Category: Privacy

North Koreans Wish for Internet While Retired People Elsewhere Surf Over Gardening

February 4, 2007August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell No Comments

I came across two pieces of information today, and the juxtaposition was too much to not share. First piece: a new study out by AXA has found that retired people in 11 countries are now spending more time using the Internet over traditional pastimes of gardening, hiking, traveling, etc. Apparently, the term for this new demographic is “silver surfers.”

Second piece: Near North Korea’s northern border, Chinese cell phones and prepaid phone cards are a hot black-market item, regardless of the government trying to ban them. The reason: the new phones have free access to the Chinese Internet, which, even if censored, is a portal to the outside world not available to North Koreans through their regular Intranet.

Cyberlaw, Just For Fun, Privacy, Tech News

Case Study: Google Services Too Good, Making IT Departments Shrink

December 20, 2006August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell 2 Comments

So the latest Economist article (subscription required) discusses how Arizona State University made the switch to using Google Apps for Your Domain. As the article puts it, “with one flick of the proverbial switch 65,000 students had new e-mail accounts.” Now all emails are stored on Google servers rather than on university servers.

The head of IT for ASU, Adrian Sannier, mentioned that no one is being forced to switch, though many students are already used to Gmail. And since now they can use their “asu.edu” address with a Gmail interface, students have been voluntarily migrating to the new email at a rate of 300 per hour. Sannier explains that he pays less than $10,000 for support and that the in-house IT staff do absolutely nothing for email now.

Google, Internet, Microsoft, Privacy, Tech News

Symantec Norton 360 Review with Screenshots

December 5, 2006August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell 83 Comments

Symanteclogo_1 Symantec recently released the beta version of its new security suite: Norton 360. The question is whether the 360 part of the name refers to what Symantec would have you believe: “Norton gives you a full circle of protection.” Or could it refer to Symantec doing a 360 and being right back where it started with a bloated, buggy, and overpriced product?

When I covered the Norton AntiVirus 2006 release last year, the thread turned into a place for consumers to vent on how the product caused more problems than fixes. Some were even wishing for a class-action lawsuit. Well, I’ve been playing with the latest iteration for a few days now to see which implication of using the term 360 is true. Here’s what I found:

Do-It-Yourself Tech, Internet, Privacy, Tech Reviews, Web 2.0

Google Browser Sync, Torpark & USB Drive Combined

June 12, 2006August 19, 2008 Bob Caswell 2 Comments

Labs_logo_1 Google recently released Google Browser Sync, an extension designed specifically for Firefox which allows your bookmarks, cookies, history, and passwords to be synchronized across multiple computers. Basically, it keeps all your browser information on a Google server. Each time you load Firefox, it syncs with the online version of your settings. This way, if you browse the Internet from multiple computers, your bookmarks, etc. move with you.

Do-It-Yourself Tech, Google, Internet, Privacy