Online Security: We Are All at Risk

     I read an article on Monday on how a tech writer had his online life literally destroyed in under an hour. Not for who he was, but because someone wanted his Twitter account handle.  This could happen to any of us for the same reasons.  The thing that was interesting to me about this hack was that the hackers didn't have to crack his passwords to gain access to his accounts.  Apple and Amazon handed the information over.  Amazon has already responded and has changed internal procedures. Still no word from Apple.
     So, how do we stop this from happening to us? By making it as hard as possible to get in.  If someone wants in and is willing to spend the time, they will most likely gain access thru brute force attacks.  But you don't have to make it easy on them.
     One of the most common mistakes people make is using the same username and password for every website. DON'T!  If you already have, starting changing them today.  I know, "How do I keep track of all the usernames and passwords? Writing them down isn't good either."  One way is to use a password manager like LastPass.  While browsers like Google Chrome have password managers built in, I prefer LastPass for a couple of reasons. One is that they have browser plugins to make it easier to access your information, and it goes with you.  It's web based and can be accessed from any computer.  I'm not going to get into all the features here. Go to their website and check it out.
      Another thing people do is use dictionary based passwords.  These are easily hacked with the power of today's computers.  There have been many articles on what the best passwords are.  I try and combine all possible combinations when possible.  Short three or four word phrases will take years to crack with todays computing power.  Phrases like "he likes pizza" is more secure than "helikespizza".  When you throw in numbers, letters and special characters you have the making of a very good password "h3 Like$ pizz@".  And the longer the better.  Try to use the maximum number of characters the site will allow you to.
       Lastly, use 2-step verification when possible.  What is this? It's a security protocol that makes you have two steps to login.  Some of you may use RSA keys at work. This is a 2-step verification product. Most of the time the second step requires the use of your cell phone.  While this can add a few seconds to your login time, the security it provides is some of the best available.  With 2-step verification hackers will have to have both your password and your cell phone to gain access to your data.    If you have a Google account(either personal or business), they offer Google Authenticator.  LastPass offers this as well. They have 3 different options to use, Google Authenticator is one of them.  That's another reason why I like using LastPass.
       More and more sites are starting to offer different 2-step verification options.  Hopefully more will start using Google Authenticator.  It's free for site developers to use.  Everyone's favorite social site Facebook has "login approvals".  Not everyone can use it though.  I login into Facebook using the secure site(https:\\ not http:\\) and I keep my browser secure.  Facebook won't let me enable it.  Dumb. Hopefully they will change this in the future.
      Please leave any questions and comments below and be safe online.

Why T-Mobile Selling Their Towers is not a Big Deal

Everyone has been up in arms the last few days because of a report of T-Mobile USA thinking about selling their towers.  If they do, so what, nothing will change.  Not all carriers own their towers.  Towers are expensive to own and maintain.  Outside of the physical maintenance of the tower, there is a lot of FCC regulations that need to be met and paperwork filed annually showing those regulations are being met. By selling the towers and then leasing them from the company they sell them to they 1) get capital money for the sale of the towers and equipment and 2) they can eliminate the tower maintenance staff that they employ, thus having more money freed up for capital expenditures.
In no way will this sale, if it happens, affect their service.  It will affect the people they employ but not their customers.

Mobile Data Speeds or Lack Of

     We have all seen our data speeds go up and down depending on the time of day. But do you know why?  The tower has a predefined amount of bandwidth. The more users the less each user can get. So during peak times you get a lot slower speed than on non-peak times.  Sometimes less than half of what you are capable of getting.  All mobile carriers do it and we put up with it.  Let's use 3G as an example. In most cases it maxes out at around 3Mbps. Have you ever seen it? I haven't, and it's what you pay for.
      Now let's take your ISP, if you pay for 15Mbps down what will you do if you only get 7 Mbps down? You will call your ISP and tell them your data service isn't working correctly. You will continue to complain until you get the 15Mbps that you are paying for.
      Unfortunately we have allowed the mobile carriers to get away with doing this for way too long and I don't think we will ever get the speeds we pay for.

SlingPlayer for Android

I've been waiting for this app to come out since I purchased my Hero last October.  I used in on my Windows Mobile phone for over a year before that.  First thing that is going to hit you is the price tag, $30.  A lot for an app, yes, surprising, no.  When I was using SlingPlayer on my Mogul it cost me $30 for that app as well.

