Category: Wireless

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Surf the Web on your PS3 with Flash and a Keyboard!

Last week my home theater system consisted of a TiVo HD XL, Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray player, Apple TV, Sony PS3 and a Mac mini. Ever since I got the Apple TV, I rarely ever used the Mac mini anymore. The only reason I could think of keeping it in there was the once in a blue moon chance I would want to surf the net without getting up and going to my computer. I had an Apple wireless keyboard and a bluetooth wireless trackball. I’m still kind of puzzled as to why Apple doesn’t include the Safari browser in the Apple TV? Oh well.

 

This week the Mac mini is history!

I no longer need the Mac mini in my theater because the web browser on the Playstation 3 (PS3) is now usable. This is thanks to the latest firmware update which includes the updated more feature rich version of the Adobe Flash Player including full screen capabilities. However, that was only half the battle. The other problem was a decent keyboard. I’m NOT going to use the onscreen keyboard! Nope, not me! Luckily, my buddy Dave Helmly turned me on to the Logitech wireless keyboard for the PS3.

 

The Playstation 3 Logitech Cordless Mediaboard Pro

is possibly the longest name for a keyboard in existence today. Aside from that, it’s the missing piece to this solution that makes surfing the web from a PS3 feasible. Not only is it a bluetooth wireless keyboard. It also has an integrated trackpad built right in. Not only is it a good design, but it’s also designed for the PS3. That means that it has the PS3 keys right on the keyboard so you’re not constant reaching for the game controller to navigate your way around.

 

How well does the PS3’s Web Browser really work?

I was impressed by not only the web browser, but also the Flash integration. I had no problem seeing Flash enabled sites. I was even able to watch some movies in Flash (FLV) format. There were a couple of disappointments. The first one was that I wasn’t able to find a way to resize the window. There was a lot of wasted space on both sides. Maybe there’s a way, but I couldn’t find it. The other disappointment, although not a surprise was that there was no way to watch QuickTime content. Again, I’m not surprised and there is way more Flash content out there than QuickTime content anyway, but it would be nice to have both.

This browser certainly won’t replace the one you use on your Mac or PC, but it’s more than adequate for looking up some information right there on the spot and on the big screen. You can also bookmark your favorite sites. It took me a few minutes to discover the side panel where all of the controls are located.

 

The Bottom Line

If you have a PS3 and it’s connected to the internet, then there really isn’t much of a reason not to use it for web browsing too. If you are going to use it this way, then don’t hesitate, go buy the Logitech Mediaboard. It’s $59.99 at Amazon.com.

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The Garmin Nuvi 765T GPS Review

I’ve been a longtime fan of Garmin Nuvi’s. However, lately I’ve been carrying my much lower priced Navigon 2100 with me when I travel. Why would I carry a less feature rich device you ask? It’s actually quite simple. Although I love just about everything about the Garmin Nuvi, the one thing I fell in love with on the Navigon is something they call "3D Reality View." It seems that whenever I’m in an unfamiliar area (which is why I’d be using my GPS in the first place), I would always be in the wrong lane. This would either cause me to miss my exit or exit too soon. On the Navigon 2100 whenever I approached a complex highway exchange, the Navigon would throw up photo realistic highway signs that displayed the exact text that was on the real signs with markers for the lane you’re supposed to be in. Once I drove around California with this feature I was hooked! Recently Garmin sent out a survey and I answered the survey about what I liked about the Nuvi and what I wished were better. The one feature I wanted was this form of "lane assist" and the next thing I knew, it was here! I happened to notice an ad for the Garmin Nuvi 755T, 765T, 775T and 785T and all of these units include a feature called "lane assist." Had I just seen that in text, I probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to it. However, it was the screen shot that got me!:

 

