Help! My iPhone's Frozen!

You're going along, using your iPhone, when suddenly it stops. It doesn't respond to any of your touches or button pushes. You can't even turn the screen off! What should you do?

Modern phones are really just mini computers, and like computers, sometimes they lock-up. Unlike computers, they don't have a power cable you can pull if it locks up really bad though. In cases like these, the cellphone manufacturer usually has a set of troubleshooting steps to help get your phone back to normal. While there are lots of different kinds of cell phones out there, I'm going to focus on the iPhone today.

Basic Troubleshooting Steps:

1. Press the Home button (the round button on the front of the screen).
2. Press the Screen Lock button (the button on the top of the phone).
3. Hold the Screen Lock button down for 15-20 seconds. (This is how you would normally shut your phone off.)
4. Hold down the Home and Screen Lock buttons at the same time for 20-30 seconds. This forces the iPhone to reboot, much like forcing your computer to turn off and then turning it back on again.

If you make it all the way to step four, the screen should go black within that 20-30 second time frame, and then display the Apple logo. Your phone is in the process of rebooting. It can take up to a few minutes for it to fully reboot, so be patient.

If you experience this once, don't worry. If it becomes a regular occurrence (once a month or more) I would recommend restoring your iPhone and/or speaking to Apple about it.

Practical Tip of the Day:
Should you have problems with any of your Apple devices, contacting Apple or an Apple repair facility is the best option. If you live near an Apple store, making an appointment online for the Genius Bar and speaking to a technician in person is my recommended method. If you don't live near a store, or if it would be inconvenient to go to it, Apple also offers phone support at 1-800-APL-CARE.

What Are QR Codes?

You've probably seen them around. They're printed on packages, passed around as stickers, and incorporated into magazines and even some newspapers. The QR Code.

If you have a smart phone, and that phone has an application to read QR codes, you can scan this code (think of it as a newer version of a UPC code), and it will take you to a website. This particular code will take you to the APOD site. (NASA's APOD Site)

That's it. In the simplest of terms, a QR code ("QR" stands for "Quick Response," by the way.) is like a UPC code that takes you to a website. Some people have used QR codes for interesting things. I've seen QR codes on movie posters that take you to the trailer, codes to take you to the nutritional information page of a food product, and even creative resumes that link to videos.

So, as you can see, QR codes can be very interesting when used properly, and there are lots of free QR code generating websites out there.

Practical Tip of the Day:
While most QR codes for restaurants simply take you to their main website, every once in awhile you'll find a QR code that gives you a coupon! Nothing quite like waiting in line to order your food and finding a 10% discount right there for you. Keep in mind, you do need a smart phone (a phone that can run programs like a computer) to be able to scan QR codes, but if you already have one, get scanning! You'll never know what you'll find.

How Much Time Should My Kid Get With Games?

As many times I've been asked this question, I'm still surprised there isn't a universally recommended amount by pediatricians. Some think that video games cause aggression, depression, obesity, and ADD, while others accept it as a common activity for modern children and tout the benefits to problem solving, team work and critical thinking. That being said, here are some things to consider before you let your kid spend all day on video games.

• If they're playing video games, they're not spending time exercising. Even systems that make you move like the Wii or Xbox Kinect don't give you as much exercise as a game of soccer or a walk to the park.
• Video games often involve creative thinking. Games like Minecraft allow children to build things and explore, giving them a fun way to play with engineering, design, and math.
• If you're sitting down you're more likely to munch. Same with adults! If you're sitting still, you're more likely to mindlessly snack, and before you know it, the whole Pringles can is gone.
• Some video games involve extensive reading. Games like Pokemon are text-heavy, and give young children a motivation to read.
• Staring at a screen can hurt your eyes. Looking at a small screen for too long can damage your eyes and give you headaches. Make sure your child keeps the screen a reasonable distance from their face, and that they take frequent breaks to look at something farther away.

All that beign said, I am pro-video-games-in-moderation. I have a young daughter (almost five) that loves to play video games, but she has a limit of 10 minutes a day. She's learned quite a bit from video games, and it's something we enjoy doing together. Playing the games with your children will not only give you bonding time, but will help make sure that you are aware of the type of games they play. Far too often parents let their children play games that the children ask for, but are rated for older players.

Practical Tip of the Day:
Many computers and console systems (e.g. Xbox, Wii, PS3) allow parents to set up time restrictions. You can set a maximum amount of time and sometimes even time-of-day restrictions. This allows you to say "Jimmy can play on the computer for 2 hours on the weekends and 1 hour during the week, but he can't use it after 7pm." Check your owner's manual to see if you have the ability to set up these kinds of limitations.

What is a Computer Virus?

They're there. Lurking in your inbox, behind that photo attachment, inside that program- the fearsome computer virus! Viruses in the physical world are microbes that are self-replicating. Viruses in the digital world are small programs that are self-replicating. A virus in your computer takes advantages of weaknesses in your security in much the same way a real virus takes advantage of weaknesses in your immune system.

