The 15 tech habits that everyone should avoid (part 1)

Everyone has flaws in the technology world - who never used the word "password" as password one day?!?
But now let's dig deeper to seek the really bad habits that can cause permanent damage to your computer, your pocket and your mood.

Lets talk about the the 15 worst habits in the world of technology, which should be avoided at all costs:

1. Not use security software: many people still dont have the habit to have any firewall or antivirus at least on the computer as a way to protect your computer from invasion or any trying of information theft. A simple click in one unknown (or known) email sender can put your computer in high risk such as have installed any spy or key logger  program to capture everything you do. Please, you have to have something to protect, there are many free or payed options for purpose.

2. Not have any backup of your computer: many people have "good" excuses why they still dont have backup. But any piece of your computer like hard disks eventually fail, and according to Murphy's Law, this will hapen when you most need, whatever it is, a worksheet, a document, or a college project.

3. Not have any off-site backup: Picture this, a thief breaks down your home and steals your laptop! ... you might be thinking, "no problem, I have a backup on my pen-drive or external hard disk". But to get worse, the thief takes all of these too. Well, this can happen, so try to store your data in multiple locations, why not on the internet (on the cloud), there are many websites with tons of gigabytes available for free. Try to make this a routine to update, otherwise if one day you need a file, you will not get surprised with very old version of those data.

4. Answer to a SPAM: Do you know why spammers still keep sending emails to your inbox? It is because there are enough users still answering those with a simple gesture of clicking on the link "remove your email", and thus confirming to the spammer that you exists with a valid email and it is a potential customer. Of course there are a few (very few) advertising emails that work seriously with this option.

5. Walk around with the laptop turned on: This no problem in moving the laptop from the kitchen to the living room meanwhile the laptop is turned on. The problem is whey you close the lid and put into the backpack at the office and go home for fifteen or thirty minutes by bus, subway or car. A hard disk in operation can be damaged even by a small impact (such as a bump on a bus), and computers can easily overheat if left indoors. Turn off your computer before transporting it.

6. Print out everything: You can have all your receipts and personal documents in digital copy with free programs such as PDF Creator and print everything in .pdf format. So that you can store on your computer for easy search, instead of printing out everything, and when you most need you cannot find anymore the only copy you had about the monthly rental fee.

7. Use the laptop on bed: You can use your laptop in bed whenever you want. The problem is when you leave it on standing on its beautiful goose down comforter. Quilts, blankets, pillows and cushions can block the vents of the computer, causing overheating and damage to components. Instead, use a notebook table or a coffee table to keep the machine in a comfortable position and ensure a good flow of air.

To not make this post so extensive, it will be divided in two parts in order to make it easier to read and better comprehension. So see you on part two.

Tablets: The Post-PC Device Or Just One More Fad? *

No doubt you have already heard about these new gadgets that have become so popular so quickly. You might be wondering, What do they do, and Should I buy one?

Tablets have many functions, such as “surfing” the Internet, checking e-mail, playing games, watching videos and movies, reading e-books (electronic books) and other activities you can already do on an ordinary computer. The difference with the tablet is that it is much lighter and thinner than an ordinary computer. It is even lighter than a notebook or netbook computer, allowing you to carry it easily anywhere, and without needing any Internet connection cables. Also, tablets have a long battery life.

Most tablet users report their greatest pleasure comes in the feature of the touch screen. For those of you who own smartphones, you will be familiar with how touch screens work. Companies like Apple were able to adapt the smartphone touch screen to produce small touch screen computers like the iPad. The general term for these touch screen computer devices is tablets.

Another interesting feature of tablets is their increased storage capacity compared to the older technology. On a tablet, imagine that you can have simultaneously more than 4,000 e-books stored, not to mention magazines and newspapers from all over the world. With a few touches, you can have thousands of other issues available, ready to be downloaded free or cheaply onto your tablet.

With the appearance and now widespread use of the tablet, many of our daily habits have changed, such as the reading of e-books and the way we navigate the Internet. Regarding this new technology, specialists are divided on predicting the future. Some technology experts believe the sales of tablets will continue growing until they completely replace PCs and notebooks. Other experts believe tablets will lose popularity over time, just as sales of netbooks are already beginning to decline.

