Complicated World, Simple Solutions…

Simplify your life, your business and your world.

Starting yesterday if you logged into a Gmail account you would find a new feature in your Gchat box: the ability to place or receive calls. This is an expansion of the Google Voice service, the phone service of Google which previously was confined to just phones. Now if you are in a area of poor phone reception or if you’re travelling internationally and don’t want to incur expensive roaming charges you can simply use your computer to place or receive calls.

Read More…

Though the Temptations famously sang “keep on walkin’, don’t look back” we here at the Linked IT blog thought it would be useful to new and old readers to blow the dust off the old archives and give you some of our most useful postings from the past.

• Give New Life to an Old Computer- This posting shows you a great way to rejuvenate any old computers you have lying around. It gives users a step-by-step tutorial on what Linux Mint can do and also how to install it. Very useful stuff. (Also check out Part 2 of the posting)
• 10 of the Top Open Source Alternatives- This posting gives you descriptions of 10 great open source (i.e. free) and also links on where to download them from
• Photoshop Tutorial for Beginners: Neon Glow- This posting gives you a tutorial on how to create the stunning Neon Glow effect in Photoshop.
• Stone Portrait Tutorial- This posting shows users how to give their photos the dramatic and breathtaking stone portrait effect.

Need a quick and easy way to tell if a website is bad news for you to visit?  With a quick installation, WOT (Web of Trust) provides security and peace of mind while browsing the Internet. This link gives you a step by step tutorial on how to install and configure WOT in Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and Google Chrome.

According to sources, Google is creating a Chrome OS tablet and it will be built by HTC. They will be launching it in conjunction with Verizon on the busiest shopping day of the year, November 26th. Google’s Chrome OS tablet will probably be heavily subsidized, and probably will be substantially cheaper than the iPad — if not totally free — with a Verizon data contract.

Read more…

Delta Air Lines has launched The Delta Ticket Window, a Facebook application that lets members find, book and share flights via the “Book a Trip” tab on the airline’s Facebook Page. The company believes it can capitalize on a captive audience given that Facebook is the most trafficked website on its inflight Wi-Fi service.

This development leads one to wonder how many other businesses will try to streamline their online purchasing through Facebook given that it is one of the most popular sites on the internet.

Read more…

Mozilla’s second beta for Firefox 4 debuted on Tuesday last week with a couple new changes. The most frequently mentioned new feature is Tabs on top (or Tab Candy) similar to Google Chrome. Another new feature is App Tabs which gives users the ability to create lopped-off little tabs that help you keep frequently used pages up, grouped, and available.

To read more go here

The Internet is about to face one of its most serious issues in its history: experts have warned that the Internet is running out of IP addresses. 94% of the available internet addresses have already been allocated and the remaining 6% are projected to be used up by 2011.

Currently, the web uses IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4). 32-bit numbers are used, meaning about 4 billion addresses are available. The challenge is to switch to IPv6 which is 128 bit and has much more IP addresses available. Adoption of IPv6 has been slow; however, Google and Facebook have recently made great strides to begin to deploy IPv6.

Though there are ways around the lack of IPs such as having devices share an IP, those are just temporary solutions. The long-term solution still must be the deployment of IPv6 in the future.

Read more…

Yes, there is a robotic exoskeleton that makes it easier for soldiers to run and carry heavy weights called the HULC. Yes, it is ridiculously awesome. Yes, it is ready for soldier tests now. What does that mean for enemies of the US? I don’t know but probably something bad.

Just to give you an idea of its capabilities here are some quotes from the article: “allows soldiers to carry weights of up to 200lbs (91kg) with little effort”, “uses an onboard computer to sense and mimic the user’s movements”, and “can pulverize a man’s face with a single blow”. OK, that last one isn’t true but anytime we can get closer to a world like Starship Troopers thats a good thing.

Read more

Delivering news digitally in a personalized manner is a nut many a startup – as well as many established Internet companies and publishers – are desperately trying to crack. Recent start-up Hawthorne Labs is no different. The company has just released their first application called APOLLO for the iPad.

Apollo is quite similar to Pandora in that it uses an algorithm (using factors such as time spent on articles, sources favorited, articles liked/not-liked as well as social elements like Twitter and Facebook mentions and similar peoples’ tastes etc.) to help users discover the best content for them in a variety of categories (Top News, Business, Tech, Sports and so on).

The team behind the company consists of ex-Google News and Bing engineers so it looks like they know what they’re doing.

To read more go here

Just weeks into the iPhone 4 era and the roll out has been anything but smooth. Complaints ranging from antenna reception flaws to faulty proximity sensors have plagued the initial run of iPhone 4’s. To make matters worse the customer service which Apple traditionally hangs it’s hat on has come under fire, most infamously advising customers to hold their iPhone differently to combat bad reception. Another issue is the rocky start the iOS 4 (operating system for the new iPhone) had at launch; however, the past few weeks has seen it become more stable.

While a recall might not happen and might not be needed, the fact remains the iPhone 4 launch has dented Apple’s credibility and put a chink in it’s armor. How Apple deals with this adversity will be very interesting to see in the future.

Read More