j5 create‘s background in USB display adaptors means they know a thing or two about using both hardware and software to create unique solutions. j5 Create’s Wormhole cable is one such solution as it joins two computers into one…and they don’t even have to be running the same OS. Fred shows Jeffrey and Steve some of the benefits of this innovative technology, which won a CES Innovation Honoree award.

At its most basic the Wormhole switch is simply a USB 2 cable that connects between two computers, but clever software allows the computers to work together, with one keyboard and mouse being shared between the two. The OS of the two devices doesn’t have to be the same and an Android tablet being controlled by a Windows PC is perfectly possible. Files can be seamlessly transferred between the two machines as well. Pretty smart.

Moving on to a second product, j5 create has a very desirable line of small docking stations for laptops that are little more than foot-long shiny tubes with a plethora of ports. Branded “ultrastations” and connecting via USB 3, these take full advantage of the faster data rate to provide a myriad of connections, including HDMI, through a single USB 3 cable. Nice.

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of The Geekazine Podcast and Steve Lee of Netcast Studio.

J5Create may be familiar to Apple Macintosh users as they’re designers of aesthetic Mac accessories, but their latest gadget will be of interest to those of us with a foot in the PC camp. Here Todd talks to John about their new Wormhole Station.

The Wormhole Station combined with the Wormhole cable creates a keyboard and mouse switch which not only controls both a PC and a Mac from one mouse and keyboard but also moves files seamlessly from one computer to the other. Even cooler, you can set the configuration up so that moving the mouse cursor off one side of Mac screen transfers the cursor to the PC screen. It’s a bit like having a dual monitor setup, only with two OSes!

If you like the sound of this, it’s available in both laptop and desktop configurations. Available now, the Wormhole Station will set you back $109.99 and the cable is $39.99. The CES folk like it so much, they gave the Wormhole Station an Innovation Honoree Award.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

Canadian firm SurfEasy will debut their eponymous USB key-based private Internet browser at CES, Las Vegas, next week. The portable USB key launches its own web browser which uses strong encryption to keep your surfing habits secret and holds all your personal information such as bookmarks, history and web passwords on the password-protected key itself. Nothing is left behind on the computer itself.

“When you stop and think about it, we use many different networks and computers to access our online lives. Whether it’s connecting from the office or using a Wi-Fi hotspot, we’re providing a lot of personal information to computers, networks and websites that are not designed with our personal privacy in mind,” said Chris Houston, founder and CEO of SurfEasy Inc. “SurfEasy lets people take control of protecting their online privacy and security by simply plugging in a USB key.”

One of the biggest potential benefits is when using unsecured WiFi in places like coffee shops. As SurfEasy creates an encrypted tunnel from the SurfEasy USB key across the Internet, no-one can see any detail about your browsing. All they can see is the encrypted data and the volume of data. SurfEasy encrypts the web traffic using SSL and passes the traffic through its own servers, stripping the client IP from the data stream.  The proxy network is hosted in Canada and the US, with other international locations to come soon.

As the data stream passes through SurfEasy’s servers, SurfEasy publish a Customer Bill of Rights which is upfront about what you can expect from the company in terms of keeping your activities secret. Basically, unless you come to the attention of the legal authorities, no usage data is held.

The SurfEasy browser is powered by Mozilla and is compatible with Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and 7. Apple users needs to be on Mac OS X 10.5 or later. The SurfEasy USB key costs $60 and this includes 2 GB per month of encrypted traffic through the SurfEasy network. Additional data costs $5 per month for 25 GB and $10 for 75 GB. Product delivery is expected in February.

I can see this being very handy for backpackers and other travellers who have to use Internet cafes while travelling and are rightly concerned about security. Plug-in the SurfEasy USB key to a public computer and you’re instantly secure wherever you are.

I’ve had an Android phone for about a year and a half (the HTC Evo from Sprint) but primarily because of battery use issues I’ve never used it on my home WiFi network.

In the interim, a few months ago I purchased a Barnes & Noble Nook Color, which runs a custom version of Android. I’ve also experimented with dual-booting the Nook with CyanogenMod 7, an open-source version of Android. When I dual-boot into CyanogenMod 7 and connect to my Apple Airport Extreme router, the router will loose Internet connectivity after only a few minutes, requiring me to cycle the router’s power off and back on to restore connectivity.

Now that I’ve been able to install the authorized version of Netflix onto the Nook after Barnes and Noble’s latest Nook OS update, I tried running Netflix on the Nook on my home network. After watching video for 15 or more minutes, my Apple router loses Internet connectivity.

My youngest brother has a newer HTC Android phone, and after he connected to my local WiFi network almost immediately the Apple router lost connectivity. It happened so frequently at one point that I was beginning to think the router was dying.

However, after futher experimentation I’ve determined that if I don’t connect any Android devices to my WiFi, the router seems to work as flawlessly as ever.

Time to check Mr. Google. Using the Google-suggested search term “android crashes router” (the term pops up immediately after I start typing “android cras   “ so I know plenty of other people are looking for a solution) 4,730,000 results come up. After reading through a number of posts by people experiencing the same issue, I have yet to come up with a definitive answer. What is it about a variety of versions of Android connecting to WiFi that is causing many different brands of routers to lose Internet connectivity? The problem is by no means an Apple Router/Android WiFi incompatibility – it therefore seems more likely an issue with Android itself, or at least certain Android builds.

