The Future is Now! Well, maybe next year.

The computer monitor on my counter wants me to touch it. No, I realize that it is not a touch-screen and that swiping my fingers across its lighted surface will yield no result and leave fingerprints where none belong. Yet, there are icons there that call out to me, a tempting array of “apps” that are new, and mysterious. Sure, I can click with my mouse cursor, but these programs scream out that they are meant to be touched. Like the fabled explorers of yore, I have discovered a new world. My computer is running Windows8™!

The natural reaction at this point is to ask, “But didn’t they just release Windows7™ recently?” In fact, Windows7™ was released to retail sales on October 22^nd, 2009, almost 2 years ago. With a projected release of Windows8™ to be in the Fall of 2012, that will have been three years since the previous OS release.

The next question that is nagging at your brain is, “Hey! If Windows8™ isn’t being released until a year from now, how the heck are you playing with it already?” Last week, Microsoft™ made Windows8™ available for download as a Developer’s Preview. This is a preliminary version that is made available for software developers to use as a tool to write programs for. I downloaded and installed it just for fun. (Translated: Geek cannot resist). Remember, this is a preview version and not fully functional so kids, don’t try this at home.

OK, so with all of the boring stuff out of the way, what makes this so exciting and why am I so compelled to touch my screen? I have had a vision of the future and the future is…Tablet. Microsoft™ has sent a very clear message with the design of Windows8™. The message is that they feel the direction that personal computing is taking is tablet oriented. The “Metro™” interface of the display is obviously meant for a touch-screen using swiping motions. My crystal ball is showing me a probable assortment of Windows8™ tablets in the near future. With so many applications and resources available online now, in “the Cloud”, maybe the thing that most of us need is a super-portable computer that we can use anywhere. With a Windows™ based tablet, you could access files and devices on your home network. You could easily print movie tickets. With a built-in camera and Video-Chat software, you have a video-phone. You could stream media files like movies and TV shows from your Media Center computer to anywhere in your home. (Remember “Cutting the Cable”?)

I’m probably getting ahead of myself, but if I am having these techno-fantasies, I can’t imagine that the people who build this stuff aren’t having even wilder ones. So if you want to see what the future looks like, just stop by anytime and play. And so what if it’s not a touch-screen. Give in to the temptation to touch. It won’t work yet, but I have plenty of cleaning spray.

Being Thankful

I know that it has been 2 weeks since Thanksgiving, but I thought it was time to talk about the things for which I am personally thankful, technologically speaking.

I am thankful for online music services. Who would have thought that at the touch of a button I could be listening to “Afternoon Delight” by Starland Vocal Band? I have slept many a restful night in the comfort that I would live the rest of my life and probably never hear that song again, but because of Spotify™ I can hear this and all of my favorite hits from the 70’s. Brings me right back to my unreasonably long hair and Qiana shirts. (Google THAT). By the way, Tuesday is always 70’s day at The Computer Cafe here in Winchester so stop by.

I am thankful for Google™.  Arguments are a thing of the past due to the ability to verify facts at a moment’s notice. It has been confirmed, right at the dinner table, that your eyes will not in fact “pop out” if you leave them open while sneezing. Helena is the capital of Montana and a penny dropped from the top of the Empire State building will not drill a hole 4 feet into the concrete.

I am thankful for my Smartphone, not for any coolness factor or its ability to find me the best Thai food within walking distance. I am thankful for being able to carry around an assortment of pictures of my kids that would never have fit into even the overstuffed wallet of George Costanza. My colleague stopped by yesterday and showed me a movie of his first child dancing for the first time. I need to rephrase this so you can fully absorb it. Go back in time and tell your 1985 self. He carries a MOVIE of his daughter in his pocket!