Next it was simply just a matter of deciding which of the four models I wanted. This was the one feature that was keeping me from using my existing Garmin and using a lesser model. Don’t get me wrong, the Navigon 2100 is a great GPS for the money (it’s my most frequently read review with well over 110,000 reads)! However, the Garmin Nuvi offers so much more and as well it should since it also costs 3-5 times more. I ran a comparison of these four models to see which one was right me. I immediately eliminated the 755T because I wanted Bluetooth. Garmin Nuvi’s with Bluetooth allow you to also use it as a handsfree speaker phone while you’re driving. Since I use my portable GPS mostly in rental cars, this feature is a big plus. The 775T seems to come with maps of Europe and the 785T comes with MSN support. Neither of these two features were important to me nor did they justify the huge difference in price. So it was the 765T for me! 

 

Speaking of price

Don’t let Garmin’s retail prices scare you! Nobody would pay these prices! The Garmin Nuvi 765T lists for $599.99 or Garmin’s site. There’s NO WAY I would pay that much for a GPS these days. I started doing some price shopping. Unfortunately I wasn’t seeing the 765T for much under $435 (still much better than retail). I was all set to ask for gift cards for the holidays and I would pool them together to get one. Then it happened! I was looking at Amazon.com a couple of days before Thanksgiving and it was there for only $349! I was stunned! Was this a mistake? I paused for a minute, and then I went for it. The next day after I ordered it, it went back up to the regular price of $435. Prices do fluctuate on Amazon.com all the time. So keep a watch on it. Although it was sold through Amazon, it was actually Car Toys that delivered it. I see right now that their price is a little cheaper right on the Amazon page (on the right side of the page). 

 

Taking it for a spin

 

I couldn’t wait to put it to the test. So although I was home and have a GPS built-in to my car, I put the Nuvi 765T on my dash board and ran some errands. It was GREAT! It was fast and responsive. Plotting good routes (all GPSes plot wacky routes at times). Then I came up on an intersection and BAM! There it was, a beautiful photo illustrating which lane I should be in. Although this was it! This was the feature I’d been waiting for Garmin to release, there is still room for improvement. My only issue with the 3D view is that it simply doesn’t stay up long enough. If you’re concentrating on the road, you could actually miss the display when it pops up. It seems to stay up much longer on the Navigon. It’s not the end of the world and it’s something easily fixed via firmware update. So Garmin, if you’re reading this, let’s get this display to stay up a few seconds longer. I also noticed that the Nuvi 765T now displays the current speed limit of the road you’re on. Another cool feature of the Navigon. However, it seems that all the 765T does is display the speed limit whereas my Navigon actually has a programmable warning if you exceed the limit by a set amount. I went 15 MPH over the limit on the Nuvi and not a peep.

 

 

True Lane Assist

 

In addition to the 3D photo that pops up to show you which lane you should be in, the 765T also displays another form of Lane Assist in the upper left corner, which shows you which of the lanes you should/could be in. For example if you’re approaching a 4 lane pass, you may only be able to take the upcoming exit if you’re in one of the two far left lanes. This feature will highlight the lanes you can be in and still make the exit. I like this feature A LOT! 

 

Why am I back to the Nuvi?

You might be asking at this point, if the Navigon that I already owned had the most important feature to me, why would I spend more money on another Garmin Nuvi? That’s a valid question and here’s the answer. While the Navigon had the one feature that I really loved, the Nuvi had everything else! The Nuvi is more than just a GPS. It’s also a media player, language translator, audiobook player, etc. Sure I have most of these features in my iPhone, but it’s nice having all this in my GPS because it also sports an FM transmitter built-in. This way I can have all of this sound play over the car speakers. The Navigon 2100 has none of this. While these features are nice-to-haves, the most important thing that sets the Nuvi 765T apart is performance and UI. The Navigon units can be sluggish to operate at times. They also have small text that is hard to read depending upon your eyes. The Garmin units use nice big icons and respond almost instantaneously to the touch. Another great feature of the Nuvi is the integration with my computer. With the Nuvi I can mount it on my desktop and drag files to it. I can also download custom points of interest (POI) files to it. I found a great site for getting custom POI files of your favorite stores, restaurants, etc. For example, I have all the PF Chang’s in my Garmin (probably not a good thing 🙂 ). No matter where I am, it will tell me where the closest one is. Same for Best Buy, Apple Stores, Morton Steak Houses, etc. etc. 

