Organizing your backpack

Backpack is a nice web based organizer, hosted at backpackit.com. With backpack, you have a set of useful utilities for personal organization, such as notes, todo lists, file sharing, reminders, and whiteboards.

To start using backpack, you need to create a user account. You can create one for free, with a limited number of pages, or for just $5 a month you can have an unlimited account. Each account allows you to create a set of pages.

The main difference of web pages created at backpack is that they are fully dynamic. You can add item on the fly, without edditing HTML. In this sense, it works more like a organizer application. You can also do many cool things, such as adding reminders for specific times (they will send you a message at that time), or even send messages and files to a given page. To make the last feature possible, each page in backpack has a unique email address. When a message is sent to that address, it is appended to your page, and you can see in your list. This is a very nice way of sending reminders and small notes to yourself.

Users are doing all kinds of nice stuff with the software. See for example how to use it for notes on school and how to use it to log your missed phone calls!

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How to secure your information in a mobile device

As users get more and more involved with wireless devices and related technologies, it also get harder to make sure that their information is secure.

To make sure you are maintaining your data safe, you must follow a few rules that will make your life much easier.

For example, one basic rule is never talk about confidential information over the phone, when in the presence of people you don’t know. Nobody knows what type of people may be listening your conversation — or what they can do with the information they get.

Another tip is to always use whatever levels of encryption may be available on data that is stored in mobile devices. For example, PDAs are an easy target for people who may want to compromise your information. Use at least a single password to have access to your data. If available apply higher levels of security, such as additional passwords or biometrics.

Finally, never take for granted the security of the information. Remember that, specially in a commercial setting, there may be people willing to explore your data for their advantage. It is necessary to be responsible and organized when working with wireless devices, in the same manner you would do if you were carrying any other valuable object.

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Welcome to critical mess

Everybody has some ideas about what is going on. That is why this world is a complete mess! In this blog I will discuss some of what I think about this mess of the world, technology, and life.