After downloading setup is incredibly simple.  Just log into your Sling account thru the app and all of your Slingboxes are listed.  Select the one you want to watch and away you go. The app runs incredibly smooth and has an incredible picture.  I was even able to watch a baseball game on it while going driving down the interstate. (No I wasn't driving).  I did notice that it appears to be a resource hog.  If you have apps running in the background(mail, twitter, facebook, ect.) they will FC after time.

I have found one thing I don't like about this app, it doesn't work on ROMs with JIT.  I tried several ROMs with no luck.  I even turned off JIT in one of them rebooted and no luck.  SlingMedia has a Twitter account with the name of @MisterSling.  MisterSling was on GDGT.com earlier this week answering questions about the new Android app.  I asked about JIT support and was informed that they only support official ROMs.  I can see that.  Still wish it work because I really like some of the ROMs with JIT built in.

 Hopefully with the source code release of Froyo (Android 2.2) to AOSP SlingMedia will start working on getting the app working with JIT before an official ROM gets released.  I can see more than one angry person that paid $30 for an app then upgrades to an official 2.2 release and the app not work.

My Adventures in Flashing a New ROM

     I rooted my HTC Hero (Sprint) a few weeks after I got it back in October but have not put a custom ROM on it for several reasons.  One, I was very nervous about bricking it, and two, all the ROMs available were either still 1.5 or partially functional 2.x ROMs.
     I have been watching XDA closely looking for a 2.1 ROM.  A few weeks ago they got a hold of a leaked Eris ROM.  It still had a  few things that were not functional on the Hero.  Then I looked on Friday and they had two ROMs based off a Sprint Hero leak.  100% functional. Okay time to flash a new ROM.  This is when the fun (read STRESS) began.
      I downloaded the Fastrec one click rooting method and an Amon Ra recovery image. Rebooted, again and again.  I finally realized that the procedure to access fastboot is different for the Euro version and the Sprint version of the Hero. Finally got into fastboot, selected recovery.  NOTHING.  My phone rebooted and locked up.  Pulled the battery, did the same thing, over and over.  I called it quits for the night.
      New day, I reach out to the twitterverse for help.  Discovered that I had I bad recovery image. I got a new recovery image flashed via terminal on the phone and did a nandroid backup.  Here is where I made a mistake.  Fellow noobs pay attention.  I did the nandroid backup BEFORE I created an ext partition on my SD card.  Thus erasing my backup.  I didnt realize this until many hours later.  I rebooted, put a new ROM on my SD card and booted into recovery.  I installed the ROM and rebooted.  It started to boot fine then, NOTHING, phone locked up.  Not again. Tried several more times.  Still nothing.  Not good.  It wasnt a big deal when I couldnt get into recovery when I had a functional ROM but now my phone is unusable.  I pulled the battery again and booted into recovery.  I put a different ROM onto my SD card and tried again.  25 minutes later, NOTHING.  Not good.  Pulled the battery and tried again.  I discovered I was in a boot loop.
        I getting really nervous at this point.  I know its been said that if you can get into recovery all is good and can be fixed.  But as a noob I was nervous.  It didn't help that my wife follows my twitter stream and was on my case about breaking my phone.  Okay neither of the 2.1 ROMs I was interested in were working.  Phone is not a brick at this point but might as well be.  I decided to go with an older 1.5 ROM that was used by alot of people and try it.  IT LOADED!!  Wow, my phone was functional  again.  I let it sit and charge for a while then decided to try a 2.1 ROM again..  It worked this time.
         I have no idea what caused the 2.1 ROMs not to work the first time thru but they are working now.  I have tried both of the ones I was looking at and settled one one. When I flashed to the second 2.1 ROM it went flawless and was really easy.
        I think I spent about 3+ hours trying to get a functional ROM back on  my phone from the time I flashed the first time.  I want to thank @simms22 and @chickenfudge over on Twitter for helping me thru a very trying time yesterday afternoon.  The reason I was trying to use Fastrec and not the Android sdk was my computer was being tempermental and would not let me access my phone thru the sdk.  I tried changing the drivers but my Windows 7 64 bit OS had its own ideas for what the drivers should be.
        Feel free to leave any comments or questions below.

The Phone Wars: Google vs Apple

Unless you have been living under a rock lately you know about the fight going on between Google and Apple.  This fight had been escalating for a bit now.  In my opinion here is how the fight is going:

Apple: blocked the Google Voice app from the iPhone. If it was at AT&T request is not the point they still did it and there are jailbroken phones that could of used it off of AT&T.  

