Dropbox
- Image via CrunchBase
In the past we have looked at SugarSync as a tool for online backup and file.
Lately though I have made a switch to another service called Dropbox. Whilst it is similar, there are many features of Dropbox that make it more useful for offsite backup and collaboration.
Setting up Dropbox is pretty easy. Sign up for an account – free for a 2Gb starter plan – and then download and install the required software. The software is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and even iPhone – so there are no limitations by platform.
Once installed you will have a Dropbox folder and anything saved into this folder will be automatically uploaded and saved into your online, secure, space. The way I set this up was to move my entire documents folder into the Dropbox. It took a bit of fiddling to get everything pointing to the right place – but once done all of my work documents are transparently saved online.
If you have several machines you can install Dropbox on all of them and your files will be kept magically in sync. It is worth noting that somehow the software is clever enough to only sync the parts of the file that changes – reducing file transfer times and data usage. Also – it knows if the computers are on the same network and sends the files direct, rather than up to the Internet site and back down again.
There are a couple of elements to file sharing. First, if you have a large file you need to send as a one-off you can drop it into your Public folder and grab a download link which can be easily emailed. Secondly – and this is the exciting bit! If you are collaborating with a colleague you can share to them a whole folder of files – although to do this you must both be Dropbox members. The folder will be available locally on both computers and any changes made by either party are automatically synchronized to the other user.
If you make a mistake the default Dropbox plans come with 30 days of version control – ie every version created by any small change is kept for 30 days. There is an option to extend this out to unlimited.
In terms of pricing – for many users 2Gb will be enough and is free. The smallest paid account is 50Gb and comes in at US$99 per year. The option to add unlimited versioning is called ‘Pack-Rat’ and is an extra US$39.95 a year. In summary this is a very good service offering peace of mind and easy collaboration.
With luck next month will see an iPad for review!
Related articles by Zemanta
- Integrate Dropbox with Windows 7′s Start Menu (on10.net)
- 5 Applications To Use With Dropbox To Make It Even More Useful (makeuseof.com)
- Dropbox Hacks: Upload Files To Dropbox By Email (shankrila.com)
- How to: share and sync files in Dropbox (en.onsoftware.com)
- How to Keep the Same Notes Everywhere – Synchronizing Tomboy with Dropbox (techie-buzz.com)
- Upload Files To Dropbox By Email (ghacks.net)
Aliph Jawbone Icon Bluetooth Headset
- Image by Richard Clement via Flickr
Thanks to the NSW State Government I spend a minimum of two hours in the car a day on the M2 – and paying nearly $20 a day for the privilege. This is a good time for me to catch up with interstate work colleagues or friends and family on the phone.
The inadequacy of bluetooth hands-free systems became apparent to me as my wife became more involved with the school run and I found we were trying to communicate when we were both in a car. It became a real struggle to decipher the muffled, mumbling noise occasionally pierced by the sound of a screaming infant. I thought that there had to be a better solution.
A colleague had recommended me some time ago to a brand of bluetooth earpiece called Jawbone made by a company called Aliph. Based on technology developed for the military, these devices have a small sensor which sits on you cheek and picks up the sound by vibrations through your face. This is then compared with the sound coming through the microphone and by some clever processing virtually all ambient noise is removed. This is remarkably effective – I was sitting next to my young daughter with a nebuliser running and the person at the other end of the phone was completely unaware that the machine was on.
The Icon is Aliph’s latest Jawbone model and as of writing is unavailable in Australia – other than through eBay. There are 6 variations of colour and style – 3 aimed towards men and 3 more jewelery like for the ladies. Another interesting feature of the Icon is that it talks to you in a style that matches the phone variation. For example the Bombshell is a crumpled gold model with a sultry, sexy voice. The voices will tell you when the headset connects, how much battery life remains and the number of the person calling you. New voices can be uploaded to the headset by connecting it to your Mac or PC.
Another interesting feature is ‘apps’. Well, this is what Aliph are calling them but it is a bit of a stretch. Essentially it means that the single button can be programmed to call a preset number for a service – but you cannot set it to a number of your choice which seems silly. Lets hope that this becomes more useful in the future.
