Friday Night Links (12/11/2009)…

Alright, in The Digitante family, numbers pretty much rule our lives. Me and Mrs. Digitante went to school for math and statistics, we work in math oriented fields, and we do calculus each night before we go to bed. No need to get rusty on those integration skills. Please note when I say ‘integration,’ I obviously don’t mean integration into society. Who would want to hang with a math nerd like me?

Anyway, since this IS the FNL, we are going to go easy with the numbers. Here you go:

• 10 Signs You Are a Social Media Douchebag (http://thedig.in/7r) – What is social media? Facebook and Twitter are two prominent examples. Pretty much anything that is meant to intertwine peoples’ lives together. Unfortunately some people don’t really know how to treat those around them and its never more obvious than when they are online.
• Top 10 of Everything in 2009 (http://thedig.in/7s) – They say everything, but I’m not sure they ACTUALLY mean everything. However, they’ve covered quite a bit of what happened over the last year. It might take awhile, but I”m going to plow through all 500 entries.
• 10 Laptop Tools for a Road Warrior (http://thedig.in/7t) – If you do any work on a laptop, this list is very helpful for everything from accessing your home computer from the road to various tools for managing your battery life. I especially like the Firefox extension for tracking your laptop’s location.
• 5 Memorable Sports Tweets (http://thedig.in/7u) – I follow quite a few celebrities on Twitter, but somehow I missed all these tweets. Plus the list was put together former Indiana Pacer great, Jalen Rose. My favorite is the Sports Guy tweet. Given that I have two little daughters, I’m going to have to heed his advice and keep a copy of Taken around.

Gifts for Your Techie: Sky's the Limit…

Alright, we’ve covered everything up to $1,000, so now its time to cover the things that most people just dream of. However, I’ll try to keep them somewhat practical (no, I’m not going to toss up a corporate jet or an island in the Pacific).

On to the big ticket items:

• Panasonic 65″ Plasma HDTV – So last night I linked to a nice plasma TV for about $650. For Sky’s the Limit night, there is no reason you wouldn’t just find the largest TV you can. Your immediate first thought is, ’65” is way to large for my livingroom’, but just let me tell you: it will seem much smaller once you get it in there. We have a 60″ HDTV (not plasma and not $4,000) and in retrospect, we should have opted for the 70″.

  

• Complete Home Theater System – Are you really going to watch that HD movie on those flimsy little speakers built into the side of your brand new 65″ plasma? I sure hope not. A Denon receiver with Definitive Technology speakers is the only way to go. With a setup like this, you can almost HEAR Happy Gilmore hitting the golf ball.

  

• Apple MacBook Pro 17-Inch Laptop – Giant screen? Check. Thin aluminum chassis? Check. Multitouch buttonless trackpad? Check. Backlit keys and LED screen? Check. Swollen sense of self-worth? Check. Bank account with lots of dollars in it? :cricket, cricket: This is a beautiful laptop and possibly one of the most desirable for most people. And really, how can you put a price tag on being awesome?

  

So there you have it, everything from sub-$100 to 5-digit home theater systems. If you want to check out all the posts in this series, just use the “gifts” tag.

If you have any other gift ideas with hefty price tags, be sure to leave a comment.

Gifts for Your Techie: $400-1,000…

So far, I’ve covered gift ideas under $100 and gift ideas from $100 to $399 for the gadget lover in your life. We’re continuing on with gifts in the range from $400 to $1,000. Here you start getting into purchases that you make once every 5 years or so. These ideas are also a bit more dynamic, especially laptops and desktop computers, since manufacturers will have the same basic model, but will add larger hard disk drives and more RAM on almost a weekly basis as costs for those items drop. However, these suggestions should give you a nice starting point and will prep us for tomorrow’s post – Sky’s the Limit (aka gifts over $1,000).

Here we go:

• Nikon D5000 Digital SLR Camera – I actually own the previous generation to this camera and will totally vouch for it. I bought it to capture our little girls growing up and thus far it has done admirably, considering we have a couple of thousand pictures we’ve taken in about a year. The biggest advancement since we purchased our model is the addition of HD movie recording.

