Pokemon(ed) out

Well it seems in less than a week we have seen and read so much about Pokemon, we are now sick of the app.
All of the Memes of people with their find on the toilet, or in a wineglass. And all of the creepy van pictures with spray painted signs saying “Pokemon inside” blah blah blah.
We’ve all heard the 60 year old news anchor pretend to be turning off his Pokemon-go app, and we know darn well he doesn’t care about that game.
We’ve heard our local radio hosts yammering on endlessly about their kids getting out of the house finally.
We get it, the game requires you to walk to the end of your street. You did it once and have been posting memes about all of the walking you have been doing for the past six days. We get it…
We’ve seen the Pokemon pop up in weird locations that make us wonder “how’d they know the dimensions of this exact location???”. come on. You have your camera on. It asked you for permission. You can’t be that ignorant can you?
Here’s the permissions, Don’t worry it’s short and no big words.

Version 0.29.0 can access:
In-app purchases
Identity
find accounts on the device
Contacts
find accounts on the device
Location
approximate location (network-based)
precise location (GPS and network-based)
Photos/Media/Files
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
read the contents of your USB storage
Storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
read the contents of your USB storage
Camera
take pictures and videos
Other
receive data from Internet
control vibration
access Bluetooth settings
use accounts on the device
prevent device from sleeping
view network connections
pair with Bluetooth devices
full network access

It was a short chuckle the first time we all saw the beat up van with “Pokemon inside” then we saw the cleaner but solid white kidnapper van, then the guy “it puts the lotion on it’s skin” and the plethora of clowns. This game is creepier than what we were scared of with facebook. Did you sign in using your Facebook account? because that would be 1000Xs creepier.
That’s enough.
The game has no high moment just a constant “meh” with no climax.

It seems that Pokemon is pretty much for those who ignore simple reality, or children too young to know what their privacy is worth.
And they don’t even care that you can’t battle people. The whole concept of the cartoon the game is based on is battling with your Pokemon. The whole concewpt of the cards that were played with was to battle with your Pokemon.

Your typical pokemon players

Your typical pokemon players


Pokemon-Go away. Please stop promoting this dead horse.

pokemon-goaway

How To Setup Speco Player on Android and iPhone

We have a Speco DVR and have set up our user names and ports and passwords for access with our iPhone or Android apps. We need to remember those setting for later. (if you scroll down you will see the settings I usually use, but you can use whatever you like)

Speco DVR

Set up modem/router firewall
Name your device name whatever you want in the modem . I use simple but identifiable names. DVR-1, and DVR-2 if there is more than one.
I use the same local i.p. addresses every time. Real simple ones too
Device name=DVR1
address=192.168.1.66
Port=5445
audio port will be 5446 automatically
Local port I select 8181

Device name=DVR2
address=192.168.1.77
Port=4554
audio port will be 4555 automatically
Local port I select 8282

You can use the same settings in the android/iphone.

Now download and install Speco Player.
The icon will be black, on both android and iPhone. I’ve only seen rare occasions where I needed any of the other speco apps. That has been a couple years now.

Android Speco Setup
Click on the Speco player icon to launch the application.
When the application opens, click on “Live view/Playback”.
speco_android-1
The next screen will just have demo settings by default.
speco_android-2
This is where your menu button saves your sanity. So click your menu button.

speco_android-3

Click the “Add” area on the left lower section.
speco_android-5
You will see the screen where you can type in the information you set up on the Speco DVR such as open ports and user name and password and either I.P address or DDNS.
I typically opt out of DDNS and use I.P. address. even when the location of the latest install is on a dynamic I.P. . I’ve seen issues with some ISPs with the DDNS needing authentication when the I.P. address changes. So. I still have to go back out anyway. and it can be time consuming to use the DDNS and get it accepted. Especially if the DDNS service is down, or malfunctioning, or slow to react. Don’t hand the I.P. address out to just anyone.

Name your device name whatever you want. I use simple but identifiable names. DVR-1, and DVR-2 if there is more than one.

