International CES 2012

International CES 2012 gave us a lot to look forward to. Of all the WOW products we saw, the larger, brighter and more colorful OLED TV displays from LG and Samsung took top honors. “Smart” Internet-connected TVs link you to everything from movies to photos to YouTube and much more.

“Smart” phones have terrific new features too: Samsung Notes, with a built-in drawing screen lets you write or draw freehand--just use its stylus and go wild. Nokia and others offer much improved 8-megapixel cameras.

Home automation technology is big, and now there are common control formats. Lights, heating/AC, security, entertainment and more are at your command with a tap on your smart phone or iPad screen; do it all from home, across town or anywhere in the world.

Home wireless networks are better than ever. NetGear introduced dual-band wireless routers, range extenders and a media server that can simultaneously play video, show pictures and backup your systems. NetGear’s Genie software helps make sense of your whole setup.

Fun and useful gadgets were everywhere: surveillance remote control helicopters and cars, glitzy cases, a cool charging device on a small loop doubling as a stylish bracelet. Some here, some coming soon, but you’ll love ‘em all.

Future technology was there too, with eye-tracking and hand or body motion control for your computer or TV set, with all kinds of possibilities for gamers, disabled and many others.

Lots more to come--here and on our Web site http://www.norma-tony.com

Tech Gift Ideas for the Holidays

Apple iPad 2 ($499, WiFi) is our top choice. It’s a tablet computer that lets you surf the Internet, send and receive email, double as an eReader, take photos and HD video, display your location, keep your calendar, play games and hundred of thousands of other things using apps available from the App Store free or to buy.

Another good choice: eReaders. Amazon’s Kindle ($79+) and Barnes and Noble’s Nook ($99+) are the most popular. Both offer access to a huge selection of books, magazines and the like. Some versions include Internet browsing capability, photo slide shows and more.

Tablet computers or cell phones users will like the Breffo Spiderpodium ($16+). Eight bendable legs to configure as a stand or wrapped around poles will hold a device in the position needed.





Looking to spend less? Check out USB thumb drives (2GB to 124GB, $10+). They come as a Swarovski crystal pendant, hidden in a Swiss Army Knife, in mini animal or character statuettes, a pen, shaped as surf boards and lots of other shapes.

How about Just Dance 2 or 3 ($40) for the Wii gaming console?   Great for fun exercise or just dancing.

Digital Photo Picture Frames ($59+): Just add photos for a personal gift they’ll love.

It’s OK to give a useful gift too: Rebit ($179, 2TB), a backup system to safeguard all computer files; details in previous posting below.

More on each of these on our web site at www.norma-tony.com.

Easy Backup and Recovery

We’ve been doing manual backups of everything on our computers forever. The process takes a lot of time, but we don’t want to deal with what can happen when you have no backups . .

We wanted a simpler way to secure our computer info and aren’t comfortable just yet with “Cloud” backup, so when Norma switched to the Mac world, there it was: the Time Machine: continuous backup to an external hard drive. No muss, fuss or bother--but a huge timesaver when the dreaded hard drive failure happened. 

 After that, we searched for a similar way to secure Tony’s PC. We found Rebit (Rebit, Inc., 2TB $180, www.rebit.com) backup hard drive and recovery software, which backs up everything on your PC-—and keeps on doing it with every file you create or change. Ditto system files and the like.

Disaster recovery is easy. If your PC suffers a hard drive crash, just install a new hard drive and boot the computer with the included Rebit Recovery CD. You can select the point in time you want to restore from (usually the most recent), and your hard drive is restored exactly as it was at that time.

Rebit is a must have for easy, ease-of-mind backup and recovery. We did notice a modest slowdown in performance in Tony’s PC, but we think it’s a small price to pay for knowing we can recover what we need if we have a computer problem (again). There’s more info at: http://www.norma-tony.com/093011.htm

Google Calendar - Free and Easy

“Free” and “Easy” are part of what makes Google Calender (www.google.com/calendar) a terrific help in keeping you organized. Use it to add single events (Little League game, doctor appointment), recurring events (birthdays, anniversaries, other yearly events), or monthly or weekly activities. Make it fun, decorate with a birthday cake, soccer ball . . . you get the idea.

Display business, personal, organization calendars and the like by different colors, separately or with all calendars together, by day, week or month. Google saves your calendar on its cloud servers, ready to use any time, from anywhere.
 

 

Share your calendar with family, friends, business associates or organization members, sync with your desktop calendar, access it on the go or print a hard copy. It’s available in 40 languages and tracks appointments across time zones.