  

• Toshiba Satellite – The biggest selling point on this laptop is its battery life. It tips the scale (according to Toshiba anyway) at over 9 hours of battery life. More realistically, with WiFi on, working with programs, and keeping the screen at a reasonable brightness, you might get closer to 6 hours, but that is still better than any laptop I’ve ever owned by about 3-4 hours.

  

• Panasonic VIERA 42-Inch Plasma HDTV – If you have browsed around this site, I hope you have checked out the In Action! section. A couple of months ago, I helped my buddy, Mr. G, pick out a brand new plasma HDTV. This is the TV that he ended up getting. He was just telling my the other night that he is so happy with it and everybody comments on how good it looks. Panasonic plasmas are pretty much the best TVs you can buy right now. Don’t let anyone tell you that LCD is better; its just not true.

  

Have any great suggestions of your own? Have an opinion on a camera, laptop, or TV in the $400-1,000 range? Feel a need to lash out at the world on a technology blog? Then leave a comment below.

Friday Night Links (10/2/2009)…

A couple things before we get to the links.

You will notice that as in the past, I’ll post the link in the little title of what I’m linking to. I’ll also have in parenthesis a shortlink that will allow you to post anything cool you find on Twitter or Facebook. You can even email the shortlink to your friends. Just be sure to tell them The Digitante sent you.

Also, if you just aren’t getting enough links during your week, I’m going to try to post a link or two per day on The Digitante Twitter account. To follow The Digitante, you can click that link or there is a follow button over in the right column of the blog. If you want to see what The Digitante is up to, but you don’t have a Twitter account, you can learn how to sign up by reading one of my first ever blog posts.

If you need any other ways to keep up, you can always become a fan on Facebook.

Off to the links:

• Traveler IQ Challenge (http://thedig.in/1u) – This little game requires the ancient arts of reading quickly, clicking accurately, and remembering stuff from elementary school. And you wondered why I said “ancient.” You can choose various regions, flags, and photos to challenge even the most superior of intellects. You can also slap the quiz on your Facebook profile, but if you don’t want to clutter things up, you can just post the shortlink.
• IgNobel Prizes (http://thedig.in/1o) – The Nobel Prizes are handed out each year to a select group of individuals who change their world for the better. The IgNobel Prizes are handed out each year to a select group of individuals who change their world, somehow. Whether it is a bra that converts to two gas masks (one for the young lady and one for the lucky chap nearby), research on the relative damage caused by both full and empty beer bottles (both can fracture a skull), or an Irish cop who issued 50 tickets to Prawo Jadzy (which means “driver’s license” in Polish). These are the awards for the rest of us.
• Exoplanet Rains Pebbles (http://thedig.in/1v) – This is rather amazing. The planet revolves around another star far away from here. It orbits so close that the rocky side facing the star melts and evaporates, just like water in a lake or ocean. When the planet rotates and the shadow cools the evaporated rock, it forms clouds and rains, just like the water on earth. It sounds like it is straight out of a scifi book. Also, I want to go there.
• Dell Latitude Z (http://thedig.in/1x) – At a hair over 1/2″ thick and no cord needed to charge it, this laptop is a beautiful thing. The biggest drawback is the $2,000+ drained from your bank account. A guy can dream, right?

Bonus!

Last night, I told you about Google Wave. I told you I didn’t really understand what it was. There was an 80 minute video that shows what it can do, but I don’t have the time to watch it right now. Fortunately, I can across this two-minute video where a guy explains what Google Wave does and how it can help you. (http://thedig.in/1y)

Technological Convenience vs. Function…

In addition to this lovely blog, I do a bit of consulting. In working with a client, I ran into an issue that I’ve bumped into before: convenience vs. function.

