Zoom and Voiceover in iOS

Apple’s AirPlay is one of the best technologies out there for media lovers. AirPlay allows you to control/play your favorite media to devices…

You have a password for the online banking, one for your Apple ID, one to log into your retirement amount. Your password for your bank has to have have at least one numeric number, but can’t start with a number and it can’t have any more than two of the same characters found in your username. Your retirement account must include at least 3 numbers and one special character but they can’t be consecutive.

Does this sound familiar? In the perfect world we would only need one password, but unfortunately for security purposes and as hackers get better at what they do password strength has become critical and part of our everyday lives. The hassle with this is that most sites have their own sets of rules for password strength leaving many of us to peck away at our keyboards or devices in a sometimes endless game of “remember how you manipulated your favorite password 16 different ways and can’t remember if your banking site used the password with the capitalization or the one with the ampersand”.

For a very long time I will admit my method of keeping track of my usernames and passwords was the stickies program on my Mac, much to the dismay of our IT manager! While stickies are easily accessed they are not secure and I do not recommend this method. Where you should keep them is in your keychain. You can access your keychain through applications and then utilities. Once you are in your keychain you can manually add preferred sites, accounts and passwords you wish to store. Another huge benefit is secure notes. Secure notes allow you store additional confidential information. Keychain is safe and secure because in order to view any of the passwords stored there you need to enter your administrator password. Within keychain you can make sure to safely and securely keep your passwords, and when you forget if you needed that capitalization or ampersand in your password you can simply open keychain and enter into the search field the website for which you need to confirm the password.

Now what if you don’t have a mac? The loss of passwords, and most often your Apple ID password is a huge concern with users of iOS devices only. Luckily there is an easy solution for that, iCloud and iCloud keychain. Simply go to settings, iCloud and then select keychain. Your iOS device will begin to store your logins and websites. Additionally you can add specific websites and passwords manually to your phone or iPad under safari and then selecting passwords. This is also where you would look if you can’t remember login information.

Recording safely your logins and passwords is an often overlooked step, especially when users of iOS devices accidentally have the device damaged or lost. Saving your passwords safely and using iCloud keychain can avert your being logged out of accounts.

I love Lion. So far it is my favorite iteration of Mac OS X, but it does have some annoying features. In my internet wanderings yesterday I came across an article with instructions on how to get rid of the rubber-band effect which occurs when you scroll to the very bottom or top of a page. This effect will make the page scroll a little bit past the end point then bounce back. It’s a nice little bit of eye-candy, but not really necessary.

You can easily turn this effect off by entering a simple Terminal command (which I’ll list below) and then press “enter”. As always, do this at your own risk. Mucking about in Terminal can cause irreparable harm to your OS if you do something you shouldn’t. Make sure you have a good backup before you make any changes like this to your system. Here’s the text you need to enter:

defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -int 0

You can revert to the original setting by entering the following and then press enter:

defaults delete -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding

You’ll need to relaunch any applications that display the rubber-banding in order for this to take effect. Unfortunately, it will not affect Safari. Should I find a way to get rid of the rubber-band in Safari, I’ll update this article.

You can read the original article here.

I’ve worked here for over 5 years and the iPhone 5 was my first iPhone (I know). When I got my iPhone 5…

International Data Corporation (IDC), a technology market research firm with over 1,000 analysts in 50 countries, has released its quarterly report on global…

2014 marks the 30th anniversary of the most important technological development of all time: Tetris. There are probably many of you out there that will insist that the Macintosh computer was the most important tech release of 1984, and I will grant that it is a close second, but I am still standing behind the classic tile-matching puzzle video game.

For those of you who don’t know, Tetris is a very simple game in which any of seven different blocks, which are every possible combination of four smaller square blocks that have adjoining sides, fall from above and your job is to move them side-to-side and/or rotate them in order to complete horizontal lines which disappear when completed. The ultimate move is to leave only one vertical line incomplete and drop the “line” piece in to complete four horizontal lines at once. This is a Tetris and you will be rewarded with big points, flashing graphics, sound effects, and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Tetris was originally developed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union, and was the first video game exported from the USSR to the US. Its popularity skyrocketed when a version was released for the Nintendo GameBoy in 1989, and versions have since been released for just about every console, operating system, personal electronic device, and has even been played by using the windows in a large building as the blocks.

While the 8-bit NES version will always be my favorite, I have been playing a new version on my iPhone: “*Tetris Blitz by Electronic Arts.*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tetris-blitz/id632827808?mt=8&at=11lb7k This version takes the classic gameplay and condenses it into a two-minute speed round in which the goal is to score maximum points. They have added a number of power-up blocks which trigger different actions, such as lasers that burn up several lines for you or masses of blocks that drop all at once. You can play in single player mode, head-to-head against strangers or your Facebook friends, as well as in special tournaments which often have different rules or game mechanics for added variety. This app is free, but employs what has come to be known as the freemium model, which means that there are a fair number of in-app ads and in-app purchases that are available. If you can learn to ignore these, this app is a fun addition to the Tetris family and only -wastes- uses two minutes at a time.

The best part? Tetris is good for you! According to research, playing half-an-hour a day for three months boosts general cognitive functions such as critical thinking, reasoning, language and processing and increases cerebral cortex thickness. It has also been shown to be a potential therapy for preventing PTSD as well as a way to help quit smoking. “*See here for more information.*”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris#Effect_of_Tetris_on_the_brain

“*Download Tetris Blitz for iOS FREE here!*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tetris-blitz/id632827808?mt=8&at=11lb7k