Sickweather App Tracks Disease, Helps Parents Protect their Kids

As the school year starts, parents begin worrying about the oncoming storm of sicknesses. The CDC reports that 40% of kids 5-17 will miss at least three days of school because of illness. But what if parents could know where the next school flue epidemic would hit? What if they could prepare in advance, in order to minimize exposure and contamination?

This is the driving idea behind the new Sickweather app. Sickweather is an iPhone app that will track social media activity for varying levels of sickness. If a parent posts that their child has the flu, Sickweather will track the post’s location.  If there are a series of reports in the same location, Sickweather will mark the designated area as a Sick Zone.  App users who approach the location will receive real-time alerts. Sickweather argues that users can use these alerts to avoid contaminated areas, or to remind themselves to maintain their hygiene. The app is currently available on the App Store.  Sickweather has not announced when its app will be available to Android users.

MORE: Free Software for Students

Users will also have access to a live map and a daily forecast on the sickweather.com site. You can also receive daily email updates when selected diseases trend in a particular area.

The concept of Sickweather is really intriguing. Giving parents the ability to know when their children have a higher chance of infection could help keep them safe and minimize their sick days. However, we are skeptical about whether social media is an accurate means for tracking illness. How would Sickweather track posts that are protected by privacy settings?  How does the technology differentiate between the various uses of the word “sick” online? Sickweather has provided no additional info to explain how its app might work. 

[slideshow id="256593" name="10 Best Back-to-School Laptop Backpacks 2014"]

From Laptopmagazine. Product reviews and advice for best reference

In honor of World Backup Day: How to protect your data

Happy World Backup Day, an occasion dedicated to encouraging you to make sure all your digital data is kept safe and secure. If you’ve procrastinated on implementing a backup strategy for your PC, why not mark the occasion by making backup copies of all your documents, digital photos, music, videos, and other invaluable files? We’ll help you get started.

The main things to consider when shopping for a backup drive are capacity and connection options. If your computer has a 1TB hard drive bursting at its seams, don’t purchase a 500GB model for a back-up. I’d suggest a drive with at least twice the capacity of the volume you’re backing up. This will allow you to store copies of all of your data, and it will leave room for the new pictures, movies, and files you’ll continue to add to your computer.

In terms of connections, USB 3.0 is speedy, inexpensive, and pervasive. Even if your PC doesn’t support that newish standard, the USB 3.0 port on the back-up drive is backward compatible to the ubiquitous USB 2.0. Data transfers from a USB 2.0 PC will occur at pokey USB 2.0 speeds, but when you do upgrade your system, you’ll be able to take full advantage of the drive’s intrinsic performance. Thunderbolt is even faster, but that interface is relatively rare—at least on Windows PCs.

You might also consider moving up to a storage device that connects to your data network, instead of a USB or Thunderbolt port. A network-attached storage (NAS) box can support one or more client PCs, and some offer storage redundancy in the form of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks). RAID 1 creates a mirror image of your backups, so that your data will be preserved if one of the drives fails. A RAID 5 array requires a minimum of three hard drives, but if any one of them fails, your data can be recovered from the remaining drives, and the array can be rebuilt after you replace that drive.

The downside to RAID 1 and RAID 5 is that the capacity equivalent to one drive is not available for storage. RAID 1 built from two 2TB drives, for instance, gives you 2TB of storage, not 4TB. RAID 5 built from three 2TB drives gives you 4TB of storage, not 6TB.

If you want to protect your data further, you might want to look at having a couple of backups that you rotate through, keeping one offsite. If your backup drive is attached to your PC during a fire or robbery, it may be of no help in retrieving your lost data.

If you’re ready to take that first step in protecting your valuable data, here’s a list of PCWorld’s favorite drives reviewed over the past 12 months.

Western Digital WD My Passport 2TB

Western Digital WD My Passport 2TB: You’d be hard pressed to find a better portable drive than the My Passport. It comes with a good software bundle, has plenty of capacity, and is a top-notch performer. (Read our full review of the Western Digital WD My Passport 2TB.)

