Enter SignNow, an application designed specifically to eliminate that issue. SignNow is centered around digital signatures, or more specifically, a digital version of your physical signature.

With SignNow, you can upload a digital document, and draw (with touchscreen, mouse, or trackpad) your signature in the necessary field. You can also type in your signature, or upload an existing image of it. With the uploaded digital document, SignNow also has the option to add text boxes and “sticky notes” as indicators for specific clauses or areas for others to sign.

When you are finished adding signatures, text boxes, and sticky notes, you simply enter an email address and send the freshly signed document on its way. You may also add CC emails and invite others to sign.

SignNow, most importantly, is free. It doesn’t require registration or anything of the sort, you simply upload your document, add what you need to, and move on. There are, of course, options to create an account and store signatures for quick access, and a beta version of a “Pro” account, sure to roll out more features like templates and advanced security features.

The application is also rolling out for iPhone, Android, and iPad, further increasing its convenience and quickness.

For security, emails are encrypted and documents are deleted once sent.  The entire site utilizes high level SSL encryption to maximize the safety of your data.

Even if you aren’t signing documents yourself, uploading a document to SignNow, adding a sticky note indicate the required field, and inviting a user to sign is a great way to get the signatures you need for your own documents.

The whole thing is quite simple, and elegant because of it. The biggest perk of all, as previously mentioned, is that it is completely free, and does not require registration. It shows their intentions, that the company really is after solutions and ease of use.  Next time you need to sign an electronic document, don’t waste time and resources with the print-sign-scan model. Instead give SignNow a shot and see how it works for you.

Read time (bolded): 4 minutes

Read time (comprhensive): 6 minutes

There seems to be a veritable chasm between the two sides of the “ISP Snooping Bill,” and rightfully so. It is a tense issue, to say the least. The bill, dubiously called the “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011,” has been making headlines with both sides of the political spectrum, offering staunch support and indignant opposition alike.

The bill, which requires ISPs to retain customer data records for a year – allowing police and government agencies to review them as needed – was approved by the US House of Representatives on Thursday. This means that major internet providers will be collecting, and storing, records of each and every IP address in their system, sites visited, phone numbers, emails addresses, credit card numbers, and anything else that is included in your online data.

This is really nothing new, considering there is already a law in place requiring ISPs to retain data for 90 days, but this bill comes as the face of a much larger issue. To supporters, creating a massive database of American Internet activity is the only way to protect children from predators, the only way to catch consumers and producers of child pornography. To the opposition, however, it is the mighty eye of Big Brother looming more ominously than ever.

The criticisms for the bill cover a wide variety of bases. At the surface, people are inherently opposed to a record of the online actions being available to anyone, let alone the authorities, not necessarily to hide criminal activity, but to protect a general principle of privacy. This is, however, something of a moot point – ISPs have been, and will continue to collect customer records regardless of the outcome of this particular bill.

Questions about the efficacy of the bill, however, are much more telling. First, the scale is immense. There are approximately 270 million Internet users in the United States, and managing records for a year’s worth of activity for each of these users will require a lot of resources. Combing those records for potential criminal activity will require even more. Granted that authorities will need to go through the proper legal channels to be able to search this information (subpoenas, warrants, court orders, etc.), it will still be a large undertaking to extract incriminating evidence from a year’s worth of usage history (not to mention that a law already exists to allow for this kind of data recovery in child pornography cases).

More importantly, the bill’s provisions restrict the required record keeping to commercial ISPs and customer accounts, meaning that open Wi-FI in libraries and restaurants will still allow users to surf anonymously. Also, the bill has no provisions for wireless data, so smartphone histories won’t be tracked either.

There are, of course, ways of browsing the Internet anonymously from home, whether through Tor or another VPN tool, and you could always go the way of 4g wireless in your home (if it’s available), or simply do all of your browsing on your phone or at the local coffee shop!

