Ed's Tech Tips

I listen to a number of podcasts and most of them are geared toward technology as is PRI's The World Technology Podcast , but this one stands out. This is how they describe themselves:

The World's weekly Technology Podcast brings you all the latest and greatest news from the fields of global technology and science.  The World is a US-based international news and analysis program co-produced by the BBC World Service, Public Radio International, and WGBH Public Radio in Boston.

I put the emphasis on "global" and "international" because that is where the big difference is with this program. You get a global perspective. For example, many tech pod-casts reported and commented on Bill Gates stepping down from the day-to-day operation sf Microsoft. Many pundits focused on the history of Microsoft, the pros and cons of Gate's leadership and they speculated on the future of the company. However, PRI is the only one that went outside of the U.S. and asked people what they thought of Bill Gates. I was surprised to learn that he is greatly admired and respected in China, despite the fact that many computers there are running counterfeit copies of Windows. 

On the same show I learned about an obscure new language called NOL, which strives to become an Esperanto for the Internet and Cell Phone age. It features a compact grammar and vocabulary that is ideally suited for text messaging, while at the same time bridging the cultural barriers of language.

The show just celebrated it's 200th episode. It is very informative and entertaining. While it has not garnered the same popularity CNet's Buzz Out Loud or This Week In Technology, I encourage you to check it out. I think as Americans, we would benefit from a more global perspective.

Last week I received a new device, the AMOD AGL3080, that I think will really enhance our travel photo galleries. It is a GPS Photo Tracker that assist you with geotagging your pictures so that you can show exactly "where" you took a picture by recording the GPS coordinates or longitude and latitude of the location of where the picture was taken.

The device is relatively inexpensive considering what it does. It costs about $70 from Amazon. Not only is it one of the cheapest trackers, it is one of the few that is Mac compatible. It is the size of mobile pager, if you remember what those are. It takes three AAA batteries, has three LED lights on it and two buttons, a power button and a flag button.

To use it, you simply power it on, wait for the satellite icon to blink, clip it to your belt and then start taking pictures. Make sure that the clock on your camera is set correctly. You then come back to your computer and download your photos. In addition to iPhoto I like to use a free photo management application called JetPhoto. I use JetPhoto for all of the Alumnae Association photo galleries and use it to upload pictures to Fickr as well. There are versions of JetPhoto for Windows and Macs and it supports geotagging manually or with a device such as the AMOD AGL3080. After your pictures are imported into JetPhoto, you then connect the AMOD to your USB port and import the GPS file, which is a text file that contains line after line of time stamps and coordinates. No drivers are required and if you are using JetPhoto, you do not need to install any additional software.

JetPhoto synchronizes the location data with the time stamps on the pictures. You can view the photos on a map and easily tweak the locations which are for the most part accurate within a few feet or yards. You can press the flag button to flag a location where you shot a picture, but you do not have to and just let the software match the photos with the locations.

Jetphoto can export your geotagged photos to a Google map photo gallery or to KMZ or KML files which can then be imported into Google Earth. I took a walk around campus on Thursday and shot photos of various dorms, academic buildings and some buildings just off campus in South Hadley. Within minutes I had the images in a Google map photo gallery. The satellite photos are out of date. Since the images were taken, the new dorm has been constructed, the soccer fields and track have been rebuilt and the tennis courts by the lower pond no longer exist.

The purpose of buying the device is to use it during some of the Alumnae Association travel programs. In the past I have tried to get staff to manually map where photos were taken, but they could usually only generalize where they had been, whereas the AMOD will be able to pinpoint thier location down to the street corner they were standing on. By being able to map the photos, it will make them more interesting. I would anticipate that once camera manufacturers reach the practical limit of th enumber of megapixels they can squeeze into a photo sensor, they will start including GPS into their cameras, along with WiFi and Bluetooth. There are a couple examples, one from Ricoh and another from Navman, which is a combination GPS navigator and camera.

