DropBox

Now here’s a smart way of sharing files between your mobile device and a PC/Mac! DropBox (www.dropbox.com) works with smartphones running iPhone, iPad, Blackberry & Android OSs. The screenshot here is DropBox running on my iPhone 4, but the following features are generic across all OS platforms.
Synchronise Files automatically between your mobile smartphone and your PC/Mac 🙂
Storage free of 2GB and up to 100GB for a small price. DropBox servers are secure 🙂
File Management couldn’t be easier, create folders to organise files, work collaboratively.
For a more detailed description of what DropBox can be used for, visit https://www.dropbox.com/features.
Photo & Video Management is great, enabling you to take a photograph or video on your smartphone and access it within seconds on a PC/Mac. This has some very exciting possibilities what a mobile worker can deliver photographs/videos etc back to their office very quickly, effectively anywhere in the world!

Security for iPhone 4

Now here’s quite a smart app! So, here’s your scenario: You often leave your iPhone unattended on your office desk whilst you’re away for a while, one day you return to your desk and shock! horror! someone’s walked off with your iPhone!!! 😦

So, this free ‘Security’ app once set up will take a photo of the person who picked up your iPhone using it’s front facing camera and email the photo to you automatically!
Grab a screenshot of your main ‘home screen’ and use this image in ‘Security’, the image will be shown when ‘Security’ is running and protectively waiting. You enter the email address that you’d like to be informed on.
Your email sent from ‘Security’ will be entitled: Security Alert – Image attached. The email message states: A security alert was triggered from your iPhone at 7:15pm on October 20th, 2010 – a photo of the user is attached. Security! for iPhone 4.

Whilst ‘Security’ is active, everytime, the screen is touched, your iPhone will take a photo of who’s trying to use your iPhone and email you automatically. How kool is that 🙂

The Phones Show Chat

Two more of the great chat show podcasts are now available from Steve Litchfield & Co.
Phones Show Chat 58 – covers the Nokia N8, Acer Stream, the Nokia X3 and much more.
Phones Show Chat 59 – covers the Nokia X3, Sony Ericsson X10 Mini-Pro, Google Nexus One, the Nokia N8 and much more.
These great podcasts are a highly recommended way of keeping up to speed with the latest smartphones and gadgets. They’re interesting, fun and informative 🙂 🙂 🙂

AVG Anti-Virus (Free Edition) 2011

It’s out now! My PC prompted me today and within a few minutes, the free Anti-Virus by AVG (http://www.avg.com/gb-en/homepage) had carried out the upgrade to 2011.
I’ve been so pleased 🙂 🙂 🙂 with the free Anti-Virus software from AVG, since I gave up with Norton Anti-Virus that I’d paid for, for a few years. In fact, I recall getting clobbered by a virus or two when NAV was supposedly protecting me. Yet, since being protected by AVG, I’ve been virus free! 🙂

The Phone Show (Video) & Phone Chat (Audio)

I’ve known Steve Litchfield for what must be about 18 years! Since he soon become one of the biggest names amongst Psion Palmtop enthusiasts. Steve these days produces some really great video and audio shows covering reviews etc on a wide range of smartphones; accompanied by Tim Salmon and a group number of other contributors.

The Phone Show (Video)
Programme: 122, 07/10/10 – Nokia N8, Motorola Flipout.
Programme: 121, 22/09/10 – New phones galore, Android v Symbian… the real world.
Programme: 120, 11/09/10 – The Top 5 720p-shooting smartphones, Nokia E5.

Note – many more great, informative and interesting video podcasts are available from http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/sshow/

The Phone Show (Audio Chat)
Chat No. 57, 04/10/10 – Nokia N8 (Symbian), HTC Desire (Android) and more…
Chat No. 56, 27/09/10 – Nokia E63, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Flipout, Sony Ericsson X10 Mini and more…
Chat No. 55, 20/09/10 – Nokia E7, Kev abandons the iPhone 4! and more….

Note – more many great, informative and interesting audio podcasts are available from http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/sshow/chat.html

Highly recommended! 🙂 🙂 🙂

iPhone apps put user privacy at risk!!!

As an iPhone 4 user now, I was recently alarmed to read on ‘The Register’ news site that a large number of applications that run on Apple’s OS in iPhone/iPod collect serial numbers that uniquely identify the hardware device!!! 😦 😦 😦 According to a study that warns the practice could compromise users’ privacy. Apparently, the platform warns users what personal information an app they want to install can access, but neither state precisely what information is collected or how it is used. A study analyzed 57 apps — including those in the iTunes Store’s top 25 free and top free news categories — by running them through a packet sniffer that monitored the data they sent to remote servers. Of those, 68% transmitted UDIDs (Unique Device IDentifier) to servers under the control of developers or advertisers, while another 18% sent encrypted data that could have included the unique serial number. Just 14% of the apps were confirmed not to send UDIDs. Also alarming is that the BBC News app that was analyzed included a tracking cookie that didn’t expire for four years!, while ABC News set a cookie that persisted for 20 years!! A CBS News app transmits both the UDID and the iDevice’s user-assigned name, which is often the full name of the owner. A “substantial number of applications” — including those from Amazon, Facebook and Twitter — have the ability to link UDIDs to real-world identities.

2 out of 3 Android apps use private data ‘suspiciously’!

I was recently alarmed to read on ‘The Register’ news site that Google’s Android operating system doesn’t provide controls to adequately protect users’ sensitive data! 😦 According to a study that found two-thirds of applications monitored used phone numbers, geo-location, and other information “suspiciously”!!! 😦 The study randomly selected 30 of the most popular apps from Google’s Android Market that access personal information and closely tracked how much of it they transmitted. Fifteen of the apps reported users’ locations to remote advertising servers and seven applications broadcast the handset’s device number or phone number to outside servers!!! 😦 😦 😦 What makes it worse is that in almost all the cases, the information was collected without informing users about what was happening. In some cases, information was reported as frequently as every 30 seconds!!! A further concern is that the study may be the best evidence yet that Android users have little way of knowing what happens to the wealth of information stored on their phones when they install any one of the 70,000 or so apps available in the Google-sanctioned Market.