The question we’re all forced to ask is this: What is the point? If the effort is being put forth to keep tabs on Internet usage nation-wide, why no wireless provisions? Why give the bill such a “buzz word” type title, when the same records will be used for fraud, theft, and other web-based crimes?  Even if the genesis of this legislation is rooted in good intentions, in protecting innocent children, its current face is an ugly one, appearing to be a poorly masked attempt to collect citizens’ personal data, and keep a closer watch on society at large.  

Read time (bolded): 3 minutes

Read time (comprehensive): 5 minutes

Strip away the 3D rendering and the translucent menus. Forget about drop down menus, scroll bars, and handy application icons. Abandon your mouse. Get rid of all the flash of the OS interface as we know it, and look back three decades to that iconic blinking cursor.

It has indeed been 30 years since MS-DOS first came to the personal computer, marking the beginning of a revolution in computer use.  The command-line-based operating system came from the Microsoft purchase of 86-DOS in 1981 (for a mere $75,000), and has gone through numerous versions, up to, and including, bootstrapping capabilities in recent Windows operating systems.

The crazy part is: DOS is still relative today. Some basic systems (often inventory or POS systems) use DOS based programming for day-to-day operations. Even the command line approach that early PC users familiarized themselves with is used regularly, and is incorporated into every Windows OS. We can also thank DOS for the standard “C:” hard drive nomenclature (A and B were for floppies).

It has been a long road from MS-DOS’s blinking cursor to the graphic, multilayered Windows 7.

Windows 1.0 (released in 1985) was essentially a way to run multiple MS-DOS processes at once. Incorporating a 16-bit graphic interface was the first step toward evolving into Windows as we know it today.  With each subsequent version, new applications were added, the graphics became a little more polished. By the time Windows 95 was released, Windows and MS-DOS had become fully integrated with one another. 

Fast forward to Windows ME, and the first instances of MS-DOS reduced to a pared- down boot-loader, and its successor Windows XP, and we start to see the changing times, where old DOS programs have to be run in emulators or virtual DOS machines.

While the newest Windows operating systems have all but abandoned their ties to original MS-DOS (development stopped in 2000), any old-school PC user can’t help but remember the days of command-line prompts and floppy disks as a milestone of the computing age, a point at which personal computing really began to come into its own.

So happy 30^th, MS-DOS, you stand as a pillar of the Bill Gates empire, a forefather of the digital age. May your ominous cursor blink on in our memories forever.

Read time (bolded): 5 minutes

Read time (comprehensive): 3 minutes 

There is no question that we are in the midst of a mobile Internet explosion. Smartphones, namely Android and iPhone products, are flying off the shelves in record numbers (not to mention tablets/iPads).  The advent of 4G networks, incorporated Flash software, and the ever-increasing app market, people are using their cellphones (if we can even call them that any more) for more than we ever imagined possible.

The numbers are staggering.  There are over 4 billion mobile phones in use around the world. Around 25% of them are smartphones. This means a billion people have Internet access in their pockets. This equates to 250 million mobile Facebook users, 100 million mobile Twitter users (that’s 50% of all Twitter users), and 200 million mobile Youtube plays every day. People all over the world are using their mobile devices for games, social networking, news, weather…you name it.

Projections indicate that mobile Internet use will surpass desktop Internet use in the next few years. This comes as no surprise, given the popularity (almost social necessity) of the smartphone, and of course, the ability to use it anywhere and everywhere. Barcode readers and instant Google access allow consumers to do product research in the moment, news apps and games occupy subway riders, sharing photos or tweeting from a social setting is as easy as reaching in your pocket.

The rate of expansion also comes as no surprise. In the era of high-speed desktop Internet and massive social networks – an era where “Google” has become a verb, people the world over are already familiar with online interaction. The slow growth experienced by the earliest Internet providers is essentially the precursor to the rapid growth of mobile Internet. The concepts are the same; the interface is just different.

What are the implications of all of this though? As a culture, it makes us more connected, more aware of what’s going on around us (unless all you can use your phone for is Angry Birds), and it most definitely makes us see the world in a different way. Instead of just making mental notes of unique situations, we instead tweet about it, take a photo, and upload it to Google+!

