TED Talks : 10 Tech Time Saving Tips

TED is one of my favorite sites. Here are a few tech tips for everyone. Quite useful, I might actually start making tech-tip videos like this as well...

A Little Friday Tech Humor : Handsfree

This photo was circulating the net a while back, and was always captioned as a joke about "handsfree" mobile phone use.

I NEVER thought someone would actually take it seriously... let alone to a whole new level...

I mean how can you NOT want one?!?!? I love the main "selling point" in the end... 

EVEN THE WEIGHT OF A 5LB LAPTOP!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Online Parenting v1.0

For parents that can't seem to connect to their kids and all this "Facebook/Twitter cr*p"... here's how one parent dealt with his kid. Sit back and enjoy...

Visit Tommy Jordan's Facebook page here. 

A Little Friday Tech Humor

Persistence is key...

My apologies if you don't get the Mario Bro reference... but this is funny!

xperia ray hands-on

Side by side against my X10 Mini Pro

My first hands-on video.  The Sony Ericsson xperia ray is on top of my "Next Phone" list.  One of my primary concerns is the ability to use it with just one hand.  I think it performs quite well, considering I'm right-handed.  The screen is excellent, boasting an 854x480 resolution in only 3.3", gives the xperia ray 296ppi (pixels per inch) which is very close to the iPhone 4's 326ppi.

The predictive input is quite responsive and easy to use for the most common functions.  Multi-tap is also available for those that use shortcuts, and odd spelling.

Lego...Not Just For Kids

I don't know anyone who doesn't like Lego.  I've loved Lego since I was a kid.  And I'm amazed at how they've managed to create kits and products for all ages... and all levels of creativity.

This video is from a Mindstorms Expo.  The whole things was built from just Lego Mindstorms pieces.

CinePlex Time! A Review on Plex

I love watching movies.  I'm sure a lot of you do too.  For the longest time, I used to use VLC to play all my movies and videos on my computer.  It works really well, and can do Dolby and DTS pass-thru to my surround processor.

Let's face it, the interface is less than stellar... very Windows95 looking.  Now that's not really a big deal since while watching, your video usually occupies the whole screen.  But what if you want something that looks polished... like a real entertainment center?

Enter Plex.  An elegant Home Theater program that works for OSX, Windows, iOS, Android, and certain LG Netcast™enabled electronics.

It's quite an amazing app.  First, it's skinned beautifully.  You may change the photos if you wish, but the stock ones work just fine OOTB.

Next, it scans all your media and downloads the relevant information and media artwork.  It even sorts your TV shows into seasons and gives ratings and synopsis of each episode.  And last, for Mac users, it works with the Apple Remote (I finally have a use for it!)

For HTPC setups, Plex is a very good app to have.  When paired with the paid mobile versions, the computer app functions as a home media server and can stream the media to your desired device.  On iOS (and coming soon on Android) it turns your mobile device into a media remote as well, allowing you to control playback on your Plex computer at home.

Bored w/ Games? Try Tron : Board Game

Tired of those boring computer games?  In honor of the recent DVD release, Brett King decided to make a Tron:Legacy Board Game!  Unfortunately, for you Tron fans, it is not for sale.

Andro-habilis

A leaked TVC of the upcoming Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

(aka The Playstation phone)

iOS App of the Day: Air Video

I keep my movie collection on my home computer.  It's way more convenient than loading a Bluray disc each time I wanna watch a movie.  If you have an iPad, you can also watch your movie collection.  Having VLC (Which I heard was recently removed by Apple...BOO!!!!) allows you to download an watch your movies on the go... but even the 64GB iPad can't hold all the HD movies you want.

This is where Air Video comes in.  Install the app on your iPad (or iPhone/iPod Touch), then a small server program on your home computer.  You have to keep your home computer on for the app to work since it allows you to watch the videos on your home computer.  It streams the video to your iPad over your WiFi network.

It can handle HD (mkv), avi, mpg, and almost any video that can be played on your home computer.

Download Air Video from the iTunes App Store, then go to their website to download the server app (works on Windows and OSX)

*There's also a free version, the limitation is that it only displays 3-4 random files in your video directory.  If you can live with that, then it works just fine as well.

A little tech humor to start the week right...

My Kind of LEGO!!!!

I love Lego!  I loved it as a kid, and I still love it now.  The blocks themselves haven't changed, all Lego blocks from way back still interlock with the current kits.  There are Lego sets for all ages.

Duplo is for toddlers, they have larger blocks and fewer pieces.

Regular Lego for kids, these would also include the franchised Lego such as Harry Potter or Star Wars blocks

Technic for teens and young adults, consisting of more complex kits and moving gears and more interactive pieces.

and the latest Lego line is Mindstorms... a robotics line complete with programmable CPU, various sensors, and mechanical parts for... well... people that know what to do with it:

Christmas 2010 (Reboot)

To everyone out there, Merry Christmas! Or should I say, Happy Saturnalia!

Goodbye iChat... Hello FaceTime!

