In the past few years our options for accessing entertainment have grown drastically. This has changed the way entertainment industries function. Conventional stores like Blockbuster, Borders, and the iconic Virgin Megastore in Times Square are disappearing as people head to their computers to access their entertainment. Online stores give customers more options at a cheaper rate because there are fewer overhead costs and many companies are taking this route. We are seeing that, in general, this increase in options has driven prices down in most entertainment industries.

Music sites and applications like iTunes or Amazon’s MP3 Store allow people to buy single songs rather then the whole album. Some musicians allow individuals to purchase songs directly from them on their websites and many basically give their songs away. This new structure for shopping for music has caused many independent and chain stores to close and the power of record companies to shrink. The price of full albums has gone down, but the price of concert tickets and merchandise has risen to compensate for lower album sales.

Streaming music sites such as Pandora and Grooveshark allow for free customized radio with few commercials. The music is available on most Internet connected devices anywhere at any time. Many people use these services to “try out” music before buying and often times use them instead of purchasing new music.

The face of books has changed in the past couple years as well. Thanks to eBooks, people can buy digital books directly from sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble and have them instantly downloaded onto their handheld device. The prices of these digital books are usually significantly cheaper and the online stores never sell out.

Rather then pay a large monthly fee for satellite or cable TV, many people use services like Netflix and Hulu to stream television shows and movies. The competition in the TV industry to keep viewers and gain ad revenue has pushed many networks to make recently aired episodes available from their website and on handheld Internet enabled devices such as a smartphone.

Instant access to all of our entertainment needs via the Internet has greatly decreased the cost we used to have to pay for these services. Recently, however, it’s been big news that Netflix has raised their prices and segmented their service offering. There is a lot of speculation about whether this will help or hinder them. Their success with this change over the next few months will most likely determine if other online entertainment services will follow suit. Only time will tell.

Forming a habit can be a good or a bad thing, depending on the nature of the habit. For instance, paying close attention to detail and making sure your workspace is clean and tidy are good habits to form in the office. We are all also aware of some bad habits workers can form. Research shows that any habit requires a minimum of 21 days to change. That sounds like a lot of work to put into breaking a bad habit. Wouldn’t it be easier to avoid forming the bad habit in the first place?  Here are a few bad working habits, as well as some tips on how to avoid them proactively.

Working Through Lunch

    It’s not uncommon for your day to get out of hand before noon. The reality is, sometimes working through lunch is unavoidable. However, developing this habit can actually be detrimental to your productivity. We need to take breaks and give ourselves time to cool down and regroup. If you’re having a stressful day at the office, it’s best to take a full lunch rather than to try to power through. Try setting strict time boundaries on your lunchtime and start viewing it as its own work assignment.

Idealizing

    For most of us, the grass is always greener at another job. When we’ve had a bad day in the office, it’s easy to relive our childhood daydreams of exciting and dangerous professions such as being an astronaut or firefighter.. Unfortunately, idealizing another line of work makes it difficult to be happy in your current position. Instead, try making a list of all the good things your job provides for you. Documenting each small joy will help you appreciate the job you have.

Work Time Distractions

    Comical YouTube videos and entertaining flash games are added to the Internet every minute of every day. It’s easy to waste hours of work time on these simple distractions. This is a bad habit to form, and one that should definitely be avoided. To help, schedule “small breaks” throughout the day.  Reward yourself after finishing a large project or after working solidly for several hours. Creating these time boundaries will help prevent forming a habit of being distracted.

    Forming bad habits can be easier than you’d think and breaking a bad habit can be much more difficult than you’d imagine. The next time you notice yourself slipping into any of these bad habits, take some time to consider what good habits you could form to combat them.

The rapidly evolving world of technology has changed the way we do business. Not long ago we used to have to use a manual press to make an imprint of credit cards so that you can purchase something? Now thank to wireless Internet and tablets, we can easily run a credit card purchase virtually anywhere in the world.

Tablets have changed a lot more than our purchasing ease and mobility. Many people have fundamentally changed their businesses as a result of tablets. The following companies use tablets in such interesting and innovative ways it may surprise you.

