Nice keyboard with raised keys

The Toshiba NB205 netbook is impressive by its looks.  The unique style keyboard reminds me of the look and feel that of the older Macbook Pro.  In fact, it was the keyboard that actually enticed me to pursue looking into the netbook further.  Having previously owned the HP1151 and the Acer Aspire one I liked how thin the NB205 was even with the six cell battery.

One of the key points I look at when purchasing a computer is how hackable is it.  I research the Internet looking for previous hacks for the specific

computer/netbooks to see what others have already ventured out to do.  No point in recreating the wheel.  Will the system accepting a new operating system or multiple operating systems for example,  Apple’s OSX, Win 7, Ubuntu or other operating systems (OS).  I also look to see if the memory and hard drive can be upgraded.  While some may not call this a hack, some would if you every tried to upgrade the hard drive in an Acer Aspire one.  I have not searched for an Apple OSX hack yet, but I have found that the memory and hard drive are easy to access from the bottom.

First Upgrades

The NB205 came stock with Windows 7 stater (blah), 1 mb of Ram and a 160 GB hard drive (spindle).  After my purchase, I promptly upgraded to a 2gb memory chip and at this time a 250gb 7200 RPM hard drive.  If I like the netbook, I may bump to a 500gb. You may ask why so big of a hard drive for a netbook, because I can.  I can tell you that I picked up more of a vibration or hum from the larger and faster hard drive.

So upgrades are:

RAM

1gb —> 2gb

Hard Drive

160gb 5400 –> RPM

OS

Win 7 Starter –> Win 7 Home but will also add Ubuntu and investigate OSX

Memory and Hard drive Access Panel

Performance

The NB205 comes with the Atom N280 chip.  The N280 has a 1.66 GHz clockspeed and a 667 MHz FSB. Both the Atom N270 and Atom N280 are single core processors which support Intel Hyper-Threading Technology.  The N280 appears to have a faster BUS and processor speed over the N270 that is commonly found in the previous netbooks.  Based on my real world experience I found that the netbook was quite agile in its operation, but did find bottlenecks when operating Outlook 2007 and checking multiple e-mail accounts.

Skype worked well when using it for video conferencing and the voice and video quality was quite acceptable.

PROS

• Faster processor and BUS speed than its predecessor
• Easily upgradable by accessing the memory and HD panel on the bottom of the laptop
• Long battery life (even with upgrades)
• Vibrant screen
• Woke up from sleep function 9 out of 10 times
• Thin/Small footprint even with 6 cell battery

CONS

• Power cord plugs in the the right side versus in the back
• Keyboard does take some getting used to
• Touch mouse buttons are not as responsive as I would like
• Sound/Speaker is low even when cranked to the max

Overall I do like the Toshiba NB205 netbook.  I am eager to see what the new processors and higher end Nvidia ION graphic cards provide.

—Rod

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So, after spending another $20, or $30 you are all set. Maybe not…

Now that you purchased your media card and your card reader, you have to decide what pictures to put onto your media card.  You sift through 20 gig of images that you have digitally shot over the last 5 years and now have to choose what to put on your card.  Do you isolate and choose the photos you really want to see, or do you group them by the event.  Oh my, just too many choices to think about.  If there were only a way to have all of my pictures that would display on the frame and I just choose what I want to see when I want to see them.  You purchased a nice frame that allows you to stream your music and images from another computer where you keep your images.  The question, can you network the computer to the frame getting past the firewall settings and connect the two?  The other point is, do I really want to keep another computer running with my frame?

Well here is another solution. Most photo frames today support the use of USB media sticks that can be plugged into the frame. If your photo frame support the USB sticks then you may be in luck.  The photo frame may support connecting a 2.5″ external hard drive to the frame.  Most of the nicer photo frames can run enough power through it to support the needed power to drive the hard drive to spin up and work.  This is really where quality meets dollars.  If you spend a few more dollars for a nicer quality photo frame, it may support providing the extra power.  The last thing you need is to hear, “I’m given her all shes got captain.”  I have used Kodak and HP photo frames with great success.  The drives do consume a little more power, but less than running a computer to stream your pictures to your photo frame.