A terabyte is a 1000 gigabytes and can be yours for less than $250. That's amazing! Storage prices have come down so much in the past couple years, you really do not have an excuse to be backing up data. About a year or two ago, hard drives were about $1 per gigabyte and you needed multiple drives to reach a capacity of 1 terabyte. Now you can get a single external terabyte drive for less than 25 cents a gigabyte.

I have recently purchased a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus and a LaCie Big Disk Extreme +. Both are external drives and support USB 2.0 and Firewire 400 connections. The LaCie also supports Firewire 800. If you are on a Mac, use Firewire. It offers you a faster sustained data transfer that is less CPU intensive than USB. 

You can daisy chain the drives together or attach a camcorder to the drive to import video. LaCie even offers a mini rack to stack multiple drives. Why would you want multiple terabyte drives? If you do a lot of video or photography, you need a lot of space. I upgraded from a 320 GB Maxtor to the 1 TB Lacie for backing up my MacBook via Time Machine and to have more room to work on video files since I only have about 12 GB of free space on my internal 160 GB drive to spare.

The LaCie drives comes pre-formatted for Macs with HFS+. The Lacie is a very solid and heavy drive. I do not think it would be very suitable for traveling. It has a auto power feature to be more energy efficient.   It makes a little more noise when it is running than the 320 GB Maxtor that it replaced, but not much more and only when it is spinning up. The Maxtor 1 TB comes formatted for Windows computers. 

However, if you have some extra money the ideal solution is the Drobo. It is a small black box that holds four SATA 3.5 inch hard drives of any size and manufacturer. It offers redundant and almost infinite storage better than RAID 5, because it does allow you to mix and match drives of different sizes. It also easily rebuilds failed or replaced drives. For example, you can start out with a 160 GB,  2 250 GB drives and a 320 GB hard drive. When the 160 GB drive gets full the Drobo will let you know and you can swap it out and replace with a larger drive. You do not need to shut down the device, disconnect it or anything else. Drobo keeps on running and serving data. No additional software or drivers are necessary. The few downsides are that it is expensive at $450 for an empty enclosure. It only supports USB 2.0 and the network interface is sold separately for another $200.

 

Last Friday night I watched the latest Marvel comic superhero inspired movie "Iron Man" and I was not disappointed. From the special effects to the sound track, this is a very well done movie. The story line was predictable, but the dialogue was clever and witty and the acting superb. Robert Downey, Jr. is cast as billionaire playboy genius weapons developer who has a change of heart and becomes a smart mouth hero in a cool looking metallic body that can fly at supersonic speeds and fire missiles. Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Hill and an almost unrecognizable Jeff Bridges are in the movie too. The 2 hours and six minutes went by pretty quickly and left the audience wanting more which will surely follow in a sequel or two. As for technology and gadgetry, 077's Q would be envious. Even Tony Stark's 3D halographic computer interface complete with virtual trash can for deleting files is cool. A lot of attention was paid to the details in every part of this film.  

Find out more about the movie at Yahoo's Movie web site.

I was shopping in Whole Foods the other week and remembered I needed deodorant. Normally I use Mennen, but Whole Foods does not carry that brand. Instead I discovered Tom's of Maine's line of deodorants. I knew of Tom's toothpaste, but I did not know that they made deodorant.

One of the items that struck me was that the deodorant is chemical free and uses hops to control bacteria growth which causes the bad odor in the first place and not the sweat like some peple wrongly believe. I used to brew my own beer and know about hops, the cone shaped flower that gives beer it's bitterness which balances out the sweetness of the barely malt. It's use is two fold: adds flavor and acts as a preservative. One of the hoppiest types of beers is I.P.A. or India Pale Ale. It gets it names from the fact that it was originally specially brewed in England for transport around the great horn of Africa (this was in the days before the Suez canal) to India. Extra hops were added to keep it fresh upon it's arrival months later in India. You can still find the popular style made by many microbreweries today and is one of my favorites.  

