Smartphones – Microsoft & Nokia JOIN FORCES!

Two huge companies are getting into bed together to go against the NEW leaders in the smart phone arena. If these two very large companies do it right, I would think that both Apple and Google are going to have a fight on their hands… but will they – Can they?  To this point neither have shown themselves to be quick to market – Reason for them joining together!

The other questions is how long before we see product, Iphone 5 is coming, new Android O/S coming – things are changing quickly and can these players get into the game in time?  Microsoft already took too long to get into the mix, though they did bring a great product to market – one that people should be looking at as an alternative.

 

Related Articles

• Nokia and Microsoft team up to build ‘iPhone killer’ (thestar.com)
• Nokia, Microsoft to Join Forces, Shares Tumble (businessweek.com)
• Smartphone Wars: Nokia’s Rallying Cry (news.sky.com)

Security – Keeping Kids SAFE – Filtering Emails & Soon Social Media

Something all parents want to do is keep our kids safe from cyberbullying, sexting and inappropriate messages which is very difficult.   There are a lot of things we can do, but we all need something else. 

Soon there will be a program called MouseMail that can filter messages on your kids smartphones.  Most kids will not be happy about it, but when are they when we as parents try to protect them from others and themselves.

ARTICLE – USATODAY – MouseMail filtering program traps kids’ cyberbullies

MouseMail’s free Web-based e-mail features will be available Thursday at MouseMail.com; the free text message filtering applications will launch that day on most major smartphones, with Apple iPhone expected to add the app soon. Later this month, a premium service will be added (no price set) that monitors social networks and lets parents look for mentions of their kids’ names.

HOW IT ALL WORKS:

• Parents add children’s e-mail accounts into the family profile page on MouseMail.com’s portal.

• MouseMail checks each e-mail against a list of approved contacts and a dictionary of suspicious or inappropriate words.

• E-mails that do not include suspicious words or phrases and are sent from approved e-mail contacts pass on to the child’s e-mail account. on Google, Yahoo or other e-mail sites. Questionable e-mails are sent to parents.

• Parents download an app to a child’s smartphone and set up the program so that they are forwarded questionable text messages. Parents can get alerts about e-mail and text messages online or on their own cellphones

MOUSEMAIL.COM

Security – Passwords TOO MANY or TOO Little!

Passwords – you have two camps – for those that are involved in the industry I would say most try to be as secure as possble when creating passwords.  Well I would hope! 

The other side is those that use the same password for everything just because they have forgotten passwords in the past and it’s easy – no thinking involved.

Today no matter what – we have to be more secure in our methods of creating and maintaining passwords.  We have too much of our personal information and there are too many people ready to take advantage of your situation not to do the right thing.

NEVER

–       use the same password more than once

–       Don’t use anything associated with you personally – phone number, Address, family names, birthdays etc – these are the first things people try to use

–       Short passwords are also not good

–       Shouldn’t write your passwords down.

I have over the last few days reviewed and tested a number of Password managers.  I wanted to have a package that would allow me access to the data from three different computers, one being my work systems that doesn’t allow the installation of any software.  I found two packages that matched what I wanted in different ways, both are good and currently I am using both to determine which one I will finally go to.

The two packages are KeePass and LastPass – these both come in a FREE version and do what I need them to.   I find KeePass to be the easier version at this point, everything is just there and I had didn’t have to go looking.  LastPass advantage would be that it does a lot more and is available for Smartphones as well.  I had a 90 plus passwords that I had to import into both packages and in both cases it was not the easiest, but I got it done.

If you don’t have a huge list and you are willing to wait and add your passwords as you load up the web pages, LastPass makes that really easy – Login and it asks you if you would like to add the location and password to your database.  Really nice!  Your database is available to you from anywhere through the WEB as well.

With KeePass I had to save my database on a CLOUD storage sync program in order to have the access from any of my computers.  The program can be loaded up on a USB Key which will allow you to open the program from any computer.  As I said I had to work around things to get KeePass working. 

For people who just want access on a single computer the KeePass product I believe would be the better choice, it’s a little easier to use and very familiar in look to many other programs.  If you’re like me and have several computers that you would like to have access, plus a smartphone then LastPass is the product you should be using.

THE LINKS:

Keypass

LastPass

Smartphone – Windows Phone 7 – Couple days later!

I love the media – really! 

They love to have headlines to attract readers and most of the headlines today are negative on the sales to date of Microsoft Phone 7.  Some of the numbers being mentioned is only 40K units sold to date – that would be North America (US & Canada).

I believe the uptake will be slower today

1) The market is a much different world then when the iPhone was announced

2) Since the iPhone many other manufactures have come to market, so a lot of the early adopters have already invested in a phone with a contract period

3) Economically there is a huge difference, the world has gone through some difficult times the last year or so and most are still be very careful.

When you put all these things together, the growth of Windows Phone 7 will be one that grows over time.  They have a wonderful product with some really cool features you don’t find on anything today.  There application store is growing daily, but it will take time to build quality titles.

Just give it time!

Related Articles

• Report: 40,000 Windows Phone 7 devices sold (news.cnet.com)
• Why Windows Phone 7’s first day sales numbers don’t matter (venturebeat.com)
• Are You In Line For A Windows 7 Phone? (MSFT, T) (businessinsider.com)
• Windows Phone 7 Success Tied to a Million in Sales (CIO)

Post-it Notes in the CLOUD!

Several years ago I started to use Google Notebook to make notes, ToDo lists, if I find something at work that I want to review at home etc.  This product is still available, but Google is not updating. 

You ask what is Post-it Notes in the Cloud – it’s a WEB application that allows you to make notes, Tag them as well as put them categories to organize the notes.  These are available to you where ever you are with access to the WEB!  Has really come in handy!

Then I got a smart phone and other applications started to show up that allowed easy access from your computer and smart phone.  I started using a program called Evernote and recently started looking at Catch as well.

We all have to make notes, hear a song you want to remember the name, need to pick something up etc… Think about it this way – EVERYTHING you use a Sticky Note for you can use one of these and many other programs that are available.  Keep your important working notes and information in the cloud so you have access to them anytime and anywhere!