Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Tech News & Commentary
Mark in Jackson, Georgia listens online and asked: “I have a SlingBox and a Sling Catcher. I want to add another Sling Catcher to my home network and found thta they no longer make it. In fact, if you search for these online, they have become extremely expensive. Can you tell me what happened to the Sling Catcher, why it’s no longer on the market, and if there are any alternatives?”
It seems to be off the market because it didn’t sell well. When it first came out, it went on sale for $300. Not too long after, that the price dropped to $200, then $160, then $99. These days it’s selling for a ridiculously high price online! We’ve even seen prices in the neighborhood of $800, but that’s probably just for the few people that still want it.
There aren’t any direct replacements as far as we can tell. You can get similar functionality using their expensive mobile apps, but you still have to somehow get the image from your phone to the TV, so you need a phone that’s capable of doing that as well.
Other than that, there aren’t many direct replacements, but depending on the kind of use you were giving yours you may find other products that will suit your needs.
For example, there are streaming boxes like the Roku and Boxee boxes. They will allow you to watch certain TV shows, not directly from your TV but from the Internet. Systems like Dish’s Hopper and DirecTVs Home Media Center allow you to view your recorded DVR content in other rooms. None of those directly replace the SlingCatcher, but if they’ll replace the particular use you had for it, then that might work for you.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Consumer Reports
with Mike Gikas
The reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S III have so far been pretty stellar. But how did it fare in Consumer Reports’ lab tests? Senior Editor Mike Gikas gives us their take.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they
have been playing with recently.
For iOS:
• Mark recommends: Things, $19.99
“My app this week is ‘Things’ for iOS. Things is an organizational tool that lets you create lists of things from each of the worlds you live in. For example, mine were Work, Personal, Radio Show, Blog, Games, and Sports. In each of these I can simply brain dump all the things I need or am working on. Then, for any given day, I simply indicate which things from each world I want to accomplish that day and Things makes an agenda for my day. As I check things off the list, it updates each of the sub-lists accordingly. I find Things useful because it lets me keep segregated lists of things to do, but combine elements from each of them into a daily list without having to copy/paste or retype anything. Things isn’t cheap at $19.99, but I’ve not found another to do list manager that even comes close.”
— Mark
• Chris recommends: AutoRap, FREE for a limited time, $1.99 after
“I figured I’d be different this week and talk about an app that wastes time. If you’ve ever wanted to be a rap star but are a little too … let’s say ‘hokey’, then this app is for you. It’s called AutoRap. It’s very similar to the ‘Songify’ app I highlighted a couple months ago. With this app, you record yourself speaking, and it turns your speech into a rap. For instance, before the show, I recorded myself reading from one of our promotional flyers and here’s the result… The app itself is free and comes with two songs that are always free. They give you 20 free ‘plays’ of some of their other songs, after that, you purchase ‘play credits’ to use them. It’s fun, it wastes time and more importantly, as Erasmo told me, it can make me the next Eminem.” — Chris
• Some of our listenes’ recommendations:
• Norman wrote: “Timesheeter! I have multiple business where I have to track multiple projects, customers, expenses, etc. I am a tech consultant, property manager, and farmer. Weird mix I know LOL. This is the only app I have found after trying many other time tracking apps that allowed me to do what I want. Plus the import/export and backup options are perfect for my needs.”
• Tom in Albuquerque, New Mexico wrote: “At the moment I am enjoying Flex Player and CineXplayer on iOS. Flex player is free and CineXplayer is $1.99. These apps let you transfer and play multiple formats of video on your ipad without the need to convert. I love these apps for how they run on a gen 1 ipad and actually barely touch battery even after a 2 hour movie. cinexplayer lets you convert 2D video to 3D video if you want without need for conversion. When I want to watch Star Trek or Angry Beavers cartoons on the go, these are my go to apps for video. Oh these also work on the iPhone and iPod Touch 3rd gen as well.
• Trevor in Alaska wrote: “What??? There are other apps besides Into Tomorrow??”
• Joey in Knoxville, Tennessee listening via our free app recommends: “Tiny Post. This app is free on iOS. Allows you to write captions on pictures that you have taken. All you do is snap, write and share. Sharing your picture is one of the nicest features because you can simply upload the picture to your favorite social sites — Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr right from the app. It’s super easy and fun!
Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.
Guests in this hour:
George Waller, EVP & Co-Founder – StrikeForce Technologies
Are you aware of “keystroke logging”? If you don’t know what it means and you use the Internet a lot, StrikeForce explains how to protect yourself from hackers.
Facebook Participation: One of the topics we discussed on our Into Tomorrow Facebook Page this week was Apple’s Mountain Lion. On Wednesday, we posted: “Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion is out today. Will you be upgrading? Why or why not?”
Alex in Ft. Lauderdale, FL wrote: “GROWL!!! I’m a Mountain Lion”
John said: “Yes I will. All reviews say it’s the best upgrade at the lowest price ever!”
On Twitter @AlexPark14 wrote: “#MountainLion is well worth the $19.99 or £13.99 or 15.99€ price point! Great Features and apps. It’s taken me about 3 hours cause I’m on a WiFi with about 40 other people.”
Rick in State College, Pennsylvania listens and is calling via the iPhone App asked: “Are there any services for Mac that clean your Mac or tune it up so it runs fast. Thanks!”
There are several Mac maintenance programs you can try. One of the most well known seems to be MacKeeper. They advertise like crazy on all kinds of popular websites, and they have a lot of satisfied users. MacKeeper does general maintenance, but it’s also an antivirus that detects both Mac and Windows viruses (useful for people who run Windows on their Mac either via some virtualization software or Bootcamp).
MainMenu has been a popular maintenance program with Macs for years. It’s less user-friendly than MacKeeper, but it’s tremendously useful for plenty of maintenance tasks, you may just need to know what tasks to perform with it first.
You can also use some of the built-in tools Mac OS X provides, which is mainly Disk Utility. A lot of problems go away by repairing permissions. To be honest, Rick, none of these tools are super popular because Apple users rarely find them necessary, so you probably won’t need to worry too much about it. I’ve used MacKeeper and it seemed to have done an okay job. But, it was using a lot of memory, so I decided to stop using it.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
NQ Mobile: Activation codes for NQ Mobile Vault (Premium Version) — An Android app that keeps your text messages, pictures, and videos safely hidden from prying eyes.
StrikeForce Technologies: Several Download Keys for GuardedID – anti-keylogging software
ZoneAlarm by Check Point Software: Several download keys for ZoneAlarm Extreme Security (antivirus, firewall, spyware protection)