Show Notes January 27th, 2014

Rose Regina and I talk about how to choose a laptop.

http://splitwise.com/calculators/rent

 

In Tech News:

Google glitch flooded at least one poor guy’s inbox Users around the world dealt with Gmail woes earlier today, but at least one faced an even stranger Gmail problem. David Peck, a private banker from Fresno, California, has been receiving thousands and thousands of emails from strangers — all …
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Government set to declassify information requests, paves the way for more transparency Insight into the NSA’s surveillance activities is about to get a bit less murky for US citizens. Following President Obama’s speech on NSA reform this past month, comes news that the government will now allow for “more detailed disclosures” regarding …
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Sprint to Lay Off Unknown Number of Workers Sprint is prepared to lay off an unknown number of employees, according to filings the company made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The cuts are part of a restructuring plan that the company announced today. Sprint employs about 39,000 people around the U.S. The Associated Press suggests the cuts might be significant based on the size of the charges Sprint expects to take on the workf
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Microsoft SkyDrive is now called OneDrive, after conceding to a trademark infringement dispute. Microsoft SkyDrive is now called OneDrive, after conceding to a trademark infringement dispute. Functionality remains the same. Read more on the OneDrive blog.
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Why Do Media Companies Block Movies, Music, and TV Based on Location? Dear Lifehacker, I’ve always wondered why Blu-rays have regions, or why a music service is available in one country but not another. The Internet is global, right? And why are videos that stream in one country blocked in another? Is there any rhyme or reason, or is it all just to be annoying?Sincerely, Blocked OutDear Blocked Out, It’s pretty annoying when a TV show you want to see airs, and then
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Code hints that Google may bake fitness sensor support into Android KitKat brought pedometer functions to Android, but that’s not necessarily enough for smartphone owners who want to track their fitness routines. Google may be aware of that desire for more athletic info, though. Google Operating System has discovered …
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Google is mapping the history of modern music It’s no surprise that Google has been tracking music uploads, but what’s unexpected is exactly what the search giant is doing with all of that info. Interactive maps of music’s ongoing journey are charted through Play Music’s users’ libraries, found …
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Google starts banning Chrome extensions bought by shady ad firms A brouhaha over adware-laced Chrome extensions has forced Google to remove two from its store and possibly exposed a wider issue. According to the original developer of “Add to Feedly,” the problems happened after he sold his plug-in — created in a …
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LogMeIn ditches free accounts, asks users to pay up or it’ll LogYouOut If you’ve been using LogMeIn’s free account, you might, nay will, need to find another option. The remote desktop service is no longer offering its gratis service, forcing existing users to either migrate to one of the paid accounts, or move over to …
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Pinterest recipe search makes the joy of cooking easy to pin down The next time you’re searching for that perfect recipe to please your finicky friends’ ever-evolving dietary needs (you know, the vegan today/paleo tomorrow types), you won’t have to go further than Pinterest. The service is folding in a new search …
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Verizon Debuts International Messaging Plan Verizon Wireless today unveiled the World Messaging Unlimited promotion, which promises to help reduce the cost of sending messages and making calls to numbers outside the U.S. The plan provides unlimited messaging from the U.S. to most other countries for $5 per month. The World Messaging Unlimited promotion also drops the per-minute rate for voice calls made to landlines or wireless numbers. Suc
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This headset uses sensors and psychology to control gamer rage Designer Sam Matson has a solution to gamer rage that doesn’t involve throwing things at your screen. Introducing Immersion, a headset that monitors your heart rate and increases a game’s difficulty the more frustrated you become. It may sound like …
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Gmail and other Google services go down (update 2: outage details) No, it’s not just you — Gmail, Google+ and a host of other Google services have gone down or otherwise broken. The company’s status board doesn’t show any issues, but Gmail users are seeing notices that their accounts are “temporarily unavailable.” …
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Stratasys’ new 3D printer creates multicolored flexible materials Stratasys’ has a new $330,000 3D printer, but this one has the potential to do a whole lot more than monochrome figurines. In fact, the company says it’s the first machine able to create objects in colored, flexible materials. The Objet500 Connex3 3D …
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Microsoft to Rebrand SkyDrive to OneDrive Microsoft today announced that it plans to rebrand its SkyDrive cloud-storage product. The new name will be OneDrive. Microsoft said SkyDrive users will see no change to their service other than the name itself. “We believe the new OneDrive name conveys the value we can deliver for you and best represents our vision for the future,” said Microsoft in a blog post. The official launch of O
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The Story Of Google: Algorithm and Functionality Updates It’s been fifteen years since Google made its debut in 1998, and it has gone on to be the most prominent search engine in history. Google released its very first algorithm update sixteen months after it went live, which was mostly undocumented. Most webmasters will tell you that Google algorithm updates are a big deal, so let’s take at how many the search engine behemoth has released over the year
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Hackers Steal Law Enforcement Documents From Microsoft wiredmikey writes “Microsoft on Friday said that attackers breached the email accounts of a “select number” of employees, and obtained access to documents associated with law enforcement inquiries. According to the company, a number of Microsoft employees were targeted with attacks aiming to compromise both email and social media accounts ‘..We have learned that there was unauthoriz
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Cellphone vs. Landline – Do You Need Both? How to Save on Your Phone Bills It’s hard to believe now, but up until about 20 years ago, a wireless phone was a luxury that only the wealthy could afford.Even in the early 1990s, the cellphone was considered to be a frivolous item, while the landline phone was a necessity.All that has changed drastically over the years, since now many of us rely on our smartphones for everything and have given up landlines altogether. Read mor
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7 Facts About The iPhone   On January 9 2007, Steve Jobs premiered the first ever iPhone. Seven years later, the iPhone and it’s numerous generations are still going strong, despite the expanding smartphone market and competition: due to the iPhone, Apple makes 50% of the revenue for smartphones globally. One of their newest models the iPhone 5S is 20% lighter than the original model and 40 times more powerful, evidence
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Google Glass wearer removed from AMC theater under suspicion of recording Despite the many uses for Google Glass, this new class of wearable devices is inevitably meeting some growing pains (pictured above is 7’3″ Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert, a Glass wearer who has experienced some growing pains) as the world gets …
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Google can now say if your internet connection is quick enough for YouTube Many are tempted to blame stuttering YouTube streams on our internet providers, but who’s really at fault? Google may shed some light on the subject now that it has launched a Video Quality Report. The tool tells surfers how well their providers …
   
