NFC allows a device, usually a mobile phone, to collect data from another device or NFC tag at close range. In many ways, it’s like a contactless payment card that is integrated into a phone. In other ways, it’s similar to Bluetooth, except that instead of programming two devices to work together, they can simply touch to establish a connection. NFC was invented by Sony and NXP Semiconductors in 2002. In 2004 a forum was formed to develop the NFC technology and certify devices compliance with NFC standards. The forum has now more than 140 members including Nokia, Huawei, HTC, Motorola, LG, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, AT&T, Sprint, Google, Microsoft, Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Intel, Qualcomm and others.

NFC can be used in a wide array of applications, like: Mobile ticketing (such as in public transport); Mobile payment, where the device functions like a credit/debit card; Smart poster, where a mobile phone reads RFID tags on advertisements, for example.

Existing NFC applications include:

• Google Wallet: it allows consumers to store credit card information in a virtual wallet and then use an NFC-enabled device at terminals that also accept MasterCard PayPass transactions.
• In 2011 Nokia launched NFC enabled games which are meant to demonstrate how NFC can enable new forms of mobile gaming. Nokia calls the games “tangible” mobile games because of the way they interact with physical objects in the real world using NFC tags.
• You can already use your NFC-enabled phone to buy train tickets in Tokyo or as a contactless payment system at various retailers.
• Bump is an application for mobile phones that lets you pair smartphones and transfer contact information or files between 2 devices.

Do you know any other applications of NFC technology? Do you see any opportunities for your businesses? Share with us your thoughts in the comments section below and join us to the next Technology Round Table session about the RFID technology.

Which topics do you recommend for upcoming TRTs? Share with us your ideas here!

We have lots of passwords to remember: our personal emails, our Facebook accounts, twitter accounts, our work email accounts, some FTP accounts and much more.  We all know we should use different passwords for each account because if we use only one password everywhere and someone gets this password we have  a serious problem. Still we have hard times trying to remember what password we used on which website or for which account.

So we need a solution to store all our passwords safely. There is in the market many password manager solutions but I will be talking in this article about Keepass, a free open source password manager. Keepass will help you  manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish).

Since keepass is open source, you can have a look at its full source and check whether the encryption algorithms are implemented correctly.

Keepass is also cross platform with clients available for Windows, Ubuntu, Linux, MacOS X, J2ME (Cell Phones), Blackberry, Windows Mobile and more. In addition it is portable, it doesn’t require any installation.

Inside Keepass you will see a Folder structure where you can organize your logins according to type or use. In my case, I keep separate areas for Work and Personal logins. KeepPass also includes a password generation tool to help you create strong password.

It is essential to back up the password file regularly. You can use Dropbox to backup your files while you are working for free (check this previous article about online backups http://blog.berytech.org/2011/04/03/back-up-your-data-online-while-you-are-working/)

For more information or to download and test Keepass you can go to www.keepass.info

I started using KeePass to store my passwords and it’s really helping me. How do you manage your passwords? Do you write them on a sheet of paper or keep them in an insecure excel file or use a more secure solution?

Calibre is a free eBook management software. Once you add the directory containing your books or add books manually to the library it will grab information from within the eBooks and will allow you to sort by title, author, series, publish date, the publisher or even the date you added it to the library or the size of the file. You will also able to edit all of this information if something is missing or misspelled.

Calibre also allows you to add custom tags to eBook files that let you filter to custom, specific groups of books. You can also give eBooks ratings so you can remember books that you particularly enjoyed.

Calibre is able to convert any eBook format to almost any other format and manage the multiple copies.

Another interesting feature is the ability to take the latest articles from almost any news source and package them into a single eBook. This feature is great for taking the news with you on your eReader, or for your own personal archives that you can access offline.

Calibre can sync with your iTunes or with your device directly if you want to transfer your files from your PC to your eReader. For more advanced users calibre also has an internal content server. Once started you will be able to access your library through web from anywhere.

I found this tool very useful and started importing my eBooks. Do you have lot of eBooks? How do you manage them? Share with us your experience by commenting below!

You can download calibre for free from its official website http://calibre-ebook.com

The below presentation titled “It is time to transform your marketing” is made by hubspot.com an online marketing firm.

This list of 208 products is subdivided into the below categories:

There are several free services that offer online backups solutions. Dropbox is a very popular service which “syncs your files online and across your computers”, providing an initial 2GB of space (that can be increased to 8GB for free if you refer other users). You can pay and get more space if you need it. [SURVEY INSIDE]

When you install Dropbox a directory will be created on your computer. All files stored inside this folder will be automatically synchronized with the server online. You can install Dropbox on many computers or on your smartphones and have all your files synched across your different devices. You can also access your files from the dropbox website.

While editing a certain document in your Dropbox folder it is automatically synced everytime you save it. In addition Dropbox lets you share files and folders easily with people you invite. You can also send people links to specific files within your Dropbox. This makes Dropbox perfect for team projects.