It is nice to have a device such as the iPhone that functions as a phone, internet portal, gaming machine, music player, GPS, and the list goes on and on. However, it becomes very dangerous to take your phone, internet portal, gaming machine, and GPS with you to the gym where it could easily get water from a bottle dumped on it or get dropped on the treadmill. It would be much less risky to have a dedicated music player at a cost of $50 that can take a drop or be cheaply replaced if needed.

This is where the battle of convenience vs. function starts heating up.

Some scenarios

There are a couple of ways to approach this and all approaches are going to depend on who you are and your personal preferences.

Personally, I prefer to have high-functioning gadgets. I like my phone to have a long battery life. I like my music player to be small. I like to be able to put away the games when it is time to buckle down and work. I like to have my GPS set up and ready to go. I like to be able to view the internet on a nice large screen and not have to squint and zoom all the time.

For this reason, I have chosen function, even if it means carrying around a number of devices. Typically, I have to carry my phone and my music player when I head to the gym. If I’m going on a car trip, I usually take my phone, my GPS, and my laptop. I’ve decided that having all these devices along for the ride is worth hauling around the extra equipment.

Others are willing to accept some compromises for the sake of convenience. I mentioned the iPhone: while it does all of the above, it took a LONG time before it had full GPS capabilities, the cellphone reception is a common complaint, and playing games on it (especially graphic intensive ones) will drain your battery rather quickly. However, based on the fact that it is one of the most popular and desirable phones out there means that people are willing to compromise or are actually completely willing to overlook some of the faults in the name of convenience.

Real life

As I mentioned, I was working with a client recently and they had a 4-in-1 printer, fax, copier, scanner combo. After looking at it, I determined that there was something wrong with the scanner – most likely a burnt out motor or some other broken part. The printer still functioned fine, but the copying, faxing, and scanning functions were all shot. If they had opted for a scanner and a printer as two separate devices, they could have replaced one or the other instead of having to replace a broken item plus an item that was still in great working condition.

After talking it over with them, it was decided that they valued having extra clear space on their desk and one device that did it all, so they picked up a new 4-in-1 combo device. On the upside, they do plan on donating the old combo device to someone who doesn’t care too much about the scanning function and just needs a great printer.

What items cause this debate for you?

It doesn’t have to be technology even: Do you want a sturdy, solid screwdriver that can be used to put in a single type of screw, or do you want a multi-driver that can put in many types of screws but requires you to keep an eye on lots of little bits?

If you have your own debates, you can share them in the comments below. If this is your first time commenting, your comment won’t show up right away, but as soon as I know who you are, your comments should show up immediately in the future.

If you need help deciding what direction to head in the convenience vs. function debate, you can contact me, The Digitante by heading to the About page and sending an email, or you can click the Google Voice widget to the right and be connected to me to discuss your options on the phone.

Friday Night Links (8/14/2009)…

Before we jump to the links, I went with my buddy Mr. B to help him navigate the crazy world of cell phones. He has had his same phone for a while and was due for new customer pricing on a new one. He ended up getting the Palm Pre and I documented the whole thing for a new installment of In Action! with The Digitante.

The most exciting part of the trip was chatting with the Sprint rep (Kelly, I think?). I complained about the fact that I can’t tether my phone and she gave us an insider tip: the Palm Pre is getting a soft keyboard (on-screen keyboard) tomorrow, as far as she has heard. She said it will be free as well. This is big news considering that someone was so diligently hacking away to make one themselves.

Alright, on to the links:

• Build an air hockey table – For less than $100? Sign me up. A crappy table is $400 and a good one is over $1,000, so this is a heck of a deal.
• Battery monitoring – I’ve mentioned before, the shortest lifespan component on a computer is usually going to be the battery. Charging and discharging is really hard on a laptop’s battery and BatteryCare gives you the heads up on how worn out it is. Tons of features here, so pick it up if you have a laptop.
• iPhone deposits – USAA Bank (for military, ex-military, and army brats) will allow you to take a picture of your check to be cashed, upload it, and deposit it in your account. All you have to do is tear the check up! My credit union definitely needs this.
• Spotify – Spotify is a streaming music aggregation service. I haven’t checked it out yet, but the review is pretty comprehensive and I want to it out as it seems very intriguing.

