Author Archives: BettyW

Friday Faves 12-14-12

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Friday’s roundup of interesting items:

GravityLight: lighting for developing countries

A new approach to storing energy and creating illumination. It takes only 3 seconds to lift the weight which powers GravityLight, creating 30 minutes of light on its descent. For free. Designed to replace unhealthy and expensive kerosene burning lamps in developing countries.

This project is already fully funded, but you may still contribute, and even get one for yourself:

 
DNA Genotyping Now Only $99

 23andMe is a DNA analysis service providing information and tools for individuals to learn about and explore their DNA. You give them a saliva sample and they run it through a machine to provide a report on your genotype – the data is also used anonymously for other projects requiring large amounts of DNA data. They used to charge several hundred dollars plus a yearly subscription fee, but due to new funding they have lowered the price to a one-time fee of $99 plus shipping cost for the collection kit. More information here.

 

Sharing Files Across Multiple Devices Part 2: Carbonite

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In Part 1 I discussed using Dropbox as a cloud storage solution for sharing files among your devices. Today I want to discuss using Carbonite, which is advertised as a backup solution but can also be used to retrieve files.

You ARE backing up your computer, aren’t you? Unless you are only using it to read Facebook and your Gmail account, you really ought to be doing so. If you are a Mac owner, all you need for basic local backup is an external hard drive and the built-in Time Machine software (you do not need to buy a special Time Machine Capsule from Apple). If you have a PC, you need an external drive and either Windows built-in backup application or another one.

But even if you do perform regular backups to a local hard drive, that does you no good if your home is damaged due to flood or fire, or someone breaks in to seal all of your electronics. To cover you in those instances, or if you don’t want to need to remember to connect to something to back up, a cloud backup service like Carbonite can save your data bacon, as it is constantly updating its copy of your files in little bits every time you are connected to the internet.

But there is another trick you can perform with Carbonite once it has backed up your files:

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Friday Faves 12-07-12

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If you are looking for graphic design of all sorts: website, logos, apparel, packaging, environmental graphics, stationery, brochures, posters, CD covers, Facebook cover/profile images, WordPress blogs, corporate brands, and more, including photography – I recommend Metropol Omnimedia. They designed my band Ginger Ibex’s beautiful CD cover, band logo and poster. To see samples of their work, visit their Facebook portfolio

 

Some random Kickstarter projects I like:

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Sharing Files Across Multiple Devices Part 1: Dropbox

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I use several different applications for storing and accessing files across the different devices I use: Mac and Windows computers, iPhone, iPod Touch, sometimes Linux, occasionally Android, formerly Blackberry. Today I want to tell you about Dropbox:

 Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, documents, and videos anywhere. This means that any file you save to your Dropbox on any device will automatically synchronize to ALL of your devices where you have installed it: computers, smartphones, iPod Touch, and also to your account on their website. In addition you can designate certain folders or files to share with other people by giving them a link address. If you lose or crash your computer the files will still be in on their site to restore.

Here are some ways I use Dropbox:

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