Don Parsons On Tech

Memory cards such as Compact Flash (CF), Secure Digital (SD), USB flash drives, and many other form factors have become so ubiquitous, they are available just about everywhere, and have gotten to be amazingly inexpensive. It is not hard at all to find 2 GB cards for less than $20. However… as you start getting into the higher capacity cards (4 GB to 32 GB), you may find that some of the the more expensive cards are more than twice the price of the inexpensive cards of the same capacity. The question I frequently get from people is “Why are some memory cards a so much more expensive than others?”.

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written by DAP

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), there really is quite a bit of passionate debate about what you can and cannot do to improve your ranking in natural search results with Google, Yahoo, and others. Generally it is difficult to get definitive details on this topic from the search engine companies for a couple of good reasons. The first is that they do need to protect their competitive advantage in this market. Their “secret sauce” is the detail behind how they are better than the other search engines in identifying “good content” on the web. The second is to avoid providing search engine spammers with the details needed to make it easier to subvert the search engines to get high ranking pages without developing legitimate content. It appears that Google is making a concerted effort to strike a careful balance between providing more information, while not giving away too much.
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written by DAP

In the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” written by Stephen R. Covey, habit #7 is called “Sharpen the Saw”. This relates to what the book calls “Principles of Balanced Self Renewal”. The four component of this Self Renewal includes Physical, Social / Emotional, Spiritual, and Mental. The point of interest here is part of the Mental component which includes your continuing education in topics that are important to you.

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written by DAP

If you ask several people for a definition for what a “blog” is, many people responding will have a hard time coming up with a good comprehensive definition. Most of them will instead describe blogs as “online diaries or journals”. Although blogs are frequently used in that way, I would compare that to describing an automobile as “something you use to visit your friends”. I would argue that both can be used for much more.

According to Wikipedia, a blog is a type of website where entries are made in reverse chronological order. It further adds that:

“Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on photographs (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting)…” – Wikipedia: Blog

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written by DAP

It is amazing to see how widespread WiFi has become. Just about everywhere you go, you can pickup WiFi networks. If you go to any of the technology stores that carry networking equipment such as Fry’s Electronics or Best Buy, the amount of retail shelf space dedicated to WiFi products is much larger than wired networking products. The other interesting point is that a surprising number of the WiFi networks out there are completely unsecured. A considerable portion of the people that have WiFi access to their home or small business network have their WiFi access point configured exactly as it came out of the box from the manufacturer. With many of these cases, people have not even changed the default admin password on their WiFi access point. It is also common for people to assume that the cable company or phone company installer that installed their WiFi system took all the steps necessary to adequately secure their WiFi network. It turns out, this is frequently a bad assumption. Continue reading »

written by DAP