Boydo's Tech Talk

I’ve shared this on Facebook and Google Plus already but I have to mention it here as well.

Today, I had my first post published on the Panasonic Australia blog as Insider Guru and, to say the least, I’m quite stoked about it! It’s also my first post on a blog other than my own which was a new experience for me. I’ll have future posts coming on the Panasonic Australia blog so make sure you go check it out. I’ll also be cross-posting to Facebook and Google Plus when a new post goes up as well.

I guess for me I have always liked to be able to share thoughts, information and solutions with others and help them to get an understanding of how stuff works or how a problem came about.  This blog has been a natural extension of that intent which had a fundamental basis of trying to help people find some answers to their questions. At the very least I’ve wanted to give visitors to this blog some food for thought when they are considering their next tech purchase or looking for some guidelines on various topics.

Of course, I don’t claim to know it all but I do know that I don’t know it all. The great thing is that learning about new stuff is all part of the fun of trying to fill in all the gaps and maybe falling down a rabbit hole or two that might get you into something really interesting.

Even if you find technology as a whole confusing or overwhelming then just start with something small to get a hold of first. It could be something as simple as learning how to use copy and paste using keyboard shortcuts or how to reset all of those flashing clocks after a blackout or maybe reading about how something works. You might be surprised by how much you might pick up by taking your time and investigating things that pique your interest!

Things have been progressing rather well for the blog and is certainly keeping me busy in my spare time with an increase in gadgets gracing the household recently. I thought I’d share with you some of the improvements that have been made over the last week.

Firstly, you will notice a new social media widget on the right hand side of the blog. This will make it easier for new and existing visitors to find the blog specific social media feeds without my personal stuff in there (I’m sure that there are people that don’t care much to know if I am at the gym or out getting a pork roll).

There is also a brand new YouTube channel just for the blog (accessible from the social media widget). I have two videos up there at the moment of the unboxing and preview of the Panasonic Viera television which were recorded on the weekend. I will be moving the other blog specific videos over the weekend to this channel from my personal account so everything will be up to date.

If you fancy getting the blog via RSS I have made it a bit easier for you to find and subscribe to it courtesy of a brand new FeedBurner feed. This will also help me see how many people subscribe via RSS (which is something I haven’t been able to do until now). If you currently subscribe via RSS I would really appreciate it if you could move over to the new FeedBurner feed.

Finally, there is the Facebook page for the blog (which has been steadily growing in numbers) which you can “like” right from the blog (it’s just under the social media widget) as well as new Twitter feed just for the blog (don’t forget to follow @boydostechtalk).

I do have other ambitions to expand the blog but I will keep those details close to my chest for the time being. Rest assured, I’ll let you know when the time comes!

Believe it or not, another milestone has come to pass in the form of the 300th consecutive daily blog. At times it has been a bit of a challenge to blog regularly with a trip to Asia and Europe in amongst my university studies via correspondence but I guess discipline is always a good thing!

Anyway, I thought I would share some statistics about how well the blog has done so far since I started on 29/01/2010:

• Total Visits:
  • First 100 days: 1,326
  • Second 100 days: 1,890
  • Third 100 days: 11,462
• Pageviews:
  • First 100 days: 1,841
  • Second 100 days: 2,379
  • Third 100 days: 17,071
• Traffic Sources:
  • Search Engines: 9,679 visits (66%)
  • Direct Traffic: 2,756 visits (19%)
  • Site Referrals: 2,013 (14%)
  • Other: 230 (1%)

By and large, the most popular topic on the blog has been with regard to the Samsung Galaxy S and the saga associated with the missing recovery mode accounting for over 50% of the page views so far. I guess this demonstrates to me that search is quite a powerful tool so long as the content you create is relevant, unique and can be easily indexed by the search engines.

Also, with the four videos I have created for the blog, there has been a total of 2,346 views which is quite encouraging to say the least. I plan to do some more regular videos as I get my hands on some more gadgets (plus the reviews of the iPad and Samsung Galaxy S). I am still in the process of separating out the blog videos from my personal stuff (as much as I love our dogs!).

The blog has received visits from 123 countries with Australia topping the list (with 4,068 visits) with the rest of the top ten comprising of:

• United States of America (1,973 visits),
• United Kingdom (1,851 visits),
• Canada (942 visits),
• Netherlands (448 visits),
• Singapore (348 visits),
• France 331 visits),
• India (305 visits),
• Germany (268 visits),
• Malaysia (226 visits).

A total of 23 countries have visited 100 or more times (with Denmark scraping in) and 50 countries visiting at least 25 times (with special mention to Taiwan bringing up the rear in that instance).

As always, thanks for visiting the blog. I hope it has been able to keep you informed about the world of technology and also to give you some hints that will come in handy every now and then!

These days, we have all sorts of social networking sites carving out their part of the internet and vying for your precious time. Facebook is one of the big hitters along with Twitter for the vast majority of people but others sites such as LinkedIn and Foursquare also have their uses in amongst everything else going on.