Most external drives that have about 80-120gb of storage usually sell for around $50-$60.  You can certainly step up to the 250-500gb arena for about $100 and have room to place all of your photos on the drive, but also have room to grow.  IF you want to tackle this project, just make sure to do it while the frame is in warranty as I have heard if the frame cannot support the additional power requirements through the USB port they will fail within 10 days.  Certainly enough time to take it back and get a replacement.

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1. Let Google Desktop find your data quickly

The best thing is that all bags on the site are now up to 65% off.  Check out all the bags at Timbuk2.

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Would you like to locate that email, last price paid for an item or product announcement quickly?   Google Desktop allows you to locate that information in just two taps of the CTRL key.

Google Desktop is a free application developed by Google and the programs main focus is to help you locate information quickly that is stored in your computer.  Upon initial installation of Google Desktop, the program will begin to index the files stored on your computer.  This could take some time based on the amount of data and the size of your computer’s hard drive.  You should plan to install Google Desktop and let the computer index the file overnight.  Indexing all of your computer data can take system resources, so wait until your computer is free from use.  Once the system has indexed your files, only the data that changes will be indexed reducing or eliminating any type of slow down during regular use.

Outlook and Outlook Express email can also be indexed, just remember that Google Desktop only indexes those files when the email program is running.

Installation and Setup

First step is to download Google Desktop from here: Download Google Desktop

Some versions of Internet Explorer will display a yellow warning bar at the top of the browser window.

You must right mouse click and choose to “Download the file” from the open menu.

Select “Run”, then “Open” at the next window prompt.

Now choose “Run” to begin the install of the program.

This window offers you some choices on how you want to use Google Desktop.  The program can provide you some additional features like a sidebar with gadgets to update you on news, weather and other data points you add.  For our example we are just interested in indexing our hard drive to find information quickly, so we have unchecked :

The sidebar with Gadgets

Under additional settings e have unchecked:

Set Google as your homepage and default browser search

Improve Google Desktop by sending crash reports and anonymous usage data

Once the program is installed, you will have an icon in your system tray (lower right corner of your computer screen) that looks like a multi-colored swirl.

As your roll over with the icon with your mouse, you will get an indexing update.  At this point open your email program so email files can also be indexed and call it a night.  Indexing can take some time based on the size of your hard drive and how much data you have to index.

Once indexing is complete, click on the multi-colored swirl icon in the system tray to search for your data.  When you single right click on the system tray icon you will see a menu of choices.  If indexing is slowing your computer down too much, then you can put it to sleep.

The system tray icon also allows you to turn on the desktop side bar with gadgets or use a floating search bar.

Spend some time working through the options you have here in the system tray menu.  This is the area where you can turn back on your desktop gadgets using the sidebar feature.

Another way to access the search bar is by quickly by tapping on the CTRL key twice.

Enter in the data you are looking for and the Desktop application will begin to filter and show you local files and provide you the ability to search on the web as well.

Click on the item that fits what you are looking for the Google Desktop will take you to the information.  If is it an Excel file and you have Excel installed, it will open Excel and display the file.  If the file is a webpage, your default browser is opened and you will be shown the page.

Quickly and easily, find your data with no fuss and no muss.  Once your data is indexed the system will them only index files that are added to your system.

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In this example you have accessed ESPN.com.

Make sure that you can see your desktop behind Internet Explorer and that your Internet Explorer is not maximized.

You will now click with your left mouse button and while holding it down, drag the link to your desktop.

Once you have moved the link to your desktop, release the left mouse button to place the link on your desktop.  You can now also change the name of the link if you like by single right mouse clicking on the link and choose “Rename” from the context menu with your left mouse click.  Change the shortcut name to what suits you best.

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VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)  media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, ogg, aac …) as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Several programs exist in the market today to convert and transfer your DVD movie to your portable media player.  Some of these programs even have you install VLC to remove the copy protection of the DVD movie while they convert to a single file.  But there are only a handful of programs that allow you to select points in a DVD and record the sequence you want.  This is another great point about VLC.

MysticGeek  at http://www.howtogeek.com/ has written an excellent article found here (How to copy a DVD) that explains how to configure VLC and capture the complete DVD or specific scenes.

