Chet Davis - Your Technology Tutor

How to Deal With the Facebook and Email Rumor Mill

This past week I encountered two otherwise interesting and compelling stories, one by email from a friend and the other a story shared by a Facebook Friend.  I say otherwise as they both turned out to be false, fake, urban legends or a story that was embellished.

Now there's nothing illeagl about passing along these stories via email or sharing them on Facebook but, knowing what I do, I am compelled to check the accuracy of such a story before passing it along to others, or commenting on it.

And while it's not illegal, if you forward one of the 'chain' emails it could contain mal-ware (virus, trojan horse, etc - that is designed to infect the recipient computer) or it could also be the harvesting work for or of a spam-bot...that will get your valid, live email address for all their spam campaigns.

Either way, you can check out and find many of the truth behind these stories on websites like Hoax Encyclopedia or Snopes . 

Here is some additional good info on the topic of sharing or spreading hoax stories and emails Toxic Excuses on About.com.

Gmail Ready to Roll-Out It's New Look and Features

Gmail (Google's free On-line Email application) announced late this past summer that it would be changing the look and feel of the popular cloud email program.  They're now ready to roll it out - starting today you can check out the new appearance and features and enable your Gmail account to immediately switch to the new Gmail.  Here's a short video highlighting the changes:

When will these changes take place? Well, according to the official Google blog "We’ll be bringing these changes to everyone soon, but if you’d like to make the switch right away, we’re rolling out a 'Switch to the new look link' in the bottom-right of Gmail over the next few days"

To read more about the new changes to Gmail - check out this post  here Gmail's New Look.

 

Tech Tutor Classroom -- Online Learning Sessions Announced

I am excited to announce the launch of a brand new learning opportunity - the Tech Tutor Classroom.  The Tech Tutor Classroom is a series of technology lessons & presentations delivered live over the internet -- from my computer to yours.  This 'webinar' technology allows me to teach a group of folks who are miles apart.

The participants will be able to see my computer screen as I teach from a variety of contemporary and interesting topics.  You will also be able to hear my voice, and other program audio through your computer speaker or headset.

I will be presenting these Tech Tutor Classroom sessions every other Wednesday at 9:30AM Pacific Time (10:30AM Central/12:30PM Eastern).

Click to below playback a short video highlighting the new
Tech Tutor Classroom online learning opportunity.

This brand new Tech Tutor series allows folks to learn from the comfort and convenience of their home or office -- and receive excellent instruction from a top-notch teacher. 

I have spent more than 30 years working successfully with communication and productivity technologies -- and the only thing I enjoy more than relevant technology tools is teaching.

I spent 17 years as a professional educator -- since leaving the public school classroom, I have led workshops and seminars across North America. 

For further details and specifics for the webinar technology click to visit the 'Tech Tutor Online Learning' page.

 

And for a quick glimpse of the upcoming Your Tech Tutor Classroom topics & dates - visit this page: Your Tech Tutor Classroom Schedule & Registration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Being Perpetually Connected"

I caught this short interview on the Big Think website just this week - even thought the interview was taped back in November of last year (2010).  William Powers - Technology & Media Writer speaks about "The Disconnect of Being Perpetually Connected".  There is some insightful thoughts about how connected we are to our technology, well some of us at least.  And William shared how some are disconnecting from their technology addiction even for short times.

You can read the transcript from this interview on the Big Think website here: "The Disconnect of Being Perpetually Connected"

William Powers' first book is "Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age" (HarperCollins, 2010).

April Fool's Day 2011 - Google Introduces Gmail Motion

Leave it to Google for a great April Fool's Day Prank -- today they have unleashed 'Gmail Motion - beta'

This new functionality allows us to 'break free of the outdated keyboard' and use body motion to correspond with creating and sending email messages.  Google even went so far as to create a short video and chart showing the main functions introducing this (faux) technology.

 

For an extra bit of fun - after viewing the video, click on the 'Try Gmail Motion' blue button on the Gmail Motion website.

I love it when technologically sophisticated and capable individuals pull out all the stops to have some fun!  Here is a copy of the Gmail Motion Chart

 

You can read all about it on the Gmail Motion webpage here.

How to Back Up Gmail

You may have heard that Gmail - the free email service provided by Google - had a system crash last weekend that caused system failure for about 2-1/2 hours.  After service was restored a portion of Gmail customers found their messages were no longer accessible.  While it is important to accurately report that is was a small percentage (something Google states as "0.08% of the Google Mail user base”) that would make some 100,000 people. If I was one of those folks I would be less than pleased right now.

While this is a rarity for Google, which apparently has sufficient server redundancy (computer & technology) back-ups for all the data that Google wants us all to trust to 'the cloud' it is a good reminder to back-up or archive the data that would be hard pressed to live without.

Time Magazine's Technology Blog 'TechLand' posted a good list of methods for backing up your Gmail messages. You can read that article here:  How to Back Up Gmail.  For the present, I am choosing to continue to use an email client on my computer, with server back-up for all my email communications (and yes, I have gmail as well but save critical messages to my primary email account)

Here is a list of the services/solutions that TechLand shares in their blog post:

• Gmail Backup
• Desktop e-mail software
• Fetchmail
• Auto-forwarding - not really a program but a function within Gmail to forward all your messages to another email provider (for safe-keeping).