LostInTechnology

Verb: User Focused Task Management and Sharing

srikanth — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:00:25 +0000

VerbApp is a free web based user focused task management and sharing application. If you are looking for an effective task management application then, VerbApp is for you. It’s the perfect solution for freelances who would like to manage their tasks and collaborate in an organized manner.

Features

Task Management

Verbapp gives you full control over your tasks. It lets you create to-do lists, set priorities, tags and due dates. It makes it easy for you to know upcoming deadlines and tasks to be done. You can create multiple projects each containing multiple tasks. You can quickly search for tasks and sort them by priority, due date, title and date created. Once completed, you can close tasks accordingly.

Sharing

Verbapp enables you to share tasks and projects with other users. It’s one of the best web applications to have all your tasks organized in one place. You can invite your friends to Verbapp and easily share project(s) with them. Verbapp lets you set privileges and access to the shared projects. Read, write privileges can be assigned with access set to all the tasks or assigned tasks only.

Apart from task management, one can also use Verbapp for note keeping. Under the ‘notes’ tab in the dashboard, you can store any important notes pertaining to your projects and work.

Some of the key Features on VerbApp are, it’s a web based task management application so, you can access it from anywhere at anytime. Users can organize tasks into projects and sets tags. One can quickly search for tasks and order them by priority, date added and due date. You can share projects and tasks with friends and grant privileges for shared proejcts as well.

Conclusion

Verbapp is a simple and flexible web based tool for task management and note keeping. You can easily share tasks among small teams and organize your to-do lists effectively.

by Srikanth AD from Techonaut. Contact him by email at adsrikanth[at]gmail[dot]com

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Two Major Security Flaws, A Rant and The Fixes

Squealing.Rat — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:00:01 +0000

I was recently staying at a hotel that offered Wi-Fi. On the network with my Macbook, I noticed the other computers on the network. Curious, I clicked on one, expecting to see a password prompt or an access denied message. Instead, I saw the computer’s public folder and another folder. Interested in what files someone would publicly display to anyone on the network, I opened it to see files that were highly sensitive, including financial data. My mind was blown.

What kind of person would do this? Perhaps a person who had no idea how to use their computer. Perhaps a person that didn’t realize the security flaws at risk. Perhaps a person that was not reading this article.

Mac Security

If you use a Mac, there are at least two different settings you should adjust to make sure your computer is secure. The first is the firewall. Unbeknown to most, the firewall on the Mac is not on by default. This means that when you first start using your Mac, you need to activate the firewall. To do this, go into your System Preferences, Security, and into Firewall. Turn the firewall on.

This means that all applications accessing the internet must be approved. If a rogue application gets on your computer, it cannot access the internet without your permission.

The second and perhaps more important setting is Sharing. From System Preferences, click Sharing, then make sure that what you want is checked. Most should un-check File Sharing and Screen Sharing, unless this is something that you use. If you do use these, go in and tweak the settings, to be sure that no one can access your files with out permission.

Auto Fill

I recently tried to switch from Firefox to Chrome, a task that I will detail in a later article. Finding replacements for my Firefox extensions was not difficult, and to replace my Auto Fill ability in Firefox, I grabbed LastPass. I began entering the information I would want to be autofilled. Then, I came across a box, requesting my Social Security Number. WHAT!?! Why on earth would you ask that?!?

Your Social Security Number is highly sensitive information. Giving it to someone else could wreak havoc on your life, entering you into the world of fraud, and identity theft. Which brings us to the over arching solution to this is never put anything into a form that you would not want the general public to see.

Rant

Hermia (an obviously fake name to protect the innocent) is the most computer illiterate person I know with a computer. She pays Aol for her free email account. She gives out her friend’s contact information to almost any telemarketer (I’m still receiving calls), and her computer is probably part of several botnets. People like Hermia make the internet more dangerous for the rest of us.

While, I could, like so many before me, demand “computer tests” that you must pass before you can use a computer, I’m not going to. Instead, here is one thing you should take out of this: Do not give out your personal information to people that you do not know. Preserve your identity and your privacy.

What do you do to protect yourself? What massive security flaws have you seen in the past? Let us know is the comments!

Photo: chefranden

The writer of this post compiles the latest tech news and more at Squealing Rat, and writes about tricks and tips of deception, trickery and survival at Lone Iguana. Find him on Twitter.

