Data Doctors Tech Tips

I'm always on the hunt for tech that embellishes our daily lives and one of my all-time favorites is the free website known as If This Then That or IFTTT for short. This awesome website can help put the Internet to work for you by creating something they refer to as recipes that can leverage your online life in incredible ways. For example, you can use a recipe to automagically create reminders on your smartphone whenever you click the star on a Gmail message or send a text to your significant other when you're leaving work. IFTTT integrates with over 160 different online services and with a huge library of existing recipes that have been created by others in the community. If you've got a vivid imagination yourself, you can assemble your own recipes and share them with the rest of the world. IFTTT also offers apps for iPhones, iPads and Android users that allow you to create recipes just about anywhere. If you've never heard of IFTTT, do yourself a favor and checkout http://IFTTT.com to get started with the fun and productivity.

Just how many remote control devices are laying around your living room right now? And even if you've gotten it down to one universal remote, how often are you having to go search for it? You always have your smartphone, so wouldn't it be awesome if you could just turn it into your universal remote? Well, you may have a smartphone that's got the hardware and only needs an app to make it happen. Any Android handset that has infrared built-in needs only to install a free app called Peel to turn it into a universal remote device. If you're an iPhone user, you can get a device called Pronto which pairs with the free Peel app to get the job done on iOS devices. The Pronto costs about $50 and is essentially a multi-directional receiver/transmitter that has a range of about 80 feet. It uses common AA batteries which should last about a year, so it can be set up just about anywhere in your house. It's currently designed to work with iPhones only, but a long-rumored Android version is supposedly in the works. Learn all about it at http://GetPronto.com

If you own one of the iPad models with a built-in camera, you've likely figured out that the image quality that it produces isn't nearly as good as your iPhone. The biggest difference is in the optics of iPad camera; they're just not that sophisticated, but I know lots of people that prefer having the large display to get a shot. If you really want to use your iPad for photography, a way to vastly improve the sophistication is by using one of the photography apps designed to boost the image quality on the iPad. One of my favorites is called Blux Camera for iPad because it has a number of features that will help you step up the quality of the images you can capture. Rather than waiting until you take the picture to give you various filters and adjustable photo settings, the Blux app gives you the controls on-screen before you take the shot! Another helpful feature is called PEAR, which stands for Photographic Environment Analysis and Recommendation. It's like having an experienced photo assistant giving you suggestions on how to get a better shot based on the environment you are shooting in. I've posted the direct link to the Blux App at DataDoctors.com/radio https://itunes.apple.com/app/id573827039

You've probably noticed that many websites will allow you to use one of your social media accounts to sign up for a free service, instead of having to fill out a form. It's usually presented as a faster process to get started with the site, but what you need to understand is that you're exchanging your profile information for this faster access to the service or info that you seek. A lot of apps also offer this same convenience, so if you've opted to use this method, you've given your permission to dozens of sites to allow them to access your profile info. If you know how to find them, there are generally settings buried deep at each of the sites with the ability to revoke their access. A web resource called http://MyPermissions.org takes all the hard work out of finding those settings for many of the major networks. All you have to do is click on the icon for the sites you want to revoke, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and you are transported right to the settings to make the changes. You can even sign up for specific alerts when a new app or service gains access to your info and they offer a mobile app to allow you to clean on the go. Visit http://MyPermissions.org to get started!

Whenever your car starts making strange noises, you generally pay attention, right? Well, when it comes to your computer, you should start doing the same thing because those strange sounds can be a warning sign that a meltdown is impending. Whether it's grinding, whirring or buzzing, it's generally a sign that one of the moving parts in your computer is showing signs of wear. The cooling fans, for instance, are very common points of failure and worse yet, if the noise stops by itself, it could very well mean that your fan stopped working altogether. Since heat is the single biggest threat to all of your electronics, allowing your cooling fans to stop spinning is like having and empty radiator in your car. Whenever you hear any kind of clicking sound, especially if you can't get your computer to start up, you should immediately shut it off and seek professional help. Any kind of clicking noise from your computer generally mean that your hard drive has failed. Trying to restart your computer in hopes of getting it to work will cause irreparable damage and is almost certain to lead to permanent data loss, so be very careful with this specific sound. Learn more at http://www.datadoctors.com/help/columns/21814

