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Tech News & Commentary
We mentioned an exploit affecting some sites called “Heartbleed” this site allows you to test your sites to make sure they’re unaffected.
Gloria in Detroit listens on CKLW 800 asked us: “I had a disagreement with my son, he wants me to get this type of thing where you can lock your house, car remotely from anywhere, and it seems to to me that if I could do it, sooner or later someone will be able to do it, and I’ll get home sometime and there will be someone in my house and that wouldn’t be something that will make me happy. I like to know whether or not these things are safe to do, he always want to do the newest thing and I’m kind of like “wait a minute”. If you say it’s safe, I’ll go ahead and do it but I just want to hear what you have to say.”
Gloria, As long as everything has been properly encrypted from end to end, and as long as all the information is properly stored, you should be safe enough… but here’s the thing, what would be the benefit?
Do you need to let people into your house when you’re not home? And people you wouldn’t trust with a key, at that. Do you often forget to lock up before you leave and want to be able to do it remotely?
The truth is that over the last few thousand years keys haven’t changed all that much, have a look at RomanLocks.com if you don’t believe us, and that’s because, they’re not perfect, but they’re reasonably secure and reasonably convenient.
Now, if you want to be able to unlock your house or car remotely, these systems should be reasonably secure too, but if you’re going to be wondering if you’re house is safe every time you walk over to the grocery store to buy a potato, and if you won’t get any benefit from this then, what’s the point?
Ask your son how you would personally benefit from installing a system like this and why it would be worth your money, if he makes a good point and you think it’s worth it, go for it. If not, use that money as a cake fund for a few months.
And if we’ve learned anything at all from the recent furor over the “Heartbleed” bug in secure web connections, it’s that you can’t always trust what you think you can. We wouldn’t be surprised at all if, sometime down the road, we stumble across the news that some clever hacker has figured a way to unlock houses with his iPhone.
Years ago, it was garage door openers. They were adjusted to a code specific for your house, but it wasn’t random. So you would drive around and press the button on your opener, just for the laughs you’d get when some random garage door started going up. They now use random codes and they even change the codes, but you can’t anticipate everything you don’t know. Hey, that’s why it’s called “The unknown,” right?
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Consumer Reports Feature With James McQueen
Why should you buy an Android tablet instead of iPad? Consumer Reports Electronics Spokesman James McQueen is here with some possible reasons.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they have been playing with recently.
• Listener Michael in Colona, IL recommends: HitBliss, $0.99
“Use HitBliss Earn to earn cash for your HitBliss account by engaging with video ads, surveys, and other personalized brand messages. Build your balance when it’s convenient: anytime, anywhere.”
• Mark recommends: Microsoft Office for iPad, FREE
- “It’s actually not one app, it’s THREE. Microsoft has released version of their office applications designed for the big screen of the Apple iPad. They’d had a mobile office version for the iPhone already, but had specifically excluded the ability to run on the iPad, presumably to not hurt their Windows tablet market, where you COULD run Office on the bigger devices. The iPad versions are quite nice, supporting most of the important features from the different programs, and making it quite easy to create, review, and edit documents. The Office for iPad interface isn’t just good, it’s BRILLIANT. Microsoft has done a bang-up job at making a fully touch-aware edition of their office suite. In an odd twist, the product is available for iPad before it is on Windows 8.1/RT tablets, or Android, but both will be supported very soon. Office for iPad is free if all you want to do is open and view documents, but if you want to create or edit them, you need to have an active Office 365 subscription. Office 365 Personal is only $75 a year and gives you many features, including Office for iPad. My only real beef with it is no support for any cloud storage solution OTHER than Microsoft’s own OneDrive.” — Mark
What are your favorite Apps? Let us know at 800-899-INTO and we’ll feature them in this segment!
Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details
Guest Segment:
Ryan Alovis, CEO & Founder – ArkNet Media
an interactive agency that owns a portfolio of online companies and also acquires new customers on behalf
Joshua in Sparta, Tennessee listening on SuperTalk 99.7 WTN asked us: “I have a Galaxy S4. I filled up my memory card. I am buying a new one. I’m looking for an easy way to transfer the contents of this memory card, to a new one with more space.”
Joshua, The easiest way is to use your computer to read the card, then copy everything manually, including hidden files, and then copy them from your computer onto the new card.
If you don’t want to do it manually, you can try HDD Raw Copy Tool or Win32DiskImager, they will both clone your old card onto your new one without the need for manual input.
Those programs may help you, because it’s hard to make sure you’ve copied all of the files you’re gonna need, a lot of them are in hidden folders that you may or may not see, and you may or may not be able to copy easily. If in doubt, you may want to use those.
If you decide to use a computer for this, you should know that very few (if any!) computers have a slot for a micro-SD card like the Galaxy S4 uses. You will need to purchase an adapter that converts the micro-SD card into a standard SD card. They’re not expensive, in many cases they even come with the micro-SD cards. We just wanted you to know another part would be required before you stood in front of your computer with your micro-SD card in hand, wondering just exactly where you should stick it.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
“Wireless Update” Weekly Feature with Michelle Sutton
With all the slick ads and competing claims on wireless service, how do you know which company has the best coverage and value? Michelle Sutton is here to help us sort out the fact from fiction.
Scott in Howard, Pennsylvania listening on WSRC and calling in via the App asked us: “I have an Android phone and over the last couple weeks, I’ve had trouble downloading updates and trying to go to the Google Store. It says the download has stopped. I’ve tried powering off my phone. I don’t know what else to do.”
Scott, Are you blocking any ports on your router? If this problem happens while you’re on WiFi, it may just be caused by TCP and UDP ports 5228 not being open, those are the ones used by your phone to connect to Google Play.
If those ports are open or if the problem happens using your 3G, 4G or LTE mobile network, then the case is probably not the ports. That’s bad news, unfortunately. We’ve only heard of this happening a handful of times, and the only consistent solution we have been able to find to the problem has been to fully restore the phone to factory settings.
Has anything changed in the past couple of weeks that you can change back to see if the problem goes away? Otherwise you may be stuck restoring the phone, unfortunately.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Noizy: Kameleon Series Bluetooth earbuds
Other World Computing (OWC): Nuguard KX phone cases for Samsung Galaxy S4, iPhone 4/4S and 5
Ventev: Assortment of their new products — like the PowerCell 6000+ Rapid Charger, cases for the new Galaxy S5 Smartphone, ChargeSynce tangle-free USB cables for Android & Apple devices & more.
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!