Apple TV

The book I read to research this post was Apple TV for Dummies by Mark L Chambers which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. An apple tv is a kind of little box which contains a 32 GB hard drive which lets you stream content from itunes on either a pc or apple mac onto a television. It supports wireless, ethernet or usb 2.0 so basically will work with most reasonably up to date computers. You can only import upto 32 GB of stuff from itunes after that it starts deleting stuff. You can also import photos from photoshop elements & album. There are various programs that will convert things like youtube videos & things like avi & divx into itunes videos. The apple tv produces a 720 p HDTV video signal & will work with either an EDTV or HDTV. You can play photos, video or music from itunes. If you have a computer network either wireless or wired you can make it part of your network. You do find with itunes that every now and then you need to back up your itunes stuff to dvdr & if you need to copy your back ups back onto the computer hard drive just start itunes & insert the discs in the order they were copied. Some enhancements are you can use a bit of freeware called jzip if you are doing backups although that won't zip your itunes stuff at least not so it can be easily accessed. There is a program called game commander which lets you configure the controls & things like joysticks for games.

Android Phones

The book I read to research this post was Android Phones for Dummies by Dan Gookin which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. You might be interested to know I have several posts on various smartphones & tablets including the Blackberry Playbook & iPhone 4 GS at
http://scratbagroberts.com/
The version of android this book deals with is honeycomb 2.3. I use an iPhone although I do have a cheap android tablet & it's worth mentioning you can get a Blackberry Playbook for £170 although it has a different operating system, which is good value. An android phone has 2 off modes one is completely off & the other is a kind of standby where you can still recieve calls. The fastest way to charge it is via the mains although you can do it via the usb port on a computer or from what used to be called the cigar lighter on a car. Obviously you can make phone calls but also there is bluetooth, the ability to be used as a modem, email, instant messaging & text messaging. You can also make video calls to a compatible phone. Many people use skype because the calls are cheaper, especially long distance ones. Your mobile provider will normally give you an email account but many people use gmail which integrates well with android & google own both. Android has a social networking app but you are better off downloading a specific app for the social media site you wish to use. They usually have a lot of extra features. You should turn off bluetooth when not in use as it drains the battery. A lot of people use a bluetooth headset although a bluetooth printer can be a nightmare to set up.

The Stem Cell Debate

The book I read to research this post was The Stem Cell Debate by Various Authors which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. This book uses experts in the science, theology & politics of this subject & I must admit after reading it I can't make my mind up one way or the other. One thing I would say is I think each case of stem cell research needs to be evaluated on an individual basis & I think they should have a panel of experts to do that. I also think it's wrong to have laws that governs all cases. One thing it says in this book is a lot of scientists are opposed to doing research with fetuses & for example a lot of the cells used for various stem cell applications are removed from mice skin. It depends on what they want to do with the cells as to where they get them from. Also a lot of various types of stem cells are found deep under the skin of humans. One issue is when does a fetus become alive, a lot of religions say at the point of conception. Islam interestingly says the holy spirit enters the fetus at 120 days. In some muslim countries they allow a certain amount of research in fetuses younger than this. In America George W Bush was deeply opposed to any kind of stem cell research. It might be worth looking at my post called Banned in the USA which is about a form of stem cell research which can potentially be used to cure things like cancer & AIDS.
That's at http://scratbagroberts.com/
Another issue is should stem cell research have state funding which in the book they say a lot of the benefits aren't monetary but they can expect a 25-40% annual payback. Also America risks being left behind as countries like South Korea & China have very aggressive policies in promoting stem cell in their countries. Potentially they can understand a lot more about disease & they can cure practically any illness.