Check it out…

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So, “WHAT IS IT!!”, you ask.  Well, the idea behind Google Latitude is to be a social program to find friends that are close to you, or where they are at in the world. Google simplifies my explanation with three bullet points.

With Google Latitude, you can:

• See where your friends are and what they are up to
• Quickly contact them with SMS, IM, or a phone call
• Control your location and who gets to see it
• Enjoy Google Latitude on your phone, PC, or both.

Phone view of the Google Latitude

From your mobile phone – View your friends’ locations and status messages and share yours with them. (Supported phones)

From your computer – View your friends’ locations and status messages on a full screen even without a compatible phone or data plan. Click here to see your friends from your PC.

Now from a father’s perspective with a daughter, I am thinking this could be an inexpensive tool to be able to know where my daughter is.  OK, I want to respect my daughter’s privacy and I will.  However, I also want to make sure she is safe and know where she is at if I get the call about the broken down car and not knowing where she is.

You can use your mobile phone, which appears to work best with the BlackBerry right now, but you can also use your computer. 

The program allows you to send requests to users in your Google contact list or anyone can also go to google.latitude.com and send a request to their phone to receive a link via text message.  Once you receive the text message, click on the link and your phone will take you to the page to install the software assuming you have a compatible phone.

The program is not as secretive as I would want it to be. (insert devilish smile here)  Google Latitude allows the person installing the software to his or her phone to be seen or not to be seen.

To learn more about Google Latitude and see a video, click here: Google Latitude

To take a look at Google Latitude in action, look at this video: The Stunt Video

Rod

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In following my traditional ritual, (why change, it has worked so well this far) I moved downstairs with my eyes half open fumbling around for the power button to the coffee maker.  Yes, I was up before the coffee maker started to make that magical dark liquid that brings me from the sleepy state to a less sleep state each morning. I hit the power button and waited for the puff, whirl, and drip of the first drop of the wake me up juice.

I sat down at the morning table, my Windows laptop to the left of me and the Mac laptop to the right.  So elegantly laying between the two supercomputers was my trusty iPhone.  I thought for a moment, this might not be such a bad morning.  Coffee, communication, and comfort, what more could someone ask for.  Comfort you ask… This is because I have been home this past week and that has been a rare occurrence lately.

I power up my Windows laptop to continue my morning ritual to check email. I think to myself, how many came in overnight, twenty, thirty, one hundred.  What new fire has ignited that requires my attention?  Then I notice it. Microsoft Outlook reports the last synchronization with my company server was at 2:12 AM.  This happens from time to time, my Windows laptop loses connection to the network and I have to restart of Outlook, or worst case reboot for the computer.

As my Windows computer begins to close applications and reboot, I now have about 10 minutes to turn to my trusty Mac notebook.  Certainly, my Mac will not let me down.  I lift the lid and awaken the notebook up from its sleep mode.  Huh-oh?  No emails are arriving in my Entourage email program (Entourage – Microsoft’s Mac version of Outlook).  OK, now something is really wrong, I think to myself.  I need some coffee to deal with this emergency.  Fortunate for me, the coffee maker has finished and I can grab some coffee.

I fill my cup with coffee and think to myself, I have a wireless connection to each computer, but no Internet.  This must mean that my router or Internet modem has lost connection to my Internet Service Provider (ISP).  I must step in front of each unit and begin the ritual of standing on one foot, unplugging each device, praying for a connection from the Internet Gods, (Charter communication) and then power each device back up in proper sequence.  As I finish plugging the last unit in, I see flashing and solid lights, this is a good thing!

Like a child on Christmas morning, I run back to the kitchen spilling coffee along the way.  If I have Internet again, who cares if I lose a little wake up juice along the way?  Both computers are up and I eagerly click on Send and Receive for each computer to connect to the Internet and quench this thirst for information.  What?!?  Still no email?  No connection to the Internet, this just can’t be.  I think… I can get through this.  I can use my iPhone and check my email through my AT&T network connection.

