Need to Know: Want Your Online Privacy Back? Take Control Now!

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Ray

One of my favorite radio programs, Marketplace is a news program focused on economics and business issues of the day.
Marketplace had previously aired a story on tips to avoid being tracked online. There are some good info in that piece that I think many can benefit from.
Check out Stacey Vanek Smith’s piece on “Top 10 ways to avoid being tracked online” at Marketplace (www.marketplace.org)

Posted in Browsers, Consumer, Privacy, Public Interest, Social network, Useful Tips | Comments Off

Need to Know: New Lighting Standards – Out with the Old, In With the New!

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Ray

With a federal law in the USA, progress has come to the lighting front, so to speak.

The Energy Independence and Security Act 2007 mandates that light bulbs must specific efficiency standard (see Lighting Fact label section below for details). The following is a short list of the expected changes:

  • Incandescent will start to be phased out – starting with the 100W incandescent bulb in 2012, essentially meaning such bulbs will be prohibited from being manufactured.
  • The 75W incandescent bulb will also began to be phased out in 2013.
  • The incandescent bulbs will be replaced by incandescent-halogen bulbs that will be more efficient than the former (at least 27% more effecient). Other replacements, include CFL and LED bulbs that are both more efficient than the incandescent-halogen bulbs.

To learn more about how light bulbs fare in comparison of the different lighting technology, check the Lighting Fact label, a requirement for all light bulb packaging. The Lighting Facts label provides information about the Brightness, Light Appearance (Warm to Cool), Energy Used (consumption), and the Life (longevity) of the bulb that you will be considering.

LabelAnatomy

 

Courtesy of Lighting Facts, a program of the U.S. DOE.

Posted in Conservation, Consumer, Environmental, For Home, Green living, LED Lighting, Lighting, Lighting, Useful Tips | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Guess what: Who has been generous…with your personal data?

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Ray

The online world is different from the physical world in many ways besides the comparison of electrons to brick-and-mortar. We, as online visitors and e-consumers, leave bread crumbs of information about ourselves when we visit websites. Details like username, zipcode, and email address are often left behind on cookies that track our movements on a website.

A recent WSJ article investigated what personal information gets passed to other companies when someone logs into popular websites that are frequently visited. What is more alarming is that some of these investigated sites actually pass user’s data to other sites.

Personal privacy is precious, both online and offline. It has been argued that free content and expediency may be worthwhile in exchange for whatever small lost of privacy. I once read an article which i can’t recall who the writer is now, in it, an inch of freedom that is lost is lost forever. There isn’t anyway for someone to get it back once it is lost. It may sound drastic but it is worthwhile to think about, doesn’t it?

Learn more about digital freedom at the Electronic Freedom Foundation (www.eff.org)

Posted in Consumer, Digital Freedom, For Home, Internet, Privacy, Public Interest, Social, Social network | Tagged , | Comments Off

Can Generic Computer Hardware and Open Source Software Be Better For You?

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Ray

Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are both over, I guess it is safe to go back to the waters  (I meant to say “Shops”). Pundits and TV talking heads are raving about double-digit growth in retail and online sales. Must be good for the economy, right? What about the environment? Your wallet or pocketbook? It is all connected and matters to everyone. Here are two of many pieces of article that I think we can all benefit from by helping us to be smart consumers and stewards of Earth, our only home planet.

I recently read an interesting piece in OSNews by Howard Fosdick (Why I Use Generic Computers and Open Source Software). In this article, I’ve found it illuminating in terms of how the writer was able to rely solely on generic computer hardware especially on the desktop side. He was able to remain open and self-sufficient without being locked in by any proprietary or closed hardware systems, as evident from self-contained batteries and SSD within smartphones and laptops.

In a separate article about iFixIt in Mother Jones magazine (These Guys Can Make Your iPhone Last Forever), the founders of this new and upcoming startup talked about the need to fix things in order to conserve, recycle and reuse. Again, the founders of IFixIt critize the culture of mindless consumerism and disposal electronics that are highly resource-intensive and wasteful.

Posted in Apple, Climate, computers, Conservation, Consumer, Desktops, For Home, Green IT, Home PC, iPad, iPhone, Linux, Mobile devices, Open Source, proprietary nature, Public Interest | Comments Off

Lack of public openness and integrity – transcends IT, business and politics

Posted on August 18, 2012 by Ray

This blog often covers issues involving openness of technology to users and organizations. Therefore, it makes sense for us to look at the organizations that peddle these technologies and how they fare with regards to their openness in dealing with their customers and society at large. Let’s just explore two articles that illustrates the extreme degrees of corporate misdeeds towards society at large.