At De Santos, a high-end Italian restaurant in New York City’s West Village, the members of the wait staff use iPads to take orders and swipe credit cards. The hope is that this will streamline the ordering process reducing mistakes.

Puma stores in Africa, Asia and Europe have installed iPad stations called The Creative Factory. At these stations customers can design sneakers and see other designs around from people around the globe and also read about the other creators. Puma seeks to connect the world with active footwear.

You will find no storefront or store clerks at SHOPBOX, an addition to the DeKalb Market in Brooklyn. You will, however, find items for sale in shipping containers with glass sides. On the end of the container an iPad is attached for shoppers to register and then text what they wish to purchase. The products are shipped straight to their homes. How’s that for window-shopping!

As tablet technology improves more innovative uses will be developed. It’s not unthinkable to imagine having a wait staff may be obsolete in the future or that future generations have no use for a mall. Change is the nature of the world and it seems the more advanced we become, the faster things change. So let’s sit back and watch things become easier due to technology and one day we might just get those hovercrafts promised in science fiction movies.

Most of us write several emails every day, to our friends, clients, coworkers and employers. It’s important to note that how we write these emails communicates more than we might realize. Taking time to choose your words carefully is important in order to avoid any awkward miscommunication. What would your boss think if you ended an email with “Love?” Here are some tips on determining proper email language.

Opening an Email  

Informal

Composing a message to a close friend is best done in an informal tone. When writing an informal message, you don’t need to use much more than the recipient’s name. Even a simple “Hi,” will communicate a relaxed tone and let the reader know the email they are looking at is from a close acquaintance.

Formal

Use this tone when writing an email to a coworker or employee, someone with whom you are acquainted but also professional. Consider opening your email with “Dear,” followed by the recipient’s name or a more formal greeting such as “Good afternoon” or “Good evening.” This communicates that you respect the reader but are also approaching them with a tone of familiarity.

Respectful

When writing to a higher institution, like a prospective employer, make sure and open your email with a bit more formality. Generally, you’d use this tone if the recipient were someone you were not previously familiar with. The best opening in this case is “To whom it may concern.” Using this opening communicates respect to the reader.
 
Closing an Email  

Informal

Again, when writing to someone with whom you share a close personally history, you can end the email by simply writing your name or “Love,” followed by your name. This is informal and lets the reader know that you meant the message to be a romantic one.

Formal

End a formal email with “Sincerely,” or “Yours truly.” This is not as informal as closing with just your name, but it also communicates some kind of personal relationship. This is the best tone to use when communicating professionally with someone you work with on a regular basis.

Respectful

Ending a professional and respectful email in the proper tone is very important. As in a formal tone, you may end the message with “Sincerely,” or even “Regards.” Both should adequately communicate respect. However, if the content of the message calls for it, ending with “Thank you for your time,” lets the reader know you are grateful for the time they’ve spent reading your message.

    Communicating the correct message is all a matter of vocabulary, so when composing your next email make sure to use the right words to communicate your desired message. This will help ensure that your friends don’t fear that you’ve become melancholy drone or lead your boss to believe you’ve become a hopeless romantic. Choose the right words so that you send the right message.

Usually when people file lawsuits it’s very serious business, but every so often lawsuits are filed that are rather ridiculous. Below are a few intriguing and amusing tech industry lawsuits which have been filed within the last ten years.

Pentium Hives? – In 2002, a Dutch woman filed a lawsuit against the government and Intel because she said that she got hives from her Pentium processor. Her 486-base processor did not give her the hives however and no judge was “itching” to take the case.

Google Leads a Woman into Danger? – In 2009, a women sued Google for giving her bad walking directions. The woman was hit by a car after following Google Maps walking directions onto a dark narrow highway without pedestrian paths. A judge dismissed the case and Google “dodged” the lawsuit.

Star Wars Galaxies Killed by Sony! – In 2010, angry fans of Star Wars Galaxies filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony for shutting down this online game. The MMORPG had had a steadily lessening subscribership for several years.  I guess the “force” was not strong enough to sustain the game, the fans, or the case.

Woman sues man over a failed Mafia Wars romance – Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. After investing thousands of dollars on game credits and gifts for her boyfriend on Mafia Wars, the woman sued the man for the money spent when their romance ended. Her romance and her case are now sleeping with the fishes.

