Web 2.0

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) made it possible to make phone calls over a WIFI network, which in turn allowed for the emergence of internet communication companies such as Skype, which offers users features such as person-to-person VOIP calling, video calling, chat and new features such as group call, video and chat. My personal experience with Skype is a long and intermittent one, with me being an on-again, off-again customer.   There are several reasons for my intermittent relationship with Skype such as poor quality in both their voice and video services and needing to leave Skype open to receive incoming calls.   The great thing about Skype is the ability to do video calls with family and friends who may live hundreds or thousands of miles away.   One of the last memories made with my Dad was through this program.   It was 10 years ago, and our family had recently learned that my Father was dying from lung disease.   We couldn’t all be to...

LinkedIn is a social networking site which focuses on providing a place for building professional networks.   This site is an excellent avenue for self-promotion, which can include anything from skills and abilities, to ideas or organizations.   LinkedIn is a great way to promote a blog in the same manner as individuals or organizations would promote themselves; through connecting with others with similar interests.   Connecting can take place with both individuals and groups, with both mechanisms offering blog owner’s a great way to reach a lot of people in a relatively short amount of time.   It is wise to think about those individuals and groups which would best aid in spreading a blog to the widest possible audience.   Reading individual profiles and looking at posts is one way to scope out a potential connection to determine a good fit.   When selecting potential groups, it is wise to join a few groups to get a feel for the overall group inte...

There are many similarities among the three social media sites; Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, with all three providing features which make connecting with others much easier.  While there are many similarities for connecting, there are also differences in the features offered, with each being dependent on the overall design and layout of the site. Here is a table comparing and contrasting just a few features you may or may not find on social media sites. Social Media Instant Messaging Character Limits Advertising Following/Followers Photo Sharing Live Video Facebook √ 60,000 √ √ √ √ Twitter √ 280 √ √ √ √ Pinterest √ 500 √ √ √ X

When Cities Get Smart is a podcast from “The Future According to Now.”  This podcast looks at connected cities, those that are interconnected through the internet of things.  These connections collect information which provides data that is used to make cities safer, quitter, more efficient… smarter. Through sensors which are connected through WiFi, information such as population count, and traffic can be monitored, with the data used to help researchers find ways to combat high rates of traffic accidents and population issue such as overcrowding.  This technology will provide the building blocks which enable these sensors, will in turn provide to the economy through off-shooting work to producers of this technology. It is hoped that through this data collection, cities will be much more prepared to deal with large populations that are centered in urban areas, as is predicted by the year 2050.  The more sensors, the more data that can be collected....

A recent podcast entitled " Get Ready for 3-D Printed Everything " looks at the current state of 3-D printing and where the technology is headed. Currently, 3-D printing is limited by 3 things; materials, time, and understanding.  Presently the main material being used in 3-D printing is soft plastics, which aren't strong enough for industrial use.  The time it takes to produce a single, elaborate object, roughly the size of a golf ball is 9 hours, making too inefficient for any type of large-scale replication.  The other, less obvious determent is a clear understanding throughout most industries of just what the technology is and what its potentials are. The podcast goes on to look at those potentials by investigating current research into future applications such as using carbon fiber as the material used in 3-D printing, which would serve a wide variety of applications like the fabrication of replacement parts for industrial machinery, mass-production ...

With the release of the new iPhone X, I thought it appropriate to look at the reviewers perspective. In this episode of " This Week in Tech " which I retrieved through ipodalley.com, the Apple iPhone 10 is reviewed.  The reviewers discuss new features such as the removal of the battery status bar from the top left corner of the screen and the need for a lot of users to revert to the user manual in order to familiarize themselves with those features.  New emojis are covered, with focus on animojis, and how to create them, and new face recognition. The reviewers speculate that the reasoning for such a quick release allows little time to fully review the new phone, looking at things such as burn-in and battery life, with differing opinions on whether or not Apple may be attempting to hide a flaw or two.  Other opinions on the release note that the release is more consumer-review oriented. Overall, the opinion is that the iPhone 10 is a great device, being a fairly ...