For me a big plus was that when connected to an iPhone there is a battery meter for the headset next to the iPhone battery meter. Apparently this was a function available to the original Apple bluetooth headset which was not sold in Australia.
In summary the sound quality of this headset leaves everything else I have tried in the dust. I bought one for my wife as well and we are able to have a comfortable conversation in the car. There is no manual volume control on the device which I found strange at first – volume is adjusted depending on ambient noise – but I have not had a problem. Availability is difficult at this stage – but I’m sure they will be on sale here soon.
Kodak Zx1 Pocket Video Camera
- Image by Richard Clement via Flickr
The pocket video camera market emerged recently in Australia with the introduction (finally!!) of the Flip range of camcorders. Available in standard and high definition these camera’s strike me as being quite high priced for offering video of a quality found in a decent still camera. What is worse, none of the pocket video camera’s seem to offer any sort of image stabilisation meaning that you have to be VERY careful with your shots.
Being the contrary sort I decided to try a different option and go with the Kodak Zx1. This camera offers the same sort of functionality as an HD Flip – shooting VGA and 720p High Definition. Hardware wise the camera is ruggedised with rubber flap protected ports. One of the key differences is that the Kodak runs on standard AA’s and an SD card. This offers a great degree of flexibility and means that if you run of of juice in the provided rechargeables you can nip into any corner store and you are soon good to go again. The Flip range have built in USB plugs so the whole camera plugs into your computer – with the Kodak you can use a separate cable or, because it uses SD cards and not internal memory, remove the card and put it into the SD reader found on most moderns PC’s. The last key hardware feature with the Kodak is a built in mini-HDMI port and a cable is provided to connect the camera straight to your TV. This is quite a nice bonus from Kodak as many of these cables start at around $30!
Video quality is actually surprisingly good with excellent colour saturation in decent light. The caveat there is – decent light. The lens is little bigger than that on a camera phone and so in low light the video soon becomes quite grainy and almost unusable. The video files are saved as Quicktime .mov format and can be used directly in iMovie and many other video editing applications.
Normal price is around the AU$250 mark – although I picked mine up from catchoftheday.com.au for $120. An example of the video is below:
Related articles by Zemanta
- Kodak Video Camera: A Flip Killer? (online.wsj.com)
Pogo Sketch
- Image by Richard Clement via Flickr
The Pogo Sketch is a stylus designed to work with todays capacitive touch screen devices. The tip (described well by Leo Laporte as a ‘puffball’) is a spongy material that mimics the action of the finger tips on the screen. It is very effective when gloves – such as surgical gloves – have to be worn so the touch interface would not otherwise work.
The Pogo Sketch also works well with the Touch Trackpad of the latest generation MacBook and MacBook Pro computers, In fact the company that makes the stylus, Ten One Design, also make a piece of software called Autograph which allows you to sign documents on your Mac.
Similar to Autograph is the iPhone application Zosh. You can email PDF documents to yourself at your Zosh account (account is free, app is AU$3.99) which can then be downloaded to your iPhone, signed and emailed on. If you have been keeping a fax machine just to send on signed documents you can finally lay it to rest.
In summary, whilst you might not need the Pogo Sketch on every occasion it is handy when working in a clinical environment – or to help sign electronica documents using Zosh service.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Autograph: simple signature capture for MacBooks (crunchgear.com)
- Ten One Design, Maker of Pogo Stylus and Sketch, Celebrates Second Anniversary with One Day Only (geardiary.com)
- iPod touch POS system (makezine.com)
- Have a MacBook running Snow Leopard? Give someone your Autograph (tuaw.com)
- Autograph from Ten One Design – Quick Look (geardiary.com)
Amazon Kindle In Australia
- Image via Wikipedia
When I heard that the Amazon Kindle was going on International sale I just knew I was about to part with a decent chunk of change! Those of you that follow Dr Gadget will remember that around 12 months ago I reviewed the BeBook – a more open source device that has served me fairly well in the interim. Updates for the BeBook slowed down considerably in the months since – and the last major upgrade moved the device away from the Mobipocket format to the more Open Source ePub format. Given that by this point I had purchased quite a few Mobipocket books I was not best pleased by this change – although I can see the rationale for the future given that Mobipocket is owned by Amazon.