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How To Create Custom RSS Feeds for BitTorrent Clients

UzEE — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:00:03 +0000

I’m sure everyone here knows that BitTorrent is one of the most popular digital content delivery networks out there. The Peer to Peer distribution technology amounts for nearly 30% of the total web traffic and is used by a number of leading corporations, movie studios and media outlets including 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, Paramount, Spike TV, MTV, Netgear and D-Link.

Here at Lost in Technology, we have covered torrent related topics in great detail including tips on how to make torrents, open ports, optimize bandwidth utilization and improve speeds. Today, I’m going to share a neat trick which lets you setup custom RSS feeds for your favorite torrent clients which allows you to control your client from anywhere in the world.

Creating the Feed

The first question that would pop up in anyone’s mind is that why would I need to setup custom RSS feeds for my torrent client? Well think about this scenario. You are on a business trip and want to download the latest release of OpenOffice on your PC hundreds of miles back home. Sure you can setup a Web UI for your torrent client but that’s a difficult task for someone who doesn’t have a static IP or isn’t sure even if his PC would be on or off when he’s trying to access it.

The simple solution would be to setup a custom RSS Feed and set your client to download everything from that feed as soon as you add content to it. Now you can just pop in a torrent file into your custom feed from anywhere in the world where you have internet access (even your cell phone) and your PC back home would download the stuff automagically whenever it comes online.

Sounds simple right? It is. And here’s how you can set it up for your self.

Head over to ReactorFeed and create a new Free account. If you already have an account with ShareReactor then you can skip this step.
Log in to the account you just created and you should already see a feed setup for you. For this tutorial, we’ll go ahead and use this feed in our client.
Copy the feed URL and open up your BitTorrent client, like uTorrent for example.

Now paste the Feed URL into the box and give the feed a custom name if you like.
Select Automatically download all items published in feed and uncheck the Smart Episode filter.
Hit OK and your new feed is all setup.

Now whenever you add a new item to your RSS feed, your client would automatically download it whenever it gets an update. In order to add custom items to your feed, you just have to:

Log in to ReactorFeed and click Add item on the feed you want to add items too.
Paste the URL of the download file and click the Add button.
Your client should automatically detect the feed and start the download in a few moments.

And that’s all there is to it. A simple yet powerful way to setup remote downloading of all the content you like without the hassle of setting up a Web UI interface.

Hope you enjoyed this article, and if you have some interesting tricks of your own to share, please do so in the comments.

Article by Uzair Sajid (UzEE), a technologist and a freelance blogger who also authors The Technopath.

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How To Access Google Services in Chrome with One Number

Umar.Anjum — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:00:52 +0000

Google is constantly trying to better their products. To enhance the functionality of their internet browser, Chrome, Google has released a number of extensions that complement the browser. Many of these extensions integrate many of Google’s existing services into Chrome. For example, there is a Google extension for Gmail which places an icon in the address bar showing the number of unread messages. A similar Google extension exists for Google Reader.

These extensions are quite helpful for a person who is using one of these services. But if somebody is using both services, then installing these extensions can create an unwanted clutter in the address bar.

Recognizing this, a third-party developer has combined the functionality of these extensions, added a few more functions, and created what is called One Number.

Overview

One Number is a great Chrome extension which is a must-have for internet users who use multiple Google services. This extension places an icon in the address bar which shows the collective number of unread messages in Gmail, Google Reader, Voice, and Wave. For a breakdown of unread messages (i.e. which service has how many unread messages) all a user has to do is hover the mouse pointer over the icon and a text cloud appears with the details.

If you notice an ERROR message then it either means that you have zero unread messages for that service or you are not using that particular Google service.

Users can also click on the icon and be presented shortcuts to these services in a drop down window.

Amongst other adjustments, we can access the extension’s options to reduce the number of services checked by One Number or change its color scheme.

Conclusion

One Number is truly a greatly creative extension that will facilitate countless Google users. Try it out today and personally experience how it makes managing all of your Google services that much easier.

(By) Umar is a full time blogger who loves discovering and reviewing news and online services that are valuable to his readers. He blogs at www.techcityinc.com.

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Weekly Tech Links: March 7, 2010

Kyle Judkins — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:30:38 +0000

This is my weekly round up of the links I have followed over the past week. You can get this list every week by subscribing to my RSS feed or subscribing through email. You may also follow me on Twitter or join the Facebook Fan Page to get some of these links throughout the week. As usual, catch the links after the break.

