No Space left on my phone?

No space left on my phone??

Brought to you by Niall Mulrine, Pc Clean.

We all know the feeling when we are at a special occasion such as a concert or a party and we want to take a precious memory home with us to keep. How do we take that special moment home? It used to be in the hands of our digital cameras. But, what we all reach for now, whether it’s out of our pockets or handbags; is the mobile phone. Gone are the days of the mighty “brick” that was used commonly to communicate with our friends, whilst away from our stationary landline phone at home. Yes, we thought we were in Doctor Who or Back to the Future with the large Motorola and Ericsson phone, using large buttons and a large LCD screen with the plain black text much like a calculator. Some of us may remember a snipe taken by the creators of “Only fools and Horses” over the so-called ‘mobile phone’. The episode of Del-Boy trying to sell the “Executive mobile phone” to Michael, the owner of Nags Head. They demonstrated the irony of a mobile phone that was too large for a jacket pocket. But it was not only Del-boy who believed that they would be millionaires this time next year. Phone manufacturers such as Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia were the market leaders in mobile phones in the 1990’s. Their products did make them millionaires again! They answered the prayers of mainly business people that were consistently on the road and could only be reached by their employer when they reached a certain appointment. To the employee’s dismay and eagerness to try the new technology, they accepted these large mobile phones and marvelled at how they could communicate while 100’s of miles from any phone line, with the help of the satellite in the sky.

Today, phones are micro slim and come with more complexity than any modern computer system. The ability to make a phone call is the last request on a buyers question list. Has it got music player, Bluetooth, Facebook, Email, video player and camera. If these are not standard, then the buyer will move along to a phone that has all the bells and whistles. Not only must we have call ability (which is used less than the other functions today), but we must have real time access to our online status whether it’s social networks or emails. Can we take photos of our friends and send them to other friends within seconds?? Have we got a mini jukebox in our hands with all our favourite songs? What about some videos of the party last week? All these songs can be transferred from our music library at home onto our phone using a cable from the computer. What happens when the time comes sitting on a bus for 4 hours and the songs on the phone are all overplayed? We used to sit there and either listens to them again until we get home to our computers for different music or turn it off!

With the help of online cloud storage, more products are bringing the concept of having our music come with us from home always. How can I have my 40GB hard drive full of music stored on my mobile phone with storage of 8GB? Most of the storage is taken up with videos recorded on the phone. The hassle of connecting cables and changing the music library seems like a chore and is rarely seen as an enjoyable experience, sitting at a computer not knowing what songs we will listen to, tomorrow or next week. It normally depends on the mood at that particular time.

A San Franciso company called “Popoplug” have come up with a service to give the consumer what they want, when it comes to sorting out instant access to a large music, video and photo library. A small networking device called the “Popoplug Mobile Device” is connected to the owners broadband router at home. This can attach any amount of storage whether is a 1TB external hard drive storage of 1GB SD Memory card with photos and stream directly to the user’s mobile phone via Popoplug software. The customer does not download any music from the Internet or home, but instead streams small amount of data at regular intervals to give video, music or photo slideshows on the phone instantaneously over any 3G network. No disk space on the phone will be full by streaming the files. Some data is stored for short period of time.

The customer has still the same empty space on the phone to take more photos and videos. No law is being broke, as the customer is accessing their own personal music library via an internet signal. Not only has the software this feature, but also, every time a new photo or video is recorded on the phone; it is directly backed up to the “Popoplug” device at home for safe keeping.

This is just an example of how our want of having our homes with us at all times is being achieved in the technology world.

To catch up on any missed articles written by Niall Mulrine of Pc Clean, go to www.PcClean.ie

 

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I lost my laptop with all the company documents!!

I lost my laptop with all the company documents!!!

Brought to you by Niall Mulrine, Pc Clean.