A virus can do anything, or even nothing. Some sit there doing nothing but slowing down your computer, some will corrupt your data, others will take over your computer for someone else's use. Regardless of what it does, it's not a computer virus unless it self-replicates, meaning it makes a copy of itself and sends it on to another computer. I've compiled a small glossary of commonly used and misused terms related to this topic:

• Virus- A program that self-replicates (typically) through computer programs and usually does harm to your computer.
• Trojan- A program that claims to be one kind of file (like a game or music file), but is actually doing harm.
• Worm- A program that self-replicates through a computer network, not through programs. Usually does not harm the network itself.
• Adware- A program that pops up advertisements even when you are not connected to the internet.
• Spyware- A program that spies on you, reporting your activity to an outside source without your consent.
• Malware- A program that does bad things. This is a general name for all of the above terms.
• Phishing- An attempt- usually via email or webpage- to trick you into giving your information to a fraudulent source.

The last one, phishing, usually isn't a program at all, and thus is one of the most dangerous ones since there is no program to keep you from giving your own information away. One of the most common tricks is an email that appears to be from your bank saying your password has expired and needs to be changed. It then links to you what looks like your bank's webpage, and then asks for your log in, old password and new password. Once you hit submit, your banking ID and password is now available to whoever sent that email.

Practical Tip of the Day:
If you do ever receive an email from your bank asking for you to log in, do not follow the attached links, but rather navigate to the bank site as you normally would and log in from there. This keeps you from being navigated to a fraudulent site. Be suspicious of anything that asks for personal information of any kind. Most companies have a strict policy of not asking for log-in or personal information via email. If in doubt, call the company to verify the email.

What Does "Open Source" Mean?

With the raise of the Internet, information is being shared at amazing speeds and with astounding numbers of people. This has lead to record numbers of people trying to protect their intellectual property and creations with copyrights and trade marks, but it has also given rise to the Open Source movement.

"Open source" literally means that the source of the product is open and available for anyone to copy, use, redistribute and edit. While this term is most commonly used for things like computer programs, it applies to anything who's creation information can be shared. Some examples include food and drink formulas/recipes, pharmaceutical research information, and schematics for machines. The original creator shares the information they have with others, and they in turn can use and study it, thereby adding another person's set of experiences and knowledge to the development of the product that it normally wouldn't have received.

Open source usually means free, but some people do place limitations on what they are sharing. For example, a lab may only share their pharmaceutical information with other accredited labs. One of the most common limitations on open source computer programs is that it cannot be sold. This keeps people from using the information they were given for free to make a product they then sell for a profit. Many people who believe in the open source philosophy believe that information should be free and available to everything, and therefor selling the product made by free information is counter-productive.

Practical Tip of the Day:
Programs that open source usually have several versions available for download from the Internet. Be sure you're downloading from a legitimate source, and that you are downloading the version that works for your computer. Almost all websites that allow you to download a program will give you the system requirements for the program. These are the minimum standards your computer must have for the program to be able to install and run properly. Think of it as the minimum speed on the highway.

What's an Operating System?

Windows, Mac and Linux. These three are the most commonly used operating systems in the world, almost every personal computer using at least one of these, maybe more. The operating system can make or break the user's experience, thus making it one of the most important parts of your computer.

The operating system (or "OS" for short) of your computer is the system of programs that allows you to operate your computer. (See what I did there?) Without it you wouldn't be able to communicate with your computer, and it couldn't communicate with you; Your mouse, keyboard and monitor wouldn't work for starters. In a way, it's the translator between the two of you. The OS controls everything from how you empty the "trash" to how you connect to the internet, what kind of programs you can run and even your privacy and security.

For example, many people have heard that Macs "can't get viruses". While that's not entirely true, Macs and other Unix-based OS'es (like Linux) are innately more secure, making it more difficult for viruses, trojans, and other bad programs to get into your system. One of the reasons they're more secure is because they "speak" a different language than Windows, whom most of the viruses are written for. Imagine, if you will, that Windows speaks Russian, Macs speak Spanish, and Linux speaks French. If you gave a book written in Russian to Windows, it'd understand it. If you gave it to the Mac or Linux though, they wouldn't.

(Side note: You might have noticed in my analogy that I gave the Mac and Linux languages that are similar (romance languages); This is because both of these computers are similar when you get down to their underpinnings, but have diverged enough to make them distinct.) That's why a computer game you buy at the store might work on your Windows computer, but not your Mac or vice versa. The three systems speak different languages that allow them to talk to you, and you to it, but maybe not so much with each other.

Practical Tip of the Day:
While most types of computer files are "universal", meaning they can be used on almost any kind of computer, some are "proprietary" meaning they can only work on one. An example of this is the Windows .EXE file. This is a file that contains a program, but if you put it on a Mac or Linux computer, it wouldn't do anything. If you receive a file that you don't recognize, a simple Google search for the suffix (the characters that come after the period in the name) will usually tell you what kind of file it is. As usual, I NEVER recommend opening a file you received from unknown sources as it can contain a malicious program.

