HellmuthBroda.com (Pondering Technology)

Google’s New Privacy Policy: What Has Changed and What You Can Do About It

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Hellmuth Broda

Wired.com today published an article from a blog at webmonkey.com: Google’s New Privacy Policy: What Has Changed and What You Can Do About It | Webmonkey | Wired.com.

I posted an update towards the end of this article describing “Tom Henderson’s Divorce From Google”

I am quoting from the first article above:

(begin quote)

Why Google's Privacy Changes Are Good for Advertisers

It was on March 1st that Google’s broad new privacy policy went into effect. European regulators are claiming it violates data protection laws, but it’s here and it may be here to stay.

There are some not-completely-foolproof ways to hide from Google, but first let’s talk about what’s changed. Continue reading →

Posted in Identity Management, Internet, Security, Social Media, Web | Tagged Gmail, Google, Privacy, Privacy policy, Search, Tor | 1 Comment

Check Your DNS Settings Now! Combat DNSChanger!

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Hellmuth Broda

DNSChanger as pictured on http://www.muycomputer.com

(Reposted from C|net and other sources:)

Note: Following March 8, 2012 your computer if infected will lose internet connectivity and — if worst comes to worst — be redirected to malicious sites.

The malware scam DNSChanger that has affected numerous computer systems, including Macs, has been at least partly dismantled by the FBI’s Operation Ghost Click program. (But this program will be terminated in March 2012.)

DNSChanger is a Trojan horse that was distributed in many forms, and when installed it actively changes the infected system’s DNS settings to rogue servers that redirect legitimate searches and URLs to malicious Web sites that attempt to steal personal information and generate illegitimate ad revenue for the scammers.

Continue reading →

Posted in Internet, Security, Web | Tagged DNS, DNSChanger, Domain Name System, Federal Bureau of Investigation, MacOS, Malware, Trojan Horses, Windows | Leave a comment

A Strong Personal Vote For The Cloud

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Hellmuth Broda

My change from a 2008 15" MacBook Pro to a 2011 13" i5 MacBook Pro. Image via Wikipedia

On Friday, January 13, 2012 at 13:00 (yes, really!) I closed the cover of my MacBook Pro. This was when I had seen the computer alive for the last time.

When I re-opened the flap nothing happened. Going through all the measures one can take in cases like this did not help. It remained dead.

The friendly Apple-authorized service point gave me the grim diagnosis after several days: the motherboard was corroded due to a previous water damage for which it had been at the same place some 3 years earlier. A glass of water had flooded the system when it was a few weeks old. Seems that at that time some impending corrosion damage was overlooked. There was no warranty on that repair of 2008. And AppleCare had expired last fall. Continue reading →

Posted in Cloud Computing, Internet, On blogging, Unusual | Tagged Apple, MacBook, Operating system | 5 Comments

Act Now: Set Your LinkedIn Privacy

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Hellmuth Broda

Image at http://sfima.blogspot.com/2011/08/linkedin-pulls-facebook-with-user-data.html

Retweeted from several messages that I received:

In case you don’t know it, without attracting too much publicity, LinkedIn has updated their privacy conditions.

Without any action from your side, LinkedIn is now permitted to use your name and picture in any of their advertisements. The network now allows advertisers to use pictures and names of other users in their network of connections who have recommended or followed that brand.

Most likely you want to opt out of this. Some simple actions to be considered: Continue reading →

Posted in Internet, New and Noteworthy, Security, Social Media | Tagged LinkedIn, Privacy, Social advertising, Social media, Social network | 3 Comments

300 Years of FOSSIL FUELS in 300 Seconds

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Hellmuth Broda

Here is a quite interesting video on “300 Years of FOSSIL FUELS in 300 Seconds.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ-J91SwP8w]

Reposted from a Facebook post of Christian Kobler.

A personal observation on the subject of fossil fuels: My last rental car was a Toyota Prius (Hybrid Synergy Drive). Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, New and Noteworthy | Tagged Energy, Energy development, Fossil fuel, Global warming | Leave a comment

Teenager + Fibonacci = New Hope For Solar Energy

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Hellmuth Broda

13-year-old Aidan Dwyer developed a new way to collect solar energy. Photo: Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal

Welcome to my first blog of 2012.

I would like to start the New Year with some hope.

Hope that we experience when we look at the young generation (no—not that one, even younger):

A report in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (“A Youngster’s Bright Idea Is Something New Under the Sun“) reports on a 13-year old teenager who was curious enough to study the patterns of trees’ branching and apply this to a setup for solar panels. Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, New and Noteworthy, Unusual | Tagged American Natural History Museum, Fibonacci number, Solar panel, Wall Street Journal | Leave a comment

Season’s Greetings!

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Hellmuth Broda

Photo by Gebril (commons.wikimedia.org)

Dear reader of this blog.

I want to thank you for your interest in these articles, for the numerous emails, “likes” and your encouraging comments on this blog and different other social media platforms where the links to this blog are being published.

As this year comes to a close we wish that the new year will bring us new hope for better times, peace and freedom.

Have a joyful festive season, forget technology for a moment and make some time for family and friends and enjoy good company also in the real world — and not only on Social Media.

Merry Christmas,

Happy Holidays, and

Season’s Greetings!