I am thankful for the online availability of TV shows and movies. Without the almost unlimited selection of entertainment sources I would not be able to spend my evenings camped out, buried deep in my sofa in a passive stimulus coma. If it were not for Hulu™ and Netflix™ I would have to engage in conversation with my family or even fix things around the house. I would not have been able to expose my children to the timeless treasure of “The Partridge Family”.

I am thankful for Geocaching. I can’t tell you what that is because it is a secret. There are millions of “caches” hidden all over the world. You walk past them every day and don’t even know it. I shouldn’t have even told you this much because it is secret. The fun part is you use technology in the form of a GPS device to find the hidden spots and then use clues to find the Cache itself. When you find it, you can usually sign a log sheet and sometimes even trade little prizes left behind by other players. It’s a great way to spend time outdoors and exercising while using Tech. The best part is that it is all secret, except the parts I gave away…which is actually most of it…but don’t tell anyone. Remember, secret. Especially the website (www.geocaching.com) which I never should have told you.

I am ever so thankful for Facebook™. Without Facebook, I would never know who was going to the dentist or had dented their car in the mall parking lot. I would never get to see 38 pictures of someone’s Chihuahua puppy, which all kind of looked the same. I would never have been offered a Pig by someone playing a game while they were obviously at work.

I also never would have had to opportunity to reconnect with a friend from over 30 years ago with whom I have found to have so much more in common than I would have thought, and to have been able to meet up for drinks at The Black Horse Tavern at almost the spur of the moment. I would never have known about many of the ordinary triumphs and tribulations of my geographically distant family members. I never would have known about friends’ accomplishments as musicians, politicians, adoptive parents, actors, photographers, teachers and even world renowned Bloggers. ;-)

I joke about reading about people’s dentist visits, but those are the kind of things that you talk about with your friends. The online world is our backyard fence over which we have the late afternoon talk with Wilson. It lets us stay in touch about all of the things that matter, the large and the small, the momentous and the mundane. So, this holiday season get yourself online and reconnect with someone from your past that you always liked but never got close with. Trust me it is worth the effort. And really, it’s as easy as pushing a button. Seriously, dude, that easy.

Happy Holidays.

QR Codes? Well, scan me now!

A man stopped while walking along the sidewalk. He took out his smart phone and pointed it at a weird looking jumble of black and white blocks on a sticker he saw on a lamp post. He waited a second, looking at the screen on his phone, and smiled. I guess he noticed me staring at him because he turned, held up his phone and said to me, “I just won a free pizza!”

A woman parked her car at the curb. There was no parking meter there, but she knew that there was a fee for parking. She noticed a small sign with a similar looking jumbled block of black and white. Out came her Smartphone and she pointed it at the sign. Again, noticing me staring at her, she held up her phone and said, “Here is a map to show where the Pay Station machine is.”

Before you start accusing me of being a Smartphone stalker, these two stories are examples of QR Codes. They are popping up all over the place, on posters, advertisements and yes, even on telephone poles. They can be set up to do all sorts of cool things.

Originally designed to track parts in automobile factories, the QR(Quick Response) code is a two dimensional matrix of dark blocks on a light background, in a square shape. A QR scanner can decode these symbols into any of a number of responses. If you have a Smartphone you can install any of a number of free apps to scan QR codes. Scanning a QR Code can prompt your phone to display a message, open a website, receive a VCard (like a digital business card) or even generate an email or text message.

Companies are using QR Codes to enhance their advertising and promotional materials. Some ads will have QR Codes with special offers or even link directly to the web site to order the product they are promoting. QR Codes can also be just for fun, because you can generate and print them yourself. There are many websites and programs, also mostly free, which let you create your own custom QR Codes for almost any use you could imagine.

Just imagine a QR Code Scavenger Hunt! You could start by scanning one code which would tell you somewhere you have to go. When you get to the location, there might be some fun activity you have to do, or a trivia question to answer. Once you complete your task, you get a new code to scan, which leads you to your next location and task. Eventually you return to the original location to claim triumph, having used 21^st Century technology to have great, outdoor fun and maybe even get some exercise too.

