OK, so we don’t really talk about Jurassic World on this episode. But Ray, Tom and Sean DO discuss some of the week’s tech news, including California’s new rules for Uber, the annual E3 video game trade show and more. Ray also reviews the food replacement product Soylent. All of that and more on this week’s Deemable Tech!

If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on our website, would you subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher? And, while you’re there, would you leave a review and say a few nice things about us? The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

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Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there. We’re also looking for a new admin to help manage and moderate our subreddit page. Submit a text post to our subreddit explaining why you would make a great admin.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

California commission rules that Uber drivers are employees

In what could be a major, precedent-setting decision for the so-called ?sharing economy,? the California Labor Commission has ruled that ride-sharing company Uber?s drivers are employees, not independent contractors. Uber has claimed that it is a logistics company and that drivers and passengers merely use its app to facilitate transactions.

However it seems that the Labor Commission took issue with this representation. It said that Uber controls the tools drivers use, monitors their approval ratings, and will terminate drivers whose approval ratings fall too low or who go too long without taking fares. The commission was ruling on the appeal of a labor commissioner?s award of $4,000 to Barbara Ann Berwick of San Francisco, who worked about two months for Uber last year.

If this ruling stands it could have huge consequences for Uber, currently valued at $40 billion. Uber is appealing the ruling.

European court rules news website liable for anonymous comments made on it

It?s a generally held legal principle that websites are not liable for offensive or infringing content users post on them if they remove that content when notified about it. In a surprising reversal, the European Court of Human Rights ruled this week that an Estonian news site called Delfi could be held responsible for anonymous and allegedly defamatory comments left on it. This goes against the existing European Union e-Commerce directive, which essentially has a version of the American DMCA. The court found the comments to be ?extreme? and Delfi?s efforts to control them to be insufficient – thus the ruling.

It?s not immediately clear what the effects of this ruling are. It doesn?t seem to change existing law, but could guide future European laws regarding what sort of content website operators can and cannot be held liable for.

LastPass hacked

If you use LastPass, and you haven?t changed your master password, stop listening to this podcast and do it RIGHT now. Seriously! Earlier this week, on its website LastPass announced it had detected an intrusion. Don?t panic, but the hackers did get email addresses, password reminders, and authentication hashes. So, that could be used to access your account.

The good news is, as we have said before, LastPass has multiple layers of encryption and it?s likely that no account data was lost in the breach. That being said, you must go change your LastPass master password, right now if you didn?t already do it, and it would be smart to set up two-factor authentication. We?re including a link in the show notes to Lifehacker?s article showing you how to do that if you?ve never done it before.

The FTC takes legal action against Kickstarter creator

One of the big stories of the internet over the last couple of years is crowdfunding campaigns, where sites like Kickstarter and IndieGogo allow people to back projects they?re excited about financially. Unfortunately, not all of those projects are on the up-and-up. Last week the FTC reported that it had taken its first legal action against a crowdfunding campaign – a Kickstarter-based project to create a board game called ?The Doom That Came To Atlantic City.? The FTC says that would-be creator Erik Chevalier had asked for $35,000 and wound up raising over $122,000 from 1,246 backers. Most of the backers pledged $75 or more in hopes of getting a backer reward that included pewter figurines. 14 months later, however, Chavalier had not provided any rewards and announced he was cancelling the game and would be refunding the money. No refunds were ever given.

The FTC has settled with Chevalier, forbidding him from ?making misrepresentations about any crowdfunding campaign and from failing to honor stated refund policies. He is also barred from disclosing or otherwise benefiting from customers? personal information, and failing to dispose of such information properly.?

Backers hoping for their money back are out of luck, though. The FTC would make Chevalier pay it back if he had it? but it appears that he doesn?t. It appears that the first rule of crowdfunding campaigns is still in full effect: let the buyer beware.

AT&T fined $100 million

The FCC won?t let AT&T be, or let AT&T be AT&T so let me see. The FCC is hitting AT&T with a $100 Million dollar fine for telling customers they had unlimited data, when in fact they were throttling them when they hit an undisclosed limit.

Travis LeBlanc, the chief of the FCC Enforcement Bureau said in a statement “Unlimited means unlimited. As today?s action demonstrates, the commission is committed to holding accountable those broadband providers who fail to be fully transparent about data limits.”