Update: it appears that Spotify is currently available outside the US but is only available in the US by private invitation. I’ll update later if I find out more information.

CD/DVD driveless…

The title of this post might sound strange, but let me explain: as netbooks continue to grow in popularity and laptops get thinner and thinner, the first thing to leave in order to cut girth and weight is the CD/DVD drive. This might seem like the end of the world when it comes to installing programs from CDs or DVDs, but it really isn’t. With a couple of tools, you will be back in business in no time.

1) A drive

The drive can be on any computer: at work, at your friend’s, at school. Of course the rest of this post could be moot if you jump over to Newegg and just by an external drive for $50-90. However, since most programs are going to be downloadable, you may end up using an external drive a very limited amount of the time.

2) Create an image

An image file (also called an ISO image) is an exact copy of a CD or DVD. Imagine that you are told to copy a phrase that is written out in Russian. You couldn’t read what you are writing, but you can look at it and make a pretty good rendition. This is how an image works: the program doesn’t care what files are on the disc, it just wants to make another disc that looks just like the current one.

To get that image file on the computer, you can download a program called ImgBurn. One of the options is to “Create an image file from disc.” Be sure you have plenty of space on your hard drive since an image file can be up to 700Mb for a CD and up to 4.2Gb for a DVD.

3) A CD or DVD

Duh. Pop that thing in and fire up ImgBurn.

4) A USB flashdrive

This is the most convenient way to transfer your hot, fresh image file to your driveless laptop or netbook. Other possibilities are to copy it over a network, send it by Bluetooth, or use other storage media such as an SD card. However, you intend to move it, be sure you have plenty of space or bandwidth.

5) Mount the image

If that phrase sounded like foreign phrase, let me explain. When you normally pop in a CD or DVD, you computer scans that disc and shows you what is on it. In computer terms, the computer has mounted the CD or DVD. Since the image is of a CD or DVD, your computer can mount an image file with a little help.

The recommended software for this is called Virtual CloneDrive. After installing Virtual CloneDrive, navigate to your image file, right click, and there should be a menu item for Virtual CloneDrive which has options to either mount or unmount (unmount is like ejecting the CD or DVD).

Once mounted, the image should behave just like there is a CD or DVD in the drive.

Not so bad

Now you can have the best of both worlds: a nice thin, light laptop and all the latest and greatest programs that you need to be productive. If you feel like this is something you would like to learn how to do on your new laptop or netbook, feel free to contact The Digitante by either email or phone by visiting the About page.

Back to school: Computer…

I’ve already covered actually purchasing a computer, covering laptop vs desktop, operating systems, and some light technical information on what to look for in a computer. This post will be a little different.

How long?

The first question you have to ask is, “How long do you plan on having this computer?” For most people, the answer is going to be a least 4 years to coincide with the amount of time you will be off at college. To get a computer that will last for 4 years, you certainly need to spend more than $400 on a laptop. Probably the sweet spot would be $1,000-1,500 for something like a Dell Studio or MacBook. One part of a laptop that will probably need to be replaced at some point during your tenure is the battery. Generally, batteries out-live their useful life after 2-4 years depending on the quality of the battery. If you mostly use your laptop plugged in, you may never have to replace your battery.

Match your computer to your major

While you could certainly survive art school with a Windows PC, most of your classmates are going to have Macs, so you might want to make collaboration easier on yourself and your classmates. Some general guidelines on the operating system and computer type by major would be as follows:

• Art – A Mac is probably going to be most popular. If you plan on doing major graphic design or 3D animation, you may need to go even more extreme and get a Mac Pro desktop. Recently, creating a Linux-based render farm has become much more popular but may be major overkill, especially if crammed in a tiny dorm-room.
• Engineering – A Windows desktop or laptop will be the main staple in engineering. Some Unix systems will probably be used but those will be provided in a lab setting.
• English – The operating system is not as important here as a comfortable keyboard. The easiest way to find the appropriate computer is to go to a store and try as many computers as possible.
• Teaching – Don’t worry, you don’t need a computer! You might want to stock up on glitter and paste though.

