Hard Drive Encryption

Do I need to encrypt my hard drive? Unless your hard drive contains lots of private information that you wouldnt want an identify thief to have, you could just manually encrypt some of your personal files. Let's say someone breaks into your house and steals your computer. What information on your computer would you be most afraid of if it got into the wrong hands? For myself, it would probably be my tax files as they contain SSN information and other sensitive information. So I just encrypt it using 7zip. 7zip is an open source archival tool (like Winzip) which I use all the time for creating zip files, but it conveniently has an encryption tool built in. For instructions on how to encrypt files using 7zip, read the article below.

http://www.medicalnerds.com/how-to-encrypt-zip-files-securely-using-7zip/

Using DropBox to Share Photos

If you use DropBox, the below article explains a quick and easy method of sharing photos.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/quickly-set-share-beautiful-photo-galleries-dropbox/

Kill the Password

Great (and scary!) article on how passwords arent really secure anymore.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/11/ff-mat-honan-password-hacker/all/

Using a password manager is the least you can do.
http://www.simpleist.com/2009/01/secure-password-management.html

Adobe Creative Cloud in a nutshell

What is the Adobe Creative Cloud? In a nutshell, its the bundling of Adobe's most popular products and services into one subscription package.

• Think all-you-can-eat buffet - Get access to practially all Adobe products and then some.  Eliminates the need to perform those intense suite comparisons to find out which combination of products you want for maximum cost savings.
• Think no more version upgrades - Gain access to all new features immediately so you dont need to wait and buy the newest version every 1-2 years. No more install DVDs.
• Think Adobe's version of Facebook - Social networking to shared your works (e.g. portfolios).
• Think Dropbox - Syncing your media files and assets across cloud, desktop, laptop, phone, tablets, etc. so that you can view and edit from any device.

Adobe has embraced one of the popular trends in the tech industry today where Subscriptions outweighs the benefits of the traditional Perpetual license model. We see this movement today in the music industry with cloud based services such as Spotify and Grooveshark where you can get the latest music anytime and anywhere. Would you prefer one time purchases of individual mp3s (e.g. iTunes) or would you rather pay a monthly subscription fee to get access to all mp3s anywhere/anytime (e.g. Spotify)? In the long run, you will most likely pay out more for a subscription but dont you think its worth it considering the many benefits and removal of waste? For example, if you download mp3s, you will need to transfer them to all your playback devices such as cars, phones, tablets, etc. Also, you will need to create manual playlists for each device. Instead, the Spotify app will run on all your devices and be sync'd with the cloud (playlists included!) Not to mention that you dont need to choose individual songs or albums to buy since you gain access to the entire collection.

Technology is moving so fast that software and hardware gets outdated within 1-2 years. Therefore, users need updated software and hardware with minimal disruption. Adobe is embracing this major shift as they move their products towards subscriptions rather than the traditional shrink boxed products.

For more details, check out this Cnet article.