November 2010 archive

Phone Disk – Use Your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch as a Portable Drive

Phone Disk - Device Root Folder

Ever since the original iPhone came out, people have complained about Apple’s decision to prevent its use as a portable drive. Apple’s original iPods (excluding the iPod Touch) all supported the use of the device as an external drive which would show up in Windows or MacOS as another disk drive. There have been a …

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Turn Your USB Drive into a Bootable Windows Medium

If you have a netbook or a more sizeable notebook that does not come with an optical drive you may find yourself in a quandary when attempting to reinstall Windows from scratch. When I bought my netbook it came with Windows XP which made me feel like crying until I worked out how to put Windows 7 …

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Backup Your Facebook Profile

Facebook - Request My Download

A lot of people may not have been aware of this Facebook feature that would allow you to backup your content which was announced some time ago but may have only just been rolled out to users. In the past, if you wanted to download all of your photos you had to go through a …

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Shorten Your Own URLs with Bit.ly

Another quick tip for tonight. If you want to share links with friends or would like to shorten URLs for your own convenience you can use a service such as Bit.ly to help you out. If you sign up, you can not only create shorted URLs but also customise the shortened URL. For example, a …

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Force Secure HTTP with NoScript

NoScript - HTTPS Settings

Yesterday, I blogged about how FireSheep made it quite easy for the average person to impersonate other users on social networking websites that were using the same insecure wireless network. The simplest thing a user can do is to force secure HTTP (or HTTPS – HyperText Transport Protocol Secure) but this can be a chore …

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FireSheep – Why You Should Be Worried About Unsecured Wi-Fi Networks

You may have caught glimpses in the news about a Firefox add-on called FireSheep but you may or may not know of its capabilities and the implications it will have upon your interactions online. In a nuthsell, this add-on allows a user to see the social network activities that are taking place on an unsecured …

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Know How to Block Your Mobile Phone Number

Another quick and simple  tip for tonight (partially inspired by my love of working out to make phones do funny stuff in the past like loop someone’s voicemail back on itself many times over so it echoes). Every now and then there may be someone you want to call but you don’t necessarily want them …

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Printer Cartridges – Do Your Homework

Another quick tip for this evening. When we buy a new printer there is a sort of honeymoon period after it comes out of the box and you’ve gone through the process of assembly, connection, installation and the final test print. What we may not realise is the ongoing cost of consumables such ink or …

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Learn How to Make App Tabs in Your Browser

App Tabs in Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta 6

Just a quick tip for this evening. With Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta 6 and also Google Chrome you have the ability to create an “app tab” (in Firefox speak) or a “pinned tab” (in Chrome speak). Basically, these are like sticky tabs that persist between browser sessions (i.e. when you close and reopen them) and …

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Track Your Activity With the Fitbit

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 …

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