Cut off from the world.

I was recently on vacation out of the country with my family. Now when I say “out of the country”, I mean just oh-so-barely out of the country, one city block into Canada, at Niagara falls. So, even though I could clearly see the home shores of the U.S.A. I had to turn off my phone. You see, once you cross the bridge, you are now in International Roaming Land. In this mythical territory, your phone company gets to charge you astronomical rates for calls and especially data. To make things even better, mere mortals would not even be capable of interpreting the rates from the Cellular Carrier’s website.

I had no idea how plugged into the Internet I was until I suddenly found myself cut off. I was standing at the railing, looking out at the majesty and hearing the roar of the falls, a wonder of the natural world. I COULD NOT TWEET. The online universe could not read my insights on life and the world the very moment I thought them.

I could not get Facebook updates as they happened. I missed out on the poignant moment of discovering that an old high school friend, with whom I have not spoken in almost thirty years, had purchased a new washer/dryer combo.

I could neither send nor receive Emails, missing out on the opportunity to get the untold millions of dollars from that exiled Nigerian prince who needed my bank information. (Psst.. upcoming blog subject)

I could not get online to watch week-old episodes of “The Daily Show” instead of turning my head to see one fifth of the world’s fresh water pouring over a drop of 180 feet in one the world’s most spectacular sights.

I could not pull my phone out of my pocket to call one of my co-workers to say, “Dude! You are at work and I’m on a boat, wearing a bright blue slicker and getting soaked.”

I was unconnected, isolated from the world and confronted with the fact that I was forced to be IN the world. I was thrown together with my family and coerced by my circumstances to share our common experience. We spent our days in awe and wonder and in result of that, talked to each other! We shared our trip and had one of the best vacations we had ever done as a family. We spent every day seeing new things, having fun and meeting new people.

At the end of each day, we retired to our hotel room, exhausted and satisfied with what we had seen and done, ready to wake up and have yet another day tomorrow that was even more exciting. With teeth brushed and PJs on, the family snuggled down into the comfort of our… HEY WAIT!

I forgot we had free Wi-Fi in the hotel.

The room settled into its nightly silence, interrupted only by the hum of the laptop fans. I learned on Facebook that my former Kindergarten classmate played tennis today.

Cutting the Cable?

In Winchester Patch’s Question of the Day last month (http://bit.ly/mReGAg) , Daniel Marra asked us if we would be willing to cancel our Cable TV subscriptions to “save a few bucks”. I can tell you that I did it, don’t miss a bit of it and have never looked back.

March 25^th, 2009 shall forever (in my house at least) be celebrated as “Convergence Day”. This was the first time I ever took a computer, hooked it up to my living room television set and streamed a full length television program for my family to watch. The fact that the program happened to be “The Partridge Family” is something about which you can make fun of me at some other time. Watching this show got the wheels of inspiration turning and I began to formulate the idea that TV could become UNBOUND!

Nothing much irks me more than paying for something I don’t really use. Out of the 250+ cable channels I received, we may have been watching 12 on a regular basis. The more I poked around on the Internet, the more shows I found that were available for streaming play or for download. We started to make a list of the shows we watched most often and sure enough, most of them were available to be watched on their respective network’s websites. At the time, there was even a new website being tested out called Hulu™, which promised to offer hundreds of shows, from many of the top networks. Back then, it was by invitation only, but eventually caught on and continues to add new shows all the time.

The next step I took was to install a TV tuner into my computer. These are available as add-in cards for desktop systems and also as USB devices for laptops. With a rabbit-ear antenna, I am able to receive all of the local stations for free. They come over the air in HD. This lets me watch all of the locally broadcast news and sports. If you choose, you could even hook your cable connection and watch the basic, local stations, paying the minimum monthly fee. A computer running Windows 7 even has the built in “Media Center” which gives you the ability to record shows just like a Tivo™ DVR.