The suggested fixes range from people suggesting that they try to update their router’s firmware to trying to confine the router to Wireless “G” only.

Ironically my HTC Evo phone can also be used as a WiFi hotspot. I can connect any Android device to the Evo’s WiFi hotspot feature and transfer all the data I want without issue. In other words, Android cannot cause my Android phone’s hotspot feature to lose Internet connectivity.

It would be logical to assume that this problem is an Android software issue. The problem seems inconsistent, most probably because of the patchwork-quilt variety of Android hardware and custom OS builds.

So far, the problem hasn’t even seemed to be officially acknowledged as an issue. I suspect that bad Android battery life has prevented a lot of people from trying to connect their Android phones to their home networks via WiFi, so mass numbers of people likely haven’t experienced the potential WiFi router crashing problem.

Of the people that do connect their phones to home WiFi routers, some people never have a problem, while others are constantly plagued by it.

Android crashing WiFi routers is enough to cause me to veer away from future Android devices, unless and until the problem is solved. Phase one of the chaos of the Windows desktop has spread to smartphones.

Welcome to the new Windows fractal – it’s name is Android.

ZDNet is reporting that Canonical is intending to make the next release of Ubuntu, 12.04, a LTS (Long Term Support) release with intention of then expanding Ubuntu beyond desktops and laptops into smartphones, tablets and smart TVs, with a target of 2014 for an all-platform release.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, in an interview said, “This is a natural expansion of our idea as Ubuntu as Linux for human beings. As people have moved from desktop to new form factors for computing, it’s important for us to reach out to out community on these platforms. So, we’ll embrace the challenge of how to use Ubuntu on smartphones, tablets and smart-screens.” The full announcement is expected at the Ubuntu Developer Summit, which starts tomorrow and runs for a week in Orlando, Florida.

Having already been in discussions with partners for around 18 months, it seems that this is more than wishful thinking, but one can’t help feel that the whole Palm-HP-WebOS debacle bodes badly for any company wanting to get in on the smartphone and tablet space. If HP can’t make it happen with a solid OS and Zen of Palm, what hope has Canonical? When quizzed about this, Shuttleworth said that he saw “Android as its primary competitor…..We’ve also already heard from people who are already shipping tablets that they want Ubuntu on the tablet.” And of course, “Ubuntu already has a developer and customer base.”

While there’s no doubt that the mobile space is still maturing and there’s plenty of change still to come,  I have a hard time seeing Ubuntu on anything but a small niche of tablets and an even smaller niche of smartphones. iOS and Android have their foothold and Microsoft will be a solid third if Windows Phone 7 continues to deliver and Windows 8 delivers as expected. A fourth player is going to have difficulty making inroads, especially one as relatively unknown as Canonical and Ubuntu.

Smart TVs are a more plausible destination as the internal software is of less concern to the consumer. Most people buying a TV are looking at the exterior brand such as Sony, Samsung or LG, and not what’s inside, although this may change if a “Powered by Roku” or “Google TV inside” campaign runs. Plenty of change to come in this space too.

I wish Ubuntu every success.

itwin

I have looked at this interesting product called the iTwin for a few weeks now. It’s a dongle for your computer that pairs two machines together – no matter where they are located. As long as they are on unrestricted WiFi, they can talk to each other.

“We are excited to be able to offer iTwin to both OS X and Windows customers,” says Lux Anantharaman, co-founder and CEO of iTwin. “We are confident that Mac users will be satisfied with the features iTwin offers, and which both consumers and small businesses have come to enjoy.  Now both Macs and PCs will have full, cross-platform capabilities with this revolutionary device that is perfect for their sensitive file sharing needs.”

Like a lot of people, I purchased the Lion upgrade on the first day of availability from the Apple App store.

I upgraded two late-model Mac Minis along with an older 17” MacBook Pro. The Lion upgrade solved a freezing problem on the Mac Mini I use as an HD-DVR. However, it created a number of serious problems on the MacBook Pro – Lion would not work with my Verizon USB aircard, it would not back up to my HP Windows Home Server, and it would not work properly with the Ubercaster podcast recording application.

After living with these Lion-induced problems for more than a month on the MacBook Pro, I downgraded it back to a prior (and fully functional) Snow Leopard backup image. Everything is now back to normal, with everything once again functioning the way it should.

My MacBook Pro is no slouch, yet it seemed a bit sluggish running Lion compared to Snow Leopard.

If you have a Mac that’s more than a couple of years old, and/or you are running a variety of software and hardware that Lion likely won’t support and/or that may never be updated to run properly on Lion, I would strongly suggest skipping the Lion upgrade.

I found the Lion interface changes mostly annoying. On a computer (as opposed to an iPod), I prefer normal scroll bars. In Lion you can turn the scroll bars so that they remain on, but they are thin little gray lines that I have a hard time seeing and grabbing with the mouse. I don’t like the changes Apple made to the Finder in Lion, nor do I like the changes they made to the Spotlight Search functionality. I found the changes to the Mail program to be of dubious value, as well as the cosmetic changes to the Address Book adding no functionality.

Snow Leopard runs perfectly well and just might be the new XP.

I’ve been a fairly happy Apple/OS/X user for the past three to four years. Before that, I was a Windows user that finally became disgusted enough to finally make the jump.

