m looking for with each of these questions.

1. Do you want a phone or a toy? The new breed of smartphones can do so much, it could make your head spin trying to explore the full capabilities.  If you don’t consider yourself “techie”, stick with simple phones like the Blackberry.  If you want to be able to browse the web and watch videos, then the iPhone, Android or Microsoft Windows Mobile devices will be better suited for you.

2. Do you want a keyboard? I personally have had trouble with touch-screen phones.  While one of the main benefits of that technology are you get a large, easy to view screen, the downside is there is nothing tactile to help you type.  Which I personally would like to have, especially when I am “on the go”.  Blackberry provides some options with keyboards.  You also have many options when looking at Android OS phones.  The iPhone does not and likely will never have a built-in keyboard.

3. Do you care what kind of operating system it uses? The operating system is important because if you are a Mac person, you will naturally gravitate to the iPhone.  If you don’t care, then you get more options.  Android is quickly gaining ground on Apple’s OS (iOS) as the #1 phone operating system on the market.  This is because it is open-source and is available on so many devices.  The Android marketplace is also growing very quickly and is getting the new apps that Apple gets just because Android can’t be ignored any longer by software developers trying to make a buck.  Then you have the Blackberry OS (Symbian) and the reemergence of the Windows Mobile OS which is fairly new.  Again, Blackberrys are pretty bulletproof.   You don’t get all kinds of options so it is hard to mess them up.  Windows Mobile is going to pick up some ground on the iPhone and Andriod OS but may be getting into the game a little too late.

4. Do you want a camera and if so, how are you going to use it? The camera in a phone is important to a lot of people now that the resolutions are increasing so quickly (up to 8mp in some models).  If you don’t plan on taking a lot of pictures with your phone, you can save yourself some money by buying a model that doesn’t have the highest resolution camera.

5. Is battery life important? The battery life of a phone is critical.  If you are a road warrior and need to have a charged phone at all times, pay very close attention to the “Usage time” and note that in most cases they tell you the MOST you’ll get out of it.  The reality is, you’re going to get less.  Much less in some cases depending on how you use the phone (browsing the internet, watching videos, playing music, etc).  The bigger, more flashy the phone, the less battery life you’re going to get.  Period.  There are things you can do to your phone to get the most out of the battery, however, some of those actions can decrease the attractiveness and usability.  Or you can carry a spare battery or a emergency recharging kit in the event your phone dies and you don’t have a charger nearby.  There is a pretty cool device available that works great.  It is a solar charger for mobile devices.  All you need is sunlight and you can charge your phone.  You can recharge it using your computer as well.  You can find out more about it HERE.  Another nice feature of this device is if you buy one, the proceeds go to the Sentinels of Freedom, AZ Scholarship Foundation.  Visit their website HERE for more information.

Another piece of advice is that when you go to purchase your phone, find a floor model to hold and use.  Play with it a little bit and see what you think.  Find the phone that “fits”.  Something else to be aware of is your provider’s return/re-stocking policy.  Most carriers will give you at least 14 days to try out a phone.  The downside is you may have to pay a re-stocking fee if you return it.  Paying the fee is better than being stuck with a $300-$700 brick you don’t like or don’t know how to use.

So with these things in mind, you can zero in on the phone that will best serve YOU.  Talk to people you know that are similar to you professionally and in gadget competency and see what they think.  Go to websites that offer hands-on reviews of phones.  I like www.Cnet.com.  Do your homework and I’m sure you will make the right decision.