There are lots of Internet filtering products on the market that enable parents to block certain types of websites such as pornography, hate sites, or sites that promote alcohol or drug use. Most of these products run on PCs or Macs by sitting between the operating system and the browser and checking any requested sites to make sure they’re not blocked. The products generally do a good job blocking requests from protected PCs, but most don’t work with game consoles, Wi-Fi-equipped iPhones or iPod Touches, or any other device that isn’t running the software.

Netgear is about to ship routers designed to simplify the process by allowing parents to block content on any device using the home’s wired or wireless network.

The new routers, which will be available in early September, will be equipped with firmware that configures them to use OpenDNS’ domain name server to look up the actual IP address of any site someone tries to visit. If that site isn’t on the blocked list, it will be displayed. But if a parent has blocked that site, the user will instead be sent to a page that informs them that the site they tried to access is blocked.

Some existing Netgear routers can be upgraded with the new OpenDNS-compatible firmware starting August 10th.

Because the filtering takes place at the router level, it works with any device in the household that uses that router including Web-enabled game consoles and Wi-Fi mobile devices. It won’t, however, work with devices that don’t use the home network such as an iPhone set up to use the 3G cellular network.

Like other filtering products, parents have control over the type of content blocked and have the ability to turn it off so that it doesn’t prevent mom or dad from visiting any sites. There is also a “white list” feature that allows parents to exclude any site from the blocked list. Because the blocking lists are “in the cloud,” parents can configure the filter from anywhere.

Before employing any parental control system, I urge parents to think about how they will or won’t fit in with your family. Consider the age of the child, the child’s Web surfing habits, the types of risk your child takes, and what you plan to say to your children about the filtering product. Parents should tell their kids that they’re using filters and explain why they think they’re necessary. Also, parents should never rely on filters as the only way to protect children–parental involvement is still important. If you decide to use a filter, consider weaning kids from them as they enter their teenage years. Eventually, your kids will be on their own and part of a parent’s job is to help a child make their own good decisions. You can’t rely on filters forever.

For details about the service, I spoke with OpenDNS founder & CTO David Ulevitch.

Listen now: Download today’s podcast

I don’t consider myself a camera expert, but I’ve had a chance to test out numerous digital cameras over the years. In addition to writing camera reviews, my goal has also been to find the “perfect” camera for my own use. Although I have found some terrific cameras, I’ve yet to find a single “one-size-fits-all” unit that satisfies all my photographic needs.

My stable of cameras includes a pocket-sized camera, a couple of digital single-lens reflex and a “super-zoom.” As it turns out, my least expensive camera is the one I use the most because it’s also the smallest.

A few months ago I spent about $150 for a 10 megapixel Canon Powershot A1000IS which has recently been replaced by the almost identical (12MP) A1100 IS. It’s small enough to easily fit into a pocket, has a 4x optical zoom and advanced features such as image stabilization.

The other things I like about this camera is that it uses AA batteries and has an optical view finder. The advantage of “double As” is that you’re not stuck with an expensive proprietary battery and charger. If you do get a camera with AA batteries, always use rechargeable NiMH batteries rather than disposable alkaline batteries.

Aside from being good for the environment and your budget, they actually last longer than regular alkalines.

The A1000IS is one of the few pocket-sized cameras that still has an optical viewfinder. Some consider them obsolete because digital cameras also have LCD 

screens. However, I like being able to hold the camera up to my eye. It makes for a steadier shot and, unlike an LCD, it doesn’t wash out in bright sunlight.

I’ve also been testing a relatively inexpensive digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras from Pentax. The Pentax K2000 camera I’ve been testing sells for as little as $500 with an 18-55 mm lens. It’s relatively small, very easy to use and uses AA batteries — rare for DSLRs. Pentax also builds image stabilization into the camera body. Pentax lenses are less expensive, and lenses from film cameras can be used on the digital ones.

Between the easy point-and-shoot camera and the serious DSLR is my Kodak EASYSHARE Z980. This camera, which goes for about $370, is just a bit smaller than the Pentax K2000 and doesn’t use interchangeable lenses. Instead it has a fixed 24x zoom lens that’s the equivalent of a 26 mm to 624 mm zoom. It can also take 720p video.

The zoom is operated by a button rather than twisting the lens, and the shutter is electronic, not mechanical like a DSLR. The result is slower focusing and more time between shots. Kodak brags that it has a “fast click-to-capture speed” of under 0.2 seconds, which still still isn’t as quick as a DSLR.

Perhaps the biggest drawback to the EASYSHARE Z980 and similar cameras is that the sensor isn’t great for low-light conditions. The camera does have automatic and manual ISO settings which allow you to bring in more light, but the “cost” of graininess which becomes obvious in zoomed, low-light photos.

