Tag: Corning

Creating Better, More Secure Passwords

Linda Reimer

We all know that it is a good idea to create strong, secure passwords for our online accounts and not use passwords like: password, apples, 1234, baseball or qwert; or passwords that include personal information like your date of birth or the date of birth of a family member. However, in our super busy world creating secure passwords that we can remember is a challenge. And today there is an article in the New York Times titled How to Devise Passwords That Drive Hackers Away that discusses the subject of creating safer, more secure passwords – and it does offer some helpful tips! The suggestions include never using the same password twice, never using proper words but instead using catch phrases (i.e. the first initial of each word in a phrase like TYwtws2013! For the catch phrase “The Yankees won the world series 2013!”

Here’s a link to the article for more in-depth information on how to create great passwords:

http://goo.gl/eBsy5

Have a great day!

Linda

Off The Tech Topic Posting

Linda Reimer

I came a cross a neat article today that has nothing what-so-ever to do with technology except perhaps for the fact that I read it in the online version of the New York Times.

The article is actually an interview with Herman Wouk the 97 year old author who wrote, among other popular works, The Winds of War, War and Remembrance and Marjorie Morningstar.

And Mr. Wouk has a new book out! The book is called the Lawgiver and it will be on the library’s next book order.

And that Mr. Wouk at age 97 has a new book is cool!

And I hope that I am as spry as he is when I get to be 97 – fingers crossed of course!

Here’s the link to the New York Times interview titled At 97, He Has a Book (or Two) Left in Him:

http://goo.gl/C1OF7

Linda R.

Tech Events @ The Library This Week: Holiday Planning & Try It Before You Buy It

Linda Reimer

Wednesday, November 14, 2012:

Wednesday One Hour Tech Workshop: Holiday Planning.
Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Learn how to plan your holiday party- electronically with assistance from apps and websites. Registration is required. Register in person or by phone (607)936-3713 ext. 502.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Evening Tech Workshop: Try before you buy
Time: 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Stop in the try e-readers, iPads and tablets before you decide what to buy as a holiday gift even if you’re looking to buy a new e-reader or tablet for yourself!

Staff will be on hand to answer questions you may have about these devices.

Additionally of note, the library offers free one-on-one tech usage instruction sessions so if you buy a new tablet or e-reader and have questions about how to use it – you can call and make an appointment to sit down and go over your questions with a member or our tech staff.

Have a great afternoon everyone!

Linda R.

Get A FREE E-Book By Local Author Jacqueline Horsfall Via The Library’s Website

Linda Reimer

In honor of Election Day local author Jacqueline Horsfall is offering her new e-book First Girl Last for free through Amazon. The story follows a teenage girl and her twenty-something slacker brother who become leaders of the Free World!

To get the book you simply visit our website and click the link on our homepage – here’s the link:

http://ssclibrary.org/

Interested in the e-book but don’t own a Kindle? Read on!

Did You Know You Can Read Kindle E-Books On Smartphones & Tablets?

You can!

There are Kindle apps for most tablets and smart phones including the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch and Android smart phones and tablets like the Droid Razor and Galaxy Tab  – so if  you “buy” (and you do have to click the “buy” button even though the e-book is free!) the free e-book First Girl Last from Amazon you’ll be able to send it to your iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch or Android smart phone or tablet to read it – you just have to download the Kindle app from your app store first!

And Did You Further Know You Can Read Kindle E-Books (or for that matter free library e-books) on a PC or Mac?

You can!

You can actually download software from the Amazon site that will allow you to open any Kindle e-books you’ve purchased on your laptop or desktop!

And for the sake of convenience – here are the links:

Click here to download the Kindle software for your PC:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_pc_mkt_lnd?docId=1000426311

And click here to download the Kindle software for your Mac:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000464931

And in relation, to read free library e-books on your smart phone or tablet look for the OverDrive Media Console app from your app store!

And if you have questions about how to read Kindle e-books on devices other than Kindles or regarding how to get the OverDrive Media Console app set up on your device – so you can read free library e-books – ask the library staff! We’ve got a tech staff ready to assist you with any tech usage questions you might have – so please ask us!

Have a great day!

Linda R.

Amazon Prime Goes Monthly & Sony E-Books App Approved by Apple

Linda Reimer

Amazon Prime Goes Monthly: As you may already know Amazon has been offering a service called Prime for quite a while. The service offers subscribers unlimited streaming of videos from Amazon’s Prime Video library to their PC, Mac, iPad, smartphone or TV (via a media streaming box like Roku or through the TV directly if you have a Smart TV); free access to one e-book a month from Amazon’s Prime Lending Library, free second day shipping for any item purchased from Amazon and $3.99 over night shipping for any item purchased from Amazon.

