Edward Kiledjian

You just ordered pizza and want to find out how much you need to tip the delivery guy. Go to Google and search for "Tip calculator"

Enter your information and voila.

You know there is a Secretary day but can't remember when? Ask Google. Search for "Secretaries day" and voila.

You can search for historically significant dates such as "When did WW2 start"

You can ask for dates related to important people such as "When what John a MacDonald born"

Do any google search you want then type "Do a barrel roll" and watch the entire Google search results page turn around.

Just ask Google for "Weather" and it will give you the weather in your area. Ask for "Weather in XX" and it will give you the weather in that location.

I'm heading to San Francisco in February for a CIO conference and want to know the average temperature so I just search for "weather in san francisco in February" and Google provides the answer

Everyone wants to be healthier by eating more fresh foods but fresh foods don't come with nutrition labels. Use Google as your own private nutritionist. Searching for "brussel sprouts", Google presented me with:

Google has nutritional information on over 1000 different fruits, veggies and processed products. 

How many carbs in a cup of white rice? Google knows

I can ask Google when the next game for a particular sports team is. In the above example I can see the Canadiens are playing the Predators on Jan 20 at 730PM in Montreal.

I can also check the scores of the last Montreal Canadiens game versus the Islanders by simply searching for "montreal canadiens vs islanders"

Let's say I know nothing about the NBA and want to know what teams are in the NBA, I can search Google for "NBA Teams" and would be presented with an answer ribbon.

Clicking on any of the team icons would present an infopage about that specific team

If I want to know how the teams are doing, I can search for "NBA team standings"

Same thing can be done for any other major sport

2014 was the year of the hack. The year of the spectacular hack. You know this because these major incidents were reported in your run of the mill 6PM news show (not just the tech press).

As we start a fresh new year, what can we expect?

This isn't your father's malware

Virus' and malware started out (in the early days of computing) as a way to show hacking was possible but didn't harm anything. Then we started seeing basic virus' that wipe the MBR of a hard-drive but this was easily recoverable. Then we had a lull where virus' were boring and unspectacular. 

A couple of years ago we started seeing malware designed to convert your home computing devices into zombies to power the DDoS attack armies of evil doers everywhere (computer, smartphone, router, smart devices, etc). End of last year we finally found out about Regin (link, link). Regin seems to be the most sophisticated espionage tool the world had ever seen. 

This uber capable malware is stealthy and remained unknown for years while it gathered intelligence for its master from government, research institutions, telecommunication companies, airlines, corporations and individual. Researchers believe this was state-sponsored but aren't pointing a finger to any specific country. 

Looking at the tools we use to detect and analyse malware, we also see a significant increase in the number of highly targeted and extremely sophisticated that easily slips through traditional antivirus based security tools. Late in 2014 we even saw a couple that are also cautious not to run in a clean virtualized environment to prevent detection by behavioural scanning engines.  

Expect 2015 to be an "interesting" year with highly advanced malware that will require a new bread of detection tool.

Enter a flight number in the Google search box and it will show you the up to date departure and arrival time information. 

I travel many times during the year and when in a foreign city, I use Google to find things I may need (pharmacy, bank, restaurant, etc).

In the above example, I searched for a Pharmacy near a Montreal landmark.

I can search for anything else my heart desires. This is incredibly valuable when traveling to a location you have no knowledge of. Plus the ratings and telephone numbers are right there for immediate use.

A question I receive regularly is 

Here is my answer to that question.

I have been a happy Canon shooter for the last 7 years. I use to own a tone of Canon glass (lenses) and accessories but they are all gone. Replaced by something I wouldn't even have though of 6 months ago, a Sony A6000 mirrorless camera. It has turned out to be the best everyday and travel camera for the average Joe.

Travel Camera Requirements

As a frequent traveller, I am always looking for ways to cut my travel weight. How can I upgrade my gear to be smaller, lighter and more usable? I quickly realized these requirements weren't only applicable when travelling. Owning the prosummer Canon dSLR cameras, I often found myself leaving the kit at home and snapping pics with my iPhone. Why? Weight and size. There were many times (even when in my home city) that I just didn't want to carry a large backpack (Lowepro) just to take pictures so I surrendered to sub-par smartphone quality pictures.