On average, affected subscribers were throttled for 12 days a billing cycle. The fine is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions of dollars AT&T has made from its so-called ?unlimited? plans. However, it is the largest fine proposal in the history of the FCC. The Federal Trade Commission also has a pending lawsuit against AT&T for the same issue.

SwiftKey vulnerability on Samsung Galaxy phones opens 600 million devices up to hacking

Another day, another hack that potentially affects millions. Security researchers at the BlackHat security conference in London have demonstrated that it is possible to exploit Samsung?s customized version of the SwiftKey keyboard to allow hackers to secretly gain access to the phone?s camera and microphones, text messages, memory, and to install malicious apps. It appears that Samsung grants the SwiftKey app high level privileges but makes no effort to encrypt updates to the software. The SwiftKey app is used on virtually all Samsung Galaxy phones, which means about 600 million devices worldwide. There?s not much users can do to make themselves safer at this time, other than to avoid unsecured wifi, and even this will not make them absolutely safe. Simply not using the SwiftKey keyboard will not help. The only real fix will be a patch from Samsung.

E3

This week is the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the annual trade show for the video game industry. This is where game makers announce new games and technology, as well as show off games that are currently in production.

There were many announcements and interesting things at this year?s E3, so we?re not going to be able to cover all of them today. In fact, we?re actually recording this episode on Wednesday, so there may have been more this week than we are even aware of. But we did want to mention two things we thought were cool, and they were both from Microsoft.

First, Microsoft announced that their Cortana digital assistant that can currently be found on Windows Phone will be coming to Android and the Xbox One. This means that you will be able to perform common tasks on your Xbox using voice commands. No firm release dates for these, but Microsoft did say that the Xbox One version will be out ?this fall.?

Microsoft also showed off their Hololens augmented reality headset live onstage at E3.

The Hololens — which Microsoft announced a while ago yet we?ve never talked about it — are holographic glasses that let you see and interact with virtual objects and environments as if they existed in the real world. Unlike virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift, the Hololens is transparent so you can see the actual world around you.

During their presentation this week, Microsoft demoed this technology using everyone?s favorite game, Minecraft. Explaining it verbally won?t do it justice, so we have included a video of the demonstration in the show notes at Deemable.com. The presentation begins with a Microsoft developer wearing a Hololens playing Minecraft using an Xbox controller on a virtual screen on the wall he was looking at. He then gets up, stares at a table on stage and says ?Build World.? This results in the Hololens building a three dimensional version of the Minecraft world on top of the table, which the developer can move around and look at from different angles. He can also manipulate things by using voice commands and gestures.

Polygon: Hololens hands-on review

Forbes: Hololens will cost significantly more than $400

St. Louis Cardinals allegedly hack the Houston Astros

Time to talk about SPORTSBALL!

The St. Louis Cardinals are being investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department for allegedly hacking the Houston Astros. What is a Cardinal or an Astro? A Cardinal is red birds that lives in Missouri and an Astro is a grey dog from the future that has a speech impediment. They get together to play sportsball with a baseball bat.

Why did the Cardinals hack the Astros? I have no idea. Were they trying to get secret sportsball techniques? Maybe. According to the New York Times, the database that was hacked contained statistics and values about the players and potential recruits.

The ?hack? looks like it was as complicated as using crappy passwords. Jeff Luhnow, who is now the Astro?s general manager was an executive at the Cardinals until 2011. He took some of the front office personnel from the Cardinals when he left. Investigators compared a list of passwords used by the staff when they worked for the Cardinals and they apparently used the same ones at the Astros.

REVIEW

Ray shares his experience with the food replacement product Soylent.

Image credit: Soylent

—

If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

And, don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

On this episode of the Deemable Tech podcast, Ray and Tom answer more of your questions about unwanted emails, transferring your copy of Windows to a friend and more.

The guys are also once again joined by producer Sean Birch to discuss some interesting news from the tech world, including the Kickstarter project that raised almost $60,000 to make a batch of potato salad, and a hotel that threatened to fine customers who left negative Yelp reviews.

#64 Bacn and Potato Salad

Links mentioned in this episode:

Lifehacker: How to Wipe Spam Email in Your Inbox

Use iTunes to Your iOS Device to Factor Settings

Restoring Your iOS Device Using Recovery Mode

Potato Salad Kickstarter – By the Numbers

Hotel Adds Negative Online Review Fine Clause to Terms of Service

Facebook Mood Experiment

OkCupid Experiment

Heidi wants to know what this Kickstarter thing she keeps hearing about on Facebook is. Why are people asking her for money? Ray Hollister and Tom Braun, the hosts of Deemable Tech, have the answer on this week’s Ask Deemable Tech.

