Whether it's my Plantronics 903+ headset, my OEM BlackBerry ear buds or my BlackBerry Music Gateway, there's no doubt that I like music around me, and these devices really make using my BlackBerry Z10, even my 9900 an even closer companion, but the latest music device from my friends at BlackBerry is the Bluetooth connected BlackBerry Mini Stereo Speaker.
It fits in the palm of your hand, has excellent quality sound (for a device of this size) and serves as either a hands-free device or remote speakers. You can even plug in headphones and it charges via micro-USB (the same as what most smartphones use). It does have an on/off switch so it's keep charged safely tucked away in a beach bag. You can even answer a call without removing your phone from the safety of a backpack or your car's console.
Once paired to your device, simply powering it up should re-acquaint the two devices, it functioned as easily with my PlayBook and my Z10, as my 9900 for a conference call.
The design is simply, simple. The folded design allows for a moderate 5mm spread to clip onto a shoulder belt in your car, a messenger-bag, or even a laptop-back should you still need to lug that around with you. If you need more privacy plug in your headphones, either those with a microphone or something more audiophilic, there's a 1/8" stereo jack on the end opposite the power switch where the charging plug is (see below).
There's no mystery to this little device, simply convenience. And while it only (for now?) comes in white, this matches my daughter's massive SkullCandy Hesh 2 headphones so while I love my new music source, I don't think it'll be long for my use, but I won't have to steal them back either. I'll buy another unit in fairly short order if that happens. I can see this being a popular addition to your summer activities.
Okay, some may argue that ROGERS is not a "good-guy" but I like them, the thing is the evil-doers also like them as a source of targets, you.
This is phishing, this email's content and context look correct, but if you hover over the URL (web address) you'll notice it doesn't match the text, this is a BIG RED FLAG!
The site you would end up at looks EXACTLY like a ROGERS Sign-In page, it's not, it's a website that will collect as much information as possible about your accounts, credit card, etc. then the owners will do their best to steal your money.
Be careful, be AWARE of what you do online.
By the way, the questions they asked if you were crazy enough to follow the link and sign in, I used a bogus password, are enough to steal your identity!
On May 18th, 2012 I was formally relieved of my duties with a fine company that had some hard times. 20% of the employees, worldwide, were slotted for termination. I lost my job to off-shoring, and a lack of work, but don't harbour any resentment. I appreciated the opportunity to work in technical support for this fine company. I had the chance to do some fairly cool things, build some neat tools and helped some wonderful people do what they do. I proudly and with dedication ensured that the people had the technology and/or advice they needed to do their jobs, and they appreciated my efforts.
I love what I do for people, making technology work, taking the stress of something complicated (for some) and either making it work when it seems it won't and making it work better when that's what needs to happen. I deliver results... when I am employed. I miss my job.
I recognize that time are changing, that wages are not what they used to be, and we cannot be shocked at this, can we? We, North Americans, "the West" are competing with fine, intelligent people that work for $100 a month. How on earth do we keep asking for more when the global economy dictates that we are due for a correction, that our life of privilege needs to give way to a life of practicality. I accept this revelation and I'm willing to work for less, simply, I want to work.
So, contract, full-time, part-time, anything is what I'm looking for. I simply want to help people with technology. If you know of anything, if I can be of help to you or someone you know, send them to my personal web site at www.cstevens.ca.
Aside from the obvious, the word has 11 letters, it is not the evil mess that perhaps people think it is. For companies like my last employer, many of my previous employers, it can be a blessing, but the selection will be the proof of the pudding. The "traditional company" is full of outsourced solutions and this progression should not surprise us, but of course for the individual affected by it, it does.
People like you and I have a death grip on the idea that working for a company is something stable, consistent and that a company should never discard those trusted employees for some group of people that "don't know the business or people the way we do, but this is a selfish perspective to hold and while this may sting, here's why: A company, especially one with shareholders has a responsibility to earn money for those shareholders. If there are functions of a business that are a cost, not earning revenue for the business, it is fiscally responsible to look at those areas and consider options that will reduce costs.