Rocstor Lancer LX 500

Rocstor Lancer LX 500: With both USB 3.0 and FireWire interfaces, the Lancer LX works equally well on Windows PCs and Macs. It’s large but rugged, and a good, if not great performer. (Read our full review of the Rocstor Lancer LX 500.)

Lenovo ThinkPad USB3 Secure Drive

Lenovo ThinkPad USB3 Secure Drive: This secure hard drive’s high-flying USB 3.0 performance makes it a good choice for those who need to protect their backups. (Read our full review of the Lenovo ThinkPad USB3 Secure Drive.)

QNAP TS-269 Pro

QNAP TS-269 Pro: While it’s pricey, The QNAP’s excellent performance, copious software features, and state-of-the-art connectivity render this two-bay NAS box a good deal for small offices and work groups. (Read our full review of the QNAP TS-269 Pro.)

QNAP TS-879 Pro

QNAP TS-879 Pro: If you need to back up your important business data, the TS-879 Pro’s eight drive bays and lightning speed highlight this NAS. By far, it’s the fastest—and most expensive—box we’ve tested to date. (Read our full review of the QNAP TS-879 Pro.)

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference

Killing Comic Sans: 5 alternative fonts that protect your dignity

Comic Sans: It's the best font in your tool box if you're committed to sappy, unsophisticated design, and want to prove to the world that your type library hasn't been updated since 1995. Comic Sans is embarrassing. It makes us avert our eyes. Yet it's still the go-to font for amateur designers trying to make their messaging more friendly—if only in the same way that reindeer sweaters are intrinsically friendly.

It's one of Windows' longest-standing clichés.

"If you love Comic Sans, feel free to use it with the understanding that it makes your work appear amateurish and thus the information it presents is perceived as unprofessional," says Robin Williams, author of The Non-Designer's Design and Type Books and How to Boss Your Fonts Around.

When Comic Sans was included in Windows 95, the world was starved for a relaxed, whimsical font, making the bubbly sans serif type face just the ticket. Or at least designer Vincent Connare thought so. He had designed the font the previous year explicitly for the comical (and later to be eternally mocked) software package Microsoft Bob.

Nowadays, Comic Sans elicits a visceral response: Either you hate it, or you use it. But using it even a little is a little too much.

"Your hairstyle, your car choice, your clothes—all provoke an immediate response from others. We dress and groom ourselves to fit a general image of who we think we are, and how we want others to see us," says Williams. "Your font choice provokes the same sort of reaction from others. Using Comic Sans, you send a visual message that your work is unconsidered, unprofessional, and probably untrustworthy. Obviously, your physical appearance choices and your font choices can have absolutely nothing to do with the inner truth, but we cannot deny the impact of the initial visual impression."

Ouch.

In its defense, Comic Sans is one of very few fonts that works well at "display" sizes, yet retain readability, both on screen and printed, when very small. It uses a single-story lower-case a and simple lower-case g rather than letter-press versions of these letters, in theory allowing early readers to decode text more easily. It's as innocuous as Val Kilmer's Batman: Not quite as forgettable as Lewis G. Wilson, but not exactly Christian Bale either. It's the overuse that's made Comic Sans into the Batsuit-nipples of the font world.

So if you—or someone whose work reflects on you—indulges in Comic Sans, and you need a font or a full typeface that's friendly, fun-loving, and informal, try the following alternatives. Each is free for personal use, while professional and commercial use fees range from a user-set donation to about $16.

"So many designers hate Comic Sans," designer Hannes von Döhren of HVD Font tells me in email. "They think people who don't know design are overusing this funny little friendly font, which is out of place nearly every time." His HVD Comic Serif is a (PostScript) OpenType font that's an interesting alternative if you want to stick with the comic book theme. The slab serif letters are drawn monoline, but with a fun, easygoing attitude. Comic Serif is strong, but still has an innocent feel.

HVD Comic Serif isn't Comic Sans with serifs added. This heavy slab serif font packs a punch.

