The new standard in home internet security – Bitdefender BOX

The new standard in home internet security – Bitdefender BOX

bitdefenderboxI know lots of people that work in IT and when you go to their home they have professional wifi gear and tons of security equipment, then I go to some friends and families that don’t have any security on their home network. It really makes you wonder where do you feel safe… and I’m loving the new Bitdefender BOX. This simple little box which handles a great number of the tasks that a professional grade IT appliance would do is amazing.

It was very easy to get up and running within moments and offers a number of security options for your device and your network. First you get to pick if its a guest device or a family device. Either way you’ll be adding a major layer of protection as it can help to identify malware and other undesirable thing that can attack you via the web.

You configure the device from this simple to use iphone or android app and take about 20 minutes soup to nuts for most common home network configurations. I only wish there was some more advanced view into the computers on your network. I would recommend everyone with kids or parents who are always picking up a virus to grab a Bitdefender BOX and get your network a little more secure.

You can also enter to win a Bitdefender BOX by sharing how many connected devices you have, or sharing why you want to win a Bitdefender BOX using #ProtectedByBOX and tagging @BitdefenderBOX on Twitter or #BitdefenderBOX on Instagram.

Get the March Madness games live on your iPhone or iPod Touch

Get the March Madness games live on your iPhone or iPod Touch

March Madness is here [screaming fans sounds] its been a pretty good college basketball season and the tournament is going to be great this year! Stayed tuned as I’m hosting a DaDa Rocks tournament bracket, but today we’re talking about the how to watch the games at work, on the go, at your friends kid’s birthday party, and even in the bathroom (TV in the bathroom is perfection) with the CBS Sports NCAA March Madness On Demand app [iTunes]

The best part of all the changes in AT&T made it so that it doesn’t require a Wi-Fi connection to stream live games. Now you can watch over 3G or even EDGE.

The app is a little pricey at $9.95 but what would it cost to loose your job from sitting at the bar all day watching the games.

I had this app last year loved it although wasn’t crazy about the limited Wi-Fi but now having this be on 3G I cant wait, I’ll be taking the bus home from work which should add some quality game time to my commute home.

Moving the herd of people on twitter – does friday follow still matter?

Moving the herd of people on twitter – does friday follow still matter?

One of the most useful tool for me to get the word out about my blog is twitter.  Every Friday is something labeled Friday Follow (in the dad blog world its Fatherhood Follow/Fatherhood Friday) in short its #FF [Link].

I post three lists: the dads, the moms, and the brands/groups/others.  Theses are getting to be longer and longer as I’ve been starting to diageset more and more information from the twitter stream.  When I started with 200 followings I found it a little tough I’m now following over 1,000 mom/dad twitters/bloggers.  I’m reading as much content that I can and find it to be nearly as easy (or hard) as following 200 when I first started.

I’m usually put in a few lists and I do see ten plus new followers on Fridays but sometimes I gain more on a random Tuesday. So the question tonight is that is Friday Follow meaningless? Have we lost the meaning? Should there be a limit say one or two amazing people? Conan O’Brien followed his first person today after a few hours she had about seven thousand others, now that’s the power to direct traffic.

At web 2.0 expo there was a discussion about how people are just like animals that we move in herds or packs.  There was a great video that showed people moving and acting like a herd.  I now present to you the crazy guy dancing video…

Let me know your thoughts on friday follow, do you think its still plays a part in growing or directing the audience?

Protect your digital self

Protect your digital self

Welcome to the age where photos are files and memories can be deleted within a millisecond of a virus or a bad keystroke.  When I was a kid we could drop off rolls and rolls of film at the camera store and pickup hundreds of prints (most junk) and the few good one we’d store into photo albums (remember those).  Now I dont even print 1/100th of the photos that we take. Even although they’re priceless memories of my son growing up they sit on my harddrive.  No I’m not about to tell you a story of how I lost my drive and along with that the history of my son. My Aunt had me rush out to Long Island a few weeks ago to save her from that fate (she got a virus that ruined the computer) and I was able to boot into safe mode long enough to copy 40 gigs of photos.  Thats eight years of digital images of my cousin growing up that would have been lost.

Think you should stop reading because of your external harddrive? answer me this do you leave it plugged in 24/7? do you leave in the same house as the computer if its not plugged in? then you’re at risk – 1 lighting strike fries all electronics and 2 a fire will melt all plastic/metal/computers to toast.  Sure you can spend thousands of dollars trying to recover, but rarely will you get 100% of your data back.

Think its just photos how about those iTunes Music files that you’ve spent the last 5 years buying at .99 cents each (dont they add up to an investment).  Yes, I’ve heard the rumors of really amazing applecare allowing users to redownload but that isnt always the case (actually its not even the norm).

What can you do to protect your digital self? you can purchase an external harddisk and backup and store it offsite (away from home) avoids fires and electrical issues but you’ll download new files before you hook that up again for a backup and worst what happens if that harddrive just fails right when you need it.  This is by far the most popular way its very cost effective and in the long run what are really the odds of the external harddrive failing right when you need it? Slim but the odds are still there.

The way I protect myself is in the cloud.  [Wikipedia CLOUD]. In this cloud I found complete happiness from a product called SugarSync it works on PC, MAC and mobile platforms (iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and WinMobile). They even offer 2 gigs free which will store a ton of word or excel documents but wont be suited for pictures, music, or video files.

Pros of SugarSync: Ability to use website to access files remotely, mobility platform for access or share, unlimited computers (account based on storage), and versioning (for same files ie. all those file saves on a draft of a legal document or revisions on an excel sheet are saved).

Cons of SugarSync: Lengthy first sync (would be similar with other services as well), No ability to run multiple accounts from one computer (ie. I save to my account and my wife would save to hers)

There are other options out there but I do highly recommend a cloud based solution one that does your file storage offsite. Think about all your pictures, videos, music and documents – what if they were gone tomorrow and how much is it worth to protect that!