The Lenovo U1 Hybrid Could Be Better Than The iPad
Jan 30, 2010 Gadgets, Information
I just saw this video about the new Lenovo U1 Hybrid that will come out later this year. I think it is an amazing device. It is a notebook computer and tablet all in one, or is it two? Check out the video and you decide how amazing it is.
What the iPad can and can’t do
Jan 29, 2010 Information, iphone
Apple’s iPad tablet computer will be available in March starting at $499, but it already has sparked a range of questions about how it will work. The touch-screen multimedia device uses the same operating system as Apple’s popular iPhone and can access the 140,000 apps available to the iPhone and iPod Touch. USA TODAY reporter Jefferson Graham offers some answers:
Q: I need a data plan to get 3G wireless service on the iPad, but don’t I already have one from AT&T for my iPhone?
A: You’ll need an additional one. Prices are $14.99 for 250 MB of service (good for just e-mail) or $29.99 for unlimited access.
The good news: You’re not under a contract and can cancel at any time. Additionally, because the device works with Wi-Fi, you don’t necessarily have to spring for 3G.
Q: There’s no USB or SD slot. How do I get my photos, video and music files into the iPad?
A: Through iTunes and your PC or Mac computer. Think of the iPad as a giant iPhone or iPod (which of course, it is). Apple hasn’t changed the transfer system. You need to connect the iPad to your computer and sync the video, music and photos through iTunes.
But here’s a potential time-saver: Apple will release a 30-pin adapter — think of the wide end of the cable that syncs your iPod to your computer — to connect digital cameras and the iPad. Apple says it will work only with digital cameras, but can a hack for all sorts of media really be far behind?
Q: I already have my photos and videos stored online. Can’t I access them in the same way I do on the iPhone?
A: Photos on sites such as Facebook, Shutterfly and Phanfare will be easy to pull up — and even quicker if you go through one of their apps — but videos stored on Facebook and Shutterfly won’t play because they’re in the Flash format, which the iPad doesn’t support.
Q: The iPad is billed as the ultimate multimedia device, but I can’t play most Web video or animation? What’s up with that?
A: The iPhone and iPod Touch leave big white holes when you try to access video and animation on popular websites such as Hulu, Vimeo, Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon, which are displayed in Flash video.
Apple says it supports HTML5, a new Web video standard, and not Flash, without giving any reason.
Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey says that with all of the criticism about the strain on AT&T’s 3G network, Apple is better off not offering Flash support.
“It would kill the network,” he says. “People would be watching all day. Maybe two years from now, they could handle the traffic, but not now.”
There is a work-around for watching Web video: Use an app. YouTube, Break.com, CNN.com, MSNBC.com and many other big video sites have apps that let you watch video.
Q: The new iBooks app that will sell new releases of e-books sounds great. Since the store is in iTunes, can I buy the books and read them on my iPhone or iPod Touch?
A: No. Apple says the application for reading the books is only on the iPad.
Q: Can I listen to online music from Pandora on the iPad and compose an e-mail at the same time?
A: Nope. There’s no multitasking, just as there isn’t on the iPhone or Touch.
That has been one of the biggest criticisms of the iPhone and a selling point for competing devices such as those using Google’s Android system, which does have multitasking.
SOURCE: usatoday.com
The Evil Google Toolbar
Jan 26, 2010 Information
I recently read an article from Benjamin Edelman that contained a lot of detail on how the Google Toolbar is actually spying on your search habits and what you are looking for.
He writes “Run the Google Toolbar, and it’s strikingly easy to activate “Enhanced Features” — transmitting to Google the full URL of every page-view, including searches at competing search engines.”
This is even AFTER you disable it!
He has lots of data to back up his claim.
And to think I was going to write an article about how I loved and used Google Voice. I think I just changed my mind. They are surely recording and logging every piece of data that comes over the wire. Good thing I only use it as a catch all phone number. Ahhh meh, I still may write about it soon.
My advice on the Google Toolbar…uninstall it. It has no real purpose anymore anyways.
