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Tech News & Commentary
Chris in Columbia, Missouri listening and calling in via the iPhone App and asked: “I have a question for a soon to be graduate. She is wanting some sort of a tablet for graduation that is writable and I was wondering what your recommendation would be for someone entering medical school.”
The list of writable tablets is really pretty short, it seems like your best bet might be the $500 Galaxy Note 10.1, since it features a pen that is more than just a stylus. It interacts with your screen the same way your finger would. The Galaxy Note 10.1’s S Pen actually lets you write and draw in a size that is closer to a real pen, as opposed to say, a crayon.
Lenovo makes convertible laptops that also come with styluses, you could look at one of those, it will be a little bigger than a standalone tablet and it will be more expensive, but it will also be more powerful thanks to it’s laptop half. For $650 they also offer the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet, which comes with a pen and Windows 8, but not the laptop part.
Convertible laptop/tablets are designed to give you the portability of a tablet and the power of a laptop and they probably don’t quite deliver as good of an experience as a dedicated tablet or dedicated laptop, but they may work for her.
You should also take a very close look at the new Surface Pro, which will be shipping by graduation time. This is a very well built tablet that is a full Windows computer, running the full Windows 8 OS, including any apps that run on the desktop PCs. Microsoft has an excellent stylus designed to work with it (it even clips magnetically into the power socket on the tablet when not in use) and apps like OneNote, which is part of Office 2013, are outstanding for note taking.
The Surface Pro will be priced between $800 and $1000 depending on configuration, but it is not like the current Surface RT. It is a Windows computer in a convenient tablet form, maybe the best such slate we’ve seen yet.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Consumer Reports with Donna Tapellini
If you’re considering upgrading to a laptop PC with Windows 8, you have a growing list of good options to choose from. Vizio has a 15-inch model that sells for about $1100. Consumer Reports Senior Editor Donna Tapellini is here to tell us how it did in their lab tests.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they
have been playing with recently.
• Mark recommends: Now., FREE
“Now. Yes, Now. That’s the name of the app. Now does one very simple thing. It looks at what people are sending to Instagram in your area and presents them in an attractive display designed to show you where the party is (so to speak) right “now” — get it? As you scroll through the photos, a map on the top half of the display scrolls quickly to show you with push pins where these pictures were snapped. Now is free and available in the iTunes App Store.” — Mark
• Chris does not recommend: Boyfriend Trainer, FREE
“I’m highlighting an app this week for all the wrong reasons. It is not only a time waster, but as a man, I feel it also wastes space on the app store shelves. It’s a game called Boyfriend Trainer. The player, depicted as the ‘girlfriend,’ advances in the game by physically attacking the ‘boyfriend’ when he does something wrong, like looking at other women. In fact, rather than levels, the game has ‘lessons.’ Right out of the box, ‘Lesson’ 1 says… ‘Girlfriends don’t like their boyfriends to look at other girls. About time he got the message. Slap him silly!’ ‘Boyfriend Trainer’ encourages users to ‘crack that whip and teach your guy a thing or two,’ adding, ‘When scolding doesn’t work, just zap him, whack him and train him to be your ideal man!’ It’s available free for iPhone and Android. One customer review (that I tend to agree with) says, ‘I hate how this game is so abusive. I understand it’s just a game but kids play this and u don’t want this to be an influence on them.'” — Chris
Guests in this hour:
James Zhou, Founder & CEO – Pervasive Group
Paul Grossinger, Chief Strategy Officer – Pervasive Group
Joe in Hazleton, Pennsylvania listening Online and asked: “I have an old computer that might be ready to kick. It won’t boot up right away. Sometimes It tries to boot up about three times before it’s ready to go. Do you think that could be bad RAM? Also, if I do have to scrap this computer, I have a complete image backup. Is it possible to put my Windows XP on another computer from that backup. If not, would I be able to at least get my music and my files off that backup if I connected that external drive to the new computer?”
It could be many things, but a faulty RAM module is definitely one of the possibilities. If it crashes when it’s under very heavy load too, that would point at RAM as being your culprit even more.
Now, you can try removing each memory module and rebooting your machine to see if that makes a difference, if it does the solution is simple enough, replace it and move on, if not you have some troubleshooting to do.
As for moving your Windows backup to another computer, it is possible, just make sure you can make some kind of a bootable backup, most backup software will give you some bootable option, either a DVD, or a partition, or on USB storage.
Microsoft may complain though, Windows knows what hardware it’s running on, if it notices you added a hard drive it may assume you needed more storage space, if it sees you added more RAM it may just dismiss it as you needing more memory, but if you have a different amount of RAM, different hard drives, a different processor, a different motherboard, a different graphics card, it will probably think “hey, I think I just got pirated!” and you may need to go through Windows activation again.
You should also be able to access your files somehow if you get a new computer with a new version of Windows, depending on the type of backup that may involve just opening the backup — like you would open any folder — and searching for the file, or it may involve installing software to navigate through a backup file, but one way or another you should be able to do it.
If we had to make a guess, though, the description of your boot up problems point us mostly to either a hard drive problem or a problem with the power supply. RAM problems are usually thermal and show up when the computer is under load, not starting up.
If you are using an imaging tool like Acronis True Image, it is a very simple process to transfer your computer’s image to a new machine, including the operating system and installed apps. However, you’ll want to think long and hard before you put Windows XP on new hardware. Chances are good that the guys who made the new computer chose hardware that is new, and new hardware components often lack driver support for Windows XP.
Backing up just your files is simple. You can use, again, a tool like Acronis True Image, or you can use a cloud based backup system like Carbonite. The advantage to that is, it knows where your music files are kept, it knows how to get your documents backed up, while not backing up the operating system and programs themselves. You’ll have to re-install the programs on the new machine, but Carbonite can easily pull the data back down from the cloud. It’s not fast, but it’s reliable and convenient. Hopefully you have a fast Internet connection!
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Sherraine called in and asked: “We have 4 iPhones. I just purchased the 4g lte. My question is how much data will be used streamlining videos from my daughters laptop. We barely used 2 gb sharing all 4 phones. I heard streamlining videos can chew through data quick.”
We can’t really tell you exactly how much data it will use, because it will depend on what you’re watching and how much of it, but do expect to use more data than your 3G iPhones were using. On average smartphone users go through 500MB of data a month, which is in line with your 2GB for 4 phones usage, LTE users, on average, go through 1.2 GB of data, more than twice the amount 3G users consume.
Depending on your sharing plan, you may want to keep a close eye on your new phones data usage for the first month or two to avoid overages. Technically, if you access the same content you will use the same amount of data, but you will probably be opening more content without even noticing it, so do expect to use more on that phone, and be careful if you upgrade any of the 3 other phones.
You said the magic word, though. Video. You can stream hundreds of hours of audio for the same amount of data you’ll spend streaming just one movie. Not all video is created equal, though. YouTube, for example, compresses their video a LOT, and that results in less of a data hit. But Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and other sources give you high quality video…and eat up your data. With a 4G LTE phone on the plan and a desire to stream videos, you should consider a 5GB or 8GB monthly plan. You’re quite likely to exceed that 2GB mark.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
“Wireless Update” Weekly Feature with Chuck Hamby
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners:
Bedol: Several Bedol Water Clocks – A water powered alternative energy alarm clock. Does not require batteries or electricity. Just fill with normal everyday tap water.
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yo – A simple solution to tangled earbuds.
Magellan: RoadMate 5265T-LMB GPS – With FREE lifetime map updates and traffic alerts.