First Impressions – Google Navigation Arrives Down Under

Google Navigation (Traffic Conditions)

If you have been watching either the Twitter feed or Facebook page for Boydo’s Tech Talk you would have seen that Google Navigation was officially released yesterday. This is good news for those of you who have had to hack their Android devices with Brut Google Maps to get turn-by-turn navigation as there is now …

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About.me – Your Personal Splash Page

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 …

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Help Look After Your Gadgets in the Warmer Months

With Summer fast approaching down under and some hot weather already making its presence well known across the country. Whilst electronics and their components usually have prescribed operating temperatures it is a good idea to set aside some time to perform some general maintenance to prevent premature failure. The devices you should be primarily concerned about …

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New Gadget – Panasonic VIErA Full-HD 3D Neo Plasma TV

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 …

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Microsoft Temporarily Disables URLs in Windows Live Messenger

If you are using an older version of Windows Live Messenger you may have noticed that URLs have been disabled (i.e. they are not clickable). Microsoft has taken this step to help prevent a worm spreading through its instant messaging service (although presumably someone could still copy and paste the link manually into a browser). …

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Hotmail Finally Implements Complete SSL

Hotmail - Connect with HTTPS

In a development that could be seen as a response to the havoc that FireSheep has created in the last week, Microsoft has finally enabled complete SSL security for its Hotmail service. Previously, authentication would be encrypted using SSL but users would then be switched back to plain HTTP (which of course is insecure). The …

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BlackSheep – Detect FireSheep on an Unsecured Wi-Fi Network

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) …

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Boydo’s Tech Talk – New Facebook Page!

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 …

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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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