Most computer users are well aware of the arguments, both pro and con.

Up until now, I’ve been happy. Up until now, everything simply worked. Ahem, up until now…

What is different now? It’s called Lion. Depending on what you use your machine for, Lion can be great. However, there’s a dark side to Apple’s latest feline incarnation. If you use a wide variety of software with your particular Mac, chances are Lion is going to break things – perhaps things that you rely on. Say, a podcasting application called “Ubercaster” that no longer functions 100% for starters, or how about a Verizon USB 3G aircard that worked fine in both Leopard and Snow Leopard, but Lion somehow just cannot recognize?

Being a long-time Windows user, I’m used to the new version of the O/S screwing things up, sometimes royally. However, that bad Microsoft habit of releasing half-baked, buggy operating system updates seems to have migrated from Redmond down to Cupertino.

It wasn’t as if I expected something like this might happen. I’m prepared – I have a backup machine in the form of a 13” white plastic Macbook that I purposely kept on  Snow Leopard. Unfortunately, the most recent Snow Leopard updates Apple has sent out have broken Ubercaster entirely on that machine, rendering the backup machine rather useless at the moment for podcast recording. The Ubercaster application will no longer load, even the latest updated version.

Ubercaster still works on my Macbook Pro running Lion, but the setup is now unreliable.

Also, Lion seems to not even work properly with Apple’s own hardware. When I touch the touchpad on my 3-year-old Macbook Pro 17 it no longer makes the screen wake up after it has turned off – it’s now necessary to hit a key to make the screen come back on.

What was Apple thinking? Probably of money.

Back with Microsoft for a more consumer oriented evening. This time it’s going to be Windows Media Centre, Home Server, Xbox, Kinect and more on the phones.

First up is Microsoft Home Server 2011 – every house should have one. As standard it’s a media server, dishing out photos, music and videos. Usual DLNA stuff.

Microsoft provides a remote site which in turn can connect to the home server across the Internet. Great if you travel and you need to get at your stuff.

But when you are at home, any PC can connect to the Home Server to configure. Normally the Windows Server works headlessly i.e. without a monitor, so this is how the Server is manager.

Great news – the Drive Extender feature is going to return in 2011 courtesy of a community plug-in which appears to be endorsed by Microsoft.

Not sure if this new news, but they’re saying here that a Nokia running Windows Phone 7 will be out before Christmas, perhaps in October.

A quick demo now using Sonos to play music.

Now it’s the turn of the Xbox and Kinect. He’s playing Kinect Sports. Everything’s been done waving his hand. Ok so it’s a game but the possibilities are there in say, sterile environments. No touch, no cross-infection.

They’re now showing off a Kinect controlling the cursor on a PC instead of a mouse. Flicking through a Powerpoint presentation with your hands rather than a controller.

A video of win&i is being shown – it’s a product from a German company which shows the Kinect interacting with various apps including Media Center and Google Earth.

Microsoft sees Kinect being built directly in TVs and monitors. Several OEMs already have plans (allegedly).

Windows Phone 7 integrates with Xbox Live, pulling in avatars, badges and messages.
The next generation of games will bring the phone together with the Xbox and Kinect. Imagine a game where one player is on the phone flicking footballs at a goal and the other player is on the Xbox and is the goalkeeper. He’s saving the footballs as seen by the Kinect. Tres cool.

That’s it for now! Goodnight.

Microsoft’s TechNet Live Tour is giving a half day seminar on the cloud and what it means for the IT professional. I’ve been invited along so, for a change, I’m going to try a bit of a “live blog” approach, just typing as I go. It’s going to cover Windows Intune, Small Business Server 2011, Office 365, Dynamics CRM 2011, Azure, Windows Phone 7 and IE9.  Could be a long afternoon.

The event opens with a keynote on the Cloud for IT Pros given by Dave Northey. The cloud and the consumerisation of IT are the big impacts of now and Dave will cover them both. Dave suggests that business led technology a decade ago. But today consumers lead. The average home PC is more powerful than work PCs. Most consumers use Windows 7, yet XP is still used extensively in business.

The three big cloud providers are Microsoft, Amazon and Google, with room for a fourth. Cloud computing is Internet-based computing whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand like the electricity grid – Wikipedia.

Cloud Data Centre
Shared resources – stability, security, reliability, QoS, SLAs

On-Demand – pay as you go, no upfront investment, instant access, scale, no money wasted when projects fail

Public Cloud v Private Cloud
Private cloud uses own data centre. Control over data but less scale.

Regardless aim is for capacity to follow demand. What workload patterns are suitable for cloud?
- On and off, e.g. Batch jobs, video transcoding
- Growing fast, e.g. Unexpectedly successful services
- Unpredictable bursting, e.g. Spikes caused by natural disasters
- Predictable bursting, e.g. End of month for finance.

Type of cloud services
- Software as a Service (SaaS) for users
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) for developers
- Infrastruce as a Service (IaaS) for IT

Datacentre evolution
- Traditional datacentre
- Virtualised datacentre
- On premises private cloud
- Off premises cloud
Virtualisation was a pre-requisite for the cloud.

The private cloud is virtualisation plus self-service, scalability and automation.

Azure is Ms’ platform as a service. It’s a developer offering linked into Visual Studio, .net, PHP and so on. Three components – Azure AppFabric for access control and comms, SQL Azure for database, Windows Azure for compute and storage.

