Using the Internet for More Meaningful Travel

One of the advantages of the internet is how much closer it has bought the world.  I enjoy travel and have used various internet sites to book my travel and plan an itinerary.

One benefit I can think of is how we can book our travel online without a travel agent.  This enables us to price compare for plane tickets and hotels.  We can book our own travel packages without going through a travel agent. Some good sites are Travelocity and Priceline.  I have gotten good rates booking on both.  When booking where it more advantageous not to combine airfare and hotel(s), I have used Kayak.  This is an aggregator which compares hundreds of travel sites for the best rate.  I have used this individually for airlines and hotels.  In addition you can book a car rental or a cruise on these sites as well. 

Speaking about airlines, these days you can print your tickets and boarding pass.  In addition, just about all the airlines allow you to check in online up to 24 hours before your flight is scheduled to depart by going onto their website.  This eliminates waiting in line to check in at the airport and in this day of heightened security checks is one less thing to worry about at the airport.

There also are good sites to review hotels.  My preference is Tripadvisor. The hotels are ranked by reviews and I have found the reviews to be very useful in deciding which hotel to book.

There are also some good sites to plan an itinerary while travelling of places to see and do.  As mentioned previous, I use Tripadvisor to help plan.  Another good site is Virtualtourist.  The reviews are mainstream travellers for the most part.  Real people with real experiences.  You can get everything from museums, off the beaten path places and getting around.  The sites also offer forums to post and answer questions.  Another good site is Wikitravel.  You can get some real good information about the places you are going to on this site. There are also other sites to choose from.  They include the standard Frommers, Fodors and AAA.  Lonely planet and Igougo are 2 relatively more recent ones. It is a matter of your own personal preference.  As an aside, Igougo is an aggregator similar to Kayak.

Further if you do not use a GPS while driving, you can map your trip.  Google Maps will give you door to door directions.  You do not need to be a member of AAA to get an online triptik that you can download. To do this go to the AAA website.   Select in the online section not mail order section TripTiks.  Select your starting point and destination. Then select "Get Maps & Directions" After this completes, select on the left hand side "Print TripTik". When "Print Options" is displayed select "AAA Exclusive TripTik" and then "Create Print Version".  Your triptik is now complete.  You can print and/or download.  Further whether or not you are a member of AAA you can create an online account to save your triptik. Mapping your trip even if you are using a GPS can be useful in the event your GPS fails to work. 


Last but not least, you want to have an idea of what the weather will be like on your trip.  Weather.com and Wunderground are just 2 sites to help you pack for the expected weather  on your trip.

Following these tips will help you to have an enjoyable vacation.  After you are done, you may want to give your own review and perhaps upload your own travel photos.  One of mine is the featured picture for Yahoo travel New York. 


Enjoy your trip.

Password Protection

Just like you want a good lock to protect your home and valuables from unwanted intruders, you want a good password to protect your financial and other personal data from prying eyes both online and offline. A good strong password will allow you safer online transactions.


A few years ago, a computer professional using the name of John P. wrote how quickly he could crack a password based upon the password length and types of characters used while on a computer. For 3 characters it was 0.86 seconds using all types of characters (uppercase, lowercase, numbers, characters) and .02 seconds using only lowercase characters in your password.  For 8 characters the times were 2.10 centuries and 2.42 days respectively. The assumption is that you were not using a word in the dictionary. Going from 8 to 9 characters increased the time to 20 millennia and 2.07 months respectively.




That said, certain websites financial websites in particular have a protocol that must be followed when setting up a password on their site.


A good password includes upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols and has a minimum of 8 characters. There are password checkers out there to check the strength of your password.  A good one is Passwordmeter.com  


“Whisper32” is a freeware password manager program to download.  You can store passwords on it.  You need to have a password to open your saved file.  Click to open Whisper32 download.


You also should NEVER use the following as passwords as they will make it easier to crack your password:

a.      Your name & other personal information like birthday, spouse’s name, SS#, etc

b.      Sites name

c.       “Password”

d.      Dictionary words in any language

e.      Sequences or related characters – 123456, abcdef, 222222

While we are on the subject of passwords, it is easy and convenient to enable the option to remember passwords.  This will enable anyone using the computer being used to log into the site without knowing your password.  Especially when using a laptop, you should disable this option whenever it is given.  It is another layer in staying secure. Needless to say always disable when you are on a public computer.  Also when you are on a public computer, before you leave and you are still using the web browser remember to delete all browsing history, cookies, etc.  In Internet Explorer 8 select the Tools option from the menu.  Then select "Internet Options" and then "Browsing History". Select "Delete" to delete. 


By following the above, you will make your internet browsing much safer and secure from hackers and intruders.

Computer Must Knows

When you own or use a computer, there are several important things to keep in mind. Some of these are basic common sense that we sometimes forget. Whatever, they all are very important to know.

1.Use a surge protector to protect your computer and peripherals from voltage spikes that may occur due to lightning or another cause. While during a lightning storm it is best to unplug, most of us do not. In the event of a surge your equipment can get destroyed. Think of having a garden hose and too much water goes through at one time putting too much pressure on the hose. The result is a hose that bursts. A good surge protector prevents this from happening.

