Showing 41 - 50 of 146
Best to avoid FB's Onavo Protect VPN
Life, James Hein, Published on 28/02/2018
» If you use Facebook, you may have seen an option in the Settings menu under Protect to download the Onavo Protect app for Android and the iPhone. Don't. It is basically an app that allows Facebook to spy on you, even more than it already does. The app is a Virtual Private Network or VPN. In simplest terms this will encrypt and route all your network traffic through a server in addition to the one your ISP provides. This allows you to appear to be somewhere else, so you can watch, say, local content there for free and it will stop most agencies from spying on what you might be doing.
Help kids navigate the social media roller coaster
Life, James Hein, Published on 31/01/2018
» A study has come out recently, confirming what we already know. Children spending more than an hour a day engaged in social media can make them less happy. Take something like Facebook for example. You post something, people read it then they give it a like and sometimes make a comment. Now imagine you are a young impressionable child somewhere under 18. You post something and get 50 likes. Sometime later you post something else and get 65 likes and feel better. Then the third time you only get five likes and some comments about how lame it was. Now you feel worse. Multiply this by a few hundred times and the emotional roller coaster can have someone with a developing emotional platform spiralling into their first depression.
Potential legal trouble for Apple over old batteries
Life, James Hein, Published on 17/01/2018
» The first couple of weeks of 2018 have provided a series of revelations. It started with Apple finally confirming that they have been throttling the performance of their older phones. The official line is that they do this to ensure that as the batteries degrade, the retarding of performance ensures that their devices won't overheat. Some people weren't buying what Apple was shovelling, and there is a series of class-action lawsuits in the making.
Looking into IT's crystal ball
Life, James Hein, Published on 03/01/2018
» So it is that time again when I try and gaze into the crystal ball and guess what 2018 will bring the IT world.
Raising the bar on performance
Life, James Hein, Published on 13/09/2017
» Have you ever wondered why sometimes you have full bars on your phone and a few steps later none? Worse if you are in one room of your house it's all good but elsewhere no bars. There are many factors that can affect your reception including distance from your cell tower, the number of people using the network, what is in between cell towers and you and more.
Even writers need to think before tweeting
Life, James Hein, Published on 16/08/2017
» Without the internet, there would only ever be part of a story. Consider the recent example of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. She watched an edited video and then took to the internet using her fame to decry the treatment of a small child by a prominent leader. Her concerns were quickly and widely spread but the unedited footage showed the opposite. Even the mother of the child finally got involved and asked the internet to please tell J.K. Rowling that she was wrong. At the time of writing Rowling had apologised to the mother but not the leader she smeared. In the current fast pace and instant Twitter-response world it is important to take a step back and do some personal investigation before reacting, often incorrectly, to a flash tweet or news story. If you see a clip try and find the full or unedited version, that extra time can save you from future embarrassment, though some personalities seem to be immune to it.
Microsoft Paint might be fading
Life, James Hein, Published on 02/08/2017
» What is the one program you can count on to be in Windows, apart from say Minesweeper? Microsoft Paint. It's the poor man's drawing tool and screen capture tool where it is as simple as Alt-Printscreen, Start-Run MSPaint, CTRL-V, Crop Marquee Select Crop, CTRL-A CTRL-C, Switch to email and CTRL–V to get something from your screen into an email (or anything else).
Zuckerberg gets all warm and messianic
Life, James Hein, Published on 19/07/2017
» I rarely post on my Facebook page, and never about what I am eating. Its primary use, for me, is to reconnect with old friends or communicate with current friends overseas. Mark Zuckerberg has other aims, claiming that Facebook is the "new church" and that his social network can fulfil the role that religion once did in giving people a sense of community and belonging to "something bigger than ourselves". With 2 billion users, 100 million of whom Zuckerberg considers "meaningful", that is a lot of influence he wields. A vice-president of Facebook recently visited Pakistan to assure its leadership that Facebook would be removing anything criticising Islam, but nothing criticising Buddhism, Christianity, Hindus, etc. This should give some indication of where Facebook's "community" may be heading.
Facing up to social media bias
Life, James Hein, Published on 21/06/2017
» An interesting thing is happening on the major sharing and information sites like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and others. In what is supposed to be an open and free environment, political editing bias is starting to creep in. The local phenomenon that started in the US has started to pervade the global system. This is not the direct political editing that occurs in places such as China but that of one group's opinions suppressing another side's. It is not an issue if the views being suppressed are demonstrably incorrect but in some cases the factual and data based views are those being suppressed in favour of the unsupportable "politically correct" ones of small but outspoken groups.
Google Android refreshes itself
Life, James Hein, Published on 07/06/2017
» Android 8 -- or O -- will be coming out soon, with the beta already available for lucky Nexus and Pixel users. Google is introducing "Fluid Experiences" that include picture in picture, Notification Dots, autofill and smart-text selection. The first will allow you to have an app open but with also, say, a small window running a YouTube video, just like TVs can do. Notification dots show that you have an app notification. A long press will bring up the item, which is useful. You have all seen autofill on forms and for passwords; this is finally appearing in Android. As has been the case for the last few versions, Google is also focusing on maximising security, optimising boot times and app performance, and intelligently limiting background activity for apps to save battery life. These are all welcome enhancements.