How To

How to sort Gmail by attachment size of emails

How To Find Serial / License Key Of Windows 7 / Vista / XP And Other Windows OS | PCs Place

How to Gain Access to Your Hacked Email Account – Make Tech Easier

Internet

Download, convert Hulu video files free

Run a Total Background Check on Yourself with Free Online Tools – Consumer Protection – Lifehacker

10 Awesome Sites To Listen/Download Free Music Legally

Software

Send up to 100MB attachments with Outlook and drop.io – How-To Geek

Generate ASCII art from plain text & characters

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Top 5 Safari Plugins

srikanth — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:00:58 +0000

Safari has been one of the best browsers in the market, known for its speed, rich look and feel and standards support. Safari allows you to install plugins in order to customize your experience with the browser. The following are my five favorite plugins that take my browsing experience to the next level.

The List

Glims

Among all the plugins in Safari, Glims is one of the best. It adds many features, thereby enhancing your browsing experience. Glims lets you open links in a new tab instead of new window. It also lets you to choose whether a new tab should be opened to the left or right. Glims adds thumbnails to Google search results, and it allows you to change the search engine and configure search results.

FLVR

Have you ever wanted to download some of your favorite YouTube videos? There are many applications which lets you download videos from YouTube. FLVR lets you do it in just one click. With one simple click on the FLVR button present on the toolbar, you can actually download the video directly from video’s page right within the browser. You can download the trail version, and if you are impressed you can buy this plugin for $15.

TabExpose

TabExpose brings the power of Expose to the Safari browser. TabExpose exposes the contents of all the tabs in one screen in a grid format with just a simple click. It is really helpful when you want to switch between multiple tabs.

RedSnapper

Most of the time bloggers include screenshots while writing tutorials, guides and just about anything else. RedSnapper is one of the best plugins that lets you take screenshots with ease. RedSnapper comes with a price-tag of $8 and a 14 day free trail.

Saft

Saft is a competitor of Glims. It also provides many features which enhance your browsing experience. Some of the features provided by Saft are Adblocking, enable full screen mode, URL shortening, TabExpose feature and many more. This is the best alternative for Glims. Saft can be purchased for $12.

What are your favorite Safari addons? Let us know in the comments.

by Srikanth AD from Techonaut. Contact him by email at adsrikanth[at]gmail[dot]com

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What’s the Buzz with Buzz and Buzzers and Buzzing

Squealing.Rat — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:00:50 +0000

We all remember the beginning of Twitter, right? Before there were tweets, retweets, tweeters, and tweeps? And now, there is a new kid on the block: Buzz. Buzz, by Google, is slowly becoming quite popular. But, being so new, no “buzzwords” (no pun intended) have been officially christened. I thought I’d lay out the new buzzwords for Buzz.

1. Buzz n- The current news on Buzz. The buzz today is all about Tiger Woods.

2. Buzz v- (buzzing, buzzed, buzz) The act of updating to Buzz. I just buzzed about our new baby. He was buzzing constantly about his unbelievable luck. I buzz daily about my personal life.

3. Buzzer n- a user of Buzz. Everyone was talking about the buzzer who took a picture of Steve Jobs using Microsoft Word.

4. Sting n- a particular update that was widely talked about, an attention grabber. Did you see that sting about Obama that Gizmodo buzzed? What a zinger!

5. Boz/Buzz (used interchangeably) n- an update on Buzz. Leo’s buzz explained the what he like about the service while King’s boz was more negative.

6. Outbuzzed adj- an update on Buzz that was flooded with comments, making it desirable to mute. Boy, Gina’s latest boz was outbuzzed.

7. Unbuzz v- to stop following on buzz. I had to unbuzz him because of his constant barrage of buzzes.

To sum up, buzzers who buzz on Buzz will occasionally see stings, but for the most part, buzzers will see bozes and and outbuzzed buzzes which may cause them to unbuzz those people.

What are your thoughts on Google Buzz?

The writer of this post compiles the latest tech news and more at Squealing Rat, and writes about tricks and tips of deception, trickery and survival at Lone Iguana. Find him on Twitter.

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2 Apps to Add Multiple Users to One Twitter Account

Aminul Islam Sajib — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:15:03 +0000

Have you ever wanted to have more than one user on a Twitter account? This is probably the case if you have a business Twitter account that many people in the organization can use. You could just share the password around to all the users on the account, but this isn’t the best solution.

