November 2013 ~ Tech Bits: IT 104

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Google Maps and Google Earth

5:31 PM No comments

Two of the best things that has ever come to Google, is Google Maps and Google Earth. Each of the two work together and have paved a new view on finding directions easily. Google Maps/Earth makes traveling a little easier and viewing the world up close giving way to exploration. I have always used Google Maps before a trip besides using a GPS to know where I'm going street by street view, so I don't miss the specific destination. Google keeps improving it more to the point it may seem a little scary if someone is wanting to check out your home haaaaa, but the image quality is a lot more clearer and sharp with the street views.

Directions are easy to follow and interacting with the map is simple to do on the browser:

The one thing I never noticed with using the Google Maps is it saves every destination you searched for in it. It still had a list of all the places from months ago still saved on the site itself.

The street views keep expanding more to even places beyond such as the "boonies," but there is still tons of roads you can't view. The street views really show the surroundings of where you're driving which is basically a full 360° view.

You can view before heading out whether there is traffic, weather conditions, accidents, and so on by clicking in the top right corner in the picture below. You will have the option of whether which type of map to view your trip: Satellite, Earth, and regular map view.

Below is the view of the project for class of the camping trip our class is doing by using Craiglist to buy an RV, etc. using Google Maps to pinpoint the places to visit. This is a way to plan a trip beforehand. It is shared to the whole class by my teacher for all of us to pin the areas live.

It's really cool that you can customize your pins and be able to do this with the class editing it together.

Google Earth, is a pretty amazing program to play around with because you see the world in the 3D and you can even look into space which I love to do. I also like using the program to view small islands across the world and looking up about the country that even have pictures placed within the area to view. I look at other places around the world that a typical person hasn't heard of before. I look around the place up close exploring and even viewing airline tickets just to see how much it would cost to travel there. Anyway, you have the option of using the desktop program, browser, and mobile.

The desktop program you can do a number of things and the layers

provide a variety of other places/items to view:

As I mentioned earlier, anywhere you look on the desktop program, it will list pictures of users who have traveled there and posted it which is such a nice feature. The only issue is some are not accurate pictures from that area especially in the middle of the ocean which I have noticed.

You can view the historical map which shows what the area looked like back in 1996. The picture below shows Logan, WV in 2011 with the new stores and restaurants built. Then it shows below it, a view of it in 1996 when it was nothing but a hill.

Well, that was just the start of talking about Google Maps/Earth because there's so much more things you can do with each that I haven't even gone over. Traveling is really made easy anymore without having to go old school with using regular atlas maps. I know they will come up with something even more advanced with the maps throughout the years because Google seems to amaze me more each year with their products.

Feedly vs Digg Reader

6:42 PM news, news feed, news feed reel, RSS feed No comments

Feedly is a news feeder reel that that is available for web browsers, mobile phones, and is even included on the cloud. It combines any news feeds from other websites providing a variety of articles to read. As Google Reader closed down, Feedly was one of the top options for users who need their daily dose of news. You can integrate it into your web browsers as well as just using the web based site and it is now cloud-based.

Digg has been around for awhile now. It has always been the site that is known for the most talked about stories, pictures, and video on the web. They have started their own Digg Reader that works the same as Feedly combining all your interests of news and so on into one spot. Both Feedly and Digg are quite simple to use with adding the news feeds of sites you enjoy the most at your fingertips.

I really like Feedly because of how much it loads faster compared to Digg. Even in magazine style showing the pictures from the article load within a second. Digg took a couple of seconds to load most of the time with just the title style. Feedly has different views of your news and I really like the magazine style rather than the titles showing only. Digg only has two views which is titles and card view style. Below is Feedly's different styles.