It also has a way of making us disconnected from the people around us, lost in touch screen euphoria, ignoring the person standing next to you to text someone on the other side of the country.  

Mobile Internet has also become the avenue of choice for advertising firms, using “mobile only” promotional campaigns to capitalize on the mobile sensation.  We know that advertising trends follow social trends, and that can only mean a continued increase in mobile advertising, whether we like it or not.

This much is clear: mobile Internet access is changing the way we go about our daily lives – the way we socialize, the way we do business.  Whether for better or for worse, only time will tell. 

Read time (bolded): 6 Minutes

Read time (comprehensive): 8 minutes

As the Internet expands and new technologies develop (as they always do), there must be a debate over new versus old; whether a new technology is too unreliable, or an old technology is too archaic. Presently, that very argument is taking place regarding hosting technology. The two sides of this arguments?  The cloud vs. the physical, dedicated server.

Dedicated servers are just that, dedicated. It’s really one of the primary advantages of using physical server equipment to host your website – the equipment is specialized and customizable. You (or an expert) can build the server you want, with your choice of operating system and exact specifications.  For certain hosting needs, dedicating a lightning fast server to a singular project is the most effective way to host.

Purchasing this kind of equipment can be quite costly, however. Because of the costs associated with purchasing physical server equipment, most lease a server from a hosting company. When leasing, you still get a dedicated, physical server at your disposal, but maintenance, upgrades, and troubleshooting become part of the service you purchase, instead of your own (major) responsibility.

The trouble with dedicated servers comes with change. Leasing a server with a certain amount of RAM or bandwidth may not stand up to the increasing speed and sophistication of modern web development. A dedicated server is “stuck in its ways” so to speak, without physical upgrades. A sudden influx of traffic could potentially go beyond what your dedicated server is capable of handling.

This problem has been resolved, in theory, with the advent of cloud-based hosting. Instead of a singular, static system, cloud computing is amorphous, directing necessary resources to the areas that need them most. Like leasing a physical server, purchasing hosting services with a cloud-based server takes the technical maintenance out of the customers’ hands. The difference lies in scalability.

The “cloud” may be made up of thousands of physical servers, and within that cloud are hundreds (or more) hosted websites, each individually owned and operated. Depending on the traffic or necessary bandwidth, the cloud server is capable of allocating resources accordingly.

While this technology is gaining popularity, it isn’t without flaws. Some complain that making sites essentially compete for the cloud’s resources is slowing the whole process. Part of the problem of steadily increasing popularity is the wave of new users vying for the same service.

Security remains an issue for some, feeling understandable hesitation about uploading their data into a massive system on some far away network of servers and other hosted content. There have even been some security scares in the media.

At the end of the day, choosing a hosting service has to be based on what’s right for the material you wish to host. As a small site looking to grow, cloud hosting may be just right. Maintaining a massive database or company brain may just be a little too intensive for present-day cloud technology, and a high-speed, dedicated server might be the ticket.

The one thing that we can rely on is that the technology will continue to develop.

Read time (comprehensive): 7 minutes

The conversation has been going on for years, but in the past several months, a particularly hot topic has come back into the public discussion. That topic, subject of much debate around the world, is Internet regulation.

The issue is on the tongues of political and economic leaders alike, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling for tighter digital copyright laws and general “civility” at the last G8 Conference, and the music industry clamoring for heftier anti-piracy laws.

Of course the online community, the users themselves, are just as adamant (if not more so) about keeping the Internet a free marketplace, as unregulated as possible.

Both sides of the argument are ripe with strong points.

The music industry has taken a massive hit from online piracy, as most people are aware, and the film and publishing industries are no exception. From the early days of Napster and the beginnings of mass file sharing, major music labels say they’ve lost $55 Billion in revenue. Even as the industry has tried to adapt, users still find a way to access entertainment without going through the industry approved channels.

President Sarkozy and other regulation advocates have more delicate issues on their minds. They are out to protect children from online predators, to stop the flow of underage pornography, and to squash hateful and violence-advocating social groups from spreading a message of intolerance. They are also concerned with online economic practices, based in part on the toll piracy has taken on the entertainment industries, but also to divert online companies from creating monopolies or conducting business within present regulatory loopholes.

