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Tech News & Commentary
Tom in Geneva, Ohio asked: “I have a Kindle Fire and I know there are options out there to get Barnes & Noble information off of that system. Is there an application out there that makes a one-step thing rather than multiple steps?”
The Nook for Android app will do what you need but, not surprisingly, it’s not something you can get from the Amazon App Store. Luckily, you can side-load the app onto your Fire though. To do that, go to your Fire’s settings, and under “More” and then “Device” enable “allow installation of Applications”, that will let you install apps that are not offered to you directly by Amazon.
After you’ve done that, open your browser and head to m.getjar.com, and search for the Nook app, you should be able to find it and download it from there and, if you tap the file from your Fire’s downloads list, it should install and you’ll have the Nook app running on your Kindle device.
You can use the same method to download other useful apps like Google Maps, but keep in mind that by bypassing the Amazon App Store, you’re also giving up the security of downloading from a source that checks up for malware and quality, so make sure you only side-load stuff you need to side-load.
To access your downloads folder on the Kindle Fire, you’ll need an app. We used the ES File Explorer, free in the Amazon Marketplace. It will show you the folders on your Kindle Fire, just tap downloads and then tap the name of the .apk file that you want to install.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Andrew in State College, Pennsylvania listening on 103.1 WRSC asked: “I have an IP camera and I’m trying to access it outside of the IP Address that it’s hooked to. I did the port forwarding but I can’t seem to get into it.”
Unless you have a static IP address, you’re going to need to set up a Dynamic DNS service. When you use one of those services, your computer or router lets the service know that it’s address has changed, and the website updates it’s records, so you’ll get a regular URL (think: AndrewsCamera.dyndns.org, or something similar), and that URL will always point to your IP address, even if it isn’t static.
Once you have that set up, you should also consider making your cameras IP address in the network static, that way the port forwarding will always work, if it’s dynamic, today you might be forwarding to the camera, but tomorrow IP assignments might change and suddenly your network will find itself asking your phone or a computer for access instead of the camera. You can assign the camera a set address by accessing it’s settings.
The other big thing is, make sure your camera has a built in web server, some cameras require other software to view it’s video stream, while others will have a built in web server that you can access from any browser. If your setup doesn’t work don’t assume your camera necessarily comes with a built in web server.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Chris in Miami Beach, Florida listens to the Podcast and sent the following email to help another listener: “Another locator device for Jack in Los Alamos is the Loc8tor, from the UK, which is an active RFID based device with a handheld base unit and key fob sized tags. As a father of 3, I have had anxious (i.e. heart-stopping) moments in crowds or malls when a kid got out of my sight. I have been through several similar devices from high end gift shops and baby superstores, but they all fell short on performance. I suspect that the FOFA, with a range of 10 meters, would not be adequate. The Loc8tor claims a range of 183 meters, although I think it routinely is less under non-ideal conditions, but still works clear across our small house or halfway down the block. And, it is directional, allowing you to determine a direction to move to find the target. You get what you pay for, and this unit is between $80 and $170, depending on the model. However, it also has a range alert, so if the child or pet goes out of the desired range, both the base unit and tag will beep. Also, a “panic” button is built into some of the tags, but we have never used it. Hope this helps.
Best Regards,
Chris, Maggie, Emily, Andrew, and Christopher in Miami Beach — Big Fans!!”
Thank you, Chris, Maggie, Emily, Andrew and Christopher!
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Listener Dan asked: “Do you know of a good app that I can use on my iPhone 4 to print to my wireless printer? My printer is probably 5 years old and is an HP 1312nfi multipurpose color laser. I can print from my laptop wirelessly to this printer currently. I love your show.”
To print on a printer that wasn’t designed to work with Apple’s AirPrint, you’re going to need your computer’s help, you’re going to have to set up your computer to share that printer with your iPhone, and then print from the phone through your computer, which means your computer will need to be on for you to be able to print from the phone.
If you happen to have a Mac, there’s a program that makes it pretty easy, it’s called AirPrint Activator and it will allow you to use AirPrint with any printer that’s shared on your Mac. After you install it just use AirPrint on your phone, as if you had an AirPrint compatible printer.
For both Windows and Mac you can use FingerPrint, a program that will also share any printer with your iPhone and make it seem to it that it’s AirPrint compatible, the downside of FingerPrint compared to AirPrint Activator is that it will cost you $10.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
Dale in Murfreesboro, Tennessee listening on WTN 99.7 FM asked: “I wanted to know about these solid state drives. Are they more durable than regular drives? What are the pros and cons of these?”
SSDs today are increasingly more common. The SSD – or Solid State Drive – is typically going to be faster than its mechanical equivalent at retrieiving data. SSD is flash based and therefore much more efficient at finding the data you need.
SSDs would also last longer than the mechanical hard drive. It has no moving parts and will draw much less power compared to the conventional hard drive and requires a lot less cooling too, consequently it will produce less heat. With no moving parts, it’s also much less susceptible to damage from knocks or drops.
An SSD is quieter than the mechanical hard drive and can run in near silence. Solid State Drives could be the format of the future, but right now it depends on your budget, too. If you need a large capacity disk and don’t have a lot of money, a hard disk drive will likely serve you just as well.
One other factor worth mentioning in a discussion of SSD vs. traditional rotating media hard drives is the fairly recent flood in Thailand that has caused a shortage in the supply of hard drives. It hasn’t hit retail pricing yet, really, but right after the first of the year we should see a sudden spike in the cost of computers because the hard drives will cost more. SSDs are unaffected, since they’re made with flash memory. Their suppliers are in different locations. So SSD prices will not be increasing as traditional hard drive prices are, which will cause the two categories of drives to become much closer in price.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
Traffic information is always getting better and is constantly updated. With the introduction of a “Traffic Message Channel” at the International Funkausstellung in 1997, car radios with TMC reception got updated information continuously. The information was stored internally and could be retrieved any time, acoustically or via the display. TMC is still an essential element of dynamic navigation systems today, which use the updates to find the best way around a traffic jam.
That’s this week’s IFA Update brought to you by Messe-Berlin. Be sure to visit IFA-Berlin.com.
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This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Honestech: Audio Recorder 3.0 Plus – Convert all of your music, including cassettes, LPs and 8-track tapes, into MP3s, WAV files, audio CDs and MP3 CDs, and listen to them on your portable music players.
Intuit: Copies of TurboTax Premier
ScanMyPhotos.com: Several $200.00 eGift Certificates that can be used towards your purchase of any of their online products, such as: Prepaid Photo Scanning Box, Prepaid Slide Box, or Prepaid VHS Transfer Box