Posted on March 31st, 2015 by Joy Schwabach
— “Google Earth Pro,” which used to cost $400 a year, is now free. It can print much more detailed images, import thousands of addresses at once to be pinned on a map, capture high def videos of what’s on the screen, and measure distances using paths, circles and other shapes. It can measure the acreage of an area quickly or open ESRI files, the common format for Geographic Information Systems.
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Filed under: apps, astronomy, science | Comments Off on MAP APPS, EARTH AND BEYOND
Posted on March 30th, 2015 by Joy Schwabach
Most people use a simple English word as their password, like “potato.” But real words are easy for hackers to crack — once the first couple of letters are found, the hacker’s computer can immediately fill in all the words that start with those letters. Here’s a better way:
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Filed under: passwords | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 29th, 2015 by Joy Schwabach
Backblaze, a backup service, used 41,213 hard drives to store customer’s data. The drives that were most reliable, they say, were four-terabyte capacity units from “HGST,” which was formerly a division of Hitachi. Only one percent of their drives failed. Western Digital, which recently bought the Hitachi unit, came in second and Seagate third.
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Filed under: backup, electronics | Comments Off on WORLD’S MOST RELIABLE HARD DRIVES
Posted on March 28th, 2015 by Joy Schwabach
Maker.TV offers videos on beauty, science, health, music, and everything under the sun. Their companion site on YouTube has attracted 42 million people. We’re a little skeptical of some of these, such as “Ten Strangest Unsolved Mysteries of World War II.” They weren’t all that strange.
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Filed under: Internuts | Comments Off on THE STRANGEST UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF WORLD WAR II
Posted on March 27th, 2015 by Joy Schwabach
Lynda.com offers 5,700 courses online, mainly in tech topics such as video editing and photography. It costs $25 a month though they have free courses to try out.
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Filed under: training | Comments Off on TEACH YOURSELF MOVIE MAKING, PHOTOGRAPHY, AND MORE
Posted on March 27th, 2015 by Joy Schwabach
The “Calvin and Hobbes Search Engine” will bring you the popular Calvin and Hobbes comics from the 1980s. Search on “spaceman” to see Calvin’s space fantasies, or any word you remember from the strip.
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Filed under: humor, Internuts | Comments Off on THE CALVIN AND HOBBES SEARCH ENGINE
Posted on March 26th, 2015 by Joy Schwabach
Bit.ly/scicabinet is a kind of science “curiosity cabinet,” a term used to describe collections of marvels in Renaissance times. This modern cabinet contains videos explaining the wonders of science. We watched videos on the electric motor and cannons. The videos are amateurish, but that doesn’t mean you won’t learn something.
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Filed under: Internuts, science | Comments Off on A SCIENTIST’S CURIOSITY CABINET
Posted on March 25th, 2015 by Joy Schwabach
How’s this for perking up your paranoia: 45 percent of employers monitor every keystroke typed by their employees — email, web browsing, chat, sports results, you name it, according to a survey from the American Management Association. That’s nearly half! If only the workers could use an encrypted keyboard.
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Filed under: keyboards, security | Comments Off on THE ULTIMATE KEYBOARD
Posted on March 24th, 2015 by Joy Schwabach
After we reviewed some battery basics in a recent column, readers who own iPhones and iPads wanted more. There’s much you can do beyond looking at “Usage” in the “Settings” area to find where the battery hogs are.
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Filed under: batteries, iPhone, Uncategorized | Comments Off on BATTERY LIFE ON THE IPHONE
Posted on March 23rd, 2015 by Joy Schwabach
Remain calm. We are not going to talk about the features of Apple’s new Watch. Enough ink has already been spilled there to float this newspaper for the next thousand years. And the watch isn’t even out yet! Let’s talk about smartphones instead; hardly anybody ever talks about those.
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Filed under: Android, phones | Comments Off on NO APPLE WATCH, BUT HERE’S A LOLLIPOP