Just like its archnemesis, HVD Comic Serif is very legible, even at 10-point text size, and can easily be used as a display or poster font. However, while the two comic fonts have a vaguely related heritage, and both include handwritten styles for the lower-case a and g (rather than the letter press style), HVD Comic Serif probably isn't going to be a good choice for beginning readers. The heavy weight of the font and the short descenders cause the heavy slab serifs to barely fit in the glyph.

HVD Comic Serif is regular 400-weight, but it seems heavier. This may be because of the short ascenders and descenders relative to the x-height, and an x-height slightly above the median. Also, there's no bold version of the font, so bolding the font in a text editing program like Microsoft Word or Open Office makes the letters almost run together. That said, HVD Comic Serif includes a crazy 11,940 kerning pairs, so your copy will be well spaced in practically any design. This font has all the usual upper and lower-case glyphs, plus numbers, punctuation, many mathematical and scientific glyphs, and Eastern, Central, and Western European language support.

As designer von Döhren suggests, appropriate use is key to not looking out of place, whatever font you use. So even though it includes scientific and mathematical glyphs, don't use HVD Comic Serif (or any font with the word Comic in its name, for that matter) for grant proposals, dissertations, or signage at MIT. HVD Comic Serif includes installable embedding, and is free for personal and commercial use.

DK Au Revoir is a handwritten OpenType font that has style and flair, with subliminal don't-mess-with-me undertones. Designer David Kerkhoff also created a lower-case o that caught my eye: It's almost a heart, but not quite.

Au Revoir adds panache to informal communications.

Even though they are regular (400) weight, DK Au Revoir's glyphs are quite petite. As a comparison, the cap height of some of the upper-case letters (L for example) are equivalent to the same point size Times New Roman font, while other letters (B, E, R) are only two thirds the size. All of the lower-case letters reach the full cap height, but have an x-height way below the median. However, the extra-tall ascenders in DK Au Revoir add to the font's refined nature, and the diminutive size shouldn't distract from the detail that's gone into this font. DK Au Revoir is very well-executed, and includes more than 9,000 kerning pairs to ensure whatever your copy, it's going to look perfect.

DK Au Revoir contains all upper and lower-case glyphs, numbers, common punctuation, accented characters, and some special characters, such as the Euro symbol. DK Au Revoir looks beautiful at sizes larger than 24 point, and it will add class to any brochure, flier, or newsletter. That said, it's an understated font that doesn't demand attention. Don't send an audit announcement with DK Au Revoir or Comic Sans.

The free (for personal use only) demo of DK Au Revoir doesn't include the contextual and stylistic alternates, full kerning control, ligatures, or extensive language support you get with the full version. In addition, the embedding is restricted in the demo. Contact Kerkhoff for the full, commercial-use version.

Inspired by the formal handwriting of architects, Architect's Daughter is delightfully precise, yet lighthearted and not at all bossy. Architect's Daughter is a TrueType font you could use at larger text sizes (14 point) and encounter no problems with legibility, or use at poster sizes to enjoy the detailed edges of the letters.The tiny serif at the end of the upper case E, and gentle slope within the center stroke of the F, are particularly charming.

Casual but never sloppy, Architect's Daughter defines a cross-section of neatness and friendliness.

The slightly off-scale width of some letters—,lower-case o and c, and upper-case B, D, and R among others—plus the non-mirror image lower case b and d all work together to aid the legibility. Indeed, many experts cite these differences as things that can make a typeface easy to decipher, especially for early readers and people with a disability like dyslexia. The lower-case a and g in Architect's Daughter also are handwriting style rather than letter-press, similar to Comic Sans, which is a benefit to beginner readers.

Although Architect's Daughter may seem casually handwritten, 377 accurate kerning pairs help give it a sensible cleanness that expands its usability. However, still pass it through the suitability filter: This is not the font for memorial signs or grave markers.