The big caveat when shopping for a computer now days is something called a virtual machine. Basically, it is a simulated computer running on your computer. An example would be if you have a Mac and you need to run Windows, you could download a program such as VirtualBox (free) and purchase and load a copy of Windows. About the only restriction here is that you can’t load a Mac virtual machine, unfortunately, since Apple does not sell licenses to use a Mac on non-Apple hardware.

If you decide to go with virtual machine, be sure to load up on RAM since you have to allocate RAM to the regular operating system and the virtual operating system. Example, if you have 4 Gb of RAM and you allocate 1.5 Gb to your virtual machine, you will have 2.5 Gb remaining for the regular machine. If you allocate too much to the virtual machine, your computer will crash.

I plan on going more in depth into virtual machines in a future post, including how they can save your computer from viruses.

The deals

Now that we’ve covered the basics of what you need for a computer, let’s find some deals:

• If you do plan on getting a Mac, note that students can get a free iPod Touch with their purchase. You can find the details of the program at that link.
• For a reasonably priced computer, the Dell Studio lineup is a good computer. Personally, the 15 and 17 inchers are a bit much for me since they are a bit bulky for lugging around, but the Studio 14z would be an excellent place to start.
• If you are solely looking for portability and battery life, the Acer Timeline series is very light and thin. Their 14″ model is 1″ thick and touts 8 hours of battery life.
• For those with time on their hands, a couple of the best sites to find some amazing deals are TechBargains and xp Bargains.

Why don’t you call me some time when you have no class?

You didn’t think you were getting out of here without a Thornton Melon quote, did you?

Anyway, if you have a bunch of information swimming in your head concerning your options for a computer for back to school, be sure to give The Digitante a call to discuss your options by calling or email from the About page.

Internet on the go…

So being on vacation without internet this past week makes me appreciate having my own stable, working internet connection at my house. I’ve got an awesome Linksys WRT54GL wireless router loaded up with Tomato firmware and broadband internet by Brighthouse. My appreciation is accentuated by the fact that my parents are currently suffering through an outage of their internet.

Its not to say I didn’t have the opportunity to use the internet while vacationing, it is more that I didn’t feel that I wanted to pay $14.95 a day for the privilege. However, there are a number of options for internet while traveling, so I thought I’d highlight a few.

At the airport!

Indianapolis’s brand new airport has bucked the trend of most airports by offering free WiFi (wireless internet) in its terminals. San Francisco on the other hand, is more traditional and offers T-mobile HotSpots which are $10 a month for T-mo cell phone users and will cost the rest of us $8 for 24 hours of access.

On the plane!

A blogger named Paul Stamatiou wrote about his use of WiFi on Airtran’s new GoGo Inflight Internet equipped planes. Fortunately, Southwest Airlines, which we were flying, has WiFi equipped planes. Unfortunately, our flight was not one of them (there are about a dozen per day). Opinions on WiFi equipped planes are split pretty evenly between those who feel that a flight is a nice time to disconnect and relax and those who want to catch up on email, Twitter, and Facebook during their couple of hours in the sky.

At the hotel!

People always find this one bizarre until you think about it: a cheap hotel with no amenities offers free WiFi while a luxury hotel that has spas, sparkling water, and a gym charges exorbitant rates to use theirs. Seems backward until you think about it. A Days Inn is going to mostly have families on a budget staying there. These families can make due without internet until they make it to Grandma’s house. On the other hand, guests at the Hilton are mostly going to be business travelers on the company dime who are required to stay in contact with the home office. See doesn’t that make sense?

Anywhere, Anytime!

