Websites will be responsive—meaning they’ll be designed in a way that works on any platform, including smartphones, tablets, and large or small monitors.

Why create a separate mobile version of your website if you can have one that works on everything? And your company must be accessible via mobile devices by the end of 2013.

Smartphone apps or accessories will be more sophisticated and, dare we say, intuitive. Think Star Trek tricorders.

Software and hardware will become more interactive and very wearable. We’ll still have our workhorses, but we’ll also be able to do more with smaller pieces of equipment.

Cloud computing will be standard, and biometric authentication will start to replace passwords.

3D printing will be mainstream, thanks to affordable printers, and artists and inventors will be able to do small runs of whatever they want through “virtual factories.”

The use of mobile payment systems, such as Google Wallet, will become more commonplace.

The coming year will bring solutions to the challenge of Big Data, allowing companies practical access and use of the huge amount of data that’s being collected.

A problem that may not find a solution in 2013 is the ease of integration of all of our tech tools and toys.

What does your tech crystal ball show you for 2013? What about five years from now?

It’s hard to imagine what technology will bring us in five or 10 years—we anticipate it outpacing our dreams.

By Danny Tehrani

Image courtesy of James Nash

Too much sitting, even with an otherwise active lifestyle, will shave years off of your life.

Here are a few ways to avoid the sittin’ down blues if you spend your day at a computer:

• Get an adjustable desk that elevates your monitor and keyboard when you want to stand, and takes them back down when you want to sit. Don’t sit for more than an hour at a time.
• Stand up to talk on the phone or when chatting with colleagues.
• Walk the long way around the office to get a drink or use the facilities.
• Don’t phone or text anyone who shares your office space—get up and walk to them, even for brief conversations.
• Get rid of your desk chair and use an exercise ball. Just trying to stay on the thing will give you a bit of a workout.
• Set a timer to go off about 45 minutes after you sit down, and get back up when it dings.
• Walk up or down a couple of flights of stairs each day, rather than taking the elevator. If you’re on the 20th floor, get off on the second floor and walk the rest of the way down.

This won’t be fun or easy at the beginning. Commit to two weeks, and then two more, and then three more. See what happens.

What else can we do to stay off our rears during the workday? Share your ideas in the comments—we’ll do this together.

By Danny Tehrani

Image courtesy of Mike Oliveri

Well, we thought it’d be helpful to start a list of resources for folks who want to tinker on their own and just need a little guidance.

We’re hoping you add on to this list in the comments section. No one knows how to do everything, and we’re hoping this becomes a valuable resource for all of us.

Dummies.com has a how-to section on computers. They’re trying to sell books, but they also have masses of instructional videos and text that show you how to network computers, edit a picture, format Excel charts—they cover too many topics to list here. They also have a section just for seniors, which we liked.

C|NET has a surprising number of how-to documents that cover everything from securing your Twitter account, to adjusting YouTube default settings for your uploads, to adding Gmail and Yahoo to Windows 8 Mail. Hundreds of topics are covered, and there’s a place to ask questions and actually get answers.

BleepingComputer.com is a practical site that has a long, long list of tutorials and downloads, and a forum where questions may be asked and answered. There’s a list of virus removal guides, and the tutorials cover Windows 8, browsers, hardware, Linux, Internet, and on and on. There’s even a searchable glossary.

Wikihow has a deep pocket of articles that cover a surprising range of topics including how to create a website or blog, how-to tips for Quickbooks, how to multitask on an iPhone, how to extend a USB cable, and even more topics and subtopics than we have room to cover in this post.

The GCFLearnfree.com site is full of basic tutorials, if you’re just getting started with computers. They have a Spanish version of the site and tutorials, which is a big bonus.

TechTips at Salon.com is kind of a cool little site full of an eclectic mix of tips and tricks for smartphones and computers and ancillary products. Definitely worth a look.

Intel.com has a tech tips and tricks section that covers a lot of territory. There’s no index to view to see what all they have, so you have to browse around or search on the site, but if you like tutorial videos, you’ll be happy you stopped by!

The BBC has an Absolute Beginner’s Guide to using your computer. Easy to understand, so don’t be afraid to have any computer newbie try it out.

There are more resources online and we plan to expand this list as time goes on.

What how-to resource have you found that’s helpful? Share the URL in the comments!

By Danny Tehrani

Beam a keyboard onto any flat surface with the Virtual Laser Keyboard – Celluon’s Magic Cube. It pairs with smartphones, tablets, and computers and works great in the dark.

The Pintofeed is still in the design phase. It’s a pet feeder that allows you to use an app on your smartphone to feed your pet a pre-measured amount of food. The company is raising money on indiegogo to bring this product to market.

Enlist is an iPad app that you may customize as you like. It lets people sign up (for whatever) using your iPad as a subscription sheet. Perfect way to capture email addresses of potential customers!