RAY: Hi, I’m Ray Hollister…

TOM: I’m Tom Braun…

RAY: and we’re the hosts of Deemable Tech. On the show, we answer your questions about computers, tablets, mobile phones and the Internet, like this question:

Heidi asks: What is a Kickstarter? I see people posting on Facebook and Twitter about it. Why are people asking for money? Is it safe to do? How do I know it’s not a scam?

RAY: Great question, Heidi. Kickstarter has really taken off in the past year or so. It is a website that allows you to essentially ?pitch’ your product, creative idea or project to the internet. It’s pretty simple: you set up a Kickstarter project, pick a funding goal, and then anyone on the Internet can support you.

TOM: Yeah. While initially people were using Kickstarter to fund smaller projects, it really has gone mainstream. Now bands have funded albums through Kickstarter, developers have funded video games and just recently the creator of the Veronica Mars TV show Kickstarted a Veronica Mars movie, to star Kristen Bell.

RAY: Some public radio shows have used Kickstarter to fund their projects including Jacksonville’s own “State of the Re:Union.” We even recently funded an app for Deemable Tech through a Kickstarter project. We raised over $1,000 to cover the costs of building a mobile app for iPhone and Android. Once we have that finished, we’ll let you know.

TOM: Now, are there risks to Kickstarter? Well one of the great aspects to Kickstarter is that unless a project gets fully funded they don’t actually charge you. It’s just a pledge.

The payment system also goes through Amazon Payments here in the US, so it’s very secure.

RAY: Now, there’s still no way to guarantee that the project you are supporting itself isn’t a scam. Kickstarter does do some vetting of the projects that people submit, but it’s not impossible.

TOM: Very rare, but not impossible.

RAY: And something to keep in mind is that you are not investing in the company, and you are not buying a product. You are giving your money to the project for them to use. In most cases, you get some reward, which is often the product they are trying to create, but if something happens and they aren’t able to produce that product, there’s not much you can do about it.

Of course if you know the people involved in the project or if it’s being put on by a reputable source then you can be fairly confident that your money will be well-spent.

TOM: Overall I’d say it’s reasonably secure. Kickstarter is a legitimate organization and they are working hard to make sure that people’s money goes where it’s supposed to go.

And that’s awesome, because it gives people a chance to back things they are genuinely enthusiastic about.

Now Ray, how exactly does it work? How do I support a project on Kickstarter?

RAY: Go to kickstarter.com, and search for the project you are interested in. Click on the project, on the project page you will see a video or note from the project’s creator telling you what it’s all about. On the right-hand side of the page is a big green button that says “Back this Project.” Click that button and you will be taken to a page asking how much you want to pledge, and what you want your reward to be. After that you will be taken through the steps of the payment process.

TOM: So Kickstarter sounds like it’s pretty straightforward, safe, and a great way to support things you love.

RAY: Absolutely! It allows folks to start projects that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Instead of having to find one rich angel investor to back your project, you can ask all of your friends and family for $5 bucks.

RAY: To hear more answers to questions like this one, listen to our show at Deemable dot com, that’s D-E E-M A-B-L-E dot com. There you can listen to all of our previous episodes and, subscribe to our podcast.

TOM: If you have a question for Deemable Tech give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or you can send us an email at questions at deemable dot com.

We’re not trying to make you feel guilty, but Deemable Tech’s Kickstarter Project does end on March 25th at 7:00 PM. Would you help support us? Any amount, $1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 50, 100, etc. helps. Click the link above and click the green Back This Pledge button. Thank you in advance!

Make sure to subscribe to the show in iTunes by clicking here, or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader by clicking here. Also, make sure to leave us a review in iTunes. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed in iTunes and the more listeners will see our show!

Download Episode 33 – If We Don’t Make It, It’s All Your Fault 

Need tech help? Got a problem or tech question about your computer, phone or tablet? Give us a call and leave us a voice mail at 1-888-972-9868, or send us an email to questions at deemable dot com. We’ll answer them on the show.

TRANSCRIPT

Support for Deemable Tech is provided by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at asmallorange.com.

RAY: From WJCT studios in Jacksonville, Florida, I’m Ray Hollister,

TOM: I’m Tom Braun,

RAY: and this is Deemable Tech, technology worth talking about, and tech help worth listening to.