This is something that many people don’t even consider, but did you know that most cell phones can be used in a mode called Phone-as-a-Modem (PAM)? The idea is that you can use a cable that came with your phone, hook it to your computer, and use the data connection to access the internet. This may depend if your phone is capable, but most phones released more recently and all smart phones are capable of use in PAM mode. The “Anywhere” above is, of course, assuming you have cell phone service at your destination, but assuming you can make a call, you can use your phone to access the internet on your computer. Most cell phone carriers will allow you to add this option to your phone for $15 a month. You can activate it the day before you leave and remove it when you get home. If you went on a two week vacation, you would expect to be charged about $7.50 which is much more affordable than $14.95 a day at your hotel.

So why didn’t The Digitante use PAM?

There are some snags with this situation. I use Sprint for my cell phone provider. For some reason which is unknown to me, they cannot add PAM to their Simply Everything (SE) plans. I called and asked. I looked online and asked. I scoured the internet and no one can tell me why they can’t add it, but by the time I found this out, it was too late and I was headed to California. Hopefully they can figure this out in short order because PAM is one of the big money savers when traveling.

A couple of other phones that cannot be used as a modem are the new Palm Pre (it requires a SE plan) and the iPhone which is on AT&T.

Pack your bags…

And don’t forget to pack your laptop and cell phone. If you aren’t sure how to get your phone to work as a modem, contact The Digitante by heading to the About page and call or send an email. If you have other traveling internet tips, leave them in the comments!

Taking your DVDs with you…

Tomorrow The Digitante is going on a trip. For this reason, I would like to take some movies with me for the plane ride. The problems I run into when toting along DVDs are as follows:

• The Discs – They can get scratched and broken. Not to mention you have to remember which compartment of your bag you put them in.
• Battery Life – I watch movies using the DVD drive on my laptop. Unfortunately, keeping the DVD drive running for 2 hours straight puts a strain on my battery life. I need to know what happens at the end! Don’t spoil it for me!

In the past, my prime way to combat this problem was to use a  couple of pieces of software to convert my movies to files on my laptop that could be played back off of the hard disk drive which is more battery efficient than the DVD drive. Unfortunately, you had to (as I mentioned) use multiple pieces of software, set up quality and file type, and select which chapters you wanted to include. That is complicated!

Show me the better way

The better way involves a single piece of software called VLC media player. The thing that makes VLC stand out above everyone else out there is that it plays pretty much any format of video or audio you can possibly throw at it. Additionally, the most recent version added the ability to convert your DVDs (or any video file) to a type that will playback on most computers.

The first thing you need to do is download VLC version 1.0 or newer and install it.

Next, you need to pop the DVD in your DVD drive. You can check that it plays by going to the Media menu and clicking Open Disc. In the next screen, make sure your DVD drive is selected and click play. Before clicking play, you might also want to check the box to disable the DVD menu, since we only care about the movie itself.

Now that you’ve verified that you can see your DVD, go back to the Media menu, go further down the list and click Convert/Save. You will see the same screen from before where your DVD drive should still be selected and the DVD menu disabled. Now click the Save/Convert button. The next screen will ask you where you want to save the file, so pick something memorable like a folder called Movies on your Desktop. You also need to select a format. You may want to try a couple different formats to see what one works best with your computer and looks the best on your screen. However, typical formats are the .mov and the .mp4 filetypes. Next you can click Start and the conversion will begin.

How long this process takes will depend on what other things you are doing (the less the faster) and how powerful your computer is. This may be the type of thing you let run over night or while you are at work during the day.

Now for the movies!

You can use VLC to playback the file you just created. Just remember that this is going to create a fairly large file, so unless you have a bunch of hard drive space, consider this a temporary file that you will use when you are on the road and delete later if you need more hard disk drive space. Additionally, the quality of the movie is not going to be quite as good as the DVD would look, but should still work fine.

If you need help getting started on converting some movies, or would like a walk-through of how to do each of these steps, feel free to contact The Digitante by heading to the About page and sending me an email or giving me a call.