Unique Skins is a company that sells protective skins for iPhones, iPods, and other devices. Their products are popular because you can customize the skins with your own pictures and artwork. One of their newer products is the Gel Skin, which takes their standard skin and covers it with a soft and clear gel padding. The idea is a good one, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Watch my video review found below to find out why. Click here to view a larger version.
The transition from analog to digital over-the-air television signals has been completed. This means that you can no longer use those old “rabbit ears” to receive TV signals if you don’t have cable or satellite TV. Converter boxes are availble to those who need them.
The FCC has created a handy website that allows you to check which digital channels are in your area and what signal strengths you can expect from them. Very nice, indeed.
Yep, I am still here. I have not had much time to blog lately due to a series of events that occupied my free moments. I had a serious bout with the flu, which after three weeks, I am finally rid of it. I had relatives visit for more than a week while at the same time spending my days off looking for a house to buy. So yeah, busy indeed.
Upcoming posts will include my review of Google Sync and the reasons why I stopped using it. In another post, I will do a video review of the Lacie Iamakey USB drive, which looks like a car key. Also look for posts about the free backup/syncing service called Dropbox and other various computer and gaming information.
Best Buy has done it again. Just like a previous story, a customer bought a computer, took it home and found a brick inside the box instead of a Macbook Pro. Just like the other story, Best Buy won’t do a thing about it and pawns the problem off to Apple. It looks like Best Buy has a difficult time learning lessons.
I’ll say it again: if you buy an expensive item at Best Buy, open the box right there in the store and make sure you are getting what you pay for. It could save you a huge headache.
Microsoft today announced that their aging operating system, Windows XP, has officially moved away from Mainstream Support and has transitioned into what they term as the Extended Support level. What this means to you is that Microsoft will no longer offer free support for Windows XP. Any problem you may have with the OS that requires a phone call to Microsoft will also require that you pull out your credit card.
Windows XP has served us well , so don’t free too much over it. The venerable OS has been on the market for over seven years. Microsoft usually only offers five years of mainstream support. They will still provide free security patches via Windows Update, but no new features will be added nor old ones fixed. More information can be found in this article over at Computerworld.
My advice: don’t buy a new computer until Windows 7 (the successor to Vista) comes out. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. It will be worth the wait and you won’t need to suffer through Vista’s many annoyances.
I have been using Apple’s MobileMe service since the day it launched. The main reason I signed up for the $99 a year service is because it offered push email, contacts, and calendar without needing a Blackberry or Microsoft Exchange account. For those who don’t know about push technology, it allows me to make a change on my iPhone or computer and that change will instantly show up on both devices without me having to enter it in twice. It is a big time saver and I never have to worry about not having information when and where I need it. With all that said, I am in the process of leaving MobileMe behind and switching to Google services.
Why make the switch? The first reason is that Google offers most of the features that MobileMe provides. The second reason is that Google does not charge for this service. Gmail, Gmail Contacts, and Google Calendar can now sync with cell phones and computers. Amazingly, Google calls this service Google Sync.
The process you have to go through to switch email providers is never super simple, but Google does a good job of making the transition as painless as possible. They may not do things as slick as Apple does, but I am finding it fairly easy to do. They provide ways to send your contact list and all your email to them, so you don’t have to go through hoops to get that done. You then need to setup Gmail on your computer and/or phone so that you can retrive all your info. Again, Google provides easy to follow instructions on how to do this. The last step is to let everyone know what your new email address is. I would give plenty of time before shutting off your old email services so that the stragglers get used to sending you mail to the correct address.
I will go more in-depth with this process once I have used it for awhile so that I may give it a proper review. Stay tuned for further updates.
The problems with Windows Vista are myriad and well-known since the day it went on sale. Subsequent updates and service packs have done a great job at getting the operating system running as it should, but the stigma of performance and compatibility issues continue to harass Microsoft. In fact, the problems are so well-known that even the government has heard about it.
The state of Texas has banned the use of Windows Vista on all government computers. Senator Juan Hinojosa, Democrat, says “Windows XP is just fine, thank you very much.” Who knew the government was tech savvy? Microsoft sees it as a slight against the company. I think they should see it as an opportunity to fix their software.
To be fair, a fully patched Windows Vista does run much better than it did when it launched. My biggest gripe with it is that it is still a memory hog. I once had a Sony Vaio with Vista Home Premium on it. On a fresh boot, with only minimal start-up programs running, it still used almost 2GB of RAM before I launched any of my programs. That is ridiculous.
You might have noticed that the name of this blog has changed. I have decided to slightly change the focus of this blog so that I may talk about more technology than just MMO games. I would like this blog to be a place where non-geek technology users can come to get easy to understand information about technology in general. I will still write about my experiences with MMO gaming, but I will also mix in other tech subjects as well.
So I welcome you to the new Casual Tech Notebook blog. I hope you will enjoy what you find here.