While most lawsuits are no laughing matter, every once in a while you find one that is absolutely amusing. These instances of unbelievable tech industry lawsuits are perfect illustrations of this. If you have heard of any please share them by leaving a comment here or on one of our other social media accounts! 

As access to information worldwide grows, governments and authorities fear how uncensored access will impact the people they govern. Due to this fear governing authorities develop different procedures to cope with this. Some choose to monitor or restrict access to certain sites; others choose to completely control all forms of communication-technology in order to regulate the content people are exposed to.

The countries below have varying levels of severity for censoring and restricting the Internet, cell phones, and other communication technologies.

The United States – It is illegal in the US for civilians to use cell phone jammers but in some instances, federal officials may. Recently, the issue of censorship vs. free speech was brought into focus in America. San Francisco transit officials prevented the usage of all cell phones on the BART system by cutting off electrical power to cellular towers. They effectively prevented an anti-police brutality protest, as well as enraged the public and precipitated a federal investigation into the legality of their actions.

China – Individual private screens and chat room are highly monitored and quite a few websites are blocked in China due to their content. See if your favorite websites are blocked in China on this website.

North Korea – One of the most technologically censored countries in the world, North Korean grants access to only three websites of academic information. There are a few heavily monitored chat rooms hosted on a closed system that are permissible. The North Korean Internet is more like an Intranet. The high level of censorship has created a huge black market for cell phones in North Korea.

The reasons governments give for censoring communication technologies are as varied as the levels of strictness. Here are a few reasons that are commonly given:

Reasons why censorship is necessary

• Censorship can protect the safety of the public
• Censorship can prevent youths from being exposed to inappropriate content
• Censorship can protect social unity and national glory
• Censorship can prevent disturbing the social order
• Censorship can protect national security

Reasons why censorship can be dangerous

• Censorship violates the natural right of self-expression
• Censorship can prevent people who have an emergency from getting help
• Censorship can lead to ignorance of the world and other cultures
• Extreme censorship can lead to social upheaval
• Extreme censorship can lead to an oppressed and uneducated society

A professor at the University of Kansas, Barney Warf, published a definitive study of the geography of Internet censorship in an issue of GeoJournal. He believes that the more globalized a country becomes, the harder it is to control types and amounts of information the public can access. Whether or not technological censorship is right or wrong is situational and up to individual opinion. As the world becomes more connected it will become harder for nations to control the flow of data and we will see this issue continue to arise worldwide.

You can read this article to learn more about Professor Barney Warf and his study.

Google is the newest heavy hitter in the social media world. One of the most notable differences between Google and other standard social media sites like Facebook or Twitter is that account holders are restricted from using pseudonyms. Anonymity is very common on the Internet, which is most likely the reason why Google ’s decision to ban pseudonyms has made such a large impact. There are a few key pros and cons to complete anonymity on the Internet, here are a few to consider.

Pros

    The Internet rarely requires users to provide their real names or implements effective methods of verifying personal information. Consider all the fake celebrity Twitter accounts, the source behind Twitter’s “Verified” status. However, easy anonymity comes with a specific layer of safety that is a necessity in many cases. Think of someone who has been the victim of abuse or stalking. For these individuals, being able to use a name other than their own makes them harder to find and therefore safer. In these cases, the connectivity that comes with the Internet can still be enjoyed while remaining at a safe distance from those they wish to stay away from.

Cons

    The majority of Internet annoyances, including crimes, begin with a fake persona on the Internet. Email scams, social media spam and profile hacks are all done by employing an anonymous account in one form or another. This makes anonymity on the Internet a complicated issue because it’s a difficult thing to adequately monitor. While there are methods, such as IP tracing, that can reveal the identity of most Internet users, generating a fake identity is still easy. In the same way that anonymity can grant freedom, it can also be a shield for criminals.

    Internet anonymity is a matter of personal responsibility. It is only as bad as the person taking advantage of it. When deciding your stance on the issue, first consider how you use it.

We see new technologies come into our lives everyday. It feels like the instant we buy a new computer, a better, more effective version is released. It is tough to stay ahead of the technology curve. You might not be aware that there are a few technologies that have with stood the test of time.