TOM: Got a question about your computer, smart phone, tablet or the Internet? Give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or send us an email at questions@deemable.com.

TOM: Today on the show, we’ll be talking about jailbreaking iPhones, and whether it’s illegal to unlock your smartphone, and

RAY: Blackberry 10 and whether you can get apps for your Pantech Renue, and

TOM: sharing music with Dropbox.

RAY: But first…

There were Two big tech news items this week. First of all, Samsung revealed the next phone in its line of Galaxy S flagship phones, the S4. Features include a larger screen with a 1080×1920, a 13 megapixel camera, eye-based scrolling and the ability to use it with gloves.

Tom, you’ve got a GS3. Are you thinking of making the switch?

TOM: To be honest Ray, I think I feel like you do about switching to the iPhone 5 when you have a 4s.

I think if you don’t have a Galaxy S3 or you have an older Galaxy, by all means you should wait a month and pick up the S4 when it comes out. But it’s not a quantum leap forward over the S3, and personally my S3 is still working really well for me. In fact I would say it’s continuing to get better. So I’m not going to rush out and upgrade just yet.

So what was the other big news?

RAY: Well Google has announced that as part of their annual ?spring cleaning’ they will be shutting down Google Reader.

TOM: Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

– was my reaction upon hearing that news earlier this week.

RAY:

Since Google announced that it was closing Reader, its news aggregator service, we’ve received several questions ranging from ?How do I live without it?? to ?What the heck is it, and why is everyone freaking out??

For folks in the latter category, Google Reader is the equivalent of a friendly butler that finds all of the news that you are interested in reading from the news sources and blogs you trust. Instead of having to open 10 different websites every day, you could open just one page whenever you wanted. It automatically gathered all of the stories that have been published by the ten websites you follow since the last time you opened the page.

Now you are probably just as upset that it is closing as everyone else, let me tell you the good news. There is hope. Other companies are stepping up to fill in the gap that Google Reader is leaving behind. Some of them work exactly the same as Google Reader does; others take what Google Reader does and improves upon it.

Google Reader Alternatives:

• The Old Reader
• Feedly
• NewsBlur
• NetVibe
• Pulse

We’ll have a full break down of the available Google Reader Alternatives later this week. What are you using or planning on using to replace Google Reader?

Hey, I’ve been listening to your show, but I don’t often have a whole hour to pay attention to the computer at one point in the day. Also, sometimes I don’t have a huge interest in a particular topic (horrors!), but later decide I really want to know about something you spoke about in a past show. Anyway, would it be possible to put “sections” in the show notes? Sort of using the little music breaks as dividers, and saying, “In section 1, we cover these topics. Section 2, which starts at minute marker 20, discusses those; and Section 3, at minute 40, includes the others.” Then I could easily come back to the section where I had to quit listening, or quickly find a particular subject I’m listening to.
Perhaps there’s another way I could find that info, but my tech savvy mostly comes from pushing buttons and Googling answers to my questions, and I’ve not really done either of those with podcasts.
Anyway, thanks for the show!
–Breana in Jax

Thanks for your email, Breana. Well, we agree. Actually, that is something that we really want to improve about our website. A few of our older episodes do have that. We had the question and when the question started in the show. The problem is time. A lot of folks think we get paid to do this, which is a great compliment, thank you! But actually, we are all volunteers. Tom and I work elsewhere 40 hours a week. Sean does work here at the station, but he doesn’t get paid to do this. So, Deemable Tech takes about 30 hours a week combined to produce each episode of the show. Doing the show notes like that took about 2-3 extra hours each week, because you have to go through and listen to the entire episode again, write down when each question started, and then rephrase the question so that it’s a sentence instead of a paragraph. So, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but it actually ends up being a little bit of work, and I haven’t been able to do that since I started writing the blogs for Folio Weekly.

Now, we have found out that it helps radio stations when they are considering to air our show if we can provide a transcript of each show. That would be even more work, because some of what we say is scripted, but a lot of it isn’t, but I think that would be helpful to some of our listeners too. So again, we really want to produce better show notes, but we are limited in what we can do because of our budget constraints. You know, not having one.

Now, if we had a volunteer that wanted to help us, we might be able to bring that back! What we would need would be someone to come to the studio with us when we record or listen live online, and keep track of when we start new questions, and then take those notes and put them together with the show notes. Also, we’re looking for a volunteer to help us out with video. If you or someone you know would be willing to help us out, send me an email at rayhollister@deemable.com.