Read it here
Google Toolbar Tracks Browsing Even After Users Choose “Disable”
Tags: Google Toolbar
Apple Tablet-Iphone OS Based
Jan 26, 2010 Gadgets, Hardware, Information
In an interview with CNBC, McGraw-Hill’s CEO confirms that their textbooks will be on the Apple Tablet and it will be an iPhone OS based machine. When asked about rumors that their textbooks will be on the Apple tablet, Terry McGraw responds:
“Yeah, Very exciting. Yes, they’ll make their announcement tomorrow on this one. We have worked with Apple for quite a while. And the Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable. So what you are going to be able to do now — we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95% of all our materials that are in e-book format on that one. So now with the tablet you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tablet is going to be just really terrific.”
Source: Macrumors.com
Tags: apple tablet
Video Demonstration of Downloading Torrents to the Media Center using the Iphone
Jan 23, 2010 Information
Here is a quick video demonstrating what was covered in a previous article
How To Use Your Iphone to Download Torrents Remotely
I hope this video makes the article that it refers to clearer.
Tags: media center, torrents
More on DynDns and Utorrent
Jan 23, 2010 Information, iphone
A lot of my readers are asking what dyndns is and what is it for. Well let me devote an entire post to that and clear things up.
DynDns is a free service offered to those that have a dynamic IP address that changes often.
See if you visit http://www.ipchicken.com right now it will show you your ip address. This is your address on the internet. Its like your home address only its in a digital world.
DynDns.com gives you a free sub-domain that points to that number so that you don’t have to remember it and especially remember it each time it may change.
In a previous article I wrote about downloading torrents remotely, I discussed how I use dyndns.com along with my router to keep my IP address pointing to the name thebatchfile.homeip.net which I got for free from dyndns.com. This way I could always access Utorrent while away from home using my iphone without the worry of remembering an IP address that could possibly change on me from time to time since I do not pay for a static IP address with my internet provider.
In order for dyndns.com to work for you, you will need to first visit their site and sign up for a free account. Then you will need to either use one of their free IP address update applications to run on your computer to keep your IP address changes synchronized with their database OR you may can set it up in your router if you have one.
I think its safe to say that almost all routers have a configuration page you can access from your web browser. To be able to access your routers web configuration you need to know its address internal to you network.
To figure out the address of your router do this. If you are on a windows computer click START then RUN and type the letters CMD and press enter. This will bring up a command prompt window. Now type in ipconfig /all in the window and press enter.
Read the rest of this entry »
Why Foursquare is Lame
Jan 23, 2010 Information, Rants
I was recently reading an article on Twitter and Foursquare, and let me just tell you that the recent foursquare pollution on twitter is getting on my last nerve. The article I was reading was called:
Where You Are and Why It Matters: Twitter and Local Trending
from http://thenextweb.com/ by Kristin Marshall
For those of you that don’t already know, here are the definition of each.
Twitter is without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is happening right now.
Foursquare on your phone gives you & your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things.
Now here are MY definition of each.
Twitter = Very cool way to tell all that follow you what your are doing without wasting time on the phone with hellos and whats ups. You simply want to tell them all at once WHAT YOU ARE DOING. I mean really that’s what everyone always asks right? What are you doing?
Foursquare = Lame.
When I first started with Twitter, I loved the fact that it was so simple. It was just your friends, what they were doing, pics, and links to pictures or websites they were reading. That’s it.
In this article Kristin Marshall tries to explain what the “big picture” is by writing:
“Where we are, our location, plays a key role in determining what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. “
I call bullsnap on this one. I don’t need to know the location of the Circle K that this tweet is referring too “@snoballz is making a beer run to the Circle K http://4sq.com/7l4RDM”
She goes on to write ” Twitter has given us another way to turn down the noise, and really get to the nitty gritty of what matters to us”
Oh Really? How is that so? Are you referring to the new twitter lists? I cant filter out the friends that I want to follow that are lame enough to use foursquare and tweet every single location…. that defeats the purpose.
“Twitter’s geolocation feature has not seen a great deal of uptake with only 0.23% of tweets with geolocation enabled”
If foursquare and its geolocations is already polluting my twitter streams at 0.23% I fear what will happen if others jump on the band wagon of this horsespit and make the jump to 5%.
This is what happens when Twitter releases their API to other lame applications. You get stream pollution!
