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Tech News & Commentary
Joe in Greenwood, Louisiana listens on 710 KEEL asked us: “What is the best tablet out there right now? I have an iPad but I didn’t know if there was something a little less costly that was pretty good.” and “I previously had an Otterbox for the iPhone and I’m looking to see how good a Lifeproof is, if you could give me some information on that.”
Joe, If you want to go cheaper, your best option is probably a Nexus 7, they’re kind of small tablets, but they’re responsive and generally good quality and will only cost you about $230, which is not bad for a decent tablet without bloatware.
If you want a bigger tablet a 10″ Nexus 10 is slightly cheaper than an iPad at $399, it’s close enough in price that you may want to give the iPad a good look before discarding it, but it’s an option.
Samsung Tab Pros would probably be worth a look too, except for the fact that they’re the same price as iPads, so your less costly requirement won’t be met there.
If you don’t mind the lack of the Google Play store, there is the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX. The 8.9″ model sells for $329, is very fast, has an excellent display, and is lighter than even the iPad Air. The lack of the Google Play store means that you can only get apps, music, movies, and TV shows from Amazon, not Google. That does mean you will have a smaller selection of apps, but most of the big ones are there, but as for the rest of the stuff, we’d say that Amazon has a bigger selection than Google anyway.
The tablets we’ve mentioned all run Android (or in the case of the Kindle, a modified version of Android). You can’t run the same apps as an iPad, so if you have a favorite you will need to be sure an Android version of it exists. But in terms of speed, display quality, and build quality, Apple’s competition has caught up to them.
Lifeproof cases are typically, considered pretty solid, but their iPad case is a little bit different. Unlike a lot of other cases it relies on the iPad’s own screen for part of the protection. The screen is left uncovered, which means that you get the full crispness and responsiveness that you’ve always gotten, but it also means that you don’t get any extra padding protecting it from direct hits.
The case does have padding on the sides, so if you drop it on a flat surface the screen won’t hit it and you should be reasonably protected, however, if you drop it on something with an edge, like a rock or the edge of a table its the screen itself that will be taking the hit. Whether having a thin layer of plastic take the initial hit would make a difference or not is debatable, but just know you won’t have it. On the plus side, it is waterproof and won’t get in the way of you enjoying a very crisp and responsive display.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
Tom in Hilliard, Ohio calling in via the App asked us: “Do you think there will ever come a time when Android will finally support Adobe Flash Player?”
Tom, Absolutely! that time was actually early 2010.
Unfortunately, flash is pretty terrible when it comes to resources even on computers, so it never worked too well on phones, and Adobe gave up on it.
Now, to put things in perspective, Flash has been around since 1996, so we could also say that Microsoft gave up on Windows 95, it’s not so much giving up as newer and better things becoming possible, in Flash’s case that newer better thing is HTML5.
As that becomes more and more common, you’ll be able to access more and more media content on your phone, but Flash is not coming back, even Adobe is recommending their new HTML5 suite for people looking to produce Flash content.
So you sort of missed the boat, Tom. Android did support Adobe Flash Player, but now that Adobe themselves have stopped supporting it, Android is pushing HTML5 just like Apple is.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Frank in North Pole, Alaska listening on KFBX 970 AM asked: “My old HP laptop needs a new hard drive. Should I replace with original 5400 rpm or upgrade to 7200 rpm? I have XP OS.”
Frank, Go for 7200 RPM. Windows XP won’t have any trouble handling a faster drive and you will notice the speed improvement.
It will be more noticeable if you doing anything that uses a lot of memory, but even if you don’t do that, programs should launch faster and the computer will feel more responsive.
If you don’t mind spending the money, and SSD will make much bigger difference, but again, it will cost you extra and it’s probably not super necessary if you were doing ok with a 5400RPM drive.
We do want to note that by “much bigger difference,” we mean “absolutely night and day difference.” Going from 5400 RPM to 7200 RPM will indeed give you a modest performance boost, and if the difference in price is just a few dollars, it’s well worth it.
But if you chose to spend the money and buy an SSD (solid state drive) for your HP laptop, you would, in all honesty, feel like you’d just bought a much newer and faster laptop. An SSD is that good.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Joshua in Nashville, Tennessee and listening via SuperTalk 99.7 WTN told us: “I am looking for a cell phone app that works kinda like windows Excel can you give any suggestions?”
Joshua, You have a number of options available to edit Excel spreadsheet files on a smartphone, both from third parties and from Microsoft themselves.
If you have a recent Windows Phone, it comes with a mobile version of Office installed that supports the editing and creation of Word and Excel files, and the viewing and editing of PowerPoint files.