Dave then gives a demo of some of the features of Azure including simply connecting to a folder stored in the cloud but the most impressive part was the management of all the virtual machines. In the (short) demo, a cloud-based server was provisioned with web services.

Cloud services are coming, with private clouds first followed by the move to the public cloud.

Ooh, they’ve announced a Surface device is here.

Dave also gave an inpromptu demo of Windows Phone 7 which was as much a selection of soundbites as it was a demo.
- Microsoft expects to be #2 behind Android and ahead of iPhone.
- Multiple forms factors from HTC and Nokia who make over 100 million phones per year.
- It’s a consumer device first
- Marketplace will have quality, tested apps.
- Try before you buy option available to all developers but only one version required – that’s clever.
- Average app lifetime, i.e. Find, download, try, delete is 5 mins.
- Expected that a developer wil earn 10 times as much from Windows Phone app as from iPhone.

Next up was Office 365 by Patrick Herlihy.

Office 365 is the new Software as a Service offering which includes Office, Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online and Lync Online.

Office licensed on a pay as you go per user. Full and latest version of Office. Lync will offer IM, presence and web conference from the start. Voice will arrive later.

Different licensing options for different types of users, e.g. Kiosk worker for basic options, Information worker for more. There are lots of different licensing options depending on your organisations need.

The process to moving to the cloud and using Office 365 goes through standardisation, deployment, service change and includes privacy & security considerations. In particular, most ActiveDirectories will need a good tidy.

Regarding sign on, there are two options – Ms Online IDs or new Federated IDs which allow single sign-on from existing credentials. The latter will need an internal deployment of ADFS.

DirSync synchronises the organisation’s internal ActiveDirectory with the version hosted in the cloud for Office 365. This is needed to keep online permissions etc in step with the organisation.

Exchange Online can co-exist with in-house Exchange and there are tools to move mailboxes between the two systems.

Patrick gave a quick on-line demo of the product. The on-line versions were all very similar to their Windows-based equivalent. Firefix, Safari and IE are all supported. The management tools were comprehensive as well.

The public beta of Office 365 is available now.

Patrick continued to Microsoft’s Intune, a cloud-based PC management service. It offers malware protection, alert monitoring, patch management, software and hardware inventories and remote assistance / desktop sharing. He then gave a demo of the system and it was competent enough. I could certainly see it replacing a number of separate tools. However you got the feeling that it was version 1 and version 2 would be much better. Probably best suited to SMEs with hundreds of PCs rather than thousands.

As proceeds were running late, I had to leave, missing some of the subsequent sessions. But I’ll be back…

Overall, a useful introduction to Microsoft’s vision of a cloud-based future.

I spend a few moments talking about the technical portions of the Charlie Sheen show on Ustream. Considering the train wreck that happened on their inaugural show on Saturday makes me proud of all the new media creators that produce their own shows, and do so with 50x the professionalism of what I observed Saturday night. I have a new giveaway starting tonight listen to win. This show is action packed from the beginning to the end! Become an Insider or Make a donation to the show to qualify for the contest.

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Listener Links
Shatner wake up call.
Millionaire steals credit card?
Get the BBC iPlayer for 74 Pounds.
Alien Contact made.

Show Notes:
Facebook Comments?
Facebook Comments #2?
Charlie Sheen Social Insanity.
Sheens Korner needs some Production Help.
Motorola Xoom Music App hacked.
Buttons or Touch Screens.
Geek Watch (Must Buy).
Phone 135 years old.
Firefox 4 Looks Amazing.
Hawaii TSA a Joke!
Unban PS3 Hack.
First Amendment vs Copyright Laws.
Scientist Study on Sons Voice.
SMS coming to Facebook?
Jamming Time?
Ten iPad Tips.
Facebook Evil on Advertising?
Tax Apps.
Facebook Saves Boy.
Star Trek Wakes Discovery Crew.
Discovery Leaves ISS.
Can we Get our Groove Back?
Woz on Tech and Education.
6 Things in Space.
What went up did not stay up!
Our First Alien.
New Angle on Saturn.
Supernova back as Video Portal.
Fake MPAA/RIAA notice scams $280K
Fox Double DMCA Takedown (Idiots).
UV Cellphone Cleaner?
Where is your Threshold of Business forgiveness.
Sorenson Squeeze 7.
HP Omni Pro.
Google Responds to Droid Malware.
Robot looks real!
WD buys Hitachi HD Manufacturing.
Samsung 950 Series Pricing.
JVC 3D Consumer Camera Debut.
Microsoft pays a Billion to Nokia!
iTunes Home Sharing Update.
$539 Motorola Xoom.
Awesome Asus Ad.
Are you Really Anonymous.
Firefox 4 Crash Reasons.
Skype Ads.
Speed Test Website update.

A winner is announced in the show today congrats to Anthony Y for winning and Apple TV. Big thank you to the 32 people that participated in this round of contributions and the 14 new insiders that are now supporting the show. We will giveaway another cool product in the next couple of weeks. As an insider you are automatically entered in all of our contest here at GNC. I am very excited about our PowerPress update coming tomorrow and you get an inside look at what is coming plus a whole bunch of Tech news!

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Listener Links
Secret Scanning of your Body by Home Land Security?
3TB Drive is Shipping.
Robotics Shutdown in Space.