Q: My coworker has a jailbroken iPhone, and she keeps trying to convince me that I should let her jailbreak my iPhone too. My iPhone 4S is out of warranty now, but I’m still afraid of breaking it. I can’t afford to replace it right now. Not that I don’t trust her, but if I do it, I’d like to do it myself. Is it hard to do? Is it worth jailbreaking? Is there any chance I can get in trouble? What happens if something screws up, and my iPhone doesn’t work anymore?

A: I don’t blame you for being cautious. I had never tried jailbreaking an iPhone either until I received your email. I’ve always been a little scared to attempt to jailbreak my iPhone because I was worried it might break, too. But, I screwed up my courage and decided to give it a shot.

Is it hard to do? Not really. It used to be much harder. The first jailbreak required disassembling the iPhone! On iOS 6.0 through 6.1.2, as long as you have the most basic understanding of how to use your computer, you shouldn’t have a hard time jailbreaking your iPhone. In fact, I can assume that if you are considering doing it, you probably have the skills required to do it.

Is it worth it? Well, that all depends on what you want out of your phone. If you are content with how your phone works, and you don’t want to take any risks what-so-ever, then it’s probably not worth it to you. However, if you’d like to try use apps that aren’t allowed in the App Store, or you would like to customize your iPhone to work the way you want it to, or if you just like to tinker, you’ll probably enjoy jailbreaking your iPhone.
There are fantastic customizations like alternative keyboards and themes. There are tons of great apps that you can’t get in the app store, not because they have porn or have viruses, but because they work in a way that Apple won’t allow. An example is an app called iCaughtU that takes a picture whenever someone tries to enter your passcode into your phone and fails. Because the app uses the camera in a way that Apple didn’t design, they’ll never allow that app to be sold in the App Store.

Ironically, if you want to see what will likely be in the next version of iOS, check Cydia, the app store you get when you have a jailbroken iPhone. You know how you can take a picture by pressing the volume button? Jailbreakers had that first. You know how you can double tap the home button to open another app that you were just running? Jailbreakers had that first. You know how you can change your wallpaper? Jailbreakers, well you get the point. Many of the “new” features in each version of iOS are features that jailbreakers have already had for months or years.

Is there a chance you’ll get in trouble? Yes, of course, it could happen, but no, probably not, at least not with the law. The Library of Congress has said that it is legal to jailbreak a smart phone. Strangely, the same is not true about an iPad. It has to do with the vague definition of a tablet device. However, the lawyers for the movie, television and music industry are fighting to try to change that. When it comes to the law, especially copyright law, which is what impacts this the most, what is true today could be false tomorrow. Also, you could get in trouble with Apple. As of yet, Apple has never tried to take legal action against jailbreakers, but even though you aren’t breaking the law, you are breaking the terms of service that you agreed to when you set up your device. Obviously, if you do “brick” your iPhone (damage it beyond the point of repair) while jailbreaking your iPhone don’t even think about taking your iPhone to the folks at the Genius Bar.

What happens if you screw up your phone? Well, fortunately, that isn’t as great a risk as it used to be. If it does happen, you can usually just restore your iPhone back to its factory default settings. Don’t get too excited. You could still brick your phone. But it is much safer than it was a few years ago. Jailbreaking is dangerous. It’s risky. You are intentionally making something work in a way it was not intended to by the company that created it. So, in doing that, you take on all the possible risk and benefits on yourself. You’re on your own, but you’re not really alone because there is a whole community of jailbreakers out there that are willing to help you.
So, ultimately, I can’t tell you if it’s worth it. It’s up to you. If you want to do it, and you’re willing to take the risk, give it a shot. Check out guide on how to jailbreak your iPhone on Deemable.com.

Robert writes: I’ve heard that it is now illegal to unlock your cellphone. Is that really true?!?
TOM: That’s correct Robert. The Library of Congress decided that starting January 26th, unlocking your cell phone would no longer be legal.

RAY: Now, to be clear, that’s unlocking your cell phone. Not rooting or jail-breaking it, right?

TOM: Right Ray, or the Feds would be hauling you off to jail right now.
Unlocking your cell phone is when you buy a phone on one carrier, say, AT&T and then you want to switch to another carrier, say, Sprint, and take your phone with you. Ordinarily the phone is ?locked’ to the original carrier. Unlocking your phone allows you to use it on a different network.

