You are invited to attend the Technology Bytes monthly gathering/meet-up. We’ll be descending upon at The Coffee Groundz, located 2503 Bagby, in Houston, TX.

The Coffee Groundz offers a diverse menu of coffees, teas, beers, wines and even well drinks and most important of all, FOOD AND FREE WI-FI!!!.

This is an all ages event, so please bring your family and friends and enjoy an evening hanging out with the hosts of Technology Bytes along with many of our friends and fans.

The event starts around 7:30 and goes until ?

You don’t have to be a geek to attend. Heck, you don’t even have to be a current listener of the show. This event is a casual meet-up for anyone interested in technology or social media in all its forms and a great opportunity to just hang out with like minded individuals.

The Geek Gathering has been happening the first Friday of the month since February of 2002 and is always a good time.

There is no need to RSVP, but if you have a Facebook account you can let us know you’re coming at the Facebook Event Page

We hope to see you there!

No one’s familiar with the prehistoric saying, “This is how you taunt a t-rex” because the people who picked up and practiced that catch-phrase didn’t get the chance to use it frequently enough for it to catch on in popular culture before being torn apart by a T-Rex in a tiff.

But when I mention something like the “5 Second Rule”, everyone knows what I’m talking about because that’s advice that has kept its sayers relatively safe for hundreds if not thousands of years. While not every culture expresses this concept in the same manner, they all seem to have a general equivalent. For example, the Russian translation goes “Promptly picked up is not considered fallen.” We now know that five seconds is more than enough time for bacteria to get a foot hold in our freshly fallen food, but at its inception, the other competing phrase was, “Just flick off the flies.”

“Don’t take candy from strangers” has much more notoriety than “Strangers have the best candy ever” for similar reasons.

Another saying that’s been around for ages is, “Don’t touch that, you don’t know where it’s been.” Mothers seem to drop that one a lot. As geeks, we have a natural predilection for anything electronic, regardless of its bacterial history or proximity to raptors. An iPod found in the gutter is still an iPod… Just like an iPod given to me by a stranger in a windowless van is still an iPod. I may be using it to listen to podcasts from therapists for the first few months I have it, but it’s still an iPod. (Ironically, it was the iPod Touch…)

I think the point here is that if someone is tempting you with something like comic books or graphic novels, you need to stay out of the van.

If you are looking for comics or graphic novels, or if you have some that you’d like to put back into the world without the aid of a windowless van, the web site www.wheresthatbeen.com has been launched to help you safely get your hands on new reading material without someone getting their hands on you.

Thanks to the efforts of our own LoopyLow in IRC, you can now accept comics from strangers *and* have a detailed retort prepared for your mother the next time she drops the phrase “You don’t know where that’s been” or otherwise accuses you of accepting goodies from strangers. You can get started this Friday by possibly accepting some goods from the good strangers of the February Geek Gathering, where the launch party will take place. Just like the IRC channel is the show within the show, this will be the party within the party.

wheresthatbeen.com is up now, and if you’re into comics or graphic novels, you’re invited to participate. Actually, I think that the site could be used for all sorts of things from sci-fi books to open source hardware. Really, whatever physical thing that you’d like to put out into the world to share with others could get a new lease on life via this site.

So, the Party that encompasses the Where’s That Been Launch Party, the Arduino Party, the Photography Party, and even last month’s knitting party, is indeed happening this Friday, February fifth, at the Coffee Groundz in Midtown Houston. 2503 Bagby at McGowan is where you want to be.

Things get started around seven, or shortly thereafter, depending on how people do on McGowan. The WiFi and general geekery are free, but the coffee, food, spirits and beer will cost you. No promises as to whether the knitters will show up again, but we will have the usual array of open hardware to play with. Well, half the amount. KD5 has headed to Florida to see the Shuttle launch, so the Arduino army will be at half strength until the March Gathering.

Well, That’s it for Where’s That Been (and where we will be) and that’s that for BarretTime!

Technology Bytes t-shirts and coffee mugs for sale at our Printfection shop located at printfection.com/geekradio

Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and colors. Check out the selection!

Users could face fines of up to £500k if they cause a data security breach!

London, 20th January 2010 – A survey released today reveals that in the last year, 4,500 memory sticks have been forgotten in people’s pockets as they take their clothes to be washed at the local dry cleaners. From 6th April onwards if data is lost and it causes a major security breach, this could now cost a company up to £500k with new powers given to the Information Commissioner’s office (ICO) to fine companies who have not sufficiently protected customers details under the Data Protection Act[1].

However, when compared with the same study twelve months ago, the number of these devices languishing forgotten in people’s pockets has halved, and yet it’s still a staggering number of possible data breaches and a potential money spinner for the ICO.

However, the study sponsor – data security experts CREDANT Technologies, has a theory that this decline is likely to be a change in users’ habits as opposed to a significant breakthrough in people’s vigilance. In fact, its experience on the frontline of this battle is that users are now downloading information onto smartphones and netbooks, which have boomed in popularity in the last year, so although on the surface the decline looks promising in reality the situation has just been spread across a multitude of other devices.

Sean Glynn – vice president and chief marketing officer at Credant Technologies said “Although this study shows a positive drop in the number of lost memory sticks we would urge users to take more care than ever not to download unprotected customer details and other sensitive information that if lost could lead to a security breach, especially now there are harsh fines afoot. ”

The survey was carried out in the UK to gauge the frequency and ease with which mobile devices, such as memory sticks, are lost or forgotten in strange places such as dry cleaners and should warn people across the globe to demonstrate prudence when downloading information to carry around with them as it does frequently get lost. In previous studies conducted by Credant Technologies amongst taxi drivers in London and New York over 12,500 handheld devices such as laptops, iPods and memory sticks are forgotten at the back of taxis every 6 months!

Concluding Sean Glynn said “This survey is just one illustration of the stark truth that device losses are happening everywhere, everyday, worldwide. Organisations want to leverage the business benefits of mobile computing and provide their employees the flexibility to work wherever and whenever they want to. However, this must be balanced with the requirement of protecting the organisations data, especially to avoid penalties – such as that promised by the ICO, brand damage or even embarrassing press headlines. If sensitive or valuable data is being carried then people should protect it with encryption to prevent unauthorised access at any point – as it could easily end up in the wrong hands.”

Not just USB sticks left at the dry cleaners……but wedding rings, lipstick and ……….
When asked to recall what the strangest objects were that they’d found in customers pockets most had found pens, lipstick, stockings and a wedding ring, however one unfortunate dry cleaner had found a pair of false teeth!