 

The Bottom Line

This is by far the best portable GPS I have owned to date. It’s not perfect, but it does offer the perfect blend of features, price and performance. It is very customizable and Garmin has free utilities for both the Mac and PC. Turn-by-turn voice navigation, fast responsive user interface. Several cool features and the new rubberized coating feels good to the touch. Mine came with the 2009 Map File already loaded and Garmin is pretty good about making timely updates available. If you’re looking for a top of the line, feature rich GPS, this is it!

 

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NWA’s NEW E-Boarding Pass

My boarding pass, slightly altered to protect the innocent

 

My boarding pass, slightly altered to protect the innocent

 

 

On a recent business trip I decided to give Northwest Airlines’ NEW E-Boarding Pass a shot. The way this works is that if you fly out of one of the currently supported airports (like DTW), you can check in for your flight using your “approved” smartphone/cellphone and actually use your smartphone/cellphone to go through security and board the plane. No paper boarding pass required. 

I had originally planned to get to the airport in plenty of time in case this didn’t work out. However, due to weather and traffic, I got to the airport 10 minutes later than I originally would have. So it had to work! I had no time for error. 

 

Here’s how it works…

You can check in for your flight up to 24 hours before departure. If you use your cellphone, you can not only check in, but you can request that your boarding pass actually be sent directly to your phone. The E-Boarding Pass is sent to either an e-mail address or mobile phone number in the form of an e-mail, WAP push/link or MMS message. When you arrive to the airport, you show the screen with the 2D barcode on it and they actually have a barcode scanner right there at the TSA station.

 

One step forward, one step backwards

Now the interesting thing was, I was wondering how they would handle the requirement for showing your boarding pass to the agent standing on the other side of the X-Ray machine. In the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, they require that you show your boarding pass twice before going to your gate. You show it before going through the X-Ray machine to the TSA agent (who typically puts a physical pen mark/initials on your paper boarding pass) and again once you’re on the other side to another agent. The problem is you can’t walk through the X-Ray machine with your phone in hand! When I asked the first agent about this, he said he would, get this, walk over to the other guy and let him know that I was coming through and that I had shown him my phone. I thought, “oooooookkkkkkkkkk.”

After I got through the X-Ray machine (luckily no bag check this time), I told the guy that I didn’t have my boarding pass because it was electronic and on my phone. He said, “I still need to see it!” I said, well we’ll have to wait until my stuff comes through the X-Ray. So he holds up the other people in line until my stuff came through on the belt! I was stunned and thought, this is soooo inefficient. Clearly they haven’t thought this through yet. At a minimum the second guy (if we really need this guy in the first place), should either be double-checking boarding passes before you go through the X-Ray OR at the very end of the conveyor belt. 

 

I boarded the plane

When I got to my gate, the plane was already boarding. I walked right up and showed my iPhone to the agent. She told me where to hold it so that it could be scanned and I went right onboard. Cool!

 

The Bottom Line

I love seeing advances in technology like this, but clearly this one needs a little more work. There are also some potential issues. What if your battery dies? Since the iPhone doesn’t yet do MMS, you get a link via SMS to view your boarding pass in Safari. What if your web connection doesn’t work at that given moment as in some cases the iPhone’s Safari needs to be able to connect to the internet to be able to refresh a page. Do we really need boarding passes at all? Couldn’t your ID/Passport be your boarding pass (children/minors would still need them). I’m excited about the possibilities, but right now there are some things that need to be worked out. NWA’s E-Boarding Pass is currently offered on non-stop flights from Indianapolis, IN and Detroit, MI during check-in on nwa.com. If you are departing from IND or DTW you must be checking in as a single passenger on a Northwest operated non-stop flight within the United States.

