April 10, 2008 by phillip.

Like the Pied Piper leading the mice from the village so in turn does blogging go. Everyone has the new opportunity to be able to follow the lives of other people. My life has always been an open book to most anyone that I meet, however, now it’s becoming that way to many that I don’t meet. This blog gives away my thoughts on my field to all that ask. Now, it can do the same with Twitter, blogging, microblogging, photosharing sites, and your social networking sites (i.e. Facebook and Myspace). Follow my everyday adventures and interact with me on what you think. I’ve recently forwarded my Twitter account to my instant messager so you I’m going to get more involved with my personal thoughts on Twitter. Follow me there too. Here’s my info:

Twitter: banksps

GTalk IM: banksps

AOL IM banksps1

Facebook: Look for phillip@banksnetworking.com aka my email address.

I love to hear from all my new friend on the internet and hopefully make more.

Posted in Cool Net Tricks, Announcements | No Comments »

March 20, 2008 by phillip.

The more podcasts and RSS feeds I listen to or view has made me come to a conclusion.  I’m not internet cool. I have most of the technical ingredients for it. I have instant messengers galore. I have a Twitter account. I have a camera phone.

I guess it’s really that I feel a little left behind listening to Leo Leporte (or any ex-Techtv people) on shows like TWIT. They seem to know so many people by name in the industry that actually talk to them all the time.

I guess I’m not too far off because I have met a lot of the people talking on some shows at conventions or something else but they wouldn’t follow me on Twitter. Although, I have been surprised when people have remembered me.

I’m not mad at them though. Keep doing your thing you Internet Rock Stars! I may not have a couple thousand people following me on Twitter like Robert Scoble or Jason Calakanis. I may not have a name with presence like Leo Leporte but if I can or have offered just one kernel of knowledge in my blog that has made your day… Let me know.  That’s what I’m here for.

Posted in My humble opinion, Only for the techy people, Cool Net Tricks, Life Lessons | No Comments »

March 19, 2008 by phillip.

I absolutely love this idea and once caught something like it on a episode of the video podcast hak.5 about a year ago or so.

Here’s the cool future of the newspaper. You make your own. How? Well RSS feeds. Imagine taking RSS feeds (like this blog) and we get out a newspaper every morning. It would only have the subjects that we really want because it uses the RSS feeds we like. Thats what this website does.

The website is Feed Journal and it will take all your RSS feeds and make them into a printed newspaper (if you want to waste the paper) or a PDF file so you could read it on your computer. I’m totally torn on this because I love to read on paper more than on a computer but with advances in e-ink like Amazon’s Kindle will start to bridge that gap.

I can’t wait to be holding my one page of plastic that looks like a newspaper that changes pages digitally when I push a membrane button on the page because its all e-ink on a screen. It’ll probably feel like a page of laminated paper the size of a newspaper. For now there Feed Journal on your laptop, PDA, or Kindle/Sony Ebook reader. Come to think of it this might be the only good use for a tablet PC.

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January 29, 2008 by phillip.

I’ve just become an RSS junkie in one way or another. It used to be strictly podcasts for the most part. Now I’m really getting into so many blog feeds that I sit up all night reading through blogs. My problem is partly my own but where are all the podcasts going? I realized this while going through all of my podcast feeds and noticing which ones I haven’t seen content for in a while.

I know my video podcasting friend Roxanne Darling would definitely get on me for not starting my own podcast by now so I do take some responsibility for the problem because I’m not creating content myself. However, in an article that I wrote a couple months ago about using sexy women for video podcasts it seems that some are gone now. ABC News has let Amanda Congdon go. Natali Del Conti has left the Podshow network. She has release a promo video for a new show she may be doing on CNet now but I haven’t seen anything about it yet but here’s the link. I’ve got to admit though, I’m not sure how much I’ll really follow her though because I was just telling my wife, “She’s a beautiful girl but I don’t know how credible I find her opinions. She’s just somewhat entertaining.” However, maybe some of that was because Adam Curry (the owner of the podshow network) just likes to see pretty women and boobs bouncing. Cnet seems to be more on the serious side and may hopefully show she has depth… If she has any. However, CNET is like the Clippers basketball team. It’s a training camp. People seem to be a lot better after they leave there.

Amber McCarthur of CommandN is still podcasting but has cut back on her episode time to 7 minutes a week and still does her live net@nite podcast with Leo Laporte but had been bailing on that and leaving Leo alone a couple times. I love Leo but it’s kinda boring when he’s alone and interviewing someone. That format of show was for her.

Fairwell to the “In the trenches” podcast. They’d been going for a couple years and once Kevin left the show because he got too busy the show started going down hill till they ended it last month.

Chris DiBona is a guy that’s all over the place doing everything but he also left Leo Laporte on FLOSS weekly and they finally started it back up. A guy named Randall Schwartz is there now but the content is going down hill and will probably soon call it quits too. I don’t think they’re working really hard to get interesting open source projects.

As far as my business and marketing podcasts go, Heidi Miller stopped her podcast “Diary of a shameless self promoter” a couple months ago and then at the end of December threw a quick episode out but I’m deleting her from my list too.

Where is everyone going? Are they proving that podcasting was a fad that is going away? Are they bored with it? I definitely hope not. If you’re starting a new podcast for techy people let me know. I’m actually looking for objective Mac and Windows podcasts that don’t just scream “I’m a fanboy for this company.”

Posted in Cool Net Tricks | 4 Comments »

October 10, 2007 by phillip.

I’ve got to admit. As a kid I was pretty mischievous. I’m sure many of us were. Thing is, what I need is internet all the time. I want to be able to get internet for free because I believe it should be as taken for granted as free radio. I’ve found myself asking clients and people I know if they could give me their WEP/WPA keys so I can log onto their internet if I’m near their house. I’m not going to be downloading movies or anything. I may just need to check my email or get directions and don’t want to spend a fortune getting it on my phone.