Prior to this week a subscription to prime costs $79 per year and was paid annually in one lump sum; but now you can subscribe to Amazon Prime and pay $7.99 a month. And it is certainly not a coincidence that Amazon has done this since both Netflix and Hulu Plus streaming (video) subscriptions are also available for $7.99 per month.

Here’s a link to a CNET article on this subject titled Amazon eyes Netflix, Hulu with $7.99-per-month Prime plan:

http://goo.gl/ZR24b

 Sony E-Books App Approved by Apple: And you may by wondering what I am talking about with this one! Sony has offered e-book readers for years. And in fact, Sony had e-book readers on the market in the U.S. in 2005 so their e-readers were on the market before the first iPad came out in 2010 and even before the first Kindle was introduced by Amazon in 2007. And anyone who first purchased a Sony E-Reader (usually known as Sony Readers) and later purchased an iPad or iPhone knows there hasn’t been a Sony Reader app available in Apples App store previously – so those of us who purchased Sony Readers and later upgraded to iPads or iPhones couldn’t read our Sony purchased e-books on our iPads; this has now changed! Hurray! There is finally a Sony e-reader app available for free from Apple’s App Store! The app is titled Reader – eBooks from Sony and is free. So anyone else out there who also has an old Sony E-Reader can now access their Sony purchased e-books on their iPad , iPhone or iPod Touch and donated that old Sony Reader they still have to one of their friends or relatives!

CNET has a story on this subject titled Sony finally gets Apple approval for iOS Reader app which can be accessed via the following link:

http://goo.gl/5WkqZ

Have a great election day everyone!

Linda R.

Interesting & Fun NPR Article On Pay Phone Use In New York

Linda Reimer

NPR has an interesting and fun article on their website today titled Pay Phones Are Suddenly Important Again Because Of Sandy. The article is fun because of a typo – and as NPR may well catch the typo and revise the text before you read it – here is what the caption currently says under the photo on the NPR technology page – as of 9:55 EST Saturday morning (11-3-12)  it reads: “As some New Yorkers try to stay connected with others, they’ve had to search for pay phones because their cellphones have run out of juice. Question: When was the last time you sued a pay phone?”

Now I don’t know about anyone else but I can’t honestly say that I have ever sued a pay phone.

I’ve never encountered a pay phone that was threatening in any way or in the least bit obnoxious or condescending.

The worst that can be said of any pay phones that I have ever encountered is that I occasionally encountered one that didn’t work or was one that was inconvenient located on the other side of the street.

However, I have never sued a pay phone! How about you?

Here is the link to the NPR Technology page with its charming “sue a pay phone” caption:

http://www.npr.org/sections/technology/

And pasted below is the link to the article itself – which is interesting as it illustrates the point that technological advancement has sped up and really changed our lives in last ten years. And indeed, I can’t remember the last time I used a pay phone but I’d guess it was back in the pre-cell phone days of the 1990s.

And as much as I love technology I do have to say Hurricane and then Storm Sandy gave me pause; because, like many people I didn’t even have a battery operated radio in the house – and if the power had gone out in the City of Corning I’d really have been in the dark.

I do think we should all purchase battery operated radios (and change the batteries in them when we put new batteries in our smoke detectors) and pick up a copy of The New Way Things Work book by David Macaulay just in case we need to operate without electricity for any length of time!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/11/01/164108616/pay-phones-are-suddenly-important-again-because-of-sandy

Have a great day!

Linda R.

And as a post script – since that NPR article on cell phone usage in New York City after Hurricane Sandy was rather brief – albeit humorous – here’s a link to a longer New York Times article on the same subject titled Cellphone Users Steaming at Hit-or-Miss Service:

http://goo.gl/UAzH1

 

 

The New Boxee TV Media Streaming Player

Linda Reimer

The Boxee is another media streaming player like the Roku player and the Apple TV. The Boxee box connects to your TV and the Internet and then allows you to stream video via channel apps including Netflix, Pandora, MLB.TV (baseball) and Vudu (The Walmart streaming service). And now Boxee has updated its device and dropped the price of it to $99 and included two huge new perks – a built in antenna which should allow you to easily stream free over-the-air channels (i.e. basic channels: ABC, NBC, CBS & PBS)  to your TV and a free & unlimited cloud based DVR service* – meaning that you can record shows shown on ABC, NBC, CBS & PBS storm them in the cloud and watch them whenever you want to – with no limit as to how many shows you can store to watch later. Now that last perk – the cloud based DVR with unlimited storage perk is free in and of itself but does require you to pay a $14 monthly fee to gain access to the program guide which will allow you to record shows. So in essence it does cost $14 for the service in the areas in which it is available and so far those areas are major urban areas including New York City and Los Angeles. However, I think the introduction of this new Boxee box is cool for two reasons 1. Because it allows cord cutters to easily access the TV networks free of charge by simply setting up the box and 2. Because it shows how fast the technology is advancing and how in the future we are likely to pay less money to access an ever increasing amount of television shows, movies and other audio and video content.