RAY: There’s a few different ways to do this. Before locking became illegal (again) you could even pay some services to do an ?official’ unlock for you, at least for iPhones.

TOM: Right. They would just add your phone’s unique IMEI number to the database of unlocked phones and you were set. Now, obviously, that is no longer an option for US customers. So you would have to get a different sim card or download some software (yes Virginia, there is an app for that). But if you did so, according to the Library of Congress, you would now be breakin’ the law.

RAY: Wait, what does the Library of Congress have to do with this? Since when did they make rules about cell phones?

TOM: Since the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or the DMCA, gave them the power. The DMCA makes bypassing digital protections of copyrighted works illegal, but gives the Library of Congress the power to designate exceptions. Up until recently, the Library of Congress had said that unlocking your cell phone was one of those exceptions. Now, it seems, they’ve changed their mind. Now, not everybody is okay with this. In fact, President Obama has released a public statement saying that he would like the Library of Congress to change its mind and the FCC is investigating whether they have any say in the matter. At the moment though, it looks like the law is on the Library of Congress’s side. We don’t elect Library of Congress members, but we do elect lawmakers! If you want to make your voice heard, download Congress+ for the iPhone or Contact Congress in the Play Market for Android. These apps will tell you who your local senator or congressperson are and give you ways to contact them. Ask Congress to change the DMCA to give consumers the freedom to choose which carrier they use their phone on. Make your voice heard. Set our cell phones free!

RAY: That was really inspiring Tom.

TOM: I may just be a tech podcaster, Ray, but I’m a patriotic tech podcaster.

RAY: Sho’nuff!

RAY: Who’s this next question from?

TOM: Your mom.

RAY: Tom, let’s keep it professional.

TOM: No really, your mom sent us a question. She asks: Has version 10 been released yet? Is it a smart move to continue with Blackberry as our phone?

Mom, you don’t listen to the show regularly, do you? It’s OK, I understand. We just pick on Blackberry a lot. So, yes, BlackBerry 10 has been released. It came out on January 30.??? But, it doesn’t matter because you’re not getting it, unless you decide to buy a new phone. BlackBerry 10 only runs on the new device the Q10 and the Z10. The change from BlackBerry OS to BlackBerry 10 was so drastic that none of the previous devices support it. Also, none of the apps you have on your current phone are going to work on a new BlackBerry 10 device if you decide to get one. So, no matter what new phone you get, even if it’s a new BlackBerry, you’ll have to buy new apps.

Now, to tell you the truth, Blackberry OS looks pretty decent. In fact, it looks a lot like webOS. Honestly, It reminds me a lot of webOS. BlackBerry seems to be repeating exactly what Palm did in 2009: They were hurting really bad, They were losing money like crazy, Their competitors were chewing up their market share, and their operating system looked old and decrepit. So, they rebuilt their operating system from the ground up, and relaunched it, they took a really long time to bring it to market, and they completely abandoned all of their old customers.

So, to answer your question, I would say no, it’s not a smart move to continue with BlackBerry. I expect that BlackBerry is going to take a path very similar to the one that Palm took. I expect that the Q10 and the Z10 are probably going to sell fairly poorly. BlackBerry will probably attempt to put out another version of the Q10 in the Z10, but that will also sell fairly poorly. BlackBerry will attempt to get other manufacturers to use their operating system, but they won’t be able to get anyone interested. Finally, they’ll end up selling out to another company, filing bankruptcy, and or releasing BlackBerry 10 as open source. No matter how you slice it, I don’t see good things in BlackBerry’s future.

The smartphone industry, as much as Microsoft and Blackberry fanboys would love it to be a different way, is a two dog race. It’s all between iPhone and Android. Android has even taken up such a huge market share because they have hundreds of different devices out there running Android, that even the iPhone is starting to drop back in terms of overall market share.

I really don’t think there is room in the market for another operating system to be a real competitor. Microsoft Phone has it’s flaws that we talked about on the show. Personally I felt that webOS is the perfect operating system, but neither of them have been able to get anywhere near a decent market share to the point where they would be really competitive.

So, Mom, what I would tell you do to is if you’re looking to get something new right now, get the iPhone 4 for free from Sprint, or if you’re still under contract, wait until the iPhone 5S or 6 comes out, and get the iPhone 4S for free.