You can use the same settings in the modem/router firewall.
Device name=DVR1
address=192.168.1.66
Port=5445
Username=admin
Password= whatever you gave it. Default is 1111

If you select to use Easy DDNS, just use that information instead of I.P. in the andorid app.

If you select to use Easy DDNS, just use that information instead of I.P. in the andorid app.

 

 

The settings on iPhone is pretty much the same but has a few variations. So let’s cover this
Setting up Seco player on iphone

Launch the Speco player app. you should see “Device List”

Speco_iphone-1

Speco_iphone-1

To add a new device to the list (DVR), just press the plus symbol in the top right of your phone’s screen.

This will take you to a page titled “My Site”
This would be where you type in your DVR information

Speco_iphone-2

Speco_iphone-2

again, “Site” could mean location or one of many DVRs at that location. That’s all interpretation.
When you have successfully connected your Speco DVR to your iPhone, you should start seeing video footage when you select the “live” option.

Speco_iphone-3

Speco_iphone-3

sometimes the site may have a camera out, or your app could load slowly due to internet speeds.

 

If you select to use Easy DDNS, just use that information instead of I.P. in the iPhone.

 

 

To Delete the Speco Demo Settings From an iPhone:
If you have been struggling to delete the Speco demo examples from your iphone I have a pretty simple fix for you.
Just click each demo in the settings and swipe the name to the left.
Demo 1 – swipe left.
You will see a delete option.

If you have the version (android and iphone) that does not have the plus symbol or add button. Just delete the demos and relaunch the app. It will force you to create a new connection.
once your new connection is added, hit the folder option in the corner.

Facebook without the Facebook app

operaSo you have seen the warnings on the news and the internet about how intrusive Facebook can be with their new apps.
I get upset knowing that they can do this and people will install the applications anyway. What I am most bothered by is the fact that you need so many applications to use just one website. What I used to do with just one app, now requires three Facebook apps. No. I refuse and will not do this.
There is an alternative to using the Facebook app if you want to use Facebook on your mobile device.and a good alternative to Facebook app at that.

I use opera browser for Facebook. android version | Iphone Version
Also if you registered your phone number to Facebook, then go into setting (here)and you can get a text message feature added to your account so that you can send messages to Facebook via text message. once that is activated, send a text to Facebook saying “on”.
facebooknotifications
This way you get notifications when you get another text message.
when that becomes too much, send a message to Facebook saying “off” and it will turn notifications back off.

As you see in this image you can add shortcuts to the Opera browser that look just like the apps. just hit the pluss button next to the navigation bar to add the page to your favorites/bookmarks and your icon will be placed on the front page of your Opera install.

Opera works better than your default browser and ten fold better than chrome or Firefox.

Snapchat Review

Review of snapchat. A picture sharing application that seems to have a mild popularity amongst the newbies of tech.. People who don’t realize instagram, photobucket, imgur, facebook,twitter and the like already let you privately share images with specific people. but the software leaves the impression that you set a timer for your friend to be able to see the image, then poof, the photo is magically gone all of the sudden.
Snapchat is stupid.

No matter what a website says…. they always save the content you put on their servers. and we can download the images or screen shot them anyway.. so just send the damn thing to your friends… or use facebook or twitter.

The market is way to covered for this stupid app.

Parents, if you see a little ghost icon on your kid’s phone… Then you kid is sharing images they don’t want you to know about. and they think they have some catch 22 (remember when we thought every law’s kryptonite was us thinking we had this?) clause that makes them safer with this app. remove that app from their phone and threaten to give them a flip phone.. Or just give them a flip phone.

