Here you go another exciting (well OK hopefully interesting) thing Jim and I looked at this month on the show. 

Below are all of the applications, sites, etc. we talked about plus here is the podcast for your listening pleasure back at WSVA Online.

Have a great month and I  hope you will be listening and calling next month, Monday, December 19th!

Thanks,
Ron

Retail Me Not
http://www.retailmenot.com/
Coupon codes, printable coupons, grocery coupons for Christmas-or any other time!

Advice from the pros: For extra secret sales and discounts, get the company’s store credit card as many promotions are for card holders, only. HOWEVER–don’t be tempted to run up that charge card! Any savings you initially make will be lost if you are paying off a high interest rate.

Be cautious as sometimes they have good deals and other times just so-so deals.

I have been using Google Music, during the Beta trail, for the past month or two and it is slick.

I have uploaded all of my music to the site (about 2,500 songs and books) and can play it from most anywhere I can get online. Whether phone, tablet any computer, etc. They have a limit of up to 20,000 songs to be uploaded, stored and streamed (played online) for free.

They also have a store to buy more music at some very good prices. I think Google may have bet the competitors with this one.

See you next month and don’t forget to follow Double Clicks on Twitter and Facebook!

Tags: cellphone, cloud, cloud storage, Email, Emily Post, facebook, foxnews, Jim Britt, lumos, manners, ntelos, personal messages, place of worship, pleasure, quintessential guide, Ron Doyle, spoon

I was talking to my friend and realtor, Chris Rooker of Kline May Realty, about security of documents in the "Cloud".  I presented him with a thought that I voice often and that is, at this point in time, I do not put anything confidential online; including in my emails and online storage.  Never do I have my social security number, debit card number, bank usernames or passwords online anywhere.

A very basic definition of the cloud is (when talking computers and technology) the place where companies deliver many services online..  In other words the service is on a server somewhere in cyberspace and not on your local hard drive.  You can access these services from your computer. 

Some of the services include fully developed applications like Google Apps, Microsoft Office 365, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo mail and even fun things like Pandora.  There are also many cloud storage services, for instance, DropBox (my favorite http://bit.ly/use-DropBox), Windows Life Mesh, Amazon S3, etc. 

There are a tremendous number of cloud services to choose from.  The list grows daily – probably by the minute.  Some of these services are free while others are not.  

One concern I have is where your information stored. I mean where geographically, as in what country?  What if your important data is stored on a junk (not one of the best available) server somewhere in a war-torn country where the costs are much less expensive?  Then what if that country has a military coup or is destroyed by some other country?  How do you get your data and/or what are the new guys doing with your information?

Next, what if the company that has your information goes bankrupt or is sold to someone else?  You would hope that proper provision has been made for continuous service, but what if it hasn’t?

Here is one last thought for you to lay awake at night and consider.  Where is one of the weakest links in any security?  It would be people, plain and simple.  More than likely your password is safe and won’t be compromised by people in the company servicing your online data but that isn’t my people concern.  Think about the "uncrackable safe" scenario for a bank.  Banks want to advertise their vault as one that no one, not even the locksmith can get into.  This gives their customers a great feeling of security.  But think about this…if even a locksmith can’t get into it, what happens during an emergency or some foul-up?   How can they get their money out?   It could be locked up forever.  So there has to be someone with the ability to get into that safe through a "back door".

The same thing is true for cloud storage.  Even though it may be ultimately and inscrutably secure, someone has to be able to get to the data on the servers in case of an emergency. This could quite possibly be their most dissatisfied and disgruntled employee.  Think about that for a minute.

Tags: amazon, cloud, cloud security, cyberspace, fun things, google, hotmail, mail, mesh, microsoft office, military coup, pandora, point in time, realtor, security, social security number, ssn, storage services, talking computers, usernames

On my Gmail page I first noticed the Scroll Bars on the left (in yellow, shown at bottom of page).  With this feature you don’t have to check which labels you want to see, you have all of them with a simple scroll up or down.  Neat addition.  These are now defaults so if you don’t like them (I can’t imagine why) you cannot set them back to the old GUI.