Today, I’m going to tell you about two applications that will make sharing a Twitter account much easier.

CoTweet

CoTweet is a great web-based application to share your Twitter account with multiple users. This sharing allows everyone to tweet from the same Twitter account.

Features

CoTweet allows you to manage up to six Twitter accounts with one CoTweet accounts. You can manage as many users on a Twitter account as you want, but they all have to have accounts with CoTweet.

From your CoTweet dashboard, you can monitor current trends and keywords on Twitter. Not only that, you can assign other CoTweet users tweets to follow up on. This can help spread out the workload of answering questions about your business on Twitter.

Assigning a fellow twitter user.

With CoTweet, you can view live statistics of the links tweeted from the accounts associated with your CoTweet account. CoTweet shortens links using the bit.ly URL shortener which has statistics options. CoTweet utilizes this and brings the statistics on your dashboard so that you don’t have to go elsewhere.

You can schedule tweets using CoTweet. This helps you keep a consist flow of tweets, so you never overwhelm your followers. There is a lot more to discover on CoTweet. For everything else, head to CoTweet and sign up now.

Birdherd

This Twitter client provides a simpler way to allow multiple users onto one Twitter account. If you don’t need all those complex-yet-useful features that CoTweet provides, your alternative choice should be Birdherd which is — in short — simple, fast, and smart.

Using Birdherd is simple. You and everyone that you want to access a certain Twitter account all need to have accounts with Birdherd. Once you all have accounts, you can associate several users under one Twitter account.

To add more users to the account, just enter their Birdherd usernames. It’s really basic and simple, but it gets the job done.

Conclusion

The two apps reviewed above are still in beta version, so you may encounter some bugs along the way. However, if your organization or business is literally big, you are recommended to use CoTweet instead of BirdHerd, as CoTweet is perfect for bigger handling.

(By) Aminul Islam Sajib is a 17-year-old blogger who is also a technology reporter in Bangladesh. He blogs at Life with Technology and writes latest social media news at TechiePost. You can connect with him on his blog or follow him on twitter.

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[Sponsor Post] Save Money on Your Technology Needs

Kyle Judkins — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:00:04 +0000

The following post is a sponsor post written by MoneySupermarket. LostInTechnology is committed to bringing you the best content even when it comes it sponsor form.

Nowadays, there is a lot of focus on technology and what it can do for us, and for many of us, technology can really help make our lives easier. Our washing machines speed up cleaning our clothes, the refrigerator keeps our food fresh for longer and you can chat with a friend who’s half way across the world with just the help of your laptop.

Technology has made our lives a lot simpler, but it can also make things that bit more expensive as well at times – we now have Internet bills, TV bills, mobile phone bills and a number of other tech related bills that need paying each and every month.

So how can we make this more affordable?

Renegotiate

Well, first and foremost, the most important thing you can do is to renegotiate your service costs with all of your technology providers. Most technology companies never inform their customers of new deals or cheaper options the company is offering. The recession is hitting companies very hard and customer retention is a big goal. Many companies have their customer service teams being trained in how to negotiate with customers to save them money and keep their business afloat at the same time.

Reduce Your TV Package

Almost everyone can save money on their satellite or cable television bill. Keep track of how much TV you watch and which channels. There is almost always something that you can cut from your package that you won’t miss. This may not save you lots of money if you don’t make a big sacrifice, but every little bit counts.

Prepaid Mobile Phones

The prepaid mobile phone business used to be a refuge for people with bad credit and those who couldn’t afford a monthly fee. Those days are now long gone, and prepaid mobile phones are becoming a cheap option for most consumers. You want to do your research on this, but don’t be surprised if it comes out a lot cheaper to go with a prepaid mobile phone.

Compare Prices

Comparing the prices of the items you’re looking for helps save a lot of money. There are many sites out there that accomplish this comparison, and MoneySupermarket is one of them. MoneySupermarket now has voucher codes available that enable you to get discounts at various other sites around the net. Visit the voucher channel today and see how much you can save on your technology needs for you and your family.

Conclusion

These are only just a few of the ways you can save on your technology needs. How do you save a little money but still keep up with technology?

