PC Mechanic, New Article

Community Broadband Is On The Rise
The 5 Best iPad Apps for Photographers
Why Doesn’t Every Site Use HTTPS?

Posted: 28 Mar 2011 03:00 AM PDT

If you’re currently feeling the pinch of an overpriced privately-owned ISP, watch out because municipality-run, a.k.a. "community broadband" internet is making waves.

Currently there are 133 US cities that have community broadband. This map shows you where they are. The red markers on the map are FTTH (Fiber To The Home), and yes that means ridiculously fast/awesome/super-cool/super-good access is there. How good? Chattanooga, TN has a 1Gbps network in operation right now. While true it’s ridiculously expensive, this point is they have it.

Is internet run by the municipality a good thing?

The answer to this basically depends on whether you have choice or not.

With phone service, you have the choice of internet-based, cellular/wireless and landline. In the most remote of areas this gives you at least a bare minimum of 3 ways to get service, while in well-populated areas can give you as many as 6 or more (Vonage, Skype, local Telco, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, etc.)

With ISP access, municipality-run internet is in fact a good thing because it gives you another choice. If Big Telco or Big Cable are all you have to choose from, the municipality is fantastic third and in many cases run circles around what Big Telco/Cable offers in terms of speed and service.

With ISPs, The Government is now the "little guy"

A typical sentiment shared by many is "Government is evil; privately-owned business is better." Not when it comes to ISPs. In fact it’s the exact opposite.

Big Telco/Cable bought up nearly all of the little Mom ‘n’ Pop ISPs as fast as they could get their grubby mitts on them. Municipality-run ISPs on the other hand are 100% community-based and thus far have proven to be solid, stable, reliable, faster and have genuine good value to them.

Does Big Telco/Cable like the idea of municipality-run ISP access? Of course they don’t; they hate it, and they’re also griping up a storm that it’s unfair that they have to compete against municipality-run competitors.

I like the idea of municipality-run ISP access for two reasons.

First, I’ve been a long-time believer that internet should be considered a utility rather than a luxury; municipality-run ISPs bring us one step closer to getting internet access out of the ‘luxury-only’ classification.

Second, our national broadband improvement plan is moving along very slowly, so I applaud cities and towns that take the initiative and get the job done ahead of schedule.

I’m not saying that municipality-run ISPs are the answer for every town in America, but they are needed in places where the dominant ISP is a cold, corporate, overpriced stick-in-the-mud.

Using Tampa Bay Florida where PCMech is based as an example, the dominant cable company, Brighthouse Networks, is very approachable. They treat customers well, service is reliable, priced fairly and they run a tight ship. In our area, a municipality-run ISP would have a rough time getting people away from Brighthouse because they do run things well for what they do.

For other states however where your only choices at AT&T or Comcast, well.. let’s just say that if a municipality-run ISPs surfaced in those areas, you know that there would be more than just a few people that would dump Big Telco/Cable for the municipal and do so unapologetically.

A big reason Brighthouse (at least in Florida) works as well as it does is because they’re purposely smaller; municipality-run ISPs are successful for the same reason. When as a service provider you’re not trying to be King Of The World, service is better and the customers are happier. Companies that get too big lose their humanity, so smaller is definitely more desirable. Where municipalities are concerned, you can’t get any more local than that – and it’s something many people appreciate.

On a final note, we’ve almost come around full circle concerning ISPs in the US. They started local, then regional, then regional/national, then national, then back to regional/national, and municipality-run brings us right back to local again.

Funny that.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Community Broadband Is On The Rise

The 5 Best iPad Apps for Photographers

Posted: 27 Mar 2011 11:08 AM PDT

This is a guest post by Neil Jones.

The iPad is selling in large numbers simply because it is making work, hobbies and entertainment easier and more accessible for people of all age groups. It is a tablet computer that scores with its sleek and elegant design, small form factor and being lightweight makes it so convenient to have as a companion. The iPad is rapidly becoming the most preferred portable computer that is able to accomplish any and every task for all kinds of professional needs and personal recreation through pursuit of hobbies and interests.

The iPad assists photographers, cinematographers and videographers in their work with the help of many apps tailor made for their requirements. The apps help to bring out the best results and simplify the chain of processes that have to be completed after the pictures have been clicked. They enhance the results and bring out the best photographic results. Some of the best ones to have are:

Filterstorm

Filterstorm – This free app helps the user to accomplish multiple tasks like loading and saving images, crop or change from color to black and white, and adjust brightness, contrasts etc. It takes care of all the mobile photo editing requirements of professional and amateur photographers. The features are specialized and provide superior results as compared to the software found on desktop computers for similar jobs.

SmugMug

SmugMug - This app helps users see full screen pictures with slideshows and videos which can be delivered right to the client. It helps to create a portable portfolio and help in clinching business deals. This app also comes free of cost.

Easy Release

Easy Release - This app has been designed for professional photographers, by specialist photographers familiar with the requirements of their trade. This sleek application from ApplicationGap helps to get rid of paper release forms and helps to collect the required data and signatures, saves them in PDF and JPEG format and mails them to the user’s account. It is available in 12 languages commonly used in other photo agencies like Getty Images, Alamy etc. This feature rich app is available for under $10, but is worth the price.

Lighttrac

Lighttrac - This app is a useful assistant for photographers since it helps to get the details about the elevation of the sun, its direction at every time of the day anywhere in the world. This helps photographers use specific locations like ponds and streams when the sun shines on them, for specific cinematography requirements. It is a steal for just $3.99.

Artist's Touch

Artist’s Touch - This great app helps touch up any photo taken and give it a special enhanced effect. It can make paintings out of pictures with its 11 different brushes, change the background into anything unique, change colors, and much more. In short it can transform a photo completely for any photographer. It comes for a small sum of $4.99.

These iPad apps are a good starting point for all photographers needing special enhanced results, and can be supplemented later with other apps that are launched from time to time.

About the author: Neil is head of marketing for eMobileScan, one of the UK’s leading handheld computers. We also specialize in the Motorola MC3190 range designed for the retail industry.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

The 5 Best iPad Apps for Photographers

Why Doesn’t Every Site Use HTTPS?

Posted: 27 Mar 2011 08:00 AM PDT

You may have seen that a lot of popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Hotmail are moving from using HTTPS only for their login pages to using it for their entire site. For some of these sites, it is a user configurable option right now, but ultimately it will be the default method of access over standard HTTP.

So that may raise the question to you that if HTTPS is much more secure, why doesn’t every site use it? That very question is answered in this excellent article on Ars Technica: HTTPS is more secure, so why isn’t the Web using it?

There are several reasons HTTPS isn’t used everywhere:

Adds latency to connections since servers have to process key exchanges and lose the ability to cache
Extra cost of security certificates
Requirement that a unique IP must be used for an SSL certificate (i.e. no shared hosting which just about every web host employs)
Many sites simply don’t need it (if you never send sensitive informatin to a site then there is no reason to secure the traffic)

This is a very interesting read and well worth it. While I think HTTPS will become a bit more commonplace, I don’t see the web ever moving to HTTPS only as it is cost prohibitive for smaller sites.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Why Doesn’t Every Site Use HTTPS?