Add a Netflix™ subscription and you have all the makings of a custom home entertainment center. Hey, while you are at it, connect an inexpensive webcam and using an online calling program like Skype™ you turn your living room into a video phone center.

So if one night you see someone watching The Daily Show, projected up onto a 10 foot screen, that’s me, enjoying TV for free. I’m watching the shows I want, when I want them and just hitting pause whenever I need a cool drink. The 21^st Century will be televised and TV is Unbound!

Blasts From the Past

To be right up front, I was a teenager of the ‘70s. Yes, the 1970s, previous century.

Now I am going to resist the urge to regale you with tales of how we had to get up to change the 5 channels on the TV, or how our one telephone had a big dial on it and you could only walk as far as the cord would allow. I never walked to school as a child, even though it was uphill, both ways. The picture I am painting for you is that we did not have all of the modern distractions to occupy our attention. As teenagers, a majority of our time was spent just hanging out and listening to the radio, tuned to an AM top 40 station.

I know plenty of people who still have boxes of the vinyl LPs (giant black CDs) of their youth in their basements. The memories lie, unplayed for decades, waiting to be awakened. If people still have their old turntables, the needles are so old and crusted with time that they are just as likely to tear the records to shreds as to release their secrets. Never fear, citizens of the 21^st Century, salvation is at hand.

There are companies that sell USB turntables that hook up to your computer. You can play your records on them, through your computer speakers. You can also use software to “rip” the songs into .mp3 files that can play on your computer or music device. The trouble is that unless you have treated your LPs delicately over the years or never played them when you were 15 and irresponsible, they are likely scratched and won’t play well. Also, ripping in all those songs could be a long and tedious process.

Along come music downloads! Online services such as iTunes™, Amazon™, Napster™ etc. will allow you to go through their extensive music libraries and purchase the tunes you so sorely have missed. It can be a great trip down memory lane, but also an expensive one if you have a large catalogue of memories.

The latest additions to online sources of music are subscription streaming services. Using these services, you can set up an account, either for free or for a monthly fee, and “stream” songs to listen to. With some, like Pandora™, you can set up a “station” that will play an assortment of music based on your taste, and then make suggestions that you can vote on. Eventually it becomes a fine tuned online radio station based on your own taste. Newer players in this area are services like Spotify™ where you can search their staggeringly large library and create playlists of just the songs you want. Cleaning the house and having a serious Barry Manilow craving? Ok, maybe that’s a bad example. But if you were, you could click up pretty much his entire discography and reminisce away.

So, dust off those LPs, wait for the kid’s giggles to die down and get those memories back, 21^stCentury style. I’m going to start up Spotify™ and make an ELO playlist.

Would you buy a car from this man?

Imagine walking down the street in your hometown. A man approaches you whom you have never met and proclaims that he has the coolest thing you have ever seen. If you will just step into this nearby alley, he will gladly show it to you. No one in their right mind would dream of doing that, right?

Picture yourself at the local shopping mall. In the parking lot you come across a van with its hatch open. In the back of the van sits a woman with stacks of little storage boxes and a very nicely printed sign that says, “Your necessary medications, 90% off.” All of the boxes are full of little clear bags of generic looking white pills. Would you buy the medication you need to stay healthy from this woman?

The scenarios I have presented may seem outlandish and just need a little common sense, but people take risks that are equally dangerous online every day. The Internet is still a little bit of a jungle and you have to be careful what you touch there. With a little bit of caution and care, you can tap into the vast wealth of resources out there and stay safe at the same time.

Phishing…

Not to be confused with the 90’s jam band, phishing is a type of scam designed to fool you into giving up some sort of personal information. It can appear in the guise of an email, a pop-up or even a fake security alert. Most often what you will see is a message saying that you are in some sort of a pickle and all you need to do to get out of it is to buy some fantastic product. Another form of the scam is a message from a bank, possibly yours. The message states that there was a problem processing some transaction and that in order for you to get proper credit you need to verify your banking info on their website. What comes from this is that you willingly volunteer your banking and/or credit card info and someone in a faraway land just bought his girlfriend a Mother of pearl hot tub.