In addition to the use of hops, Tom’s of Maine signed a contract in 2005 that will convert 100% of their electricity consumption to wind energy supplied by Green-e, a certified, nationally recognized symbol of independently verified renewable energy.  This contract will eliminate production of 1.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions annually—the equivalent of planting 214 acres of trees!  

Tom's also participates in or promotes a number of other environmental  and recycling practices and policies, but does the deodorant work? Well, so far so good. I tried the lemongrass fragrance, which smells quite pleasant and I have not had any complaints from my wife or co-workers.

I like the fact that Tom's uses natural ingredients and makes the most of technology in not only producing their products, but insuring that they are recyclable and using renewable forms of energy to produce them. They are successful at doing it and I hope more companies will follow their example. Now I'm going to give Tom's toothpaste a try. 

Apple released the Software Development Kit (SDK) for the iPhone/iTouch last week. It is a pretty much a complete package. It is based on Xcode the same development tools used for Mac OS X. It gives you access to all of the hardware of the iPhone including the camera and accelerometer - the device in the phone that responds to tilting the phone. There is even a iPhone simulator so that you can test your apps on a virtual iPhone which allows you to develop for it without having to own one. It even allows you to simulate the pinching touch feature. This opens the device to some cool gaming possibilities.I won't go into detail because other sites have done that, as well as, Apple's own pages dedicated to the SDK. I'll just relate some issues from my personal experience.

First, why is this cool or important. Well, initially it appeared that Apple was not going to open the platform for outside developers, but now it has and it opens the door to thousands of applications. If you have used a Palm you know that there are many possibilities for small applications on a portable device and even more so on the iPhone because of it is screen resolution, multimedia playback capabilities, touch interface and connectivity to the Internet. Applications will range from currency converters to pharmacological encyclopedias and beyond. ReadWriteWeb offers some more sophisicated possibilties.

Also, the cost of entry is fairly low. The SDK is free. It is a 2 GB download that expands to take up 5 GB of space. It is not compatible with PowerPC processors, which I'm a little miffed about. It  only works on Macs with Intel processors. Like other features in Leopard, the PowerPC processor is not fully supported, but that was inevitable with the move to Intel's dual core technology. The G5 and lessor PowerPc chips just cannot keep up with the demands of the newer software. But, I'm on a tangent...

While the cost of the software is $0, the developer program cost $99 and $299 for proprietary, in-house developers. Applications can only be made available through Apple's App store which will be available on the iPhone and iTunes.  The developer sets the selling price. Apple takes it cut of 30%, but handles all related costs of distributing the application, including credit card processing and bandwidth.If you are giving away your application there is no cost beyond the developer fee. I think it sounds like a pretty good deal, especially for small developers to get their products in front of thousands of potential customers.   (More)

Amazon has entered into the music download market this past year. Initially I had my doubts about it, because the video service they offered did not impress me too much, especially since it is not compatible with Macintosh computers. However, Amazon has made an extra effort to make the downloaded music transaction process easier for both Windows and Mac users.

The first real obstacle Amazon overcame was removing DRM from the music it sells. What this means is that the songs you buy from Amazon can be played anywhere on anything. While the iPod is my favorite music player, with Amazon you can easily use other music devices as well. Whereas, if I bought a song on iTunes I could only play it on a iPod. I did not have the option of easily converting it to an MP3 format. I could burn it to a CD and import it back in as a MP3, but wants to do that.

Amazon offers a MP3 downloader that automatically downloads your purchased songs and transfers them into iTunes or Windows Media Player. They made the smart choice not trying to reinvent iTunes. 

I installed the Amazon MP3 downloader and as part of the process they have you download a free track, which was seamless.

Individual songs go for 89-99 cents each and albums range from $7.99-$12.99, the average cost being $8.99, a little less than iTunes. The MP3s are encoded at 256kbps, twice the encoding level of Apple's regular AAC tracks that are sold on iTunes.  The shopping experience works very well, too. There is a broad range of music, you can listen to previews of the tracks, find related artists and read reviews and comments from other users. It is pretty much like shopping for anything else on Amazon, except you do not have to pay for shipping and wait for UPS to deliver your purchases. I think Amazon has a real alternative to iTunes as far as music goes and now that Amazon bought Audible, audiobooks are probably just around the corner.

