How much does Google really know about you?

November 5, 2009

Google has an amazing array of data sucking free services out there.  Web search, Gmail email, Gphone, picasa, YouTube, web entry pages, etc… and finally they have released a way for you to get a taste of what they know about you.

Go to this site to see what google knows about you:

Google Dashboard

Here is the video directly from google:

Its hard not to be scared of the total amount of information they track.  NOTHING is free folks, they are tracking EVERYTHING.  The data goes FAR beyond search.  For this reason I will NOT use their phone service.  They already know enough.

I encourage you to review the privacy policies and settings to make sure you are clear about how and what is being tracked.

PS – you can bet BING and Facebook know & track this information too…

Check out this article for further insight.

Google Dashboard Knows Too Much

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Posted by Russ

Kavoom!KM is gone?!

November 5, 2009

I’ve been a loyal Kavoom user for years now.  I have two monitors on my primary desktop and often place my laptop next to those monitors.  The KM software allowed me to use my laptop from the desktop keyboard, essentially providing me with 3 screens & 2 computers available to me on my desk all accessible from a single keyboard and mouse seamlessly.  Really a beautiful thing for productivity.

When I upgraded my workstation to windows 7 earlier last week, I found that Kavoom! is not compatible with windows7.   (Or at least that’s what windows told me.  I honestly didn’t try re-installing, I couldn’t find the original download)  I went to check the Kavoom website for an update, and NOTHING?!  The site has been down for the last two weeks… so it forced me to look into a new solution.

Of course I easily found Synergy+ – a free tool that does the same thing.  Not as smooth of a setup process, but it seems to work fine.

So Kavoom is gone, but we are not lost… and perhaps the free option explains why they are gone.   Its a shame when a fair product that sells for $30 goes out of business due to a free solution.   Go open source, but its not fun to be a developer who owns an eliminated product… which is better?

UPDATE: Synergy also works with MAC and Linux… so yes, its cooler than Kavoom… its so nice to have my mac working also… 4 screens!

Leave a Comment » | CES Systems, Corneredge News, Tech post | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Russ

Windows 7 upgrade – its EASY!

November 2, 2009

Over the weekend I took the plung and upgraded my main workstation from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate.

Initial impression:

I’m extremely impressed by Microsoft.  They did an AWESOME job with the upgrade.  Everything works, my machine is faster, it boots faster, etc.  Adobe Premiere CS4 works including all the special codecs I installed before.  All my user settings like saved passwords, outlook, firefox, IE etc… all migrated seamlessly.

This is by far the easiest “upgrade” of an OS I’ve ever done.  I’ll post more after I’ve used the machine for a while.

 

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Posted by Russ

Can I upgrade to windows 7? Here is how to check

October 27, 2009

In our testing at Corneredge Windows 7 has performed well.  I’ve already loaded it on two machines that could not even run Vista and they are running great.

SO, I’m tempted planning to upgrade my workstation.  Microsoft seems to have really done their homework with the upgrade this time, and I’m looking forward to the features in windows 7.

If you are thinking the same way, download this tool to get a nice checklist of what you need to do before installing windows 7.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

Leave a Comment » | Windows 7 | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Russ

Trace a DNS lookup path

October 20, 2009

While working through some DNS lookup inconsistency today, I was reminded of this tip that allows you to trace an entire DNS lookup.  Normally I just do an NSlookup, but I wanted more information.   DIG is a command that’s built into Linux (and therefore MAC) So I hopped on my Mac and ran the command like this:

>Dig +trace www.yourdomain.com

results look like this:

————————————————————————–

; <> DiG 9.4.1-P1 <> +trace www.yourdomain.com
;; global options:  printcmd
.                       505277  IN      NS      A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
;; Received 372 bytes from 172.18.33.1#53(172.18.33.1) in 1 ms

com.                    172800  IN      NS      I.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      H.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      A.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      B.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      F.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      G.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      M.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      K.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      D.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      E.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      J.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      C.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      L.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
;; Received 511 bytes from 192.33.4.12#53(C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET) in 333 ms

www.yourdomain.com         172800  IN      NS      ns1.wordpress.com.
www.yourdomain.com        172800  IN      NS      ns2.wordpress.com.
www.yourdomain.com          172800  IN      NS      ns3.wordpress.com.
;; Received 141 bytes from 192.5.6.30#53(A.GTLD-SERVERS.NET) in 931 ms

www.yourdomain.com  300     IN      CNAME   www.yourdomain.com edgekey.net.
www.yourdomain.com.          14400   IN      NS      NS1.yourdomain.com
www.yourdomain.com.          14400   IN      NS      NS2.yourdomain.com
www.yourdomain.com          14400   IN      NS      NS3.yourdomain.com
;; Received 180 bytes from 123.456.234.123#53(ns1.yourdomain.com) in 1021 ms

Leave a Comment » | Mac | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Russ

The internet can enhance your brain!