Snapchat  Review score
Usability of the snapchat: 7/10
need for snapchat  : 1/10
practiclity of the snapchat : 3/10

End score 3/10

Mashable Trust Issue

The Mashable Trust Issue.
So I lit up the pho ne and kicked back in bed and started surfing around in Facebook. Scrolled down the page to see all of the stuff I have been missing, and what do I see?
I see that Mashable and I shared a topic, 23 minutes ago. Wait.. 23 minutes ago I was cleaning the litterbox  and sweeping the floor. Hadn’t been on Facebook for hours.
So I scroll a little further to see what the topic was and was shocked.
It’s content I don’t like to get involved in. Not against anyone’s rights or freedoms. in fact I am for everyone’s rights and freedoms to be the same. This was specifically about gay rights. I never read the article. why would I agree with the article and share it if I haven’t read it? The article could totally messed up and bring up views that I don’t even know that I am for or against until I read the way it is presented.
Mashable-awkward-shareWhat this does is send a false impression to my friends. and anyone else who got used like this. If I am not the only one that used like this to push this agenda, then there is a huge mass of people who just got used to press this impression that lots of people agree with the content. Without their direct consent on the content.
This content needs to be supported by people who agree with it, not falsely promoted.

This is gaming votes and manipulating the views of the public.

SO I went off on Mashable on their page.

Mashable-poor-tactics
Imagine the potential of this type of move. If Mashable can post this propaganda, what can a politician do? what can some agenda based media source do to make it look like you agree with something you haven’t even read yet. It’s like they are sneakishly using you for peer pressure upon your friends. Though the movement was for a good cause to some, it was a bad ethics move.
How to stop this.. Start with unliking the page of the offender. in the case, it’s Mashable.

Go to App Settings
Locate Offender in the list. In this case, Mashable.
Click the X on the right hand side, and never go back to their webpage again.

If you have to go to their page but don’t want them to “post on your behalf” find that in the options under their name and disable it. Then locate “Visibility of app and posts:” and select “Only me”
now your freinds won’t get spammed with junk you allowed to have access to your Facebook.

I will never trust a single article from Mashable ever again.
The scummiest tactics to date.

Trying Siri Like Assistant for android

I have been trying sms readers and text to speech apps for days now. and have not found a single tts program yet that works all that well. So I took a break from the  few I installed.
Motorola Droid Bionic
With Android version:Ice Cream Sandwich

Here are the text to speech apps I liked the most

SMS Reader This one worked for a while, then I opened settings, and exited and it never read my messages again. Also wouldn’t do speech to text.

This one I didn’t like so much. everything was trial.

Now to the Assistant.
So far, the only one worth messing with is called
Assistant from Speaktoit.

Pros
You can change the way your Avatar looks. you can tell her/him she/he has a new name and change her/his name. You can send messages to your Twitter account and Facebook account.Your assistant will offer you the chance to have your responses to your Facebook status update read to you when someone replies. You can search for anything nearby. You can search for answers to most questions and you can schedule plans using your Google calendar.

Cons
Uses it’s own selection of search engine which could be a Google affiliated program, but not sure. The “search for nearest” isn’t the most correct for any of the searches I did. I even searched for a taco bell right up the street less than a mile away, it showed me one that is ten miles away and said it was three miles away. twitter portion does not use twitter app. Neither does the Facebook status updates. So this thing is constantly running . Which means it sucks your battery down fast.If you tell the assistant to open Facebook app, it tries to post a status to Facebook. Not sure how comfortable I am with giving away so many passwords. With the app open while phone was on charger, my battery dropped to 80%. Normally I can watch youtube videos and post to Facebook and never drop a percent while on charger. When responding to a text message, the other person never gets it.

Tried for a while to locate more voices while going through all of the tts and text to speech searches (yes type it both ways different results). None for free and most apps have their own voices. Surely all of this should come free with the dang phone.

Latest Facebook Vanity Hack is mean

facebook hack

Facebook hack

yep. another hack that has people wondering who looks at their Facebook page, fighting for their account.
The message displayed is “I just found out Who Has Been Checking Out My Profile” and then below is a picture that has the word (cut off a bit to entice your to click it) “KNOW WHO HAS BEEN STALKING YOUR PROFILE” and of course a link to any number of different versions of the app now created on Facebook..
Latest hack to Facebook accounts creates a personal page from your account with random alpha-numeric symbols, plus adds it’s self to your apps and creates a new app under developer section.