Architect's Daughter includes full upper- and lower-case glyphs, plus numbers, punctuation, and accented characters; all at 400 (regular) weight. It's fully installable, allowing you to embed the Architect's Daughter font in documents ready for other users to install. Architect's Daughter is free for personal use. For commercial use, contact designer Kimberly Geswein.

Designer Robby Woodard of WoodardWorks describes Laconic on his website as "a typeface design meant to be dry without quite seeming parched." For any stern note, Laconic is ideal: über-legible, even at small text sizes, but without ingratiating flourishes.

Laconic conveys a smart and capable image without stuffiness.

The glyphs are perfectly proportional (with 652 kerning pairs), and drawn with the preciseness of an almost-typewritten font, but with sans serif twenty-first century style. Straight lines blend seamlessly into elegant curves with Laconic. Following good rules for a font like this, Laconic's lower-case letters have an x-height slightly taller than the median line, and upper-case letters such as B, H, G, etc. aim their midpoints precisely at the median. Although Laconic's ascenders and descenders are uniformly short, the ascenders are slightly taller than the cap height.

If you are writing formal sentences (rather than all-caps, or all lower-case) these far-reaching ascenders can be slightly distracting, so don't use Laconic for mental health screenings or STD questionnaires..

The Laconic typeface family includes Light, Regular, Bold, and Shadow (all OpenType, and all included in the same download) for interesting, modernistic effects. Each weight features ligatures, old style figures, proportional figures, small caps, tabular figures, and stylistic alternatives, as well as the more standard upper- and lower-case, numbers, and punctuation.

Embedding allows for print and preview only, but permissions in Laconic's EULA allow you to redistribute Laconic freely. Laconic is free for personal use. For commercial use contact Woodard.

Lexia Readable: It's what happened when Comic Sans grew up. Designed by K-Type as a visually mature version of the comic cliché, Lexia gives your copy clarity and legibility without the now-cloying whimsy.

Beautiful and ultra-legible, sans serif typeface Lexia is a winner.

Lexia Readable and Lexia Bold are available as OpenType, TrueType, and PostScript in the same download. A sans serif typeface, Lexia Readable echos the reasons many literacy professionals like to use Comic Sans: the handwritten lower-case a and g (rather than the letterpress versions); ascenders that equal the cap height, and similarly long descenders; an x-height that is just a hair above the median. These features all make Lexia easy on the eyes—and easy on the brain for early readers and readers with a disability such as dyslexia.

But unlike Comic Sans, Lexia Readable steps it up a notch with asymmetrical lower-case b and d, straightened lines rather than the hand-drawn wobble, and 170 kerning pairs to ensure good spacing and placement.

Keith Bates, designer of Lexia Readable, notes, "Lexia Readable was primarily an attempt at a grown-up Comic Sans that might be more appropriate for use with older readers," he says. "It's an attempt to retain the strength, friendliness and legibility of Comic Sans, and even a slightly marker-drawn feel, whilst tidying up the comic book idiosyncrasies.Lexia adds a hint of dignity, a sprinkling of refinement, and introduces elements of designer type to appeal to a contemporary audience."

Lexia is designed to be legible, even at small sizes, and looks great down to 8 points. The open lower-case b and p (designed to avoid symmetry and confusion for some readers) make Lexia a poor choice for display purposes—it just looks odd—but it still works, and at least the detail in the upper-case letters adds style that Comic Sans lacks.

Embedding is installable. Lexia Readable and Lexia Readable Bold are available free for personal use, and also free for use by schools, colleges, other educational establishments, non-profit groups, and charities. The full Lexia typeface (Lexia Bold, Italic, Heavy, Outline) is available for all uses including commercial from K-Type; the full package runs about $16.

Williams says, "As you become more conscious of typography and put into words your gut reactions to fonts—that font is cranky, that one is happy, and so on—you'll find that Comic Sans will naturally disappear from your choices."

A word of caution: Whatever cheerful, lighthearted, easy-to-read font you choose, if it fails the suitability test, it's not going to work. If your copy relays devastating news or you need people to take your message seriously, don't use Comic Sans or any others we've suggested (with the possible exception of Lexia). If in doubt, Times New Roman will never fail you.