Some of the reasons why we should use online backup can be emphasised by a few points on safety of mobile computers. We have heard the stories; we have encountered it at work, home and at school. More people are carrying their offices, theses and photo labs under their arm in a small electronic device. This small device, yet so powerful that it may contain so many documents, emails, passwords, photos and work files that we tend to forget just how “big” it can be. It could carry everything that is most important to them at any time. We take it for granted; we could never loose these items. But what happens if the laptop is stolen or lost? Laptops are not the only devices that are carried around in people’s personal belongings. Mobile phones, Smartphones, Tablets, and many more portable devices that store our vast amount of contacts details, phone numbers, text messages, private information, photos and much more.

Remember all the big stories in the past years of government officials, solicitors, business people and employees of semi-state bodies loosing USB drives, laptops and smart phones with all sensitive data in the wrong hands. These devices were not even locked down with a password. The biggest case in the news in Ireland was the 5 laptops that were lost by Department of Social and Family Affairs. But luck was on their side, no leaks were found regarding the private data. It was a wakeup call or was it? It has not changed the mind-sets of computer consumers. Basic protection such as access code or password for opening the devices is never activated. We seem to think that we will never lose our devices and all the data is safe. Is there a solution if our laptop or phone is stolen?

There are solutions to this issue in the realms of software preloaded on the devices and having an internet connection turned on. Some packages can trace the device to within a couple of feet to the correct GPS location.

One such free package called Prey got a lot of coverage from an unknown person in the US called Sean Power. His laptop was stolen in New York, but with the help of Twitter and Prey software, he was able to get back his laptop. The software took a picture of the user and sends it online to Sean’s account and the IP address located to within 200 metres proximity. With the help of Twitter posts, he was able to pinpoint the laptop to a bar owner in Manhattan. He rang the police with these details and they raided the bar and caught the suspect in possession of the laptop. This made an impossible situation possible again with the help of modern technology. What were the chances that he could have otherwise found his laptop in New York city via the old detective work!! The police would have bothered about a minor offence such as this, so the case would have been closed quickly.

Another software package called Druva, which is not free, but worth the money if you consider your laptop files to be sensitive and important is a great market leader for protecting data on stolen or lost laptops. What this can do differently to the previous example is, wipe the laptop hard drive clean of all data from anywhere online or by a method activated when the user inputs the password incorrectly beyond a predetermined limit. An American study carried out on the devastation caused by a lost or stolen business laptop can cause the company on average $49,241 per machine. Also, the survey reported that only 30% of machines were encrypted with a password and 46% of laptops had “sensitive data” stored on them. This is frightening how careless we are when it comes to security. Spend nearly a thousand euros on a great laptop with all the software to start your computing needs, but need skim on basic additions of security software or even encryption methods.

Even if we don’t go for the fancy software packages, at least we can protect our data with a good strong password.

To catch up on any missed articles written by Niall Mulrine of Pc Clean, go to www.PcClean.ie

Mobile Phone to be send to Space for testing

British engineers are planning to put a mobile phone in space.

The team at SSTL and the Surrey Space Centre in Guildford want to see if the sophisticated capabilities in today's phones will function in the most challenging environment known.

The mobile will run on Google's Android operating system but the exact model has not yet been disclosed.

It will be used to control a 30cm-long satellite and take pictures of the Earth in the mission later this year.

Although mobile phones have been flown on high altitude balloons before, this would likely be the first time such a device has gone into orbit several hundred kilometres above the planet.

"Modern smartphones are pretty amazing," said Shaun Kenyon, the project manager at SSTL (Surrey Satellite Technology Limited).

"They come now with processors that can go up to 1GHz, and they have loads of flash memory. First of all, we want to see if the phone works up there, and if it does, we want to see if the phone can control a satellite."

High Street product

The venture is part of the company's quest to find more inexpensive, off-the-shelf electronics that can be used to lower the cost of its spacecraft designs.

The mission is known as STRaND-1 (Surrey Training Research and Nanosatellite Demonstration).

