AT&T Killing Unlimited Data Plans June 7th


If you're waiting to buy an iPhone or iPad, now is the time to do it. AT&T is eliminating their unlimited data plans on all devices starting June 7th. 

If you already have an unlimited data plan on one of your devices, you get to keep it, for now...

Don't be surprised if other carriers jump on this bandwagon once they see how it works out for AT&T.

Personally it would be surprising if this lasts, as data flow is only going to increase exponentially in the future. Capping heavy users seems like a very foolish idea. The carrier who keeps their unlimited data option will be a big winner in the future.

 

Facebook changes privacy rules again. What do you think?

Facebook has changed their privacy settings again. Bowing to immense user pressure, and the threat of millions of its users closing their accounts and leaving the site, the new rules were put in place to make it easier for users to control what portions of their data are accessible or not.

Now users are able to set their privacy settings with just several clicks of the mouse. Prior to this, users had to click and choose the settings for each section of their facebook profile, including for every picture album they have uploaded.

The reaction has been luke-warm at best. Many people, including privacy advocates want Facebook to do much more to allow their users to fully control their privacy settings in a way that they have yet to do. Facebook may not have a choice soon, as legislation currently making its way through Congress would require sites like Facebook to only share their users information if the users themselves give the ok. Otherwise, it would be illegal. This would obviously be a very big blow to online advertisers, as it is assumed that many users would refuse to allow their personal information to be shared.

The ever evolving sage of Facebook's privacy continues. Stay tuned.

 

The Future of Magazines

The iPad ushers in an era of increased interaction and possibilities with mediums that were long considered as advanced as they could be.

Magazines are just one example of an area where technology has given new life to what was considered a means of display that would not rise higher in terms of what was possible, due to the natural restrictions in place with paper, and ink.

Those restrictions have been blown away, and here is a video to give you just a little taste of where we are now headed.

The print medium may yet survive:

Virus hidden in Facebook posting about Distracting Beach Babes

Malware virus hidden in link to Distracting Beach Babes video. 

This link has more info:

If you have clicked this Facebook link today, run a virus and spyware scan on your computer immediately. If the link has been posted to your Facebook wall remove it so your friends don't click on it either.

To help protect your computer and critical files, Cohesive Support is offering a 10% off special for removal of all viruses and malware. Click to submit your support request.

Live Video Feed From The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

US Lawmakers have set up live feeds at 5,000 ft below sea level, allowing anyone with an internet connection to get a first-hand look at the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the BP Oil Spill.

The feeds are swamped right now, so be patient if you're trying to view the feed. Hopefully they will be devoting more resources to this today so everyone who is concerned can take a look.

Senator Bill Nelson and the US House of Representatives have each set up their own feed.

The feed from BP is another great source of live video footage from their Remote Operated Vehicles.

Upcoming American LeMans Race to be streamed live over the net for free

This Saturday's American LeMans Race is going to be streamed live over the internet for the first 10,000 people who sign up for a spot here.

The spots are going fast, so if you want to join in the fun of watching the race live for free from home, while being able to chat with thousands of other racing fans online, over twitter, and over facebook, make sure to sign up now.

The event is happening at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, CA. Sure to be an event, especially in that infamous corkscrew turn!

 

 

FINALLY! Tethering coming to the iPhone with OS 4.0


It's official. Tethering is coming to the iPhone with the upcoming OS 4.0 update. Lets hope AT&T has upgraded their network enough to handle the extra data load. They wouldn't want a repeat of this little fiasco.

If AT&T messes this up, Verizon is set to pounce and swoop up a huge number of current AT&T iPhone subscribers. Simply put, Verizon's network is incredible and very stable comparatively.

More info here

What's real and what's fake? TV and the movies!

Stargate Studios has taken a huge step forward to merge that which is clearly real and that which is digital. Someday soon, we will all see movies that are completely real in appearance, but which may in fact be a large percentage digitally created. Part of the scene may be real, but the rest may be the creation of a computer and the designer sitting at the controls.

Watch this video and see if you can guess which scenes are real and which are altered. After you get the idea, then try to figure out which parts are computer generated and which are purely digitized.

 

 

Quit Facebook Day coming up on May 31st. Will you deactivate your account?

The cracking open of Facebook's privacy settings to much more access from outside the site has led to some serious anger and disappointment from Facebook's users. On May 31st, a large scale demonstration of this anger will take place. Users will deactivate their accounts, leaving Facebook for maybe only one day, but many may stay off permanently.

We shall see what happens from June 1st on.

Mashable has more info here

To see an example of what Facebooks changes to their privacy settings has unleashed, go to the FacebookSearch Search Engine. You can search through chat conversations for the sites users by any word contained in any chat. 

Netflix finally streaming in HD to PC and MAC

 

Up until now, Netflix Instant Streaming in HD was only available on XBox 360, PS3, and set top boxes. Finally they have begun streaming in HD to the Mac and PC.

Netflix has not yet announced this change to their service, and the amount of content available is still small, but give it some time and that list of choices should grow substantially.

Read more about the big Netflix change

 

 

Sharepod: Get your music off your iPod and back on your computer

  Have an iPod loaded up with an awesome collection of music that you simply refuse to erase? Not able to sync your iPod to a new computer because you refuse to lose that awesome collection in the process? Sharepod is your answer. Use their FREE application to copy the music on your iPod to your computer so you can then put it back on your iPod once you have synced your iPod to your new computer.