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference

Tools for the paranoid: 5 free security tools to protect your data

Endlessly tweaking his workflow for comfort and efficiency, Erez is a freelance writer on a mission to discover the simplest, coolest, and most effective software and websites to make tomorrow happen today.
More by Erez Zukerman

You just read about another online database hack, and now 4 million users' names and passwords are floating around the Internet—and you have a sinking feeling that one of them might be yours. And then there are the security breaches you don't hear about, the ones that leave nasty surprises in your inbox or on your credit card statement.

Because even a law-abiding citizen like you has a few secrets to keep, we've found five industrial-grade tools to help you hang on to what's yours. No need to enter a credit card number to get them, either—they're all free.

If you adopt just one security tool from this article, make it KeePass. This free and open-source password manager is available for Windows, with unofficial ports for iOS, Android, Linux, and Mac OS X. A secure, lengthy, completely random password goes a long way towards improving your security—and having a separate password for each and every website and service you use is the single most important thing you can do to keep secure.

KeePass lets you quick-search for passwords and organize them into a complex tree of folders.

For too many of us, the alternative to a password manager is using the same password everywhere. This means that if the user database of any one website you sign up for is compromised, hackers can (and often do) try your username and password on many other websites and gain access. So, seriously: Use a unique, difficult password for each and every website you sign up for, no matter how little you plan to visit it.

KeePass lets you keep all of these username/password pairs in a securely encrypted database, protected behind a single master password—the only password you'll have to remember. And unlike commercial competitor LastPass, KeePass doesn't automatically put your password database in the cloud (although you can put it into Dropbox yourself).

KeePass features its own random password generator, so you don't have to come up with random passwords on your own. It includes a quick-search box where you can type just a fragment of a website's name to quickly find it on your list. The list itself is built to contain thousands of records, and you can subdivide it into folders and subfolders to keep things organized. KeePass isn't limited to just usernames and passwords, either: Each entry has several other fields, including a free-form Notes field for securely storing any sort of text.

One way the baddies circumvent password protection is with a keylogger: an application (or a physical hardware dongle connected to your computer) that sits in the background, quietly logging every single keystroke you type, and later transmitting this information to an attacker. With a keylogger installed on your system, an attacker could potentially learn every single word you type throughout the day, including all of your usernames and passwords.

KeePass protects against keylogging with its AutoType feature, which saves you the trouble of manually typing individual website passwords. KeePass pastes them into the browser window using a combination of virtual keystrokes and clipboard obfuscation, making it all the more difficult for a keylogger to figure out what the password is. AutoType is sometimes finicky, but when it works, it's very useful. KeePass also lets you enter your master database password in a prompt protected by UAC (User Account Control), blocking any software keylogger that isn't running with administrator rights on your machine.

Get KeePass, and start using it right now. You'll thank yourself next time a major website breach vents thousands of usernames and passwords into cyberspace.

Let me guess: You use Dropbox. Or maybe SkyDrive, or Google Drive, or one of the numerous other cloud file-hosting services out there. These services are invaluable for synchronizing data across different computers and mobile devices or sharing it with others. But here's an interesting bit of trivia: Did you know some Dropbox employees can access your files? Granted, that they would do anything with your data is a far-fetched scenario, but why take the risk? The free utility TrueCrypt lets you effortlessly encrypt entire folders, so your cloud-synced data remains truly yours.

TrueCrypt's simple interface lets you specify a TrueCrypt volume and pick a drive letter for it, while showing some stats about currently mounted volumes.

TrueCrypt works by creating virtual encrypted disks; this means that, as far as Dropbox can tell, a TrueCrypt-encrypted disk is just a blob of random binary data. However, when you mount that volume using TrueCrypt, you need only enter the correct password and a new drive shows up on your system. Every file you put into this drive is instantly encrypted, secure from prying eyes. As soon as you unmount the volume (eject the disk, so to speak), it becomes completely inaccessible.