Home automation devices that are affordable made a big presence once again at this pas year's CES with a much larger variety of companies promoting their systems. While low cost and the easy-to-install devices can be very interesting, choosing the wrong platform may become a problem down the road. Huge players like Samsung and LG are integrating smart home features into many of their appliances, they aren't likely to support devices outside of their own partnerships. If you're serious about Do-It-Yourself home automation, something to look at are the more open standards that supports the many protocols and gadgets that are on the market. One of my favorites is still the SmartThings platform because they created an open standard that'll also work with over a thousand different automation devices including the Phillips Hue lightbulbs and Belkin's popular WeMo devices. What makes the platform even better is that anyone can generate new uses for the platform and share them with the rest of the SmartThings community. A note of warning: since all of these system work off of your home's wireless network, it's critical that you've setup solid security on your wireless router before you start adding these devices. Learn more at http://www.smartthings.com

Most of us spend a lot of time on the Internet and in doing so, open lots of tabs as you surf, so you've probably run into this scenario: You're in the middle of reading a news story on a website when all of the sudden some commercial video starts blaring from one of the other sites that you have opened, but you have no idea which one it could be. You have to then go clicking through all the open tabs to figure out which one of the previous sites is causing the obnoxious noise...what a pain! The wizards over at Google must have had just about enough of this themselves, because they made a tweak to their Chrome browser to minimize this irritation. With Chrome, whenever a background website is generating any kind of noise, a small icon that looks like a speaker will appear on the right side of the tab so you quickly identify the offending site. You can pause the video by clicking on the tab to find the video or simply click the X on the tab to shut the whole page down. It's just another reason why Google's Chrome browser is still one of my favorites!

Today's tech tip is a bit on the uncomfortable side because it's about death. Let's face it, so much of our lives are invested in online accounts that should you meet with an untimely demise, your friends and family members could end up with a huge task whilst grieving. If no one in your family has any of your passwords and you pass away, the hoops they have to jump through to unlock your accounts will be different for each site, making the process both frustrating and time consuming. Those security measures that are created to keep malicious users from accessing your information will also be a big roadblock as your family tries to settle your affairs. You can store your passwords in a password management program or a safety deposit box but keep in mind, your passwords will likely change over time. If there's one set of credentials for someone that you trust to have, It's your e-mail username and password, because that's where password reset requests generally get sent. With access to this single account, you executor can find the online accounts you used and have passwords resets sent there if necessary. It's not something we want to think about, but it's something we should all be thinking about!

Just about everything we do on the Internet is made faster through a process known as 'caching' which stores elements of the websites you've previously visited on your computer in a temporary folder. This caching process makes websites load much faster because your compuer doesn't have to download every element of the website from the Internet. By pulling the images, text and videos from your local hard drive, your page will load much faster, but sometimes it can all work against you. Whenever you go to a website that won't load properly, it's possible that your computer is trying to load an incomplete cached version of the site from your temporary directory. If this happens to you in the future give this little trick a shot: hold down the CTRL button down and tap the F5 key along the top of your keyboard. It's a universal shortcut that works on all the major browsers and it tells your computer to skip the cache and download everything from the website. It's a really great way to troubleshoot strange website behaviors; if it loads everything properly, you'll know its time to clear your browser's cache. How to Clear Your Browser's Cache: http://goo.gl/V3H1x8

Last week, I discussed the dangers of using the same password on all your accounts, which always leads to this question: How the heck do I remember all those passwords? The simple answer is you can't; you'll need help from some type of password management program in order to use long, complicated passwords on each of your online accounts. Password management software is an easy way to create and manage all your passwords across all your devices and websites in a secure manner. Using them means you only need to remember is one password. Most all of them include encrypted storage of your passwords, password generators, auto form fillers, 2-factor verification and can integrate right into your browser or mobile device. The initial process may seem a bit complicated for some non-technical users, but once your password manager is setup, it's really simple to use. One of my recommendations for new users is LastPass which comes in both free and premium versions. You can test it out with the free version and only pay the annual fee if you want the premium features. This issue is too important to ignore, so get help if you need it. https://lastpass.com/features_free.php