Oh and I left out one other important accessibility item – this new Boxee box will be sold in one brick and mortar store only – Walmart! So the next time you’re at Walmart, and waiting for someone else in your family, you might stop in the TV section and check it out!

Here are links to three articles/reviews on the subject:

The first from CNET titled Wal-Mart to start selling Boxee TV set-top box:

http://goo.gl/eRVpM

The second from the Daily Finance (written by Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool) titled Boxee TV: Walmart Wants You to See It; Your Cable Provider Doesn’t:

http://goo.gl/igOmR

And the third a general review from CNET tilted $99 Boxee TV records over-the-air television to the cloud — but requires monthly fee:

http://goo.gl/zf1g3

* The cloud based DVR service with unlimited storage is rolling out in just a few cities now but will be rolling out in more in 2013. The service is not currently available in our area – just FYI…

Have a great day!

Linda R.

E-Books Borrowed (Rented?) Not Bought, Penguin & Random House Merge, New App Controlled Phillips LED Lighting System AND Library Closing Note

Linda Reimer

E-Books Borrowed (Rented?) Not Bought: Last week Norwegian Kindle owner Linn Nygaard discovered a crucial fact about buying e-books for your Kindle – that you’re not really buying the e-books at all. You are in fact buying a license to access the e-books. Or you could say you were renting the e-books or borrowing them but you are not in fact buying them. And that translates into the experience that Lin Nygaard had – that the seller or publisher of the electronics books can simply block your access to any e-books you’ve “purchased.” It seems that Linn Nygaard travels quite a bit and has owned two Kindles in recent years one that she bought in the UK and gave to her mother and one that she purchased online. And somehow, in some mysterious way Amazon decided that she had violated their usage terms. So Amazon cut off her access to her account and to her “purchased” e-book library and then sent her an a very vague email informing her she’d no longer be able to do business with Amazon and wishing her well in finding another e-vendor to do business with.

Amazon subsequently restored Nygaard’s access to her account and her e-book library without any explanation of why her account was blocked to begin with nor why they suddenly restored her access to her account and her e-book library.

And if you’ve glanced at this library tech blog periodically you’ll have noticed that I keep bringing the subject of the lack of e-book ownership up…

And I do that because I think the subject of “owning” e-books is of paramount concern. Because we, meaning those of us that buy e-books, don’t at the current time own the e-books we “buy”– despite the fact that all the e-book vendors I’ve ever bought e-books from – Amazon, Barnes & Noble & Apple via their iBooks Store have a “Buy” or “But it Now” button you click on to purchase the access to the e-books. And if those vendors and/or publishers decided to block our access to those e-books they can do so and we’d be up the creek without a paddle just like Linn Nygaard.

I see it this way — buying e-books, and for that matter digital videos and music should be just like buying print books (and DVDs & CDS) – you buy the book and it is yours to do with as you wish. And the print vendor and/or publisher police don’t come to your house at some point in the future, in the middle of the night no doubt, force their way into your house, stomping all over the flower bed in your front yard along the way for good measure, and take all the print books you’ve purchased back for some unknown and unexplained reason. However, that is just want can happen with e-books that you’ve “bought.” Under the current buying-a-license-to-access the e-books system you’re access to the e-books you’ve “purchased” can be revoked at any time without explanation.

And I think the lack of ownership – that is the inability of the individual consumer to actually purchase and own e-books is a huge threat to intellectual freedom because in the future, when e-books are the dominant form of reading material – we could find our access to the e-books we’ve “bought” barred by a vendor or publisher without cause and without even being offered the common courtesy of the vendor or publisher telling us why they believe we’ve violated terms of service as was the case with Linn Nygaard.

And to read more on the subject here’s a link to a Forbers article titled Amazon Ebooks Are Borrowed, Not Bought:

http://goo.gl/w0uzp

Penguin & Random House Merge: Now you may be thinking “What on Earth does the merging of two large publishing houses, Penguin & Random House, have  to do with technology? And my answer to that questions is that these two large publishers are merging as a way to both improve their footing in the printing world, which is undergoing a tremendous upheaval due to the growing popularity of e-books and the corresponding declining popularity of print books, and thus the fact that two of the largest English publishers in the world merging makes sense as they will be better able to prop up their print business and, hopefully, catch on and adapt to the digital age and produce more e-books without major league restrictions like either not selling e-books to public libraries, selling e-books to public libraries at 3 or 4 times the hardcover price and insisting on the restrictive DRM software when you “buy” and e-book so you’re stuck only being able to read that e-book via one platform.