Show Notes:
Post PC World Non Sense.
Trade In Prices drop like a Rock!
Bloggers in Australia get more Protections.
Antitrust Investigation on H.264 Consortium!
Print with your Droid.
10 PC gaming Emulators from 80′s
Is a Site Safe or Not?
Airplay Expanding!
HBO Expanding Media.
Android Set Top Boxes?
Blu-Ray versus DVD
Easier to Use Bit Torrent Client.
DDOS on BREIN.
iPad 2 Accessory.
Roku iPhone App Updated.
P2P lawsuits and Real People’s Lives.
Illegal TV Streamers feel arm of Federal Gov’t.
New Tablet Plans from AT&T.
New Hotspot Plans AT&T.
Malware + Android = Easy Victims.
Stop Snooping on Email.
Beam me up Scotty.
Twitter Battle with Police and Party Animals.
Carbon Credit Legislation under Fire.
Do FCC Fee’s help Poor?
ICE in Antarctica.
Timezone Database Keeper?
Groupon Class Action Suit.
Recording Police in Conn, about to get easier.
X-37 Sister Ship?
Facebook Comments on Blogs?
Techmeme and Hacker News head to head.
Angry Bird 30 Million Downloads?
WordPress.com DDOS Today.
Twitter App update hammers you with Ads.
Chrome + Hardware Acceleration = Faster Images on Web.
Latest UFO Scam Video.
VW Parody
Google Self Driving Car not American Made?
Netflix iPad Update.
Ford Sync in 19 Languages!
Gmail Fixed.
iPad Apple Smart Covers?
A Windows Journey.

I have no choice but to cut back a little for the next shows. I simply had more news than I could handle tonight and apologize because they came fast and furious at the end, doing no justice to all of the content. But one thing is for sure I deliver your moneys worth on all of the shows lately. Thanks for being part of the Ohana! All of the CES content is posted enjoy it all because their is about 52 hours of content their for your enjoyment.

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Listener Links:
The OTT Show.
Todays Tech News.

Show Notes:
The New 747!
Feds Seize More domains.
Patriot Act Provisions Extended.
Amazon Threatens to leave Texas over Taxes.
Admin says it can spy on you?
Power to the Creator!
Film Studios Pirating own Material!
Username x Sites = Security Risk.
It gets worse for HBGary Federal (idiots)!
Apple and Google are Killing our Companies.
Mobile Penetration.
iPhone Secret Symbols.
Where did Kilogram Originate.
Metered Billing on Hold.
IP Address does not Equal a Person!
Plasma Bullet?
HTML5 pushed to 2014.
Twitter trends Origination Points.
3 New iPhone Styles?
Twitter to cut developers off at knees?
Can Nokia Survive?
Tablets Everywhere but no Apps!
Are Adobe Air and Flash Winning?
Facebook Sim Card!
5 Great VPN’s?
iPhone Telephoto Lense.
The 9th Planet is it out their.
86 Time Lapse Videos.
Mentos and Coke powered Car!
FIOS + Iphone = Savings
Fireworks Hawaiian Style (joking).
Apple kills the Podcast Ping.
Get Styling with Toddygear.
Vivitek 3d Projector.
Sphero Robot Ball.
Link Spam Salesmen.
Zeo Sleep Analysis.
Mini Nuke Power Reactors.
iPhone Voicemail Save Hack.
Qualcomm, Netflix and Android.
USB Crypto Device.
Concept Clock.
Lookee Tv.
Dark Side Detector.
P2P for Good Uses.
isoHunt attacked by Music Industry.
Windows Phone Apps.
Nokia + Microsoft=??
Developer Conference List.
Human versus Computer on Jeopardy.
Brilliant Extension Cable.
Auto feed Shredder.
More Cord Cutting.
Rent versus Own on DVD Front.
Mac App Store plus iTunes.
Dumb and Dumber.
Windows Tip of the day.
Chrome Plugin to block Crappy Search Results.
Facebook Page Designer.
Make a Hotspot with your iPhone.
Geek Dating Tips.
T-Mobile G-Slate hands on.
IE9 Release Candidate will Auto Update.
Windows Phone 7 to get Multitasking.
Multi-Language Foursquare App Update.
NASA spare shuttle flight still a go.
Russian Mars Mission in Moscow.
Whoops where did that tool go.
NASA Budget to get Axe.

ArtRage is a series of painting program for touchscreen computers, albeit with a twist. You can paint with actual paintbrushes! ArtRage 2 sells for $20 for Windows and Mac OS/X. ArtRage 3 Studio sells for $40 for Windows and Mac OS/X. ArtRage 3 Studio Pro, which contains additional features, sells for $80 for Windows and Mac OS/X. ArtRage is also available for the iPad.

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of Geekazine.Com.

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Tom and Todd get texting with Globaltel Media‘s free SMS chat platform, Cherple. Robert Sanchez, President & CEO, takes them through it.

Cherple is a free web-based SMS texting client, which in itself is not unusual – there a plenty of sites which can send SMS messages. But what makes this a little bit different is that the recipient can text the sender back again, even though the sender is at a computer. A whole text chat can then follow, back and forth.

It’s web-based, so can be used from any web browser, but Windows and Mac downloads are on offer, too.

