Categories
Software Tech

Staying Safe on the Web

I occasionally get asked by friends and family what to do about security on their phone and computer. I give them the usual advice install uBlock Origin, use a password manager like 1Password, and if I’m feeling talkative go into the benefits of enabling two-factor authentication on as many logins as possible. But there’s only so much advice you can give before you see their eyes start to glaze over, so I made a note in my head to write something about the topic.

Recently my laziness was rewarded, the NY Time’s Wirecutter put out a couple great posts about securing your digital life and what to do and not do on your computer and phone.

First off is their “Favorite Ad Blockers and Browser Extensions,” which hits all the you should install this this and this topics that I was talking about in the first paragraph. Secondly, are privacy tips and security audit recommendations for both the iOS and Android ecosystems. Finally this third article, “How a Burner Identity Protects,” gets into the more advanced topic of using burner numbers, emails, and virtual credit cards to secure yourself from company data breaches and people that shouldn’t have your contact information.

Read them over, take some advice, and don’t install Limewire on your computer!

Categories
Software Tech

Qik for iPhone

Just loaded Qik onto my iPhone. It seems pretty awesome, but I’ll withhold final judgement till I’ve tested it for a couple days.

Basically Qik allows you to stream video from your iPhone to the internet live! Or close to live depending on your internet connection.

You can find my videos at http://qik.com/erikpersson

Anyway more later!

Categories
Food Software Tech

GoTime For iPhone & Free Tickets To Seattle International Beerfest 2009

GoTime

I’ve been using GoTime’s iPhone App “Happy Hours” for the last month and a half or so and so far I’m liking it. Basically Happy Hours uses the GPS location of your iPhone to tell you where the nearest happy hours at the nearest restaurants & bars are happening. So how well does it work?

So far pretty good. I’ve been able to find good places to eat & drink around downtown Seattle &  Bellevue so far. I never would have thought about checking out the Lucky Strike in Bellevue, but Gotime said they had half-price pizza & beer for happy hour so I had to check it out. Let me tell you it is really good pizza, and so far all their bartenders have known how to pour a mean pint of Guiness.

On the negative, sometimes their info on the exact happy hour specials can be lacking occasionally. But this can only improve.

(Note: So far GoTime is only deployed in the Seattle and Portland,OR regions, so if you aren’t in either areas it’ll probably be of limited value to you in the near future. Though I have heard that they are getting ready to expand into more regions on the west coast)

So besides having a pretty awesome iPhone app, GoTime is also holding a contest to win free tickets to the Seattle International Beerfestival. Who doesn’t like free beer? Full details can be found on their blog here. Basically entry requirements are that you have to pimp them on twitter and your blog (Cough, Sellout, Cough). But like I said uptop, their iPhone app has helped me find some good places to eat a couple times which gives them some brownie points in my book.

Categories
Software Tech

Mac Tip: Change Screen Capture Format With Terminal

Remember how easy it is to screen capture on a Mac?

Cmd + Shift + 3

to take a picture of your Entire active screen.

While

cmd + Shift + 4

gives you some crosshairs that allow you to select what you want to copy.

Only problem is, the files are always saved as .png files. This is annoying if you want them in another format like .jpg. Normally you’d have to open your image editor of choice and then re-save it.

Turns out there is an easier way though!

All you have to do is run this Terminal Command

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

then restart your computer. Now every time you take a screenshot it will be in .jpg format.

If you want your screenshots in other formats like gif, png, or even pdf just change it in the terminal.

Via TUAW

Categories
OpenSource Software Tech

Mac and Linux Tip: Bulk Rename File Extensions With Terminal and/or Shell

How To: Bulk Rename File Extensions With Terminal/Shell

Lets say you have a bunch of .jpg files that you know are actually .rar files.

What would be the simplest way to rename them all?

First you’d navigate to the directory that contains the .jpg files with the “cd” command

For brevity lets assume the only .jpg files in this directory are .jpg files that you want to change

All you have to do is run this command

mv *.jpg *.rar

And all the .jpg files will have been renamed to .rar

If you want to learn more about the “mv” command just type in

man mv