Hello, I'm Evan. I write about tech from my perspective – that of the average tech geek, sometimes with my lawyer glasses on. You can also find me on Twitter and at my real-life job as a lawyer. MORE ABOUT ME.
At first blush, the easiest way to find apps and get them onto your Android device is via the Android Market, which can be accessed via an app on your phone. If you want a great way to find apps, and keep track of them, there is another method. Check out AppBrain, a web service and Android app that lets you keep track of not only the apps that you have installed, but also to see what apps your friends are using.
One of the big news stories last week was the hacking of Gawker Media’s servers. As part of the attack, user accounts were compromised on Gawker sites, including Lifehacker and Gizmodo. More than 500,000 user emails and 185,000 decrypted passwords were posted online. If you’re not sure which account you used on a Gawker site, and want to determine if your account might have been compromised, there’s a tool for that.
Slate has created a widget that lets you input your username or email address to see if your account was hacked. All that you need to do is input your username or email address that you used on a Gawker site, and hit the “Check” button. You’ll get one of two messages back:
1. “Your account data has been released. If your account had a password, it has also been released in an encrypted form. Change it.”
2. “The e-mail account or user name does not appear to be in the released database.”
If you get the first message, you should not only change your Gawker password, but if you used that email/password combination on any other sites, you should change your password on those sites, too.
To avoid a problem like this in the future, make sure that you use unique passwords on all sites. Check out one of our favorite tools, LastPass, for an easy way to generate and remember all of those passwords.
Does a hack like this make you trust Gawker sites less? Or trust the Internet less? Our take: this could happen to any site out there. Protect yourself by using unique passwords on all sites.
While Evernote is great if you take lots of notes that you want to save, it can be a bit cumbersome for quick notes. Dropbox is great, too, but doesn’t allow for quick editing of files unless you’re on a computer that has Dropbox installed. If you are a frequent user of Windows’ native Notepad app, and want to have your notes accessible on any computer, check out Nocs. Nocs looks much like Windows’ Notepad app, but with the option to save your text files to Google Docs.
When you first start Nocs, you need to input your Google credentials. Then, when you save a text document, you can choose to save it locally, or to your Google Docs account. When you save to your Google Account, you can designate a folder into which you can place your document. In the future, when you want to load your document, you choose the “Browse Google Docs” option in the File menu. From there, you’re presented with a list of your Google Docs folders on the left of the popup screen, and the documents within each folder on the right.
Nocs loads fast, and also autosaves in the background (if you enable that feature in the preferences). It also supports multiple tabs. The best part? It is free. Nocs is Windows only.
Nocs [via CyberNet News]
If you can find an app in the iPhone app store, chances are that you can find an equivalent app for your Android device. Sometimes, though, an official app isn’t available, so you have to look a bit harder. That’s the case if you’re a user of Toodledo, a task manager that we’ve raved about before here at 40Tech. Fortunately, Android developers are a resourceful bunch, and, as a result, third party alternatives have sprung up that bring Toodledo to your Android device. Two of the best are Ultimate To Do List and Got To Do.
How the U.S. Government Was Able to Seize BitTorrent Domains Without Due Process
By now, you’ve heard how the United States Department of Justice seized the domain names of several commercial websites that were accused of engaging in counterfeiting. Among these were some file sharing sites. If the seizure shocks your idea of fair play, you’re not alone. How exactly did the U.S. government seize these domain names, without giving the site owners a chance to defend themselves?
Ars Technica has a fascinating article detailing the seizures. In short, the government filed an affidavit to support the seizure request. In that affidavit, the government trotted out data and statistics it had received from those in the movie and music business. As Ars Technica reported,
Even more disturbing, the seizures do not appear to be part of any criminal case. If they were, then perhaps an argument could be made that the seizures were similar to a seizure of physical property as part of a criminal investigation. As Ars Techicna noted, though,
Wow. Don’t confuse my feelings on theft of an author’s work. It stinks. If we want content creators to keep producing content, we need to find a way to make sure that they get paid. Freeloaders are only shooting themselves in the foot in the long run.
But is this really how we want our government to go about doing business? Should our government be able to seize a domain name, without giving a site owner a chance to defend himself?
Shame on you, freeloaders. But even more so, shame on our government officials. You’ve stained the reputation of the United States, and conveyed to the world, rightly or wrongly, that our leaders whore themselves out to an industry willing to pay enough money.
Now that I’ve effectively insulted those on both sides of the argument, let me know in the comments if I’m missing the boat here. Where do you fall in this debate?