Moving on to the Kindle – whilst still expensive it is less so than the BeBook. With shipping and a leather case it arrived in Australia just shy of $350 – considerably less than the $499 BeBook. Quality wise it certainly has a better finish. Charging is accomplished via a USB cable that comes with the device. Unfortunately it only seems to work properly when plugged into a computer – I have tried it with several USB power adaptors and none seem to work. Once charged the battery is good for about 4 days with wireless switched on – or a couple of weeks with wireless off.
When it comes to reading books the Kindle really shines. Amazon’s stated aim was to make the device ‘disappear’ and allow the reading experience to come to the fore. This is certainly the case. The page turn buttons are large and perfectly placed and the page turn process is much faster than the BeBook. The first book I read on the Kindle was the new Dan Brown – The Lost Symbol and as promised the use of an ereader did fade into the background allowing me to engage fully with the story.
One of the key features of the Kindle is access to the Amazon Whispernet. Basically the device comes with built in 3G networking which is available in over 100 countries at no cost to the user. This allows browsing and buying books from the Amazon Kindle bookstore – plus the delivery of newspapers and magazines. At the moment the range of books and periodicals available to Australian subscribers is limited by International copyright agreements – but there are ways to access the full range of books if you are crafty enough! The absence of Australian newspapers is disappointing and is apparently due to ongoing negotiations with Australian publishers.
There are additional costs when buying books and magazines and having them delivered via Whispernet. For books you will pay a US$1.99 premium but this can be avoided by purchasing via computer and downloading to Kindle via the supplied USB cable. That said, even with Whispernet delivery a new release is typically US$11.99 – far less than bookshop prices. As far as I can tell magazines and newspapers can only be delivered via Whispernet at a cost of US1.99 per issue or a flat rate of US$4.99 per week. There is a basic web browser built into the Kindle which is only supposed to provide access to Wikipedia – but my Kindle does not seem to have these restrictions so I can’t complain!
Formats wise the native Kindle format is AZW although it can also read text files and Mobipocket files that do not have DRM (Digital Rights Management). For other files types there is a clever workaround. Each Kindle has its own email address to which files – such as Office documents or PDF files – can be mailed. They will be converted and sent to the device for US0.99c per megabyte. To avoid the charge you are given a second email address whereby documents are converted and sent back to you as Kindle books to load up via the USB cable.
In conclusion the Kindle is a fabulous device that will only improve as the content legitimately available to Australians increases.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Amazon Kindle, first impressions (mathewpacker.com)
- Kindle 2 Drops Price Again to $259, Adds International Flavour For $279 [Kindle 2] (gizmodo.com)
- Amazon Releases International Version of the Kindle (businesspundit.com)
Barnes & Noble Nook eBook Reader
Barnes and Noble have launched a class beating eBook reader. Utilising two screens – an e-ink reader and a colour touch screen for navigation and control – it ticks all the boxes. It also includes a 3G connection via AT&T and WiFi. I suspect it will be some time before we see this device in Australia. It would be nice to dream that one day the “powers that be” see these devices as an opportunity rather than a parallel importing threat. Look out for an extensive review of the International Amazon Kindle here in the next week.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Kindle Killer? (technologyreview.com)
- Barnes & Noble Reader Allows Book Sharing (ubergizmo.com)
- The Kindle Killer Arrives (tech.slashdot.org)
- The $259, dual-screen Barnes & Noble Nook reader gets official (crunchgear.com)
- A Sneak Peek at Barnes & Noble’s Nook (blogs.wsj.com)
Augmented Reality
- Image via Wikipedia
The other day I sat down with my seven year old daughter to show her a new iPhone app that I had installed. Not that this was a first – even my three year old has been quite competent with the iPhone since she was just turned two – a testament to Apple’s interface design! What made this occasion different was my insistence that she remembered where she was on this day – the first time she played with a true augmented reality application.