Cherple currently only works for texts to US-based cellphones, but Globaltel are expecting to setup local Cherple sites in ten countries in the coming months.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central and Tom Newman of The Fogview Podcast.

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GadgetTrak is a piece of software that you install on your mobile phone or laptop. The software will periodically check in and let you know the physical location of the device. If a camera is present, for example on a laptop, it can even take a photo of the thief and email it back to the owner. The software cannot be disabled by the thief.

For a Mac or Windows laptop, the price is $34.95 per year.

For Android and Blackberry phones, which includes remote data wipe ability, secure encrypted backup and a loud piercing audible alarm even if the device is in silent mode, the price is $19.95 per year.

For iPhone, iPod, and iPad, the GadgetTrak app is .99 cents, The iOS version does not include remote data wipe, but does include remote camera and push notification support to inform the thief of the GadgetTrak software’s presence.

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of Geekazine.

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David Politis of Xi3 Microcomputers (http://xi3.org/) presents the Xi3 Modular Computer. It is an extremely small form factor and operates on only 20 watts of power, yet contains a dual-core AMD Athlon x86 processor operating at 2 gigahertz. The standard model ships with 2 gigabytes of DDR 2 RAM and 8 gigabytes of solid SSD solid state drive memory.

The Xi3 is revolutionary in several different respects. Not only is the unit as small as possible, the motherboard is broken down into three modular, replaceable components. Thus it becomes possible to upgrade to the latest technologies such as USB 3.0 once it becomes widely available in the near future or to higher-performance future CPU processors.

Imagine the Xi3 as the heart of a high-performance, low-engergy-drain, absolutely silent-running Media Center PC. Since it’s x86 architecture running on a dual-core processor on a high-performance SSD drive it can easily boot Windows 7 Ultimate in 30 seconds flat.

Why didn’t someone think of this before?

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of The Geekazine Podcast and Tom Newman of The Fogview Podcast.

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Mario Cisneros talks about Igugu TV (www.igugu.com), a hardware and software combination that turns your existing Windows-based computer into a TV set top box enabling you to easily get over-the-top television content from your computer to your flat panel television.

Igugu has three kit offerings, including $99 dollars for the remote control unit and software, $129 for the remote control unit, software, and miscellaneous wiring kit, and $249 for a wireless version.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central.

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Making the switch to Mac OS/X a few years ago as my primary computing platform was not without its sacrifices. Among these was Adobe Audition. Sure, I could use Audition in a Windows virtual machine, but it just wasn’t the same thing and entailed its own sacrifices.

Sacrifice no more. Adobe finally heeded the call for Audition for Mac OS/X, and has released a public beta that can currently be downloaded for free available at

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/audition/

After a cursory look at this new beta, I’m impressed. They seem to have succeeded in bringing the Adobe Audition user interface I love in Windows to OS/X. I’ll be buying the final product once it is released for sale to the public.

Have you ever downloaded some data off the ‘net only to find it’s in a compressed or archive file format that your PC doesn’t have a helper app for? Or you’re fixing up a friend’s PC, you download some drivers and ditto, you can’t get them unpacked?

If so, you’ll be interested in WobZIP. It’s a web site where you can upload an archive file and it will uncompress it for you.  Once uncompressed, you can either download the files one by one, or else the site will bundle the files back up into a zip archive for you to download.

The site is still in beta but claims to support the following archive formats – 7z, zip, gzip, bzip2, tar, rar, cab, iso, arj, lzh, chm, z, cpio, rpm, deb and nsis.  Obviously quite a few of those formats are Unix and Linux, but there’s a fair collection of DOS / Windows ones too.  As it’s a website, it doesn’t care what OS you’re running either. From the FAQ, WobZIP uses the open source 7-zip program as the decompression engine.

Cleverly, there’s also a feature to unpack or uncompress from a URL so you don’t always have to download to your PC and then upload back to WobZIP – you can just enter the URL and it will go and get the file for you.  Also, it will scan the unpacked files for viruses.

Put this site in your bookmarks.  You may not need it right now, but you will one day.

The iPad has been available for a while and it’s clear that the product is a runaway success. Say what you will, but it’s now obvious that Steve Jobs and Apple have shown us how tablet computing should be implemented. It should be a very thin, flat touch screen device that has built-in WiFi with an option for 3G. The operating system running on it should be fast and nimble. The device should be a pleasure to use and offer great battery life. In other words, a popular tablet-computing device should be everything that Windows-based devices have not been to this point and cannot currently offer.

It is said that the iPad is outpacing iPhone sales. The iPad is currently selling 4.5 million units per quarter according to CNBC. It is set to become the 4th most popular consumer electronics item.

When Apple brought the first version of the iPhone out, there was no real same-league competition. This equation finally began to change dramatically in 2010. Android-based phones are now offering the iPhone true competition. Android-based phones are on track to dominate the smartphone market. Because the average consumer changes cell phones about every 18 months, this market can and often does change very quickly.

Right now the iPad dominates the newly-Apple-minted consumer tablet market. If the history of the iPhone is any indicator, it may be a year or two before a serious tablet competitor comes along to challenge the iPad’s market dominance.

That eventual effective iPad challenger will almost certainly be an Android-based device. Microsoft and Windows don’t stand a chance in the iPad-style tablet arena.

I’ve been using Android for a while now and feel I’ve been using it long enough to make some meaningful observations.