Linda writes: My friend installed DropBox on my computer and setup a shared folder so we could share music (we both love European dance music). Confession: he’s sent me so much stuff and I haven’t had a chance to look at it. Now I want to, and I don’t know how!
My question is two part: 1) how do I download music from our shared folder in Dropbox (is it through the website?) and 2) can he tell that I haven’t listened to any of the music yet?
Oh and also, once before he helped me fix something on my computer by taking it over remotely. Can he still do that?
I have Windows 7. Thanks!

TOM: Good question, Linda.

Now you can download any file you have access to on the Dropbox website by right-clicking it and selecting ?download’. Make sure to put the file some place where you can find it!
However, if your friend installed Dropbox on your computer, you don’t need to download the files: they’re already on your computer. That’s the whole point of Dropbox!
So first we need to make sure that Dropbox really is installed on your computer. The simple way to do that is to click on the Start menu, then type ?dropbox’ (your typing should appear down in the search box at the bottom). After a few seconds the Dropbox program should come up. It’s got an icon that looks like an open blue box. If you see it, you have it.
Now, step two is to determine where the Dropbox folders are located on your computer. Dropbox installs a shortcut to its folders under your ?favorites’. That’s not your internet explorer favorites, that’s your windows explorer favorites. Go back to the Start menu and click on ?Computer’. That will open a Windows Explorer folder. The bar on the left side has a bunch of folders like ?Pictures’, ?Documents’, and ?Music’. Up at the very top (you may have to scroll up) there should be a section called ?Favorites’. It should contain your ?Desktop’ folder, as well as the ?Dropbox’ folder. If you see Dropbox there, click it.
Now you’re in the Dropbox folders. You’ll have to find the music files your friend has shared with you from here, since I don’t know where he put them! You can either click around through the folders here, or search for a song you know he’s sent you in the ?Search dropbox’ box at the top right of the window.
Now, every file in the Dropbox folder should have a green check mark on it. That means you’ve downloaded it from Dropbox’s cloud. If it has a blue icon, it’s still uploading or downloading, so you’ll have to wait before using it. The icons tell you that you are sharing that file with the Dropbox cloud. There’s a copy on your computer, and a copy out there on Dropbox’s servers.
What the icons, don’t tell you is whether or not you’ve ever used, opened, looked at or listened to these files. All you know is that you have them. And that’s all your friend knows either, Linda. So I don’t think he has any way to find out that you haven’t listened to his music unless you give it away yourself.

RAY: Ok, but Linda says her friend accessed her computer remotely once. How does she know he can’t do it again?

TOM: Well most likely the last time he accessed her computer he used Windows Remote Assistance. This is a program that allows you to send an invitation to someone else to share your desktop so that they can help you with a problem.

Linda, Windows Remote Assistance is by invitation only. Unless you run the program and intentionally SEND your friend an invitation, he can’t login.
So your secret is safe with us!

Oh by the way, Linda, if you want to have fun with your friend, remember that shared folders in Dropbox go both ways. You can add files to them as well! Why don’t you drop a little text file in there that says ?Enjoying the music you sent!? See how long it takes for your friend to notice it’s there.

Jo el asks: Dear Deemable Tech. I have a question that I am pining for your expert opinion about. What is the BEST calendar app for a Pantech Renue? I tried Googling it, but nothing really comes up. I am app ignorant

RAY: Don’t worry. Finding any information on the web about the Pantech Renue is difficult. The Pantech Renue runs on Pantech’s proprietary operating system, which is based on an operating system called BREW. It should run most J2ME apps, which is Java Micro Edition. Java Micro Edition was designed so that developers could build programs for mobile phones. It was supposed to make it so that a developer could make one program that would work anywhere. Unfortunately, that is not how it actually worked, because usually you were be forced to only buy apps through your carrier. Before the iPhone came out, everything in mobile was made for either J2ME or Palm OS. Once the iPhone hit the market, and the Android became a legitimate option, most developers stopped building apps for J2ME. Unfortunately, there aren’t many apps available for J2ME anymore.

So, the best calendar app is going to be anything you can find. You can try GCal which is a J2ME Google Calendar client. If that doesn’t work, you might be able to use GCalSync which will sync the built-in calendar with your Google Calendar, assuming you use Google Calendar. Both of these apps use data, so if you do not have a data plan, you may want to stay away from them.