Such applications are really only possible since the advent of the iPhone 3GS which has a compass, GPS and accelerometers which give it a fairly accurate idea of its location in three dimensions.
For some time web applications such as Google Maps have been overlaying data onto the maps and we have become quite used to finding information about surrounding businesses in such a way. The iPhone 3GS allows developers to go one step further – taking away the 2D view of the map and replacing it with a real-time view of the world using the camera and screen as a viewport. The application I was playing with is called NearestWiki. You start the application and move the 3GS to look at the world around you – information badges appear in space which draw information from Wikipedia. I was surprised how many entries there were near my house – I should imagine that when visiting a city it would be fascinating!
Probably the most exciting of such applications at the moment is called the Bionic Eye – which sadly does not have Australian data at the moment. This shows shopping and public transport venues nearby. When one is selected simply point the iPhone camera towards the pavement and arrows appear giving directions.
I believe that fairly quickly such technology will find its way into, perhaps, an attachment for glasses and will become ubiquitous. Whilst the benefits of such data overlays are of interest in daily life – in medicine they are truly astounding!
Related articles by Zemanta
- Bionic Eye app creates augmented reality on your iPhone 3GS (mobilecrunch.com)
- Bionic Eye: Augmented Reality App for the iPhone (thenextweb.com)
- BIONIC EYE: Augmented Reality on the iPhone (mashable.com)
Livescribe Pulse 2Gb Smartpen
- Image by Becca Taylor via Flickr
For those of you that are avid readers of this column it should have become obvious that whilst I am a committed computer geek – I also have a love of fine pens, paper and writing instruments. In this months column I have managed to combine both – and find a tool that is invaluable to doctors, especially when studying or at a conference. The device in question is the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen. Physically it is a slightly chunky ball pen – but this pen will digitise everything you write and save it to a desktop application. An addon called MyScript then does a reasonable job of converting it to typed text.
Alone this would be quite impressive – but this pen can also record the ambient audio at the same time – and link it to your written notes. Excellent for conferences, lectures and meetings. On the desktop the whole becomes searchable – and it seems to use the audio and text together to make the search quite accurate. Even better – you can return to your printed notes and tap on any word with the pen and it will play the audio from that point in the meeting.
The secret behind all of this is the use of special paper which is covered in microdots to form a unique map the size of Europe and Asia combined. This means you have to use special notebooks – but they are reasonably priced. If you have access to a laser printer the Windows desktop software allows you to print your own paper. The Mac software works well but so far lacks some of the features available to Windows users.
The 2GB pen holds about 200 hours of audio and is available from Officeworks or smartpen.com.au for $329 - smartpen.com.au has the wider range of accessories. More information at livescribe.com.
Related articles by Zemanta
- My new favorite gadget: Livescribe Pulse pen (jamesfallows.theatlantic.com)
- Livescribe Pulse Smartpen Tidbits (geardiary.com)
- Livescribe Pulse Smartpen (tom-watson.co.uk)
- Livescribe for Mac gets handwriting recognition thanks to Vision Objects (tuaw.com)
- I Love the Livescribe Pen (chrisbrogan.com)
Skype
- Image via CrunchBase
Most people by now have heard of Skype which has become the defacto standard for internet telephony. However, many users only use Skype computer-to-computer and miss many of the great benefits Skype offers when using one of their excellent subscription plans.
As a computer only client, Skype is an excellent choice for text, voice and video messaging. Many accessories are now available that free Skype from the computer such as the Netgear WiFi telephone or several models of Philips USB phones.
As far as subscriptions go, there are two main packages: Unlimited Country at about AU$8 per month gives unlimited calls to landlines in Australia, and Unlimited World at about AU$18 per month offers unlimited calls to landlines across 36 countries – plus many other benefits such has voicemail, Skype-In (take incoming calls) and Skype-To-Go (a local number you can call from any telephone to make a call using your Skype account). If you make a lot of international calls this is great value, easy to use and worth a look. Make sure you check the country you want to call is included in the plan.
Related articles by Zemanta
- GrandCentral closes its doors – time to update to Google Voice (downloadsquad.com)