For Harry Potter-loving kids, Wonderbook: Book of Spells, brings stories alive (on your TV through PlayStation). It looks cool enough, we want to play with it, too. Hey, who doesn’t love Harry Potter’s world?

This isn’t new, but it’s a tool that we love. Dragon NaturallySpeaking allows you to simply talk and it captures your words and puts them on a document for you. You can use it in a variety of ways, not just to “write” a word document. Check it out and multitask to your heart’s desire.

What’s on your gadget/cool list for the holiday season? Share your finds in the comments, we’d all love to hear them.

By Danny Tehrani

We like Apple products. They’re user-friendly, provide awesome displays, and have a general coolness about them.

When the first iPad came out, we LOVED it. The display, the apps, the fun. No wonder it dominated the tablet market.

Now the market is stuffed with tablets large and small. Not to be outdone, Apple had to come out with a smaller tablet. So what do we think of the iPad mini?

This iPad has a 7.9 inch screen.

Its size allows you to use it with just one hand, which is nice. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s thinner and lighter than we expected.

The tablet has the Siri voice assistant.

It runs on the latest Apple mobile operating system—iOS 6.

It has a front and back camera, both of which are pretty decent.

The battery life makes us happy—it goes for 10 hours, maybe more, depending on how you’re using it.

Of course, you get all the apps that go with the Apple products.

The non-Retina display is disappointing. It seems that adding the crispness of such a display to the smaller screen would be a no-brainer.

The iPad mini uses the Lightning connector. Looks like this is something we’ll have to get used to, but it does add expense.

With a starting price of $329 for Wi-Fi only, it is almost in its own category. It’s too expensive to be a true competitor for the other small tablets, and it’s not a competitor for the larger tablets.

If we’re only talking about Apple products, and we already have an iPhone and an iPad, do we really need or want an iPad mini?

Turns out, the answer to that question very much depends on the individual. We have differing opinions in the office and even within our own families.

What do you think? If you already have a smart phone and a large tablet, will you want the iPad mini to round out your collection?

By Danny Tehrani

A surprising number of small businesses are not as secure online as they think they are.

The National Cyber Security Alliance and Symantec got together and did some research to find out just how secure small businesses are online. This is some of what they found:

77% do not have a formal written Internet security policy for employees.

63% do not have policies regarding how their employees use social media.

60% say they have a privacy policy in place that their employees must comply with when they handle customer information and half (52%) have a plan or strategic approach in place for keeping their business cyber secure.

More small business owners say they do not (45%) provide Internet safety training to their employees than do (37%).

Two-thirds (67%) allow the use of USB devices in the workplace.

Six in ten (59%) say they do not require any multi-factor authentication for access to any of their networks, and only half (50%) say that all of their machines are completely wiped of data before disposal.

That’s a lot of insecurity, but there are some things you can do. For instance, the FCC came up with a Small Biz Cyber Planner that allows you to create your own custom security plan by choosing various topics that apply to your business, and then clicking a button which incorporates all of the info into a plan for download. It’s also available in PDF format.

The US Department of Homeland Security also has a section that helps you with cyber security. They have a lot of security tips on their site for your home, your workplace, and your kids. They also have a National Cyber Awareness System you can sign up for, and it will give you alerts, bulletins, tips, and information on current activity that could be harmful to your computer.

Don’t underestimate your risk online. As we can see from the research results, too many of us are unprepared. But it won’t take much to secure your business from harm. Check out the links we’ve included in the post, and you’ll be able to put a plan together. If you have any problems, give us a call and we’ll give you a hand.

By Danny Tehrani

Image courtesy of TTC Press Images

If we could, we’d spend each day experimenting with new apps, new phones, new computers, or just any new tech. Tech, tech, tech—we love it!

But, since no one is stepping up to give us a million bucks, we read about it instead, which is almost as good.

Right?

Well, here’s some coolness we came across, and please share your tech finds in the comments. We seriously love to hear about tech toys and innovations.

Did you hear about the fellow in Edinburgh who’s developed Li-Fi? One day we’ll be streaming videos with a lightbulb. As explained in wired.co.uk, “The potential applications are enormous: divers working at depths could use light to communicate; air passengers could connect to the internet through the LEDs inside the aircraft.”

Imagine. You and your partner are in bed and you want to watch a movie. You reach up and turn on the bedside light.

In other news, California Governor Jerry Brown rode into history in a self-driven car, and then signed legislation that “requires the California Department of Motor Vehicles to draft regulations for autonomous vehicles by Jan. 1, 2015.” Don’t you love it when science fiction becomes fact? For now, a licensed driver has to sit in the driver’s seat as a “backup operator,” just in case of trouble.