However, it can be hard to bring them together in a simple yet meaningful way, especially if you aren’t handy with HTML and CSS.

Luckily, there is a new service called About.me for those wanting to do something about this predicament. In a nutshell, you can create a splash page about you with links to your profile at popular sites as well as any other personal links. At present, you can link to the following sites:

• Blogger,
• Facebook,
• Flickr,
• Foursquare,
• LinkedIn,
• Posterous,
• Tumblr,
• Twitter,
• TypePad,
• WordPress.

You can also add RSS feeds for your sites which can be handy for those of you with your own blogs.

Of course, you should consider the privacy implications of aggregating a lot of information in one place and what sort of information you are exposing to the public. For instance, you can configure Facebook to restrict viewing of your content to only your friends but in contrast everything will appear in the feed on your About.me splash page. If you find this a worry you an choose to post a link to your various social networking pages instead of incorporating a feed.

Anyway, if you want to check out what it looks like you can have a look at my splash page here which I knocked up in about ten minutes of elapsed time (most of the time was spent fussing over the photo). About.me is still in private beta at the moment so you can register to receive an invite. They are slowly trickling out and my invite took just under two months to come through (after having signed up in the later part of September).

A few months back, I came across an article on Gizmodo Australia spruiking the opportunity to get involved in the Panasonic Insider Crew and the chance to win a Panasonic 3D TV. The Panasonic Insider Crew is run by Soup which conducts market research on new products across a number of projects. People can sign up free of charge to get involved and share their thoughts on up and coming products based upon their interests. If you’re interested in knowing more about how it works you can click here.

Anyway, I completed the survey and answered the all important final question which was to provide an outline of how to spread the word about the television to as many people as possible.  For me, I was able to outline my general approach to covering a new device which usually entails an unboxing, a preview and then a review (after a suitable amount of time to get used to the device) as well as how I share this with friends, family and colleagues (through means such as this blog, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn).

Luckily for me, they loved my answer and I won the television! Needless to say I am quite stoked about it and look forward to getting hands on (although I will probably need help from my wife as I very much doubt I could unbox a fifty inch television with one hand free). To be honest, I found it a bit hard to concentrate for the rest of the afternoon at work after receiving the phone call as I attempted to come to terms with this unexpected acquisition. Needless to say, a 3D TV is probably one of the top geek gadgets of the season (even if the jury is still out on whether or not 3D TV will gain a foothold until glassless 3D displays hit the market – whenever that will be).

Anyway, I won’t spoil things with what I have planned in store but I look forward to getting a closer look at this television in the comfort of our home and give it a good work out. I have yet to organise delivery of the television with Panasonic but you can be sure to hear on the new Facebook page when it arrives (with photos)!

Stay tuned folks!

Last week, I wrote about FireSheep,  a newly released add-on for Firefox, allowed everyone including amateur hackers and snoopers the ability to not only identify individual social networking sessions currently in progress but also the ability to impersonate those people. This was made possible by intercepting cookies being broadcast in the clear (i.e. completely unencrypted) and showing the cookie to the corresponding social networking site (such as Facebook or Twitter).

Hopefully, since my last post, people have become somewhat more wary of the risks of using open Wi-Fi networks at places like McDonald’s. Solutions such as enforcing the use of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) security with something such as NoScript for Firefox, using a VPN to encrypt all of your traffic and divert it through a remote network, turning on WPA2+AES security on the Wi-Fi access point or simply abstaining from using such networks.

However, if you absolutely need to use unsecured Wi-Fi networks there is something you can do to determine if someone using FireSheep is snooping the network using a new Firefox add-on called BlackSheep from Zscaler Cloud Security.

BlackSheep is rather smart in the way it detects the use of FireSheep. It achieves this by creating a dummy session for a social networking site and then broadcasts it on the network. FireSheep, when it detects this dummy session, will attempt to obtain the name (and profile photo if available) of the user from the corresponding site. It is this request from FireSheep that BlackSheep uses to for its detection on a network.

Bear in mind, BlackSheep won’t protect you from the use of FireSheep on the same network, it merely alerts you to the use of FireSheep. Also, if you have been merrily browsing social networking websites in the meantime it may already be too late to prevent your account from being hijacked. As such, my recommendation to step up your security using one of the previously mentioned solutions still stands. Preventing a problem is a far more comprehensive solution than dealing with the fallout once it has been drawn to your attention.

If you want to install BlackSheep there is a catch. You can’t install FireSheep and BlackSheep in the same instance of Firefox due to the two add-ons sharing a large amount of code but you can get around this by installing them in separate profiles. Also, Windows users will need to install WinPcap which is a piece of packet capture software.

BlackSheep is available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux users of Firefox.

As the blog heads toward three hundred posts and a truckload of visits this year it made sense to create a Facebook page to make it easier for visitors to share this blog with their friends. It’s fairly easy to find, just type in “Boydo’s Tech Talk” in the search box on Facebook and it should be first in the list. Please, feel free to start a conversation or bring up topical technology events or share some of your experiences with new gadgets you come across.