While many of these concerns are valid, and do come from a desire to protect public interests, much of the online community remains opposed to regulation of any kind.

Part of the opposition is, of course, based on simple principle, that the Internet has had a long history of unregulated activity, and the innovations we’ve seen in the past two decades are directly related to that lack of interference. Major players in online companies like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Eric Schmidt argue that Internet regulation will cripple innovation.

Those opposed to regulation supply a multitude of reasons to keep the Internet neutral and open. Some argue that the Internet is a representation of society itself, and that censoring hateful or lewd content is not fighting the actual problem, only its online presence. By choosing to censor some areas of society because of potentially offensive content, regulators would be opening the floodgates of controversy over what content is deemed acceptable and what is not. In short, it becomes an ideological issue.

Perhaps the best argument against government intervention comes from Eric Schmidt himself, saying that technology will “move faster than governments,” and that we should look to technology to control undesirable online content.

It’s a tough call for most of us. The online CEOs are of course fighting against regulation of their industry, and government leaders are on soapboxes to defend the nation’s youth from the dangers of the Internet. Somewhere in the middle is the rest of the online community, and we’re in a great position to voice our opinions. What’s more important? Safety and security? Regulation and standardization? Or is it innovation and expansion? Neutrality and freedom?

Read time (bolded): 2 minutes

Read time (comprehensive): 5 minutes

Password security, as all Internet users should be aware, is the first line of defense against any breach of your personal information. Creating strong passwords can keep your accounts safe. Changing them regularly will keep your accounts even safer!

There are a variety of tricks and tips to creating strong passwords. Of course, one good practice is length. More characters mean more potential permutations of letters, numbers, and symbols. Generally speaking, a 5-character password is easier to crack than a 10-character password. That being said, using a variety of character types will also help strengthen your passwords. Combinations of letter, numbers, and symbols will always be stronger than a password with a single character type.

Now, when creating a password, length is important, but not always the most important. Even if a password is particularly long, its strength can be compromised by the use of common phrases or letter combinations. For example – the password “RingAroundTheRosie” would be less secure than “RosesAndRings.” Though the first password is longer, it is also a more common phrase, and therefore more predictable.

To avoid this type of predictability, use random password generators or Arnold Reinhold’s Diceware method. You can also use your own memorable information, like pet’s names or the town you were born in, just arrange it in an encrypted way.  Instead of using “rover,” create a password like “MyD0GRov3r.” Using numbers to represent letters adds some variety, and many sites even allow spaces in passwords – another strength enhancer. Predictability is still an issue when taking this approach, but a little creativity will help you create passwords that are both secure and easy to remember!

The next step beyond creating strong passwords is to change them regularly, and to keep them strong. This means varying your password more than a single letter or symbol. When the time comes to change a password, change it completely to maintain the highest level of security.

By maintaining strong, constantly changing passwords, you are maintaining a solid defense against any attempted infiltration of your accounts, and who wouldn’t want their information to be as safe as possible?

Read time (bolded): 4 minutes

Read time (comprehensive): 8 minutes

Nobody likes a broken computer, that moment when you realize just how loud the fan is, or how long it’s taking to load some small file. There’s also, of course, the gut wrenching, panic inducing Blue Screen of Death.

Suddenly, you become aware of all the important documents, family photos, saved games, mountains of data that you’re at risk of losing. Or, if you are the fastidious type, with all of your data backed up on a server, stored on an external drive, or compressed onto DVDs, you still face the problem of a crashed computer. How will you ever get any work done?

While no machine is foolproof, there are steps that can be taken to give your PC some longevity. Relatively simple maintenance is the key to keeping your computer healthy and functioning the way you need it to.

Let’s start with hardware. The biggest physical threats to the electrical system are heat and moisture. While keeping your PC dry is kind of a no-brainer (avoid spilling liquids on it, don’t keep it in a terribly damp room, etc.) keeping it cool is a little bit more difficult.