First. there is an interesting piece titled “Tech Bullies Behaving Badly” from Tom Kaneshige in a CIO magazine piece, regarding the misdeeds of IT giants across a slew of illegal to inappropriate activities. In the age of corporate greed and corporate personhood (i.e. company pays hefty fines but executives avoid jail time), there are very few tech companies that society can look up to.

The second piece involves a study by the Institute for Policy Studies (www.ips-dc.org) that showed 26 major corporation paid their top execs more money than they did in federal taxes for 2012. Executives get tens of millions of dollars in compensation while most of the corporations pay less than what their top execs get or not at all in some cases. Can you believe this? Learn more about corporate executives excesses in the Executive Excess 2012: The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam’s Pockets.

In this Presidential Election year 2013, forget the two-party oligarch, think about society and what’s right for the public as a whole. Viva the People!

Posted in Miscellaneous, Public Interest, Social | Comments Off

How open is the Windows 8 hardware world?

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Ray

Brand new Windows 8 laptops will soon be expected to get a boost from updated hardware in late 2012. Besides the latest Intel Ivy Bridge platform and the latest PC hardware components, Windows 8 hardware will come with the Secure Boot technology enabled in the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). The Secure Booth feature means that only operating systems with an appropriate digital signature will be able to boot. That essentially means only Windows 8 can boot up on a new PC that has the Secure Boot enabled by default. So, if a Linux or any other OS is to be installed on that new PC, the software distributor will have to get a digital certificate from Microsoft or create their own and have the PCs vendors accept theirs, probably an expensive proposition that strictly restricts many open source OS vendors except the Big 2 (Microsoft and Apple).

So, is this becoming a more restrictive field due to constraints posed on the PC hardware by the Big 2 OS vendors? Does this mean open OSs (my reference for open source software, in general) while need to have their own hardware offering too? I hope not!

Posted in Apple, Business PCs, Closed/Proprietary, computers, Consumer, Desktops, Home PC, Linux, Mac OS X, Miscellaneous, Open Source, OS, proprietary nature, Security, Windows | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Calling all application/software coders and enthusiasts: There is a developer laptop made just for you!

Posted on May 26, 2012 by Ray

Dell and Canonical’s Ubuntu have joined forces for Project Sputnik, an initiative that combines Dell XPS 13 and Ubuntu 12.04. Project Sputnik appears to be attributed to the popular demand by the developer community. What is better than the combination of “Open + Power + Style”, all wrap in one. I can’t wait for it.

Learn more about Project Sputnik at Dell Techcenter blog.

 

Posted in Internet, Linux, Open Source, Ubuntu, Useful Tips | Comments Off

Now available: Linux Mint 13 (Maya)

Posted on May 26, 2012 by Ray

Hot on the heels of Ubuntu 12.04, a new version of Linux Mint 13 (Codename Maya) is now available for test drive. Linux Mint is available in two editions – with MATE and CINNAMON desktops that are based on GNOME desktop manager. Check it out at www.linuxmint.com

Posted in Linux, Linux Mint | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Have access to your Linux computer anytime, even when you are using Windows!

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Ray

Linux Live USB Creator (LiLi) is a great tool for anyone who wants access to a Linux computer in a USB drive. Imagine having your favorite Linux distribution, install and use your favorite apps, and gain access to your personal data, all self-contained and encrypted on a USB stick!

You can access your Linux desktop on a Windows computer without having to reboot an additional physical computer. Much like a virtual computer, LiLi has built-in virtualization feature so that you can access your Linux computer seamlessly within Windows.

Best of all, your Linux computer, apps and data goes everywhere with you, without a need for a computer. Use your Lili-loaded USB drive on any Windows machine and you get instant access.

Give it a try, Windows will never be lonely with Lili (and Linux by its side)! Kudos to the Lili team.

Linux Live USB Creator (LiLi) is Free, Open Source Software (FOSS) and available at http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/download

Posted in Business PCs, computers, Consumer, Desktops, Green IT, Home PC, Open Source, OS, Virtualization, Windows | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Two exciting new releases of Linux distributions are out!

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Ray

In the recent week, new versions of two strong Linux distributions became publicly available. The user-friendly Linux Mint 11 is now available freely for all to use. I personally believe that this is the most intuitive flavor of Linux that is suitable for Windows users who want to migrate to Linux.

The favorite among  developers and IT professionals is the Linux distribution for desktop called Fedora. A new version called Fedora 15 also became available

Both versions sport separate new looks based on the GNOME 3 desktop technology as well as some exciting new features and software applications.

To download and get information on these versions:
- Linux Mint 11 (www.linuxMint.com)
- Fedora 5 (www.fedoraproject.org)

Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments Off