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

We're trying to use as much of the capability of the phone as possible”

End Quote Doug Liddle Head of science, SSTL.

It involves both the company and researchers from the University of Surrey's space centre (SSC).

Much of the development work has been done in team-members' spare time.

The mobile model being used will be a standard, sub-£300 ($450), smartphone available in High Street stores.

"We're not taking it apart; we're not gutting it; we're not taking out the printed circuit boards and re-soldering them into our satellite - we're flying it as is," Mr Kenyon explained.

"And, in fact, we're going to have another camera on the satellite so we can take a picture of the phone because we want to operate the screen and have some good images of that as well."

Eye on Earth

Critical to the whole endeavour is the phone's operating system.

Android is open source software which means the engineers can modify it to adapt the phone's functions.

Google sent Nexus S smartphones to an altitude of 18km (60,000ft) on balloons last year

The great swings in temperature and the harsh radiation found in space require the phone be placed inside the satellite casing to give it some protection.

A hole will have to be cut in the side of the casing therefore to allow the phone's camera lens to see out.

The phone itself will not "call home"; messages and pictures will come back via the satellite's radio link.

For the first part of the mission, the mobile will act as the back-up to the main computer on the spacecraft.

After a period of time, however, the phone will be put in charge.

"We're trying to use as much of the capability of the phone as possible," said Doug Liddle, head of science at SSTL.

"Ideally, the phone can take control and do the thinking."

Busy months

To precisely point and manoeuvre, the satellite will be incorporating advanced guidance, navigation and control systems including miniature reaction wheels, and a GPS receiver, as well as innovative pulse plasma thrusters to propel it through space.

The latest smartphones pack enormous capability into a very small space

The intention is that the phone be given the chance to oversee all these subsystems.

"The open source nature of the software is very exciting because you can see how further down the line, once we've got the phone working in orbit, we could get people to develop apps for it," Mr Liddle added.

Chris Bridges from the Surrey Space Centre commented: "If a smartphone can be proved to work in space, it opens up lots of new technologies to a multitude of people and companies for space who usually can't afford it. It's a real game-changer for the industry."

SSTL has earned a worldwide reputation for its small satellites. The company has managed to reduce the cost of its systems by incorporating components that were originally developed for consumer products such as laptops.

The coming months will see the company launch Earth observation spacecraft for Nigerian, Russian and Canadian customers.

It is also about to start building the spacecraft that will form the initial constellation of Galileo, Europe's multi-billion-euro answer to America's GPS network.

Top 25 Android Apps for your Phone

The Android Market may not have as many apps as the iPhone App Store yet, but there are still enough to be overwhelmed, and it’s growing at a breakneck pace. To help you sort through them all, here’s my list of the best apps I’ve found on Android. Again, remember that this is a snapshot in time. The Android platform is developing so quickly right now that I guarantee my home screen look different a month from now.
The best way to view my list of the top Android apps is in the screenshot gallery. However, you can also view my top 25 in the list below.

