private

Now that just about everyone has high-quality cameras on their phones, people's smartphones have become the main repository for all their photos. This can be great for showing off photos of your kids or reminiscing about an event in the past. But what about when you leave your phone on your desk or coffee table--do you really want people to have access to all your pictures?

This week's iOS app collection provides a way to create a locked folder on your phone. The first is free and offers just the basics for added security. The second adds a few more features for managing photos. The third snaps a picture of would-be intruders in addition to having a secure folder.… Read more

Researchers say they have uncovered vulnerabilities in a "popular" component of Android that is used by antivirus and other apps that could be exploited to do things like disable the apps.

A malicious app could be created to turn off the antivirus so an attacker could infect the phone with malware and in some cases the same weakness could be used to compromise the antivirus app itself, said Riley Hassell, founder of Privateer Labs, in a recent briefing.

Privateer co-founder Shane Macaulay uncovered the vulnerabilities but had not found any attacks exploiting them in the wild. Hassell declined … Read more

We all have two or three playlists on Spotify we would prefer our listening habits of be left private. With the recent changes to Facebook and the new integration with the various music services, hiding your guilty pleasures has become somewhat of a hassle.

Up until now, the only available solution to prevent your music selection from being displayed on Facebook is somewhat permanent. Thankfully, Spotify has rolled out a Private Listening feature to its desktop clients, allowing users to temporarily stop their music selection from being broadcast all over the Internet.

To enable Private Listening in Spotify on a … Read more

A new feature found in iOS 5 is the ability to turn on private browsing for Mobile Safari. Once private browsing is activated, Mobile Safari will stop keeping history of your Web browsing. This can come in handy in a number of various situations, for example; letting a friend borrow your iOS device to check their e-mail. Having private browsing turned on will ensure their personal info isn't stored on your device, providing them with piece of mind. … Read more

The right to browse without businesses tracking your every move has just come to the latest Firefox beta for Android.

Mozilla released the new mobile browser beta today with a Do Not Track feature that will keep business from issuing tracking cookies. The update comes almost a month after Mozilla took the wraps off of its official Firefox for Android release, and .

Just mosey on over to the browser settings to turn on Do Not Track before surfing with the certainty of not being watched. To do so, slide the option "Tell sites not to track me" to … Read more

The main thrust of early cloud computing discussions--even before that particular term became popular--was fundamentally about economies of scale. For example, in his book "The Big Switch," author Nick Carr writes that: "Once it becomes possible to provide the technology centrally, large-scale utility suppliers arise to displace the private providers."

This was an imagined future of computing that reprised a journey taken by power generation technology in which expensive and customized local water turbines or steam engines driving gears and belts largely gave way to motors connected to the electric grid. This early-on discussion wasn't … Read more

The concern about Google, Facebook, and other popular Web services tracking their customers may have you wondering whether there are more-private alternatives. The Ixquick.com metasearcher, PrivacyHarbor.com and Hushmail e-mail services, and FolkDirect social network promise to stay out of your affairs.

Metasearch minus tracking and history Google lets you erase all or part of your Web history with five clicks: after you sign into your account, click the down arrow in the top-right menu, choose Account Settings, select Web History under "My products" (you may need to sign in again), click Clear entire Web History, and … Read more

Why, when so many have already begun evaluating and even executing on cloud strategies, are there still so many debates about what is and isn't "cloud"? When we've seen a growing number of stories about enterprises successfully consuming both public- and private-cloud infrastructure services, why are there still so many debates about whether one or the other is a smart thing to do?

The answer, I believe, stems from a growing division (or misunderstanding?) among technology and business decision makers about the very nature of cloud computing. I hesitate to go into cloud definitions, but I … Read more

Last week, I attended the Cloud Connect Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, Calif., which is one of the biggest gatherings of cloud thought leaders and practitioners of the year. What I took away from that week was both a firm confirmation of the concepts I have covered in the past, and a surprising revelation of the maturity of some organizations with respect to those practices.

Most notably, there is a growing gap between the culture and practices of organizations that have embraced cloud as a primary IT model, and those that are trying to fit the cloud into their … Read more