Frankly, I'm in a very poor position in my career, I have a role that is a constant target for outsourcing, Information Technology. When I started out in my career I had an inkling of the potential problem because I was heavily vesting in a rather crude communication technology at the time, bulletin boards. I could communicate with people all over the world using a a PC, a modem, and my local phone line. This was before the Internet, but that was rapidly approaching. The reality kicked in when I began resolving technical issues on systems that would take several hours and expensive flights to get hands on, when I was comfortably seated in my office in Toronto. This was where I should have stopped and thought about what I should really be doing, building my own outsource solution.
There are many companies out there that offer outsourced solutions including IBM, Google, CompuCom, and CGI. They offer different options on reducing the cost to the company, and while some aspects of your business may not be easily pushed out the door, the smart companies are setting a course for this flexibility and there are many options for those who'd like to outsource, at any level of business. Even I am an outsource, for the small-office/home-office (SOHO) market. While my interest is helping you get along with technology, I am an outsource to the DIY approach for your home PC, or your small business. I am a "services company," but so is the company that does your weed spraying, the kid that shovels your walk in January (except in Toronto where we didn't get enough snow to call in the army this year), and even the newspaper you buy.
Each of those options allow you the free time to live better. If you're a busy person, doing those tasks yourself, especially researching your own news sources, is time consuming. The service will deliver information or services to you so you have the time to do something else. My services would provide you with technical support for your technical needs. Whether it is servicing hardware, configuring your home or small-business network, the office file server, and your company's website and e-mail provisioning. I would be your "go-to-guy" for technical advice and because it's my job, I would charge you for the time I spend helping you, but the benefit is that you will have someone you can count on for support, even at 3AM when your hard drive crashes and you have a presentation at 9, though I really hope you would have taken my advice on backups and cloud-based solutions like Google Drive.
Even I see the advantages in outsourcing, the real trick for the people most affected by outsourcing, is to be the outsource of choice by forming partnerships and co-operative arrangements. If you're not the entrepreneurial sort, being part of an outsource company is a good option. The pay may be sub-prime, but the benefit of being employed is constant because you no longer serve one company, but several. I believe this might be the most thrilling way to earn a living these days. Personally I love new challenges and a healthy variety of work.
Outsourcing is not going away, though it does fluctuate in it's support in any organisation. Sometimes the mesh of the company and the outsource is not as tight and seamless as hoped, planned, or expected and the business suffers. It is important to not look at an outsource solution as a "set-it-and-forget-it" solution, it does not eliminate management and there are now contracts and legalities to what management can expect. It is those expectations that need to be understood before the contract is signed. I can see that my last employer did the right thing in keeping a full-staff of Technology Architects, because those people are going to be the guidance to the demands on the outsourced solution. The terrifying thing for technical people below that architect level is that they are completely replaceable.
Well... even architects can be outsourced by consultants, but I believe that you need people who have a vested interest and thorough understanding of your business guiding your technical decisions, not a consultant, especially when your business is not technical by nature.
For more on what I offer as a Technology Services provider, visit: www.sohonorth.com
My day job is to automate processes in the area of Information Technology and end-user support and services. Now generally this means that I take a piece of software that needs to be delivered to a reasonable number of PCs in the company, enough to make it practical for my effort to be fiscally appropriate, and I make the process simple, painless, and consistent in the delivery.
I have help, I have people and technology around me that ensure this goes well. There's a great guy in Vancouver who tests what I build, another guy in Mississauga who queues the software up on a server for deployment, and the software we used for deployment, Altiris (it's owned by Symantec now) that works out the details of the delivery. This all goes together with an inherently not-automated process for requesting the software and getting it to the users. I'd love to get that sorted out.
Now, this is all in the interest of saving money, improving inefficiencies, and being consistent. The challenge is that we have 6500+ systems that are all running Windows XP and are just slightly different, but this is becoming less so. We have used this process to deploy the latest Service Pack, 3, for Windows XP, and a web browser which I actually need to re-visit because there's a glitch that I need to tweak out of the 6500 systems that we deployed it to. So... I'm not perfect, but I'm only as good as my tester(s), though I'll be spending time tomorrow tracking that issue down.
Now, what I'd like to know, from anyone, is what do you think would help you in day-to-day use of your computer, that I might be able to find for you, and if I can't find it, I'd consider building it. Now I'm no miracle worker, I'm just a guy who likes to solved problems. I love a challenge!
So I want you to challenge me. Like I said, I'm not going to re-invent the wheel, I'll recommend a product if it exists already, but if it doesn't...
