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Tuesday Tech Tips

by Michael Krupa on August 30, 2011

Time is lacking these days so without any great fanfare or catchy intro, I’m jumping right into the tips today.

Hotmail! Say what? Despite the growth of other free cloud based email services, Hotmail remains one of the most used emails services. So if you are one of those people still using Hotmail you might want to know that the Hotmail team has added a “My Friend’s Been Hacked” button.

Love the TiVo User Interface but don’t need a DVR? Wish your TV used the TiVo UI instead of the normal lame interface? Your wish has been granted. Best Buy has partnered with TiVo and has released a new line of Insignia HDTV’s that use that great TiVo UI. Zatasnotfunny.com has all the information on the new TiVo Powered Best Buy HDTVs.

Speaking of Facelifts (no, not Joan Rivers) did you noticed that Twitter Search was recently refreshed? Louis Gray tells us all about it.

Looking for another excuse to use Google+? Want to make sure your dog is not rummaging through the trashcan again? Concerned that your cat is transferring funds from your bank into a Swiss account instead of sleeping all day? My good friend @controllergirl alerted me to this fantastic post on Lifehacker on how to Set Up a Simple Home Surveillance System with Google+ Hangouts.

Do you have questions about Mac OS X Lion?  Check out the OS X Lion page at gdgt.com where you will find a ton of information and a place to ask your question if you can’t find the answer anywhere else.

And finally, if you have been trying to get in on the $99 closeout fire sale of the HP TouchPad, I highly recommend you follow @BrynaAtHP and @MarkatHP as these 2 individuals have been doing a super job using Twitter to keep everyone informed about the status of any additional TouchPad inventory.  The Tweets are fun, silly and informative all at the same time.

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Firesheep: You Need To Read This

by Michael Krupa on January 23, 2011

Pay attention my fellow readers.  I know many of you travel or spend time in coffee shops and access free Wi-Fi hotspots but there is a danger lurking out there.   Developer Eric Butler has created a Firefox extension called Firesheep. This free Firefox extension collects cookies that have been broadcast over an unprotected Wi-Fi network without using SSL. Say what?  This means that Firesheep essentially eavesdrops on an unprotected (open) Wi-Fi connection and will capture cookies for sites such as Facebook and Twitter and allow the Firesheep user to sidejack the session. Yes I know this is old news from last October but it is still an important problem.

Let developer Eric Butler explain from his blog post:

“As soon as anyone on the network visits an insecure website known to Firesheep, their name and photo will be displayed.”

All you have to do is double click on their name in the Firesheep window and open sesame, you will be able to log into that user’s site with their credentials.

Open sesame.  Yikes.

Fortunately there are limitations to the extension.  It only works on an open/unsecured Wi-Fi connection. So let’s say you are sitting at Starbucks and checking your Facebook account.  Someone else at that same Starbucks starts up Firesheep and scans the network.  Firesheep sees your unprotected session, grabs the cookies that Facebook uses to store identifying information about you and lets the Firesheep user masquerade as you.  Did I mention that you will have no idea that someone else just accessed your Facebook account?

Which sites are vulnerable? Amazon.com, Basecamp, bit.ly, Cisco, CNET, Dropbox, Enom, Evernote, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Github, Google, Gowalla, HackerNews, Harvest, Windows Live, NY Times, Pivotal Tracker, Slicehost, tumblr, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo, Yelp and probably many many other sites.

How do you deal with this?  Don’t use any unprotected Wi-Fi connection.  Find another coffee shop that uses a password for their WPA connection or convince your existing shop to start using a password.

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Tuesday Tech Tips

by Michael Krupa on October 18, 2010

Hello my loyal Tech Tips readers.  I know it’s been a few weeks since the last Tech Tips post but that darn day job keeps getting in the way. Did you miss the Tech Tips? Wait, don’t answer that. My fragile blogger persona doesn’t want to hear the truth.  Well enough about my issues, let’s get on with it.

My inner Gmail and Google Reader geek exploded when I found out that there are now keyboard shortcuts for New Twitter.  Head on over to Lifehacker for the list of keyboard shortcuts and even a short video for all you visual people.

Speaking of Google, they seem to be popping out new products faster than HTC can introduce new cell phones.  Can’t keep up?  Apparently Google heard your cries of anguish and created Google New as “The one place to find everything new from Google“.

Got one of them fancy new itty bitty Apple TV devices?  You can now share your iTunes media libraries with up to five computers in your household by using iTunes Home Sharing.  Home Sharing is a breeze to setup so blow on over to TIPB for a quick and easy post on How to use iTunes Home Sharing with Apple TV.

Are you a runner who wants to know how far you have gone, what’s your heart rate and how the heck do I find my way home?  Engadget has a run-down on the Garmin Forerunner 210 and 410 GPS watch.

For all you MobileMe fanatics that have been hiding under a rock for the last few days, I thought I would let you know that the MobileMe Calendar beta is now out of beta and ready for the masses.  Don’t forget to read all the FAQ’s to make sure you have all the right software versions of Windows, Mac OS, iPhone, iPod or iPad before you upgrade your calendar.

And finally for all those uber geeks (like me) who love having multiple monitors, I give you multi-windowing under iOS. Say no more.

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Tuesday Tech Tips

by Michael Krupa on September 13, 2010

Step right up for this week’s Tuesday Tech Tips.  I did a random grab of tech news from my Instapaper archive so I’m guessing I will please no one with these tips.  I joke, I joke.  Anyhoo, on with the tips.

Do you have an iPad and an iPhone or maybe 2 iPads or perhaps 4 iPhones?  If yes, then Engadget has a review of the overachieving iPADock.

I know a bunch of you tried out the new Google Voice integration in Gmail. Now the good folks over at Google have written up some handy features of Google Voice in Gmail.

Calling all iPhone or iPod Touch runners!!  There is a new Nike+ App that throws away the little Nike+ sensor and instead uses the accelerometer of your iOS device.  Whats not to like about that?

With all the Tweetups going on all over the world, you are going to need a way to keep in video touch with all your new tweeps.  Skype 5.0 Beta to the rescue with 10 way video calling.

I love me some full screen browser windows all the time.  Google took that one step further and created Fullscreen mode in Google Reader.  Life is pretty good now.

I know all you iPhone owners out there have been waiting for iOS 4.1 (especially iPhone 3G users waiting for the performance tweaks in iOS4 to make their iPhones usable again). Head on over to the TiPb blog for an iOS4 walkthrough.

I’m not sure what took so long but TiVo finally produced a remote with a built-in keyboard.  Good grief TiVo, your product lifecycles are longer than even Microsoft’s.  If you are not sure the new TiVo Slide Remote is for you, read the Engadget review here and the Zatz Not Funny review here.

The controversial new Twitter app for iPad built by Loren Brichter and his team (who developed the Tweetie app) is out.  If you have an iPad you probably already have the new Twitter app but you might want to take a peek at the TUAW Blog review anyway.

And finally (he says while trying to keep from giggling in that nerdy sort of way)…who wouldn’t want an Atom-powered PC in “an exact replica” of the original beige Commodore C64 chassis.  Christmas is just around the corner.

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