TrueCrypt is very serious about security, to the point of providing plausibly deniable encryption. Let's say that some person or legal entity finds out you're keeping files inside a TrueCrypt volume, and has the power to compel you to give away your password. With a less serious security solution, this is game over: As soon as you give over your password, your data is forfeit.

TrueCrypt lets you get around this limitation by creating a hidden volume inside a TrueCrypt container. Enter one password to decrypt the volume, and you get one set of files (decoy files you put there in advance, which should seem believable enough to stand in for the contents of that volume). Enter a different password to decrypt that same volume, and suddenly you get an entirely different set of files, which are the real files you're trying to protect. In other words, whoever coerced you to give away your password now thinks they have whatever files you were hiding, when in fact they don't (but you can claim they do, and there's no way to detect that two-password trick). This sounds like a scenario lifted out of a William Gibson novel, but it's a great option to have, especially in a free tool.

Judicious use of KeePass and TrueCrypt is more than enough for creating a very secure environment. We now officially leave essential apps territory and enter realms of luxury (or paranoia, depending on how you look at it). If you want to beef up your Internet browsing security as well, the Tor Browser Bundle is the way to go.

The Vidalia Control Panel for Tor handles all connections automatically, launching Firefox as soon as you can browse.

The Tor network provides a way to browse anonymously. When you connect to Tor, all of your Internet traffic is encrypted and routed through a complex network of anonymous nodes until it reaches its final destination. It's not 100 percent secure, but then again, no security solution is. Tor has been around since 2002, and has been field-tested in rough situations in Egypt and other oppressive regimes that restrict Internet access. It works.

Tor Browser Bundle is a portable, self-extracting package that contains a special version of Firefox, along with an application for connecting to Tor. Extract the bundle, double-click "Start Tor Browser," and the connection window comes up and steps through an initialization sequence. You don't have to do anything; just wait a moment while the progress bar fills up. As soon as a secure connection with Tor is established, Firefox loads, and you can start browsing.

Since Tor routes your data through so many layers and random endpoints, it's not exactly blazing fast. Then again, most of us don't live under a regime that makes Tor a necessary part of our daily browsing routines. For occasional use, it's an elegant solution that manages to simplify a complex security system down to a double-click.

Steganography, or hiding messages in plain sight, is a storied practice dating back to ancient Greece. In modern practice, steganography means taking a media file such as an MP3 or a JPEG image and burying data in it. The file still works as usual, and if you don't specifically look for the hidden data, you'll have no idea that the encrypted information is even there. In other words, you could hide an important text message in an innocent image file, and then post that file publicly online. Another party could then download the file and—using a steganography tool and a password that you both shared in advance—process the file and extract whatever information you've buried in it. One good tool for this purpose is OpenPuff, a powerful open-source steganography application that supports a wide variety of "carrier" formats for hiding data, including MP3, JPEG, and more.

OpenPuff's welcome screen contains just a handful of buttons, so as to simplify what is a complex application.

By default, OpenPuff asks you to protect your information with three different passwords, although it does let you dial that down to just a single password of your choosing. It even supports plausibly deniable encryption, and this is where things get really paranoid: Even if someone somehow realizes your seemingly innocent image or music file contains a hidden message, OpenPuff lets you hide a decoy along with the real message. Simply provide a different password, and the other person will extract the decoy out of the image, thinking they've won—but actually, your real secret will still be hidden in the file.

Steganography usually works well for hiding short text messages or other condensed information; obviously, you can't hide an entire video file within another video file using steganography—there's just no room for all those extra bytes. Still, if you need to hide a large amount of information, OpenPuff lets you chain multiple carrier files together into one extended message. To extract the information, the recipient (or yourself) needs to have all of the carrier files, and feed them into OpenPuff in exactly the right sequence, along with the correct password or passwords. Not for the faint of heart.

If secure traffic tunneling and steganography sound too cloak-and-dagger for you, consider a friendly, real-world security hole: Chat. Chatting online is easier than ever; chatting securely, not so much. The chat clients built into Facebook and Gmail emphasize ubiquity and ease of use far more than encryption. Free chat client Cryptocat claims that you can have both security and convenience, and it made quite a splash upon its arrival.