When buying on-line, there are options, tools that can be used , that will ensure your identity is secured. Here are a few tips and tricks that will limit the risks and reduce the opportunities that criminals have to make a good day, or month, bad. As much as the credit card companies have been forced to provide protection against fraud, you need to share in the responsibility doing what you can to prevent the crime in the first place.
Passwords:
We can all be smart enough to create our passwords and PIN codes in such a way that they are not easily guessed. Frankly this is becoming essential with the more services like Google Mail and other services are becoming the centre of your electronic universe by providing authentication to other companies and services through their your ID with Google, Hotmail (Windows Live), Facebook. You must consider the strength of your password, changing it somewhat regularly, and how easy it might be to guess.
In my job I see people setting their password to 'CompanyName1#', or 'CompanyName2!', this is far too easy to figure out for the social hacker, but I don't think people take corporate risks seriously. I'll let your System Administrators lecture you about that. Let's talk about YOUR security, personal security.
What is your e-mail password right now? Your kid's name, the family dog, your phone number? These easy to find out. Do you leave a key under your front doormat? Really?
Let's consider the idea of a password. Hackers can use brute force attacks to try to break into your account, though the implementation of Captcha functionality is making that more difficult, but if you want to be secure, use a variety of letters, numbers, and where possible, punctuation. For example, you can take a memorable word, 'memorable', and make it almost impossible to guess: 'm3mor@ble', 'Mem0rabl3', or 'M3Morab1e#'
This switching of characters is fairly logical, looking at these examples:
a (A) = @, 4
l (L) = 1 (one), !
e (E) = 3
s (S) = 5
3 = #
As I said, examples. The key is making it your own, complex, but memorable.
E-mail accounts.
Have more than one. keep one for correspondence, another for contests, and another for financial services. Most web-based mail services will accommodate having multiple addresses, and collecting or forwarding the mail to one account. This could even be an unpublished account. This may be my next project, to redirect all of my mail to an unpublished account, but let's not get paranoid.
I would advise that you NOT use the e-mail from your ISP, it gives them too much power and frankly Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft (Live.com) have awesome web-based e-mail tools. That's not to say you can download your mail or use Outlook, Thunderbird, etc., but you are better off not using the ISP-based services.
Buying On-line:
If the site is even the least bit questionable, or you're just not ready to trust The Internet, don't don't use your own credit card. I do NOT mean that you use someone else's, but rather, go buy a Visa or MasterCard Gift Credit Card and use that to make the purchase.
Look for sites that use PayPal. While this may not get your everything you might want to buy, the service is a very good option, and very important if you're interested in buying through eBay. You can buy many things, possibly anything, with a combination of PayPal and eBay. You don't even need a credit card! You can connect your PayPal account to a personal bank account and while this is convenient I'd offer my sister's advice, make it an account that is for that express purpose, don't leave money in that account, and it can't be transferred (requested) by PayPal should the account ever become compromised. I wouldn't connect a credit card to your PayPal account. Using a separate e-mail for financial institutions that's not disclosed to others may also be a good idea.
Now, if you're a shopaholic do NOT go near eBay! Oh my you can buy things so easily there. Especially when you don't see it leaving your personal account because the only way to pay is with PayPal. Though, it's like it's free money, already spent in once sense, but still not spent, but you can stick to a budget this way.
Keeping it locked down. PayPal and eBay offer you a relatively new form of protection, the Verisign ID. You can either purchase a fob (like a key-chain trinket) that will display seemingly random but definitely not random numbers that ensure you are the holder of the fob and therefore the owner of the account, or by downloading a SmartPhone application to your iPhone, Android, or BlackBerry device that serves the same purpose as the fob. Verisign's browser tool bar, fob and their mobile phone offering for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry are a great, option for security. The SmartPhone option seems ideal, if you don't lose your phone. The browser tool bar is great if you are vigilant about locking your computer with a strong password. To see if a site you use is using this technology, click here.
PayPal.com and eBay.com allow you to use the Verisign technology to protect your accounts with them.
The design is simply, simple. The folded design allows for a moderate 5mm spread to clip onto a shoulder belt in your car, a messenger-bag, or even a laptop-back should you still need to lug that around with you. If you need more privacy plug in your headphones, either those with a microphone or something more audiophilic, there's a 1/8" stereo jack on the end opposite the power switch where the charging plug is (see below).
