Blog Tube » Phone Technology

Protect Your Children – Learn Their Technology

Tech Geek — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:13:30 +0000

It wasn’t too long ago that parents had it relatively easy. I want to emphasize the word relatively because, let’s face it, raising children right is never easy. But when it came to teaching your children morality and safety, a lecture about personal safety, responsibility and ethics made for a fairly short and pointed list.

Thanks to technology, today’s parent has added concerns to consider in their lectures and, all too often, a limited set of personal knowledge and experience on which to draw. Texting, internet bullying, sexting, phones with video capability, internet predators trolling chat rooms, Facebook and more all leave your child exposed to predation, bullying and the potential for self-destructive behavior that can follow them for years.

The problem is there is still a generational gap in which modern parents fall. Though the gap is closing, our experience with the tech tools our children use is still behind the curve. This means we are frequently unfamiliar with the very tools our children often use to dig themselves into humiliating or dangerous holes.

Difficult though it may be, the first thing we should do as parents is to educate ourselves. Take the time to understand the technology your child is using so you can speak to them from an informed position. Also take the time to learn how these technologies are being misused by children and the associated risks. This means learning about chat rooms, sexting and internet cameras for video chat – you can click here to learn more about ethics and laws surrounding network cameras and the like.

Remember that the potential embarrassment your child faces for misusing modern technology is far reaching and long lasting. In our youth, an embarrassing moment might stay with us until we relocated or graduated. Video technology on phones, YouTube and even television shows which profit from further distributing the resulting footage all combine to mean a single embarrassing moment or ill-conceived act can stick with your child wherever she goes for years to come. If you don’t believe that,

It is far better to guide your child away from such potentially embarrassing – or even life-threatening – circumstances with an informed and caring conversation. The alternative of devastating loss of self-esteem or, in the case of internet predation, loss of life are simply not acceptable. By understanding the technology your child is using you can minimize the knee jerk “you-just-don’t-understand” response you’re likely to get and prove that you very much do understand and have your child’s best interest at heart.

Mobile Broadband – Make a Good Decision

Tech Geek — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:21:43 +0000

Do you want to subscribe to a mobile broadband service? This is one of the most important decisions that you will be taking after the choice of your subscription itself. This will influence the quality of your internet access and also the service that you will be getting. You should continue reading this article if you want to take the best decision.

If you have the latest phone but without internet access it can be pretty useless. Indeed if you want to send and receive emails, chat, download videos from YouTube or do some research will require a broadband access. This is the critical reason why you need to choose a good broadband service.

First off you will have to take into account the service speed. Although most mobile operators will state that they have the most rapid service this is not always true in reality. There is always the risk of network congestion that will bring some lower internet speed. You should also watch out the upload speed as well. In most cases the upload speed is lower than download speed and it is important that you take this into account. This is why I always advise people to seek feedback from friends and relatives before choosing a mobile broadband service.

You should also pay special attention to the cost of the service. Providers normally provide different internet access packages depending on your usage. For instance if you are the kind of people that use a lot of bandwidth then you should go for the highest download limit in order to get some more savings. This is the reason why you should be familiar with your needs.

It might also be important that you consider the network coverage well before subscribing. An effective mobile broadband service, called mobilt bredbånd in some countries, needs to remain accessible wherever you are located in the country. It is important that you do not experience some outage when using the service in some remote areas especially if you are using it as a working tool. Make sure that you check the website of the operator to find out whether they cover all the country or not.

Pros and Cons of Touch Screen Mobile Phones

Tech Geek — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:22:42 +0000

Remember when the Blackberry first came out a few years ago? It was like everywhere you went, people were either talking about Blackberries or using them. Something about the little device captured the public’s imagination and all of a sudden everyone either had one or wanted one. No wonder it soon developed the nickname “crackberry”!

Well, it now seems to be the same situation with touch screen mobile phones. Of course, it was Apple who started the snowball rolling back in 2007 when they first released the iPhone. It truly was a groundbreaking product and since that fist release, they’ve brought out two major updates, the iPhone 3G in 2008 and the 3GS in 2009.

The iPhone was the first touch screen mobile phone to hit the market in a big way, but now pretty much every mobile phone manufacturer (even Blackberry) has followed suit with their own touch screen models.

There are various reasons why touch screen mobile phones are so popular. For the most part, they tend to be quite intuitive and easy to use. By tapping and sliding icons on a screen, it is usually pretty clear how to do something. If you’re not sure, usually you can just guess and the chances are you will be right. Of course, the design geniuses at Apple lead the way in this usability factor, but other manufacturers are starting to get the idea.

Touch screen phones tend to look pretty good too, generally having pretty sleek designs.

But there are downsides, the major one being that the screen is made of glass. And glass breaks! If you’re someone who (like me) has a habit of dropping your phone, then it won’t take long before you’ve either scratched or broken the glass.

And the lack of a real qwerty keyboard is a disadvantage too if you’re used to the mini keyboard and scroll wheel of the Blackberry.

But all-in-all, touch screen mobile phones rock. And I think we’ll start to see many more of them hit the market in 2010.