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Epson Workforce 600 All-in-One Wi-Fi Printer, etc.

 

You might have noticed that I don’t review very many printers here. That’s primarily because I’m a printer snob and don’t change printers very often. My rules have been simple: If I want a fast network printer, I use a Xerox Phaser that has Adobe Postscript 3 built-in. If I want to print photos I use an Epson Stylus Color Photo Printer. Life is simple it works! 

 

What about Scanning and Faxing?

I’ve used both Epson and Canon scanners over the years and have no real complaints with either. I have always loved Epson’s scanner software, but I’ve also loved Canon’s portable line of scanners and the fact that they are more proactive about updating drivers when a New Operating System comes out. We’ve all experienced orphaned equipment before (equipment that is working perfectly, but will not work with a new OS because the company doesn’t update the drivers).  As far as Faxing goes, I don’t do enough of it to care. I have an older stand alone Brother fax machine for the 1-3 times a year that I need to send a fax and I use a free eFax account or Mac OS X Server to receive faxes directly to my email.

 

Why the Epson Workforce 600 may change all of this for me?

I was recently given the Epson Workforce 600 by Epson to put to the test (the very stringent no B.S. Terry White testing lab). At first when Epson contacted me, I have to admit, I said [sarcasm] "oh goodie, an all-in-one printer to review! I can’t wait [/sarcasm]. When the box arrived it sat in my garage for a week until I felt I had time to give it a spin. Keep in mind that I do take my reviews seriously and I didn’t want to do a half a$$ job on it. So I waited until I would actually have the time to give it a good tryout. I just wasn’t excited about this category. I always felt that stand alone devices were always stronger in their respective areas. Believe it or not, that all changed when I took The Workforce 600 out of the box. I was floored by how well this thing was designed. As I’ve said when reviewing other products, "it’s the little things and attention to detail that really turn me on." I actually started getting excited about this product the more I looked at it and just where everything was placed on it.

 

Very well thought out

I have to hand it to Epson on this one for creating a very well thought out product. First let’s talk about it’s features. It prints, copies, scans and faxes. It can be connected to your network directly via Ethernet or Wi-Fi. No lame external boxes or print servers required! It’s cross platform out of the box and works both on Mac and Windows PCs. It has an automatic document feeder and built-in memory card readers for CF (Compact Flash), SD, xD and Memory Stick (does anyone use these?). It even has a USB port for a thumb drive (albeit a little to recessed for my tastes, it’s there)! Yep it has it all. It meets all the requirements I would have If I were looking for an all-in-one device! No question!

  

Setup

Like most techies, I like to see how much setup I can do without looking at the instructions. I was able to unpack it, install the ink cartridges and make copies without ever touching the instructions. I probably could have sent a fax too, but um, I don’t send faxes (at least not often). Now it was time to print. At this point I could have simply grabbed a USB cable (not supplied) and installed the driver and printed. However, I wanted to see how well this thing worked on Wi-Fi. I love wireless technology and a Wi-Fi connected all-in-one device is very intriguing to me. Well it was time to reach for the instructions because I had no idea how to configure this thing to connect to my network. I knew that I either had to do it on the control panel or the from my computer. However, I didn’t know which. As it turns out, you do it from your computer. Although the Epson Workforce 600 has built-in Wi-Fi, you have to connect it to your network via Ethernet to set it up. Luckily they do supply an ethernet cable. I plugged it into my gigabit switch and installed the software onto my MacBook Pro from the supplied CD (later I downloaded the latest drivers from Epson’s site). The software walks you through the various setup options. I was given a choice of setting it up for Wi-Fi or as a network printer on Ethernet. I choose the Wi-Fi option. It found my network and I entered my WPA password. After a few moments the printer was configured and I was instructed to unplug the Ethernet cable.

