You might have seen those e-mail signatures that are automatically attached by mobile devices — “Sent from iPhone” or “Sent from my Verizon BlackBerry”. For some people it says “I am very busy person” or “I am a workaholic”, for others “Look at my fancy phone”.
I am entertained by people who complaint about that automatic signature coming in their e-mails, because they don't want people to know if they are at the office or not but they don't know how to change the text in the signature.
It is also very interesting that all of the sudden, the ”Sent from my mobile device” gives us permission to write one-line e-mails with typos and no hello or good-bye. It might be a good idea to use it in your desktop e-mail just to have the same excuse.
Some people have used the e-mail signatures to be creative and funny. Here are some mobile e-mail signatures I have read recently:
Sent from a toaster. Please pardon any breadcrumbs.
Sent from a Dick Tracy watch.
Sent from the past.
Sent from the future.
Sent from God.
Sent from outer space.
Sent from above.
What is your mobile e-mail signature? Have you read some funny ones?
We were asked by the Philadelphia Business Journal: “What’s your favorite Web tool or gadget to make your professional life a little easier, faster and more connected?”, and this is what we said.
There are three free services that I use on a regular basis that make my work more productive.
I use DimDim.com to make Web conferences from my computer by sharing my screen or uploading PowerPoint, Word or PDF files. I use it to make presentations to remote or disperse audiences. Participants only have to go to a Web address I provide them. The service includes text chat, Webcam sharing and voice conference. I can record presentations and download the video at the end of the session.
The YuuGuu.com application allows for easy Web conferencing, but I use it to allow remote control of my computer or gain control of a client computer, which I use for remote support and collaboration.
With FreeConferenceCall.com you can make free conference calls, but I use it when I need to record phone interviews by downloading an audio file at the end of the session.
You can read other responses at http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2009/10/12/focus4.html
Looking for web hosting can be a confussing if you are not an IT person. In this article I will give you some guidelines on the things you need to consider to make a good decision.
The first thing you need to look for is a system that is compatible with whatever you want to deploy in your website. This shouldn't be an issue if you are just loading static pages and configuring e-mail accounts. But if you have a content management system, scripts or databases you need to check the operating system (Windows or Linux), database (MySQL, PostGRE, MS SQL, etc.), and languages (ASP.NET, PHP, Perl, ColdFussion, Java, etc.).
Hiding passwords on web forms and other computer applications have become a de facto standard practice. But, do we really need to hide passwords?
Perhaps you remember when web forms had the notorious Reset button: I guess some sadistic programmer came up with the idea that after you spend minutes painfully filling a form you would like to clear it completely. Fortunately the Reset button rarely appears nowadays. Hiding passwords is a practice that also needs to be updated.
The logic for hiding passwords is that you want to prevent others from looking over your shoulder to read it. However, a skilled thief will be able to get it anyway just by looking at your fingers while you type.
The downside of hiding passwords is that users make more frequent mistakes because they can't read what they are typing. And since most systems lock users out after a number of failed login attempts, users are more nervous and feel less confident.
This situation causes two security problems: the first one is that users tend to use simple passwords that provide very little protection or use the same password in different systems, and the second is that users keep lists of password from where they copy and paste.
Our recommendation is to add a "Hide/Show Password" switch that users can change as they want. Whenever they feel safe that nobody is looking at the screen they can show the password and confidently type it. If they are in a public environment where others can see their screen they can hide the password for extra security.
Apple has announced the new version of its mobile phone, the iPhone 3G S, which will be available on June 19th. As some of you may know, I do not own an iPhone and I have been less than enthusiastic about it. While my iPhone-fanatic friends consider me to be a heretic for having that attitude, the reason for my position is very simple: for a high-end mobile phone it lacks a long list of important features that have been available for very long in other high-end devices.
With the launch of the new iPhone, Apple has made great advance in providing a lot of those important features that were missing and that were not addressed with the iPhone 3G. Based on the information publicly available so far the new device will feature the following improvements:
Some things that were not addressed and will continue to be in the wish list for future iPhone improvements:
As you can see the list is much shorter now.
Do you own an iPhone? Are you among the first to get the new model? Leave your comment.
