verified

Episode 30: A Chromebook Pixel drinking game!

I feel like I might be the only person in the world who loves the poor Chromebook Pixel. It's just so misunderstood, with its ridiculously high price, its tiny 32GB hard drive, and its odd 3:2 screen resolution. But the design is just so gorgeous (drink), and the touch screen is so exciting, and the Chrome OS is so simple and Web-based! Perhaps you'll fall in love like I did ... or be wildly skeptical like Jeff Cannata. Check out this week's Unboxing, and find out.

On the other hand, Jeff is delighted by the idea of … Read more

Pinterest lets select 'top-level' domains verify their accounts

Pinterest is now letting users announce to the world they're legit. The social network announced today that it is launching a new feature for users to "verify" that they own the Web site posted on their Pinterest profile.

The pinning site is joining the ranks of other social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, in letting select users show they are professionals in the field they're pinning. For now, the verified status is only for "top-level" domains, which means Web sites like www.pinterest.com rather than www.pinterest.com/darakerr.

When users visit verified … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1581: OS X Mountain Lion: the OS to rule the ecosystem? (Podcast)

Former federal CTO Aneesh Chopra joins the show today to talk wireless policy and what the heck happened with SOPA/PIPA; we dish on what really happened with Molly's Galaxy Nexus; and the address book uploading controversy that just won't end. Plus, Into It/Not Into It, and one angry, angry voice mail. Good to be back!

Subscribe: iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (320x180) | iTunes (640x360)

RSS (MP3) | RSS (320x180) | RSS (640x360)… Read more

Facebook to launch verified accounts with pseudonyms

In an effort to root out impostors, Facebook will reportedly soon allow celebrities and other public figures to verify their accounts in much the same way that Twitter does.

The social network will begin notifying public figures with many subscribers tomorrow that they can verify their accounts by submitting an image of a government-issued ID, allowing them to display a preferred pseudonym instead of their birth name, according to a TechCrunch report. Facebook will then manually approve the "alternative names" to confirm they are the real stage names or pen names.

Facebook users must be chosen to participate … Read more

HP TouchPad fire sale

Google rolls out verified profiles for Google+, Skype buys GroupMe messaging service, and HP liquidates its stock of tablets.

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

You get what you pay for

A strong password is one of the best defenses against a security breach, but managing all the different passwords on all of your documents can be a real pain. That's where Password Encryption Analyzer Free comes into play. The program offers a way to scan all of your documents to check for and recover passwords, but it came up short when we put it to the test.

The program's user interface is as basic as it gets. On the left side, you can select the locations for the program to scan: Computer, Documents, Local Drives. From there, radio … Read more

Check partition table health in Lion's Disk Utility

Apple's Disk Utility program is a useful tool for managing hard drives and volumes; however, in Snow Leopard, Leopard, and other past versions of OS X, when you would run a drive verification routine it would only access the format structures of the volumes on a drive and check them. For instance, if you have a drive that is partitioned into two volumes, then if you select one of those volumes in Disk Utility and run a Verify Disk routine the program will check the volume's formatting in a routine similar to the following:

If on the other … Read more

The 404 861: Where we're putting it all out there (podcast)

Have you ever received a phone call from a mystery number, but had no way to find out who was on the other side? A new online service called NumberGuru lets you perform a reverse number search to identify the source, and our friends from BeenVerified.com are in the studio to tell us all about it.

There are a few services like WhitePages that offer similar features, but NumberGuru is free and accessible from the Numberguru.com Web site, or with any one of its smartphone apps. Even better, the site lets you share comments on phone numbers to warn other users about spammers and telemarketers, and BeenVerified.com also offers background checks to dig up more details about the caller.

The 404 Digest for Episode 861

BeenVerified does background checks. Why bother to remember when you can just use Google? Great fear as PS1 discs begin to oxidize and degrade after 10 years.

Episode 861 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

The 404 695: Where basically, we hide your wife (podcast)

Jay, Josh, and Danny from BeenVerified are back in The 404 studio to show off their brand new sex offender locator app for the Android and iPhone! For some reason, it keeps going off during the show...

BeenVerified is an online service that makes it easy to do quick, thorough background checks on people, and it's a lot easier than simply Googling someone's name. The instant search not only gives public access to legal databases for criminal records and phone numbers; it's also an excellent source for monitoring sex offenders in your neighborhood.

Their latest Sex Offender Tracker App uses augmented reality to display graphical overlays on your phone that help you locate registered sex offenders in your area, and can you believe it? They got ANTOINE DODSON to be their spokesperson in the commercial!

Keep listening if you're unaware of Mr. Dodson, but with a successful single that has gotten 35,000 YouTube hits so far and his own Halloween costume, you should really know this guy already.

The Sex Offender Tracker app is available for the iPhone and Android for $1.99, and 5 percent of all proceeds will be donated to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (Rainn), an anti-sexual-assault organization.

The guys stick around after the break for the following batch of video voicemails:

DeeJay shows us how an 8-bit beat is made with a simple drum machine!

Mass from Phil the Mailguy hopes we have a wonderful day!

Episode 695 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Clone hunter

With hard disks in the terabyte range, many users think they don't need to worry about duplicate files, but duplicates still waste useful space and resources, slow your system down, and fragment your archives. Heatsoft's free Clone Cleaner Lite is ready to help you root out duplicate files on your system. It identifies duplicates by several methods and gives you the option to remove them or copy them to a specified directory, so you can clean up and organize your files without accidentally deleting anything important.

Clone Cleaner Lite's businesslike interface features resizable main panels for adding … Read more