The screenshots

The list

1. Google Voice
Google Voice is a service that is so useful I consider it one of the top benefits of Android itself, especially since Apple rejected the Google Voice app for the iPhone. It gives you a phone number that can ring to multiple places or devices and it allows you to access all of your voicemail and text messages over the Web. The Android app integrates even deeper. It can make outgoing calls look like they’re coming from your Google Voice number so that you can keep your real mobile number private.
2. Advanced Task Killer
One of the realities of having a multitasking mobile OS in Android is that you have to manage your apps so that they don’t hurt performance or battery life. Advanced Task Killer (or ATK) is my favorite. It even comes with a widget that you can tap once to kill all open apps.
3. Dropbox
Dropbox is a great cloud service that automatically syncs a folder of files between multiple computers (Windows, Mac, or Linux). This app extends Dropbox to Android and interacts with other apps (such as Documents To Go) to open the files.
4. Evernote
Once you get used to typing on a virtual keyboard (and it honestly took me over a year to do it), then these devices are great for note-taking, and Evernote is a great note-taking app. It is similar to Dropbox in that it saves data locally but syncs it across all your machines and devices.
5. DroidAnalytics
For some reason Google doesn’t have an official app (for either Android or iPhone) for Google Analytics. The best one I’ve found on Android is DroidAnalytics. Another good one is mAnalytics.
6. Documents To Go
The free version of Documents To Go offers a great little reader for Word and Excel files. You can upgrade to the full version (for $15) if you want to edit files and add PowerPoint files to the mix. If you do want editing capability, I’d also recommend taking a look at QuickOffice.
7. Amazon Kindle
I never warmed up to the Amazon Kindle e-reader, but I’m a big fan of the Kindle mobile app. Since it was released I’ve read a lot more books simply because my smartphone is always with me and I can pull it and read a few pages anytime I’ve got a couple minutes free.
8. Places Directory
This is an awesome app for finding shops and services near your current location. From restaurants to movie theaters to medical facilities to taxis, this app is very accurate and takes advantage of the business information from Google Local. This app is better than the info you get from a GPS unit (or app) and better than any of the similar apps available on the iPhone.
9. Tripit
I dig Tripit. It is by far the best app I’ve found for keeping track of all my travel itineraries. It runs on some great backend systems. You simply forward your confirmation emails for your flights, hotels, rental cars, and more to Tripit and it automatically organizes them into trips with all your details and confirmation numbers.
10. Seesmic
Twitter is an amazing instant-intelligence engine and it was made for mobile browsing. Although there’s an official Twitter app for Android now, Seesmic is still the best Android Twitter client.
11. FCC Speedtest
I’m obsessed with running speed tests to check my bandwidth in various places, both to see 3G fluctuations and to check the quality of Wi-Fi. There are a number of really good speedtest apps, but my new favorite is the FCC Test app.
12. Astro File Manager
Another one of the great things about Android (if you’re a geek or a tinkerer) is that you have lower-level access to the system itself. Astro is an app that lets you navigate the Android file system.
13. Got To Do
There are plenty of to-do apps to choose from on Android but I prefer Got To Do because of the solid interface and the fact that it can sync with the online service Toodledo.
14. Gist
Many of us have contact lists scattered across various computers, devices, and online services. Gist is a Web service that can bring them together and even pull in stuff from the Web to help you stay up to date with your most important contacts. There’s an Android app as well as an iPhone app.
15. TED Mobile
TED is a fascinating event that features a meeting of the minds of some of society’s most influential thinkers. You’ll definitely disagree with some of them, because there’s a large diversity of opinions, but many talks are worth listening to. What I love is that they’ve taken the videos from their conference and made them freely available on the Web. This app provides a great way to access the videos. I hope more conferences follow TED’s lead on this.
16. Pandora
Pandora is a streaming “radio station” for the Internet age. You simply search by an artist or song and it will create a running playlist based on that one piece of information. It intersperses an occasional ad between songs but the ads tend to be fairly localized and occasionally even useful.
17. Shazam
If you want to impress your friends with a mobile app, show them Shazam. Ever hear a song being played at a store or on the radio and ask yourself, “Oh, what song is that?” That’s where Shazam comes in. Just hit the button and let it listen for 15 seconds, query its database, and then return the name of artist and the song. It has about an 80% success rate.
18. Dial Zero
Are you one of those people who dials a customer service line and just keeps pressing zero until you get to talk to a real person? Then Dial Zero is your new friend. This app provides a directory of a ton of U.S. businesses and gives you numbers to help you get closer to a real person and instructions for which prompts to hit to speak to a human being as quickly as possible.
19. Google Goggles
This is a fun app that is a little but ahead of its time. It does visual searches. You can take pictures of things and then the app tries to tell you what they are. It’s limited in its scope but it is pretty cool, and it’s definitely a peek into the future. One of the coolest features is the ability to take pictures of text in a foreign language and let that app translate for you. In a foreign country, this can help you read street signs and avoid going into the wrong bathroom. :-)
20. Google Sky Map
Ever look up at the night sky and try to tell your kids the name of that constellation you’re pointing at, or try to remember which planet that is in the southern sky? Google SkyMap lets you point your smartphone at it and get the information. This is part of a new breed of apps called “Augmented Reality” apps that layer digital information on top of real world experiences.
21. Tricorder
A lot of geeks I know like to say that our smartphones are becoming more and more like the Tricorders on Star Trek. Well, here’s a fun app that turns your Android device into a virtual Tricorder. It even offers some useful environmental information, including GPS data, wireless data, and ambient sound measurements.
22. FxCamera
Honestly, the camera software on Android is an area where major improvements are needed, but this app is a great example of what’s possible. It has solid camera controls, full customization options, and offers some great effects for photos.
23. Photoshop Mobile
Photoshop is, of course, the best known photo editor in the world and its mobile app doesn’t do anything to hurt that reputation. But while the desktop version is know for having a zillion features, the mobile app is distinguished by its simplicity. It’s the best Android (and iPhone) photo editing app for simple crops, brightness adjustments, and sharpens, for example.
24. Bump
Bump is a fun (and useful) idea for sharing info between two phones using the accelerometer, and it works across Android and iPhone. You can use it to share contact info (yours and others), photos, and apps. You both simply open the Bump app, choose what you to share, and then hold the phones in your hands and bump your hands together.
25. Barcode Scanner
This app turns the Android camera into a barcode scanner. You simply scan a product’s UPC code and let the app go to work to find it in Google Product Search or a search on the open Web. You’ll be amazed at how fast it works. This is great for when you’re shopping retail and you want to check the price of a product online before buying to make sure you’re paying a fair price.
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Nokia N8 will be king of smartphones?