I recently purchased a new camera for the Alumnae Association. Why does the Association need another camera? Let me explain. Rochelle, the Executive Director and travel guide, recently went on a Alumnae Association sponsored trip to the Peruvian Amazon (we have photos online). She took with her our super compact Sony DSC-W30 camera. It is very small, about the size of a deck of cards and easily fits in a pocket. You can easily carry it almost anywhere. It is 6 megapixels and has a 3x optical zoom, unfortunately it was inadequate for capturing the birds and monkys in the trees along the banks of the Amazon and Rochelle was frustrated.

The other camera we have is the Sony DSC-H1 5 megapixel 12X camera and it would have easily captured close-ups of those birds and primates. Unfortunately, it is a big two-handed camera. It is not something you would want to carry around with you for very long. We use it mostly for capturing campus events, such as, Reunion. 

We needed something in between. A compact camera with a big zoom lens and fortunately there are some very good cameras to choose from. The Digital Camera Resource Page has a a great database and in depth reviews. I search their database and found some options. Digital Photography Review is another excellent site for camera reviews, I mean really detailed and in-depth reviews. Check out the reviews of the Canon at dcresource.com and dpreview.com.

I discovered that I could get a 10x camera in a compact body, but I would have to sacrifice the viewfinder and depend on the LCD screen which is what most people use anyway when they use a digital camera to frame a photo. I narrowed my selections down to the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 and the Canon SX100 IS. I also liked the Canon S5 IS, but it very similar to the Sony DSC-H1 in size and bulk.

I decided on the Canon for the following reasons:

• Canons are very popular and have a large following which translated into better support and familiarity with the camera. Many people do not know that Panasonic produces a line of cameras, despite the fact that they get great reviews.
• It uses standard AA batteries, as well as, rechargeable AA batteries which I have on hand for the Sony DSC-H1. I figured that a camera that is going overseas, it would be more practical to use standard batteries that can be bought almost anywhere if necessary.
• Image quality is a little bit better with the Canon. Digital Photography Review posted numerous side-by-side comparison images between the Canon and the Panasonic. 

Price was very comparable, as was the feature set. The camera cost $212 at Amazon. For a camera with this many features, I think that is very affordable, especially compared to what $200 bought just a few years ago. The face detection feature is pretty cool. I tested the camera on my one year old granddaughter, and the camera was able to track her face and focus the image for the most part. One year olds can move fast. The menus are easy to read and navigate. The print functions are pretty thorough. You can do a lot of editing directly on the camera itself and print directly to a compatible PictBridge printer so that a computer is not even required. 

One downside is that the flash can take a while to warm up between shots as was described in one of the reviews. But the zoom is excellent, as is the clarity of the pictures. Otherwise, I would recommend this camera for someone traveling and wants a smaller camera with some of the the features of larger models.

SingStar is a new video game from Sony for the PlayStation 2 and 3. There is even a new ceramic white SingStar version of the PlayStation 2 console that is still one of the most popular selling game consoles despite the success of the Wii and Xbox 360. 

SingStar games are distributed either as the software alone, or bundled with a pair of USB microphones - one red, one blue. The games are compatible with the EyeToy camera, allowing players to see themselves singing. 

The game is a competitive form of Karaoke where the better you sing or stay on pitch the more points you score. The microphones detect pitch using digital signal processing, which analyses the frequency of the incoming signal. The frequency is then compared to stored information to evaluate if the note is correct. Regular singing segments do not feature speech recognition, and so humming into the microphones at the correct pitch will also score points. Rap sections use a combination of speech recognition and rhythm detection.

My 17 year old niece got the Pop version for her birthday and it turned out to be a game that everyone (parents and kids ) could play together. It is much more tolerable than regular karaoke because you are listening to the original artist as well as the participants  while watching the original video, unless you have the Eyetoy accessory, in which case you can watch yourself.