What characteristics does a technology need to accomplish this? Adaptability is at the top of the list, as well as versatility and configurability. Here are a few which have stuck around for more then a few decades.

Virtual Memory – 1962 – This permits systems to use hardware memory more efficiently by recycling space used for memory. This idea led to time-sharing or the ability for systems to multi-task.

MOS Chip – 1967 – Metal-oxide semiconductor. This technology is employed today to make computer chips and is known as CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor). The technology has changed a bit over time so adaptability is one trait that has kept it alive.

C programming language – 1969 – Designed by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs, C is the most popular and widely used programming language on the planet. When you get something right why change it?

It is quite incredible that technologies invented over 50 years ago still make up the foundation of those we use today. While our machines get thinner, faster, sleeker, and more easy to use, the core technology that makes it all possible is strong enough to stand up to the demands of the machines we dare to dream up.

You can find more technologies that have withstood the test of time here: http://www.osnews.com/thread?484715

We are all familiar with finding annoying spam messages in our e-mail inbox, labeled by subject lines offering cheap Rolex watches or urgent cries for help from friends mysteriously trapped in Europe. But what do you do when the tables are turned and it’s your friends who are getting spam messages from your personal e-mail account? When this happens, it means your e-mail has been hacked. If you ever find yourself the victim of a spamming crime, remember to follow these 3 steps in order to regain control.

Notify Webmail Provider

    The first step you should take is notifying your webmail provider. Make sure to contact them through their helpdesk or contact service and notify them of your hacked account. Reporting any hacking problems will allow the webmail provider to rectify the situation and then fortify their security to ensure that this situation will not be repeated.

Change Password

    Perhaps the most important step to take after finding your e-mail has been hacked is changing your password. This will ensure that whomever has compromised your account won’t be able to do so again. It’s also a great time to create a more intricate password, one that won’t be easily guessed by a traditional hacker. It’s not surprising that randomized password guessing compromises most emails. After all, the most common password is “password.”

Notify your contact list

    Let everyone on your contact list know that any messages received from your account over the past several days may have been spam. Doing this will help ensure that no scams are successful and no viruses are transmitted. Sending out an email to all your contacts is the responsible thing to do in this situation. Make sure to convey the message clearly in the subject line, as some members of your comment list have already opened a spam message and are currently staying away from your e-mails.

    No one likes having his or her personal information compromised. It’s important to remember that, if your email has been hacked, your online banking and other Internet managed services may also be compromised. If you’d like additional information on what you should with a hacked email, please take a look at this article.

Most of us set goals in our personal lives. It keeps us motivated and each accomplishment gives us the drive to keep reaching further. We do this in our home life so why not do this in our work life too?

Around 30% of our lives are spent at work. Some people are unfulfilled by this time. Many people do not feel that they are an active part of the company and let whatever comes into their inbox dictate how their time is spent. Setting goals gives people a sense of control and allows them to choose how they spend their day. They feel like an active member of the team as they have a say in establishing  goals and the part they will play in their completion.

More than ever people work autonomously; people who work like this must be proactive about setting goals. Regardless of whether you work in a group or autonomously, here are a few tips that will help you start the process of goal setting.

1. Set or Assess Goals Every 3-6 Months – These types of meetings will allow the team or individual to analyze the goals, set specific times for their completion, and help them stay focused.
2. Write Goals Down – Documentation helps to solidify the goals in your mind and provides a reference point for motivation or redirection.
3. Aim High – Set goals a little outside your comfort zone. This can lead to learning new skills and finding pride in one’s work. Remember, don’t set your goals so high that it is an extreme burden or unachievable for you or your team.
4. Find a System to Measure Performance – Set a timeframe for the steps to be completed or skills that need to be learned for the goal to be achieved.
5. Celebrate Each Achievement – Whether working independently or with a team, be sure to celebrate each step that has been reached that supports the larger goal. Positive reinforcement goes a long way and it can be as simple as a word of acknowledgment.
6. Schedule the Next Goal Setting Meeting – Keep goals fresh, new, and on the top of everyone’s agendas by thinking ahead and scheduling the next meeting.

Feeling pride in our work and feeling like we contribute is valuable to everyone. Setting and reaching goals reminds us of the important part we play in the larger goal.