I both envy and worry about young people who are growing up in the age of the Internet. 

I envy them for their life-long access to a media that’s diversified enough to bring them news, information and opinion from an enormous number of sources.

There’s something to be said for having access to thousands of media outlets. Unlike those of us who grew up in the 50s, 60s and 70s, young people who smartly use the Internet to consume news today don’t have to worry about everything being filtered by a small, elite and typically white male cadre of journalists working for one of only three broadcast networks or one or two local newspapers. And it’s no longer a one-way street. Today’s news consumers can also be producers thanks to blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, podcasting and microblogs like Twitter.

But, as I look back at the  career of Walter Cronkite’s who died last Friday, I also worry whether young people are finding it harder to come by trusted sources for news and information.  The Internet’s strength as a news resource is also its weakness.  We never will or should return to the days of only a handful of media outlets, but today’s diversified media landscape and especially the Internet, do bring new challenges to consumers of news. 

One of the things I loved about the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite was that it was watched by a high enough percentage of the population that it created a shared experience. When we heard Walter tell us “the way it is,” we had something that we could all talk about the next day.  We all knew it was true even if we didn’t all agree on how we should interpret the implications of what Cronkite told us happened. 

Every day after returning from work, my father would open up his copy of the Los Angeles Daily Mirror (the long defunct afternoon paper published by the same company as the Los Angeles Times).  He would then turn on the black and white TV to watch Cronkite on CBS or perhaps Huntley-Brinkley on NBC but, more often than not it was Cronkite who shared our living room for that half hour.  As a young boy I didn’t necessarily pay close attention to the news but I did absorb portions of it. When big stories broke, my dad would summon me to watch the news with him or summarize over dinner what he read in the Mirror.

Not always, but sometimes at school the next day, kids would talk about some of those stories along with the entertainment shows most of us watched such as the Ed Sullivan Show  or Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.  

Looking back, it seemed as if all of America – or at least the slice of it I knew – had a shared experience.  If nothing else, our family shared its media experience, probably because we had only one TV set, one newspaper subscription and no Internet. The closest thing I had to my own personal media was my bedroom table radio and, eventually, a transistor radio that I got to control all by myself.

We also had dinner together every night in a room with no TV, a household telephone that almost never rang during dinner hour and no mobile devices that let us exchange text messages with people outside the room.  The only people we could hear from or talk to were each other.

I’m not longing to return to the repressed, racist, sexist and homophobic days of the 50s and 60s and I don’t think we’ll ever — or should ever – have another “most trusted man in America” like Walter Cronkite, but I do see some value in looking at what we might be missing as we move forward, not to repeat the past but to ensure a better future.

Without an almost universally respected news anchor to tell us “the way it is,” we have to figure it out for ourselves. It’s not that we don’t have resources – we have more than ever and that’s a good thing. But it does put more pressure on us to think critically about what we see, hear, read and say. Walter Cronkite demonstrated in 1968 when he took the almost unprecedented step as a newsman of critically evaluating what the government was telling us about the Vietnam war to come to and share his own conclusion that the war needed to end.

Today’s media environment provides an opportunity – and responsibility – for parents and schools to teach critical thinking.  Not only must young people learn to “consider the source” of what they take in but also think critically about what they post in a world where just about every young person is now potentially an author, photographer and videographer. Kids – who may never even know who Walter Cronkite was – need to have a miniature version of him inside their head by asking questions such as “Is this true?” and “How do I know it’s true?.” And when they’re about to post they need to think carefully before they broadcast their own versions of “the way it is.”

When I was first hired as CBS News technology analyst in 1999, I remember thinking what an honor it is to be working for the news organization that Walter Cronkite helped build. CBS, and indeed, the entire media landscape, have gone through big changes since Cronkite retired in 1981, but the basic principals he brought to news coverage remain intact. Journalists–and I include bloggers as well–need to be honest and accurate and–whenever possible–serve as an eye witness to unfolding events. New media journalists have a lot to learn from Cronkite.

I’ve heard it said over and over that today’s journalists and bloggers are working in a more tightly compressed time environment thanks to modern technology. But the Internet and cable TV didn’t invent the need for the immediate recitation of the news.

Cronkite was on the air live during many of our most important events. He certainly didn’t have time to sit back and analyze the significance of the JFK assassination as he brought the tragic news of the president’s death–as it unfolded–into America’s living rooms. His ring-side coverage of the space program was often real-time. When former President Lyndon Johnson died in 1973, Cronkite was on the phone and on the air at the same time, reporting the news as it was being told to him by Johnson’s press secretary. It can’t get more real time than that.