The game featured songs that were familiar to both parents and teens and it may help some people be better singers. Unfortunately the tone deaf will probably continue to be tone deaf and sing off key and score poorly.I was able to beat my 8 year old nephew singing a song from the Clash which he did not know so well. He prefers Cyndi Lauper and Madonna.

Check out this video to see what the game is like: 

 

 

I just cannot afford it for her yet and that's my biggest complaint about the new slender notebook from Apple. Initially I had more complaints, such as, a battery that you cannot remove, a small hard drive, a lack of an optical drive and a shortage of external ports (there are only three: USB, headphone and video.) Many computer pundits shared my original point of view. I thought of the Air being suitable only as a secondary computer for the well off.

However, after some reflection and reading some other blogs on the subject I have since come to a different conclusion. While the MacBook Air may not be for me, a power user that dabbles in video editing, running multiple operating systems, programming, web development, running virtul machines, creating DVD's and the such. The Air is perfect for my wife.

Her main computer tasks are reading email, browsing the web, watching episodes of her favorite television shows when she misses them (Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives) and sometimes working from home via the Citrex remote Windows client for her office computer. She'd rather not sit at the desk preferring the sofa or bed. So wireless is a must and a backlit keyboard and reduced weight are nice options.

She does not need a large hard drive and she would never remove the battery. While the processor is the slowest in Apple's computer line-up it is still many times faster than Intel's Pentium processor which many people are still using for basic computing tasks. 

So, while the Air has it's detractors, my answer to them is that Air was not meant for you, just the way the iPod is lacking in features (FM radio, voice recorder, support for OGG, etc.) for some while the simplicity is more appealing to many others.

As another blogger put it, the Air is like a sporty convertible coupe. It is not practical for everyone, but for some it gets them from point A to point B in style and comfort. Now, when Apple lowers the price it will become even more popular, like the Mazda Miata. I suspect that the price is due in part to the processor that Apple had Intel custom build for them. 

I completed my Federal and State taxes last weekend online for a cost of $15. Instead of buying a copy of Quicken or TaxCut I did my entire reurn on online in my web browser using TaxAct which offers free Federal tax preparation and filing. Check out the video:

 

 

I have used TaxAct now for the last 3-4 years and have never had a problem. I am able to automatically import data from last year's return. They have a interview process similar to other tax prep software which automatically finds applicable deductions or alerts you if something is wrong or missing. I was able to get my state tax refund within a few days.

If you are not comfortable doing your taxes online, you can download their software as well. But if you bank onine, TaxAct uses the same type of secure encrypted connection. I first discovered them when I wanted to be able to file my taxes on a Linux computer and there are no tax programs for Linux that I am aware of. Also, I wanted an alternative to the pricey options from Intuit. I now use a Mac and had no problems.

TaxAct was very easy to use, yet very thorough and very reliable. I never had a dropped connection or errors online while completing my return. You have the option of printing and mailing your return if you want, but using e-file with direct deposit is probably the fastest way to get your money back from the government. 

The only negative I have about them is the additional large fee they charge you if you select the option to deduct the filing fee from your return. I think it is an extra $15. You are much better off paying the filing fee with your credit or debit card to avoid the fee.

TaxAct does not offer refund anticipation loans, but that is a good thing in my book. I think such loans are a waste of money. If you waited this long you can wait a little longer and save yourself some money.   

We have a G4 and a couple G5 PowerMac towers in use by the Quarterly and communications staff of the Alumnae Association. The Macs are still running strong. I recently upgraded them to Leopard and installed Microsoft Office 2008 without a hitch. Unfortunately , the offices are up on the third floor of Mary Woolley Hall where  they still have a 10 Mbps network. Because we are located in a College owned building and share the network with the Development offices the 10 Mbps switch or hub is beyond my control.

