HOUR 1:
Tech News & Commentary
Tim in Bellville, Michigan listening online asked: “Searching through eBay and saw this thing called APa, that resembles an iPad. Just wondering if you guys know anything about those products. I guess they’re out of China.”
Like a lot of the electronics we get, look on the back and they say “Made in China”. So yes, the APad is yet another product coming from China and designed to look just like the popular iPad tablets. Some of these army of tablets also go by the name “iPed” and “EPad.” The actual APad brand name seems to be a line of tablets from a company called Orphan Electronics. The two most commonly advertised models from them are the aPad M800 and the aPad M16. Both models offer expandable storage using flash memory cards and support WiFi connections with 802.11 b-and-g. But not the newer 802.11 ‘n’.
The M800 runs Android 1.7.2, has a 7″ display, and costs between $149 and $199 depending on the source. The larger and faster M16 runs either Android 2.1 or Windows CE 6, offers a 10.2″ display, and costs between $299 and $399. These prices are approximate because the websites offering them for sale vary widely.
We have to say that it’s buyer beware on these sorts of devices. Sure, Android is a solid and well supported operating system, but who will you turn to if you need to repair your tablet? Where will you get your software upgrades from? What’s the warranty? How about accessories? The thing to remember is, the aPad is not “a” device, it’s a whole family of devices. So be sure you know the specs of the model you’re buying, before you make any sort of purchase!
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
“Wireless Update” Weekly Feature with Chuck Hamby from Verizon Wireless
Do you have a social media fixation? Chuck Hamby returns this week to tell us about some of the social-media-friendly interfaces available on today’s top wireless phones.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they have been playing with recently.
- For Android: Memory Size Pies – FREE app that displays your available memory storage space as Pie Charts
- For BlackBerry: Newly updated Facebook App 1.8
- For iPhone/iPad:Robrecommends: Family Tracker for iPhone ($3.99) / iPad ($5.99) – Just what the name implies: It tracks your family — wife, husband, children, fiancee — anytime … as long as they have their iPhones with them, tracking via GPS. You have to authorize someone to track you first. You’ll be able to “ping” the iPhone you’re searching for and see their current location. Great app to keep track of kids! Only problem is that the GPS signal may run your battery too fast, but there are different settings you can adjust.Chris recommends: Food Network Nighttime – FREE for iPhone Keep up with your favorite Food Network chefs.
Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.
Guest in this hour:
Paul Scandariato, VP of Marketing – Apparent (Doxie Scanner)
Apparent makes smart devices and software, including IntelliScanner barcode readers that organize stuff, and Doxie, the amazing scanner for documents.
Norman sent us the following email and asked: “I would like to find out what products I need to buy to start podcasting from my home. Also, what to do to get my podcast up on the web so I can link to it from my Blogspot. I know you guys are more into products but any advice would be appreciated. By the way, did I mention I am on social security and cheaper may not be better, but that’s the way I have to go? God Bless and Thank You for being there.”
Good news! You don’t need to spend very much money at all. You can use a variety of recording and editing tools, and hosting your podcast can be inexpensive or even free. For example, Mark Lautenschlager records voice on his computer at home using the Marshall MXL USB.009 microphone. This is an excellent product, but a little pricey at approximately $300. For about one third the price, you can buy a Samson C01U, also a USB microphone and also extremely high quality.
Once you get your audio recorded, you’ll need to edit it. If you want to have multiple tracks, say, to have your voice heard over a sound effect or music bed, then you’ll need a multitrack editor. A free solution is the open source Audacity program. It’s powerful but can be tricky to learn. Here at the studio, we use Adobe Audition, which is just about the best software there is for this task, but it costs over $300 for a single computer license. You could also use WavePad Master Edition from NCH Software. There is a free version you can get started with, and the Master Edition adds all their professional features and costs less than $60 for a single computer license.