This is one of those times that makes a “White hat” hacker like myself want to turn into a “Black hat” one. There are more than enough resources to crack WEP out there. I just don’t want to get started using them to get access points. Somebody come up with a free citywide internet for Los Angeles. I’ve heard they’re working on it in Toronto and San Francisco. We definitely need it here.

Posted in Cool Net Tricks | 1 Comment »

September 28, 2007 by phillip.

While at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo this year I’ve got to give a quick shout out to some real class acts. First and foremost I’ve got to give my friend Roxanne Darling a hand for a great seminar today on how she makes video production easy (these pictures are from last year but I’ll take new ones tomorrow).

Then to Leo Leporte and Steve Gibson for “Security Now” getting Podcast of the year (Leo couldn’t come this year).

Also, I’ve got to give a quick applause to a very good video podcast for the children and the curious about animals. A guy named Joel Mark, of the Maryland Zoo, started a video podcast that’s 5 minutes long and about a different animal each time. It’s definitely something to look forward to as the upcoming video about camels is cute for the kids, funny, and educational. Find him at www.marylandzoo.tv. He was worried about his job because he started this without approval. However, I notice now that his link is redirected to the zoo’s site and embedded there. That must mean he’s safe.

Posted in Cool Net Tricks, Announcements | 1 Comment »

September 27, 2007 by phillip.

I’ve been so wanting to post something in the last day or so but a lot of running around and getting ready for going to the Podcast and Portable Media Expo has had most of my focus.  I am out in Ontario, California today at the Podcamp the day before the expo.  I’m listening to some great speakers right now and had lunch with Roxanne Darling of Beach Walks.

I seemed to have had a ton of interest in a question I decided to speak up on about getting my grandmother on Linux.  More precisely it was about making her listen to the new media of podcasting like the old media of radio.  I’ve been approached by quite a few people about how I did it.  One man was saying that I was the hit of the show so far.  The bad part is, I introduced myself but not my website.

I’ll have more info about what I learned here and possibly go into more depth about my family podcast setup and my new job as programming director for my family’s viewing and listening needs.

Follow the link to Roxanne’s show.  I should be on her podcast later today.

Posted in Something to know, Cool Net Tricks | 1 Comment »

September 24, 2007 by phillip.

Just a quick note. If you haven’t heard about this new software named Mint I’ll give you a brief summary. Mint is supposed to be a Quicken replacement that is a Web 2.0 looking flashy interface. It shows you how much money you can save by downloading all your financial info and doing some financial voodoo that shows you what it saved you. Sounds great huh?

NOT! I’m sure you know how I feel about strictly online services but if you’re thinking about putting all your bank data online you must be out of your mind crazy. I read security statement and even with 128 bit encryption it still makes me very nervous. Granted, your computer is probably less secure than their servers but who are they? Are they a well known bank? A well known brokerage? No. That just screams stay away. Let other people that don’t read my blog be the crash test dummies.

Posted in Cool Net Tricks | 1 Comment »

September 7, 2007 by phillip.

This is a subject that’s boggled my mind for quite some time now. I was reading about someone using Google Calendar and it brought me back to an old belief that I just can’t shake.

Why do we trust Internet applications so much?

The old train of thought was security, security, security. You can’t trust people on the Internet. Why do so many people trust keeping their information somewhere in the world on a server. Do you know who’s watching that server? Do you trust them that much? I’m not saying Google doesn’t have tons of security in place and policies about what people see of your data but I’m nervous using the same password on multiple websites because I’m trusting that it’s being encrypted on their end.

There are so many products now that are online. You don’t even have to have any programs on your PC at all. I LOVE this concept in theory. Zoho offers a full office suite online. It’s a nice solution. Then you have Google’s online applications and Zimbra for email. It’s great but at what cost to you or your company? As rare as it is the Internet has gone down for some crazy reason your Internet provider gives. Your whole company is totally offline now and can’t work because all their applications are on line.

Here’s your handy computer guys’ prescription but please tell me your thoughts on this issue. I say if you want the mobility to go to any computer and do work anywhere, fine. Get a USB memory stick and go to www.portableapps.com and get the products you want and put them on the stick and save to the stick. If you just want to have applications like the big boys but don’t want to spend the big boys money there are open source applications like OpenOffice and Thunderbird that do more than some of the expensive Microsoft applications… or just check www.sourceforge.net for more programs. I love the OpenOffice route because it works on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

In short, I love these online programs but I’m just too paranoid about using them. It’s like living in room with mirrors and you don’t know what’s on the other side of the walls. All the mirrors could be double sided and you’re just being watched like a police station interrogation room. If you’re the person who believes he has nothing to hide or steal I can find some identity fraud criminal that would love to talk to you.

Posted in Cool Net Tricks | 1 Comment »

July 30, 2007 by phillip.

In a random web search I came across this website and found myself blessed in finding it. It’s called Project Honeypot it’s a simple idea that could really help. It’s an attempt to stop spammers by giving them what’s called “honey pots.” Basically, what a honey pot is is a way to weed out hackers by giving them a server that looks good for the taking once they get in but they don’t realize that it’s there on purpose to stall them and gather information about them while they’re looking for bad things to do.

Spammers go about collecting addresses off web pages for the most part. Say for instance your company has a website and they mention you and your email address. Spammers have “bots” that just search the web looking for email addresses to grab and then they send out emails. This project makes honey pots of websites with email addresses. The second a spammer sends an email to that address it updates a list that reports him as a spammer.

It still has a couple rough edges but you might want to give this a try.

Posted in Cool Net Tricks | 1 Comment »