"Gadget" Greg Gazin Demystifies Tech & Life in a useful, fun & practical way!
At this time of the year my InBox usually gets flooded with heart-infused PR pitches vying for my attention. But when this one arrived with the subject line – “Tis the season to be single & selfish – treat yourself with the perfect gift this Valentine’s Day,” I was teetering on “Return to sender”, but my actual reply was a single word – “Really?”
Read more…AND ENTER at CANOE TECH BLOG
EDMONTON, AB, Feb. 6, 2013/ Troy Media/ – Phillip Lüpke from Germany is €10,000 richer for purchasing a song from the Apple iTunes Store. It’s not just any song, it’s “Monkey Drums” (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch. But what’s particularly special is that it’s the 25 billionth download from the world’s most popular music download site.
Apple announced the record setting milestone today, singling out Lüpke. He’ll be awarded a €10,000 iTunes card, about C$13,500 in addition to the recognition and bragging rights. The €10K should allow him to multiply his collection and then some.
Twenty-five billion is a lot of songs. To put it into perspective, if every person in the world were to download three to four songs from the iTunes store, that would be roughly the same number of songs that have been actually downloaded to date.
Fans continue to download songs from iTunes at a record pace. After its inaugural launch in April 2003, it took until February 2006 to reach one billion. About four years later, on February 24, 2010 – Steve Jobs’ 55thbirthday – that number hit 10 billion. It only took just over two and a half years for that number to double yet again.
There seems to be no end in sight to the growth.
“(We’re) averaging over 15,000 songs downloaded per minute,” according to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.
The ability to purchase from the iTunes store is more than just a convenience to music purchasers.
“In a lot of ways, iTunes has leveled the playing field for musicians. Whether you’re unsigned, indie, major, whatever – it’s the place most people go to buy digital music,” said Wesley Schultz, guitarist and lead vocalist of The Lumineers. “iTunes doesn’t exclude any musicians simply because they’re not yet established or popular.”
Greg Gazin is a Tech Columnist, Small Business and Technology Speaker and Senior Editor at Troy Media. He can be reached at Gadgetguy.CA on Twitter @gadgetgreg or you can find him on Empire Avenue at(e)GADGET1.
Being accustomed to using an iPad, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to leave the iPad at home and take along the iPad mini. I wanted to see if it would live up to my expectations and the claim by “Sir” Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of Industrial Design, that the iPad Mini is a “concentration and not a reduction of the original”.
Read more…AT CANOE TECH BLOG
When you think of brands that influence you, what kind are they and which ones first come to mind? According to a recent study of most influential brands, the top three, ranked highest by Canadians are tech-related. In fact, technology brands grab five of the top ten spots.
Read more…AT CANOE TECH BLOG
EDMONTON, AB, Feb. 1, 2013/ Troy Media/ – The great thing about technology is that there’s never a shortage of new and exciting things, and sometimes not-so-new and not-so-exciting things, to test, to talk and write about.
Of course, the challenge we all have is keeping up – to be able to wade through the flurry of emails, announcements, press releases and phone calls and faxes. Yes faxes!
But as I scanned through the hundred or more of this morning’s emails, the one with the subject line “BlackBerry Super Bowl Commercial Still Image” caught my attention.
Of course, the big news this week was the release of the long-awaited and much-anticipated BlackBerry 10, along with the rebranding of Canada’s once-darling Research in Motion.
But back to the email from Research in Motion’s, now BlackBerry’s, corporate communications manager. It read:
Hi – (notice the non-personal touch)
As you may know, coming out of the launch of BlackBerry 10 this week, BlackBerry will be featured in Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday for the first time ever. This unique execution will be part of a broad marketing campaign about the totally re-designed, re-engineered and re-invented BlackBerry. As part of this activity, we are sharing a still image of the Super Bowl commercial with our social channels – including 30 millions fans on Facebook and Twitter – to draw them into a conversation about BlackBerry 10 during this highly social event. We’d like to provide you with this still in case you’re interested in sharing it with your readers, and we encourage you to watch our full commercial on Sunday.
I looked at the still image and I was baffled. I thought to myself, “what?” I know it’s from the commercial, but how can I share this with my readers? I don’t get it. There’s no oomph, there’s no wow, and I thought this wouldn’t pique anyone’s interest. I even responded back to the sender with similar comments.
I jumped over to Facebook and Twitter and found that others had offered similar reactions. I added my comments to the social media cause and returned to my daily perusing and purging of today’s Inbox.
But here’s the thing.
I couldn’t get that picture out of my mind. It wasn’t my curiosity or interest about what it meant, but rather why the company, which was likely spending $4 million or more on a 30 second ad in Super Bowl XLVII this coming Sunday, would send out what appeared to be a dull, boring nondescript photograph.
It bugged me so, that I decided to write about it.
Congratulations BlackBerry, you succeeded in getting me to share your pitch and your image with my readers, maybe not exactly in a way you might have thought, but, nonetheless, mission accomplished!
Super Bowl XLVII kicks off Sunday, February 3rd at 6:30PM E.T., live from New Orleans.
Greg Gazin is a Tech Columnist, Small Business and Technology Speaker and Senior Editor at Troy Media. He can be reached at Gadgetguy.CA on Twitter @gadgetgreg or you can find him on Empire Avenue at(e)GADGET1.
This article is FREE to use on your websites or in your publications. However, Troy Media, with a link to its web site, MUST be credited.
Hockey is back and whether your favorite Canadian team or home team is the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Montréal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs, Vancouver Canucks or the Winnipeg Jets, you’ll want to know that amongst the sea of apps, each has their own official selection. They’re all free and each one is universal so they will run on most iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices.
