Archive for August, 2010
15 Facts about Net Neutrality – An Infographic
Posted by Stephanie in General Knowledge on August 23, 2010
Recently there has been a lot of discussion about net neutrality on our blog and elsewhere and it seems the debate is not going to end anytime soon. With the most recent chapter in the debate involving Google and Verizon making a deal, it’s hard to keep track of all the big players and the latest advancements. Most people have probably heard about the debate but not everyone necessarily knows or cares what it means to their everyday internet use and some people still may be having a hard time digesting the concept of net neutrality as a whole. With that we bring you 15 Facts about Net Neutrality – an infographic courtesy of Online MBA Programs. As a visual learner (and someone who has been following the debate closely), I found this helpful and hope you will too.
Facebook Places: Another Invasion of Privacy
Posted by Stephanie in Social Media on August 19, 2010
Facebook unveiled the new Places feature late yesterday and once again there is criticism for their lack of concern for users’ privacy. While the privacy controls for the new geolocating feature, which is only currently available in certain areas of the US, are not as dicey as the spring privacy overhaul, there are some features that don’t bode well for the social network.
Users can check-in to local establishments using their smart phones (currently the iPhone is the only device compatible with Places) to show others where they are, to see where friends in the area have recently checked-in and to see who was last at their current location. It seems Facebook attempted to learn from their privacy mistakes by setting the check-in default visibility to “Friends Only” so your current location isn’t broadcast over all of Facebook—unless of course you’ve set your master privacy control to “Everyone.”
On the surface it seems Facebook Places operates just like any other check-in application like Foursquare or Gowalla. But what sets it apart, for better or worse, is the ability to tag others. One person checking in to a local restaurant can tag all of the members of his group. The fact that someone else can broadcast where you are without your knowledge or consent doesn’t sit well with the ACLU. Furthermore, they find fault with the privacy controls stating “you are only given a ‘not now’ option (aka ask me again later). ‘No’ isn’t one of the easy options.”
Quick Fire Tips for Effective Email Marketing
Posted by Damon in Business Intelligence, General Knowledge, Services on August 16, 2010
For some, email marketing is a golden opportunity to reach numerous customers, increase brand recognition and cross-sell many different things. However, for others, email marketing is a bear; they get less than desirable results and have no idea how to improve their reach. My aim is to expose some simple guidelines to improve your email marketing campaigns. Even though some may seem obvious, many of these tips are often overlooked, resulting in email newsletters that simply don’t get the job done.
Encrypt Data Across Multiple Operating Systems Using TrueCrypt
Posted by Shazad in General Knowledge on August 12, 2010
Data encryption and security is a serious concern for business and personal computer use. TrueCrypt is free data encryption software that can encrypt volumes on either an individual partition or an entire storage device. It is supported on Windows 7, Vista, XP, Mac OS X and Linux.
In TrueCrypt, there are three different options for Volume Creation.The first option is to create an encrypted file which can be mounted and used as a drive. The file created by using this method can be copied and emailed or moved to a different space and still retain its encryption. The second option is to encrypt a non-system partition or drive like a flash drive or other external storage device. The last option is the same as the second option except it requires the user to enter a password before the OS boots to fully protect the encrypted files. This option can only encrypt Windows XP, 2003, 2008, Vista and Windows 7 operating systems.
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Google and Verizon Take a Positive Step Toward Net Neutrality
Posted by Stephanie in General Knowledge on August 9, 2010
Late last week reports were circulating that Google and Verizon were in secret talks regarding net neutrality. It appears today that those reports were half right. They have been involved in private meetings trying to reach an agreement but their goal according to a joint announcement today is actually for net neutrality.
It all started when the New York Times published an article alleging the two were in cahoots and attempting to work out an agreement after their group meetings with the FCC and other Internet service and content providers like AT&T and Skype were getting them nowhere. It made sense that perhaps it would be in Google’s best interest to garner a deal with one of the leading ISPs in the business considering Google is one of the largest providers of content on the web and the Google owned YouTube is an easy target for ISPs claiming it slows their service to customers. But Google has been pro net neutrality since the argument began.
Dynamic SQL
While working on a project I was challenged to build a table that showed only the columns of data associated with the current family of data. The challenge was the database I was pulling from had over a hundred columns and hundreds of rows. I only wanted to show the columns associated with the products showing in the table so I needed a way to remove the unneeded columns from the table. This could be done by hiding the unneeded columns after the data was retrieved but it was time intensive to pull all the columns and then hide some of them. What I chose to do was to build the table completely during the SQL call using Dynamic SQL methods.
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