 

Printing

 

Although the software installed the drivers and configured the printer for Wi-Fi access, I still had to "add" the printer using the Mac OS X System Preferences. No big deal as it saw the printer right away (after I walked over and woke it up) and I printed my first document. No surprises, it just worked. While the printer is rated at 38 ppm in draft mode (wow that’s FAST!) for both Black & White and Color, I was curious about it’s print speed for photos. After all thing has memory card slots built-in so that seems to me that testing photo print time would be fair game. I brought up a high-res photo in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and printed using Epson’s Premium Glossy 8"x10" photo paper. I used the borderless setting and I figured this would be worse case scenario. It was! The high-res print over Wi-Fi took 6 minutes and 7 seconds. While it certainly won’t win any speed contests for high quality photos, it did look great (must be those Durabright Inks)! The color was rich and although this is only a 4 color printer, it didn’t feel like it. Again, this printer is not billed as a photo printer, so you shouldn’t be discouraged by the longer print time. The fact that it printed so well at this price point and wirelessly to boot is a plus.

The Workforce 600 has a built-in 2.5" tilt color LCD to view, edit and print your images. So you can just pop in your memory card or USB thumb drive, select, crop and print your images without using a computer. 

 

Copying

Copying is pretty straight forward and of course doesn’t require your computer. You can just put your material in the ADF (automatic document feeder) or right on the glass. You control all aspects of the copy process right on the front LCD control panel. Very straightforward and easy to use. You also have the option of copying in Color or Black & White. No surprises, no complaints. You can copy up to 99 pages at a time. The ADF holds up to 30 pages. 

 

Scanning

When I installed the software it also installed the software to scan with. I was wondering would this thing actually allow me to scan wirelessly? Unfortunately it did not! Although I didn’t find anything in the documentation that would suggest that scanning over Wi-Fi was not an option, the Epson Scan app wouldn’t even launch until I physically connected the Epson Workforce 600 via a USB cable. Once I connected it to my MacBook Pro, I was able to launch the Scan app and perform some scans. It’s a TWAIN compatible scanner, so I was able to scan right into Photoshop and Acrobat as well. Don’t feel like connecting your computer? You can actually perform a scan right on the device itself and have it save to a thumb drive. I tried scanning the same 8"X10" that I printed earlier directly to a thumb drive and it worked just fine. I was prompted with which format to save in and my choices were JPEG or PDF. Makes sense since this scanner is geared towards photos and documents. Those would be my two choices of format anyway. Although I didn’t time the scan, it was certainly fast enough for me. The Scanner is rated at 1200 x 2400 dpi and comes with the ABBYY FineReader for converting scanned text into actual text (OCR).

UPDATE!: Scanning over Wi-Fi via the Mac works after all! Epson lead me to the magic utility that gets installed in the Utilities folder for configuring the Scanner on your network. It took all of about 1 minute to set it up and bam, I could launch the Scan App and scan over the air! Freaky 🙂 

 

Faxing

Like I said, I just don’t do a lot of faxing. However, when I do need to send a FAX, I need to send a FAX. I don’t have time to mess around. It seems like when I need to send a FAX, it’s always urgent. So with that in mind, I decided to send a test FAX from my home office to my eFax account see how easy or difficult it would be. Like most things on this device, it just worked. I connected a phone line to it and I then pressed the Home button until it cycled through to FAX. I keyed in my FAX number and pressed the start button. I had two pages in the ADF and I like that it scans all the pages first before wasting time dialing. Once the pages are scanned, you can pick them up and leave if you have to. It will dial and send your FAX unattended at that point. It has auto redial and auto answer and can store up to 60 speed dials (I don’t think I know 60 people with FAX numbers, but good to know I could if I had to). If you’re out of paper you’ll be happy to know that it can hold up to 180 received FAX pages in memory. That would cover me for years.