Whatever the future of tablets, if you are thinking of purchasing one, you will need to have a clear idea what kind of services tablets offer, as well as what your tablet’s primary purpose will be for you. Do you want a tablet mostly to read e-books? Or is Internet capability through WiFi or 3G integration with e-mail your most important need?

With many tablet models available on the market, there should be one that fits your requirements. Here are some samples: Among the top-selling tablets, we have the Apple iPad and Amazon Kindle. The Apple focuses on multimedia, working as an entertainment center, but it also includes a feature to read e-books. The Amazon Kindle meanwhile is very focused on e-books through integration with the website Amazon.com as its main source of books. The Kindle features a specific technology called e-ink (electronic ink) that makes it easier to read the screen particularly in daylight environments. Of course, there are many other brands with different features, and many of them less expensive than the Apple or Kindle.

The reality is that with the creation of new technology, people are getting many more options and are being provided with the opportunity to be connected all the time. Consequently, we are all much closer to the information and entertainment worlds, whether by computers, smartphones, or now by tablets. Although tablets are a brand-new technology, we can already see what they have sparked. So don’t worry, one day soon you will probably consider owning one of these devices.

* Article published on Curitiba in English.

Five corporate social platforms to think beyond Facebook

When we talk about social networks, the first that comes to our mind is Facebook, right? Not a long time ago, for us Brazilians we were thinking about Orkut. This sounds like an era that often moves to another era and we change our opinion as a consequence. But do you think that social networks are only like that you already know as quoted above?

Well, if we look around we will find many others with different purposes, here are some of them:
This does not mean that you have to follow each of those, far less they are the most important ones to be part of. Also, the focus given to those ones are very differently from what you are used to navigate.

- Cisco Jabber
Aggregate the unified communications platform from Cisco, Jabber was designed to make employees more productive, regardless of location or device used. Result of an acquisition made by the manufacturer in 2008, the service allows users to access presence, instant messaging, voice, video, voice messaging, desktop sharing and conferencing capabilities.

- Socialcast
In May, VMware acquired Socialcast, a social networking platform that allows companies to integrate social tools and processes within enterprise applications. The free version offers features like activity stream, private message function, microblogging and profiles. The option premium brings analytics, directory integration and user tasks, among others.

- JiveSoftware
It is an extensive platform that allows third party developers to integrate social networking capabilities using an SDK based on OpenSocial.

- Chatter
The Salesforce.com supports from the beginning the question of social networking in the enterprise and supply Chatter was involved in a CRM application's own independent company for something that can be deployed even by non Salesforce customers. The free version allows users to create profiles, post updates, follow co-workers, group creation, file sharing and collaboration in a private and secure. Furthermore, access can be done anywhere from Chatter Chatter Mobile and Desktop. Since the Plus Edition provides all the capabilities of the free version as a more refined integration with CRM, and a more elaborate security and other controls.

- SAP StreamWork
The SAP StreamWork is a social networking tool based on the model software as a service (SaaS) designed for enterprise collaboration. The Enterprise Edition adds advanced security capabilities, automated provisioning and the ability to integrate legacy applications, including SAP and SharePoint, Microsoft.

Possibly you can never join to those social networks above, for some reasons like money to invest, companies not interested on this, or also not fun as we know.
At least, now you have an slight idea that social networks go beyond the popular ones.

Mobile Payments Show Dramatic Increase *

A new way to pay our bills is about to start — the mobile payment. The “m-payment” is already present in Brazil. It involves paying your bills through authentication via cell phone, similar to a credit card when we type the password in order to confirm the transaction. There are currently several methods being implemented around the world and some have been working for years, such as Premium SMS based, Mobile web payments, and Contactless NFC (Near Field Communication).

The methods being developed in Brazil are the Premium SMS based and the NFC. The first method involves the customer sending a payment request via SMS text message to short codes (special telephone numbers). Once the transaction is approved, the merchant is informed about the payment success and the transaction is concluded. The second method is used mostly for purchases made in actual stores (as opposed to Internet purchases) because it requires a special mobile phone equipped with a smart-card. The card concludes the transaction with a reader module, requiring authentication. One of the main reasons for using these two new technologies is to integrate and adapt credit card, debit card, transportation, and meal voucher payments to a mobile phone.

