Stop. Think. Connect: Reminding Kids to Stay Safe While Online

Parents with kids who are growing up in this internet age have undoubtedly got more to worry about than parents even five years ago. It is imperative that our younglings understand that anything posted on the internet (even if only briefly) can come back to haunt the poster (or the postee) forever. Vicious gossip, bullying, hurtful photos … these are things that can be magnified to unbearable proportions when posted online. I found this cute video today; it may see simplistic at first, but it’s message is right on. This video was created by EMC Corporation and RSA, its Security…

eBooks, News

Amazon’s New Pirated Book Policy

(image courtesy Houston News) Just last year. there was a pretty serious controversy over how Amazon handled pirated books in the Kindle store. Since anyone can upload a book to Amazon, a version of 1984 was uploaded and sold without the copyright holder’s permission. Amazon took an unfortunate stance of removing all copies without warning, only to find a huge internet uproar emerge from the “big brother” behavior. Luckily, Amazon has learned from those mistakes. Their Australian store mistakenly sold a book under Jamie Oliver’s name that was not actually written by or affiliated with the chef. Rather than yank…

Editorials

Facebook, Places and Privacy… a Few Thoughts

(via posterart.com) Facebook has entered into the next phase of its social network evolution with the addition of Facebook Places, a location-based social sharing feature. Facebook Places allows users to share with friends their current location, tag important places (“where I made my first text message”), and perhaps meet others who are near by. This feature leverages the current technology of “Check-Ins” by using the GPS location on the user’s phone. These location-based tools were previously only available on applications like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Twitter and Yelp! But having Facebook enter this location-based app market raises potential privacy and safety…

News

Welcome to the Land Where 21st Century Technology Meets 17th Century Morals

Sometimes it is hard to believe some of the stereotypes and discrimination that persist all over the world. From the soccer player who was fired for refusing to fast to … well, THIS story! I am not intending to say this in a ‘look at how everyone else is backwards’ sort of way, as I could easily drum up 1000 links to sexist / racist / ageist / weightist / religiously intolerant / etc links directly related to day-to-day life in North America. In fact, that is part of my point – in this day and age when knowledge is…

Editorials, Gaming

Beware of this StarCraft II Phishing Scam!

Did you ever see a scam that looked so much like it was real that you feel lucky to have escaped? When I saw the email posted below from SiliconEra, I was floored and went back to my receipt from Blizzard to make sure it wasn’t a scam! Here is the malicious email: From: Hello, thank you for shopping at the Blizzard Store! StarCraft II®: Wings of Liberty™: 2775298057033043807536803 To use this key to activate the game, simply follow these instructions: 1. Create a Battle.net account (or if you already have one, log in) at (malicious URL removed) 2. Verify…

Editorials

Use Your Cell Cam, Go to Jail

Photo courtesy of ABC News© We don’t talk much about politics here at Gear Diary. It’s not our thing. We’re geeks and nerds here, not PoliSci majors. We like to talk about the positive side of tech. But every once in a while, tech news and politics do bleed into each other. One of the classics is Net Neutrality, of course. Gizmodo being raided by the police for purchasing an allegedly stolen device. Early in my career, encryption software being treated as equivalent to a munition was a hot topic. You get the idea. Since 9/11, a lot of the…

News

Beware of Counterfeit Vibram Five Fingers!

Image courtesy Birthday Shoes It isn’t just ebook scammers you have to watch for on the internet! If you’ve been paying attention to Judie and Larry’s Couch to 5k Series, you may have caught that Judie runs in Vibram Five Finger Sprints. Recently I picked up a pair of Vibram Five Finger KSO’s at my local EMS, and I think Larry has a pair too…so we’re clearly big fans of toe-shoes here at Gear Diary. Now, if you’ve looked into ordering VFF’s recently, you may have noticed many sizes and styles are backordered. Vibram has had a hard time keeping…

Reviews

Bust Bad Guys with IcePics (In Case of Emergency Pictures) for iPhone

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could just point your mobile phone’s camera at something or someone, press a single button, and without any further action on your part a picture — complete with GPS coördinates — would be snapped and instantly emailed to yourself, your spouse, a parent, your best friend, or … well, you get the idea. I can think of times where a feature such as this might be handy — like sharing the names and locations of newly discovered dive bars or hole in the wall restaurants with friends when you find them, or creating a travelogue of…

Reviews

ID Vault for iPhone/Touch/iPad App Review

One thing that has come to annoy me on the iPhone is logging into sites. Whether it be a website for shopping or a forum, for some reason logging in seems to be a task I try to avoid. Clicking on the small log in screen boxes is not always easy and sometimes formatting issues makes the experience not very iPhone like. How about an app that can do all of this for you while keeping all of that log in information as well as credit card numbers secure? ID Vault proves to solve this issue with a one tap…