Need to set up meetings between members of your organization? Just pick a date and time, and Google Calendar checks each member’s calendars; if that time and date is clear, it adds the event to each person’s calendar. If not, it suggests alternate “clear” times for everyone. Saves all those phone calls or emails.

Ditto for a family or school reunions and the like. Or use the calendar to send invitations and track replies.

Google Calender can send you reminders of events via email, text message or a popup window and lets you add a mini-version to your Internet browser’s home page so it is always there.

No excuse not to get organized now. Free and easy works! More info in our column at www.norma-tony.com

Searching The Internet: Tips And Tricks

You know the information is on the Internet somewhere, but with BILLIONS of Web pages and sites, how do you find what you want?

Use search engines -- those specialized Web sites such as Google.com, Yahoo.com, Bing.com or ask.com. Enter words or phrases related to info you want, and the search engine displays a list of Web sites that include your search words or phrases.

Each search engine has its own set of rules so may not display the same results. Try more than one site or use meta search engines, such as Metacrawler.com or DogPile.com, which simultaneously search several search engines.

Or, narrow your search by using:

* phrases in quotes that search for a whole phrase rather than individual words.

* the + or - signs to include or exclude specific words.

* advanced search to specify languages, file formats or other parameters.

* a wild card symbol * when not sure of word ending.

* natural language, such as “My computer locks up when I try to save a Word document to a thumb drive.”

* a comprehensive list of search engines www.search-engine-index.co.uk.

* parental controls for safe searching; also www.askkids.com.

* help menu from each site.

Be patient and persistent to get results.

Explore (surf) the Internet with www.awwwards.com for sites that have won awards for good design and useful content, or try www.stumbleupon.com. But be sure your anti-virus and anti-malware is installed and up to date.

Fun, Creative Story Writing Using Technology

We’ve discovered some terrific programs that can spark the creative spirit in children and give parents and grandparents hours of fun watching what happens:

StoryBird book cover

Storybird (www.storybird.com) encourages building a story from a set of images you drag and drop onto the page and then add text to develop the story. The images are wonderful, drawn by professional artists and are mostly “open ended,” suggesting multiple interpretations. Create as many pages as you want, rearrange or edit and save.

An added value is in getting two or more children to toss ideas back and forth and collaborate on a project. They’ll have a ball doing it. Publish the story free on the Storybird website to share and have others comment on, or pay a fee and have it printed as a keepsake.

Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu) lets you create interactive stories, games, fun animation and more, all while learning some principles of logic programming by snapping together color coded blocks that represent various commands. 

Commands control the actions of on-screen figures, sound, music and narration, take input from the keyboard or mouse and more. Children soon get beyond the nuts-and-bolts of programming commands to the fun of interactive story creation.

Zooburst (www.zooburst.com) lets you write stories and illustrate them with provided images, which can be assembled into a 3-D pop-up page viewed on screen. For even more fun, add pop-up text balloons or record your voice, speaking as a character when clicked or, using a webcam, include yourself surrounded by the 3-D story characters.

These are fun ways for youngsters–or adults--to create stories.

Free Music From the Internet

A great choice of free music is available to stream from music services such as Pandora, or Spotify, allowing you to listen to a vast selection without having to rip CDs or copy files.

Spotify (www.spotify.com) is new in this country and offers streaming music from a choice of more than 15 million songs.

Spotify offers several choices: What’s New details newly-released albums, including album art and track listing. Top Lists show the hottest tracks or albums chosen by other users. Feed connects to other users to share new finds or playlists and the latest news from Spotify.

We used the provided free software to build playlists by dragging and dropping tracks. Play for enjoyment, share with friends using Facebook, or sync the playlists with your iPod, iPhone, Android or (soon) iPad.

Spotify’s free version includes ads and a time limit. Premium version ($9.99/month) has no ads, unlimited access, enhanced sound quality and allows streaming to mobile devices.

Pandora (www.pandora.com) takes a different approach. Custom “radio stations” are created after you enter an artist, song or genre that’s used to match more than 100 characteristics to produce a playlist for you.

Refine the selections by indicating those you like or don’t. You won’t see the playlist, and selections are randomized, but when we used Pandora, we were usually happy with their selections.

The free version lets you set up radio stations and stream music, has a time limit, and includes ads. Pandora One ($36/yr) offers unlimited time, no ads and improved quality sound. Mobile versions are available for iPhone, iPad and iPod.