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Tech News & Commentary
Scott in Erie, Pennsylvania listening on 1450 WPSE asked: “I bought an MP3 player and it didn’t last a long time. I’m considering an iPod instead. The touchscreen quit working so I know I can load songs onto it but it doesn’t respond when I touch the screen. Is there a work-around for that so you can actually use it?”
A lot of MP3 players (including the iPod, if you end up getting one as a replacement) will accept commands from a remote on the headphone cable. If yours happens to be able to skip to the next song, pause and play, and control the volume using a headphone remote, then you may be able to use it… though not very comfortably. Other than that, it really goes from device to device but, usually, if there’s a touchscreen you’re expected to use the touchscreen to control the device, so you may be out of luck.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Best of 2012 Edition!
Rita in Miami, Florida listening Online listening on 1250 AM asked: “I have an old fashioned flip phone. It’s beat up. I’m sure my next phone will be some type of an iPhone kind of thing. What’s the difference between an iPhone and an Android? I think I would prefer an Android, but I’m not sure why.”
First is availability! Several styles of Android phones and a ton of options and screen sizes from various manufacturers & carriers are available almost everywhere — carriers, stores, online. Price is another good point because there are so many different devices available. iPhone is whatever price-fixing HIGH price Apple decides. How about the ability to expand your memory with SD cards? Try doing that with any iDevice! Another feature of Android that a lot of people like over iPhones are Widgets.
Unlike iPhone screens that are littered with a gazillion icons, Android phones have multiple desktops with widgets that actually have a purpose, giving you info with the flick of a finger. You don’t have to install any software on a computer in order for an Android phone to work, like iTunes for your iPhone — the only place where you can buy music — with Android, you have a bunch of choices.
Android has an open App market. So 3rd party developers can create whatever they want and get it on the marketplace. This means there are more choices in what your phone can do. Most Android phones also let you swap batteries. There are a bunch of other good reasons to like Android over iPhone — like NFC and others.
Android is a great example of what’s good and bad about too many cooks and the soup. Google makes Android available to anyone, they can take the code and do what they want with it. What that means is, unless you get your Android directly from Google on a Nexus phone or tablet, what you’re really getting is the manufacturer’s individual flavor of Android. So you’ll find a fair bit of difference between Android devices in terms of what features they offer and how they work. What great about that is, you can usually find an Android device that looks and acts the way you want it to. What’s bad is that it sometimes takes some looking. Apple’s iPhone only works one way–Apple’s way. If you like it, great, your life just got simpler. If you don’t, you’re in trouble because it’s Apple’s ball and bat and they get to make the rules of the game. Independence vs. uniformity, with all the benefits and drawbacks of each.
The main difference comes to the mobile operating system and a little bit on the hardware side — Android vs. iOS — It’s kinda like Windows vs. Mac. It may be affected by personal preference after you try each one. Both are quite simple to use. However, iOS is more unified. There’s only one new phone to design for at a time (for the most part), whereas Android has more handsets and screen sizes to deal with. With the iPhone 5, this is the first time app developers had to update apps to take advantage of more real estate on the iPhone, aside from the bigger screen on the iPad. IOS is also unified by iTunes. You only have one app store to deal with when it comes to downloading apps, movies, music and other entertainment. Android has the Google Play Store, Amazon Store and other limited Android markets.
On the hardware side, some might argue the iPhone is a bit primitive or behind the times. Apple has said many times they are “not always first, but make existing technology better.” For example, the iPhone 5 is the first iPhone to sport a 4-inch screen. Android phones are already at 4.8-inches with the Galaxy S3 and at 5.5-inches with the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 phone/tablet combo. But, not everyone is a fan of a bigger screen. Apple decided to make iPhone 5 taller, but kept the same width so users can still hold and operate with one hand.
If you’re ok with a more unified system, then iPhone is for you. If you want a more open source phone, then Android is the one to go with. You’ll have more handset options. Just be careful. Not all handsets are the same or offer the same features. As we always like to say, try before you buy. Go to an Apple Store or your local phone store to play with different phones before you make your decision.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Facebook Participation:
What Tech Gifts did you get for Christmas? What did you like the most and why? What Tech gifts are you already exchanging and why?
Here are some of the answers we shared on the show:
Scott in Plantation, Florida: Didn’t get anything yet, but I have my sights on a Rode stereo mic for my DSLR.
Rebecca in Naples, Florida: I got an iPad mini! LOVE it!
Kristine in Michigan: Nothing. You want to gift me something? I’ll be happy to evaluate it and report back.