News

1Password for Windows Beta Now Available

(Image courtesy of Agile Web Solutions) With more people creating a variety of online accounts and putting more information online and with the increase in the number of hacks trying to get into accounts, having a password manager is worth looking into. One of my favorite password managers, 1Password, has been available on the Mac platform for years and works seamlessly with a variety of browsers. 1Password is also available on the iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad. Well, imagine my surprise to see that Agile Web Solutions has released a beta of 1Password for Windows! While it does not yet have…

Editorials

Entrustet: Caring For Your Digital Assets When You’re Gone

Having a will is important. A will is a device that lets you tell the world whom you want to get your assets. Die without one, and the state decides who gets what, without regard to your wishes or your heirs’ needs. Wills generally cover your personal property, investments, cash and other assets. But what happens to your digital assets when you die? I realize it’s not the most pleasant thought in the world, but if you’re like me then you probably have a ton of media and other information stored in the “cloud” at one or more online service…

Reviews

PC Tools Spyware Doctor with Antivirus Review

I used a mac exclusively for many years until I picked up my Toshiba netbook last summer. It was my first experience using a non-work issued PC since college, and while I knew to install a few free anti-virus and spyware utilities, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about security. Since then, I’ve started using my netbook far more than I expected; as a result, when Gear Diary was offered the chance to review PC Tools Spyware Doctor and Antivirus software, I jumped at the chance to test it out and see if there was something more I…

Reviews

SplashID for Android Review

We’ve previously reviewed SplashData’s password protection program, SplashID, in various formats and generally given it favorable ratings (here, here, and here). I’ve used it as my standard password protection program for a while now. When I recently acquired a Motorola Droid, in addition to checking out some new, great programs for the Android operating system, I also wanted to see which of my standard programs were available for Android. SplashID, which is also available for iPhone, Windows Mobile, Palm, Series 60, and BlackBerry, is SplashData’s first Android application. The Android version shares a lot with the other platforms, so anyone…

Reviews

My Child ID from Amberalert.com Review

Having a lost child is never good. The amber alerts that now go out can save precious time in the recovery of a child, be it a child who is just lost or a child who is abducted by strangers or people who know the child. Part of what makes this work is accurate information given to law enforcement agencies. One way for parents to make sure this information is with them is by carrying a My Child ID from AmberAlert.com.

Reviews

SmartSwipe System For Online Shopping Review

“Hey D,” Elana said as she came down the step the other night, “did you spend $170 at Macy’s yesterday?” “Macy’s??” I asked, “No way. I mean, when was the last time I went shopping for any non-tech item without you? Why do you ask?” “Because AmexEx emailed and was checking up on a suspect purchase.” she said shaking her head. Yup, YET AGAIN someone was trying to use one of my cards to make purchases. (The last time it was caught much later by the company whose card had been compromised.) As luck would have it I was just…

Vehicles & Gear

OnStar brings carjacking to an end in California

We told you it was coming, and now General Motors and OnStar report the first successful use of their Stolen Vehicle Slowdown technology to end a carjacking in California. Onstar Stolen Vehicle Slowdown Helps Recover Carjacked Vehicle, Prevents High-Speed Chase Law Enforcement Officials Credit Service with Fast and Safe Recovery of 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe GM and OnStar announce the use of OnStar’s Stolen Vehicle Slowdown (SVS) service to help safely recover a 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe that was carjacked at gunpoint from a subscriber in Visalia, California. This is the first time that SVS has been activated to help a subscriber…

News

Amber Alert GPS provides remote location tracking of youngsters

The new Amber Alert GPS is a handy (albeit costly at $279 plus monitoring fees) device for parents wanting to keep track of their children. Slip the GPS into a backpack or other secure location. Throughout the day you receive text messages that show you exactly where your child is. Safety zones can be setup so if for example they were to wander away from school during the day you would automatically receive an alert. Once you’ve received an alert you can log into a web site to show the exact track that they’ve taken (requires unlimited service plan). There’s…

News

New Trojan Horse Targets Online Banking, Does More Than Steal Login Information

This is one of those bits of news that bears repeating, particularly if you use online banking. CNET is reporting about a new type of Trojan horse, known as URLZone, that is designed not to steal your login information for online banking sites, but rather to actually steal your money while you’re on the bank’s website. URLZone is sophisticated enough that it calculates how much money to steal based on how much is in your account, then displays a false balance to the user so as not to arouse suspicion. The Trojan is being distributed through emails, infected sites that…

News

Car Cam Voyager with LCD, because ‘stuff’ happens

New York-based BrickHouse Security is not only dedicated to assisting the public and government with their security, safety, protection, covert surveillance and counter-surveillance needs, but they also want to offer peace of mind for our mobile environments as well.

Reviews

Norton Internet Security 2009 Review

I have been around computers, almost from the start. My first computer was the wildly successful Apple II+ (does anyone else remember the Bank Street Writer,) which was my main computer for close to ten years (including all of high school.) In the time since those early days, one thing has always been apparent: no matter what level of sophistication computers may reach, someone is always going to be waiting to exploit the technology and cause harm in some way or another. Back in those early days, most of the threats amounted to blunt objects, hurled at your disconnected desktop…

Security and Privacy