Graeme is headed to Las Vegas for the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show and will be performing his lounge act, no doubt. (Actually, he’s working with some of his Minnesota clients showcasing their offerings at the show, but who knows?).
Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off).
Music: Handful of Stars by Midnight Music Quartet. Brought to us by the podsafe Music Alley.
The Podcast
Story Links
Past Week’s Biggest MN Stories
- Minnesota launches new website tracking government spending
- Consumers like super-sized smartphones, but carrying them around…
- Phablets catch fire for the holidays
Other Top Stories
- CES and the Internet of Things
- Blu phones
- HP sells Palm trademarks; brand could be resurrected with new smartphones
- Google posts Windows 8.1 vulnerability before Microsoft can patch it
- Twitter’s ‘While You Were Away’ Recap Feature Is Rolling Out To Many Users
- Google Strikes an Upbeat Note With FCC on Title II
- Microsoft is building a new browser as part of its Windows 10 push
- Prying Eyes: Inside the NSA’s War on Internet Security
- Skype. How big *is* the back door? (Steve’s blog post from 2008)
- Darkmail – End-to-end encrypted email
Steve’s Security Tip of the Week
Top Five Security New Year’s Resolutions
1) Use two-factor authentication whenever possible
2) Use a password manager
- 15+ Best iPhone Password Manager Apps
- Gang’s favorite: LastPass
3) Be smart, and safe, with your computing
- Top Ten Safe Computing Tips (for MIT Students)
4) Encrypt your hard drive, especially on your laptop!
5) Use a VPN
Cool Thing of the Week
- Phil: The Om/One Levitating Bluetooth Speaker
- Tim: Alcatel’s new Pixi smartphone can run Windows, Android, or Firefox OS
- Steve: Blue Mikey
Upcoming Events
- Educelerate Twin Cities Demo2, January 14, 2015
- GameCraft, January 23-25, UofM
- Date Night: How Data Science Leads to “I do”, February 3, 2015 (tickets)
- MinneDemo 19, February 5th, Guthrie Theater (tix released Jan 27th & Feb 2nd)
- Hennepin County Geo Code, February 21-22
- Mobile March, March 26th, 2015
- IoT Fuse (Internet of Things event) March 19th, 2015 (tix here)
- MinneBar 10, April 11th, Best Buy HQ
- Twin Cities TechPulse 2015 – April 21, 2015
What predictions for 2014 did we hit? Miss? And what do we predict for 2015? Are we the four Christmas wisemen or something else? Listen to this show and find out.
Poor Vikings fanboy Tim Elliott. He doesn’t understand why 
The Security Tip of the Week, and the basis for the innuendo in the title, is to point out the danger of sticking any-old USB thumb drive in to your computer and why. Listen to find out more.
Poor Phil. Though he does both yoga and ballet in his downtime, he somehow fell on his butt in a home construction accident—with his new iPhone 6 in his back pocket—and now needs to tell the Apple Geniuses what happened. We suggested he blame 
Professor of Nautical History from Dward Farquard International University, Phil Wilson, helps us all understand the distinctions of the phrase, “8 Bells” which you can learn about 
Just in time for Halloween: Phil’s Free Hugs.
Like the women at the 
Tim’s “Cool Thing of the Week” inspired this week’s show name and image, but we had a lot more interesting stories to cover and did. Some serious, some not so much.