• Over the past couple of years, there’s been huge push to using the cloud to collaborate on projects and to store personal data and do all kinds of activities, but...
  • If you’re like most people who have purchased an android phone, one of the first things you going to do is change out the keyboard, but that may not be...
  • It’s no secret that Windows 8 has had really mixed feelings. Some people love Windows 8 because they’re into media consumption, watching videos and listening to music, and that’s fine....
  • Nuance has released a new software package called Dragon Notes. The point of Dragon Notes is to be able to capture random thoughts and ideas/snippets  of information and allow the...
  • More and more I find myself in situations where I’m completely dependent upon my smart phone. I hate to say that having a smartphone is making me stupid, but the...

How much do you trust the cloud now?

General, Internet, Media, Security, Social

NSA cloud storage title image thumb How much do you trust the cloud now? social media 2 security media 2 internet general
Over the past couple of years, there’s been huge push to using the cloud to collaborate on projects and to store personal data and do all kinds of activities, but with the recent revelations that a been in the news about the NSA surveilling people online. The major companies that have been reported as participating in the illegal wiretapping and surveillance continue to deny any participation in any kind of program of this magnitude. Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Verizon and AT&T, among others, one complete deniability in participating in anything like this because they want to do this on their own. They don’t need the government to do it.

It wasn’t bad enough that when MegaUpload was raided and private citizens information was confiscated without notice. And of course once that information had been confiscated everything was up for review. No customer of MegaUpload was immune from having their data reviewed by the government.

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Google Keyboard takes on Swype and SwiftKey

Android, General, Hardware, How to, Internet, Phone, Tablets

Google Keyboard title image thumb Google Keyboard takes on Swype and SwiftKey tablets phone internet how to hardware general android phone

If you’re like most people who have purchased an android phone, one of the first things you going to do is change out the keyboard, but that may not be the case anymore.

A little over a month ago I wrote an article about why I made the transition from Swype over to SwiftKey, and that was really because I wanted to use Google‘s voice-recognition for text input over using voice-recognition with Nuance. The balance was with trying to find an application that uses swipe but then used Google’s voice-recognition as a default. I found that with SwiftKey.

But yesterday, I found out that Google has released their own Google Keyboard application. the application has already had over 1 million installations based on the information from Google Play. And if Google has learned nothing from Microsoft it’s that if you can offer application for free that beat out the competition the charges for a very similar application; yours is going to be more popular.

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Windows 8.1: Microsoft’s first step to recovery

Hardware, Internet, Social, Tablets, Windows Mobile

Windows 8.1 title image thumb Windows 8.1: Microsofts first step to recovery windows mobile tablets social media 2 internet hardware

It’s no secret that Windows 8 has had really mixed feelings. Some people love Windows 8 because they’re into media consumption, watching videos and listening to music, and that’s fine. But on the flipside, there’s other people who have to use Windows to be productive, to do work and to get things done. Everything that Microsoft has shown us so far about Windows 8 has been about having fun.

The latest operating system is strictly focused on tablet based devices, like Microsoft Surface, but now Microsoft is having to circle back around and address the bigger issue in the room, which is making operating system usable for the corporate environment. The adoption of Windows 8 in the corporate environment has been exceptionally low. If you take into account how many companies and corporations delay the adoption of Windows 7 from Windows XP; it’s no surprise.

But PC sales have been down and Windows 8 has been partly to blame. Windows 8 has been strictly developed and marketed to tablet devices and mobile devices; not the desktop.

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Techie Review: Nuance Dragon Notes

Audio, General, Hardware, How to, Internet, Media, Phone, Social, Tablets, Windows Mobile

Dragon Notes title image thumb Techie Review: Nuance Dragon Notes windows mobile tablets social media 2 phone media 2 internet how to hardware general audio media 2

Nuance has released a new software package called Dragon Notes. The point of Dragon Notes is to be able to capture random thoughts and ideas/snippets  of information and allow the user to organize the information for later. Dragon Notes has the ability to transcribe what the user says and convert that to text. The converted text can then be posted to Facebook or Twitter, and it can even be used to do a web search [using BING].

Dragon Notes is an application that’s intended for Microsoft Windows 8/Microsoft Surface tablet. Dragon Notes is installed locally on Windows 8/tablet and doesn’t require Internet access to function. Dragon Notes is available for Windows 7 desktop systems.

