The new Computer Security Incident Response Team of Costa Rica (CSIRT-CR) was formally inaugurated last Friday with an announcement in La Gaceta, the official government publication. On that same day, members of CSIRT-CR responded to an attack on the information systems of the National Assembly. According to a report by digital newspaper El Pais, the Executive Director of the National Assembly ...

In the 21st century, basic computer and Internet skills have become intrinsic tools of literacy. In San Rafael de Heredia, a group of 25 students learn those important skills at a community center twice a week. The ages of the students ranges from 13 to 80, and the instructor is a young man performing community service as part of his university degree requirements. This computer skills cour...

Several weeks ago, SUTEL posted several short notices on their Web site regarding cellphones in Costa Rica. Based on one of the notices, The Costa Rica Star article entitled “Reporting Stolen Phones in Costa Rica: SUTEL Blacklist,” provided the numbers to call for reporting a stolen cellphone. However, the article left several questions unanswered. I contacted SUTEL, and now have the additional in...

In the United States and Canada, the sales of eBooks now exceeds the sales of traditional books. Europe is not far behind in the growth of eBook sales. Slowly, eBooks are spreading to the rest of the world. We commonly associate eBooks with eBook readers, such as the Barns&Noble Nook, or the Amazon Kindle. The eBook reader has a screen size about the size of a paperback book, and can store as many...

When it comes to online banking, security is the main concern. In Costa Rica, the online banking platform of Banco Nacional is known for its strong security measures like security certificates, virtual keyboards, password policies, and physical tokens. For account holders who want an even stronger chain of trust between their computers and bank accounts, Banco Nacional now offers Domain Name Syste...

On April 11, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an anti-trust complaint against Apple and five publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, and Simon & Schuster) over eBook pricing. While it is a US action, the implications are global. The action not only effects the pricing of eBooks, but has an impact on paper books. The book world is essentially divided between publishers an...

The availability of Instagram for Android made a big news splash, but is it really better than equivalent Android apps. Android does not suffer from a lack of photo editing apps. Rather than review several apps, this article will focus on a comparison of Instagram to Pixlr-o-Matic, a free Android app. Pixlr-o-matic is also available as an iOS app, a Facebook app, or a Google Chrome extension. B...

Once only available for Apple's mobile devices, Instagram is now available for Android. To say that Instagram is a photo sharing social network belies its true nature. Instagram appeals to our artistic nature, by providing the tools to turn snapshots into works of art. In this sense, it is a social network for those who love the art of photography. In terms of design, Instagram is similar to Tumbl...

Electric rice cookers are present in most kitchens in Costa Rica. A few staunch traditionalists who favor wood burning stoves and earthenware pottery may disagree, but one thing that Ticos who keep households or spend considerable time in the kitchen know is that rice cookers can easily adopt to our cuisine and meal patterns. In a recent article published by Panasonic for its web series "Around...

There are just too many things to remember, so I write them down. I have a half-dozen different address books dating back to college. I have tried small notebooks, sticky notes, business card folders, and day calendars from large to pocket size. The trouble with address books is that they are not exactly portable. Notebooks work until they are full. I hated extracting all the useful information fr...

As of April 5, SUTEL implemented a blacklist for stolen phones. Over 800 mobile operators in 219 countries use the blacklist to report stolen phones. Once blacklisted, a phone cannot be activated by any of the cooperating mobile operators. To report a stolen phone in Costa Rica, call your mobile operator at these numbers: Kolbi/ICE: 1193 TuYo Movil: 1718 Movistar: 1693 FullMovil: 555 from...

Are you going to the beach for Semana Santa? If so, you are probably taking your cell phone with you. If you are a smartphone user, you know that the battery needs charging on a regular basis. Not only are smartphones huge data consumers, they are a huge battery power consumers. Smartphone specifications tell you the expected battery life in terms of Standby Time and Talk Time for both phone and d...

On Thursday, March 29, El Financiero published an article on a Deloitte technology marketing study for 2012. While Deloitte gave the presentation at Costa Rica Country Club, all the videos and PDF documents for the Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) study are available from Deloitte's Web site. This is a global study that discusses TMT trends for this year, and does not focus on a single...