Today's Tech Gospel is about the FaceTime for Mac Beta.  Finally.  I think everyone found it odd that the iPhone 4's FaceTime app couldn't make video calls to Apple's iChat Video system.

Thankfully Apple reacted quickly and has released a crude FaceTime Beta for Mac.

Now, understand that this is still in Beta, so a lot of features are still a bit buggy, and there is a known security flaw.  Not a big deal unless you frequently allow other people to use your computer.

This, however, is a Snow Leopard only program.  If you haven't upgraded yet, now would be a good time to do so.

For those with Mac Minis, or a Mac Pros, you can use Apple's LCD monitors w/ the built-in camera, iSight camera, or any Firewire video camera lying around.  If you want to buy a webcam, make sure it's the newer UVC compliant webcams.  But I prefer using a proper Firewire video camera w/ a boom mic to eliminate room echo and much better audio quality.

My FaceTime rig is my old Canon DV cam w/ a Rode shotgun mic connected to my Mac Mini.

IN YOUR FACE...TIME!!!!!!!

A while back, I posted an entry on the possibility of FaceTime for Android in the form of Apple's new iPod Touch.  Finally got to test and confirm it using Barnacle Wifi Tether and an iPhone 4.  Signal is fairly stable although it's more dependent on your provider's 3G/EDGE network... GPRS is too slow to give decent performance and will most likely drop the call all together.

Barnacle's only shortcoming is the inconsistency of it's connection to the iPhone/iPod Touch.  Hopefully those running 2.1 Androids don't experience dropped signal when the screen saver kicks in.  So far, those on the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini/Mini Pro will need to run something in the background to keep Barnacle from switching to standby.  Some users have reported firmware updates fix this, but not all regions have the same firmware.  In this case, the screen saver/power saver is usually the culprit since it disables the wifi antenna to conserve power.

To make a FaceTime call, go to your contact list, tap on a contact and scroll all the way down and click on the FaceTime button on the bottom left.

A menu will pop up to show the possible ways to connect to the contact via FaceTime.  A caveat, just because FaceTime will attempt to connect, doesn't mean that contact has FaceTime.  You have to know which phone number or email that particular contact is using for FaceTime, and that contact has to already be online when the call is being made.

The iPod Touch has effectively given FaceTime to Android.  Although those with a 2nd jailbroken iPhone and tethering should also be able to use FaceTime on their iPhone 4 while on the move.

Point and shoot... in HD (ZS3 continuing review)

Today's Tech Gospel is about point and shoot cameras.  A while back, I posted a review when I got my Panasonic ZS3.  I'm still quite happy with it, and it's pretty much the equivalent of the Leica V-Lux 20 and the newer Panasonic ZS7 (12.1 MP + GPS vs 10MP)

I had initially posted a few sample shots of what can be done with the simple scene presets and the Intelligent Auto function.

Now I'll post a few sample HD videos I took, one was at a recent John Mayer concert here in Manila, and the other when I recently purchased the DMW-MCTZ7case to go with it.

I'm generally a Canon fan with my primary being a Canon DSLR and all Canon lenses, and my first UW cam being the Canon A80...  but I have to say, the Panasonic ZS line has really impressed me spcially with its 25-300mm focal range, it's more practical to have out of the box.  Along with it's low $300 price tag (for the newer ZS7) it's really a great bargain for everything it can do.

If I'd have any complaint against the ZS3 (or ZS7) it would be the general flimsy feeling of the scene selection wheel, and zoom rocker... this follows for Panasonic's UW case as well, the buttons and rocker arms feel flimsier than Canon's over-all build quality.  But the wide focal range more than makes up for that short coming.

Click here to view the videos on my YouTube page in 720p HD

John Mayer, Live in Manila 2010

UW test video, Anilao Philippines

iPad video... FINALLY!

One of the weaknesses of iOS has been it's horrible video support. Having to pass through iTunes, or some 3rd party converter, it hasn't really been that great a video player.  (Cough... cough... Quicktime... cough... cough... sucks... cough... cough...)

Then along comes VLC... yep... it's official. One of the great video players in the FREE market is now available on the iPad!

So far it can play almost anything it's desktop counterpart can... with one caveat, the iPad itself isn't fast enough to playback Bluray/HD files.  So MKVs are out... (It will open it, but files are extremely choppy) but so far, most avis will play with no conversion needed.

This is great news since this has finally made iOS a viable and PRACTICAL portable video player.  Now rivaling Archos.

Image quality is decent.  Color banding is quite apparent specially in under and over exposed shots.  I don't know if this is a player limitation, or the iPad's hardware limitation.  But it's not a deal breaker for me since I'd rather have the convenience of easy video transfer.

Scrubbing and resume are supported.  I don't know if the closed caption feature works though, I haven't played with it enough to figure that one out.

Will be running a battery of tests on it to see what it can or cannot play... if you have questions on video formats that you want me to test out as well, let me know!

**Long overdue update on this post... VLC is no longer available on iTunes, because of VLC's violation of their own licensing rights.**