Should I Get The New iPad?

Yesterday Apple announced the third generation of the iPad. Immediately, people began asking whether they should get it or not. Here's a quick breakdown of the new/improved features:

Screen- Higher resolution. This means your pictures, movies and even your webpages and books will look crisper and sharper.

Processor- They've used a quad-core graphics processor. This means this iPad is significantly faster than the previous version. This primarily comes across when running applications.

4G- Certain models of the iPad can use a cell phone carrier's 4G network. This means that you can access the Internet when you're not in a wireless hotspot, and if you're in an area with 4G your webpages, YouTube videos, etc. will load faster.

Camera- They've increased the quality of the camera so now it can take 5 megapixel pictures (pretty good), and record HD video.

Now, does all of this add up to needing a new iPad? If you only use your iPad for checking your email and occasionally playing games, probably not. If you've been thinking about getting an iPad, or you have a tablet that's too slow or doesn't meet your needs I'd recommend taking a look at them.
Practical Tip of the Day:
If you aren't one of the people who feels the need to have the newest product all the time, you can save quite a bit of money by buying the previous generation (aka version) of a product. Often times companies who sell the product will put the older versions on sale, and individual people put their used products on sale on websites like eBay and Craigslist. Buyer beware on purchasing from individuals though- "good condition" is subjective and may mean different things for the seller and buyer.

What Are Cookies?

In addition to small, delicious desserts, if someone's talking about cookies, they could mean internet cookies. It's very common for even web-savvy people to be slightly confused about what cookies do and what they're for. Some people have come to fear internet cookies, deleting them every chance they get.

So what exactly is a cookie as it relates to the internet? In the simplest of terms, when your computer visits a webpage, the webpages gives your computer a cookie, which it stores on your hard drive. When your computer visits that webpage again, it shows the website the cookie, and the webpage "recognizes" you. Think of it as a small badge or ID card the website reads.

If you've ever visited a website twice, and it's remembered your log in information or your automatically logged you in that's because of a cookie. When I log in to my Google account, it automatically knows my account, password, name, preferences, and lots of other things. That's because I have a cookie on my computer that has this information on it. A cookie is simply a small text file like "ID=JaneSmith Password=2Cute4You!"

A lot of people think that cookies can let viruses in to their computers, or let hackers get their personal information, but that's not true. A cookie saved on your computer is the same as any other text document with words on it. The worst thing a cookie can do is go bad.

If you have a technology question you'd like answered, comment on this post or send me an email. Reader submitted questions are the best ones!

Practical Tip of the Day:
If your web browser is acting slow or funny, you can try deleting your cookies. Sometimes something happens to internet cookies and they just "go bad". All web browsers have options for deleting cookies, usually in the settings. Once you delete your cookies, you'll notice you'll need to log in again to all the websites that normally remembered you, and maybe fill in forms by hand again. (Some website cookies remember things like your home address if you enter it into a form on the page.)

If I Delete Something, Is It Gone Forever?

Most of us have heard that when you delete something from your computer it's "not really gone." Which inevitably leads to the question of "How do I make it really gone?" In order to really understand why deleting something doesn't obliterate it, you first need a quick primer on hard drives. If you haven't already read the article on How Do Computers Remember Things, click here to go over it- we'll be building on topics covered in there.

When a hard drive remembers something (aka "saves" it) it doesn't usually write it down in one spot on it's discs. It usually spreads it out and puts different parts in different spots, and creates a sort of mini table of contents so it can quickly find all the spots. It does this so if there's a small problem with one of the discs, it might affect a small part of a file and therefor keep it still usable, whereas if all the parts were together, the entire file would be broken.

When you delete something, it doesn't actually delete the different parts scattered about your drive. Instead, it deletes that table of contents file and thereby forgets it. Eventually the hard drive will put other files in that same space (remember, hard drives are magnetic so it can easily be rewritten), but until then, that part of the file is there as good as new. As time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to read part of a file that's been rewritten, much like if you wrote something on paper with a pencil, erased it, wrote something else over that spot, erased that, and so on. Each time it gets harder to read what was originally there.

There are ways to make things more permanently gone. For example, the Mac has an option called "Secure Empty Trash" that will first delete the parts of the file by re-writing over them seven times with random 1's and 0's (click here if you don't know why 1's and 0's) and then delete the table of contents file. There are similar things on Windows and other types of computers. If you use a method like this, it's highly unlikely that the file would ever be able to be found. (I never say never on these kinds of things!)

Practical Tip of the Day:
While it might be tempting to use one of those permanently delete options like Secure Empty Trash, you don't want to use it frivolously. Just like the paper beign written on and erased in the analogy, extra wear is put on the hard drive when you use these methods, and therefor slightly shortened the lifespan of your drive. My general rule of thumb for when to use this method is this: If this were a physical document, would you put it in the trash or shred it? If shred it, then use that method, otherwise, don't worry.