Google: Launched the Nexus One even though it obviously was in development for a bit Apple's punch came first

Apple:  Mr Crapple (aka Steve Jobs) trashed Google at the Apple all employee meeting

Google: Turned on mutlitouch in Google apps on the Nexus One

Handicaps:  

        Apple: AT&T's network is being severely strained by data users.  To make matters worse for AT&T, they approved the SlingPlayer app for use over their 3G network.  I see data usage going up even more now.  More dropped calls on the iPhone now.

       Google:  the Android Market & app storage.  The interface is not great and there is no real good way to browse the market on the web. The App store may have more apps but that means more junk as well.  Developers are slowly moving apps to Android from the iPhone.  Google is working on Apps2sd as a default to make more memory for app storage, but currently storage is an issue.

Current state of the fight:  Google ahead.  The Nexus One running it's current enhancements is a stronger phone than the iPhone.  Once Google gets apps2sd running and the market in good shape the iPhone is in serious trouble, but we will just have to wait and see who lands the next punch and what it brings.  

Rogers Fails Android Users AGAIN!!

WOW!!  Rogers (Rogers is a Canadian mobile phone/cable tv provider)  has really been failing their subscribers lately. First they have a  911 GPS issue on BOTH the Magic and the Dream.  Okay, not a big deal just push a fix and go on right?  Wrong!

Rogers tells everyone they  MUST install the patch by 6:00am EST on 1/24/10 or their internet access will be temporarily suspended ( http://bit.ly/7umNGy ).  Well in the biggest fail of them all they pushed out the fix on 1.5 taking anyone who had custom ROMs back to 1.5. With this they disabled the existing root path eliminating the possibility of putting custom ROMs back on the phone.  In a conversation with one Rogers customer he ended up losing at least 3 apps, including Google Goggles.

As a very poor consolation the new 1.5 was pushed with HTC's Sense UI.  As nice as the Sense UI is I would be pissed if my OS was downgraded and I couldn't fix it.

Wonder what Rogers subscriber base is going to look like in the next six months.

Theft of Android Apps

If you know of any developer's or know the support email for any paid apps you have please send them the following information or send them here.

http://www.mediafire.com/thakidtok is hosting HUNDREDS of paid apps for free download.  The email for www.mediafire.com is abuse@mediafire.com.  The site is hosted by DNSMadeeasy.com
 DNS Made Easy 
Tiggee LLC
PO Box 145
Oakton, VA 22124

 The site is registered thru godaddy.com.  Please be sure that the developer's you know see this so they can file a DMCA takedown notice with Mediafire and DNSMadeeasy so they can get paid for their apps they worked so hard on.  

The files are being put up by Twitter user @thatkidtok.


EDIT:  Here is a link to some information on how to submit a DMCA notice:  http://www.hooverwebdesign.com/articles/how-to-file-a-dmca-copyright-violation.html

Disney killing free NASCAR

I was watching ESPN the other night and they were talking about the upcoming NASCAR broadcast schedule.  9 of the 10 Chase races will be moved off of the free ABC network feed to the paid ESPN channel.  They are moving several of the "regular" season races to ESPN as well. By doing this Disney can theoretically make more money on the broadcasting of the NASCAR races.  By broadcasting on ESPN those NASCAR fans that do not have cable will either miss the races or have to get cable.  ESPN makes money off of every subscriber that every cable and satellite company has. (And they charge ALOT for the right to carry ESPN)

Now this doesn't really have any affect on me since I have ESPN.  But it does go to show how much power Disney has and how major media companies can control what and how we watch television.  It would not surprise me at all to see the major media companies move all live sporting events to their cable networks over the next 5-10 years to guarantee more income from those show.

HTC Hero Gets 2.1 in February

I read an article at www.androidguys.com earlier and they were quoting sources that the HTC Hero in Europe will start receiving the 2.1 upgrade in the middle of February.  I am happy for them.  Now to us Sprint Hero owners, what about us?   This announcement that the Euro Hero getting the 2.1 update next month is very promising.  I read at one point last month that the Sprint Hero was getting an update to the Sprint Navigation app in the middle of February 2010.  Hmm, Europe 2.1 mid Feb, Sprint nav update mid Feb.  Are you seeing what I am?  It's not hard to form an opinion that the Sprint Hero will get the 2.1 update in February as well.

Now granted this takes that we are assuming a few things.  We have to assume that Sprint knew approximately when HTC would have Sense UI ready for 2.1 and they were able to get their developers to have the navigation app ready to put into the ROM when HTC needed it.  Obviously since HTC built the NexusOne they have had their code writing paws on 2.1 for some time now.  Now granted I could be assuming a lot, but hey, isn't it fun to try and guess what's going on?

