Flickr Gives Everyone 1TB for FREE!

Finally, a reason to keep your Yahoo! account alive!

Flickr is giving everyone 1TB of online photo space!

Head on over to www.flickr.com and sign up,

or sign in with your Yahoo account

(I can't believe mine is still active)

Guard The Cloud! (Dropbox 2-Step Verification)

About a month ago, Dropbox, one of the larger cloud storage companies, confirmed that it was indeed hacked. They've now deployed a 2-Step Verification process before allowing any new devices or sessions to access your account. I highly recommend you activate it ASAP if you use their service!

Simply log into your Dropbox web account online

Go to Settings by clicking on your Account name on the upper right hand side of the website

Click on the Security tab

Then scroll down and enable the Two-Step Verification.

Follow the instructions.

Make sure you have your mobile phone handy since Dropbox will send you a verification code. Or if you have an Android or iOS device, you may use an authenticator app and scan the QR Code instead.

This may be a bit of an inconvenience, but it's much better than having your data compromised.

You Can't Have Enough Cloud Storage!

Good news to all Sony Ericsson Xperia users... Sony Ericsson has teamed up with Box to offer all Xperia users 50GB of free cloud storage!  This is a limited offer and Xperia users must sign up before the end of the year to avail of their free space.

Simply download the Box Android app and sign up for a new account from a Sony Ericsson Xperia device.  Although you get 50GB free,  you do not get the advanced features of the paid service.  (It's the 5GB free service + 45GB more space)

Weekend Getaway

I enjoy going away for the weekend.  I'm sure a lot of you do too.  But what if you heard about a great legal torrent to download while you were away?  How do you tell your computer at home to download the file for you so that it'll be done (or almost done) by the time you get home?

Well, with a little help from Dropbox, one of my favorite cloud storage services, managing your downloads can be done from any Dropbox capable device.

Install and setup Dropbox.  Create a new folder called Torrents

Next you need a torrent client, I prefer Vuze.  Just open the Preferences menu and add the new Dropbox folder you just created in the 'Import Directory' field.

What this essentially does, is tell your torrent client to start downloading any torrents that are added to this folder.  It will watch this folder periodically for any new files added.

Next, on your mobile device (laptop, Android, iOS), search for, and download any torrent files you want.  You do not need a torrent client on your device, just Dropbox and a file manager (I currently use Astro on my X10 Mini Pro)

Once you download a torrent file, save it/move it into the Dropbox/Torrent directory on your mobile device.

That's it.  Your computer at home will start downloading the torrent you just added.

You can do this from anywhere in the world for as long as you have access to your Dropbox folder.  Now, when you arrive home, all your legal torrents are all done downloading and ready to watch.

Look! Up in the clouds!!!

Today's Tech Gospel is about cloud computing and how it can affect everyday users.  So what exactly is "Could Computing"?

Have you ever forgotten a file at home or at work?  Searched for an email at work then remembered it was in your home computer?  Brought a file to a presentation only to find out that it isn't the revised version?  Or had countless 'final version' drafts of a single document emailed back and forth for revisions all saved on your computer?

To understand cloud computing, and take full advantage of it, I have to give a brief explanation on how computing has been done so far.

Currently, most people are running on what is known as client, or client-server type computing.

Client based computing is where each computer functions independently.  Your computer is only as capable as the software and hardware installed.  You wanted to have an encyclopedia, then you had to have the appropriate software installed on a computer that could handle the program.  Email was downloaded and stored physically on your machine.  Files are saved and stored on your hard drive.

Client-server computing was born in the business environment.  This allowed a central computer (the server), to hold master copies of all documents, files, and programs.  Then each employees computer (the client) would access the files from the server.  This was (and still is) the prevalent setup.  This allowed a much more powerful computer to handle larger tasks, files and requests.  It allowed corporate email to be stored in a more secure environment than an employees personal or issued computer.  And it offset costs to a single main server, instead of the many client machines.