You can have the same software on your iOS or Android smartphone, with a couple important restrictions. First, to use Office Mobile on iOS or Android, Microsoft requires that you have an active subscription to Office 365. This is their bundle that includes Office 2013, Office Web Apps, and SkyDrive cloud storage. Home users pay $99 annually for this subscription.
Also, Microsoft won’t allow Office Mobile to support iOS or Android tablets, to protect the sales of their own Surface tablets. So the “official” Office Mobile is phone only unless you’re using a Microsoft Surface.
Third party apps exist in great numbers, the two best known are Documents-To-Go from Dataviz and Quickoffice, which is now owned by Google. Both of these offer support for the creation and editing of Office documents, including Excel spreadsheets. How well they do that is a matter of some debate.
They don’t pretend to be the “real” Excel or to include all of its features. For opening a simple spreadsheet and updating the contents of cells, they work fine, but if you’re looking to get some hardcore Excel work done on a smartphone, you’ll need to look at another option.
Another really good app for iOS is Cloud On. it almost has the full desktop version of Excel but there are features missing. But this app has an upside to the missing features. You can link the app to your dropbox, skydrive, google drive and others, so that when you create an Excel, Word, or even Powerpoint you can sync it to your dropbox right from the Cloud On app, open it up on your laptop or desktop and continue editing the file without any compatibility issues. Cloud On lets you save the Documents in several different Microsoft Office formats.
The best solution might be a combination of all of the above. Use the mobile apps when those will do the job, and CloudOn on those occasions when you need the real Excel.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Kate Drane, Design, Technology & Hardware Lead – Indiegogo
global site for fundraisers, helps individuals, groups and non-profits raise money online to make their ideas a reality through crowdfunding.
Gerald in Detroit, Michigan listens on CKLW 800 asked us: “Dealing with some young children that have Multiple Sclerosis. I’d like to find some computer applications that would enable them to communicate. (Caller gets very emotional at end)”
Gerald, TapSpeak is something you might want to look into. It’s designed to help kids with many different disabilities communicate by tapping on images that are meant to make it easier for them to communicate, whether they work for kids with MS or not is hard to tell. They claim they do, but we haven’t been able to find any objective tests.
Pretty much all of the apps we’ve been able to find are geared exclusively at autism sufferers, those may or may not fit your needs, but autism is a very different disease and the apps may be designed to meet very different challenges.
If you’d like to look at them anyway, AACSpeechBuddy seems fairly similar to TapSpeak, so it may be an option. Voice4u also seems like it might be useful, so it is probably another one you should have a look at, especially since it’s switch compatible, so if mobility is an issue, you can attach a bigger remote switch to your device and have your kids use it that way.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Paul in Raleigh, North Carolina asked us: “I need help. My mother wrote a 20 page book on her life via manual typewriter with correction tape. I would love to do a 50- 100 page book with pictures of the the way things were. I would like to ‘ voice type’ vs manual type and add plenty of pictures. I certainly hope this is available-at a reasonable rate. I have a laptop with Windows 7 and Open Office.org3. Thanks for your help.”
Dragon Naturally Speaking is probably your best bet for any kind of serious dictation. It will cost you $74 right now, and you will need to train it before you use it, so it will respond to your tone and accent well, but once it’s properly trained, it will be very, very good at figuring out what you’re saying.
Naturally Speaking should work just fine with OpenOffice, but you may also want to invest in a quality microphone, the software will only type what it hears and how it hears it, so giving it a quality ear may save you a lot of editing when you’re using it.
As far as the pictures go, OpenOffice writer will let you embed images without the need for any extra software or hardware. Just click on Insert, then Picture and then From file. that’s all there is to it.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Arthur in Madison, Wisconsin listening via Tune In Radio and calling via the App told us: “I would like to ask you about Windows 7. I’d like to create a new folder on my harddrive, but theres a missing a “New Folder Option” when i right click. Can I bring back the New Folder Option?”
This problem is fixable, but it’s gonna take a little work. Unfortunately, the cause is typically a corrupt registry key, and fixing it means dealing with long strings of unintelligible text and numbers.
A slightly easier solution, involves downloading a file from Microsoft’s support site.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Bits Limited: Mini Squids — Travel-Sized surge protected power strips
Datawind: UBISLATE 7Ci, 7″ Android tablet with Wi-Fi, internal microphone and camera, and expandable MicroSD memory.
PURE: Jongo Wireless Adapters — Allows you to stream all your music wirelessly to your home audio system.
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!
Magellan’s: RFID-blocking Ridged Aluminum Wallets – in RED for Valentine’s Day – prevents identity theft with expandable pockets that can hold up to 12 credits cards as well as cash and receipts