Point of view
Cronkite was first a reporter who, for the most part, didn’t opine about the news. But that doesn’t mean that he had no point of view. During World War II, he was a staunch supporter of the Allied cause. As NASA officials and former astronauts have reported, he didn’t just cover the space program, he was its champion. The day Neil Armstrong stepped on moon, his exclamation, “oh boy” summed up his pride and excitement. And there was deep–and appropriate–emotion as he told the nation of President Kennedy’s death.

In almost all situations, Cronkite reported the news without expressing his opinion, but he wasn’t afraid to interpret what he learned from his 1968 reporting trip to Vietnam. After he returned to New York, he proclaimed the war unwinnable, telling the nation–and the president–”it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.” As Bob Schieffer pointed out on Face the Nation, one difference between Cronkite’s 1968 proclamation and much of today’s opinion journalism is that Cronkite witnessed the war first hand, “he took the time to go and find out for himself before he took that position.”

Lessons for creators and consumers of online news
So, what does Cronkite’s career mean for new media journalists? It means that we still have the responsibility to base what we say on facts. And even those of us who are expected to give opinions and analysis have something to learn from “the most trusted man in America.” It’s OK for commentators, bloggers and talk-show hosts to express an opinion, but it’s not OK to base it on speculation and innuendo or to be unfair or demeaning of those you cover, even if you disagree with them. Cronkite might have practiced his career in the 20th century, but what he stood for as a journalist still stands.

Today’s media environment also puts more responsibility on those who consume the news. In an era when the media goes way beyond those three trusted networks and local papers, it’s up to everyone to be just a bit more critical of what they read, hear and see. Consider the source and weigh the facts. We no longer have Walter to assure us, “That’s the way it is.”

A day will come when only institutions and rich people buy new books. The rest of us will read them on some type of electronic device, like an Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader Digital Book or — more likely — a smart-phone.

I’m not sure when this day will come but when it does, it will be driven largely by economic and environmental concerns. But there is debate about why eBooks are better than paper ones.

To me, the biggest downside of eBooks isn’t nostalgia for the feel and smell of paper. It’s that — for now at least — it’s not possible for Kindle owners to sell, give away or lend the books they purchase. And once almost all books are electronic, what will be the role of libraries? Will they be in a position to “lend” you copies of books to read on your electronic device?

For the most part, I’m bullish on Kindle. I’ve bought and read several books on an Amazon Kindle and both an iPhone and iPod touch using Amazon’s free Kindle for iPhone app. In fact, the same book that you buy for one device can be read from another as long as you sign in from the same account. Better yet, if I start reading a book on the Kindle and later pick it up on the iPhone, the Kindle service knows where I left off and takes me to the right spot. And if you lose the device, the books are still there to download when you replace it.

The Kindle, whose price was just reduced from $359 to $299, is a book-like device with clear black text against a bright white background. Because you can change the size of the type, insert electronic bookmarks and search through the book, it’s arguably a better experience than reading a paper book.

 But I’m also pleased with reading books on an iPhone or iPod touch. Some people would argue that the iPhone screen is too small, but once I’m immersed in a book, I don’t really care about the size of the screen, especially because it’s so easy to go from page to page by just flicking the screen with your finger. Unlike the Kindle, the iPhone and iPod touch have a backlit screen that is readable in bright sunlight as well as in the dark. That’s an advantage if you share a bedroom with someone who wants to sleep while you want to read.

The biggest advantage of any portable reading device is that you can have hundreds or even thousands of books with you at all times. Paper books are heavy but a Kindle is light and fits easily into a purse or briefcase. An iPhone or iPod fits into a pocket, and the big advantage to reading on an iPhone is that you have it with you at all times. That means you’re never without reading material, even when you didn’t expect to have a few minutes to read a book, like when you’re sitting in a doctor’s waiting room.

I’m bothered that Kindle books can’t be loaned out or sold, but that is a solvable problem. The Northern California Digital Library  has solved the lending problem for books that can be read on PCs and Macs, or audio books that can be listened to on computers or iPods.

Participating libraries purchase a limited number of “copies” that can be checked out for a specific period of time. If all are checked out, users put a hold on the next available copy just as they would do with physical media.

As far as I know there’s no way to lend a Kindle book, although Brigham Young University experimented with lending out Kindle book readers with books on them. Unfortunately, BYU suspended the program until it hears from Amazon as to whether that’s OK. “Being a library, we will follow the rules and until the rules are clear we will wait,” university spokesman Rogen Layden told the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The University of Nebraska at Omaha has nine Kindles that it loans out to patrons. For awhile, there were funds to purchase books for patrons but the money ran out. Patrons can still borrow Kindles, but if the title they want isn’t on it, they’re out of luck.

