If the fastest mobile speed across the nation is your priority, looks like it’s Verizon for you. 

For me personally, I chose to compromise for imperceptibly lower speed in exchange for much lower cost, so I chose Tmobile. However if you must have the highest speed and you travel across the country a lot, Verizon might be worth looking into if you haven’t already.

For the second year in a row, Verizon Wireless takes the crown as America’s fastest mobile network by delivering the quickest speeds and the best coverage across the map.

Source: Fastest Mobile Networks 2015 | PCMag.com

PC on a stick for $130

I’m going to have to try this. Just plug this stick into an HDMI port of any modern monitor/TV, bring your bluetooth keyboard & mouse, and you’re up and running. Combine this with a cloud-based service platform like Google Apps or Microsoft Office/365 and you are up and running for next to nothing.

Lenovo’s new HDMI dongle is basically a PC in stick, and though we’ve seen this type of devices before, the Ideacenter Stick’s price might make it quite attractive. The device starts at $139 and comes with the following specs:Intel Baytrail Z3735F CPUUp to 2GB of RAMUp to 32GB of storageSpeakersWiFI 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.01 x HDMI, 1x Micro USB 2.0, SD card readerWindows 8.1 with Bing

Source: Lenovo unveils the Ideacenter Stick 300: a $130 PC on a stick running Windows

This is why it’s not a good idea to use password-storing services like LastPass

 

Looks like there was a breach in the LastPass service. While it’s not a complete disaster, it should give everyone a good signal that it’s really not a good idea (IMO) to use cloud-based password-storing systems.

If I was using LastPass, I would be deleting my account and all its data immediately.

We want to notify our community that on Friday, our team discovered and blocked suspicious activity on our network. In our investigation, we have found no evidence that encrypted user vault data was taken, nor that LastPass user accounts were accessed. The investigation has shown, however, that LastPass account email addresses, password reminders, server per user salts, and authentication hashes were compromised.

Source: LastPass Security Notice | The LastPass Blog

Don’t jump into the free Windows 10 upgrade

Ask any Windows veteran and they will tell you to hold off until the “.1” release of any new O/S.  Unless you’ve got a fire under you, hold off on installing the free upgrade until the equivalent of Windows 10.1 gets released, if you can.

…you should probably wait until the last minute to make the upgrade because of numerous problems everyone has found with Windows 10

Source: The Best Strategy for Windows 10: Wait | John C. Dvorak | PCMag.com

Send that Google Map location to your iphone

Google Maps iPhone users can rejoice.  Next time you’re at your desk and you find that restaurant on Google maps, just send it to your iPhone, jump in your car, and let the sexy voice nav lady take over.

The latest version of Google Maps, now in the App Store, lets you send any place you search for with Google Maps on your desktop browser right to an iPhone or iPad. Your phone receives it as a notifcation, and once you tap on it, the mobile app will automatically take you to that spot.

Source: Google Maps now lets you send places from desktop to your iPhone | The Verge

You won’t be disappointed with Google Photos

I’ve been using Google Photos for only a few days and I’m already hooked on it. This is much, much more than a photo uploading service. Once uploaded, you can browse your collection according to people (via facial recognition), places, and even events.  I love the added feature whereby it attempts to create animations when you take a few photos in one spot.

It’s a must. Get it, use it, love it!  Mossberg’s review below goes into great detail.

The new Google Photos brings the company’s expertise in artificial intelligence, data mining and machine learning to bear on the task of storing, organizing and finding your photos. And that, combined with its cross-platform approach, makes it the best of breed.

Source: Google Photos: The Mossberg Review | Re/code

Did you get your Windows 10 Free Upgrade notification today?

This morning I saw an interesting desktop notification for the first time:

desktopNotification

After opening it, was somewhat surprised to see that Microsoft determined I was ready for the free Windows 10 upgrade.

windows10

 

Very smart marketing. Got to admit that I’m intrigued. So I started the upgrade process. I’m a little nervous as I really can’t afford to “break” anything but right now, I’m proceeding with the download.