Tom in New Mexico: Went ahead and gifted myself a set of Able Planet Musician’s Choice noise canceling headphones. Mozart never sounded more lovely. A flip of the switch and noisy Starbucks just disappears.
Alexandre in Normandy, France: Nothing, but I’ll be happy to put in some reviews for you.
Richard in California listens on KTIP 1450 asked: “Thanks for all the great advice. I got an iPad for my birthday. Other than playing games, Facebook, checking email, and downloading movies and watching it on our TV, what else can it do?”
What do you need to do, Richard? You can listen to music both from the device and from online sources, browse websites (other than Facebook), chat, video conference and make phone calls using software like Skype, send text messages using apps like Google Voice or Text+, record video or take pictures (though very awkwardly), upload clips to YouTube.
You can edit movies, spreadsheets, and text documents, mix music tracks, subscribe to and download magazines, read books, you can even use it check aviation weather and draft flight plans.
iPads are fairly versatile we couldn’t really list all that they can do. If there’s anything you’d like it to do, you might be better off searching for that particular function and seeing if it can fulfill it.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
There were several approaches to record movies on a disc. After the TED system by Telefunken, presented at IFA in 1971, VHD, the Video High Density Disc by JVC was introduced, then LaserVision by Philips and CED by RCA. All were analog; all failed, and all were discontinued by the mid 80s. CD Video with 74 minutes of video also didn’t succeed; another medium with higher capacity was needed, combined with data reduction which was available in the early 90s. In the mid 90s the industry started to develop DVD technology, which had five times the storage capacity of a CD.
Eric in Bridgewater, Virginia listens to the Podcasts asked: “I got a smartphone – a Samsung SG2. The apps are asking about “auto Updating.” What are the advantages or disadvantages of having the apps auto update?”
Well, the obvious advantage is that you don’t have to bother manually updating every app or having to even worry about apps having updates available. Theoretically, this means that every time there is a bug fix your app gets automatically updated and you don’t have to suffer through it anymore. In reality, it sometimes means that you get stuck with weird functionality or a supposedly improved UI that is painful to use.
Most of the time allowing auto-updates gets ride of the hassle of having to manually update every app, and just replaces what 90% of people really do: look at a long list of apps that can be updated and just say “yes, just update all of them” without checking what changed on each one.
The few cases where you get stuck with changes you don’t want are probably not common enough to keep you from taking advantage of the convenience of auto-updating.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Glenn in Mississippi listens on Supertalk FM asked: “I travel a great deal. I have depended on Google Cloud/Drive a good bit. I have just discovered that Western Digital had a hard drive that connected on Ethernet can be used as a cloud. Not know anything about them I turn to you. Any word on them? Worth the 200 cost?”
It depends on what you’re using Google Drive for. If you use Google Drive to edit documents then having your own private cloud with Western Digital won’t help you much. If you use it for storage though, it could give you much more storage for less money on the long run.
The cloud enabled hard drive that Western Digital makes is called the My Book Live and it comes in 1, 2 and 3 TB models. Paying for 1TB of storage on Google Drive will cost you $49.99 a month. If you really need access to all of that data all the time, then one of these might work for you.
Then again, do you need access to all of that data at all times? Because a lot of it may not be usable to you over the Internet anyway. You may have access to a high definition movie from anywhere, but can you really sit down and wait for it to download or stream on your home connection? You may be better off just continuing to upload what makes sense to Google Drive and accessing it from there for free.
Now, if for some reason you want to have access to a huge number of files from anywhere, then yes, this hard drive might be of use to you. Just think about whether paying a premium is worth the extra connectivity or not.
You also have the option of using a computer to share a regular hard drive (internal or external) using FTP server software, but the set up will be far more involved than just turning on your new cloud enabled hard drive.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Cathy in Columbia, Missouri listening on News Talk KFRU 1400 asked: “What computer would you suggest for a ‘dummy with computers?’ Never used one before.”
Since you’ve never used computer and you don’t know how much use you’re going to get out of one, you can look into some inexpensive models to learn with. If you find that you’re advancing so fast that you want to use very heavy software, these may turn out not to be the models for you. But odds are that you won’t run into that problem any time soon.
You can look at something like an ASUS A-Series. You can find some models on Newegg.com for as little as $350 and they come with a nice big 15.6” screen.
You can also look at a Toshiba Satellite C855 for about $400. It also has a big screen, a pretty large hard drive and it should be comfortable to learn on.
A Lenovo G575 will cost you just $329 and it comes with a dual core processor, and the features you can expect from the other two. They’re not super powerful computers, they won’t last forever, but you can use them to learn on without investing a lot of money.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info, please email us here.
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.