I like Android. It’s quick. It’s powerful. It has some astounding voice recognition capability built right in that even the iPhone can’t touch. For example, hold down the search button and when the voice search box pops up say “navigate to” and then speak either a street address, the name of a business or a business category, and watch what happens. The results are something right out of science fiction and nothing short of amazing. Try THAT with your iPhone.

In other areas, Android seems to fall rather flat. While it’s possible to create, name and populate folders, the process seems clunky and rather counter-intuitive.

How about allowing me as an end-user to rename application icons to something useful? Many apps have names that don’t bear any relationship or give any hint as to what their functionality is as an app. If I could just rename the text under the app icons it would help me out as an end user quite a bit. Either give me a direct icon name that describes functionality succinctly, or give me the ability to rename an icon myself just like I can in Windows or OS/X.

Another area that falls somewhat flat is how to discover great apps. There are a ton of apps, but it’s often difficult to find the best ones. I’m willing to spend money on apps, however I want the best bang for my buck. How can I be assured if I buy an app I’m buying the best possible one?

We knew this was coming, Ivi is in a battle for their survival. I am going to do my best to do a interview with their CEO this week to have available on the The Morning Tech Show. I am at a turning point with the Podcast Awards, info in todays show, plus how your host is operating with a scratched eyeball all that and more in the show.

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Global Internet Treaty.
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Show Links:
Mark Cuban on Shark Tank.
Point your phone at Planes.
No Digging in the Sand.
Mexican Journalist give up.
Google Docs Editing on Android and iPad shortly.
Why the change at GNC. Stats are Like a Bikini.
The YouTube Copyright Detection System.
Must See Blogworld Session.
Want a Stargate?
Skype blocking Competitors?
4chan and DDOS.
Windows Phone 7 goes Global.
Pirated Shows on your iPad?
Scribd Bait and Switch.
O2 Bait and Switch.
Verizon LTE Info Page.
Streaming Netflix to Canada.
ABC New Interactive Sniffer App.
Vidabox
New Microphone for Flip Recorders.
Fair Set Top Box Comparison?
Live TV to Apple TV?
Ivi in fight for survival.
Will Sat Based Stars go Internet Only?
Crazy Bill Introduced in Congress.
Nice try AT&T.
Adobe Air for Android Pending.
Correction NewsWeek in Business?

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Back in the very early part of the 1990’s, the tech world villain of choice was IBM, and the underdog was Microsoft. As the 1990’s progressed, IBM began to move into the background and Microsoft took over the role as tech villain.

Windows 3.0 was the version that really started making waves in a big way. It was buggy and unreliable, but it offered a glimpse of the potential personal computers presented. Windows 3.0 made it possible to pick from a wide variety of standardized computer hardware parts and put them together and have a working personal computer that could do rudimentary multitasking. Windows succeeded because it worked on an open hardware platform. That same open platform forever cemented The Windows’ Curse.

In 2010 the new tech villain is Google. Smartphones are the new computers of choice. Google Android is the new Windows 3.0 morphing into 3.1, 3.11, and Windows 95.

My fear is that Google Android is doomed to repeat the muddled path of Windows.

Here is why.

My HTC Evo was recently updated to Android 2.2 “Froyo.” All well and good. However, the Android apps I have installed are constantly being updated. Fine – I can see how that would happen. However, I’m noticing that some of them no longer work. Incompatibilities are creeping in. The latest victim of Android upgrade fail is the latest Android version of the Foursquare app, which causes my phone to spontaneously reboot a few seconds after I open the app.

The Windows Curse is in very real danger of becoming The Android Curse.

The open platform is both a blessing and a blight. Open platforms are great so long as they are small. Once they become the majority market leader, their very openness makes them vulnerable to of errors of confusion as well as a giant security target.

It’s probably time for some company to start producing antivirus and antispyware software for Android phones. And it may also be time for some of us to start fleeing for the higher ground of walled garden dictatorships.

I am not really sure how I feel about this one.  It’s a rather strange story.  Here’s a snippet of what Computer Weekly recently posted:

The beauty of Google Android is that it operates on a wide variety of devices that appeal to differing market segments, yet those devices can utilize the Android Market Place and run general apps written for Android. This is similar to what happened with Windows on personal computers. It’s an analogy worthy of exploration, however there are a few noteworthy differences that are actually rather revealing.

Android is nimble, stable and solid, unlike many attributes of the various versions of Windows. Over the years, something went horribly wrong with Windows. Is it possible that Android could eventually suffer the same fate?

Perhaps one difference is that phone manufacturers have a direct incentive to make certain that each Android phone model has a solid implementation. After all, phones simply have to work. Computer manufacturers, on the other hand, have often had a tendency to churn out new computer models without always fully vetting the hardware/Windows OS combination. Google seems to have taken the approach with Android of providing a basic, bare bones phone OS, whereas over the years Microsoft has taken the kitchen sink approach with Windows.

Another difference in the Android/Windows/open hardware analogy rests in the fact that Android is an embedded OS. Hardware manufacturers are forced to make it work. The better it works, the more phones they can sell. If a particular phone model is buggy, word spreads quickly and the model is a bust.

If a particular computer model has problems, its manufacturer often points the finger of blame at Microsoft, and Microsoft typically points back to the manufacturer, leaving the troubled consumer with a spinning head.