First and foremost: fans. Fully functional fans are the first defense against overheating. Pay attention to them. If it’s excessively noisy, working too hard, working inconsistently, or not working at all, it’s probably time to replace it. For basic case fans, this is usually a pretty simple process (only a couple of screws and a single wire to the power supply). If you are buying a new fan, bring the old one with you to make sure you’re getting the right size. For other, more delicate fans, like the ones used to “spot cool” CPUs or PCI Slots, help from an experienced hardware technician is advisable.

The other major threat to your PC’s optimal temperature (as well as a threat to your fan) is dust. Regardless of the source, dust will clog up vents, overwork your fan, and generally gunk things up. Cigarette smoke and pet dander are notorious culprits for damaging dust and residue. Avoid these things if possible.

Compressed air cans do wonders in the fight against dusty PC towers. They are most effective when used in short bursts, and can dislodge dust and grime from fans and vents. To really remove dust, you may even want to use a small vacuum cleaner, though there is a risk of creating unwanted static.

Clean computers are generally healthier, and it is in every PC owner’s best interest to keep his or her machine clean. Using antistatic cloths, you can clean inside the case with a few drops of mild cleaning solution diluted in water. You may also want to use an antistatic wrist strap. Full, step-by-step instructions for disassembly, as well as cleaning practices specific to hardware are available online. Just ask Google!

The other side of PC maintenance is, as you’ve probably guessed, is software related. Squeaky-clean hardware won’t do any good for an operating system riddled with old junk, piles of cookies, and fragmented files. There are a few Windows utilities that can get you started with software “housekeeping.” Dedicated utility or not, you should be looking for the following:

• Disk cleanup
• Disk defragmenter
• Delete cookies
• Delete temporary internet files
• Delete history

After you’ve cleaned up some of these rogue files and defragmented your drives, can start thinking about unwanted or unused programs, assuming you have up to date antivirus and anti-spyware software installed.

In the Windows Control Panel, you will find a utility called “Add/Remove Programs” or “Program Manager.” This utility will show you the software installed on your computer, as well as how often it is used. Based on your own usage patterns, simply uninstall what you don’t use. Your computer will thank you for it.

Cleanliness, both physical and digital, is paramount when performing computer maintenance. Just as the hardware components get bogged down with dust and debris, the internal workings get cluttered with temporary files and old, unused programs. Make a point to clean your computer regularly. Schedule the defrag utility and update your antivirus software. Pay attention to dust collecting in the vents and how close you place it to heaters or other heat/dust creating objects. It doesn’t take much, and a little maintenance can make your computer go a long way.

Read time (bolded): 5 minutes

Read time (comprehensive): 9 minutes

If somehow you’ve missed the recent marketing craze over QR codes, there’s no doubt that you would recognize one, even if you have no idea what it’s for or what it’s called.

QR codes, or Quick Response codes are essentially a new version of a barcode, scannable by a variety of mobile technology, mainly smart phone apps. These new school barcodes have made an impression with marketers because of their ability to function as “hardlinks” or “physical hyperlinks.”

Here’s the concept: a marketer embeds a QR code on a magazine ad or billboard (or any printed material for that matter); the curious consumer then uses their mobile device to scan that code, and is directed to a website of the marketer’s choosing.

The applications for this technology are seemingly endless.  Basically any company or individual with a website can use a QR code as a physical indicator of online information.

The benefits of QR codes are immediately visible to marketers and advertisers. As mobile technology develops, and more and more consumers are using their mobile devices as a primary way to access online content, QR codes are a great way to supplement print advertising with online promotions and information.

As an informational tool, they are invaluable. They can save space on printed advertising by including “small-print” details on a website instead of on the ad itself. QR codes can essentially correlate print with video, audio, text, social media, anything. Advertisers have been including URLs in their campaigns for years and years, but QR codes remove an element from the process. Now a consumer doesn’t have to type in a URL, or try to remember it for future reference. All they have to do is scan the code.

What, though, are the benefits to the consumer?

