A Kentucky woman is in country fried trouble after refusing a judge's order to delete her Facebook page.  The woman was arrested and charged with a DUI for striking a car full of teenagers.  In addition to the fine and jail sentence, the woman was ordered to delete her Facebook account and not to go on Facebook.  Brendan Spaar thinks this social media request is a little weird.  The judge ordered the page be removed because the family of the victims did not like a post that the woman made shortly after the crash.  The post read: "My dumb (expletive) got a dui and I hit a car…lol."  While this post shows the true ignorance of this woman, I defend her right to say it.  You can't order someone to remove something because you don't like what they have to say. 

Instead of taking the profile down, the woman has settled for an additional two days in jail.  This may be the smartest thing that she has done in this case.  The judge was out of line in demanding that her Facebook profile be deleted when it did not even relate to the crime.  She only referred to the accident in general.  Thankfully no one was killed by her ignorance. 

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Listen...can you hear it?  That sound of silence?  For the past year or so those annoying telemarketing calls seemed to have slowed down or stopped all together.  We all remember getting those annoying calls where the horn of a cruise ship bellowed into your ear and "Your Captain" came on the line with a pre-recorded message.  Then there were the ones about refinancing your mortgage or renewing your auto warrantee.  Annoying right?  Well guess what..

Government figures show monthly robocall complaints have climbed from about 65,000 in October 2010 to more than 212,000 this April. More general complaints from people asking a telemarketer to stop calling them also rose during that period, from about 71,000 to 182,000.

That's right...the number has doubled in the last 2 years!  And don't think the do not call registry is going to stop them.  These shady businesses operate out of Canada or other foreign countries and use false caller IDs which make them almost impossible to track down.  Brendan Spaar has fun with these telemarketing calls.  Keep a notebook nearby with a fake profile including name, address, phone number and even made up credit card number.  When they come on the line, take your time and ask them to repeat everything 2 or 3 times.  Give them the fake information but make sure you take up a lot of their time.  Afterall, time is money and the more time they spend with a fake one, the less money they will be making.

Source:  http://news.yahoo.com/complaints-automated-calls-sharply-114036986--finance.html

Well folks, the moment some of you have waited for has finally arrived.  You didn't want to get the iPhone 4S because it didn't have LTE so you held out for this nearly identical model that will run on the faster network.  Brendan Spaar thinks that's why the sales were so high for the iPhone 5.  Next year, sales may be even lower than Android or (dare I say it) Windows Phone because there is nothing left for Apple to innovate.  Now Apple will really have to WOW the crowd to keep them hooked.  In 2 years when the 4S customers are off contract, they may be switching to Google. 

So here's the ultimate story of buyer's remource.  One high school's staff jumped at the chance to exchange their laptops for iPads only to find out that iPads can't do everything that a PC can.  Remember those old MAC vs. PC ads?  Well I think Microsoft needs to run a Laptop vs. iPad commercial.  The teachers quickly found that they couldn't open or edit a lot of their documents that were created using Microsoft Office.  They couldn't connect USB memory sticks to the device so that meant no working on documents at home. 

There are a few benefits though like the ability to project presentations wirelessly or take paperless notes in meetings.  Brendan Spaar wishes this technology existed when he was in high school.

Source: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2012/09/11/the-school-that-swapped-its-laptops-for-ipads-and-wants-to-switch-back/

You know what they say, if you don't like something, sue something.  The former first lady (of Germany) didn't like the suggested search results that she saw when she searched for herself on Google so she had decided to file a lawsuit against the company.  She has charged that Google is acting maliciously by displaying results that indicate that she is another form of social worker.  Someone should clue her in to the fact that the recommended search results are what other people are searching for and Google has no control over them.  Brendan Spaar says if you don't like it then you should hire a reputation management team to influence the results.  It's good to see that frivolous lawsuits aren't unique to the United States.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/former-first-lady-suing-google-over-auto-completes-173045839.html

Big brother is here!  If you thought you could hide in your car, you aren't safe.  It used to be that your car only told how fast you were going or how hard you were on your brakes.  Now your car may be telling other cars all sorts of things about you.  And what if that other car belongs to sherrif deputies?  While I embrace technology, Brendan Spaar is sort of concerned that we are networking cars to talk to each other.  Is this paving the way toward the self driving car of tomorrow or does it give police one more weapon to use when they are investigating you? 

We have already had privacy concerns when police were using a database on Apple iPhones to track where people had been.  Now they will be able to find all of this out from your car's computer.  Call me a conspiracy nut but I don't like

In a few short years our cars will be connected and talking to each other. They will also be able to collect vast amounts of data about who we are, where we go, and what we do. Some of these things will undoubtedly make our vehicles much safer; some may erase what little roadside privacy we have left.



Source:  http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/292996/once-all-our-cars-can-talk-each-other-what-will-they-reveal-about-us

We can all think back to the foreign language that we had to learn as children in high school.  What if geeks like us had the opportunity to learn a programming language instead of something we would never use (like French!)?  In Estonia (of all places!!) boys and girls as young as 6 years old can take programming classes thanks to the availability of computers from Google.  Brendan Spaar thinks that this is a great idea.  In stead of teaching kids how to use Facebook, the schools should be preparing them for the high tech jobs of tomorrow.  These Estonians will have a huge advantage over other countries and could rocket the country into the next big wave of outsourced US Information Technology Labor.

Source: http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/estonia-to-teach-programming-in-schools-from-age-6-2012094/

That hacking group Anonymous is at it again.  This time somehow they have hacked the FBI and gotten a list of Apple UUIDs.  Why the FBI is storing over a million UUIDs from Apple devies is a little frightening but even more frightening is the fact that Anonymous can hack the FBI.  Check out the site in the source to do a search on your Apple UUID to see if you are someone that the FBI is investigating or wants to see arrested for using an Apple device.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/hacking-group-leaks-1-million-apple-user-ids-161351857.html

Full disclosure: Brendan Spaar does not own a single Apple device.

Check this out.  A man in Florida was unhappy with the performance of his Toyota pickup truck so he took to the sky to let the world know (literally).  By writing TOYOTA SUCKS on his roof, he ensured that the next time the Google sattelites flew overhead, his experience would be known to the world. 

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/man-hacks-google-street-view-revenge-over-pickup-222929264.html?_esi=1