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Sharing files with colleagues and clients should be easy and convenient. What it shouldn't be is a security risk - but it frequently is. Because many small businesses don't have the right file-sharing systems and policies, many turn to unsafe practices that often put both their business's and clients' privacy in jeopardy. Is your business guilty of engaging in dangerous file sharing habits? Here are five you need to watch out for and what you can do about them. 1. Sharing files via email The most obvious dangerous habit is sharing files via email. Just the other day I received a design document from a client as an email attachment. 2. Using consumer-grade cloud solutions Workers around the world are putting themselves and their employers at risk by indiscriminately using unauthorized file sharing services on their mobile and desktop devices - to the tune of $2 billion. With more workers joining the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) revolution and turning to insecure file sharing services like personal Dropbox and Google Drive accounts, the threat is greater than ever. 3. Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing P2P sharing is a great technology used to share data over peer networks. It's also great software to get hacked. 4. Using flash drives Flash drives are the easy tool of choice for infection since they bypass network security. If an infected file is on a flash drive and inserted into a system, it can start an infection spread from the PC. 5. Lack of visibility The danger starts when employees take matters into their own hands and engage a file sharing service on their own. The individual making a one-off decision is not going to be thinking of the bigger picture of organization-wide requirements.

It weighs just 34 grams, is 72 x 35 x 12 mm in size, and costs only the $39: The Google Chromecast looks and feels like a USB flash drive with a glandular problem. Cheap, easy to set up and even easier to use, there's really nothing to dislike about the Google streaming device, except for one thing: Canadian content (which we will get to in a moment). The Chromecast is so small that once it's plugged into an HDMI port in the back of a television set, there's almost no indication that it's a part of your home theatre setup. Only its power cord, which can either be plugged into a wall socket or available USB port, gives a hint that it's even there. Unlike other streaming media devices like the Apple TV or Roku 3, Google Chromecast doesn't come with a remote control, or in fact, any onboard applications or content. Everything, from setting up the device to watching a video from your personal media collection or browsing YouTube, is done through the use of apps on an Android phone or tablet, iOS device or via Google Chrome browser on a Chrome OS, Windows or Mac PC. No matter which device you use with the Chromecast, setup is a cinch. Simply power the device, plug it into an available television HDMI port and follow the Chromecast's onscreen prompts. The device will walk you through the process of connecting it to a Wi-Fi network, pairing with your choice of source device and downloading any available firmware updates. Even with the lousy Internet speeds I suffered while testing the hardware in rural southwestern Ontario I was setup and ready to start streaming content to my Chromecast in under 10 minutes.

The way we navigate in cities has been revolutionized in the last few years by the advent of GPS mapping programs. Enter your start and end location and these will give you the shortest route from A to B. That's usually the best bet when driving, but walking is a different matter. Often, pedestrians want the quietest route or the most beautiful but if they turn to a mapping application, they'll get little help. That could change now thanks to the work of Daniele Quercia at Yahoo Labs in Barcelona, Spain, and a couple of pals. These guys have worked out how to measure the "beauty" of specific locations within cities and then designed an algorithm that automatically chooses a route between two locations in a way that maximizes the beauty along it. "The goal of this work is to automatically suggest routes that are not only short but also emotionally pleasant," they say. Quercia and co begin by creating a database of images of various parts of the center of London taken from Google Street View and Geograph, both of which have reasonably consistent standards of images. They then crowdsourced opinions about the beauty of each location using a website called UrbanGems.org. Each visitor to UrbanGems sees two photographs and chooses the one which shows the more beautiful location. That gives the team a crowdsourced opinion about the beauty of each location. They then plot each of these locations and their beauty score on a map which they use to provide directions. The idea here is that the user enters a start and end location and an algorithm then finds the most beautiful route, rather than the shortest one. It does this by searching through every possible route, adding the beauty scores for each and choosing the one that ranks highest.

It's a truth as universal as it is annoying; if you want all your devices to work with a specific keyboard, well, you'll probably need either one for each, sign on for precisely one device ecosystem, or get used to swiping in words. Travelers in particular are driven insane by this problem, so Logitech decided, quite cleverly, to solve it with the K480. Swiss Army Keyboard There are two problems with modern portable keyboards. The first is, as we noted, device compatibility. Ask anybody who's had to install drivers just to get a basic keyboard to work, the various device ecosystems out there don't play well with each other and seemingly want to drive you insane. Logitech solves this with some clever design. You can switch between three different places to send your words, so that regardless of whether you're all Apple, or a mix of Apple, Chrome, and Windows, you'll be able to use the keyboard and get the point across. Basically, if it uses Bluetooth, you're all set to type. At The Trough The second problem is keeping all your stuff organized; you've got your phone over here, your tablet over there, and your laptop in front of you… and many keyboards want to be docked solely at your tablet. How does Logitech solve this? Simple: It puts a trough at the top of the keyboard that can easily be used to stand up both your tablet and your phone, and to type away at both of them with ease. A Keyboard For The Multitasker Multitasking, or at least sorting through your various tasks properly, can be a profoundly annoying experience, and Logitech deserves credit for looking at how we actually use our gadgets and creating a keyboard that fits in with them. If that's something you need, it starts at just $50.