2.With 2 exceptions, do not turn off your computer with the power switch. Shut your computer down by going into the start tab and select the "Shut Down" option. The 2 exceptions are if you computer freezes and after selecting the "Shut Down" option, the computer is still on 10 minutes later. Using the power switch can result in lost data or windows files. The computer needs to go through a sequence of things in order to properly shut down.

3.As noted in a previous blog, backing up your data is a very inexpensive insurance policy in the event of a hard drive or other computer failure to minimize any data loss. The link to my blog on backing up is http://ow.ly/1UG2Z. There are several ways to approach this but failure to backup is a recipe for losing all of your data in the event of a failure. A recent study by Symantec indicated that 80% of computer users do not have backup software installed on their computer.

4.Less and less computers these days come with a recovery disk. Perform a Recovery Disk Creation as soon as you can. Go to control panel/system and security/create a system recovery disk (if not there “create a system repair disk) and insert 1st disk. Will need about 3-5 DVDs which are preferred over CDs for this exercise. Click the start tab which is usually in the lower left of your computer;then type “repair” in the search bar and choose System Repair Disk. Follow instructions. In the event you ever need to reinstall your system, this will come in handy. Make sure you keep these disks in a safe and secure place.

5.Anti virus software and anti spyware are a must. Microsoft Security Essentials is a good free program. If you are purchasing an internet security program, Norton and McAfee offer good protection.

6.If you have a wireless internet connection, it MUST be password protected. An open connection enables outsiders to access your internet service. Personal information of yours is compromised. In addition, any illegal activity done on your internet connection is traced to it.

7.DO NOT give out information on the internet or otherwise when you are solicited for it. You may get an email along the lines of "there is an issue with your account. Please supply (your password, social security number, date of birth, etc)." On the internet, most sites have a policy where they will NEVER ask you for personal information online. When in doubt, call the bank or other financial institution in question. This is not only on the internet but anywhere. When I get a call where the caller says there is a security issue regarding a credit card of mine, I immediately hang up. It could be a ploy to get personal information of mine to steal my identity. I refer to the back of the credit card in question and call that number. If a voicemail message is left with a phone number to call I never call the number they say to call at. It may be a true and legitimate issue but why take the chance? Also avoid scams where you have to pay money to get money.

8.NEVER unplug peripherals from your computer when it is on. This can short out the connector socket or motherboard. When using a USB drive or similar there is an option usually on lower right hand side to safely remove hardware. Click this and select what you wish to remove. When OK to remove message is shown then it is safe.

9.I am guilty of this one but keep food and drink away from computer, mouse, keyboard and any other electronic device. Crumbs, soda and juice spills can cause sticky keys. Liquids on or in electronic devices can ruin them.

10.And last,when using a public computer make sure you log off your email accounts and any other site you have been to that required you to log in using a user name and/or password. On more than one occasion I have accessed a public computer and noticed that the previous user did not log out of their email account. Your email account is open to that person and at that point belongs totally to them. They can if they wish send nasty messages to a friend, significant other, etc. As an aside here, for those having Flickr accounts. Flickr is a photosharing company owned by Yahoo. If you log into Flickr and then logout, you need to go to your Yahoo account and log out. I do not know why this happens. If you go into your Yahoo account and log in, your Flickr account is not affected.

By following the above tips, you will make your computer safer to use and less likely to breakdown. You also will be using the internet in a safer manner.

Yahoo Mail

Yahoo Mail is the second largest webmail provider with approximately over 275 million users as per a May 2010 interview with Yahoo! Mail's Carlo Catajan. It offers unlimited mail storage with attachments limited to 25mb per email message. Because of the large amount of subscribers there is also Ymail and Rocketmail which offers the same benefits of a Yahoo mail account. I find the interface to be very user friendly.


You have the option of a preview pane.  Unlike Windows Live Hotmail where the preview pane can be on the right side or bottom of the page, in Yahoo Mail it can only be at the bottom of the page. This give you the ability to in effect delete the message without opening it after seeing it.  One of the better features is like Gmail, the email message you are composing is saved as you are writing it.  However, like Gmail if you leave Yahoo without saving the message as a draft, you likely will lose it.  In other words, save your message every so often as insurance of a crash or other reason for you to be knocked off. 


Not everything is A-OK about this webmail service.  I cannot understand that when you want to delete a spam message you are prompted if you are sure. The other mail services realize if you are deleting a spam message there is no need to prompt to confirm you are sure about deleting them.  The drag and drop feature is deceptive.  It really does not allow you to move between folders by dragging it into another folder.  This however is corrected in the beta version where you can drag a message from one folder to another.  


Yahoo Mail works well with Yahoo Contacts.  The issue with Yahoo Contacts is that when importing contacts from another application it is not seamless.  For a business, the name may end up being the email address.  You would need to manually change. 

If you currently have a Yahoo email account go to http://features.mail.yahoo.com/ for the beta version. One disadvantage of the beta version is to go to "Options" you need to go to click "Help" and then "Options".  The non beta version has a selection for "Options" that is easy to find and you do not need to go to another selection prior.  I would anticipate that the bugs in the beta program will be corrected prior to it going live.  If you wish to not use the beta version after trying it, you need to go to "Help" then select "Return to Original Mail".