And then, just when we’re excited for the next big thing, what’s old is now new—again. Welcome back, Myspace! OK, not really tech news, but come on, aren’t you thinking, “Seriously? Myspace is back? Why?”

The promo video looks good. It definitely has a cool factor, but they should have dumped the name. Too much baggage and “been there, done that” hanging on to it.

Will you join the new Myspace? Check out the video and let us know what you think.

By Danny Tehrani

The guy was a Microsoft researcher on the trail of counterfeit software. He just happened to stumble on the malware called Nitol.

This particular virus isn’t just in China. It’s also in the US, Australia, parts of Europe and in Russia. The virus is run by servers, so, all of the infected computers are part of a botnet: “. . . large number of compromised computers that are used to generate spam, relay viruses or flood a network or Web server with excessive requests to cause it to fail. The computer is compromised via a Trojan that often works by opening an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel that waits for commands from the person in control of the botnet. There is a thriving botnet business selling lists of compromised computers to hackers and spammers.”

The Microsoft researcher and his colleagues also found counterfeit software, which was their original goal. It was on all of the computers they purchased, and 20% of the computers had malware installed as well.

If you know you have a virus, the surest way to get rid of it is to wipe the drive and reinstall the operating system, along with your other apps. The downside to this is if you haven’t been backing up your data, you’ll probably lose it.

Or, you can try removing the virus, but you’ll never know if you removed all of it.

Go to Symantec Security Response and see if the virus is listed, and if they have a removal tool for it. If they do, you can download it and follow the instructions.

Just remember, the virus may not be simple and could leave behind gremlins that allow intruders to get in back doors, or that pretend to be trusted programs but really aren’t. There are lots of sticky bits that a virus can leave behind to mess with your computer.

Back up your data regularly. Just do it. We can help you get set up so that you don’t have to think about it. And if you need help getting rid of a virus, we’ll provide the sympathy and tools to get it done.

By Danny Tehrani

The folks at futuretimeline.net believe that by 2050, we’ll have micro-SD cards (or the future version of micro-SD cards) that will each “. . . have storage equivalent to three times the brain capacity of the entire human race.”

They go on to predict that by 2020, there will be around 5 billion people using the Internet, and, “By the 2050s, supercomputers may be capable of simulating millions—even billions—of human brains simultaneously.”

Intel is doing research in Israel on technology that is like the human brain and that will learn. “Within five years all of the human senses will be in computers and in 10 years we will have more transistors in one chip than neurons in the human brain,” said Moody Eden, president of Intel Israel.

Amit Singhal, Google’s VP of Search adds, “What I’m really excited about is when computers start understanding language much closer to how you and I do. The possibilities are just tremendous. When computers understand language, you can imagine a conversational computer that does not exist today.”

And as long as we’re dreaming, how about bio-computers with the help of magnetic bacteria? There are microbes that eat iron, which then becomes magnetic in their bodies. Scientists have figured out how to grow the magnets outside the bacteria for potential use in computers. They also created teensy live wires from organisms. Very sci-fi.

So what are your dreams for future technology?

By Danny Tehrani

Here are a few tips for keeping your children (and computer) safe while using the Internet, and we hope you’ll share what you’re already doing in the comment section—we can never know too many ways to keep kids safe.

Talking to your kids.

Tell them to never give personal information online (birth date, address, phone number, vacation times, etc). A stranger could take that information and steal their identity, or visit your home, or find your child.

Explain that anyone can pretend to be anyone else online. Even when we think we’re talking to a friend, it could be an adult pretending to be our friend, or just someone who’s hanging around our friend’s house.

Tell them they must never agree to meet someone in person. We never know for sure who we’re talking to online, and they could be agreeing to meet someone who would harm them.

Tell them to always check with you before downloading anything, and it’s a good idea for you to go online with them and download something so they can see what you mean. Explain what malware is and what it can do to the computer. If you’re uneasy about allowing them full access, you can set them up with their own account on the family computer, and make it a limited one that won’t allow them to add software or make other changes to the computer.

Share with them what type of sites you feel are appropriate and inappropriate. Have that conversation. If the kids know your boundaries, chances are they’ll share them.

Proactively protecting your kids.

Most operating systems have parental controls. Google the phrase and you’ll be directed to the correct site. Install those controls and you can block certain sites and content as well as predetermine how much computer time your child may have. Many will also allow you to see where you child has gone online. You can do the same by viewing a browser’s history.

We trust our kids, but we want to make sure they’re not being led astray.

Something to keep in mind—parental controls will protect your child to a certain degree when he or she is using your computer. They will not protect your child when he or she is using other computers. It may be more practical to take the time to teach and monitor rather than block usage.

We like this site for online safety tips: http://onguardonline.gov/  What are your safety tips?

By Danny Tehrani

Image courtesy of avoidingonlinepredators