The Sony

I watched a Youtube video from Nikon pro photographer Jason Lanier about why he left Nikon for Sony (link). As I continued reading and talking to photographers I had met over the years, more and more of them have been converting to Sony.

There are hundreds of technical write-ups and reviews about the Sony A6000 (which is the new brother of the older NEX-5/NEX-7), so that's not the purpose of this article.  The purpose of this article is to provide food for thought.

Why I love the Sony A6000

It is small, light, fast and offers incredible pictures. It delivered wonderful 24 megapixel images at 11 frames per second (in good light). 

At first I was looking at the Olympus Micro Four-Third systems but was put off by the small sensor. The Sony's cropped sensor is bigger than the Micro Four-Third ones (Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, etc). Bigger sensors are better especially in low light. 

As a non-professional user, I don't need a hundred lens options but I do need a good selection and you won't be disappointed. I have tested some Sony lenses and everyone of them has been excellent. I am now testing the Sigma 30MM (f2.8) which is turning out to be a little gem (write-up coming shortly). There is an incredibly rich lens ecosystem for the Sony E-mount system.

The camera itself is small, light and compact but all of the lenses are also light, small and compact. A Sony 18-200 is 30-40% smaller than its smallest Nikon or  Canon counterpart. 

The Sony A6000 has an unbelievable 179 points of phase-detecting auto-focus. The Canon 70d (which is their comparable prosummer camera) has 19 auto-focus points. Auto-focus on the Sony A6000 is fast and accurate which means less blurry shots. This is especially wonderful when you are visiting a foreign land you may never come back to.

Even in automatic mode (which I rarely use), the camera takes wonderfully detailed and sharp pictures. It has a fantastic ability to properly determine the situation and switch the camera into an optimized shooting mode.

The Sony A6000 has an electronic viewfinder (as opposed to the optical viewfinder included in most Canon and Nikon prosummer dSLRs.) Some complain that an EVF is not as good but I disagree. An EVF means you are seeing exactly what the camera will capture which means there are no surprises (filters, modifications and in-camera improvements).

Last but not least is the price. You can pickup a Sony A6000 with 2 great kit lenses for under $1000 which is an incredible value. Amazon has it with a 16-50mm and 55-210mm lens kit for under $1000 (link)

Negative points

There are only 2 negative points that I want to mention.

The camera is not weather-sealed.This means that if you use it in dusty environments, you can expect dust to penetrate the device (and don't use it under the rain).

The WIFI smartphone based control system is functional but far from efficient. I wish Sony would improve it.

Conclusion

Overall this is a fantastic camera. I loved it so much, I sold my Canon equipment in the first month. It is a fantastic camera for travel and a fantastic camera for everyday use. Since buying it, I find I carry it around more and therefore have better pictures.

The pictures I take are tack sharp, clear and well balanced. I normally take all my pictures in RAW format and use DXO Optics Pro 10 to improve them and produce phenomenally wonderful final JPG images.

DPReview Review

You can use Google as a timer. Just enter "Set Timer for XX minutes" and voila. At the end it will beep.

You can also set a timer for a specific time by entering it as "Set timer for hh:mm". It will set a countdown timer to that specified time and again beep at the end. You have to press OK to stop the beeping.

Pressing the little square box makes the timer go fullscreen

Truth is typing on a slab of glass just isn't efficient. Even with the larger iPhone 6 plus, iPad mini or Ipad Air 2, typing is acceptable at fast. Typing on glass is much slower than typing on a traditional keyboard (because of the tactile response which means you don't have to look at the keyboard). 

Over the last 20 years, I have tried hundreds of portable keyboard and only a small handful have actually been "good" or usable in the field. Now a company called WayTools is launching a brand new ultra compact portable bluetooth keyboard called the TextBlade. [Since it is bluetooth, it works with all modern smartphones and tablets including iPhone, iPad, Samsung, HTC, Nexus and more).

Announced at CES, it is a 3 piece keyboard that magnetically attaches to itself. It charges using any USB port and the company claims you get 1 month of autonomy with a 1 hour charge. 

The company describes the TextBlade as:

WayTools TextBlade uses the same QWERTY layout we all know and love but adds smart functions like copy/paste, easy letter, word or sentence selection, etc.

