Archive for the 'Information' category

DIY tech repairs with iFixit

Sep 07 2010 Published by Fiacre under Information, Librarians, Makers, Technology

I’ve previously mentioned the importance of librarians having the skills to repair their own tech hardware and the Maker’s Bill of Right’s. Now we have the ability to better enact those rights, thanks to iFixit.

iFixit provides free repair manuals for a variety of technological devices, allows people to share their own experiences, provides access to the required tools, and encourages people to recycle.

How did iFixit start?

We started out fixing an old iBook together. There were no instructions on how to do it, so we started the way everyone does: the hard way. We tinkered. We fiddled. We broke some tabs and lost a few screws. But we fixed it!

We attempted to fix some other laptops but had trouble finding parts. So we bought a broken computer on eBay and stole parts from it. Then we decided to start selling the parts ourselves, and iFixit was born.

But that’s not the whole story. All of our customers still had to do things the hard way, just like we did. Easy-to-use repair instructions didn’t exist — yet.

So we wrote some instructions the first chance we got. And we posted them online, for free. For the first time, it was easy for someone with no technical background or experience to take apart a Mac. Our step-by-step instructions were enabling people to repair Macs they wouldn’t have been able to repair on their own.

We thought the instructions would be useful to our customers — and they were. But it turned out that they were useful to a lot of other people as well! We’ve heard repair success stories from forensic detectives, field translators, and even kids. From New York to Alaska, Tibet to the Faroe Islands, people have used our guides to fix their stuff. They saved money, they kept their Macs out of landfills, and they did it completely by themselves.

So if you ever break the glass panel on that new iPad, now you know that you can fix it yourself.

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Google, don’t be evil

Sep 07 2010 Published by Fiacre under Information, Internet, Librarians, Present

The organization Inside Google, launched by Consumer Watchdog, has had a version of their video Don’t be evil playing thirty-six times per day on a jumbotron in Times Square to gather support for a “do not track” legislation in Congress. This legislation would prevent companies like Google from gathering consumer’s personal data.

Read more about the reasoning behind the video and Google’s response at Inside Google.

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Password creation, the easy way

Aug 09 2010 Published by Fiacre under Information, Internet, Present, Social software

PasswordCard

We all have to create and remember passwords and the temptation is to use the same one repeatedly, even though we know this isn’t a good idea!

An interesting solution is provided by PasswordCard, a free application that allows you to create and remember complex passwords. How does it work? Well…

Enter PasswordCard

A PasswordCard is a credit card-sized card you keep in your wallet, which lets you pick very secure passwords for all your websites, without having to remember them! You just keep them with you, and even if your wallet does get stolen, the thief will still not know your actual passwords.

How does it work?

Your PasswordCard has a unique grid of random letters and digits on it. The rows have different colors, and the columns different symbols. All you do is remember a combination of a symbol and a color, and then read the letters and digits from there. It couldn’t be simpler!

Make sure to read the precautions and frequently asked questions for further details on how to keep your passwords safe.

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Serving the dominant device, part 2

Jul 14 2010 Published by Fiacre under Information, Mobile, Present, Technology

After posting yesterday about the issues surrounding mobile phones and smartphones, I saw the following story on ReadWriteWeb.

HP Labs India have developed a method, called SiteonMobile, that allows any mobile phone user to surf the Web using either SMS text message or voice commands.

The cloud-based technology is designed to broaden access [to] the Worldwide Web to those whose only “connected” device is a mobile phone without a built-in Web browser – as is the case in most of the developing world.

SiteonMobile requires a website publisher to Web-enable their site’s content using something called “tasklets.” These widget-like tools encompass the steps one would perform on a website to complete a particular task. For example, a publisher could create a “tasklet” for booking airline tickets or getting a daily horoscope. (The Web via SMS can be fun, too, right?) Designing these tasklets requires “little or no programming experience,” says Sudhir Dixit, director of HP Labs India.

Once the tasklets have been created, users can send a text message to a particular number to get the information they desire returned to their mobile phone, thanks to these tasklets which reside in HP’s cloud. Or they can dial another number to receive voice-based information via an interactive voice response (IVR) service.

Currently the service is invitation only, but appears to be an excellent response to some of the issues caused by the move to mobile.

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Visual search and the future of the book

Jul 08 2010 Published by Fiacre under Books, Future, Information, Technology

A new technology from Ricoh Innovations called Visual Search may revolutionize the relationship between print and digital content.

At Ricoh Innovations we are developing visual search technology for paper documents. Our mobile visual search algorithms create “clickable paper” — documents that have the interactivity of web pages and can be used anywhere a camera phone can connect to the Internet.  Our full-page visual search techniques instantaneously find documents that match what’s scanned on a copier.

This means that any page of text can have digital content added to it, without the use of QR codes or similar technology. Continue Reading »

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