 

 

The Bottom Line

I don’t really have any complaints (rare, I know). I’m not into this category of devices, but If I had to recommend an all-in-one device, this would be the one! It’s perfect for any small office or home office. It’s ideal for someone who is tight on space and doesn’t have the room or the budget for multiple devices. Most multifunction devices usually don’t do any one thing really well, however, the Epson Workforce 600 does a fine job at all of its functions. If Epson works out the Wireless Scanning on a Mac I would even be more impressed. Being able to scan directly to a thumb drive is sufficient for now and keeps me from having to directly connect my computer to the device. Anyone want to buy a Brother FAX machine cheap? Let me know. 🙂 The Epson Workforce 600 retails for $199. Amazon has it for as low as $149.99! As with most printers, the real cost of ownership is the ink cost. This printer has 4 separate ink cartridges (Cyan, Yellow, Magenta & Black). Multipacks start at $35.86. Rumor has it that this printer will NOT allow you to print if one of the inks runs out even if all you want is Black & White. I usually don’t try to keep printing if my printer runs out of one color, but some of you out there do, so that might be a consideration. All-in-all I highly recommend this all-in-one! For more information about the Epson Workforce 600, please click here.

 

 

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Put your Blu-ray player on your Wi-Fi network

It's great that the new line Blu-ray players support BD Live and online content to compliment the movies. It's also great that their firmware can be updated over the internet. What I don't understand is why all the Blu-ray players I've seen rely on an Ethernet connection for internet access. I don't know of too many people that have Ethernet drops near their TV's. My bedroom is a perfect example. I have a Sony Bravia LCD TV and Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray player connected to it. It's located in a nice wall unit and unfortunately there is no ethernet jack nearby. 

 

 

The Solution: An Ethernet Wi-Fi Bridge

I've used D-Link Wireless Ethernet Bridges in years past to connect older computers that had Ethernet, but not Wi-Fi. Once again I was in need of one of these bridges. My old one only supported 802.11b and I can't find it. I at least wanted 802.11b/g support. So I started looking at newer models. I was floored by how much these things have gone up in price. It appears that they are now geared towards gamers. Most hardcore gamers want to play others online. This means that your game console has to be connected to the internet and we're back to the same problem that most people don't have Ethernet jacks near their TV's. The Wii and PS3 have Wi-Fi built-in. However, some of the older consoles do not. So companies like Linksys and D-Link have come to the rescue with "wireless gaming adapters." These "gaming adapters" (Ethernet Wi-Fi Bridges) now go for close to $100. I can remember when they were half that price.  Well I needed one of these Bridges, but didn't want to pay top dollar for one. So off to eBay I went. I found a D-Link DWL-G810 Wireless Ethernet Bridge New in the Box for a winning bid of $51. This model is newer than my old one (which I can't find) and supports 802.11b/g.

 

 

How does a Wireless Ethernet Bridge work?

The concept is simple. The Bridge has an Ethernet jack on it and of course a power adapter. You plug it into your computer's Ethernet port long enough to set it up. This means setting it up to join your current wireless (Wi-Fi) network, network name (SSID) and network password. Once it's setup (about 5 minutes), you unplug it from your computer and plug it into your Ethernet only device. In my case this was my Sony Blu-ray player. That's it! Your Blu-ray player will connect to the internet wirelessly even though it only has an Ethernet jack. The Bridge will bridge your Wi-Fi connection to the Ethernet port on your player. 

 

The Bottom Line

Blu-ray player manufacturers need to either build Wi-Fi in or at least provide a low cost Wi-Fi adapter like TiVo does for the TiVo HD. In the meantime if you want to connect your Ethernet only device to your network and don't want to run wires your best bet is a Wireless Ethernet Bridge. If you shop around you can find one at bargain prices. Check out the latest offerings from D-Link, Linksys and Netgear, but don't forget about eBay. Also to the Bridge manufacturers, why are these things designed to be so, um, ugly?

 

UPDATE!

