A Geeky Valentine's Day

Because it's Valentine's Day, I felt like it would be nice to share some fun articles I found for geeky/techy Valentines. I chose them because, well, I am a geek. Mashable's article is focused more on decorating/personalizing your gadgets, which is always fun. For example, I've had this phone case I bought last summer that holds my three most important cards: my driver's license, my debit card, and my room key. It's the coolest. Anyway, there's some cool cases and what-not on Mashable, so if you want ideas for gifts in general, it's a good place to start. PCWorld also did an article with 15 products they love. I love them, too. There's some really cool products there that I didn't know existed, like Up and Livescribe Sky, which I am now lusting after. They also pointed out the Steam platform (that I, of course, have) as one of the cool products. There's speakers, keyboards, software, and all sorts of fun stuff packed into their article. Go have fun with it!

Mobile Updates

Yes, I'm paying attention to the cell phone tech world right now, so we get another post about iPhones! Apple released an iOS software update, and I have been delaying on updating for weeks (no real free time to just let my phone update itself). I actually decided to look up reviews about the new iOS before I got any of the problems that may be contained, and I'm glad I did. It has bugs. Vodafone (UK iPhone carrier) has announced that the update is causing problems with 3G connectivity for the iPhone 4S. One of the other problems that has come to light is that the new update drains the battery, and it's a huge problem. This isn't an unusual problem, but I just noticed it on headlines and articles while scrolling through updates about iOS 6.1. People who used to get through the day on one charge now can't. I can't make it through the day anyway on one charge, and I don't want to see what would happen if I got the new iOS. I'd probably make it a couple of hours before needing a charge, and that's not a possibility for me. Hopefully Apple will get this fully fixed soon, and I can get my phone updated.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/02/vodafone-warns-iphone-4s/

Jailbreak

For the longest time, I never quite understood what "jailbreaking" your phone was. And I didn't really care about it, as I was perfectly fine with using my iPhone with only iPhone apps, and I felt it was other people's choices to jailbreak their phones or not. I came across an article on Wired about how Apple was trying to prevent federal regulators from legalizing jailbreaking. They stated that it could bring about "'potentially catastrophic' cyberattacks", however all of the cell towers are still up and working. Jailbreaking allows users to run whatever apps they would like, rather than being limited to just that particular App Store, by giving root access to your device.

I can definitely see the potential for attacks that this enables, but the jailbreak is able to be done by exploiting five bugs that are already in the code for iOS. I feel like if a person is serious about attacking others, then they wouldn't do it through their mobile phone or even their tablets. They would most likely want to use their laptop or desktop computers, but that's my opinion and I feel like I have more flexibility and control over my laptop than over my cell phone.

Apple has stated that they have put in these protection measures in the iOS devices to help prevent jailbreaking and the potential threats that accompany it. However, I feel like this needs to be treated similar to our computers. I have protective measures in place to help prevent myself from being attacked/exploited/damaged. I am sure that if I truly had the desire to attack others (which I don't), then I could. I don't have that desire, so instead I take protective and preventative measures to protect myself from those attacks. I would be okay with doing the same thing for my phone, honestly, if that would be what could help protect my data.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/cell-towers-survive-jailbreak/

Surviving

I got a little "click-crazy" with searching articles... and I found a fun one about creating a "survival kit" with a flash drive. Seeing as how cheap they are and how most everyone has one, I thought that this would be a great idea to touch on. It kinda links back to the previous post about being prepared for disaster and having a back-up plan (or multiple back-up plans!). First, I learned that there are lots of portable apps! I don't know where I've been, but I was very excited to discover these. Second, you can use a second flash drive to store SystemRescueCD on it. It is a free live operating system, Linux-based, so you'll always be prepared.

Now I want to go buy a couple new flash drives and prepare!

http://rikkitechthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/01/encryption.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2021326/turn-your-flash-drive-into-a-portable-pc-survival-kit.html