Although the Brazilian financial system is solid, modern and well-distributed, 49 percent of the population is still deprived of banking services, which means there is a great demand for mobile financial products by millions of people. A contributing factor is the huge presence of cell phones in Brazil – about 106.9 percent. This means there are currently more cell phones than people in Brazil! Thus, the stage is set for mass adoption of services offered by mobile devices.

Brazil is poised with the necessary banking knowledge that is essential to the success of mobile payments. However, some obstacles still need to be overcome. For example, the lack of coordination among the various companies that offer this service — telecom operators, banks, and large retail chains need to understand and respect the needs and operations of each other. They all must learn to work together. Also, since mobile payments are new, there is a large legal gap resulting from the absence of regulation. There is a lack of clarity in the banking laws, which do not define the legal parameters of non-financial institutions, such as a wireless carriers offering payment services in Brazil.

Judging from this scenario, experts agree that it is unlikely the Brazilian market will have a single universal system for payments via mobile devices in the near future. However, if we look back just a few years, how long did it once take for a merchant having one card terminal to process all the different “plastic” options? Payment services have improved dramatically in a short period of time. Nevertheless, the future expectation for mobile payments is enormous. There are currently 1.6 million mobile transactions performed annually, but this number is expected to reach almost 12 million by 2014.

* Article published on Curitiba in English.

What most people do on the Internet

Do you spend hours on the internet, watching videos, checking e-mails, reading news or going shopping?

An infographic published by the website Flowtown do a research what most people do while connected virtually.

What users most do on the virtual world are: read or send e-mails, use search engines, search for medical or health information, check info about the weather and search for services or products.

At the other end, that is, the less things people do online, are creating or working on personal pages, buy or sell stocks, using dating sites, visiting universes like Second Life - and for surprise, access the Twitter!

Although this research does not show specific data with numbers such as online pornography, the information is very interesting to understand a bit more the internet's influence on people's life.

The data are divided in categories to make easy comprehension:

Entertainment and Social Networks

- 71% of people watch movies on YouTube or Vimeo;

- 65% are subscribed on relationship websites, such as Facebook or LinkedIn;

- 46% do photo upload to shared with other;

- 32% play games;

- 32% read newspaper or blogs informative ;

- 30% share something that created;

- 21% do podcast download;

- 13% use the Twitter;

- 14% use dating websites;

Finances

- 61% do operations on online banking;

- 37% search financial information, such as interest rates;

- 25% donate to a charity;

- 11% buy or sell stocks, bonds or mutual funds;

News

- 81% search for data about the weather;

- 76% receive news in general;

- 61% search for news about politics;

- 52% read news or any information about sports;

Personal Business

- 92% send or receive emails;

- 65% buy or make travel reservation;

- 37% evaluate products, services or persons;

- 24% do telephone calls;

- 15% create or work on web-pages or collaborative blogs;

- 14% create or work on blogs or personal websites;

- 14% have a personal website;

Shopping

- 78% search information about services and products;

- 71% buy some product;

- 53% put advertisements such as Craigslist;

- 26% participate on virtual auctions;

- 15% sell something

Web browsing and search

- 92% use search engines to find information;

- 83% search for medical or health information;

- 67% visit pages of cities, states or federal government;

- 56% search information about jobs;

- 53% read on Wikipedia;

- 32% post comments on groups, blogs or photos;

Social Network: Which One Are You On? *

As we search for a definition of social networks, we discover that it’s a form of representation of emotional or professional relationships between human beings. A social network is responsible for the sharing of ideas among people who share common goals and values. For example, a discussion group consists of individuals who have similar interests. Today, these social networks are occurring primarily on the Internet, lending to the accelerating of dissemination of common ideas.

Whenever we talk about social networks in Brazil, the first name that comes to  mind is Orkut. Launched in 2004, it was the first social network in Brazil and today has more than 60 million profiles. This social network is the most common one among Brazilians, who represent more than 50% of Orkut’s users, followed by Indians and Americans, respectively. Also, this networking tool has been a huge attraction of the Internet in Brazil, since more than 82% of those who access the Internet have an Orkut profile, according to research published by Ibope Nielsen.

However, it’s not only Orkut that has proven attractive to Brazilians. Recently, Twitter and Facebook are competing for second position in the total number of Brazilian users.

Moreover, not only are individuals making use of Orkut and Twitter, but also companies are now looking at social networks as an opportunity for marketing their products and getting closer to consumers by spreading news or launching campaigns in a more straightforward manner, such as using promotions and awards.

