I honestly had never really heard of this until this week, but it seems that every day there’s a new article in gadget and consumer news about card skimming. Card skimming is a con where people retrofit ATM machines with hidden cameras to read your credit card numbers when you slide your card in. The mini cameras can be hidden behind plastic fittings that look like the usual ATM casing, inside information boxes, and any number of other spots. Sites like the Consumerist and Gizmodo are recommending that you give any ATM machine a look over before you slide in your card.
As I was reading through my RSS feeds, I came across a blog post on the Flip the Media blog entitled Can you live with your mobile phone? (I think they meant to say ‘without’ because the first line in the article started the same way.) Either way, I thought it was an interesting question, so I decided to check it out. The post was rather shorter than I expected, but luckily, the author linked to the source of their inspiration for the entry: You phone, your life: New apps change how you use mobile devices by John Boudreau of Mercury News.
They tell us where to eat, how to find friends, when to make a left turn.
Oh, and they can also make a phone call.
What a great starting set of lines. It’s so true. With the dawn of the Apple App Store (and subsequent app stores), you really can get software that perform almost any function that you need at any given time. What, you don’t have Midomi? Even then it’s only a few clicks and problem solved. You can find restaurants, keep track of expenses, make calls, text, update Twitter, check sports scores, etc. all from your cell phone. I think what’s even more impressive is that these services aren’t even limited to Apps on a smartphone. There’s numerous services you can sign up for that let you access information without even having a smartphone, just by using simple SMS (text messages).
I think I could live without my phone, my computer, etc. pretty easily for a set amount of time, but being the gadget freak that I am, I’d start to feel withdrawals within a few days. I have been in the habit lately of trying to avoid plugging in my computer on the weekends (unless I have a job deadline). I also try not to use it too much at night. During those times though, I find that I still have to check my email, Twitter, etc. I just use my iPod Touch. I think it’s a good compromise. I do not own a iPhone or other smartphone (although I may update this Summer). I find that I can achieve a perfect balance between my cellphone (Samsung Alias with flip QWERTY keyboard), my iPod Touch, and my laptop. I use my laptop most days, for the majority of the day. When I’m not “plugged in” I use my cellphone’s SMS capabilities on the go or my iPod Touch if I happen upon a wireless hot spot or in my apartment.
If I don’t need wireless, I prefer my iPod Touch. I keep track of my expenses, track notes, play games, write drafts of blog entries, listen to music, etc. If I need to say, update my Twitter, Facebook, Netflix Queue, etc. and I don’t have wireless, I can easily do all that and more from my cellphone via SMS. I could “live without” my phone, but I certainly wouldn’t want to.
In the past year, there’s quite a few magazines that I subscribed to. A few are worthwhile while others don’t really cut it. One of the ones I am planning on renewing is Mac|Life. It’s usually got great articles, great reviews, and just enough ads so that you don’t find yourself flipping through 5 pages between every article. This month’s cover article was: 50 Things Every Mac Geek Should Know. It’s probably a good thing that I can honestly say, I actually learned quite a few things that I didn’t already use on my Mac. Here’s a few of my favorites with the corresponding numbers from the article.
#9 Spotlight Can Do Math – Definitely didn’t know this one. I always find myself opening Calculator to perform calculations. Apparently OS X Leopard has a built-in feature where you can simply press Command-Space to pop open Spotlight, start typing in an equation, and press Return. Tada!
#13 Safari’s Private Surfing Is Not So Private – Fortunately, I don’t use Safari anyways, and my computer is my personal machine. BUT, if you are often at work, school, or some other public place, and enter pages you may not want people knowing you enter, this may be helpful. Private Browsing actually stores your preferences so anyone (boss, IT, etc.) can see your history by using the Terminal and typing: dscacheutil -cachedump -entries Host . You can purge this by typing this into the Terminal: dscacheutil -flushcache
#15 How To Reset Your iPod or iPhone – Okay, so I already knew this one…but since it’s extremely useful if you have an iPod touch or iPhone (and something I’ve had to use numerous times), I’ve included it. Just press and hold the wake/sleep button (top of device on the left) and the Home button at the same time until the Apple logo appears. Let go and let it reboot. (For clickwheel iPods it’s the Menu and center buttons at the same time.)
#18 Play Tetris In The Terminal – This is awesome . (1) Launch Terminal, (2) Type emacs and press Return, (3) Press Escape, then type x, (4) Type tetris
#20 The Dock Is Cool, But It Ain’t Perfect – Add A Recent Items Stack: (1) Open Terminal, (2) Type defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’ and press Return. Type killall Dock and press Return, (3) When it restarts, Control-Click to customize….or….to make dock icons magnified really big if you have them really small, just hold Shift-Control when you mouse over them.
#32 The Finder’s Not the Only Way to Access Files On Your Mac – Shares info on the app Path Finder ($39.95) which you can use as a replacement Finder with more features. Cool.