The cabling and switch were upgraded on the first and second floors when the offices were renovated last year. The networking department told me that they were going to upgrade the cabling and switch last summer along with the addition of some more outlets. However, that has not occurred yet. It is now February.

What was upgraded over the past year was the College's wireless network. There are now access points in every dorm and throughout the campus, except on the third floor of Mary Woolley but there is a signal that ranges between 20-40% in strength depending on where you are located.

With the wireless upgrades I thought the solution would be to install some Airport cards in the Power Macs and pull the computers off of the wired network, thinking that even with the reduced signal strength, going wireless would be faster.

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I have written previously about Google Docs in my posting regarding Microsoft Office Replacements. If you have not read it, check it out because there is a great video that explains the benefits of Google Docs and online collaboration. Google Docs inlcudes word processing, spreadsheet with graphing capabilities and presentation modules. Not only does Google Docs make the files more accessible, but it tracks revisions of the, too.

Google Apps is a collection of Google's online applications that include Google Docs, Talk, Gmail and Pages. However, in order to take full advantage of it you needed your own domain name that you were willing to dedicate to use with Google Apps. 

Now Google has a new version called Google Apps Team Edition that makes it even easier to work online more securely with your co-workers or classmates that have the same email domain address. Learn about Team Edition in two minutes with the following video:

 

 

If this is not cool enough, Google Docs integrates directly within Deki Wiki. Spreadsheets, graphs and charts can be embedded directly into wiki pages. In addition Google also offers a forms function that allows you to create a web form where the data is collected within a Google spreadsheet.

With the team edition you have to supply your own email service or use Gmail and access your work mail with it like I do. BTW, Gmail provides over 6 GB of space for your inbox and it is growing every day.

I've created a team edition account and will start introducing the service to other staff. I think it will offer a great way for staff, students, volunteers and faculty to work together online and when combined with Deki Wiki, it will be that much more of a powerful tool. 

One of the coolest features of Leopard Mac OS X 10.5 is Time Machine, the automatic file backup utility. This is the perfect tool for the person who does not regulary backp their system. You just need to purchase an extra drive and then set and forget Time Machine. By default it initially performs a full backup and then backs up your changed files every hour. Usually you do not notice that it is doing anything in he background unless you have a older Mac.

At work I use a dual core MacBook with an external Firewire drive and I only really notice that a backup is occuring when I am ready to leave and disconnect the drive. At home I have a single CPU 1.8 Ghz G5 Power Mac with 1 GB of RAM. I bought an extra sata 320 GB internal drive that I configured Time Machine to use. Even with a internal SATA drive I noticed when files were being backed up. It can be a drag on the system. I can imagine it would be much more noticeable on lesser systems.

I do not use my home computer as often and really do not need it backed up every hour, but Time Machine is so streamlined (som may say "dumbed down" that there are no options to adjust when a backup occurs, at least until now.

 

 

I found the Time Machine Scheduler. A free simple utility that allows you to schedule backups between one and 12 hours. It was easy to install and set up. I scheduled it to backup evey six hours which is a lot more  often than I use to and is a lot less painful. I still get my files backed up, although not as often, but there is less of a drag on my system which I appreciate. Even with the scheduler, Time Machin eis still the easiest means of backing up your files.

Do you get tangled up in your headphone cable or pull your computer off the desk because you forgot that you are connected to it with your headphones? Some of my co-workers do and asked me about wireless headphones or headsets for use with Skype and music or streaming web audio.

Wireless headphones have until recently costs over a hundred dollars, whereas, a USB wired headset from Logitech costs $30. Mono Bluetooth headsets sold for use with cellphones might work, but they are mono and not so suitable for music.

Fortunately, Staples (which I cannot find now) was offering the Jabra BT620s Bluetooth stereo headset for $30. You can get it for $38 on Amazon. These headphones had cost over twice as much at $78 or so. Motorola sells comparable headphones for $99.

I ordered the Jabra headset and have tested it out with my MacBook. It was fairly easy to pair with the headset. It took a couple attempt, but once it was connected it worked very well. 

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