Apple's iPhone may be the dominant force in consumer smartphones right now, but it's arguable that it's only now that it has finally come up to spec with its competitors. When you look at the technical capabilities of the iPhone 4 - the 5MP front and rear cameras, video calling, multi-tasking - the argument has been made that Apple has not so much broken new ground but merely caught up with its eternal competitor, the Nokia N95. Granted Apple's CEO Steve Jobs knows industrial design, marketing and user experience, but the functionality of the latest 'Jesus phone' just about brings it to parity with a handset released in 2007.

Next month Nokia is expected to release a new range of smartphones divided up to target the business and consumer spaces. Backed up by a slick marketing campaign, the N8 looks set to be pushed font and centre as a potential iPhone killer, and it has the specs to prove it. A 3.5" touch screen, 12MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, face detection and Xenon flash are top of the list, along with high definition video capture, HDMI and mini-USB connectivity. That a 3.5mm headphone jack, FM radio, video calling, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth come as standard show how far the market has come in the three years since the N95 first appeared.
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The N8 represents a great prospect for Nokia - it's vastly superior to the chunky N96 and sleeker than the just plain ugly N97 that came before it. More importantly Nokia's new CEO Stephen Elop's big chance to make an impression in a space rapidly slipping from the company's fingers. Industry observers have a right to be sceptical.

New money

A former Adobe and Microsoft man, Elop has a proven track record of product rollouts - Windows Office 2010 being his last major achievement. He inherits a company in the bizarre position of having consistently higher revenues consistently declining products. Nokia products are selling better than ever, but no money is being made off them. This points to strong sales of low value, low spec devices. To put it in stark perspective, in the first quarter of 2002 revenue from mobile phones alone accounted for $5.44 billion and $1.2 billion in profit. In the second quarter of 2010 revenues had risen to $6.8 billion, but profits dipped to $643m.