You do not need a USB cable to share files between your mobile device and another mobile device or computer. All you need is a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection. You can transfer contacts, messages, music, photos, eBooks, and more. All you need is an Android app on your mobile device. You do not need any special software on your PC. AirDroid is really easy to use. When you start AirDroid, the app d...

While we know how much cash we have, we rarely keep records of how we spend it. When we are low on cash, we head to the nearest ATM to get more. We are more likely to record ATM withdrawals in our checkbook, and we do record the checks that we write. If we make debit card purchases, we record them in our check register. As long as all the amounts are correct, and there no math mistakes, our check ...

The days of unlimited downloading using your smartphone or 3G wireless modem (known in Costa Rica as "datacard") may soon be over. According to an article published by online financial news daily El Financiero, the Superintendency of Telecommunications (SUTEL in Spanish) is looking at establishing a "fair use" policy that could allow wireless carriers to offer metered data plans or bandwidth throt...

SAN JOSE – Global technology leaders Hewlett Packard (HP) and Intel have teamed up to bring the world the newest concept in personal mobile computing. The companies, which are two of Costa Rica's largest employers, will be officially unveiling the HP Ultrabook at the Play store in Escazu on Wednesday, March 28th at 9:00 am. The buzz surrounding the HP Ultrabooks began last year when Intel annou...

The iPhone 4S craze among Tico lovers of Apple's most iconic device has unleashed a price war among the three major wireless carriers in Costa Rica. It is clear that former communications monopoly ICE is leading the battle, although the first salvo was quietly launched by Claro about a week ago. What is clear about the war is that smartphone consumers are bearing the brunt of the hostilities. I...

Getting around and finding your way in Costa Rica can be a frustrating exercise in orienteering, and that's just on foot. When it comes to dealing with traffic in our poorly-kept roads, Tico drivers do the best they can to fight traffic and get to their destinations in a reasonable time. The highway infrastructure and the corresponding traffic signaling scheme is improving, albeit at a very...

By law, all cellphones sold by an authorized dealer in Costa Rica are unlocked GSM phones that meet Costa Rica's frequency standards. If you are bringing a phone to Costa Rica, it must meet the same requirements. A locked phone is simply one that is locked to a single cellphone carrier. Locking cellphones is a standard practice for USA carriers, who sell phones at a discounted rate as part of a...

In a candid interview with award-winning journalist Any Perez, President Laura Chinchilla made a few statements that came across as both refreshing and strong. Our President has been fighting off results of independent surveys that show her approval ratings among Ticos have taken a dive. On her most recent in-depth interview in La Nacion, our President comes across as a woman who has learned quite...

QR (Quick Response) Codes are not UPC (Uniform Product Code) barcodes on steroids. While both digitize information into a graphical image, they serve different functions. The UPC numeric bar code was first used for point-of-sale in 1974, and is required for all point-of-sale transactions in many countries. In 1994, Densoo Wave, a subsidiary of Toyota, developed QR Codes to track vehicles during th...

Eleven injuries and hundreds of damaged homes make up the toll of the powerful earthquake that rocked Mexico during lunch time yesterday. The final magnitude reading of the earthquake by seismologists in Mexico was 7.8 Richter. The epicenter was near Ometepec, a region that lacks major urban centers. Unfortunately, the homes affected by the earthquake are mostly located in low-income areas....

The 43rd global conference of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was held in San Jose just a few days ago, and it was a momentous occasion not just for Costa Rica as a host country clearly desiring to become a significant force in Information Technology in Latin America, but also for everyone who makes a living on the Internet. The conference got underway with a...

I stopped buying printed newspapers years ago. At first, I would check individual newspapers via the Internet. I then started following major news sources on Twitter, and still follow this practice today. With Android, I moved to news aggregation apps. In addition to Twitter, I now use three different news and periodical apps. For Costa Rica newspapers, I tested three different Android apps. These...

It was spring cleaning time once again when the rains stopped this year, and the pressure washers and ladders brought out to clean the accumulated grime and filth off houses, buildings, tourist facilities, and generally everything else. This is something that happens every year and is considered a normal but expensive part of maintenance. Then, because the combined effects of sun, mildew and f...

Students of the Faculty of Industrial Design at the Institute of Technology in Costa Rica (TEC in Spanish) in Cartago are enjoying a new and unique laboratory facility. Eight intermodal containers, also known as conex boxes, that were once used for shipping have been smartly recycled into a new structure that will house four laboratory facilities for media, robotics, 3-D modeling, and Information ...