It seems to me that libraries should be able to buy licenses for Kindle books and loan those out to patrons to read on borrowed Kindles or their own devices. And consumers should have the right to sell, lend or give away books or other media that they buy for the Kindle or any other device.

Technology is not the obstacle. It would be relatively easy for Amazon to come up with a way to let people transfer access to media from one account to another. But just because it can be done doesn’t mean it will be done. As with all aspects of digital media, there are commercial interests to consider and powerful forces — like publishing companies and author groups — to be heard from.

As an author myself, I’m all for protecting the rights of copyright holders. But as a consumer I want the right to do whatever I want with the media I purchase.

This post is adapted from one that appeard in the San Jose Mercury News

by Larry Magid

I was busy all day Wednesday following two seemingly unrelated news stories: the cyberattacks against U.S. and South Korean government Web sites and the announcement that Google is developing its own operating system.

That got me wondering whether those stories were related.

The assaults on government Web sites were a so-called distributed denial of service attack whereby thousands of computers around the world simultaneously request access to servers, making it impossible for legitimate traffic to get through. The computers carrying out the attack aren’t owned by bad guys but by regular people and businesses whose machines have been commandeered into a “botnet” or “zombie army” as a result of being infected by malicious software.

There are lots of ways to distribute this type of malicious software but the most common method is called a “drive-by download,” in which a computer becomes infected by visiting a Web site that was either set up for this purpose or commandeered by hackers to distribute this type of software.

For a PC to be infected, it has to be able to run the malicious software and, as it turns out, the overwhelming majority of malicious software is designed to run on Windows. So these “zombies” that are shutting down government Web sites are mostly Windows PCs. And therein lies the connection between the two stories.

Like any device connected to the Internet, PCs running Google’s Chrome operating system wouldn’t be exempt from malicious software. Indeed, Chrome will be running on top of Linux, which also has been affected by malicious software. But so far, Linux and Macintosh machines have been far less vulnerable than PCs running Windows.

There are lots of theories about why that’s the case. One school argues that Windows is inherently less secure, while others say it’s simply a larger target. While that first explanation might have some merit, the second one is undeniable. With about 90 percent of the world’s personal computers running Windows, it’s no surprise that bad guys put their development resources into the platform that will give them the greatest impact.

So from a security standpoint, what’s good about a Google operating system is that if it’s well-received, there will be more computers running something other than Windows. Bad guys will have to diversify their development efforts or reach an ever-decreasing share of the world’s computers.

But that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be security downsides to a Google operating system. Google has said that its OS will be highly Web-centric, encouraging the use of Web-based applications like Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Gmail, Yahoo calendar and other programs from Google and its competitors. That introduces a major vulnerability.

With Microsoft’s PC-centric approach, applications like Microsoft Office can run even if there is no Web access. Web-based applications depend not only on the client having access but on the server as well. So if Google’s servers come under attack, there is risk that its Web-based applications will fail until the attack is resolved.

There is also the security risk of storing your data on those servers. While there are many advantages to so-called “cloud computing,” one disadvantage is that your data can be compromised if someone breaks into that server. We could have another “single point of failure” problem if a significant percentage of the world’s PC and Internet users start to store their data on Google machines.

I’m not suggesting that Google doesn’t have good security. The company tries very hard to protect its users’ data. But so does Microsoft. It’s just that the bigger a company’s market share gets, the more likely it and its customers will be attacked.

Of course, all of this assumes that Google will be successful in eroding Microsoft’s share of the market. Based on the public’s lackluster interest in Linux PCs, Google has an uphill battle. Even among netbook PCs, which at first mostly used Linux, Microsoft enjoyed a 96 percent market share as of February, according to NPD Group.

Linux, like what Google is promising for its Chrome OS, loads faster and requires less computing power than any current version of Windows. And there are plenty of excellent Linux software programs, including the Firefox browser and several office suites that rival Microsoft Office. But there remain many programs that run only on Windows, so many individuals and companies will continue to use Windows, even if they can get a free and arguably better operating system somewhere else.

If I used my PC only to access the Web, get e-mail and do word processing, I’d be very happy with Linux. But while those activities probably account for 90 percent of my PC use, there are other programs I simply can’t do without. That may change over time, but there are some very smart people in Redmond, Wash., who will do all they can to keep the Microsoft franchise alive and dominant.

There is my < 5 minute interview on BBC Radio broadcast in the UK on Thursday, July 9th

Larry Magid on BBC