Avatar 3D in Your Home

I read some very good articles today.  What I previously thought was going to be is not.  Samsung has announced a deal with RealD to use RealD 3D in their TVs.  JVC and Sony are reportedly working on deals with RealD as well.  This is a very good thing.  Why?  RealD uses a passive 3D technology.  By Sony, Samsung and JVC using it in their TVs it will mean lower priced glasses for us to use in our homes.  The RealD glasses used in the theater are rumored to cost in the area of $0.65.  We will probably end up paying $20-30 for them but that is still cheaper than the $100 active technology glasses used by other 3D companies.  

The second bit of 3D news today is that ESPN and Discovery Channel both announced 3D channels in the works.  ESPN will launch by this summer.  Scheduled for transmission - 2010 World Cup Soccer and the 2011 BCS National Championship game.  I can't wait to see what Discovery is going to come up with.  Their Planet Earth series in HD was amazing.  Anything is 3D by them should be just mindblowing.

VOIP - Voice Over Internet Protocol

I was trying to help out someone on Twitter tonight with what VOIP is and it is to big of a topic for Twitter.  So focus111, this is for you.  

VOIP, or Voice Over Internet Protocol is a process where voice can be turned into a tcp/ip packet and sent over a data network to what is known as a "soft" switch.  The "soft" switch will then convert the packet into a standard telephony packet and send it to the local telephone carrier of the destination.  At that point depending on who the other persons carrier is will depend on what happens with it.  With a Bell company (Verizon, AT&T, ect.) the data is run through a standard telephony switch and sent down twisted pair lines to a home.  If the back end of the call is a cable company(not all do it this way) the packet is sent to a private data network and sent to the persons home as a VOIP packet. If the back end of the call is a company like Vonage and Skype the packet is sent through a soft switch and sent over the internet to the customer via their ISP.

VOIP has a significant cost advantage over standard (circuit switched) telephone.  A soft switch is nothing more than a computer with VOIP software on it.  

What will be interesting this year is when Google relaunches Gizmo5.  Gizmo5 will give Google a way of providing dialtone over VOIP.  This could mean that all you will need is a Google Voice account and a cell phone with an unlimited data plan and you will no longer have to worry about minutes.  There has been rumors about how Google was going to launch the Nexus One with only data capabilities.  This would be pointless unless you had a way of getting dialtone (Vonage, Skype, Gizmo5).  So until Google relaunches Gizmo5 I don't see a data only phone hitting the market.  One thing is trying to get this past the cell carriers.  They are making a killing on what they are charging for minutes.

Geodelic's New Android App

I downloaded Geodelic's new Android app to my Hero last night.  Overall it's pretty good.  One thing I don't understand is why they are calling it a beta.  It looks very similar to Sherpa which Geodelic makes exclusively  for T-Mobile. It gives similar results to other apps out there(ie Yelp).  The interface is different from what I have seen before.  Although the carousel look is neat, it is too sensitive to touch.  With just the slightest touch of the screen you will move one or two search results over from where you were.  The same goes for the category bar on the top.

The Geodelic app gets it's search results based on your location. It gets it's location in one of 3 ways, GPS, Wi-fi (still trying to figure this one out), and manual entry.  I have had intermittent issues with the GPS being able to get my location even though all of the other apps I have that require GPS find my location fine.  The Wi-fi location finder is way off.  The closest I have been able to get to my actual location is 10 miles.  They would have been better off using cellular based location if GPS was unavailable.  At least that should get you within a mile or so of your location.  If the app can not  find your location it will give you an error. When the error is acknowledged the app shuts down.

I have used the email provide by Geodelic for feedback on the app.  Given that this is a "beta" hopefully they will look into some of these issues.

Android's Little Brain

I don't know if it's a restriction of the OS or hardware manufacturers just are building enough in, but Android phones have a very small amount of memory.  I have the HTC Hero(Sprint CDMA) and I am almost out of room for apps on my phone.  Not cool.  This is where Apple and the iPhone just kills the Android platform.  I'm showing available internal memory of 159MB (I have 142 used).  iPhones are in GBs!!!  Come on everyone get on the ball.

I have two choices if I want some new apps.  One delete some of the lesser used ones and reinstall them when I want to use them or install a custom ROM.  I already have my phone rooted  so I can use the wifi tether and screen capture.  If I do decide to go with a custom ROM I may wait until there is a stable 2.1 ROM available. I want some of the features that are included in 2.1 and I don't want to have to do it twice.  Honestly I shouldn't have to do it at all if the phone manufacturers would build a phone with some decent memory in it.