On one hand, there’s the novelty factor. People like to use new technology. They like to feel like they’re part of the trend. With millions of smart-phone wielding consumers in the market, all itching to use their mobile device’s QR code reader, of course the advertisements will make impressions. The element of interactivity also helps the QR code’s popularity. Advertisement is generally successful when it can literally engage its audience.

There is also small-scale advertising to consider as a real benefit of using QR codes:

• The codes have been used in libraries to direct students to catalog information.
• Nonprofits can use QR codes to help spread mission statements.
• Charities can direct users to donation sites.
• Small businesses with limited budgets can essentially present an entire website’s worth of information on a business card or simple handbill.

In the hands of the major marketing giants though, QR codes are little more than junk mail. Most consumers have no incentive to use a QR code to visit the website of a product they are already familiar with (outside of a promotion hinged on using the code). Instead of streamlining the advertising process as intended, they are in fact complicating it by asking the consumer to participate beyond a quick visual impression.

For example, the Calvin Klein billboard featuring a massive QR code and the words “Get It Uncensored” surely spark consumer interest, but the company logo “Calvin Klein Jeans” is still present. Scanning the QR code directs users to a 40-second commercial.

Advertising experts would say that this is making a deeper impression on consumers, that this kind of marketing will further embed the brand into their minds. Others would argue that they’ve just been subjected to two advertisements for the same product, and that they process of scanning the QR code and watching the commercial was a waste of time.

QR codes may be incredibly useful for marketers across the spectrum, but in the hands of major, well-branded companies, they may just be a fad. Just like fine print, consumers will learn to ignore them.

Read time (comprehensive)- 8 minutes

So you want to learn something new? Maybe learn how to play the guitar, crochet a sweater, or design web pages? Well, instead of attending college courses to that take time out of your already busy schedule, try using freely available (as in, no cost) resources on the web.

With just one click, you can find a plethora of online tutorials and how-to websites that can teach you just about anything. This may surprise you, but the first go-to site for learning new things is YouTube.com. You might ask: but isn’t YouTube where people go to check out goofy videos of people falling on their faces? Not entirely – YouTube provides users a platform to share and post videos, and that includes learning/training tutorials. YouTube’s massive collection of training videos on nearly any topic should keep you busy for a while. Simply type in what you want to know or key phrases to narrow down your search in the search box. Presto! You’ve just figured how to tie a tie, or bake a wedding cake.

For the more tech-savvy, Tutsplus.com is a great site to venture into. Tutsplus offers users software-specific tutorials on Adobe photoshop, Illustrator, Final Cut Pro, Reason, Logic and even audio recording software like Pro Tools 8. Tutsplus provides step-by-step processes for all things digital. The tutorials can be much like a web article with easy-to-follow key points highlighted and bulleted throughout. These articles often include photos and videos to help the learning process. Use the medium that helps you learn best.

You could also do a plain old Google search, however that may not yield the result you want, and could bombard your search with things you don’t need or want to know. If you do use Google as your means of search, be specific in your key phrases. For example, if you want to find instructions on how to change your oil pan, don’t just search for “oil pan.” Instead, search for “how to change an oil pan in a 1998 Volkswagen Golf” – see how much more specific that is?

Here’s a list of the most popular online tutorial sites:

• http://youtube.com
• http://tutsplus.com
• http://www.instructables.com/
• http://sutree.com
• http://tricklife.com
• http://videojug.com
• http://lifehacker.com
• http://expertvillage.com

The best way to use these online tools is to choose the way you learn best. If you prefer to watch a video, watch the video straight through or at least long enough know whether the instructor knows what he or she is talking about. You want to be sure that the video you have chosen is the most effective for your learning speed, style, and hits all the points you want to know.

Make sure you support the hard-working, knowledgable people who are making these videos! Like and leave comments for them if you found a particular tutorial helpful!

Whatever you choose to learn and whichever site you choose to learn it from, just know there’s a free way to learn anything new. You have no excuse to sit in from of the television thinking, I’m so bored. Hit the net and learn something new…right now!