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Tech News & Commentary
Nino in St. Joseph, Michigan listens to the Podcast asked: “I am blind. I was wondering if there’s a device that I can attach to my iPad to copy files from a hard drive to the iPad. I use Dropbox, but it’s a little inconvenient”
Nino, As inconvenient as Dropbox is, it might still be your easiest choice, unfortunately.
Since we’re not experts at operating iPads without the use of our sight, though, we’ll give you a couple of other options that may work, just in case you think any of them might be better.
You can try DocSync.net, we’re mostly suggesting this one because it “works with any cloud” meaing that you can use it with Dropbox, Google Drive, Onedrive, and others. If you find that it’s easier for you to share certain documents from Google Drive and certain documents from Dropbox, it might be useful to have one app that can do both. However, free file storage is just 100MB, and you’ll be paying $0.99 for 1GB, it’s not a lot of money, but it’s $1/month more than you’re probably paying Dropbox now.
The thing that might make that dollar worth spending is the fact that you’d get a computer client to transfer your files easily… that sounds good, but since to transfer to Dropbox you just drop the file into a folder, we don’t see how that would be easier.
Another option to consider is that you can just attach the file to an email and just open it from there, you can even save many files to specific apps after opening them from email by tapping the share button on the upper right of the screen and tapping on “Open in [name of the app]” such as “Open in Dropbox” or “Open in iBooks”.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Victor asked: “I have a hard time hearing my cellphone ring when my phone is in one part of the house and I’m in another. Is there something I could buy or use to make the ringers louder so I could hear it? I have a slight hearing problem.”
Victor,Unfortunately there isn’t anything that can extend a phone ringer over distance but what you can do to ensure you hear your phone is to connect your phone to an auxiliary cable and connect the cable to a stereo or speaker and put the volume all the way high. Auxiliary cables can range from $5 to $15.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Facebook Participation: What kind of phone do you have? What will be your next phone of choice and why?
Here are some of the responses we got:
Joe From Omaha, Nebraska said: Samsung S3. Next will be an S5. Reliable and beautiful screen.
Charles Lives inDunedin, Florida shared that he is interested in the Nokia Lumia 1020 with 41 megapixel camera. He said it has Great hardware and is easy to use.
Anita stated that even with a few burps with the 4.3 update, she loves her Galaxy SIII to pieces (especially since I paid $19.99 for it!) When I’m finally ready to retire it, unless someone gives me a compelling reason to do otherwise, I’ll probably get the latest Galaxy … or latest-minus-one
Stuart said: he has an HTC One. He’s been a fan of HTC for a number
of years, because of its syncing ability with Microsoft Office, and he’s happy with the Android OS. New phone not on the immediate horizon, but when it’s time, he believes that he’ll stick with HTC.
John in Stormville, New York said: he has a Nokia Lumia 920. He doesn’t know what his next phone will be (he has about 10 months before he can upgrade) but he’s fairly sure it will be an Android phone.
For more listen to hour 2 of the podcast on the right side of this page.
Guest Segment:
Amit Manna, Co-founder & COO – Fashioholic
Winter hat for women this day.
Drake in Hamilton, Ontario listens Online asked us: “I was wondering if on the Raspberry Pi is there anyway to convert a exe file into a ARMS instruction site program. I just wrote a program in the visual basics and I wondering if I could put it on the Raspberry Pi?”
Amit, You’re not gonna have much luck with .exe files, they’re Windows only and they’re not at all easy to convert into anything else without editing and re-compiling their source code.
You may have a little more luck with Visual Basic, but not much… if you’ve been writing pure Visual Basic programs, then you’re out of luck again. However, if you’ve been using Visual Basic .NET you MAY be able to run your software, but there are no guarantees.
.NET software should run using a program called Mono as an intermediary, but don’t expect perfection, it may or may not go well.
On the plus side though, as simple a language as Visual Basic is, you could argue that it’s more complex than shell scripts, Pearl, Python or many of the other languages you can use to program for the Pi. If you’re willing to put in a little work, some of your knowledge may transfer, and you may be able to program native software for your Pi.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Jerry in Detroit, Michigan listening on CKLW 800 asked us: “The Sunday Free press has this article about going Hi-Fi and getting internet radio anywhere and anytime. Is that true? A lot of thing are really pricey like $200, $82.63 is the cheapest one. Do you have to have an internet connection and can you really just go walking down the street and listen to internet radio without having a cell phone that plugs into this thing.”
Jerry, We have not heard of any standalone internet radios with mobile broadband built in, and that’s probably because smartphones are already portable enough and most people wouldn’t want to pay for a second data plan when they already have to pay for their smartphones.
Judging by the prices you mentioned, you’ve probably been looking at regular internet radios, that’s about how much they run for, but they will usually require at least WiFi to be able to stream any radio stations.
If you do have a smartphone, there are many free apps that can be used to listen to both traditional and online-only stations, that may be the way to go.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Joanne Black: Autographed copies of her book “Pick up the damn phone”
Hydreon:Fake TV – Burglary Deterrent Device
iolo: Copies of System Mechanic – Tune-up your PC to increase performance and reliability.
Tylt: ALIN Screen Protectors for the iPad Air
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!