October 20, 2009

Hey, don’t worry about all the time figuring things on the internet… it enhances your brain!

Check out the fox news story here.

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Posted by Russ

How to virtualize an old computer

October 16, 2009

As developers and systems engineers we use an immense amount of software tools and applications.  Transfering to using a new computer seems like it can take months before you have “all you need” for our daily tasks.

When I took delivery of my new laptop in January I struggled with this issue.  My old machine had been in place for 3 years and now I was faced with starting fresh.  64-bit Vista on my laptop also presented a challenge for old applications I used.  Not to mention that old PCanywhere, old VPN connections, etc…

SO, I decided to virtualize my old laptop.  I can litterally run that computer in VMware faster than I could before, and I don’t have to worry about old applications or old VPN configurations for customers, they all just work!

So how do you do it?  Simply install the free Vmware converter on the machine you want to virtualize and point it to your nearest VMWare workstaion or server.  I highly recommend this, it was a truely painless process.

Fore more information check out these sites:

VMware converter site

How to run VMWARE converter step by step

Leave a Comment » | CES Systems, vmware | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Russ

SCAM ALERT – Corneredge will NOT email you like this for mail setting changes

October 14, 2009

Attention customers, this email is a SCAM, do NOT click on this link.   We do NOT communicate changes this way.  The scam is re-directing you to a UK site and phishing for your information.  Do NOT click on this link.

SPAM email scam:

———————————————————————————————-

Dear user of the corneredge.com mailing service!

We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service your mailbox (YOUR EMAIL) settings were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings click on the following link:

http://corneredge.com/owa/service_directory/settings.php?email=dns@corneredge.com&from=corneredge.com&fromname=dns

Best regards, corneredge.com Technical Support.

———————————————————————————————-

AND This email:

———————————————————————————————-

You have (6) New Message from Outlook Microsoft

- Please re-configure your Microsoft Outlook Again.

- Download attached setup file and install.

OR this email:

—————————————————————————

On October 22, 2009 server upgrade will take place. Due to this the system may be offline for approximately half an hour.

The changes will concern security, reliability and performance of mail service and the system as a whole.

For compatibility of your browsers and mail clients with upgraded server software you should run SSl certificates update procedure.

This procedure is quite simple. All you have to do is just to click the link provided, to save the patch file and then to run it from your computer location. That’s all.

You have (6) New Message from Outlook Microsoft

- Please re-configure your Microsoft Outlook Again.

- Download attached setup file and install.

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Posted by Russ

Trade your netbook for speed, size and performance

October 14, 2009

Netbooks might be convenient, but they are slow, too small, and lack the performance you really need to crank things out.

I agree with Michael Dell’s assessment here, netbooks are just smaller accessories to real machines you need.

Real laptops are becoming so fast and economical that netbooks will soon be un-necessary as well.

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Posted by Russ

Postini mail delays and Google sustainability?

October 13, 2009

Postini (Owned by Google since 2007) is a great hosted email and archiving service for email that many businesses rely on for security, spam filtering, and email storage.

There have been increasing delays reported Tuesday (10/13) this past week of up to 4 hours with email and very overloaded support etc… customers have been very frustrated.  Google is working on resolving the delays and has finally communicated acknowledgement of the situation and are working as fast as possible to fix it.  If you are a customer experiencing a problem, please go to the Postini Support Portal to work with them directly on it.

This begs the question again this month… Are these widely used and free application services really safe to rely on for your business?  Is the Google model sustainable?  Could you afford a 4 hour delay on email yesterday?  I’d like to say, sure, I’ll pick up the phone, but in this economy that could really hurt.

1 Comment | Corneredge News | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Russ

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