The default Web browser for all Android devices it the Android Robot browser. It is neither the fasted, or most flexible Web browser. The Android browser is not the same on all distributions of Android. My pet peeve on Froyo was the lack of an easy way to exit the browser. The assumption was that the browser would always be executing. I could go back to the Home screen, but the browser was still o...

In the last article, we discussed Android apps that help you plan your trip in Costa Rica. In this article, we look at apps for planning flights, hotels, and rental cars. These apps are great tools for any traveler, whether visiting Costa Rica, or traveling to another country from Costa Rica. For the frequent traveler, they make life a lot easier. You no longer need to hunt for the emails from the...

Are you planning a visit to Costa Rica? Do you have an Android phone? If so, here are some handy Android travel apps that can aid you in planning your trip to Costa Rica. While having an unlocked GSM phone is preferred, you should be able to use these apps with any Android phone that has Wi-Fi access and a GPS. Planning a vacation starts with travel guides, and there are three good-to-excellent An...

Digital community newspaper La Fragua, along with various other news sources, recently reported on the planned donation of more than 19,000 computers by the government to students at public schools nationwide. This is part of a greater initiative that was first brought to light a few months ago by the Omar Dengo Foundation. The foundation's namesake was an intellectual who was one of the first to ...

Costa Rica is getting some free worldwide publicity thanks to the hottest tablet computers in the market. In Wednesday's video presentation of the long-awaited new Apple iPad, which is not called iPad 3, images of the Poas volcano and some of our beaches are clearly seen. The iPad promotional video, which can be seen here (QuickTime download and installation may be required), includes a section...

On Tuesday (March 6), visitors to market.google.com, were redirected to play.google.com. Google did not make a big announcement about the change. There was none of the regular chatter on Android sites, about the upcoming changes. About five minutes after I discovered the change, the first tweets started to appear. It was a well kept secret, with the only clue being the change to a single policy fo...

I really have no good excuse for not learning Spanish. By just living in Costa Rica I have learned a few words and phrases, but I am a long ways from being a fluent Spanish speaker. I have the perfect learning tool laying on my desk. I just need to make a commitment to spend a fixed period of time everyday to learning Spanish. If you search the Android Market for all apps related to “Spanish le...

The latest viral video coming out of Costa Rica is beginning to make the rounds on the online social networks. At the former Aviarios del Caribe bird sanctuary near Cahuita, home to a new sloth rescue center, an orphan baby sloth comes down with a nasty case of mange. This condition necessitates a whole body shave and skin treatment, and the new viral video depicts just that. The tiny sloth is sha...

In a previous article published by The Costa Rica Star we discussed the rise of mobile SMS style banking in Costa Rica, in the article here within, we will get deeper into the details. There was a time, when all bank transactions required going to the nearest bank branch. In the mid-1970s, ATMs opened the doors to electronic banking. No longer restricted to banker's hours, we had access to our...

You may have heard that Android is a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices. This description of Android is incorrect on several levels. Linux, itself, only refers to the Linux kernel. The kernel is the software that manages requests from devices and requests from applications. In 1991, Linus Torvalds, while a student at Helsinki University of Technology, released the first version of ...

The upcoming Envision Festival is in some ways reminiscent of an event that took place in Santa Teresa and Playa Hermosa in 2009. Both events catered to audiences interested in nature, ecological conservation, yoga, and electronic dance music. The 2009 Breathe Foundation summit in Playa Hermosa, however, was unique because of two documentary films screened that year: Breathe – The Documentary and ...

The info-graphic “Lost and Found: The Challenges of Finding Your Lost or Stolen Phone” (click the link and then click again to enlarge) from Lookout Mobile Security provides an interesting view of how mobile devices are lost and the chances of recovery. While this infographic applies to the USA, the information below applies here in Costa Rica. I personally think they should expand the swimming po...

While it is a traumatic event, mobile devices are lost. Statistically, there is a one chance in three of losing a mobile device. Many of my Tico friends admit that they lost a cell phone, and I once left my cell phone in a rental car. Sometimes, you find your lost mobile device. Other times, the lost mobile device becomes a stolen device. Losing a cell phone is bad enough, but loosing a smartphone...