I wrote this 2 years ago and while not much has changed in terms of the need to put Ethernet devices on your WiFi network, the solutions have changed as well as my recommendation. Recently I've started using TiVo's Wireless N Network Adapter and while you would think that this is specifically for TiVo, the reality is it's NOT! It's a slick little 802.11n Bridge that connects to your device via Ethernet. The setup is simple and you first plug it into your computer to get it setup on your wireless network. After that is done (takes less than 5 minutes), you can then plug it into any device that has an Ethernet port to put it online via your WiFi Network. Once it's set up the TiVo Adapter has no idea whether it's plugged into a TiVo or Blu-ray player or computer. 

You can get the TiVo Wireless N Network Adapter here.

 

 

 

Apple iTunes

 

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iPhone App of the Week – PhotoBuddy

While I didn’t make it the PhotoPlus East tradeshow in NYC this week, I have been spending some time with one of my new iPhone apps. PhotoBuddy aims to be your Photographer Assistant. The main purpose of this app is to help you calculate things like Exposure changes, Flash timing, DOF (Depth of Field) and can even measure the distance of objects (this feature only works on the 1st gen iPhones).

However, it has other useful features too. For example, when I captured the shot below in Spain, the one thing I didn’t know at the time was what time sunrise occurs for the area I was in. The hotel staff looked it for me on the internet.

However, had I had PhotoBuddy back then, I would have simply been able to use the built-in Sunrise calculator. The Sunrise calculator is location based and tells you the sunrise, sunset and next full moon. I used to use a separate “Sunrise” app for this. It even displays your current longitude and latitude which is handy for noting and geotagging your photos later in post production. You can also advance to a date in the future to see what time the Sunrise/Sunset will be on a specific day.

One of the other features I was happy to see is the “grey wedge” to help white balance your shots. Now you have to keep in mind that this feature is not totally accurate because your iPhone’s screen is not color calibrated. So the displayed tones are not neutral. However, they are off by a constant value, so you can use it to color calibrate images.

There are a ton of settings. One of the things that helps you quite a bit is that you start off by telling PhotoBuddy which camera model you have. This gives PhotoBuddy the important information that it needs about your sensor. If your camera is not listed, you can choose an “undefined setting” or choose the film equivalent. 

 

The Bottom Line

There are a few apps with similar features on the App Store. I’ve tried a couple of them so far and I like PhotoBuddy best (a close second would be PhotoCalc, which has a better Sunrise/Sunset calculator). Most of these apps do the same things. However, PhotoBuddy offers a couple of nice little extras and fit and finish. Also PhotoBuddy is only $1.99 so it’s hard to go wrong. You can download PhotoBuddy here for your iPhone or iPod touch.

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iPhone App of the Week – Air Sharing

Air Sharing documents

My iPhone app pick this week is the insanely great Air Sharing app. This app quite simply allows you to wirelessly transfer documents to your iPhone or iPod touch for viewing on the go. Once you download/install the app, you launch it and it immediately displays the IP address that you need to connect to your iPhone from either your Mac or PC using the standard WebDAV protocol. Once you connect from your computer, you can just drag the files over that you want to take with you. These files can be the file formats that are supported on the iPhone such as PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPEG, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Movie files, etc.

This is great for people who want to take complex documents with them such as spreadsheets, maps, diagrams, PDF manuals, lists and other such documents.

Once the app was running on my iPhone, I just hit Command-K from the Finder on my Mac and keyed in the URL. I was prompted to enter my user name and password (which I setup in the app on the iPhone) and bam, I was connected and saw a window with the sample files that they provide. I created a folder (an optional step – hey I like to keep things neat) and copied over my files. It’s also VERY FAST!

The file below is a 1.5MB PDF file and the cool thing is that it rotated the display when I rotated my phone.

 

I transferred over PDFs, Excel, JPG, Movies (.m4v), and PowerPoint files. All worked perfectly except the PowerPoint file. My guess is that it was just too big (27.9MB) and crashed when I tried to view it. Perhaps it will work better with larger files with the iPhone 2.1 update (also due out today). You can also delete files directly from the App without having to connect to your computer to do so. A nice touch.