Posted in On blogging | Leave a comment

Telekinetics? Bed-Bound Patients Move Robots Using Just Thoughts

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Hellmuth Broda

Deus in machina. A semiautonomous robot can be controlled with the brain waves of paralyzed patients. Credit: José del R. Millán. From Science Now

“They’re not quite psychic yet, but machines are getting better at reading your mind. Researchers have invented a new, noninvasive method for recording patterns of brain activity and using them to steer a robot. Scientists hope the technology will give “locked in” patients—those too disabled to communicate with the outside world—the ability to interact with others and even give the illusion of being physically present, or “telepresent,” with friends and family.

“Previous brain-machine interface systems have made it possible for people to control robots, cursors, or prosthetics with conscious thought, but they often take a lot of effort and concentration, says José del R. Millán, a biomedical engineer at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, who develops brain-machine interface systems that don’t need to be implanted into the brain. Continue reading →

Posted in e-Health, New and Noteworthy, Unusual | Tagged École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Brain–computer interface, Robot, Robotics | Leave a comment

Liquid Robotics’ Wave Gliders Begin Historic Swim Across Pacific

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Hellmuth Broda

A few days ago, “four Wave Gliders—self propelled robots, each about the size of a dolphin—left San Francisco for a journey that combined will total 60,000 kilometers. Built by Liquid Robotics, the robots will travel together to Hawaii, then split into pairs, one pair heading to Japan, the other to Australia. Waves will power their propulsion systems and the sun will power the sensors that will be measuring things like water salinity, temperature, clarity, and oxygen content; collecting weather data, and gathering information on wave features and currents. It’s not going to be an easy journey—the little robots will face rough weather and have to dodge big ships” reports Tekla Perry in IEEE Spectrum–Automaton. Continue reading →

Posted in New and Noteworthy, Unusual | Tagged James Gosling, Liquid Robotics, Robotics | Leave a comment

If Zuckerberg Deleted Facebook: Social Networks – Can We Survive Without Them?

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Hellmuth Broda

Image at blaugh.com

In many previous postings I have been pondering on the importance of Social Media for business and how it will change our cooperation. Today I would like to discuss our dependence on such technologies:

I still remember the days in the mid-80’s when email addresses were written with exclamation marks and you had to know the path through the servers for the mail to arrive. E-mail was a “nice to have” gadget and nobody entrusted important information to it. All the “real” company and external information came per paper mail.

These days passed more quickly than I anticipated. It was in the late 90’s when a pharmaceutical company in my town had to send the employees home after an email outage. It had taken a mere 10 years for email to become an indispensable business tool.

If Facebook or Twitter would be down today there might not be a big stir in the business community except for the guys from the marketing department but in a few years a Social Media outage could very well bring business to a grinding halt.

Certainly if a blog site would go down we would feel the pain. Maybe not immediately but after a day or two. A Twitter outage could very well lead to more severe withdrawal symptoms. Continue reading →

Posted in New and Noteworthy, On blogging, Social Media | Tagged Business, Email address, Facebook, Social media, Social network, TechCrunch, Twitter | 3 Comments

How to Use Google Search More Effectively [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Hellmuth Broda

Josh Catone yesterday published a blog on “How to Use Google Search More Effectively [INFOGRAPHIC]“. Although the Infographic is geared for students us mere mortals might benefit from it as well.

Efficient use of search can really save you time and bring you much faster where you want to go. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Google, Infographic, Information graphics, Search, Search Engines, Web search engine | 3 Comments

Ten Sloppy Social Media Mistakes to Fix NOW

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Hellmuth Broda

Corey Eridon has some advice on mistakes to avoid and she warns not to be sloppy about Social Media. She writes in her blog on hubspot.com:

“What makes the following social media mistakes particularly sloppy is that they cost little time and no money to fix, have tremendous returns, and as such are huge misses to your overall social media strategy. Stop being sloppy, and make sure you’re not making any of these 10 social media mistakes (+1 for good luck).” Continue reading →

Posted in Social Media, Web | Tagged Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Social media, social media strategy, Social network, Twitter | Leave a comment

How to Back Up Your Social Media Accounts

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Hellmuth Broda

Image at http://www.glasbergen.com

Now that we learned to make the occasional backup of the files on our computers using external hard disks and — the audacious ones among us — using cloud services (BTW: check out Wuala for backup. Files get encrypted on your machine and will be packet-distributed to their storage computers. Like DropBox, just safer) here comes the next backup pattern: Backing up your Social Media.

Lou Dubois (@lou_dubois) explains in Inc.com: Continue reading →

Posted in Cloud Computing, Security, Social Media, Web | Tagged Backup, Cloud computing, Data center, DropBox, Facebook, Hard disk drive, Social media, Twitter | 1 Comment

Slow Food for the Mind

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Hellmuth Broda

For many years our focus has been on making things faster and faster. Computer chips are doubling their speed about every 18 months (Moore’s Law). But in our faster and faster spinning world we rarely focus on really long-lasting or long-term projects. One of them is John Cage‘s piece for Organ, the other one that impressed me is the 10’000-year clock.

Organ²/ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible)

Organ in Halberstadt with the three pipes currently being played (Image via Wikipedia)

is a musical piece composed by John Cage and is the subject of one of the longest-lasting musical performances yet undertaken. It was originally written in 1987 for organ.

The actual performance commenced in the St. Burchardi church on September 5, 2001 with a pause lasting until February 5, 2003. The first chord was played from then until July 5, 2005. The most recent new chord from the organ was a three-note chord, A above middle C, C above middle C and the F# above that (A4-C5-F#5), which began on January 5, 2006 and concluded on July 5, 2008. This sonority can currently be heard on a website devoted to the Halberstadt event.