Siri

The book I read to research this post was Siri for Dummies by Marc Salzmann which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. On 5th of October last year which was the day before Steve Jobs died Apple had a press conference where they unveilled the iphone 4GS & many people were expecting the iphone 5 & the most exciting feature of that phone was for many people Siri. It's a voice activated assistant which is a download but can handle loads of different. Apple has teamed up with Wolfram Alpha so that you can ask it factual questions & it will give you an answer. You need to speak clearly & it doesn't cope very well with background noise. It adapts to the wording you use. A lot of the technology behind Siri comes from the DARPANET & the defence industry & the name comes from the SRI or Stanford Research Institute who were key developers. You can even ask it something profound like "What's the meaning of life?" & it will give you a witty answer. You can also tell it how you feel & it will offer advice. If you're looking for a certain type of shop in a particular town it will give you a list & tell you how far away they are. That feature also integrates with the GPS feature on the phone. Expect versions of Siri to come out for the iPad & iPod touch in the near future. Also although you can't directly put posts on twitter & facebook with Siri there's a way around it. You can download apps that let you do that.

Big Data Now

The book I read to research this post was Big Data Now by O'Reilley Radar which is a very good book which I downloaded for free from Kindle. This book is a compilation of articles that appeared on the O'Reilley Radar website. Processors have grown from mere kilohertz to gigahertz in the space of about 30 years. Hard drives have more than kept pace ie IBM had a hard drive the size of a refridgerator in 1982 that stored a mere 5 megabytes & nowadays you can find SD cards that store 32 gigabytes. Facebook apparently use petabyte hard drives in their servers. Big data is going in the direction of social networking. Storing the huge amounts of data that people put on them sites. If you think of all the likes and dislikes people put on them sites the potential is enormous especially for big businesses which have the financial resources to process that data. The data most companies keep is just simple things like who bought what. There is potential which will be like artificial inteligence to match up products according to peoples likes & dislikes which is still in its infancy.

Exclusive Blog

I have a blog network but from time to time I will do an exclusive blog to 1 site. I have done an exclusive blog called Some Online Trends for 2012 at http://melissaball86.wordpress.com/
It's worth checking it out.

The Future of Data Products

The book I read to research this post was Big Data Products by Mark Loukides which is a very good book which I downloaded for free from Kindle. This was only a short booklet. The rate at which data is being stored is growing phenomenonally. This means applications which didn't seem feasible a couple of years aren't far off in coming. The car that drives itself is likely to be a reality soon. It has to store huge amounts of data in the form of maps but also has to negotiate any road condition or incident. Another interesting development is if you have itunes, genius tells you what music is similiar to the music you currently own. This can cause problems for example if you go to the app store & currently have flipboard installed on your ipad it may ask are you interested in zite which is a similiar program. Normally you are probably not interested in a program that does the same job as a program you already have. The next big leap in this kind of thing is going to be intuitiveness. Google as well are working on this you will find their search engine is going in this direction. In the near future data about your preferences & what you are doing will be fed into search engines to help them make intelligent choices. You will of course be able to turn this off. It sounds like big brother doesn't it.

Facebook Forensics

The booklet I read to research this post was Facebook Forensics by various authors which is an excellent ebooklet which I downloaded from Kindle. There is quite a lot of software that can be used in conjunction with forensic examinations of facebook accounts & I think it would be wrong if I mentioned all the software in the book. There is 2 major types of investigation of facebook accounts, the first is people like paedophiles trying to groom under age children, the second is people trying to sell things like drugs. Anybody over 13 can join facebook but there is an estimated 7.5 million members under that age. When someone is suspected of one of these crimes typically their computer and/or smartphone is seized. One thing it didn't mention in this book is that any social media site can access anything you have said on their site. However the hassle involved in getting them to hand over that data is probably not worth the bother. Anyway typically they will want to access your browser history & the only program on the market that works with the 5 most common browsers which is also open source & is easy to use is cachekeep. Something I'll mention is if you are interested in a career in digital forensics there is such a shortage in britain that a lot of the things like computers that are seized are never checked & there is a long waiting list for the ones that are checked. They often use MD5 to make a copy of the hard drive & of course a write blocker has to be used to make sure an exact copy is made. If you are interested in digital forensics I have done several posts on the subject on my computing blog at http://scratbag.me/
In addition I have done a post on xbox 360 forensics at http://scratbagroberts.com/
That's my technology blog.
Encase & Sleuthkit are often used to determine what is on a computer. Sleuthkit is open source but Encase is retail software. Also you might need to crack passwords I recommend John the Ripper & Kain & Able both of which are open source.