Merry Christmas!

Who would have thought Oklahoma would get a blizzard with 14+" of snow and 60mph winds.  As I deal with the aftermath I hope everyone and their families have a safe and Merry Christmas.

Smartphones - Cellphones or Computers

I am getting really sick and tired of all this ROM crap in the smartphone world.  Today's smartphones are basically small computers with a phone program running on them.  Manufacturers, carriers and developers need to start treating them like a computer.

For example, you go into a store and buy a computer.  It has a designated OS on it (most likely Windows or Mac).  You can put what ever future OS on it you want as long as it meets the minimum hardware requirements for the new OS.  All of your old programs still work(for the most part) because the new OS is backwards compatible.

Now onto what to do with the smartphones.  Manufactures build a phone with a specific set of hardware.  This hardware may or may not support different OSs.  If it can support multiple OSs they will probably choose to market just one.  They send the phone to the carrier with the carriers apps preinstalled and ready for the end user.  When an upgraded OS comes out the customer will have a couple of choices to get the new OS.  1) purchase a new phone from a carrier or 2) purchase and/or download the new OS (free in terms of Android, paid for WinMo.  The carrier can keep a set of apps on their website hidden behind a customer login for the customer who has upgraded to get the carrier apps to reinstall.

Doing this will stop all of the bullshit going on right now with people waiting to get the latest releases and people hacking phones to get an OS to put on another phone.  This will free up developers to write some more kick ass apps instead of trying to hack the OS.

This will really put the carriers on equal footing in terms of hardware and really make them compete on their network.

Verizon and Microsoft vs US Govt

Just a few short years ago our good friends in Redmond got in trouble with the US government for violating anti-trust laws. Seems like they are up to their old tricks again.  There are several stories out about how Verizon's smartphone users are being forced to use Microsoft's Bing search engine in their search bar.  I don't know about you but this seems an awful lot like what they got in trouble for the last time.  Is Microsoft trying to get around the government? If so, they may be taking Verizon down with them.  I'm going to sit back and watch and see if any pissed off Verizon customers complain to the FTC.

Thank you Sprint and HTC

Good news. According to the official Sprint Twitter feed the HTC Hero will be getting Android 2.1 not 2.0.  This is awesome.  Even though the Hero started out behind with 1.5 it should be up to date when the upgrade comes out.  That is if Google isn't preparing yet another upgrade to the OS that will be out before Sprint gets around to upgrading the Hero.  I waiting very impatiently for the upgrade.  Hopefully the HTC feed is more accurate than the Sprint one.  I like early 2010 vs 1H2010.

iPhone Users Suffer From Stockholm Syndrome and Sprint Fails

There are fanboys and then there are iPhone users.  This is probably one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard of.  According to Strand Consult iPhone users suffer from Stockholm Syndrome because they constantly defend the problems with both the iPhone and AT&Ts network  (http://www.9to5mac.com).  Speaking of AT&T, their network problems just got worse.  According to reports it looks like most of San Fransisco's AT&T customers were without service today. (The fake) Steve Jobs calls (kind of) Randall Stephenson of AT&T and lets him know what he thinks of how AT&T is handling their network issues for their world ruling iPhone.  You were a little brutal there Steve, but right on point (http://www.fakesteve.net).

In somewhat better news Sprint and HTC officially announced that the Hero was getting upgraded to Android 2.0.  This kind of sucks.  First they don't agree as to when the update is coming out.  HTC says early 2010 and Sprint says roughly the first half of 2010.  Roughly to me means maybe July or August.  And the whole 2.0 thing sucks as well.  2.1 is already out on the Hero in Europe and by the time the Hero gets 2.0 here in the US 2.5 will probably be out already.

Everyone fails today.  Let's try for more tomorrow.

at&t Fails Again

Everyone knows that at&t's network sucks.  Now they have admitted just how bad they are. Instead of investing back into their network they are hording the money and telling people to stop using their iPhones smartphones.  So, what happens if  you do use your smartphone to surf the internet, check-in on Foursquare, or watch YouTube videos?  Your bill will probably go up.  Looks like they want to beat Verizon in one more category - who has the highest priced plans.
 The president for mobility and consumer markets at at&t said that the company is considering a "pricing scheme that addresses useage".  Hmm, sounds like their "unlimited plan" isn't so unlimited after all.
So if you are at&t how do you fix your network?  Easy raise your plan prices for non-voice use so high that people will only use it for voice, thus eliminating most of your network traffic and dropped calls at the same time.[NY Times]