Cloud computing is a complete shift.  Transferring most of the data and computing requirements over to the internet.  The earliest form of cloud computing is web-based email (like Yahoo).  Essentially a large client-server setup, but having no single computer, it has been dubbed the cloud.

Because of this, mobile devices now have more capabilities than ever before simply because they don't need to do the heavy work.  Not just simple email storage and retrieval.  But actual functionality.

Wikipedia is a good example of cloud computing, where information is created by, well, everyone.  Information is not saved on each individual computer but instead, just accessed and displayed by end users.  The main entries are all stored, edited and archived online.

Google Maps is another form of cloud computing, where all the maps and details are not stored on your device.  This allows the maps to be updated each time you visit the site.  No need to store large maps or install updated locations.  The cloud is always being updated.

Another is Google's Voice Search feature.  (More on this in a future post) Almost no mobile device has the computing or storage capacity to do on-the-fly voice recognition... what your Android or iPhones do is pass your recorded voice command to the cloud, where a battery of servers decipher your speech and transcribe it to text, which is then passed on to Google's Search engine.

Google Voice Search on Android also plugs into other Android apps as well, allowing voice command and voice to text capabilities without the need to "train" your device.

Other examples are Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, and Yahoo Messenger.

The greatest advantage of cloud computing is the lack of dependence on a single physical machine.  I no longer have to bring my laptop around to access my old emails.  Work documents, presentations and schedules can be updated remotely and no longer have to be sent via email.

All you have to do is log into your account, and the information that you had at home or work, is available to you almost anywhere... on almost any machine.  Cloud storage such as Dropbox almost eliminates the need for a USB thumb drive.  While Wuala allows sharing of large files without the need for the recipient to download a program or sign up to the service.

With the internet, we are no longer tied to a single location.

With cloud computing, we are no longer tied to a single machine.

The Cloud Calendar... the modern way of organizing your day.

The Tech Gospel for today is about online calendar services.  I  had previously posted an entry regarding CalDav emphasizing the advantages of keeping your devices synchronized using the new open calendar standard.

This time, I'm going to emphasize the advantages of sharing your calendar with others.  If you're like me, you're the type of person who likes keeping your personal schedule out of your office/work calendar... but this introduces the issue of having to check different calendars for overlap and schedule conflicts.  Enter calendar sharing.

Most online calendar services allow the creation of multiple calendars within your account.

Online sharing allows me to have a different calendar for different activities or projects.  Sharing each calendar with the appropriate people to either view or edit depending on the permissions I set.  What I do, is share my work calendar with my personal account via CalDav.  This would allow me to see and edit my work sked from my personal calendar.  I can then create a calendar in my personal account labeled [Vacation] then share that particular calendar with my work calendar.  This allows anyone who adds me to a meeting to automatically see that I'm not available at a particular date or time.

This is highly beneficial in almost any type of scenario, from managing meeting schedules for work, dinner with friends, or just keeping a schedule of personal tasks.

The advantage of sharing calendars is that I don't have to check a separate calendar for work, home, friends, etc...  Even if they are created on other domains or by other people.  All events from different sources can be pooled into my online service, then synced with all my devices, automatically...wirelessly. 

**Since shared calendars can be edited by the person(s) you share it with, all your appointments can be made, scheduled, and rescheduled by your assistant, or other parties involved in an event, or project.  This allows everyone involved in an event to have access to the updated schedules all the time since alerts can be made to inform everyone of any changes made.**

MORE space... the final frontier...

In relation to an earlier post I had regarding online storage... I just wanted to add a third new fav of mine, Dropbox.

Although my personal favorite is still Wuala, Dropbox works on mobile devices as well... Android, iOS, and very soon, Blackberry as well.

But even as is, online storage is very handy to have (regardless of the service you choose)... commonly used files such as brochures, sales presentations, blank forms, etc... can all be stored, retrieved, and emailed from almost anywhere... even without your computer.

Click on this link to get Dropbox!