Being a Success on Linkedin

The book I read to research this post was 10 Steps to Getting Discovered on Linkedin by Joe Silverstein which is an excellent booklet which I downloaded for nothing from kindle. I think there's only 10 pages but there's some good advice in them & while I'll only mention some of the steps I think you'll get the ghist of the book. First of all you need a decent photo which shows you from the chest up. A lot of people particularly on Linkedin get a professional photography to take it. You should consider this particularly if you are after a job. You definately shouldn't have a photo of a pet or something similiar as people will think what's he hiding. You might wonder why I haven't posted a photo & the reason is my digital camera is incompatible with my laptop which runs windows vista which in turn is the only operating system my broadband adaptor is compatible. At some stage I plan on sorting that out. Incidently I do have an almost brand new desktop pc which I can only use offline. Anyway another point with Linkedin is your headline should be angled more towards what your job entails rather than what your position is. So you might say head of human resources which is more likely to be picked up by someones search. Another thing is if in your resume you say something like I helped turn a $5 million per year loss to a $2 million per year profit say what your contribution actually & where possible say how a profit was achieved. A final thing is get a website with a domain name as close to your actual name as possible. I personally would recommend http://weebly.com/
They have an easy to use site builder which is also free you can also buy a domain name off them or use a domain name which has weebly in the title which is absolutely free. Also if you have a blog with them there is no overall space limitation although the size of your individuals is limited. You can get a paid package however that lets you upload things like video.

Commodities

The book I read to research this post was Commodities for Dummies by Amine Bouchentouf which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. When trading in commodities it's not only when the price goes up that you make money. You can gamble on the price going down. You hand over a set amount of money & agree to invest it in that commodity on a set date. I am going to look at some of the commodities you can invest in. Before that I ought to mention if there is a natural in an area that produces that item, which does seem to happen a lot nowadays you may see the market fluctuate & may lose money, so don't invest more than you can afford. The number one commodity not surprisingly is oil & you can make a lot of money investing in this. A couple of things that influence crude are if it contains a lot of sulphur it limits how useful it is. An oil containing little sulphur is referred to as a sweet crude. Also if they can make a lot of products from it they call it a light crude & if it's thicker & they can't they call it a heavy crude. Both of these types are useful because they can make different products from the two types. You will hear North Sea Oil referred to as a sweet light crude. Particularly in China & the USA coal is a huge commodity. In America more than 50% of their power stations use it. China is heavily involved in steel production which requires coke which is made from coal. Steel is a commodity & China is the worlds biggest producer. An interesting story is when David Carnegie was in charge of a huge steelmaking conglomerate he used to focus on upgrading their equipment when steel prices were low & because everyone used to upgrade when prices were high he used to get it done cheaply. That's a practise many companies do today. Coffee is a huge commodity but is of course subject to the weather. Gold is a good commodity & I bet you didn't know most gold in circulation is recycled because it's very rare. Platinum is even rarer than gold & is very resistant to tarnishing. Silver used to be used a lot in photography which of course now is mostly digital but still remains popular. Zinc is used in stainless steel & is one of the most sought after metals as a result. Palladium is used in making catalytic converters for motor vehicles so I think the potential is obvious. Aluminium is the 2nd most used metal in the world behind iron. I think I've covered the major commodities but there's lots more like natural gas & even frozen pork belly which is used to make bacon.