If you delete a file by mistake you can restore it or go back to an older version of that file (Dropbox keeps up to 30 days of history for all the files).

Dropbox replaces emailing file attachments to yourself and other people and using USB drives to move files between computers and using complicated backup software and hardware.

Personally I find Dropbox very useful for backups and use it mostly to share files with colleagues or friends. Do you regularly backup your files? Answer our survey below about your preferred backup method.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

For this purpose Microsoft introduced the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) that will help by downloading the latest product updates once and deploying them to computers inside the enterprise.

PLUS is a national scale Windows Update Services. It is a free service, powered by PTG (Procomix Technology Group) with the collaboration of Berytech Technological Pole, Beirut IXP and Microsoft. It provides fast access to Microsoft Windows Updates without consuming International traffic. This initiative may help enhance the overall quality of internet services in Lebanon by using content from within Lebanon when possible. Using PLUS tool, computers inside Lebanon can benefit from the proximity in connectivity with the Updates  that are hosted in Lebanon.

If you are located at Berytech Technological Pole in Mkalles you will benefit from LAN download speed when getting Microsoft updates using the PLUS tool and this will enhance the Internet service at Berytech.

For more info and to download the plus tool visit http://www.unibox.me/plus/SitePages/Home.aspx

Nokia and Microsoft intend to jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity. As each company would focus on its core competencies, the partnership would create the opportunity for rapid time to market execution. Additionally, Nokia and Microsoft plan to work together to integrate key assets and create completely new service offerings, while extending established products and services to new markets.

Below is a summary of the deal as listed on Microsoft’s website:

• Nokia will adopt Windows Phone as its primary smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.
• Nokia will help drive and define the future of Windows Phone.  Nokia will contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.
• Nokia and Microsoft will closely collaborate on development, joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.
• Bing will power Nokia’s search services across Nokia devices and services, giving customers access to Bing’s next generation search capabilities.  Microsoft adCenter will provide search advertising services on Nokia’s line of devices and services.
• Nokia Maps will be a core part of Microsoft’s mapping services.   For example, Maps would be integrated with Microsoft’s Bing search engine and AdCenter advertising platform to form a unique local search and advertising experience
• Nokia’s extensive operator billing agreements will make it easier for consumers to purchase Nokia Windows Phone services in countries where credit-card use is low.
• Microsoft development tools will be used to create applications to run on Nokia Windows Phones, allowing developers to easily leverage the ecosystem’s global reach.
• Microsoft will continue to invest in the development of Windows Phone and cloud services so customers can do more with their phone, across their work and personal lives.
• Nokia’s content and application store will be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace for a more compelling consumer experience.

What do you think? Is the partnership with Microsoft the right move for Nokia? Can they Challenge together Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android? Please, give us your opinions in the comments.

Internet Protocol Version 6

IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It uses a 128-bit address, whereas IPv4 uses only 32 bits. This expansion provides considerable flexibility in allocating addresses and routing traffic. It also eliminates the primary need for network address translation (NAT), which was deployed in order to alleviate IPv4 address exhaustion.

Pool of IPv4 addresses is drying

IPv6 implements many new features but it isn’t compatible with IPv4 when it comes to deployment. IPv6 and IPv4 are treated as almost entirely separate networks with devices having two separate protocol stacks if access to both n

etworks is needed, with tunneling of IPv6 on IPv4 and vice versa. Compatibility with IPv6 networking is mainly a software or firmware issue. However, much of the older hardware should be replaced.

Software

All major operating systems in use as of 2010 on personal computers and server systems have production quality IPv6 implementations. Microsoft Windows has supported IPv6 since Windows 2000, and in production ready state beginning with Windows XP. Windows Vista and later have improved IPv6 support. Mac OS X Panther (10.3), GNU/Linux 2.6, FreeBSD, and Solaris also have mature production implementations.

Most applications with network capabilities are not ready but could be upgraded with support from the developers. Java applications adhering to Java 1.4 (February 2002) standards have support for IPv6.

Hardware and Embedded Systems

Low-level equipment like network adapters and network switches may not be affected by the change, since they transmit Link Layer frames without inspecting the contents. Networking devices that obtain IP addresses or perform routing based on IP address do need IPv6 support.

Most equipment would be IPv6 capable with a software or firmware update if the device has sufficient storage and memory space for the new IPv6 stack. However, manufacturers may be reluctant to spend on software development costs for hardware they have already sold when they are poised for new sales from IPv6-ready equipment.

In some cases, non-compliant equipment needs to be replaced because the manufacturer no longer exists or software updates are not possible, for example, because the network stack is implemented in permanent read-only memory.

Does your hardware support IPv6? Did you taking into consideration upgrading your hardware? Share with us your thoughts.