Image by Tracy O

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9 Free and Great Crowd Sourced Applications

Squealing.Rat — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:00:07 +0000

The wonderful thing about working on the Internet is the sheer amount of information that is available for free. Most of the time, the information is free, because it is supplied to us by people like you and me. This system of relying on the users to supply the end content is called crowd sourcing. Here are some of the best crowd sourced applications.

iPhone Applications

Waze

I recently discovered Waze and loved it. Basically, Waze is a free iPhone application that aims to deliver free turn by turn directions. When you are out on a drive, simply launch the application and leave it running. The application uses your GPS to map road directions and other information. If you run into traffic, you can enter that into the application, and it will use that information to prevent others from being stuck in that jam. Can’t visualize it? Watch the Waze guided tour here.

GasBag

GasBag is an application that I have been using for a while. I was drawn to it for the simple reason of price. The application is free (other apps do the same thing for $5). GasBag allows you to record gas station prices and log your gas purchases. I love this application because at a moments notice, when the gas tank is low, I can look up the cheapest gas in the area. Every time you get gas, make sure to enter in the gas prices of the station for the benefit of you and others.

Web Applications

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a website that is known far and wide as a source of information. Boasting a community that knows nearly everything, Wikipedia is a website of collective knowledge that spans over 14 million articles. Submit your knowledge and receive the satisfaction of knowing you are helping educate the public.

Amazon Reviews

Amazon is one of the largest online stores on the internet. But the truly amazing thing about Amazon is not the products, the prices or even the storage. It is the unbelievably vast collection of reviews that talk about products and allow customers to make the best choice when purchasing something. After you purchase something on Amazon, take a minute to give your opinion of it so that others know what to buy and don’t waste their money.

ReCaptcha

ReCaptcha is the stone that kills two birds at the same time. ReCaptcha prevents robots from spamming systems and helps convert scanned books to text. Surely you have tried to sign up for an account at some point and had to type in characters in an image. The focus of that annoying step is to prevent robots from spamming a site by creating an image only a human can identify. ReCaptcha uses words from attempted books scans that the computer couldn’t convert as words to use for the captcha. So every time you fill in one of the somewhat annoying forms, know that you are helping books get converted.

Google Image Labeler

The Google Image Labeler is a tool that benefits search, not just for Google, but for everyone that likes the ability to find what they are looking for fast. In what Google calls a game, you observe images with a cyber-buddy, tagging them in hopes that what both parties tagged will be the same. For every tag that both get, your points add up. This addicting “service” helps Google with their image search and you to get a high score.

Aardvark

Aardvark, written about previously, is a service that helps you find the answers to your questions. A different take on the normal question and answer service, Aardvark uses IM to allow you to chat with your answerers. The service also attempts to get answers to you from reliable people, send questions to others that have tagged their profile to answer those types of questions. Crowd sourcing comes easy here, because the more you participate, the more you benefit the larger community. (Psst! Check out the full review of Aardvark here.)

Panoramio

Here’s a little known fact: Google Street View is not just comprised of images from the Google Street View mobile. In fact, Google shows other images as well (just check the box under more that says images). Those images, for the most part, are from Google’s little known Panoramio, a service that accepts user generated photos that included location information. Google integrated those photos with Google Maps for a truly crowd sourced photo walk.

Computer Applications

Folding@Home

Folding@Home is a application you can download that takes full advantage of crowd sourcing. Folding@Home creates a network of computers that come together to form a super computer that is used to solve complex problems and try and use knowledge of the computers to help science and knowledge. When you download the application, you agree to donate your computer’s free CPUs to the program, so that when you are not using your computer, it can use it. But Folding@home is not the only application out there of its kind. Here are several others:SETI@home, Rosetta@home, Einstein@Home, and Astropulse.

Others

*Flickr has started a cool game to encourage people to tag photos with locations here.

*Yahoo Answers, similar to Aardvark is still a popular question and answer service. For more answer services, check out this 2.0 Life article here.

*Have knowledge of other languages? Try out a crowd sourced translation service like Translated.by.

*Heck, an article about crowd sourcing can include crowd sourced material, right? Well then check out this Wikipedia page on crowd sourcing for other applications.

What crowd sourced applications do you use? Let us know in the comments!

The writer of this post compiles the latest tech news and more at Squealing Rat, and writes about tricks and tips of deception, trickery and survival at Lone Iguana. Find him on Twitter.

Photo: victoriapeckham

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