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?)