The thing that won me with Feedly is being an all-in-one reader for me. What I'm trying to say is, I really like how you can click on the link and it opens the article within the page. Below you will see it National Geographic in magazine style too:

As for Digg, it opens up a new window once you click on the title. The site itself is very simple and it does get right down to the point of reading your news overall for those who don't need anything fancy:

Tor and Darknet: World of Anonymity

1:26 PM No comments

TOR first began as a provider for the Naval Research Laboratory to help protect communication with the government. It it used now among everyone in order the protect their privacy from rigorous marketers and identity theft. Millions of people's information are being sold to other marketers every day. I can see that such as in my email comparing it to the things I have searched. Private data is kept from being public to others to keep you safe. It even hides your IP address whereas just your IP alone can give away your location especially when it comes to children and teenagers who aren't aware of this when browsing the web. Tor itself keeps websites from ever tracking you while browsing to instant messaging with others.

As you can see in the title of TOR is an onion which represents "Onion Routing" that relates to the layers of encryption where data is broken down and encrypted multiple times through a cycle from revealing information of the user to whatever destination it's sent to in the end. I researched that even the NSA believes that Tor is "still the King of high secure, low latency Internet anonymity." That's pretty much a big deal there to something that is free among all users and especially for the the government to make a statement like that.

It works by separating information sent out of a user and its routing. Then the onion routing comes into play as it encrypts and then it jumps around through the network randomly. It routers the encryption in a "multi-layered manner" to ensure anonymity in the network between relays. I know this much that internet service providers dislike the use of Tor because they cannot see what the user is downloading etc. Someone I know, I got a letter from the provider that they knew they were using a program to block them from knowing their internet activity. That didn't stop them though from continuing use of it.

Darknet is known as the "Deep Web" where it is so much harder access as it's very anonymous. The address you use isn't the same as on a regular browser. It supposedly consist over 200,000 websites listed "down there" and is extremely hard to find. You must connect to the Tor network in order to use it where you can host a website without revealing your location. On the Darknet, you don't have the real address of the server with the data encrypted.

There is a lot of very interesting things in Darknet with typical news, blogs, forums, speaking your mind freely, etc. Then there is the bad illegal side such as with drugs, sex, weapon dealers, credit-card scammers, and other illicit activity. Sadly, there are people who use it for sick reasons such as with child porn. Just because Tor network provides so much security and keeps you anonymous it doesn't keep you from the basic everyday problems on the internet like being hacked, identity theft, or viruses. It just seems it's the place to do more evil than good to many.

Online Music Players: Spotify, Grooveshark, Slacker, and Pandora

8:23 AM grooveshark, music, music players, pandora, pandora radio, slacker, slacker radio, spotify, streaming music 1 comment

Spotify

Out of all the music players that I have to blog about, Spotify I have used a lot for 3 years. The one thing I really liked and noticed with Spotify is how you can connect with your friends on there through Facebook As if having your own little social network through music. You can see each other's playlist and share it. Follow one another and see the music playing live on Facebook. I use the desktop app which is the closest thing to iTunes interface. But the difference is, Spotify is more focused on music only. No books, movies, etc. The one thing I disliked on there is the radio feature. I think it's poorly done when it comes to finding genres in the search bar because I searched for indie folk and it came up with massaging music and relaxing moods music haha. BUT you know what, they do redeem themselves with the "apps" where it provides different types genres and playlists.

Spotify has a pretty good massive music collection. I was able to find everything I wanted on there and my music taste is a lot different from mainstream music, so that's a bonus. It's really nice to be able to see not only the music album, but the history about the band or singer. In the picture is the desktop app and it's unlimited streaming with ads. The ads aren't bad at all or keep popping up constantly while playing the music. The mobile app is what brings Spotify down for me where you only have a trial for free users. The only way to have offline play and unlimited music on the mobile app is upgrading. As mentioned on the site, "Spotify Free users can listen for 14 days. 9.99 premium plan, 30-day trial on any device." Here is the premium plan:

The great thing about Spotify Premium is you can listen to albums before they even come out and of course as it says above, it allows you to listen offline saving your music on there. The music is 320Kbps and that's freakin' nice. Another feature with using Spotify is the fact you can plug up your Apple product like iPhone, iPod, etc. It syncs all your stuff on there and even photos. The web player is pretty nice too and the interface very simple. It's just right with how it looks and I like the huge thumbnails of the related music it shows on mine. Overall, I do enjoy Spotify and I haven't had any issues with it other than the mobile app and having to sign-up in order to use it.