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Rdio Goes Free After Spotify Drops Time Limits It’s a good time to be a streaming music fan at the moment, as each of the big players tries to grab the headlines from the other. The news at the moment is that Rdio is now completely free to users, after Spotify dropped all remaining time limits with regards to usage. Time to put on some tunes and celebrate. There are two catches to the Rdio offer – one, it is only available to US residents, and
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For Women: Look Good & Feel Confident With These 6 Subreddits We often use the new year as an excuse to take better care of our appearance, personal growth, and ultimately self-esteem. Today’s focus is all about looking great. And what better place to start than by finding advice online? Not too long ago, I compiled a list of Subreddits that all men should read. This article is the counterpart for women – a list of Subreddits for women of all ages who want t
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FCC Net Neutrality rules are dead, but they sucked anyway: time for some better ones Yesterday, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated the FCC’s Open Internet Rules. These were the closest thing to a set of Net Neutrality rules America had: rules that were supposed to ensure that ISPs fetched you the data you asked for without prejudice, rather than giving preference to the companies that had bribed them for faster access to you. But these rules sucked As David Isenberg p
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Use Mixed Entry to Increase Length-Capped Password Complexity When it comes to password security, longer is typically better and multi-word pass phrases are even better than that. If you find yourself with an annoying, capped-length password, though, try mixing up the characters in your password.As Reddit user GentleRhino reminds us, tacking on a few extra numbers to the end of some regular words is bad password form. However, mixing those numbers into the w
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Study claims NSA phone data collection is useless in preventing terrorist attacks Ahead of President Obama’s expected announcement of widespread NSA reform later this month, a new study brings the agency’s mass phone data collection operation under fire saying that it has had no positive impact on preventing acts of terrorism.
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Shed The Pounds: Subscribe To These 4 Weight Loss Subreddits My last 9-to-5 job came with the unusual perk of free lunch every day. We’d usually go out for Chinese food, or get a burger or a kebab or something. Despite not being paid for, it did come with a pretty high price. I put on a lot of weight. With 2014 having just arrived, I’ve made a resolution to lose a bit of weight. Reddit is a great resource for this, with its useful subreddits and even some f
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Insane (But True) Benefits of Eating Bugs You Need To Know If you’re someone with entomophobia (a fear of bugs) or you just don’t like them, the thought of eating bugs is sure to creep you out; you may even start to feel sick to your stomach. Depending on your culture, eating bugs may be as common as eating meat, or it may be a delicacy. Entomophagy is the practice of eating bugs, and surprisingly about 2 billion people eat them each day. For those of you
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How to Disable Gmail’s New Feature that Let Google+ Users Email You Last week, Google announced that Gmail users can email their Google+ connections without knowing their email address first. For some, it’s an easy way to stay in touch. For others, it’s a ticket to unwanted email. However you feel, here’s how to turn the feature off, or set it so only the people you want can use it.Now that the new feature has rolled out to Gmail users (although it hasn’t gotten t
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How Can I Stay Anonymous with Tor? Even with recent revelations that the NSA is listening, Tor is still probably the best way to anonymously surf the net. But to do it right, you’ve got to take some precautions. The experts at Information Security Stack Exchange provide guidance on the safe way to use Tor. It has been known in the security community that a tool as versatile as Tor is likely the target of intense interest from intel
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