Using Tech to Travel Smarter

Technology has been changing every industry—including the travel industry. There are tons of ways to use technology to your advantage when looking to make your travel plans seamless, more fun and organized. Here are some tips to traveling smarter with technology: 

Use Online Hotel and Apartment Booking  

When traveling, you can book hotels online in advance. You can read reviews and look into the amenities that hotels have to offer. Google maps allows you to look at the location. This way, you can plan your hotel in proximity to your travel activities.

There also is a chance to use sites like Airbnb to book your room for cheaper. This is a great option if you are staying with a big group and want to book a house where you can all stay. Airbnbs also can be cheaper if you are traveling solo. You can book a private room in a house. There are tons of ways to plan ahead and get exactly what you want when looking at your stay.

Take Advantage of Airline Websites and Their Useful Travel Resources  

There are tons of airlines that have frequent flyer programs with no cost to sign up. If you travel a lot, look into some of the best airlines to sign up with. This will help you decide which airline to fly with. These sites also offer online flight check-ins and boarding passes you can download on your phone. Using these resources on your phone or laptop will keep you from losing track of your travel documents.

Read Up on Travel Blogs Before Embarking on Your Trip

Check out a frequent flyer blog before your trip to make the most out of the money you are dropping on travel. There are tips from some pros on how to save money through your travels. Bloggers go crazy about travel and can help you when planning your trip and deciding where to go as well. Start by checking out your favorite blog’s travels sections. You also can resort to a simple Google search to find some top-ranking travel blogs. Take advantage of the information that is out there. 

Pack All Your Technology Essentials for Entertainment Purposes

Kindle offers the ability to read without the hassle of packing a million heavy books. Bring a Kindle and download some books to read in the airport and lounging on the beach. Reading is a great travel activity that helps you wind down.

Also, invest in some nice bluetooth headphones. This will keep your cords from getting tangled up while on the trip. Music makes a great background noise when traveling. Noise cancelling headphones also can help if you need to sleep in the car or on the airplane.

Technology can make your travel experience a million times easier. Take advantage of these resources out there on your next big trip. You can’t go wrong by being smart and reducing the amount of hassle—traveling is stressful enough without technology.

Online privacy in 2019

Though it may not look like it, the minute we’re surfing the internet, we open ourselves to identity theft, fraud, and viruses. Now the internet doesn’t sound like as fun of a place as we once thought. But, you can still enjoy surfing the web, instead, you need to take a couple of extra steps to ensure your privacy is protected.

Passwords matter

You’ll hear stories of CEOs of their computers hacked and stripped of their information. The funny part is their passwords are always extremely simple. Using the word ‘password’ as your password isn’t going to cut it. Though this isn’t going to mean you’re completely protected, it will reduce the risk. People get lazy with passwords and usually end up choosing simple ones. Make sure your passwords contain a combination of letters, symbols, and numbers.

Create a secure network

If you ask any computer wiz, they’ll tell you the most important thing is to make sure you’re using a secure network. Without a secure system, you open yourself up to identity theft and privacy invasion. A virtual private network (VPN) ensures all your data is routed through a proxy server, making sure your IP address is protected from hackers. Now, you may be thinking, is VPN safe? And the answer is yes. It’ll hide your original information, making it difficult for people to see your identity.

Check your privacy settings

Most of us never check our privacy settings when we’re using social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. However, these public platforms are an excellent place to start when looking into privacy protection. This is because most of the information on these platforms are automatically default to sharing your information publically. The more information you provide to the public, the easier it is to invade your privacy. When using public platforms such as social media, make sure your information is only accessible to your friends and family.

Update your software

No one wants to update their software. It takes too much time, and it can be annoying when you’re in the middle of using your computer. But delaying your software updates can really affect your computer’s security system. The updates are there to fix bugs which could be exploited by hackers. 

Back-up your information

You can do everything suggested above to secure your privacy online, but it doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. The minute you’re connected online, you’re vulnerable. It’s essential you back-up all your information – if you value your data. Whether your computer is hacked, the hard drive broke down, or your laptop was stolen, you’ll still have all your data. You can back-up your data in three ways: cloud storage, external hard drive, or an online backup service.

The internet may seem like a lot of fun, but it’s also a place where you need to keep your eyes open and stay protected. Use these tips to protect your computer and your privacy from hackers.