Despite their stock price being pummelled last week after their earnings release, Apple seems to be going full steam ahead, betting on the fourth generation iPad becoming even more widely accepted in big business, entertainment and in areas that consume huge amounts of data and require larger storage capabilities. Hitting the streets next Tuesday, February 5 is a 128GB version of the fourth generation iPad with retina display offering double the storage capacity of the current iPad models.
Read more… AT CANOE TECH BLOG
Apple today updated iOS to version 6.1. Included in that update is the adding LTE capabilities to 36 more iPhone carriers and 23 additional iPad carriers around the world.
“iOS 6 is the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, and with nearly 300 million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices on iOS 6 in just five months, it may be the most popular new version of an OS in history,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “iOS 6.1 brings LTE support to more markets around the world, so even more users can enjoy ultrafast Safari browsing, FaceTime video calls, iCloud services, and iTunes and App Store downloads.”
If not all carriers in Canada that supported iOS were offering LTE prior to the update, they all are now. This includes: Bell (and Virgin), Telus(and Koodo), Rogers (and Fido), MTS and Sasktel.(iPad 3rd Gen appears to be limited to Bell, Telus & Rogers)
Siri enhancements have been added in iOS 6.1 including the ability to use Siri to purchase movie tickets in the US through Fandango. iTunes Match℠ subscribers can also download individual songs to their iOS devices from iCloud.
Apple also added a new button that allows you to reset the Advertising identifier, which seems like a cookie. (Settings–>General–>About–>Advertising). Also, thanks to MacRumors for alerting me to the undocumented change to Passbook. The change isn’t huge but much welcomed – pardon the pun. Previously, when you first launched Passbook, you got an initial Welcome screen that allowed you to easily find Passbook friendly apps but that was only for the first time. Subsequently you didn’t get that option. But once again, now you can!
There are now more than 800,000 apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch® users, with more than 300,000 native iPad apps.
iOS 6.1 is available today as a free software update. You will need to reenter your password for iCloud, iMessage and FaceTime. It’s compatible with iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad (3rd & 4th generation), iPad mini, iPad 2 and iPod touch (4th and 5th generation). Some features may not be available on all products. For more information please visit www.apple.com.
Information about LTE carriers can be found at www.apple.com/iphone/LTE and www.apple.com/ipad/LTE.
It’s been along time coming, but NHL Hockey is finally back. Now while some of us simply watch the game on the big screen, there are a lot more ways to watch, keep up and get the lowdown on our favourite teams and players with your iOS devices.
Read more… AT CANOE TECH BLOG!
EDMONTON, AB, Jan. 23, 2013/ Troy Media/ – It is better to be the spider, or at least aware of the spider, than the fly on the worldwide web. Use caution on the internet to avoid being inter-netted and fear, good healthy fear that has been keeping us safe since we first walked upright, is the key.
But despite warnings about vulnerability issues, attitudes still seem to be lax when it comes to online security – even by those that have already been personally victimized.
Siber Systems, Inc., a leading developer of software productivity tools for consumers and businesses and maker of password manager RoboForm, discovered this dangerous behaviour in a wide-ranging study.
Of the over 700 adults surveyed in November and December 2012 in the U.S., and European countries, nearly 30 per cent have had a fraudulent experience with an online account. Of that number over half have had their email hacked; 23 per cent have had a security breach with online shopping and 29 per cent had been affected by a breach in a social media account. Sadly, an alarming number, 79.2 per cent continue to use a site linked to an account that had been compromised. Even more staggering is that 60 per cent of the participants are convinced that online companies are careless with regards to security of customers’ personal information with 57 per cent singling out Facebook as being their least trusted site.
People are not unaware of the problem; they just don’t seem to care. According to Bill Carey, VP of Marketing with Siber Systems, it’s just that there is a huge disconnect between a person’s perception of risk and what they’re willing to do to protect themselves and their valuable information. Just look at the volume of info added to Facebook each day.
In fact, more than half of the respondents (under the age of 45) feel that security is the responsibility of the operator. This seems short sighted if they don’t trust the operator to begin with. Nevertheless, it seems this “totally-not-my-problem” attitude is a major factor in computer users not improving their own personal security practices.
One way of reducing the probability of being compromised can be as simple as proper password practices and use of a password manager. This includes creating passwords that are not easy to guess, having longer passwords that may be harder to crack and different passwords for personal and business use. Even the proverbial “mother’s maiden name” commonly used for years in the banking industry as part of identification verification can easily be found by searching family tree sites or more popular social media sites.
Occasionally, that too, is not enough. Just look at what happened last June when a password file containing 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords were leaked and posted on a Russian hacker site.
And, even when companies do enhance their security, for example by adding two-step login verification, almost a quarter of the survey respondents balked at the idea and 13 per cent indicated that the process was too complicated. On the flip side, 42 per cent indicated they would be more inclined to trust a company with their personal information.
Users can also improve the security of their data by keeping their software updated and current – many companies regularly update or patch their software when vulnerabilities are discovered. The same goes for operating systems like Windows, all iterations, and Mac OS X.
It’s also a smart idea to use anti-virus protection and malware checkers from companies like Kaspersky, Intego and Symantec.
How many times does one need to be victimized before they will actually do anything about it? There’s no guarantee that taking these precautions will prevent a breach, but it should reduce the probability.
Greg Gazin is a Tech Columnist, Small Business and Technology Speaker and Senior Editor at Troy Media. He can be reached at Gadgetguy.CA on Twitter @gadgetgreg or you can find him on Empire Avenue at (e)GADGET1.
This article is FREE to use on your websites or in your publications. However, Troy Media, with a link to its web site, MUST be credited.
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