I reach for my trusty iPhone, (Again Apple product) only to find a “No Service” message displayed on the phone.  I think to myself, this just does not make sense, what has happened?  I have no Internet access that happens from time to time, but no AT&T phone service.  I tell myself not to over react and to stop thinking about the movie, Independence Day (Google it).  OK Rod, take a deep breath, just grab you wife’s Verizon phone and see if she has communication.  Nope, her BlackBerry also displays a message, “Searching for Network.”  OK, now I am really concerned.  About a month ago, we cancelled our Verizon landline service for Vonage (VOIP – Voice over IP) and Verizon used the scare tactic, “what happens if you lose Internet and cell service, you will be screwed.”  I thought, c’mon in today’s world losing Internet, AT&T, and Verizon at once, it will never happen!  I now begin thinking…. Has there been an attack on a major communications center or worse yet, did I forget to pay all of these bills?

Just about this time, my son and my wife arrive downstairs in wonder of all the nervous activity taking place downstairs.  Turn on the TV, I commanded to my son.  He jumped to it and we see our favorite weather girl is talking about the rain heading our way.  After a few minutes, the newscast announces that a major fiber optic line appears to have been cut causing disruption to landline, Internet, Verizon, and AT&T customers.  There’s my answer, major fiber optic lines cut!  Now the real question, how long will it be before I can get on the Internet?  I mean, who needs calls from work, I need to access the Internet.  The news reporter, who is also hot by the way, interviews a communication spokesperson that tells me there is no estimated time to address the communications blackout.

Now what do I do in a communications blackout?  Call Verizon and tell them that the scare tactic they tried for us to keep our landline was bogus?  Ask them where is there landline service now? I could go back upstairs to bed?   I can tell you one thing, it should be a law that all Internet and cell phone commercials should not run on TV when systems are down.  No, this calls for drastic measures, I may have to go to Starbucks, get a venti non-fat no foam latte and steal their Internet.  Did you know that Microsoft’s spell check states venti is spelled wrong?  Where did the word venti come from?  Did Starbucks make this word up?  Ok, sorry off topic, back to Starbucks , coffee and Internet.   That is it, I am off.

My only concern, how far will I have to travel to communicate with the outside world?….

Rod

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Just last week the company introduced their new iPhone and iTouch application.  The application allows users to use his or her iPhone when connected to any WiFi zone and call friends that are on Skype for free.  Yes, I said that right, for free.  The company offers packages as low as $2.95 a month for $29.95 for unlimited US and Canada anytime calls to cell phones and landlines.

Receive calls when you sign up for an account

You can  receive calls to your iPhone or iTouch if you opt to receive an online number for an additional fee. If you purchase a subscription like I did, you can receive a 50% discount for the online phone number.

I have been using the application for a few days and have been happy with the results as well as the quality of connection.  I purchased an unlimited US and Mexico plan for $29.95 yr. and have been happy with the ability to import my contacts from my iPhone into the Skype application and call business, personal and cell phones direct.  I believe that the importing of contacts process could be easier, but given the fact that it allows me to import and not re-enter contacts in the address book makes me happy.  One challenge I reported to Skype was while on a call, I received a meeting reminder  message from the iPhone calendar informing me of an event.  While the event pop up was displayed on my screen, the person I was speaking with on the Skype call could not hear me.  As long as the prompt remained on the screen, it responded as if I had muted the iPhone.  In all fairness to Skype, I am operating the new iPhone 3.0 Beta 2 software and it could be a challenge with that as well.

A few of the best points about using the Skype phone app is that the phone app is free, the call can be free if you are talking to a Skype user, and the quality is acceptable.  This is more than I can say for my Vonage service, (Home VOIP). Using Vonage was difficult for the first few months until all the bugs were worked out.  Could VOIP be the future, my comment is YES!  My thought is that it could be in the not that far away future that we use WiFi zones to communicate with others and really make having a conversation affordable again.  The question is, regardless of how much it costs, do I really want to talk with Pat???

R…

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Generally the airport is a buzz with cell phones and smart devices buzzing, but not so much today. It seems today people are paying more attention to their surroundings, listening more intently to conversations taking place next to them.

Yes, today is different than the other flying days of the year. As I sit in LAX termnial, I remember September 11, 2001 as if it were yesterday and as I look at the faces of the travelers around me they do too.

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