Buddypress

The book I read to research this post was Buddypress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson which is a very good book which I bought from Kindle. Automattic is the organisation that makes Buddypress as well as Wordpress. As you probably know Wordpress is a blogging tool. Buddypress is an open source plug in for Wordpress that turns it into a social network site. It only works with Wordpress MU which is the multi user version. This also means you need a server although you can use a hosting company like GoDaddy. You also need MySQL & PHP installed & also probably a version of Linux. There's easier solutions like Ning where the hosting is done for you & it might be worth looking at my post on Ning at
http://scratbag.me/
I also have a post on Wordpress at that site.
The idea behind Buddypress is you can have niche social networks. People can go to these sites & meet people with similiar interests. They can also join forums & do blogs at these sites. One application of Buddypress at their website is that schools often use it to start their own social networks. It gives the parents peace of mind & is easier to police than if a child joins Facebook. Although Facebook has a minimum age limit there are ways around it. Finally if you start a niche social network you have to be prepared to go around sites like YouTube & social bookmarking sites looking for information to put on your site. That's in addition to jobs like having to welcome new members & answering messages. A lot of people hopefully will visit your site daily & they will expect there to be fresh content.

Food Blogging

The book I read to research this post was Food Blogging for Dummies by Kelly Senei which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. This book is about food blogs but a lot of it can be applied to any blog. First of all I'm going to do a little bit on photographing food. If you take some cotton wool balls & boil them in hot water you can place them behind a cup of coffee for a steam effect. If you paint some gelatine onto fruit like grapes or apples it will give them a nice shiny look. If you paint meat with kitchen bouquet which is a food colouring it will give that a nice shiny look.
Now I'm going to do a bit on promoting a blog which will work equally well with any type of blog. First of all you need a twitter account - I can be found at @blitzkriegww2 - & it's no good using the automated advertiser which only displays the title. You need to put a little tempter into the tweet about what the blog is about. You should have a brand page on facebook which is apparently free & you need a personal account to do this. I have just started a Scratbag brand page so it would be nice if some of you have a look at it & click the like button. You also need to advertise it on Linkedin the professional persons Facebook & if you put lion at the end of your name it means you want lots of contacts & many people search for that tag. Incidently people on Linkedin who want lots of contacts are called lions.

Banned in the USA

The book I read to research this post was Banned in the USA by Dr William Rader which is one of the best books I have ever read & which I bought from Kindle. This book is very controversial as such I am not going to give an opinion on whether the treatment is genuine or not. I will merely explain what the book is about then let you make your own mind up. I think really to fully evaluate this book you would need to be a doctor which I am just a layman. This book potentially offers hope to people with things like cancer, AIDS, parkinsons & a myriad of other illnesses. A lot of the controversy is they use fetal matter from aborted fetuses. A lot of the research was done in Britain & the Ukraine by Dr Rader. Another point is he refuses to do double blind trials. These are trials where one patient is given the treatment & another is given a placebo. He feels it's condemning one person to death. I think he currently practises in China. The treatment is called fetal stem cell treatment. It's basically they take fetal matter change the DNA to that of the patient & transplant it into the patient. The Bush administration banned this treatment & under Obama it may take many years to get this treatment approved. Many of the drug companies are upset because in a lot of cases the treatment removes the need for drugs. He claims if someone has cancer they can upgrade the immune system to that of an 8 year old & as a result give a much higher dose of chemotherapy. In addition the upgraded immune system is better able to fight the cancer. He also claims if someone has leukemia they can grow bone marrow suitable for transplant without the need for immuno-suppresant drugs. I've barely scraped the surface with this post but I suggest if someone is interested they get the book & make their own mind up. I imagine the treatment must cost a lot of money.

Management

The book I read to research this post was Best Kept Secrets of Successful Managers by Hal Pitt which is a very good book which I bought from Kindle. 85% of people in management roles have received no formal management training. A good manager gets his employees to solve problems themselves with only occassional guidance from him. He should also have things in place that he can leave his department for a month & when he comes back things should still be running reasonably smoothly. A good plan doesn't necessarily get things done, it's the people implementing it that govern whether it will work or not. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying you shouldn't come up with a good plan but you need good people to make it work. A managers job is to be amiable but not to be anyones friend. Especially if you are newly promoted you can't have favourites. You should never go to lunch with just one employee unless maybe it's work related. What I mean is you can't go out with an employee socially because you risk losing your employees respect. You should try & bring other employees with you. Also if you are too friendly with an employee how do you appraise his performance. On the other hand you should care about your employees & if they have problems you should help them. You should always make sure they have adequate training to do their job.