There is always a silver lining in almost any situation if you look deep enough, and I may have found it. Imagine where someone might hand off a phone to someone and have that person tweet from Steak and Shake when they are out committing some heinous crime.
Could that be the future of the Perfect alibi???
Tags: foursquare
How To Use Your Iphone to Download Torrents Remotely
Jan 21, 2010 Information, Services, Software
Utorrent is great for downloading torrents. It has this wonderful web interface that allows you to paste in urls to torrents and have them download. You can use your browser to do this or even your iphone.
This is convenient if your work forbids you from downloading torrents. I was once with some friends having dinner and one asks have I seen The Uninvited. I says no. Then I thought hey I can download that right now before I forget, so I broke out my iphone, opened safari, went to the bookmark I had set for thepiratebay.org, looked for the movie, copied the link, then opened a new page in safari and clicked on the bookmark I had set for my utorrent on my personal machine at home, then logged into it, pasted the url to the torrent in there and clicked go. It began to download. Everyone was amazed. About 25 minutes later as we were getting in the car, my phone churped and it was an email notifying me that the download was complete and ready to watch ( I still have not watched it yet).
Now I am going to show you how you can do exactly the same thing.
First we need to setup a http://www.dyndns.com/ account to turn your ip address into a name.
Your ip address is a number that your internet service provider or ISP for short assigns you to allow you internet access. Sometimes this number changes and it would be hard to remember so we need to turn this number into a name.
Here is a how to article from their website.
https://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/howto.html
Register for a free account at http://www.dyndns.com/. Agree to the site’s terms, and use a legitimate email address to complete registration. Once in awhile, DynDNS will email you at that address asking you to confirm that it continue your service.
Log into your new account. Go to the “My Services” area on the left side. Under “Host Services” click “Add New HostName.” There, fill in the name you want to use. DynDNS will autofill your IP address (if you’re doing this from your home computer). Choose a domain and type in a custom subdomain, which can be anything from lifehacker.kicks-ass.org or john.is-a-geek.com or something, like below:
Tags: download torrents remotely, iphone, torrents
WARNING: Facebook Photo Comments
Jan 21, 2010 Hacks, Information
Recently while on Facebook I have been getting lots of notifications about someone “tagging” me in a photo, and its often from people that I would surely think do not have a photo of me to even tag.
Lets say you just recently added a person that you really have never met, but you add them anyway. Later they tag you in a photo. How is that even possible?!?!?!
When have you ever had to add an app to see a comment on a photo? Never and you never will either. This is complete nonsense, and Facebook should really monitor the publication of apps better.
I have come to realize that this application looks official until you add it to your account. Once you add it, it should become clear that is it a false application created to get information out of your account. It is simply a trick to get your data! If you do click it you will take you to an application confirmation screen, and want you to click to add it, when doing so I am sure through some sorta of technical magic that it is doing something mischievous.
DO NOT FALL FOR THIS
At the bottom of any Facebook page you should see an Applications button. Click it then click on Edit Applications.
Click the “x” next to the application named “Photo Comments” and then as well to any other application that you might have no use for that are just taking up space or you are not using anymore.
Tell all your friends about this or forward them this website. If you are on twitter, retweet this. If you are on Facebook, share it.
Would you pay $5 to watch a YouTube video?
Jan 20, 2010 Information
YouTube this week begins a test to see if folks will pay to watch movies on its site. The Web’s most popular video sharing site Friday will offer five films from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance Film Festival for a fee around $5 . It’s a way, YouTube says, to bring more exposure to independent films. But it’s also a test to see if viewers will pay for content, YouTube says. YouTube product manager Sara Pollack says the program is a response to the problems facing independent filmmakers. Too many movies are getting produced, with few places to exhibit them. For instance, she says of the 9,000 films shown at Sundance last year, only 53 found some form of distribution. “The online audience is getting bigger and bigger, but the ad-supported model doesn’t always fit the needs of filmmakers,” she says The videos will cost in the $5 range to watch — but Pollack says the exact price will be set by the filmmaker. YouTube will split revenues, but will give the lion’s share to the filmmaker, she says. The Sundance Festival opens Friday in Park City, Utah, where YouTube execs will be visiting and networking with filmmakers. The five Sundance films: By Jefferson Graham – USA Today