Leveling the gender pay gap in the tech industry

The technology industry has previously been a pool of male dominance. Although there are still more women entering the tech field than ever before, it can still be highly disturbing to know what it took for women to gain an active and wanted role in their positions. If one chooses to historically analyze the pay gap between annual wages of men and women, they will see that this number can be alarming in many varying fields and industries, especially STEM careers. Men and women both must fight for equal pay, but unfortunately, it is often that women are fighting against the men in the fight for equal pay. Although plenty of good males have stood up in protest alongside their female colleagues, it is the 21st century and all individuals must unite in the continuous fight for pay equality. This is true for all STEM companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook.

Women find it difficult to break into elite financial roles such as stockbrokers or in the STEM field. Traditionally male-dominated fields like STEM careers are hard to join for women due to the negative backlash they may receive in the workplace. For some, it is finding it overwhelmingly difficult to navigate and climb the corporate ladder when it seems like an unreachable goal or task. The women who excel in the tech industries are often praised for working so diligently to get to the top of their field. These women hustle their way through coding seminars, free card numbers, working long hours in the office, engineering successful innovations, and reaching their lucrative company goals. However, the other women who are not always so praised in the media are also heroes of the tech industry as they did their part taking the time to enter the technology field.

Entering a STEM industry takes a hefty amount of education and thorough understanding of product and software knowledge. If mistakes are made, their program or gadget may not work properly. So they try and fail, and try again until they are successful. Dedicated and passionate workers, people who enter these fields are truly some of the most unique innovators in their jobs. As far as gender equality in STEM fields, this will only happen through continuously urging legislators to budget equal pay for men and women alike. Intelligence does not have a gender. Careers are not gendered. Work holds no gender. Passion is genderless. All of these things are required to enter the tech field, but being a boy or girl is not. Gender should no longer be a reason not to hire or not to promote someone. Discrimination is an intolerable act, and society needs humans that are capable of solving the most intricate of technology problems today in order to advance tomorrow. Problems are solved with profound and long lasting solutions. It will take cooperation of everyone to make change happen. Although societal change isn’t something that happens over night, humans can act as a catalyst in the change for equal pay of men and women in all fields. The need for technology masterminds is necessary now more than ever.

Home technology continues to transform modern life at home

We are a unique species. We have built entire cities, transport that can have us across vast oceans and to the most well-hidden of gems, and vaccines, treatments, and cures of multiple diseases. We have single handedly driven forward our progression as a species without much (if any) resistance in most cases. We develop and utilise technologies of our own design constantly. The whole point of embracing technology and bringing it into the home is to make everyday life easier. This is not to say that life at home was hard before the introduction of home technologies and digital devices. What it does mean is that, through technological innovation, life at home can be more comfortable and more cruisy than ever before.

From the simple things, like sensor lights and entertainment streaming services like Netflix, to the biggest implementations like smart security systems and even home elevators, technology has well and truly found its way into the modern home. Each innovation has made life easier in some respect, particularly for individuals who live with disabilities. Of all the various technologies that have changed the world in one way or another, it is smart home technology that has arguably had the most impact to date (and will continue to have the most profound impact).

The modern homeowner or renter is paying more attention to smart home technology because of how much easier it can and does make life at home. Life in general is chaotic in this day and age, and innovations that aim to make life easier are always encouraged and more than welcomed into most homes. At the core, a home is a place that is, more or less, designed to be the most comfortable environment in a person’s life. Technology now successfully meets that premise and then even goes so far as to multiply it. Automation and advancement as a result of technological disruption are always positives when applied efficiently.

Virtual voice assistants, for example, are being introduced to more and more homes, to the point that the virtual home assistant is fast on its way to becoming a leading staple in the modern home. Voice assistants are useful for multiple reasons. First, they respond to you and can be timed to do things like dull lighting or set security system alarms. Second, virtual assistants can be and are introduced as memory-assistance tools. People set alarms, reminders, and updates and the virtual assistant memorises the update, meaning that it is safely logged for future reference.

There are the big innovations, and the small technological improvements, but all in all any type of home security is something that ought to be celebrated. We are making life easier for ourselves, and anything that can help with that is something to be appreciated. Of all the technological advancements our species has set in motion, home technology is among the most integral of them all. In this digitally-driven era, embracing innovations that make our familiar environments nicer to be a part of are genius.