Another new default change with Gmail. Notice when you scroll down an email page, especially with Vertical/Horizontal view off, the command/control bar scrolls with your view so they are available anywhere while viewing your email. Another great long overdue innovation again by Google.

Next, you can now show your emails to the right of the selected email (Vertical) or below it (Horizontal).  However, unlike the scroll bars this must be added through the Labs part of Gmail. To add this feature:

1. Click the gear in the upper right of the window.
2. Choose Mail Settings.
3. Next, Labs.
4. In the search box type Preview Pane.
5. Enable it.
6. Save Changes.
7. You are done.

Back in Gmail it will be set up Vertically like mine below and sorry for the blurring but hey, its my stuff.

To change it to Horizontal click the down arrow above your email and to the right (orange arrow in graphic) and choose the way you want to view your email.  You can also reset it to the old way by clicking the button or using the arrow again.  Now when you click an email from the list it will open where you want it.

Have fun and thanks Google!

Tags: cloud, Email, free apps, Gmail, gmail settings, google, horizontal view, innovation, labels, online email, personal, preview pane, scroll bars, search box

If you know me or read my articles and columns you know that I am a Google Lover and so I have to share another one with you.

Read their blog but basically now Microsoft Office (at least Word, Excel and PowerPoint) all work in conjunction with Google Docs.  You can create, store, edit and share them all on Google Docs directly from inside the MS apps.

Give it a try.  I have and so far it has worked great, if that opinion changes either the good or the bad I will let you know here.

Tags: blog spot, cloud, Cloud Connect, computing, docs, google, google.com, googledocs, launch, microsoft, microsoft html, microsoft office, ms apps

I do not like to write columns that relate to only a small segment of my readers but sometimes it is necessary.  Because of email requests these things pop up from time to time.  I have received several requests about this over the last couple of months.  So today I will explain an online application that will relate to people who use two products and wish to combine them.  Wouldn’t it be clever to combine calendars in Gmail and Microsoft Outlook?  For the past few years we have been able to do just that with this product.

For instance, I use Outlook for my main email application and have for many years.  For the majority of my personal email I use Gmail.com.  There is a lot to recommend Gmail.  Although I have written about Microsoft Live, my personal preference is Gmail.  That could be due more to familiarity with it and not that it is significantly better.  But if you care, try both and form your own opinion.  It is mostly personal preference.  And yes, before I get a bunch of emails from you other geeks, I know that I can read Gmail and all other email in Outlook.  That is what I do. 

OK, now back to the calendars.  I use Outlook’s calendar for all of my appointments and scheduling both for work and home.  Whether it is a meeting at work or a doctor’s appointment I post it there so that I will be notified at a time of my choosing.  I also use a BlackBerry which will sync to my Outlook calendar.  If you have a smart phone you need to check with your cell provider or phone manufacturer to find out how to do it( if you don’t already know.)

However, when I am online on a computer without Outlook on it or surfing the net and don’t want to start up Outlook it would be good to be able to use my calendar while online.  In steps a free application, Google Calendar Sync (bit.ly/google-cal-sync).  Once installed it will allow your two separate calendars to communicate with each other.

It is fairly easy to set up.  Follow the instructions on the site and you will be up and running in no time.  There are basically three settings you need to apply.  First, your Gmail account name and password (to access your online calendar) need to be entered.  Next, you will need to enter how you want to sync the two calendars (see the next paragraph) and how often you wish to sync them during the day.

The Sync Options have three choices.  First, would you like to sync the calendars both ways so that if you make a change on one it is updated on the other?  The next way syncs changes on your Gmail calendar up to your Outlook calendar.  The final way is to sync all of your Outlook appointments to your Gmail calendar but not to Outlook.

I run this application on several computers and they are all tied in to my main calendar in Outlook.  If you use Outlook 2010 there is an extra step that you will need to Google for a "how to" – isn’t that appropriate?

Tags: calendar, cloud, google, outlook, sync

First today I would like to thank all of you who read and applied what you learned from last week’s column.  It was regarding the cloud storage platform Dropbox.com.  Because some of you used the link I mentioned, I gained an additional 2 GB of storage.  They have a maximum of 8 GB allowed free so if you still wish to sign up and haven’t yet, this is still a good link, http://bit.ly/aszzao.

