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Tech News & Commentary
Robert in Shreveport, Louisiana listening on 710 KEEL asked: “Interested in getting a new laptop or tablet. Not sure if I can find a tablet that would do what I need done like a laptop would. Basically I need to create documents on and print from. Do they make a tablet you can do that with?”
You can create document and print form tablets, but you can’t do it nearly as well or as easily as you could using a laptop.
You will generally have fewer options than you do with laptops, and even when you don’t (pretty much only in the case of using a Windows 8 tablet), the user interface won’t be very well adjusted to your hands, you will still be more comfortable using a mouse and keyboard.
You can use an iPad or an Android tablet and type up documents and spreadsheets using just the screen, you can connect them to printers too, but everything will be a little harder and a little more incomplete than if you had used a laptop to beign with.
Even with all the advancements they’re experiencing, for now, tablets are still better suited to be content consumption devices than content production devices.
A quality keyboard is a must in such cases. One excellent choice for the iPad is the Logitech Ultrathin keyboard cover. This is a bluetooth keyboard that works as a smart cover for the iPad. It’s a superior quality keyboard and makes typing documents on the iPad as easy as any notebook computer.
Another good choice is the ZAGGkeys FLEX, a bluetooth keyboard with a sleeve that converts into a stand for your iPad. You would probably still want a smart cover for it to protect the glass, so that makes the price about the same between the two. The Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover sells for $99 and the ZAGGkeys FLEX sells for $79.
You’ll have excellent choices for Android tablets as well, so shop around. As for printing, if you go iPad, then it’s as easy as choosing a printer that supports Apple’s AirPrint standard. You can print anything you want from your iPad then. Printers from manufacturers such as Canon and HP will offer this.
On an Android tablet, you will either need to buy a printing app or use Google’s Cloud Print feature to send your printouts through your Google account. Cloud Print only support about 50 printer models, as opposed to the 450 that support AirPrint, so keep that in mind when you’re making your selection.
Good luck! Tell us what you end up doing.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Ray in Niagara Falls, New York listens online asked: “I want to hook up a second hard drive to my computer and have it copy the OS and everything that’s on the current hard drive, then leave them both hooked up and everything I do on the computer would write to both of the hard drives so that if the drive were to fail, I would have a backup. Is that possible?”
You can do what you need, but before you overthink it too much or look for strange solutions, look at RAID arrays, in particular what you want is a RAID 1 array.
RAID can be used for different purposes, for exmaple a RAID 0 array is all about efficiency and quick data access, RAID 1 won’t give you that, but it will automatically mirror everything you do on your main drive on a second drive, which is all you really want.
Here’s the big downside of using a RAID array as opposed to, say, an external hard drive and a program that backs up your data regularly: let’s say your computer has a nice 1TB hard drive, and you get a second 1TB hard drive, you set them up in RAID 1 configuration and put them to work. You’ll have 2TBs worth of hard drive and 1TB of useable data storage, because the second TB will be 100% mirror and 0% extra storage.
If that’s ok with you, then RAID 1 is easy, and pretty much stress free, if you want to have a little bit of that storage for your own use, you may be better served by using automatic backups to the second drive.
Your computer’s hardware will have to support creating a RAID volume across the two hard drives, or else you will need to purchase a RAID controller that you plug in to an expansion slot. Most motherboards built with Intel chipsets after the X58, which is several years old, have an integrated RAID controller. If your computer is less than a couple years old, you will probably have what you need.
A plug-in RAID controller typically isn’t cheap, because they aren’t designed for the general consumer market. That’s because, as we just said, most current consumer model computers include the RAID support. Plug in controllers are designed for use with high performance servers.
If your concern is simply backing up your data continuously, you could always attach an external USB 2 or 3 hard drive and use backup software that does a constant background backup, sometimes called a “shadow volume.” If you’re worried about the lag this might put on your computer’s operation, then use a backup program that runs overnight. You won’t have up to the minute protection, but it won’t be more than one day old.
An advantage there is that you can use a program like Acronis TrueImage and your nightly backup can be a “bare metal” disaster backup that lets you get your computer up and running again, operating system and applications included, following a hard drive crash.
Good luck! Let us know what you decide to do. We’re genuinely curious to see how that works out.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Facebook Participation:
We asked on our Facebook Page: The Food & Drug Administration just approved the world’s first bionic eye for those suffering from a rare retinal disorder. It is by far the most significant stride ever made toward curing blindness through the use of technology. How do YOU feel about the merging of man with his technology, or as Ray Kurzweil calls it the “Singularity”? Does it make you hopeful? Excited? Fearful?