The newest social network to arrive is called Google Plus, and in just weeks, has exploded with such a huge number of users that it’s surprised even Google itself, its creator. Integrated with other Google services, the Google Plus network site goes beyond Orkut, with a different concept of interaction and new ways to get closer to friends. Before its launch, many media critics raised this question: Is there space in people’s lives for more social networks? Google Plus has answered that question with a resounding yes, by making clear enhancements and providing additional value to users.

The popularity of Google Plus and other social networking sites seems to suggest that changes don’t necessarily happen when society adopts a new tool, but certainly when it adopts a new behavior, and a new trend is created by seeing old ideas in a new way.

If we look around today we can see other kinds of social networks in use on the Internet. For example, there are popular ones for photo publications, for professional careers, content organization, and also ones providing integration among university students, teachers and classes.

Either way, the idea of social networks is not really so new at all. However, on the Internet, they work in a far more powerful and dynamic way. Thus, if you have some interests in common with others, perhaps it’s time to share. See you there!

* Article published on Curitiba in English.

How the SMS is changing the World

The smartphones are becoming more sophisticated and common, however the simple SMS (Short Message Service) sent by ordinary cellphone is still the main data service used in the world.

A research published by the website MBA shows how the text message is in our life and how we work with it. The research shows a significant growth particularly in developing countries. The numbers are impressive:

- Exists 4,2 billion users in the world, that means 3 in each 5 habitats of the planet. This represents five times the number of Facebook users, and four times of Google users. Also represents the population of the entire world in 1975.

- In 2010, were sent 6,1 trillion messages, 338% more than in 2007.

- 48 million people have cellphone but no electricity. They use car batteries to charge their phones.

- The beneficial use of SMS are present in poor countries, such as Ghana and Nigeria where it is common the counterfeit drugs. So HP has developed a system that allows consumer to check the expiration date of a product. It just need to send an SMS with the printed code on the package to the government service and soon they receive a confirmation of the authenticity of the product.

- The feature phone, aka "dumb phone" (the simple ones) is the number 1 selling electronic product in the world.

- 87% of Fillipinos prefer communicating to their government by text message. Former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo set up texting lines for 54 government agencies. Residents can report crime, drug activity and general complaints by text message.

- 13 millions, or 1 in 3 Kenyans use the mobile banking service M-Pesa, which lets users transfer money, receive salaries and pay bills by text messages.

Short messages that increasingly form the bulk of human interaction. From banking to health-care, texting is reshaping every aspect of how humans live.

Things you possibly didn't know about the Internet

The internet is so part of our life, that even if you want to do the annual income tax return for the government, we have to have the computer and the Internet. In addition we have a bunch of many other public services in our hand 24 hours a day. But little by little this technology came up to our life that today we can say that "We Cant Live Without".

However if we rewind some points about the Internet, we have some interesting facts:

- As in Brazil the soup operas are very popular, the first time that was mentioned the term was at "Explode Coração" in 1995, at that time a few people (almost anyone) had connection to the network.

- The radio took 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million people; the TV took 13 years; and the internet only 4 little years.

- When we think about a research on the Internet, the Wikipedia is one of the first links of the result. But before Wikipedia there was the Nupedia, and it was created by the same people in March of 2000 and lasted until September of 2003. The main difference between Wikipedia and Nupedia was the rigorous selection  of articles, and all were done by specialists like PhD. Nowadays, Wikipedia has more than 17 million of articles, and more than 680 thousand of those are in Portuguese (data of March 30, 2011).

- The e-mail we know today was created by a guy called Gary Thuerk in 1971. Before that, it was only possible to send messages by e-mail using computers that were connected to each other. What did he write in that first e-mail?? ... Neither he remembers!!

- After having invented the first e-mail, of course someone invented the first spam. In 1978 a guy called Gary Thuerk, marketing manager of the Digital Equipment company, had an idea to send an advertising e-mail to the the masses.

- The first item sold at eBay was a broken laser pen by 14 dollars. Nowadays eBay is one of the biggest platform of sales in the World.

Well, there are a bunch of many other interesting histories about this fantastic tool of communication that changed the World forever and the way we see the World.