Here’s a link to a paidContent article titled Penguin Random House aims to attack digital, emerging ebooks markets that offers more information on the subject:

http://goo.gl/C2KoB

New App Controlled Phillips LED Lighting System: Phillips has introduced a new LED lighting system that allows you to customize not only the brightness that lights give off but also allow you to change the color of the lighting. So you can offer orange light for your Halloween party and red a green light for  your holiday party! The lighting system can be controlled via an Apple app – so in essence  you can turn up the brightness level or dim the lights or change the color of the lights or even turn the lights on or off while you’re away from home all from your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. The system isn’t cheap – it costs $200 for the initial kit that includes three light bulbs. The light bulbs should fit any lamp you own and should last 15 years so perhaps $200 isn’t too much if you’re a tech buff!

The Sacramento Bee has a concise article on this new lighting system. The article is titled Philips Reveals hue: World’s Smartest LED Light Bulb, Ushering in New Era of Connected Lighting for the Home and can be accessed via the following link:

http://goo.gl/JBEu7

Library Closing Note: The library will be closing today (Monday, October 30, 2012) at 4 PM and will be closed all day tomorrow, Tuesday, October 30, in anticipation of the Hurricane/Storm Sandy moving through our area. The library should re-open on Wednesday morning at 10 AM.

And as usual you can check the library’s homepage for weather closing information. The library’s homepage can be found at: http://ssclibrary.org/

Have a great day & stay safe!

Linda R.

 

 

Windows 8 Apps & Apple Expected To Launch Online Radio Service In 2013

Linda Reimer

Windows 8 Apps: Now that Windows 8 is available I thought it might be a good idea to mention some solid Windows 8 apps – available from the Windows App Store – that you might find useful if you upgrade to Windows 8 or buy a new Windows PC, laptop, tablet or hybrid tablet in the near future.

The apps include: Netflix, IM+, TuneIn Radio, StumbleUpon, MovieGuide, Maps, Free Books, Google Chrome, Kindle, MetroTwit (Twitter), Skype, Google (for direct access to the Google search box), HuluPlus, FlipToast, AllRecipes, Evernote, WeatherBug and more.

Here are links to three articles on that very subject of apps for Windows 8 – just in case you buy a new laptop over the weekend!

1. Top 12 Windows Store apps from CNET:

http://goo.gl/RMyUZ

2. 10 Windows 8 apps you should download first by PC World

http://goo.gl/bvHQK

3.  The 10 Best Free Windows 8 Apps For Work And Play by Business Insider

http://goo.gl/le2nM

Apple Radio Service: According to the Apple Insider in 2013 Apple is slated to introduce a new internet radio service to compete with the likes of Pandora and Spotify. And if you’re not familiar with internet radio – it is a popular way to listen to music because you can customize the music to fit your personal taste. So, for example, if I create a Frank Sinatra channel on Pandora* — then that channel will play the music of Frank Sinatra and other persons of that vintage and in that style – so you might here a Frank Sinatra song followed by a Harry Connick Jr. song followed by a Louis Armstrong song etc. Likewise if I create a Beatles channel I’ll hear music by the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and various other classic rock artists.

Some of my personal favorite Pandora channels are: George Winston Radio, Billie Holiday Radio, Beatles Radio and Christmas Radio.

The Apple Insider article, tilted Apple reportedly planning to launch online radio service by early next year, may be accessed via the following link:

http://goo.gl/PdIL7

Have a great weekend!

Linda R.

*Pandora is available and you can access the service via apps or through your web browser at http://www.pandora.com/

New iBooks App & New And Cool Webcam for HDTVs

Linda Reimer

New iBooks App: Along with several new hardware products introduced yesterday, Apple also introduced a new version of its e-book app  iBooks. The new iBooks app features allows you to, among other things, select an option to scroll down the page continually (as you would on a computer screen) and easily share text passage with others.

The app has some improvements and is certainly worth checking out; although I’ll admit, iPad fan that I am, that I purchase most of my e-books from Amazon to read on the iPad Kindle app.

Here’s a link to a Gigaom review of the new iBooks app:

http://goo.gl/ISzxI

And another link to a CNET video review of the updated iBooks app:

http://goo.gl/MgqK8

New And Cool Webcam for HDTVs: A recent New York Times article, titled No Need to Crowd In. We Can All Talk to Mom, discusses the new, clear and relatively inexpensive webcams that plug into the HDMI inputs on televisions and allow you to make wide angle video calls, via HD Skype software.

What this means is that the HD camera picks up a good portion of the room of the caller so several people can sit on a couch and not be squeezed together in front of a computer screen – and still be able to all talk to the person they are calling at once. It is pretty cool technology! And the Logitech HD Webcam discussed in the article – the Logitech Cam HD –only costs $199 so it is within reasonable reach, price-wise, for those who have many family members living in locations across the globe! It might also make a really cool holiday gift…

Here’s the link to the New York Times article;

http://goo.gl/fn9cj

Have a great day everyone!

Linda R.