“Security” collection
Safeguard your family’s digital and physical environment with expert advice on home monitoring, online privacy, and data protection. This category provides essential strategies and reviews of tools to help you maintain a secure, private, and protected connected life.
HTD Tech Briefs
View all →May 31, 2012
Ease of Set-up & Use Powers the VueZone Webcam Solution
Remember how a few years ago setting up a streaming webcam was something that you left to the geek in your house? And even then, it probably didn't work all the time or required the webcam to be attached to a computer that was on all of the time? I sure do. I even remember when setting up a security…
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May 30, 2012
10 Tips & Some Security & Privacy Tools for Setting Up Your Child’s First Smartphone
As part of The Digital Joneses study that I'm working on with other bloggers and with Trend Micro, one of our challenges is "Staying Connected on the Go." The study itself is one of online protection, privacy and security, using a variety of tools and software as well as tips and best practices provided by Trend Micro. This is the 4th…
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April 24, 2012
Get Those Cleaning Supplies Out & Roll Up Your Sleeves – How to Clean Your Digital Home!
It's Springtime! Leaves are appearing on the trees, the sun is starting to gain dominance over the rain, and my eyes are teary, not only from the pollen in the air, but also from the fact that I need to start doing my spring cleaning around the house! It's time to put away the winter clothes, coats and blankets, throw…
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April 3, 2012
Have You Had “The Talk” with you Kids? The Online Security Talk, That Is!
Go to you kids right now and ask them if they know what cyberbullying is. Go on, do it! I'm going to guess that they might be able to tell you at least something. If they did, that is encouraging. Now ask them if they know what sexting is. Heck that word shows up in my spell check as being…
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March 27, 2012
Just Cover It Up! Pritect – A Privacy Guard for the Xbox 360 & Windows Kinect
Sometimes low-tech is the best way to go. I hadn't really thought much about the Kinect for Xbox and Window in terms of privacy, until the folks at Catalyst Components reached out to me about their new product called the Pritect cover. It's a privacy guard for the Xbox 360 Kinect. What is the Kinect? It's a gesture, motion and sound…
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March 26, 2012
Understanding Cloud Security and Mobile Platforms on Digital Nibbles Podcast #6
You really should track your digital devices, at least according to Ken Westin who is the founder of GadgetTrak. I actually agree with that. In fact, I have been using some other services (Prey Project and Find my iPhone) to do just that. It does look like what Ken's company has come up with in their GadgetTrak service goes quite…
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March 12, 2012
PocketFinder – A Cellular & GPS Locating Device That You Throw in a Bag and Start Tracking Your Loved Ones
Technology is really great sometimes. Not only have devices gotten smaller, they have become more powerful and more useful. Think about cell phones - do you remember the size of them back in the 80's? They were simply HUGE and clunky. GPS technology has gone the same way and are now so small, they can be integrated into a smartphone.…
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March 7, 2012
Consumer Clouds – A Comfortable and Easy On-ramp to More Complex Business Clouds
I have multiple personalities. No, I'm not schizophrenic but I do have alter egos. During the day, I live and breathe cloud computing with my job as Technology Evangelist at GoGrid, a cloud infrastructure provider. And then the rest of my hours when I'm awake, I'm a dad, husband and technologist, trying to figure out how it all fits together…
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March 6, 2012
How Internet Security Savvy Are You?
If you have read any of my articles in the past, I find it extremely important to use technology as a tool to better your life. Some of those "tools" are for entertainment, and others are for security and safety of yourself and your family. Entertainment is obviously fun, as it should be, but security and safety is not as…
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March 2, 2012
Guest on Intel’s Digital Nibbles Podcast – Talking about Consumer Clouds
Recently, I was invited to be a guest on a podcast (sponsored by Intel) called Digital Nibbles and the topic was Consumer Clouds. Digital Nibbles is a podcast that discusses data centers, cloud computing and other topics around big data, DevOps, mobile and IT in the enterprise. As an interesting twist to the traditional corporate subject matter, we turned to…
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August 5, 2011
10 Ideas for Facebook Parental Controls and What You Can Do Until They Are There
Facebook needs parental controls - although I will bet that if you ask kids between the ages of 13 and 16, they would say that it definitely does NOT need ANY type of parental control whatsoever. But, being a parent and a bit of a social media junkie, I know that something is definitely needed. Children are simply too young…
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August 4, 2011
How to Get Hostnames to Resolve over a Mac OS X VPN Connection
Yesterday I ran into a little issue. I tried to use my Cisco VPN client on my Mac after having upgraded to Lion. For some reason, it was not working. I did find some ways to correct that (the Error 51 issue) and how to migrate your Cisco setting over to the native Mac OS VPN client, but that will…
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