Main reasons why small companies don't have backup plan

Nowadays there are many ways to backup your data, and now there are one more option that is the Cloud. Even though, many small and medium companies still keep not having implemented a backup plan, and consequently put their data in risk.

There are some researches about this subject, as the one conducted by Symantec revealing that more than 57% of the small and median companies have no plan in case of data loss. Another research conducted by Carbonite pointed out that half of companies suffered unrecoverable data loss.

With so many ways to implement it, why do these companies still keep working without backup plan?
Small companies in general are very busy with many things at the same time, and backup plan is just one more thing, not giving the right importance.

A few reasons are giving in this concern when asked to entrepreneurs:

- It's too expensive: Costs are always the first excuse for small companies that need to take the most of each penny spent. But on the other hand, to have a data loss and not able to get back to work would be the worst. But its also true that with big amount of data, the cost of backup would be quite expensive.

- This will never happen to me: This means that not because you are not on the route of natural disasters like hurricane, floods, etc that will never happen. There are others that happen very often like robbery, fire, physical hardware problems and many others quite susceptible that might occur when you least expect it.

- I just forgot to look for it: Usually entrepreneurs are very busy doing many things simultaneously, and take care of this is just one more duty that can have low priority. But this is not anymore a good excuses since there are many tools that perform synchronized automatic backups.

- Keeps my computer slow: This is very linked with anti-virus programs and old backup programs that in the past used to keep the computers slow due to the high processor and memory consuming. However today there are good tools that work in background, with many options including the one to run only when the computer is idle, as well as the possibility to schedule to run at night.

- I don't want my information in the cloud: Many companies really dislike the idea of having information somewhere out of the company. They feel more comfortable keeping the data at home, but as part of the good backup plan, at least one copy of your data must be out of the office in order to be recoverable in case you can't reach the office.

- I don't have IT department: Some professional devices designed for big amount of data really need someone with skills to operate, but many other solutions are designed specifically for small companies to be simple and easy to use and requires very little knowledge to implement.

- It's in my pen-drive: Many people do that, but most commonly as a personal backup, and the dangerous point here is that not always you have a full daily backup stored in this cheap and portable device. Another weak point, usually people keep this device with the computer, or on the desk, and definitely makes the strategy a big point of failure.

There are still many other excuses why companies don't implement backup strategy. But a few questions are raised: How much value do you give to your information? How much time do you need to have a full restore of your information? Do you keep up-to-date your equipment? and lastly, how much money do you invest on Information Technology?

Technologies that will disappear in the next few years

Technology advances very quickly and things that were common ten years ago (CRT televisions, fax machines) are falling into disuse so scary. At this rate, we can predict some current products that possibly will disappear in the next years. The reason for this is because the features are being embedded in other devices, but also the business model has changed.

- GPS: Nowadays, portable navigation devices are shared visions on the panels and windshields of cars. And more, mobile phones are coming with this feature and does many other things, and why not to say better. The free and famous program, the Google Map Navigation is one of the best programs concerning to this area, and can justify the reason of drop in sales of navigation program in 2010 with more than 22%. But we are talking about the GPS for driving purposes, the ones very popular for end users.

- CD/DVD ROM: With the advent of Internet, we can download practically all we need, like programs, videos, games and many other things we have stored in CD/DVD. With the high speed that providers are offering, its much easier and cheaper downloading what we need instead of sending the package to your home and wait for the delivery service. In addition, we are not counting the risk of losing the package or even have the media scratched.

- Netbook: smaller, lighter and cheaper than notebooks, the netbooks were for a short period the best choice for the ones that were looking for something cheaper, portable and with internet access. With weaker processors and tiny screen the netbooks were kind in imperfect solution. Notebooks kept the evolution with faster processors and more than five hours of battery use, but some new gadgets came up, such as smartphones and now the tablets that are much more suitable and accessible to supply the need of internet navigation, entertaining and simple computing functions.

We can quote some more devices, such as e-readers, so popular for reading but now threatened by the tablets that also provide many other things. And why not to say the wireless internet routes, where service providers are offering cable TV, optical fiber, satellites, high speed internet on mobile phones and why not to have the wireless service too?!?!

Not only devices like these are being threatened, but many others in our daily use we don't realize they can be replaced by something more powerful or even the change of habit.
The subject is widely polemic, but in the next few years we'll see which of them still survived!!