#33 Zap Your PRAM – Delete your parameter RAM: (1) Shut down the computer, (2) Turn on the computer, (3) Press and hold Command-Option-P-R before the grey screen appears, (4) Release once the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
#36 Use Encrypted Disk Images to Hold Super Secret Files – (1) Launch Disk Utility, (2) Choose File > New > Blank Disk Image and enter a name for your image. Notice where it is going to save and change if necessary, (3) Select size, (4) Choose 128-bit AES encryption from the drop-down, (5) Choose read/write disk image from Image Format drop-down, (6) Create.
#45 Use FSCK If Safe Boot Isn’t Enough – Reboot your Mac while holding down Command-S. At the command-line, type: /sbin/fsck –fy. Let it do its thing. If you get: ** The volume (name_of_volume) appears to be OK, then everything is good. If you get: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****, then keep running FSCK until you get the first message. When you’re done, type: reboot, in the command-line prompt. Your Mac will restart.
#46 Fix Startup Issues With Safe Boot – Hold down the Shift key when you start or restart. Once you do that successfully, restart it in normal mode.
#48 Essential Third-Party OS X Utilities – PRODUCTIVITY: Quicksilver (free beta), AUDIO: Audio Hijack Pro ($32), MENU: FruitMenu ($12), ICON: CandyBar ($29), BACKUP: Déjà Vu ($24.95), CLEAN-DESKTOP: DragThing ($29)
#50 Play Snake in the Terminal – (1) Launch Terminal, (2) Type emacs and press Return, (3) Press Escape, then type x, (4) Type snake
Part II – PlayOn & MediaLink – For those of you who have a Playstation 3, Xbox 360, or HP MediaSmart TV, there’s software out there that can stream content from your PC to your system. It’s called PlayOn. This software just came out of beta yesterday and until February 8th, this software costs only $30. The price goes up another $10 after that, but in my opinion, it’s worth it. Of course, there’s always a 14 day trial for those who aren’t quite sure it’s for them.
I’ve had this software for quite awhile, as a beta tester. The most convenient thing about PlayOn, in my opinion, is that it allows you to stream your instant queue from Netflix. You can also browse through Hulu, CBS, YouTube, CNN, and ESPN content. I’m sure they’ll probably add more down the road. There were quite a few bugs during beta testing, but that’s to be expected. Seems that everything is relatively stable at this point. Very convenient for the PS3 owner who wants to stream Netflix and other content.
One thing about PlayOn is that it needs Windows to stream off your computer to your system. Just fine and dandy if you have a PC running Windows by default. If not, just simply run Windows through Parallels or VMWare on your Mac. It works great.
The other app I mentioned is NullRiver’s MediaLink. It’s $20, but again, pretty useful. Especially if you have a Mac and a PS3 (they also have an Xbox 360 version). MediaLink allows you to stream media from your Mac to your PS3. It acts as a server and shows up right in the XMB menu. You’ll instantly have access to iPhoto, iTunes, Aperture, etc. I find this very useful because sure, I can set up my hard drive and stream my music off of it, but have you ever tried to set up a playlist on the PS3? It’s a pain. With MediaLink, I can view my iPhoto albums and iTunes playlists instantly, just as I have them set up on my Mac. Want a different playlist? Just set one up and refresh and there it is. Check it out if you have a Mac and have been looking to integrate it with your PS3.
Part I – Hulu – You probably saw their commercial during the Super Bowl coverage. (Awesome commercial by the way if you haven’t, check it out.) Hulu is by far my favorite online source of television shows and movies. It was announced in March 2007, but only made its public US access debut in March 2008. Since then it’s really started to pick up speed. For more history, you can check out the Wikipedia article.
Hulu is powered by Flash which is very convenient since almost everyone has Flash installed on their computer. Not only can you view Hulu on your computer, but with fairly recent PS3 firmware updates, you can view Flash media at full screen on your TV through your PS3′s built in web browser. In the past few days there’s also been a lot of talk about Flash coming to the iPhone/iPod Touch which could mean that a Hulu app is right around the corner.
Besides being so easily accessible, Hulu has a great selection of clips and episodes. Miss an episode of a show you love that aired last night? More likely than not, it’s already posted on Hulu, ready for you when you have the time to watch it. Nice, huh? Hulu not only has full episodes from various seasons, but it also has clips of shows (for that bit you missed that everyone is now talking about), commercials (such as the ones that appeared for the Super Bowl), or feature-length films.
Once you start to play a movie there will be a timeline on the bottom for easy navigation, as well as a menu on either side with various options such as ‘full screen,’ ‘pop-out,’ or ‘lights out.’ You can play media at Hulu with out an account, but if you’d like to set up a queue (or view any mature-rated shows/movies), an account is as simple as giving your name and email address.
If anyone’s interested, Hulu has put together a nice video walkthrough.
. (1) Launch Terminal, (2) Type emacs and press Return, (3) Press Escape, then type x, (4) Type tetris
