Recently in Technology Category

Just got done watching this afternoon's Red Wings/Avalanche game (hooray) and I wonder how I survived without having a DVR before now. Sure, taping programs on a VCR was always possible, but I often overlooked it, or forgot a step, or just got lazy and didn't bother. But using a DVR is so easy, there's no good reason for a lazy sports geek like me to miss another playoff or football game that I want to watch.

Not being home or doing other things is no longer a detriment -- in fact it's an advantage because watching a game when it's so easy to skip intermissions and commercials makes the viewing so much faster.

About the only downside to this technology is from an advertisers point of view. They are going to have to get much more creative in how they reach viewers as more and more of us discover the advantages of these things. Of course, watching something live is probably still advantageous... but no longer necessary.

 

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I've been very lucky as a computer owner so far. While I've always had good intentions about doing hard drive backups, I'm usually lucky to perform a full backup more than a few times every year. My photos and music I keep backed up pretty well, but even those I tend to get behind on. So far, every hard drive crash I've had has been either recoverable enough to grab the data off of the non-damaged parts of the drive or gave enough warning so I could get things backed up.

Thanks to Costco and their coupons, I've purchased a couple USB hard drives the past couple of years for my backups. But never did get around to using them in an organized fashion. Realizing the error of my ways before it was too late, I tried setting up some regular backups this week but got very frustrated with Windows native version (backing up too much stuff) and McAfee's (takes way too long and is annoying).

Yesterday, I found SyncBack SE - and, so far at least, it's just what I've been looking for. It has the ability to do what I want -- select exactly the files I want backed up and do it quickly.

I'm not a great reviewer-- but check out their 30 day trial for yourself to see what this thing can do. This product is going to help me join the daily backup club - finally.

 

Oh, and how 'bout those Tigers?!? Finally got their first win tonight!!!

 

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I found it interesting a couple weeks ago when my Apple software update requested a push of the Safari browser to my Windows computer. It was identified as an 'update', but since I'd never used Safari it was a brand new install for me. Apple is kind of doing a Microsoft with this push of their browser -- although I had the option to decline the installation, I bet many others didn't think much about it, just like when Apple pushes updates to Itunes that include Quicktime software. I'm sure there are going to be complaints about the way Apple is force feeding Safari to anyone using Itunes on Windows.

As a loyal Firefox fan, I haven't really put Safari through the paces much, mostly because I don't like the way it handles tabs. With Firefox, you have the option of opening new web sites in tabs instead of new windows without adding extra keystrokes. In Safari, you've got to add a Ctrl to prevent links from opening in new windows. That should be an option for the user to select easily, but I can't find it. And if it takes me more than a few minutes to figure out something that should be very easy, I tend to go back to the old familiar software. I'm probably just missing something.

A couple of nice things to mention -- Safari is way faster than Internet Exploder Explorer and Firefox version 2. The beta 5 version of Firefox 3 seems to be almost as quick as Safari -- and with the add-ons I'm using, I still prefer Firefox 3 over Safari even looking past my issue with tabs. Also, I like the fact that I can test web page layouts on Safari now without having to find someone with a Mac. I'm guessing that Safari for Windows and Safari for Mac still have some differences, but for the relatively low numbers of Safari users, it's not a major concern.

Having competition for Internet Explorer is a good thing. I stopped using IE as my primary browser while the original version of Firefox was still in beta. And although Microsoft has caught up a little by adding tabbed browsing, it still seems to me to load pages much slower than FF. Microsoft's software overhead is a killer in IE.

Hopefully this competition for users will keep pushing the development of better web browsers that make the things faster, more stable, and even more feature-rich.

 

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Now that the US Department of Justice has approved the merger of satellite radio providers XM and Sirius, the only remaining regulatory hurdle is the blessing of the FCC. That's expected to happen before the end of April by many that regularly follow these kinds of deals closely. So it's pretty clear that there will be one company running sat rad in the US, probably using the names of both services for at least awhile.

What's not known is when new radios will be released that are capable of picking up programming from both XM and Sirius. Or if that'll even be necessary. A somewhat common theory is that pretty quickly there will be a consolidation of a number of "duplicate" channels and those that remain will be offered on both XM and Sirius. Some of the more obvious choices would be things like the talk channels that carry the same programming, the decades music channels, and some of the mainstream-type channels in the big formats like country, rock, and pop music.

While changes are nothing new when it comes to radio, I'm a little concerned about one of my favorites, XM's "60's on 6". Both XM and Sirius offer great personalities on their 60's channels - XM with Phlash Phelps in the morning and Terry Young in afternoons and Sirius with Cousin Brucie on weekends and one weekday evening. Hopefully, the powers that be at Sirius (who will apparently control the new entity) won't just blow up everything labeled XM in favor of what they are most familiar with. Combining the best of both channels would create an even better offering -- and hopefully keep subscribers instead of driving them away.