No, I don’t really need that much cloud storage but it is a fun experiment…so thanks again to those of you who registered!

I gave you all a link several weeks ago that generated a lot of email, bit.ly/965cg3.  It is a scrabble-like game site called, “SSCrabble”.  I am sure the naming is due to copyright issues.  Many of you wanted to know other games or gaming sites I regularly visit.  Well, I hate to sound like an old curmudgeon but I don’t game as much as I used to in the last century.

I stopped buying gaming consoles when they changed too often to the latest and greatest and my old games were no longer playable.  So, “No” I don’t have an Xbox or any of the latest.  I gave up somewhere after the Atari 5200, Nintendo (NES) and the Sega Genesis.  I finally put them in a garage sale with all the Mario games and stopped trying to keep up. 

For a while I bought a few PC games but found that unless you upgraded your computer to the fastest and best, the newest games were unplayable.  I think my favorite PC games were the Myst series and Morrowwind.  I still have both and occasionally fire one up.

I play a couple of other online games now.  I wrote about Evony.com last year, which too time-consuming so I quit that one.  Today I wanted to mention a couple I occasionally play, just to relax sometimes.

One that I like is called, “Defense” at bit.ly/cQoWtu (shortened link for space).  You set up an arrangement of armament to defend your area from attack by land and air.  There are many games at the main site and when you get there and see the link, chop off all but the “.com” part to see them.  The main site is onemorelevel.com.  I will shorten the others here too.

Next is, “Dogfight”, bit.ly/agxQ35 think WWI.  

Last but not least (my favorite actually) is, “Double Wires” at bit.ly/cy0uEj, which plays best in MSIE.  Once you get there you should get a gangly Spiderman type guy who jumps around a lot.  If you get to the main ‘onemorelevel.com’ page you may need to go to DoubleClicks.info and type in the actual link which I will post here  (www.themaninblue.com/experiment/SSCrabble).  You can find a mass of games are at miniclip.com too.

Have fun gaming!  Let me know if you like any of these and tell me your favorites.

Tags: cloud, games, online

I often receive questions about where you can save your documents in the cloud (online).  In the past I have written about Mesh.com and Google Docs.  However, I have found another one which, I believe is even better.  Over the past several months I have started to depend on Dropbox.com.

With Dropbox you get 2GB of free storage or more if you meet certain criteria.  If you decide to sign up for Dropbox use this link, http://bit.ly/aszzao. If you use this link, they give me 250 MB of additional free storage, so thanks in advance.  If you want more storage you can get 50 GB for $9.99/month or 100 GB for $19.99 per month.

First, let me supply some info about file sizes.  I have stored all of my columns from the past nine years on Dropbox.  That is about 750 columns and research documents.  They take up about 50 MB.  With the total of 2 GB of storage in Dropbox I could store another 40 years worth of columns. You could also store about 750 digital photos, depending on the resolution.

It is easy to use.  Install the software and sign up with an email address and password.  Then you will have a “My Dropbox” folder in your “My Documents” files.  Any files or folders you put in that folder are automatically transferred to the Dropbox cloud.  If you make a change to any file in that new folder it will automatically be updated to the cloud.  Smooth… and it takes no extra input or thought from you.

In my case I moved my “Columns” folder into the newly created “My Dropbox” folder.  After about three or four minutes all of those files were online.  As I type this column today and save it, the new version is online almost instantly.  By-the-way, as you try it keep in mind that the file will not be uploaded until you close it on your local computer.

That is not all it does for you.  Let’s say you have a desktop, a notebook and a netbook computer.  You can install Dropbox on all three systems. The entire contents of the “My Dropbox” folder will be duplicated on all three.  That way your important files are always available a few seconds after you start your computer.  If you only have one computer it is still a good thing since the files are safely backed up online in case your hard drive fails.

There is one last feature I will mention.  If you have a file you want to share with an individual or a group of people go into Dropbox.com and share it with them using their email address.

If this sounds like something you could use why not give it a shot?  I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Tags: cloud, dropbox, files, free, storage, sync