CryptoCat's simple aesthetic makes it easy to focus on the conversation.

The least mature tool in this roundup, Cryptocat demonstrates an important lesson about security software: Newer rarely means better. Following a glowing profile piece that Wired published on Cryptocat and its developer, 21-year-old Nadim Kobeissi, security guru Bruce Schneier published a cautionary post in his blog letting readers know Cryptocat wasn't as safe as it seemed. At the time, the problem was that Cryptocat handled security host-side, rather than locally. This issue has since been addressed, and Cryptocat now runs as a browser extension and handles encryption locally. Still, this is an important example to keep in mind: Encryption software, even when it's open-source, can't be considered secure until it's been thoroughly audited and battle-tested (preferably for years).

While I wouldn't use Cryptocat for mission-critical secret communications, it does add a modicum of security and privacy over the features built into Google and Facebook, and it's just as easy to use. After installing a Chrome or Firefox extension, all you have to do is pick a nick (a handle) and a title for your chat room, and presto—you can chat with any other Cryptocat user who joins the room. The aesthetic is decidedly old-school 8-bit, but that only adds to Cryptocat's charm. It's a nice way to chat with friends, and can serve as a reminder that it's important to use other forms of security, too.

With security software, it's easy to go overboard. You could create a small KeePass database, steganographically embed it in an MP3 file, put that file into a TrueCrypt volume, and then launch Tor and tell your friends all about it on Cryptocat. That might be a fun experiment, but in reality, it takes just a handful of best practices to significantly bolster security. If this article makes you do just one thing, I hope it gets you to adopt KeePass and take password security more seriously. And if you're already using a password manager, well, there's always more you can do to further protect your privacy and reduce the risks that come with constantly being online.

From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

Android Phone Cases: 4 Shell-Makers Sure to Protect Your Smartphone

Smartphones are built to take a few bumps, but sooner or later a crack or chip is certain to ruin your day. To decrease your chances of getting the cracked screen of shame, put your Android in a case from one of these four protection suppliers.

Keep reading for 4 Smartphone Case-Makers Sure to Protect Your Smartphone, the last installment of our six-part Android Phone Makeover series.

More Android Phone Makeover tips!

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Mobile Security: The Risks and How to Protect Your Smartphone

Whether you’re a frequent traveler with top-secret information stored on your smartphone or you just like to download apps on your mobile device, hackers and malware writers are hungry to get their hands on your personal data.

According to Lookout Mobile Security, mobile threats stole more than $1 million from Android users in 2011, and the company expects that number to mushroom in the coming year.

Don’t get too scared, though. Some background knowledge on the most prevalent mobile threats—and a little common sense—should be enough to keep your identity and financial info out of unfriendly hands.

Head to the next page for threat detection tips.

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Can Mobile App Ratings Help You Protect Your Kids?

The CTIA’s adoption of the ESRB ratings seems to have relaxed industry fears about a voluntary ratings system. In fact, the video game industry established the self-regulatory ESRB in the mid-1990s after Congressional hearings about violent content. Referring to the November 2011 announcement of the CTIA-ESRB combined ratings, Sen. Mark Pryor said, “It’s a win-win when industry takes proactive, responsible steps to protect children from inappropriate content.”

According to the CTIA and the ESRB, now when developers submit their apps to a participating storefront, they must complete a questionnaire designed to assess the app’s content and determine age-appropriateness. Violence, sexual content, language, exchange of user-generated context, location-sharing and other aspects are all examined, after which a rating is issued. Once a title has been rated, the organization issues a certificate with a unique identifying code. The developer can then submit the app to various storefronts without having to repeat the process each time.

Missing from this list, however, are the two most popular sources for downloading apps; Apple and Google. Both declined to join in the consolidated app content ratings, and neither company provided detailed reasons for opting out of the single rating standard.

