This Saturday Innovative Technoloy's Robert Wray went down to check out the Crisis Commons.  The event was a mind blowing collaboration of over 1,000 technical volunteers on three continents.   Crowd-sourced community-generated maps have become the official on the ground map resource in Haiti.  In this video, Fortiusone's CTO Andrew Turner explains how you can start helping Haiti in 10 minutes with no cash, just some of your time. Links talked about in the video are ushahidi - Haiti SMS disaster relief collaboration, Crisis Commons ,and ImapHaiti. How you get started in less than 10 minutes: http://imaphaiti.com The event was also covered by internal media organizations such as CNN, BBC, Washington Post, LA Times,  Wired and O'Reilly Media.

If your laptop is stolen, it is relatively quick and simple to access data stored on its hard drive, including web browsing history, patient information, legal documents, personal information, etc.  Using open-source (free and community developed/supported) software to encrypt your laptop drive raises the "security fence" high enough that only super-spy types could access your data.  And if they have your laptop, you have more to worry about than your college videos ending up on YouTube.

System drive encryption, which can be done on laptops, desktops (home and office), and servers, is fairly simple for your IT guru to perform, and greatly increases the security of your personal data.  The process encrypts every bit (literally) of information on the drive, such that a key is required to decrypt it.  On full system drive encryption, the key is entered once upon booting.  Only you know the key, so all of your information is safe, even if the drive is removed and analyzed on another system.

Further Reading:

An interesting article from 2008 regarding laptop theft in airports

A Wikipedia article on Full Disk Encryption:

We have suggested to many of you to buy a wireless connection to fill your need for constant connectivity. This could be for connectivity on the go or for a backup internet connection when your cable or DSL line goes down. XOHM has merged with clearwire. As part of this merger, all the XOHM hardware is getting deactivated and "Clear" hardware has been sent out as a replacement. We got our new Clear hardware today for our XOHM monthly account. XOHM Promised on November 11th to upgrade our "pay as you go" equipment, but has since backed down on that promise. The XOHM pay as you go plan allowed for people that travel heavily like I do, or only occasionally need on the go access to have a service option by the day or by the week without subscribing to an expensive monthly plan or having long term commitments. Here is a photo of their desktop hardware.

After two hours on the phone it has been determined that our first modem clear sent was defective.   More later.

image: 

Have we done so much remote work and preventative maintenance for your office that you forgot what we look like?  Check out our current group photo shot.   We also plan to do a winter party soon, so please come see us there too.  We expect the party to happen in January or February.  Check back here soon or follow us on twitter.  @innov8usa.

image: 

Robert Wray Interviewed on MPT's Direct Connection from Robert Wray on Vimeo.

What is "Cloud Computing"?  CNN provides a good explanation in this video: 
 

Hard drives often run out of space, which in addition to lack of file storage, can cause very noticeable operating system performance issues.  When trying to clean up a drive, it is often difficult to find what is the real space-killer.

WinDirStat is a free application that analyzes the drive and creates a visual interactive map of your drive's file usage, allowing you to see exactly what is using up space so that you can make decisions on what to delete.

MPT's Jeff Salkin has Innovative Technology's founder, Robert Wray, on his show tonight to discus Microsoft's Windows 7 and Apple's Mac OS. Tune in or call to ask questions at 7:30 Direct Connection with Jeff Salkin



On today's MPT show we plan to talk about Windows 7 and it's true value beyond the marketing glitz. We also might talk a little bit about the forever raging debate of a mac vs. a PC. Here are some of my thoughts on both:

Windows 7 upgrade? My thoughts can be broken down into a few points.

• If it ain' t broken, don't fix it.
• Windows 7 is certainly not worth more than 50$
• If you love the latest and greatest buy it! Consider the family pack discount for 150$. This upgrades up to 3 computers @ 50$ each.
• If you qualify, take advantage of the 29$ student discount before January 3, 2010.
• Consider the 50$ upgrade for your old PC if you buy a second PC

Mac Vs. PC

• You almost always get an amazing product with Apple. They have great customer service and stand behind their work.
• Apple upgrades and repairs are often prohibitively expensive out of warranty.
• If you buy an apple, the decision is greatly simplified
• With proper research and hunting, a PC can offer an amazing value.
• PC World did a great side by side comparison of the two operating systems
• Apple only charged 29$ for their OS upgrade called "Snow Leopard"
• Take a look at a side by side comparison of a current PC deal vs. an Apple mac book which never go on sale

Do you want to make your computer run twice as fast? Robert Wray, Innovative Technology's founder talks about one of the greatest products in computing over the last serveral years . This could speed up your computer from 2-20 times faster. Watch the video below to find out more.

Innovative Technology Founder Talks about SSD from Robert Wray on Vimeo.

If you want more technical detail, you can watch a prior video interview Robert Wray did with one of the creators of the Intel SSD (transcript) or read a great article done over at anandtech. E-mail us to get a quote on an upgrade price.

Apple has released their new operating system called Snow leopard. The new feature we are most excited about is the ability for the operating system to connect to the Microsoft corporate mail server called exchange. It has been possible to do this in the past with an expensive entourage license, but now you can do this for free if you get a new mac, or for 29$ on your old macs. If you have 5 macs, apple has offered a discounted price of 49$. Give us a call if you have questions about how this might work in your office.

image: 

Switch to a faster, safer, and easier to use browser - Firefox 3.5, latest version released today.

Tired of phishing scams, spyware, employees playing online poker, kids viewing adult sites, etc?  Check out OpenDNS, which can aggressively filter web content, preventing phishing attacks and inapproriate surfing.

Using a mobile phone equipped with a camera and GPS, augmented reality applications are emerging, blending live real-world information with online data. 

I'm always looking for alternative inputs to standard keyboards for smartphones.  There's a cool new for iphone, android, and windows mobile.  Instead of tapping on each letter you just draw a line between letters, making for faster entry.  It's called Shapewriter.

 Malware is any software that infiltrates, uses and/or damages your PC without your consent.  Examples of malware are spyware, adware, trojans, viruses, and worms.  Through our experience tackling these costly pests, we've found some programs that work really well, especially when used together, including:

Need to access the same set of files across multiple computers? While these file sharing applications don't replace business-class networking solutions, they can be handy for personal use:

Welcome to the blog of Innovative Technology Consulting! Stay tuned for PC / network related news items and tips.