The thing that most intrigues me about this merger is the possibility to have one subscription that would give access to all the sports programming on both XM and Sirius. Having Michigan football (currently only on Sirius) would be great when traveling outside of the regular radio coverage area. That goes for the NFL and NASCAR too -- and coupled with XM's MLB and NHL channels... there'd be access to just about any game anywhere. My guess is that the marketing potential of this to sports fans (like me) will be huge. There probably are a lot of fans that have held off on subscribing because of the current split in available programming.

While overall I'm glad that it looks like satellite radio will survive now that they'll be able to join forces, I'm still a little apprehensive about losing some of my favorites that are currently on XM. I just hope that the managers of a combined XM and Sirius learn from all the mistakes that regular radio continues to make in only worrying about cutting people and budgets...

 

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Earlier this winter I decided to purchase a new digital camera that could handle an external flash because I was getting tired of editing pictures to get red eye out of them. That is the biggest drawback of using point and shoot cameras - the flash is just too close to the lens and red eye is the most common problem with my flash photos.

Once I received the new camera, I had a Canon Powershot S80 that I could either keep around as a backup, or find someone to sell it to. When I checked with a couple brick and mortar camera stores, they expressed no interest in buying used digital point and shoots. The technology changes so fast that even though the S80 was just less than two years it was already pretty outdated technology. The folks at Woodward Camera in Birmingham were great though -- they recommended a website, KEH.com, that buys and sells all kinds of photography equipment.

The process of selling my camera was very straightforward - I completed their estimate form and got a quote which could have been either accepted or rejected. After accepting, you're given shipping instructions and then just wait for them to evaluate your equipment to make sure you've accurately represented the quality and condition of the gear. After that, they sent an e-mail with a final offer, which again could be accepted or rejected. I accepted and within a few days I had my check.

I liked this process a whole lot better than e-bay, mostly because there wasn't any real worry about a bounced check or dealing with an individual that might be looking to pull a fast one. Because I trust Woodward Camera, it gave me confidence in dealing with KEH.com. My confidence was rewarded and I can now highly recommend them to anyone that's looking to sell used camera gear.

And again I'd like to give a shout out to Woodward Camera -- although you can find better prices at places like Amazon, the service at Woodward can more than make up for it in the long run.

 

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When I purchased a new computer last fall, it of course came with Windows Vista pre-installed. Even though it came with a wide-screen monitor, I turned off the sidebar feature almost right away when I didn't find anything worth my while to keep open all the time on it. After months of being annoyed by notifications for the Weather Channel's Desktop Weather app that I had running in the taskbar, I finally switched on the sidebar this week to load a weather app that wouldn't annoy me.

Turns out, the best sidebar gadget (for me anyhow) has been out there waiting to revolutionize my desktop. Some very nice person created the XM Online Radio gadget. Granted, you have to be an XM subscriber, but for me this is the most convenient thing since e-mail was created. It just sits there ready to login to XM at a moment's notice and start playing music. No having to login to the web site and worry about keeping browser windows open. I can get my 60's on 6 fix anytime.

I've always been a full-screen person when running most applications - and for me to give up screen space all the time... well, it's saying something for how much I like this thing. Now, someone's gotta come up with something for chat programs like Google Talk and Gizmo to live in the sidebar too...

 

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It's been years now that we've been hearing about how wireless Internet is going to become available everywhere at reasonable prices, or better yet, free. At the pace technology moves forward, it's pretty obvious that this concept is being stalled somewhere and, surprisingly to me, it's still going to be a long while before those statements even come close to being true. What we do have now is a mishmash of wireless services- some of it free (and barely functional along with being a security risk), the rest of it proprietary. Random hotspots here and there just don't match what's been promised for years.

The cell phone companies have started to embrace the technology, but only for their customers (duh). Having the proper hardware and service packages to make it really useful on anything other than a phone handset is still something few can afford each month on top of paying for wired service at home. Most will tell you that the quality of this service varies widely, where it's available. It's carrier dependent along with location dependent. I recognize that it takes time and money to build this kind of network -- but why would I spend premium bucks for a non-premium service? If I'm gonna pay, I want to work in northern Michigan as well as here in metro Detroit. As well as work throughout my house on multiple computers (at a comparable price to my cable modem costs).

There have been countless stories about county governments trying to make widespread wireless available -- only thing is, those plans are now at least two years behind schedule and show no signs of ever getting done. And again, I'm not convinced the free service they promise would even be worth the bother.

Because of my interest in radio and broadcasting, I can certain identify that medium as one that would face a serious revolution if wireless Internet became as transparent as FM signals are today. If the infrastructure was there, there would be a huge demand for devices to pick up Internet broadcasts in your car or anyplace else where you don't necessarily have a computer but still want to listen to your favorite web stream. It'd probably revolutionize phone service all over again too.

It's interesting that more progress hasn't been made on this front. Is it because wired Internet providers are providing enough value so that customers don't care enough to push it along? Are there still doubts about how many customers there would be? Or are the companies that could really push this technology along more interested in getting as much money out of their current wire-based services and just willing to wait for the next Google to come along to really force the issue?

 

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