Also, you’ll also notice the new “Like Box” on the right hand side of the blog which will make it really easy for you to like the blog on Facebook. I’m also working on making it easier to follow myself and the blog on Twitter as well as other tech news updates that I publish throughout the week. In the meantime, if you’re keen to follow the blog you can follow @boydostechtalk right now (it might be a bit empty at the moment but will fill up over time).

As always, thanks very much for following the blog and stay tuned for more updates!

If you had a look at the title of this blog entry you might be wondering what exactly is a “Fitbit”. I actually came across this little gadget that I hope will help keep me honest and on track with some weight loss.

The fitbit looks a bit like one of them Bluetooth earpieces that you see on people and perhaps secretly think to yourself how silly it makes them look. As an aside, I remember when my wife and I went to a restaurant in Circular Quay for dinner and a man had an earpiece in his ear all night at his table complete with that annoying flashing blue light. Thankfully, you don’t wear the Fitbit on your ear or your head but instead simply clips on to your clothing or a wristband.

The device itself is pretty simple on the outside and features a blue OLED screen that will give you a summary of many different types of statistics such as steps (like a pedometer), calories burned and distance travelled. This information is tracked by a three-dimensional accelerometer inside the device similar to those found in high end smartphones to determine screen orientation and in the Wiimote to interact with objects on screen.

Interestingly, the device will also keep track of your sleeping including information such as time you went to bed, fell asleep, how many times your woke up, total duration in bed and your the amount of sleep you received. In order for this to work you’ll need to use the wristband and attach the Fitbit or you can attach the Fitbit to your pyjamas.

At this stage, you might be thinking that this is just a fancy and overpriced pedometer. What really makes this device interesting is its online component. With your Fitbit account you can keep track of all of your statistics uploaded from your device to the website. This is done automatically when you are within range of your Fitbit base station. You can then view all of your information in a variety of formats to get an idea of exactly how active you are for any particular day. There is also a Fitbit Premium service (for US$50 a year)that also provides a twelve week fitness plan and personalised analysis of your results to help you work toward improved fitness.

As expected, there is also the ability to hook up your Fitbit account with Facebook, Twitter and even WordPress so that you can share your achievements and maybe even have your friends keep you honest if you are slacking off.

Anyway, I have just ordered one which will hopefully arrive in early December (as these appear to be in high demand) and I have to factor in the additional time for the mail forwarder to work their magic (as the Fitbit is not shipped outside of the USA by the manufacturer at present).

Of course, you can be sure that you will hear about it the day I receive my Fitbit. Stay tuned!

At the time of writing this article, I am somewhere over the Northern Territory near Darwin at 38000 feet with another 4620km to go before reaching Hong Kong. Since there is no in-flight access to the Internet this article would have been published some time after I landed. That’s not such a big deal for me though as I have plenty of games, podcasts and university lecture notes to keep me occupied.

One thing that has been vital is access to in-flight power. Sure, my iPad once put into flight mode should be able to last the entire flight with a single charge but nevertheless keeping the battery topped up on both my iPhone and iPad gives me one less thing to worry about when I land.

In-Flight Charging

The Cathay Pacific flight I am on (which is CX110 if you’re interested) has power available in every seat (including economy) but you will need an adapter to convert power for your device. At the moment, I am using a 4USB charger with a UK duck head (as I wasn’t sure if the Australian duck head would fit) to charge both my devices. Power is delivered at 110V which is within the acceptable range for this charger. As the name might suggest, the 4USB charger can charge four devices over USB simultaneously from one socket. Of course, as you add devices the amperage does drop off and charging may take a little longer as a result.

4USB charger with duck heads

4USB Output Ratings

Nonetheless, some power is better than none. I managed to pickup a few of the 4USB chargers on Zazz earlier in the week and they already proven to be very handy.

So if you are on a long-haul flight and you prefer your own entertainment devices over what the airline provides then check if they have in-flight power and get yourself a universal charger. It might stop you going stir-crazy!

Deviating from a pure tech focus for today, the heavy rain, hail and flooding in Melbourne has caught a lot of people unprepared. I do hope that there is a good drop in the catchment areas to top up the reservoirs.

It’s been interesting to see what has popped up in the social media so I’ve included a few:

BOM Radar - 20100306 @ 1745 hours

Golf Ball Hail Stones (Courtesy of Felicia and Peter Lau)

Flooded Garage (Courtesy of David Clark)

It’s been quite handy to have social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter as well online forums such as Whirlpool to see photos and videos from people in the affected areas of various things including:

• actual flooding,
• the size of hail stones,
• prevention and clean up activities,
• damage to property.

As always, the Bureau of Meteorology is handy for those in the affected areas to review the intensity of the rain and for any successive fronts that may be headed their way.

I guess all of this technology bring Melbourne a lot closer for me having moved interstate to Sydney about six years ago and it is also far quicker than waiting for the news on free-to-air or pay television.

For all my friends and family in Melbourne, I hope you are all safe and that this harsh weather passes soon with minimal damage to your homes and property.