They give this program away for free. If you appreciate how valuable this is, they accept donations through Pay Pal.

Talk about valuable!


 

Google Chrome's next version moves at light speed

The next version of the Google Chrome browser is promising to deliver speeds not yet seen on the internet. Page loading and surfing across the web is truly going to change if they deliver what the beta is currently offering. If this turns out to be true, Firefox, IE, and Opera are in trouble. If consumers can use a browser that truly cuts their wait time for page loading down by a very significant amount, many of them will switch in a heartbeat.

The sleek, smooth interface is something to adjust to, but if you spend a bit of time with it you will find that its a wonderful, non-invasive way to browse the internet. Without all the clutter that other browsers set in your face at all time in the menus and around the pages you are looking at, Google Chrome sets itself apart with a very simple design.

This video gives a very creative look at the speed of their next browser version:

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftechcrunch.com%2F2010%2F05%2F05%2Fgoogle-chrome-video-test%2F&h=0e8ea

Cohesive Support is testing the beta version and will have a report soon.

 

Dell's entry into the Smart Phone market

I absolutely love where the Smart Phone battles are headed. Dell's entry into the Smart Phone market has been leaked, and they are sending their heavy armor into the fray right from the start. Great specs, plenty of power, and some serious competition to anything on the market now. Droid and iPhone are about to experience this odd little thing known as competition, something they have not had to deal with yet. Dell is just one of many getting ready to blow the doors off the Smart Phone market with some seriously cool technology. From the Flash to the Lightning, it's going to be interesting to see what these phones are capable of.

Thunder                                     

       

 

Lightning

 

Very Useful, Free Computer Utilities

This posting will cover a pile of free utilities that anyone can easily download and use on their computers. Whether they are informative system info compilers like Speccy, to general system maintenance utilities like Advanced System Care and Smart Defrag, all the utilities listed here have two things in common:

1. They are free to download and use.
  - Some have a premium version you can purchase if you want or need to. The Free versions do a great
job, and the Premium versions do even better.

2. They are very useful. From protecting your computer from new threats to making sure your computer runs better on a regular basis, these utilities will help make your computer a more effective tool.

3. They have been highly tested, both by Cohesive Support and millions of other users, and are verified to help your computer run its best.

 

First up is Speccy. This little utility will help you compile a full hardware profile of your computer in no time at all. The list of uses for this program go on on and, and here are just a few for example.

If you are going to sell your computer, use Speccy to get a full profile of the components for your online ad. If you need to upgrade a couple components in your computer to help boost the performance, use Speccy to find out which type of RAM to buy and how many open slots you may or may not have on your motherboard. Speccy can be incredibly useful when working with Cohesive Support, as we can easily get a full picture perspective of your systems hardware which helps us diagnose the problems you are having more effectively.

The second utility in this list is Smart Defrag from IOBit, a very efficient defragmentation program designed to run in the background when you are not using your computer. Download it and install it, and whenever you are not using your computer, it will slowly defragment your hard drive so your computer is able to perform more efficiently. If you want to optimize your hard drive's performance, you can run a quick or deep optimization, which defragments the hard drive while organizing the data on the drive for the fastest access by your computer in the future.

Malwarebytes makes our third free utility that is essential to have installed and updated on your computer. Simply one of the best spyware detection and removal systems that is available for free, it will scan your computer using a detection system that is very different from many of the anti-spyware programs available today. This program is very good at detecting spyware infections that many other programs miss during their scans. If you have a spyware program already installed on your computer, you would be well served to download and install Malwarebytes.

The free version does not run continuously in the background, but only when you run the program to run a scan at that particular time. Always make sure you update it before you run a scan so you have the latest definitions. You will be happy you did if it finds any infections in your computer.

 This list will be added to on a regular basis, so check back often to see what other free utilities you can use to help improve your computer's performance.

Poll Everywhere using cell phones, Twitter, and the web

After watching a demonstration of the service Poll Everywhere today, my brain is buzzing with the number of potential uses for this service. Using cell phones, smart phones, Twitter, and the web, members of groups of all types as well as polls meant for the general public can now be distrubuted and collected in a very new way.

Set up a free or premium account and you can start creating polls for your friends, family, or a mass of anonymous people. The different accounts come with different features, with the free account able to reach 30 people per poll, and several more paid levels up from there.

Google Buzz enters an already overly caffeinated arena

With Google Wave struggling to pick up momentum, the base components of the service have been trimmed down into Google Buzz. Incorporated into the Gmail email system, Google Buzz is designed to easily give Gmail users a way to share their status updates, photos, links, videos and more with their friends, family, and connections around the web.

Since it's release four days ago, several changes have already been made including allowing users to "ok" who follows their buzz log and not set their entire contact list to auto-follow. Privacy advocates had voiced serious concerns when the service was initially launched, as many people realized their Buzz component had already been automatically filled with followers.

If you already have a Gmail account, Buzz should have appeared as a link below your Inbox link already, but if it has not or if you want to sign up for a Gmail account that automatically includes Buzz, you can sign up here:  www.gmail.com

We shall see if Buzz picks up speed and popularity. Users may embrace it due to its direct connection to their Gmail accounts, but in the world of Facebook and MySpace it will be a big feat to convince many of their users to switch some of their loyalty away from the systems they already know so well.