Whatever you do, I wouldn’t pay for anything in their store. You won’t likely be able to use it ever again. There are a few fun apps that you should be able to download for free though. Opera Web Browser most likely works much better than the default web browser. There is a Gmail app that still works, but Google does not support it anymore. Don’t be surprised if it suddenly stops working when Gmail gets an update. If all else fails, you should at least be able to play Tetris.

TOM: To be honest, if you want apps you probably need to invest in a beefier phone. One that runs iOS, Android or Windows Phone. Those all have app stores with lots of third party apps which will run across a number of different phones.

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Bonnie Kilgore-Conde is a grandmother of 8 with the energy of a 20-something. She’s going to need that energy to launch Seven Wonders Bakery in Jacksonville, Florida. Bonnie is using Kickstarter to raise money for cleaning, remodeling and opening costs. Seven Wonders Bakery has been dormant since 2008 and Bonnie contacted the original owners through access to public records.

Bonnie is using Kickstarter to raise money for cleaning, remodeling and opening costs.

Bonnie envisions the bakery as a place where college students will come from nearby Jacksonville University and University of Florida and enjoy the cafe and free access to Wifi. Community members will come for birthday cakes, graduation cakes, and pastries for parties. She values the diversity of Jacksonville and the bakery will highlight desserts from around the globe.

A north Georgia native, Bonnie grew up in Lookout Mountain with limited access to the latest technology. “It’s two mountains and a valley; you’ll pass it in 30 minutes. In high school we had two computers each the size of a coffee table and seniors were the only ones who could sign up to use them.”

Now, Bonnie uses her smart phone, laptop, desktop and a digital camera almost daily. Bonnie created the Kickstarter video advertising her campaign by using her digital camera and adding a voiceover using the built-in microphone on her laptop. She’s planning to use a ipad with a Square attachment to accept credit cards when she opens the bakery sometime in late March or early April.

Bonnie’s been around the world since growing up in Georgia. A few years ago, she relocated from Los Angeles to Jacksonville. Kickstarter caught her attention when a friend’s son explained that many of the movies featured in Sundance receive their funding through the website.

Since launching her Kickstarter campaign on January 15, Bonnie has received attention from online backers and offline donations. She’s also gained Basha Staub as a business partner.

“Basha and I come from medical administration backgrounds and we have both been baking for decades. She saw my Kickstarter page and contacted me. We hit it off right away and were bouncing ideas off of each other as quick as anything,” gushes Bonnie.

There’s a lot to be done before the bakery can open for business. These instant collaborators are using their resources to update the inside of the bakery and market their wares. They have access to two contractors (Basha’a husband and Bonnie’s father) and a wealth of family members vowing to help them launch on time.

The original bakery website will keep its URL but is scheduled for a facelift before the grand opening. For now, you can visit them on Facebook.

You can donate to Bonnie’s campaign by visiting her Kickstarter page here. Contributions will be accepted through Valentine’s Day.

Bonnie’s Buttery Citrus Cake recipe is below.

Buttery Citrus Cake

Photo provided by Bonnie Kilgore-Conde

Ingredients

¾ cup of butter

6 egg yolks or 3 whole eggs

2 2/3 Cups of all purpose flour (I find you make a lighter cake if the flour is sifted

2 teaspoons of baking powder

½ teaspoon of salt

¼ teaspoon of baking soda

1 2/3 cups of sugar

1 cup of milk

2 teaspoons of finely shredded lemon or lime peel

1 teaspoon finely shredded orange peel

2 tablespoons of lemon or lime juice

2 tablespoons of orange juice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. (If possible use a whisk to really combine these dry ingredients together)

In another bowl beat the butter until fluffy, then beat in the sugar, then add the yolks in one at a time and beat.

Add the flour mixture and milk alternately and beat into the butter, sugar, and egg mixture. Begin and end with flour mixture. (This may seem silly to start and end with the flour mixture, but if you don’t you will notice that your cake will not bake at the consistency that you desire)

Last stir in the peels and juices. Bake 20 to 25 minutes.

Lemon, Lime, or Orange Whipped Cream Frosting

In a chilled bowl (glass or metal in the freezer for a few minutes will work great) beat 2 cups of heavy whipping cream, 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar, and 1 tablespoon of instant vanilla pudding. Beat until stiff peaks form. Fold in 1 tablespoon on shredded lemon, lime, or orange peelings.

I find if I double the frosting recipe I have a prettier and more well covered layer cake.

This cake makes 12 servings.

Thin slices of Meyers lemons, limes, or oranges make a very nice garnish.