I can’t get over how easy this app is to use and I love that it doesn’t require you to install anything special on your computer to use it. What is there to say? It works! Now for those of you who are interested in EDITING these files, you’ll have to continue to wait. The iPhone currently doesn’t have a feature that allows editing of Word, Excel, Pages, files yet. Maybe some 3rd party developer (such as Dataviz) will provide an app that allows you to do this. For right now, it’s about viewing.

 

The Bottom Line

There is no magic here. You can email yourself any of the above file types and view them as email attachments. However, what this app does is take the email equation out of it. You simply transfer the files over to your device and view them whenever you need to without having to find which email they were attached to. Also you’ll only be able to view the types of files that the iPhone/iPod touch currently allow you to view/play. If you need to have documents on the go with you, this is your app! For a limited time the good folks over at Avatron Software are offering this app for FREE! They will start to charge $6.99 for it. So grab it while the grabbing is good. You can get it here from the App store.

I want to thank my buddy Scott Kelby for turning me on to this cool app!

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iPhone 2.0.1 speeds up the iPhone

Apple released a bug fix update to the iPhone. iPhone 2.0.1 arrived today and is available for all iPhones. I was eager to install the update because I wanted to see if it resolved a few of the issues I was having. I’m happy to report that it did! One of the biggest issues I was having was sluggishness in the Contacts app. Granted I have over 1,000 contacts on my iPhone, but version 1.1.4 was much faster at handling them than 2.0 was. iPhone software 2.0.1 brings back the responsiveness that I was used to. I was also having an issue with a couple of websites that would crash Safari. Those sites are now working without issue.

So far, this update has been a great improvement from the original 2.0 update. I have not noticed any new features though.

Update

Not only did the 2.0.1 update speed things up, but my battery life has also improved quite a bit.

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Blogging from the beach

I don’t really have anything to review today. I’m here in Myrtle Beach with family taking a little mini vacation. I just got a phone call and then I remembered the WordPress app on my iPhone and decided to give it a real world test right here and right now. Surprisingly the AT&T 3G coverage has been pretty good here. Here are a couple of shots. I’ll be back next week with some new reviews. Have a great rest of your weekend. 😉

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How Much Faster is the iPhone 3g?

One of the questions I’ve been getting a lot lately from friends and family is, "what’s different about the iPhone 3g?" I simply respond "faster data." That usually works and is sufficient. Sometimes I get blank stares. So I have to go into a little more detail. So if you just gave your computer a blank stare, let me explain. The original iPhone worked over AT&T’s EDGE data network. Speeds for things like web surfing, email, YouTube videos, etc. was faster than dial-up, but paled in comparison to DSL and Cable.

The iPhone supports Wi-Fi, so whenever you can be on a Wi-Fi network, the experience is MUCH better. One of my favorite speed test sites is speakeasy.net/speedtest/, however, this site uses Flash to display the results, so it’s useless when it comes to testing the iPhone’s speed. Instead, I use bandwidthplace.com.

Apple claims that the iPhone 3g is twice as fast as the previous model. However, by most people’s estimates, Apple is being modest with this claim. I decided to put it to the test. So I used my iPhone 3g in all 3 modes. First I tested it by turning off Wi-Fi and 3g. After a few moments the iPhone connected to AT&T’s EDGE network and here’s what I got:

 

Then I turned 3g back on and restarted the iPhone so it would have a fresh start and here’s what I got:

Not too shabby! Clearly better than twice as fast. However, this is just raw speed. Your mileage may vary from site to site in Safari. This is probably why Apple says "twice as fast." It’s a safe claim that they can achieve 100% of the time.

 

Next I restarted the iPhone again and I turned Wi-Fi back on. The iPhone is connected to my Wi-Fi network (powered by cable modem). Here’s what I got:

 

The Bottom Line

Yep, the iPhone 3g is faster! Easily twice as fast if not more. Um, not much more to say. Have a nice day 🙂