William said: Sign me up for a pair of Ono-Sendai bionic eyes!
Dave said:
Now they need to approve more stem cell testing.
Dorothea said:
it’s both hopeful and scary I would say. Hopeful for those whose sight is restored in this case..and others who will be helped by advances Scary because I’ve seen too many sci fi movies.. But then again.. Yesterday’s scifi is in some cases today’s reality.
Tom said: If I can have eagle eye vision and change color of the eyes on demand, where’s the signup list?
John said:
Welcome to the world of the “Terminator”.
Lois said:
I think medical science will continue to advance.
Alexandre said:
I have a friend who has a detached retina in each eye, I wonder if this could help here see, or if it’s not a retina replacement device.
I’m sure that one day she will be able to see. There’s no reason why science won’t be able to fix any problem, until then, waiting, “Into Tomorrow”
Jim in Oceano, California listening on K-TIP 1450 “Talk is Power” asked: “Is there any way I can have whatever is on my computer show up on my wall mounted TV?”
Yes there is but it depends on your TV and your computer. If both your TV and your computer are fairly modern, then they will both most likely have an HDMI port.
If that’s the case, all you need is an HDMI cable, which you can find for prices ranging from like $1 online to $100 at places like Radio Shack. Feel free to go cheap, it won’t make a huge difference. Once you plug it in to both devices, it should just work right away.
You’ll typically have 2 options for how things are displayed on your TV: either your screen will be “mirrored” — in which case everything that happens on your computer will be on the TV as well; or, it will be set to “extended desktop” in which case you basically get a long desktop, part of it will be on your computer and part of it will be on your TV and you should be able to drag things from one to the other.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Tom in Albuquerque, New Mexico listens to the Podcast asked: ” I have two questions. I want to put my movies and TV shows into my 1st gen 32gb iPad running CineXPlayer. Is 3gp or Mp4 a better format to use and what specs of each should I use in terms of ratio like 620 x 480 for example or audio encoding. I want to squeeze as much as I can into it.
My other question was while you were at CES did you see anything about Delphi and Verizon selling a Bluetooth CDMA radio that plugs into the OBD2 port for remote access, engine codes and geolocation tracking. Engadget mentioned it would be this February but I haven’t found out from the Verizon store.
Keep up the great show oh and this techno tubby meme will jump the shark and nuke the fridge the moment Mark starts throwing teletubby custard around.”
Well, you’re looking to specifically play that content on an iPad, so 3GP is out already, iPads don’t play 3GP video natively, so MP4 or M4V would be better choices for you.
As far as resolution goes, you don’t really have to go overboard, the original iPad had a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, so whatever aspect ration gets you closest to that without deforming the image is probably all you need. If you really want to get a ton of content on it, then sure, you can lower the resolution, but you will notice the image degradation.
As for your second question, we’ve heard of the Delphi Vehicle Diagnostics module, and it is still listed on Verizon’s site, but it’s still listed as “coming soon” with no release date.
The Delphi Vehicle Diagnotics is supposed to be is give a super simple to use remote starter, unlocker, GPS tracker, and more. As the owner all you’d have to do is plug it into your car’s OBD2 port and it’s installed. If it ever comes out, it will also allow you to customize alerts, for example, if the car is driven at high rpm, high speed and it will give you the information that regular OBD ports give as well.
It’s a pretty cool device, but it has no price or release date, so don’t get your hopes up yet.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Tim in Jefferson City, Missouri listening on KLIK 1240 asked: “I would like to know how you can get Windows 8 on your computer and how much does it cost?”
Windows 8 is actually probably the least expensive Windows to date. If you have Windows XP or a newer version, you can upgrade for $40.
How you upgrade actually determines what price you get, if you go to a store and buy a disc, you’ll end up paying about an extra $30 to upgrade. If you do that, just pop the disc in your drive, restart your computer and follow the prompts on screen, the installer itself will guide you through it and it won’t be much different than what you’d see if you were to install a program or game.
Your other option is to pay the $40 to get it online, you’d have it at almost half price, and can just download it and install it straight from Microsoft’s website, you’ll get the instructions right there.
The important thing that they might not tell you about is back up before you do anything. Operating systems are not programs, they’re the thing that run the programs, so if something goes wrong, you may lose data, and it may be very hard to recover, so back it up beforehand in case anything goes wrong.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
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