Hosting will be next on your list. You have several options again. If you want to host your podcasts free of charge, no matter how big they are, or how many you create, you can check out Ourmedia.org. The catch here is that your podcast is published under a Creative Commons license and archived through the Internet web site Archive.org. In other words, it goes into the public domain. At the other end of things are full service operations like our friends at StreamGuys.com, where prices vary depending on disk space used and how much monthly bandwidth you want, but they provide support for every step of the way, including getting your podcast in all the popular indexes.
Mark has used Amazon.com’s S3 hosting for his church podcasts. S3 is Amazon-speak for Simple Storage Service. You store your podcast files there and link to them from your web site or blog. The pricing seems difficult to understand because it’s broken down by storage and transfer, but it’s really inexpensive. A Libsyn 800MB account (that’s storage and bandwidth) costs about $30. Amazon.com S3, for 1GB of space streaming 50GB per month, would cost less than $11. So it’s worth checking out.
David sent us the following email and asked: “You have your picture on the website for “iHearSafe” safe volume earbuds, and I simply want to suggest you do a follow-up segment to highlight the plight of what looks like a terrific product caught up in an ugly legal battle. When I heard about this product I immediately thought it was the perfect thing for my kid to protect his ears (then 5, now 8) only to find out they aren’t selling them anymore. I am simply amazed that such a great idea that fits a huge need for kids should be wiped off the market so a venture capitalist can avoid paying royalties to the inventor. The more this word gets out, the sooner I can get earbuds for my kid (the latest judgment looks like it won’t be untilwell into 2011 now). FYI I truly, honestly have no connection with the parties involved but simply wish I could buy this product.”
We really appreciate your note and glad that you brought it up. We were very happy to have the inventor Christine Ingemi on our show a while back and help promote her great idea to help save kid’s hearing. For those who don’t know… Christine, a mother of TWO autistic children, noticed that her kids were listening to their MP3 players too loud she realized that it could not be good for their hearing. The fact that two of her kids, being autistic, were not able to verbalize that the music was too loud and hurting their ears magnified the problem. So, she invented these safe volume headphone and earbuds.
Unfortunately — as you pointed out — there were some legal issues with her “partners” and last we heard the litigation continues. Take a look at an interesting article online by TMCnet.com. We invite our audience to please read it and just maybe … there is something that someone else can do to assist.
Consumer Reports: “Print For Less” with Terry Sullivan
At-home printing costs can rack up if you’re not careful. Learn how you can save ink, save paper, and be “green”.
David in Pittsboro, North Carolina asked: “I have Outlook 2003 and wish to export that file to Thunderbird or Google contacts and I’m having difficulty exporting it. Would appreciate any tips you may have.”
if you’re using Thunderbird, there’s actually very little you have to do, as that program will import your Outlook contacts directly. This is assuming that Outlook and Thunderbird are installed on the same computer.
1) Start Thunderbird.
2) Open the Address Book.
) From the Tools menu, choose Import. Select Address Book and click Next.
4) Highlight Outlook and click Next. That should add an address book to Thunderbird called “Contacts” that contains your Outlook contacts.
Now, to go between machines, or import to Google Contacts, what you’ll want to do is export your contacts folder to a comma separated values file, or CSV file, which you can then import into either Thunderbird or Google Contacts.
1) Start Outlook and pull down the File menu. Choose Import and Export.
2) Highlight Export to a File and click Next.
) Highlight Comma Separated Values (Windows) and click Next. The next window shows you a list of all your folders in Outlook.
4) Highlight the Contacts folder and click Next. Outlook will prompt you to enter a file name. Give it a name that makes sense to you, like “Exported Contacts,” to make it easy to find the file later.
5) In Thunderbird, you open the Address Book and select Import from the Tools menu.
6) Select Address Book and click Next.
7) Select Text File and click Next. Navigate to the file you exported, and click to import it.
In Google Contacts, it’s just about as easy. Browse to Gmail and click Contacts in the left hand column. In Contacts, click on the More Actions button. Choose Import on that menu and you will be prompted for the file to import. Navigate to the file you exported from Outlook and click to upload it.
We hope that helps!
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
SleepPhones: A Sheep of Your Dreams Kit
Smith Micro Software: Copies of Anime Studio Pro 7
Total Training: Copies of Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended: Essentials