Biometrics

The book I read to research this post was Biometrics for Dummies by Peter Gregory et al which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. This book is a good introduction to a complex subject & doesn't overwhelm you with technical information but just tells you what is important to know. A lot of companies & agencies are incorporating biometrics into their computer networks. A couple of years ago I saw a biometric fingerprint mouse for £13 in an Aldi & although it's probably only suitable for home use it goes to show biometrics isn't necessarily expensive. If someone like particularly a politician tells you we need to do this, this & this & then the data will be secure, he's either lying or ill informed. Whatever measures you take there is potentially ways around it. Biometrics are primarily scanning the hand, eyes or face for recognition. If it scans fingerprints you can copy someones fingerprints onto a gelatinous solution like in Mission Impossible & sticks them onto your fingers, also if you need to you can eat the evidence. Better systems either scan the whole of the fingers & palm or the veins inside the hand. It may be possible to fool some scanners by using a model of the persons hand complete with finger & palm prints. Machines that scan the eyes can sometimes be fooled by high resolution photographs. Voice scanners are unreliable because if you have a cold for example your voice can change. Some scanners scan the ear which is unique on everyone. Facial scanners can sometimes be fooled if you have an identical twin. If you are a company if someone decides to hack your system they are much more likely to use social engineering to gain access. This can mean something like wearing overalls & pretending he's there to repair the server or pretending he's an employee who has lost his password.

Starting an Online Business

The book I read to research this post was Starting an Online Business All in One for Dummies by Joel Elad et al which is an excellent book which I borrowed from the library. One thing this book says is you have to assess what your strengths & the jobs you are good at & focus on doing them. If you aren't able to build a website you are probably better off leaving that to a web designer. Something like Dreamweaver takes a long time to learn, time that could be better spent growing your business. Equally if you aren't a trained accountant get a professional they will do it in a fraction of the time. Don't go to a web design or accounting firm, they have the overheads of the company, get someone who works solo. If you are selling a few products consider getting a wordpress site & using either a free or very cheap ecommerce plugin. It gets too complicated to set up with a big range of products though. If you aren't sure what to sell have a look at
http://trendwatch.com/
or  http://trendhunter.com/
An important step is setting up a blog to promote your business especially if it's website based. In addition a blog can supplement your income if you run adverts on your site try google adwords or adsense. At the very least you should market it on Facebook & Twitter. I would also add Google+. If you have a look at my main computing blog at
http://scratbag.me/
There are posts on twitter marketing, facebook marketing, facebook advertising, google+ & small business marketing to name but a few. Venture capital may be an option try
http://vfinance.com/
With venture capital it's often invested in your company long term although often you will have to give them a share in the company & sometimes a seat in the boardroom. Another option to consider is becoming an affiliate of a company like ebay or etsy it saves you having a website at least initially & you can make a good income. I'd suggest use several sites.

Wealth Secrets

The book I read to research this post was Becoming Rich Using Clever Money Saving Techniques by Clifford A Gray which is an excellent book which I downloaded from Kindle for free. I think this book would be particularly good for someone on a low income as most of the book is about how to save money on everyday expenses. The idea being that the money you save you can either pay off your debts or invest. Did you know most cases of bankrupcy are primarily due to credit card debt? He suggests if you can make a higher percentage interest return on the money you have invested, leave it there otherwise pay off the credit card debt. Another no no is mobile phone insurance, if you can afford to replace it you shouldn't get it. Sometimes the insurance on a $40 phone is $10 per month which is extortinate. This book also contains a lot of general advice like how to set up a computer network & some ideas for handmade cheap gifts. For example what about making someone a photo cd or a video cd of a home movie. According to this book you should be using dollar stores, thrift stores & secondhand stores to their full potential. Twenty years ago they may have had a bit of a reputation but these days they sell some good stuff. You need to research what you are buying though. If you go on the internet what about having one main pc connected & use another as a back up. Many ISP's charge a lot less for a back up pc, in fact I don't think they check what pc is connected. Finally there is also an engrossing history of currency which you may find more interesting than you think. I certainly did.