Google’s Android Market does not review what the developer selects as the rating. But if users notify Android (through a link on the Market site) that a particular app seems inappropriate for the intended age group, Google will check it out and re-rate the app if necessary.

An unnamed spokesperson for Google stated, “We’ve put a lot of effort into Android Market’s rating system, which now works well globally. While we support other systems, we think it’s best for Android users and developers to stick with Android’s existing ratings.”

Apple did not provide an official statement about its decision not to use the ESRB and CTIA ratings system. However, the company informally communicated that it has a ratings system in place and that a team reviews each app for its appropriate rating before posting it to the App Store.

For Talty of Healthyfamily.org, that’s not enough. “Ratings for apps, whether online or in a retail package, need to be a little more specific about what content determined the rating,” she said. “Right now, online content ratings are somewhat generic and don’t tell me enough.”

Talty noted that the ratings for iPhone and iPad apps are different from the ones for Android apps, and both of these are different from the ESRB ratings for packaged games. “Parents shouldn’t have to rummage around the Internet to get specifics about what each set of ratings mean,” she said.

The CTIA argues that its rating system still has merit. “The CTIA Mobile Application Rating System with ESRB is a voluntary program that is intended to provide a standardized tool for storefronts that want content ratings for mobile applications,” said Amy Storey, assistant vice president of public affairs for CTIA. “For consumers and parents who want to know the content and context of apps so they can determine if it’s appropriate, our rating system will be helpful.”

Storey added, “In this robust and competitive wireless industry, our members throughout the ecosystem compete against each other for every single customer. The six founding storefronts that are participating in the CTIA Mobile App Rating System are able to use it as another differentiation point. We anticipate additional storefronts will adopt the CTIA Mobile Applications Rating System.”

So where does this leave parents trying to decipher the various standards, especially when it is already difficult enough to locate the parental controls on the different devices their children use to access apps?

Android phones currently don’t have any native parental controls or age-restriction settings. There are numerous third-party apps in the Android Market that allow for monitoring phone activity, but they don’t include specific age-related restrictions. Despite two years of pleas for parental restriction settings on Android phones in Google’s Android Market Forum, Android phones are still an open playground for kids.

There are some third-party parental control apps that promise parents more in-depth information. Android Parental Control is a password-protected gatekeeper which filters and restricts selected apps and will even hide an app’s icon or restrict apps for specific time periods.

Smart App Protector (pictured) is a more generic app locker that requires a password to launch. A handy home-screen widget makes activation quicker, sets allowed times of use and can even hide the app altogether.

Smart AppLock Free is another simple gatekeeper originally designed as a general privacy protector. It allows users to password-protect any app on their smartphone. A paid version ($1.50) has even more robust functions, such as preventing apps from being installed.

As the total unification of content ratings for all packaged games and mobile apps seems unlikely in the near future—and legislated regulations are a no-go—parents will have to pay close attention to the ratings supplied at each mobile app store and the ratings icons on packaged software.

Ultimately, the final arbiters of content ratings are the parents. Let’s face it: All ratings are by necessity tailored to fit one standard, and as with clothing, one size does not fit all. What’s considered appropriate for one child may not be for yours. Industry-supplied ratings are guidelines, not the final rule.

As Talty notes, “I check out a game by playing myself before I will let my kids play. Most of the apps that my husband and I have checked out, we have bought, but we see it before the kids do.”

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Lock Down Your Log-in: 6 Password Managers to Protect Your Accounts

For those of you with a different password for every account, these six downloads can be your digital safe. Each program remembers all of your log-ins so you don’t have to and some include data protection for good measure. Want to know the best tools to keep your passwords safe? Read on.

Available in both desktop and mobile versions, eWallet secures your passwords with 256-bit encryption. eWallet takes its name seriously; customization options let you assign credit card-style backgrounds to different login credentials. The software can sync across your devices, and Android users can view their desktop “wallet” of login information on their phone.
Price: $9.99 (smartphone), $19.99 (PC), $29.98 (PC and smartphone); http://www.ilumsoft.com/ewallet

From Laptopmagazine. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center Here