The consumer is also partly to blame. If you think about it, we tend not to look at particular computer models running Windows in the same way we look at particular phone models. We tend to look at boxes running Windows as just that – a box of hardware based on price.

Really enjoying Rochester really pretty here. Had a heck of a time getting here as the storms on Saturday delayed my arrival.. I have a full week but looking forward to meeting up with Ohana on Friday for dinner.

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AT&T Were Sorry!
5 iPad Apps that will change your mind.
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Who is your Trip Advisor?
CitizenTube.
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Hacker did the right thing!
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Twitter Outages.
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Do you know your Hand?
XP Updates Ending!

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I think the podcasting Gods are testing me clarification within the show.. Hope everyone had a enjoyable holiday weekend and made it safely back to work. The warm summer months are upon us and I will be running some promotions to keep you folks dialed in while out and about so make sure you stay subscribed and up to date on the show…

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Digital Storage re-visited.
Skype 2.0 for iPhone.
No More Common Sense.
2 Million iPads!
The Science of Acupuncture.
No Microsoft Windows at Google.
Pay Raises for Apple Factory Workers?
Get your Google Juice Back.
Dumber and Dumber!
New GPS Sat Launched.
Hotel Key is your Phone.
Ford Parking Assist
My Lincoln Touch.
Music for Deaf People.
TPN Weekly!
Venting Online.
SnapFinger to Expand.
ASUS EEE Tablet
Amazing Twitter Stats!
The Pirate Bay Takedown + 4 Yrs
To Extradite or Not Extradite?
Film Industry by the Numbers.
Wild crash.
Oceanic Airlines History

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Ok back in the saddle here in Hawaii looking forward to spending a couple of weeks at home. Special Insider coming out in a few days hope you will become an insider. Lot’s happening on the home front and it is a very exciting time to be a new media creator. Tune in today.

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Seven Atom Transistor.
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Donate time to moon exploration.
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Mark Twain Personal Autobiography to be Released.
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Phone Video Conferencing come to iPhone?
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NASA hits hole in one.
Android Speed Test with Flash.
Soluto solves Windows issues!
Skygrid Video.

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Netbooks seems to be one of the biggest “old” technologies for 2009. I say old technology because it doesn’t seem to really offer anything that hasn’t been offered before, except in a smaller size. Under-powered machines have been around since PCs came on the scene back in 1981 (and before).

With that said, I been using one for a couple weeks and find I really enjoy it. So what’s changed? I think it comes down to having the right product at the right time. The right time being the ability to take advantage of the Internet with built-in wi-fi and internet browser.

I think another reason for the popularity of netbooks is that they are not trying to position themselves as your main machine. They are really intended as a secondary machine that you would use around the house or office or to take when you travel.

I’ve been using the HP Mini 110 netbook with Windows 7 Starter edition. I’ve been using Windows 7 on my other machines and decided if I was to get a netbook, it should have Windows 7 and not XP that is offered on some machines. (The HP Mini 110 does come with XP and you can add Windows 7 for about $30 extra).

Here are the main features of my Mini 110:

• 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor
• 1 GB DRAM
• 10.1″ WVGA display
• 160 GB Hard Drive
• Wi-Fi and RJ-45 Ethernet
• Webcam with built-in mic
• 5-in-1 Digital Media Reader
• 3 USB Ports
• External VGA Port

I have both Mac and Windows machines (desktops and notebooks) that I use on a daily basis so why do I need “another” computer? There is something wonderful when you get a new computer. It’s so fresh and new and fast. (Fast is not something I would associate with my netbook, but its not that slow). The key is managing its use and the programs I don’t put on it. From my experience machines slow down from “program bloat” — installing too many programs on a machine. These programs take up disk space, desktop space (icon shortcuts), and each one wants to hack away at your registry. All the things that cause the machine to slow down over time. I know there are things you can do to clean up your system, but it’s never the same as a new machine (or reformatted hard drive).

I plan to take a “less is better” attitude to what goes on my netbook. I use it for Internet browsing, Skype and general note taking. I have installed a few utility programs that I can use to remotely manage my client’s websites but I don’t plan to burden it with Photoshop (Elements), Word, or anything else that will bring it to its knees.

So far I’ve enjoyed the experience. From time to time I check in on a number of live video sites, TWIT and Geek News Central, and find the netbook is perfect for that. I can open a session and take the netbook with me as I go to different parts of the house and not miss a beat. If I keep it in the kitchen, it’s there if I need to do a quick Google search and doesn’t take up much counter space. (I don’t need a memory, I have Google )

After a few weeks, here are my pros and cons of the netbook:

Pros:
- Lots of built-in features: 3 USB ports, VGA port, SD card reader, RJ-45 jack, wi-fi, web cam.
- Long battery life: about 6 hours
- Nice keyboard
- Small size

Cons:
- Speaker sounds tinny. (I use a small portable speaker system when I need better sound.)
- Display is only  1024 x 576 pixels. The 1024 width is fine but the 576 height is a little short for some programs that assume a taller display. I have some programs that don’t resize and I can’t access buttons at the bottom of the screen.

I don’t think the netbook is for everyone and I wouldn’t recommend it as your only computer, but I think it does have it place.  So far this netbook will stay a part of my toolkit and I’ll keep you informed as I use it more.

Happy New Years to all!

73′s
Tom