I can't judge it until I test one for a couple of weeks but I am very much interested and intrigued. If this works as advertised, it may turn out to be a huge win for the company and mobile productivity nuts.  

LinkedIn is a critical business tool for many professionals. It can be incredibly useful for research, communication, strategy building and corporate intelligence. 

Social Network privacy is a difficult concept for most users to understand. Social Networks are built on their ability to track you and then use that information to generate money. Facebook does this by leveraging your network to generate custom sticky newsfeeds. LinkedIn uses this information to entice users to "upgrade to premium" to see who has viewed your profile. Obviously it is in their interest to make enabling maximum privacy as confusing and as difficult as possible. If too many people enabled the maximum privacy settings, their networks would become less engaging and sticky, driving down revenues. 

So how can you browse LinkedIn profiles anonymously? Read on my friend...

Go to Account Settings

Click on Privacy & Settings 

Then Select the Profile Tab

Choose "Select what others see when you've viewed their profile"

Now choose what level of privacy you want to enable. In my case, I've left it on the default setting. You can choose "You will be totally anonymous" and voila.

Every Apple mobile device user (iPhone, iPad or iPad mini) needs lightning cables. A question I receive regularly is:

The reality is that you can buy a lightning cable on sites like Aliexpress.com for around $US2 from ads like this.

But should you? The answer is a resounding NO!

Although most lightning cables look alike, they are very different on the inside and it is the inside that really counts. Bad cables will break quickly and even charge slower. Remember that every "real" Apple certified MFI lightning cable includes a special control chip that is only sold by Apple. The cheap $2 cables do not include an original Apple provided chip (the cheapest ones forego the chip which means your device will flag it as an uncertified accessory and some have counterfeit replica chips).

The best lightning cable

I have written and twitted about Monoprice for years now so it should be no surprise that my favorite (best value) lightning cable comes from them. When you look at the design of the cable (on the inside), it is built as good as the original Apple cable.

The original Apple one costs $7 more.

Before anyone asks the question, I did look at other competing cables from other name brands and the Monoprice is the best.

Runner up to best lightning cable

If for some reason the Monoprice cable is not available, my next favorite cable is the Anker lightning cable:

It is built almost as well as the original Apple product or the Monoprice cable. The Anker lightning cable charges devices just as fast also. I have tested a handful of Anker products so far (batteries, AC wall plugs, etc) and have been fairly impressed with the quality of their wares.

You can get the Anker cable directly from Amazon (link).

Best short travel lightning cable

My favorite short travel or everyday carry lightning USB cable is the HelloNomad NomadKey I have written about before (link). It is small, lightweight and very durable (although a bit pricey at $29).

Best Hybrid Lightning Cable

There is one last category of cable I want to talk about and that is the hybrid micro-USB and lightning cable. My first experience with a hybrid dual use cable was many years ago when I had an iPhone 4 and bought the Innergie Magicable Trio

It was an expensive ($30) but well designed cable that travelled around the world with me for years. Innergie did release the MagiCable Duo with Lightning (link) recently but I haven't had a chance to test it out yet so I can't recommend it just yet. This new cable costs $29.

Since you probably have dozens of micro-USB cables already scattered across your house, another option is to buy Apples Lightning to Micro-USB adapter 

For $11, you can convert any of your existing micro-USB cables to a makeshift lightning cable (charges and syncs). This is an adapter that I own and carry when I travel because it means one of my cables can be dual use (micro or lightning). It is small and incredibly solidly built.

Again don't buy the cheaper micro-USB to lightning adapters (from AliExpress.com, DHGate.com, DealExtreme, Amazon, etc) because most of them don't have an authentic Apple issued Lightning connector chip. Pay a couple of dollars more to protect your $500-700 investment (ipad or iphone). 

There are dozens of document scanning apps for IOS but you have to stand up and take notice when document management titan Evernote jumps in. I have been testing it for months and it works really well. 

If you have a ScanSnap Evernote edition, you can even control it from the App ( but the app takes scans using your smartphone camera). I tested it with receipts, documents and cards. The app did almost perfect automatic improvements every time. 

Download it from iTunes (link)