In all it is a solid email program.  It has a relatively easy to use interface which is more user friendly than most.

Evernote - Your Own Personal Digital Assistant

If you are looking for a good note taking program that you can sync with your smartphone then Evernote may be for you. Its number of users have increased quite a bit since it became more user friendly for Android users. It can be used to store notes, pdf files (which you can annotate) and is great for clipping parts of a website that you wish to save to later use. While it is in the cloud, you can save a version that rests on your hard drive as well. You also are given an Evernote email address to use in case you or someone else wishes to add to your existing notes or create a new one. This is good where your spouse,friend,etc can send you a picture of what a particular item you are shopping for looks like.

As mentioned you also can take and store pictures. You can take a picture with your smartphone and upload to your Evernote account making notes about the picture once it is uploaded.  Those who have an Eye-Fi card in their digital camera can send pictures directly to their Evernote account from it.

It is a great program for note taking and organizing your notes. Similar notes can be categorized as notebooks which is a collection of notes. The search feature is also very good.  You can search by keywords, tags, and titles. Evernote is good for making notes which you could use with pictures to better clarify and also for its ability to clip parts of a webpage. You can also convert speech to text. This enables you to send voice notes that are converted to text.

An area of concern is its ability to share your notes with others. You have the ability to share your notes with everyone, selected people or no one. Sharing is based upon notebooks which as mentioned is a collection of notes. Even with the paid version I do not see a way to allow those you share your notes with to edit and make changes to them. I find the lack of this feature and the fact that sharing is by notebooks and not individual notes to be a concern. When I make notes that I wish to allow others to make changes to I use Google Docs where you can allow changes to be made by others for individual file(s).

For those who like a good way of taking and organizing notes on the run, need a good way to organize your notes and have your own personal digital assistant this is a good program check out.  It may suit your needs and do it well. Even if you do not have a smartphone, you may do well using it.

Google Mail

One of the biggest products from Google is Google Mail (Gmail).  As of December 2009, Gmail had 176 million users on a monthly basis and with good reason. Once you are used to the interface which is a conversation type of view, Gmail has some very good features beginning with 7.5 GB and increasing storage. You also can attach up to 25GB of files. Where does one start?  Let's start with the contacts list.  You can sort by first or last name as you can do with most contacts.  What I noticed is for business contacts, not all webmail sorts correctly by business name.  Gmail's contact list sorts businesses properly regardless of the sort.

Have you ever sent an email and right away realized that you forgot to include an attachment?  Enable "Undo Send" for Gmail labs and you have the ability to undo a sent email for up to 30 seconds after hitting "Send".  Recently, Google implemented Google Voice which enables free calling to the US and Canada using Gmails Google Chat interface.

When composing an email, has there ever been an issue where your browser crashes?  The autosave feature of Gmail automatically saves a copy of the email you are working on.  It starts saving once  minute and then varies according to the size of the message.  No more having your browser crash and losing an email that you have been working on for the past 15 minutes.

Gmail also works with your Google Calendar.  You can accept an invite received on a Gmail and post it directly to your calendar in Google.

If you receive email from someone you do not wish to receive it from, you can easily set up a filter so that it does not go to your inbox (usually Trash).

Searching within Gmail is very easy.  There is a search bar in the upper left of the Gmail page and put your search term in.  Searching for a person or an email address is done the same way and again very easy.

In all once you learn to use the interface, you will appreciate how powerful and good an email tool Gmail is.

A note that future blogs will look at the webmail for AOL, Windows Live Hotmail, and Yahoo.

Boomerang

For those using Gmail who wish they could schedule their messages for future delivery Boomerang is for you.  You can write that email now and schedule it to automatically be sent at the date and time you choose.  You do not need to be logged in to Gmail, the internet or have your computer on at the time scheduled.  An advantage of this is when sending an email to someone outside your time zone, you can make sure they receive the message first thing in the morning their time.  Say you're emailing a friend/customer in London during the early evening your time.  You can schedule the email to be sent 8AM their time so they receive it during the start of their day while you are asleep. It will be closer to the top of their inbox.

You can design a birthday card, anniversary card, etc. attach it to an email a few days prior and have the email sent to that person on that special day. You may forget to send it but Boomerang won't.

While you can use Google Calendar for reminders, you also can use Boomerang as an email reminder service. You can set an email to be sent to you reminding you of a meeting, to pay a certain bill, etc.  Further if you receive an email confirming an event, you have the ability to send it to Boomerang.  Boomerang will remove it from your inbox and put it there at the time you designate to remind you of the event. If the confirmation mentions a date and time, Boomerang will suggest a date and time to send the reminder.

You can also set up a reminder for you to follow up on a message you send. You can set it to remind you to follow up if the person you sent it to does not respond or regardless if the person responds or not. The reminder will go to your inbox at the top and is marked unread.  You also can use this feature for a cleaner inbox. Boomerang will store a message on their server and return the email to your inbox at the time you note that you need it.

Go to http://www.boomeranggmail.com/ to download the program.