Grooveshark

After checking out Grooveshark, I really enjoyed the site and the way it looked. It basically shows all of the music upfront right there and even music videos. I like the setup where it's more compact compared to Slacker. It's more colorful than Pandora and Spotify. Anyway, there's so much variety in the music especially with the radio stations with all genres.

The music streamed nicely on my pc with no issues. The benefit with Grooveshark is being able to play unlimited music by using your mobile browser which is awesome! I really love that. I like how you can drag the songs to the bottom and creates playlist of all the songs you want. I haven't heard an ad after playing 5 songs.

The list of genre radio stations below is not a whole lot at first until you click on "Related Genres."

I searched for random artists that are not so big among mainstream groups and found all the albums. That was surprising to me. I listened to one of the radio stations on there and the music didn't match the genre which was weird. I honestly don't like the whole thumbs up and down to vote for the next song, or not being able to skip on to the next. But hey, you can just look up that one song you like anyway and stream it for free :). In order to vote, you have to sign-up on the website. I really do enjoy the site and find it pretty useful. I'd even suggest it better than Spotify where I have that music player listed in my top 3.

Slacker

As soon as I entered the website, I noticed I liked the interface, not so much as Grooveshark, but overall it stood out to me. It took a bit for the site to load, but just could be my connection. It took me awhile to load at school as well, but that's okay. Everything seems so big with the album's thumbnails popping out, but below it quickly shows the many genres towards the bottom.

The great thing about Slacker is, it's all about the radio stations on there. There's so much variety listed besides just music. There's the news, sports, and even listening to comedy stand-up on there. Slacker pretty much wins in that category. The only issue I have is the "skip" method. If you don't like the song they're playing within the radio station genre, you have a limit of 6 skips per hour.

I'd more than likely use Slacker for radio use especially on my phone. I already had Slacker downloaded on my smartphone when I bought it. Even if there isn't a lot of skipping in the free account, it does have a lot of great playlists with the variety of genres I have played around with such as indie rock, oldies, and the 90's. Here is the subscriptions to using Slacker:

Pandora

Pandora I have pretty much heard a lot about by word of mouth with friends and then on TV. The interface of the site is a bit dark compared to the other sites. I just seem to like different colors, but Pandora is easy on the eyes with it being more sleek. I really wasn't feeling the site once I got on there because it just seemed so plain to me when searching for music:

Pandora is pretty good with their radio stations and many genres. After playing a few songs, it wouldn't let me continue to keep playing anymore until I signed-up. Music sounded great playing, but there was a lot of songs I searched for that fooled me into believing they had it. Once I clicked on it showing it was supposedly listed in the search bar, it came up with this:

I like a music player to actually provide music for every type of genre out there for all the millions of people out there. It's sometimes rare and I can understand they're always trying to update their database with more music. Finding that one song you love that is not mainstream, is golden. You can't just have one song from that album and fool you into believing there's more listed by automatically popping up the name as you type it. That's misleading to me, but that's alright haha, I'll live. Pandora has the mobile app or you can stream live from your mobile browser personalizing your music list with genres. For subscription to Pandora, here is the upgrade:

Pandora is best known for their Music Genome Project where it uses a algorithm to organize the music by the characteristics of the songs and connecting it among other similiar "genes" based on users tastes.

Among all the music players, I would consider using Grooveshark as my top for all music where I didn't even have to sign-up for it, then Spotify, and Slacker more so for radio use. All four of them sounded great playing music and among my top three, it had most of the music I like. They were all easy to use and manage as well with finding music and different radio stations to your liking.