The rot took hold in 2008 - the year that iPhone enjoyed numerous international releases and the first round of handsets running Google's Android mobile operating system came on the market. A second consideration is the impact of Apple's App Store and the Android Marketplace. In comparison Nokia's Ovi store is hamstrung by limited selection and low traffic. An average day for Ovi pulls in 1.5 million downloads, a drop in the ocean compared to Apple's 30.5 million.

In this context Elop's position is at best unenviable, but the hardest part of the N8 to sell won't be the technology but the more ephemeral idea of the user experience. Whatever about the superior hardware, the use of a widget-based interface running a new version of the Symbian operating system looks positively antiquated beside the iPhone or HTC Desire.

Will the N8 re-establish Nokia in the consumer smartphone space? If it was about hardware alone the answer would be a firm yes. Looking at the limitations of the Ovi store and the user experience, one gets the impression this is a handset happy just to keep up when it should be blowing the competition away. 2007 was indeed a long time ago.

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Google to lauch cheap phone calls via GMAIL

Google enables phone calls from Gmail

It's VoIP, but not as you know it

---

Google has said users of Gmail will now be able to call telephones directly from their e-mail, putting it in direct competition with Skype as well as more traditional operators.
While Google had already offered computer-to-computer voice and video chat services, it said, starting on Wednesday, it would now allow calls to home phones and mobile phones directly from Gmail for the first time.
Google promised free calls to US and Canadian phones from Gmail for the rest of this year and said it would charge low rates for calls made to other countries.
For example it said calls to the UK, France, Germany, China and Japan would cost two cents per minute.
Analysts said the service would likely be a bigger competitive threat to services like Skype than to traditional phone companies, which have already been cutting their call prices in recent years in response to stiff competition.
"This is a risk to Skype. It's a competitor with a pretty good brand name," said Hudson Square analyst, Todd Rethemeier.
Skype, which is owned by private equity firms and eBay and planning a $100 million initial public offering, has long allowed consumers to make calls from computers to phones. Skype became popular by first offering free computer-to-computer voice and video services.
Like Skype, Rethemeier said the Google service will likely be much more popular among users making international calls, than among people calling friends inside the country.
"Calling is so cheap already that I don't think it will attract a huge amount of domestic calling. It could take some of the international market," he said.
Another analyst, Steve Clement from Pacific Crest, said anybody who is tempted by Internet calling services has likely already disconnected their home phone. "The type of person who would use a service like that isn't the type of customer who still has a landline."
Google said making a call through its service works like a normal phone in that a user could click on the "call phone" option in their chat buddy list in Gmail and type in the number or enter a contact's name.
Calls that cost money will be charged from an online account that users can top up with a credit card, Google said. The service will not be available for making outgoing calls on mobile phones because other Google apps already cater to that market, the company added.
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iPhone supplier has major suicide issues

Foxconn hands over suicide worker dormitories

Company argues suicides not work-related

Lifestyle Tech | 28 Jun 2010 :
Electronics maker Foxconn, under fire for its working practices after a string of worker suicides, will sign over management of staff dormitories at its complexes in Shenzhen, China, to other companies.

Ten suicides this year at the sprawling manufacturing base has brought intense scrutiny of Taiwan's Hon Hai, the owner of Foxconn, which makes the iPhone and other products for Apple and also counts Dell and Hewlett-Packard among its clients.

Hon Hai had said at its shareholder meeting earlier this month that it would look for others to manage the dormitories, which house the some 450,000 mostly migrant workers from China's poorer hinterlands that work at the plants.

Foxconn said it had agreed with two companies - Shenzhen CPM Property Management and Kaiyuan Property Management - to hand over management of 153 employee dormitories.

"Providing employees with basic necessities including a safe and convenient place to live at the work-site might have been sufficient in the past, but this arrangement no longer satisfies the needs of the young migrant workers of today," said Terry Cheng, Foxconn's corporate executive vice-president.

"They also want to have a life in the city in which they work," he said.

The suicides, which the company said were not work-related but which victims' families have blamed on tough conditions, triggered a wave of labour unrest in China as workers sought a better deal.