This review of Dragon Notes is based upon my experience with installing it and using it.

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Don’t let Google make you stupid

Android, General, Hardware, Internet, iPhone, Media, Phone, Social, Tablets, Windows Mobile

Google making you stupid thumb Dont let Google make you stupid windows mobile tablets social media 2 phone media 2 iphone phone internet hardware general android phone

More and more I find myself in situations where I’m completely dependent upon my smart phone. I hate to say that having a smartphone is making me stupid, but the simple fact is, if I have my smart phone, I know that I don’t have to remember pieces of information and therefore I consider the information I look up over the Internet disposable; it’s not worth saving.

I hate showing my age, but way back when, when cable TV was just being introduced, the Atari 2600 had just come out and touchtone phones were brand-new; people were forced to remember everything because we didn’t have the Internet. Now we have the Internet and we don’t have to remember anything. When you call someone on your Smartphone do you look for their face or do you dial their number? Would you know their number without your Smartphone; most wouldn’t.

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4 Rules of Thumb to Follow Before Posting on Facebook

Donated, General, How to, Internet, Media, Social

Facebook image5 thumb 4 Rules of Thumb to Follow Before Posting on Facebook social media 2 media 2 internet how to general donated

Staying connected and interacting with customers on Facebook has become commonplace in the business world. However, it’s easy to get yourself in trouble if you’re not careful about the things you’re posting. So, here are four rules of thumb to follow to protect your reputation when posting on Facebook.

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Dragon Notes wants to help you organize your random thoughts

General, Hardware, Internet, Media, Software, Tablets

dragon notes thumb Dragon Notes wants to help you organize your random thoughts tablets software media 2 internet hardware general

Now is definitely the time to be a curator of your thoughts and ideas. Nuance has released a new piece of software called Dragon Notes. Its initial offering seems to be in the same category as Evernote and Google Keep [web-based]. This move by Nuance is rather interesting because the company itself normally focuses on document imaging, document management, document recognition [OCR] and voice-recognition.

Right along the same lines as Evernote and Google Keep. Dragon Notes lets users dictate notes, task lists, reminders and compose emails using voice commands instead of having to type that information manually. It also includes the ability to search the Internet and update social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.

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Voice recognition: Why I moved from Swype to SwiftKey

Android, Audio, General, Hardware, Internet, iPhone, Media, Phone, Tablets, Windows Mobile

swiftkey Android keyboard thumb Voice recognition: Why I moved from Swype to SwiftKey windows mobile tablets phone media 2 iphone phone internet hardware general audio media 2 android phone

Using voice-recognition is important because it increases someone’s productivity simply by using the technology. When people talk about taking notes and writing an information for later, I immediately think about using voice-recognition. In my opinion, I think it voice-recognition is much faster than trying to write information out and in 99% of the cases, more legible.

Considering that a lot of people user smart phones and tablets now for all kinds of things using cloud-based voice-recognition is very important. The only operating system that doesn’t have cloud-based speech recognition is now desktop-based PCs. [exception of using Chrome]

This 3 main players for cloud voice-recognition, Microsoft, Nuance and Google.

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Techie Review: Nuance OmniPage Ultimate

General, graphics, Hardware, How to, Internet, Media, Reviews, Software, Software Reviews

Techie Review OmniPage Ultimate 20134 thumb Techie Review: Nuance OmniPage Ultimate software reviews software reviews media 2 internet how to hardware graphics general

A new version of OmniPage has just been released. I did a review on OmniPage professional 18 last year and and I tried to cover some of the features that offered at the time, but Nuance is continuing ever forward; pushing the abilities of OCR technology and the integration of the cloud storage.

If you’re in the process of trying to migrate to a paperless environment, you are obviously going to be interested in using document imaging, the document imaging by itself isn’t enough. Your going to need software that is going to streamline and assist you in the most positive way possible to really adopt the lifestyle of being a paperless environment. It doesn’t matter if you’re using document imaging in a small home office, small business or if you’re a larger business just getting into document imaging, you’re going to need a software package that’s going to be the most economical and performance driven for what you’re trying to do. OmniPage is a good solution for that.

OmniPage offers automated OCR with options to import from multiple locations. It can import from local hard drives, network locations, cloud storage and even digital camera images. With OmniPage digital images can be collected automatically, OCR’d for text output, retain document formatting and filed automatically by using barcode technology.

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