You must unlike that page (look here) and you must remove access to your account from that app (start here), and then delete the app from your app developer’s section,now change apps password (here), then change your password to your account(here).

Now would be a good time to scan your computer for a virus.Try this virus scanner. Or any virus scanner on this page

From someone being burned by this

From the top of your Page, click Edit Page
Select Update Info
Select Apps from the left sidebar
Click Edit Settings beneath the app you want to remove
Click Remove
that’s the fix
it deleted the page

I must warn you though, as she was typing this, the hack was still steadily posting.

Her new update

From the top of your Page, click Edit Page
Select Update Info
Select Apps from the left sidebar
Click Edit Settings beneath the app you want to remove
Click Remove — this is what you have to do to delete the page and app that was installed. THEN, you or someone else has to report the activity. Then you have to go through security measures to verify your account. Change your FB password, change the password(s) you have associated with any emails for FB and cross your fingers, toes, put your shirt on backwards, take one shoe off, etc.

And please, stop clicking those vanity links. They never work.

360 Degree Camera For Iphone 4S

With your Mouse and pointer, hit play, for the video to start. Once the video loads and begins to stream and you hear Chris start talking, click down with in the video and move your mouse left or right in the viewable area of the video and watch what happens.

Chris Pirillo from Chris.Pirillo.com has helped fund a great ap and a gadget add on for your Iphone 4s, to record full 360 degree panoramic view. Allows you to record in 360 degrees of the position the Iphone is in. The app is called “GoPano
What can you don with a camera like this? unsuspected surveillance of the old couple behind you while you look like you are recording two birds in a meadow. Security of your house while you take off to some other state.
Or just a zillion and one hacks that can be done to this to bring the GoPano into more uses.

Android Apps 2011 – our top choice

Our top 5 Android apps for your Android based phones.

ixMAT Barcode Scanner
a href=”https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ixellence.ixmat.android.communityamp;feature=search_result”Barcode scanner/a for your Android phone. This one scans a large choice of barcodes.

Dungeon Defender
object width=”560″ height=”345″ classid=”clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000″ codebase=”http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0″param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” /param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /param name=”src” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/BeyQ-PC_cwc?version=3amp;hl=en_USamp;rel=0″ /param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /embed width=”560″ height=”345″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/BeyQ-PC_cwc?version=3amp;hl=en_USamp;rel=0″ allowFullScreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” //object
Online Role playing game, for your android device.

a href=”http://truxtertech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/d-game.png”img class=”size-full wp-image-1380″ title=”d-game” src=”http://truxtertech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/d-game.png” alt=”barcode to game” width=”158″ height=”158″ //a

Dungeon Defender barcode

Wifi Toggle Switch
a quick a href=”https://market.android.com/details?id=com.curvefish.widgets.wifionofffeature=search_result”switch/a you can place on your main screen to toggle wireless signal connection on and off. So you don’t have to flip through the main menu and then the settings

Rev3Remote
let’s you get quick access to a href=”https://market.android.com/details?id=com.awc.revremote.freefeature=search_result”Revision 3/a content and videos. Works better than the revision 3 certified ap.

Hey tell. Hey tell is a way to send your friends short messages, voice messages, via your internet service. Cuts down on minute usage. If you have wifi, its free to use.

WordPress
For those of you with an android phone who also run a website that uses a href=”https://market.android.com/details?id=org.wordpress.androidfeature=search_result”wordpress/a, then this ap is probably the best find you will get for your android phone. EVER!

Smartphone Social app

Color is an app for Iphones and Android phones. Color is a social network for smartphones.
Oh the irony of that concept.
Ever mess with your phone while you are flirting? Not very social… is it?
To the makers of Color, I have something to say

Colors APP


WTG…. I wonder if the app is hand written. ” see if you fold the corners of the paper like this and write colors here and there and then add numbers here and there, you have our fortune telling app”.

Enjoy your Color App.
YAWN..