The Nigerian Scam…

This one almost always appears in the form of an email. A person purporting themselves to be either deposed royalty or perhaps a member of government claims to have a ridiculously large sum of money trapped in that foreign land. For the assistance you could offer, the sender promises a ludicrous booty for you. All you need to do is allow them to transfer the money into your account. If your scam alarms aren’t going off yet, just wait. Something always goes wrong and the magnanimous party needs you to wire them a small token payment to guarantee something or another and we’re off and running. There is no prince; there is no cash.

Cheap Meds…

Let’s face it. The medication that people sometimes need to stay healthy can be extraordinarily expensive, and insurance doesn’t always cover enough of the cost. The Internet is infested with websites and offers for discount drugs at amazingly low prices and often with no prescription needed.  Buying meds online from unknown and unapproved sources is Russian Roulette of the most dangerous kind. A quote from the FDA web page (http://1.usa.gov/4PbNO) :

“Instead of receiving the drug they ordered, several customers received products containing what was identified as foreign versions of Haldol (haloperidol), a powerful anti-psychotic drug. As a result, these customers needed emergency medical treatment for symptoms such as difficulty in breathing, muscle spasms, and muscle stiffness—all problems that can occur with haloperidol.”

The FDA website goes on to explain how to find a reputable source for prescription drugs online if that is what you want.

The Internet may be the single most dynamic change that civilization has experienced since the Industrial Revolution. If you are connected, you have access to products and information that no previous generation could have dreamed of. If you are careful and use a healthy dose of skepticism, you can reap the rewards the “Toobs” have to offer and stay out of trouble.

If you don’t already know what it is, don’t click on it. And if you ever find yourself down that dark alley, just give me a call.

Tweet? Twitter? Say What?

Got something to say? Why not say it to the world? As long as you are willing and able to say it in 140 characters or less, Twitter may be for you. What is this Twitter of which you speak, you may ask? First a little background.

Twitter is an online service which allows people to post short messages in what some people call a “Micro-Blog”. What is a Blog? Well you are reading one. Blog is short for Weblog and is an updating series of articles in which you can read about whatever subject the writer wants to write about. There are Blogs about cats and sewing and sports and even technology, like this one.

Twitter came along and took the blog concept one step further by limiting the posts to 140 characters (letters, spaces or numbers). Why only 140 characters you ask? (Boy you sure have a lot of questions). 140 characters is just the right amount to fit in a cell phone text message. The idea behind twitter is not to write a lengthy article like this one, which really has got much too long already, but rather to post a quick glimpse into the mind of the Tweeter whenever or wherever they may be. Posts on Twitter are called Tweets and that is just too cute to bear, isn’t it.

You can follow people on Twitter to read all of the things they Tweet or you can search for Tweets about certain subjects. The best part of it is that Twitter, like many great resources online is free! Many celebrities Tweet regularly on Twitter and goodness knows we always want to know exactly what is going on in THEIR minds. If you were so inclined, you could even follow me on Twitter, but even better would be to follow WinchesterPatch.

So cruise on over to www.twitter.com and check out the never ending stream of the world’s consciousness. Lady Gaga Tweets and so should you.

Welcome to the new TechBytes Blog

Welcome to the first edition of Winchester's TechBytes Blog. In this (hopefully) weekly blog I hope to inform you, inspire you and entertain you about all things technological. Computers and gadgets are part of all of our lives now and like it or not, here to stay. Stick with me on this wild ride and sooner than you know it you'll be Tweeting, posting, Googling and synching with the best of them. "Googling"? Is that even a word? Well it is now!

So, keep your eyes peeled to this spot for Techno awesomenimity. (another made-up word?)