FROM APPLETELL - A few months ago, the fine people at Saddleback Leather provided us with a medium laptop case for review. Now they’re extending that generosity to you by allowing us to give it away to one of our readers. MORE »
I have been playing with the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus for a little while now and I have to say that one of my favorite features is the Mobile Hotspot app. This app comes pre-installed on both the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus and allows the user to create a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to five other devices so you can connect your notebook, netbook or other Wi-Fi enabled device to the Internet. I should also point out that the use of this app requires an additional add-on service that will cost $40 per month. So in the end you are paying for the calling plan, any message plan you choose and also the regular $29.99 a month smartphone access. So yes, you are paying a bit more money, however for someone like myself who has used and liked having a MiFi this $40 add on may be a better option. This Mobile Hotspot app is also the reason that I will likely pick up a Palm Pre Plus of my own after this review period is over.
For me it comes down to the fact that the MiFi requires a two year commitment and costs $59.99 a month. The Mobile Hotspot add-on for the Palm Pre Plus costs $40 a month and comes as a service without a contract. In other words you can add it and remove it as needed. I would say that is a big plus for someone who likes the MiFi but does not need it all the time. That alone can be a money saver. But at least for me the decision came down to this, I already have a Verizon Wireless family account, so adding the Palm Pre Plus was an extra $9.99 a month for minutes and messages, then the regular data and Mobile Hotspot data. Bottom line, I would have paid $59.99 a month for a MiFi, and now I will pay $79.99 a month for the Pre Plus with the Mobile Hotspot. And yes, I realize that $79.99 is more than $59.99. Its $20 more to be specific, but that $20 more a month gives me a complete other phone to use as well as the mobile data. Its also cheaper than having another 3G data phone and a separate MiFi. Plus I can always add or remove that Mobile Hotspot add-on as needed and save a few extra bucks here and there as opposed to always paying $59.99 a month. Because remember those months when I drop the Mobile Hotspot service my price (minus tax) goes down to $39.99 a month.
And to add one other little bit of info, once you have the Mobile Hotspot app active and in use, any data that is sent or received by any connected devices as well as your Palm Pre Plus will be counted towards the 5GB limit that you have with your Mobile Hotspot service. That means if you are playing Slacker on your Palm Pre Plus and activate the Mobile Hotspot any data you use will count towards the 5GB limit on the Mobile Hotspot and not the 5GB limit for the phones data plan. So this kind-of sort-of means that you are increasing your monthly limit to 10GB.
Anyway, I think you can tell from this post that I like the Palm Pre Plus and its Mobile Hotspot service. And with that, here is a video demonstrating just how easy it is to set up a Mobile Hotspot network with the Palm Pre Plus.
Finally, the service without speed would be worthless. So here is a speed test that I did using the Chrome browser on my Eee PC 1000H netbook running Jolicloud.
FROM APPLETELL - Are you used to doing everything by voice? Making phone calls or selecting songs on your iPod? You can now carry that simplicity over to setting your alarm at night and waking up in the morning. MORE »
As warmer weather starts to creep back in to the northern reaches of the US, it’s time to start thinking about getting back on the roads and trails with your bicycle. If you’re like me, the bike has sat idle while skiis and snowboards got their fill. Here are some easy things you can do to get back in riding form.
Tires
For the past few months, state and town works have been dumping sand, salt and God knows what else on the streets to keep the slipper conditions at bay. All that stuff coagulates at the roads side, right where you have to ride through. This can lead to difficult, if not unsafe bicycle handling conditions. The solution? New tires.
Tires, like these beauties from Fyxation, are just the thing. Looking sharp in their dual compound, the new Fyxation tires have wall to wall knobs for added traction, just like the old 20” BMX tires I used to ride. Big groves in the tire provide good grip while the dual compound puts a durable section of rubber where you need it most, while still looking sharp. At 120 TPI, the tire has the stuff to keep flats at bay.
Designed as tires for hip fixies (fixed gear bicycles), these tires were intended for urban assault riding. Perfect for the urban landscape, these tires were made to handle skidding (to an extent), track stands and all the rough love of the urban world. That also makes them great for dealing with the springtime slosh of deep sand, road junk and even slush coagulating on the roads shoulder.
I’ve been riding these for a few weeks and have been duly impressed. They hold tight while moving through big piles of sand and even pointed off road, they did pretty well. Their wider 700x28 size will fit many frames and their color options just look fantastic. New tires, like these Fyxations, are the #1 was to improve performance on your bike. $49.95, Fyxation
Chain
Chances are good your chain needs love. I cringe when I hear a dry chain just squeeking for some live pedal by. But lubing the chain is only half of it; the other half of the story is chain stretch and it can eat your chain rings and rear cogs (the gears).
As a former shop owner, I’ve seen (and profited from) neglected chains eat away at chain rings and rear cogs, a costly replacement. The solution for most of us is simply replace the chain each year. As the chain stretches, it begins to reshape the teeth it engages. Once this sets in, a new chain will no longer solve it, in fact, a new chain will skip around for no apparent reason. To avoid this, change your chain a regular intervals. Bike shops have a chain gauge that can measure the stretch so you can avert trouble.
Chains are an easy replacement. Simply use a chain tool to drive a pin out (or find the quick link and remove it) and use the old chain to size the new one.
Cables
Water, salt from the road and even sweat can corrode cables that control your brake and shifting cables. Corroded cables can cause shifting problems as well as delayed braking action. Keeping these lubed can go a long way to keeping things sliding freely. Simply create some slack in the cable and pull and push it through the housing (the plastic bits that cover the cables at bends). If it moves freely, drop in some lube and you are good to go; if not, time to replace cable and housing.
Cable sizing requires a good pair of cable cutters and more housing then you need or take the old housing to a bike shop to be matched with new. If you don’t have a set of cutters, or just want to leave the rest of the tuning to a pro, visit your local bike shop.
Many know, and many are waiting for Google to release Chrome OS, which is expected to be available towards the end of the year. But now it seems as if that version of Google’s Chrome OS is not the only one in the pipeline. According to Will Drewry, who is a Google software security engineer they are planning to also release a business version sometime in 2011 that will feature “more management muscle.” Sadly though, aside from the brief mention little else is known about this second version of Chrome OS. Of course, I am sure that just like everything else Google, the rumor mill will eventually churn up and details will come to light.
CTIA is coming up later this month, March 23-25 and is the US wireless biggest event that focuses on mobile carriers and devices. If you were a smartphone maker looking to make an impact in the US, you’d look to CTIA to do so. That appears what Palm may be doing.
According to PreCentral, an AT&T employee posted that the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus had finished testing at the company and now testing had begun on a device named Elan. Could Elan be the touchscreen-only webOS device we’ve been hoping for? Can we expect to see a big splash at CTIA announcing the first soft-keyboard only webOS device?
Maybe. It seems the Elan name was used before and identified the Pixi device. There are two sites up that currently name the Pixi Elan and list accessories for them with an image of the Pixi. Some suggest AT&T changes the name of the device for their network, like most of HTC’s devices. The Palm Centro however, made it onto AT&T with no name change.
The supposed AT&T employee also said the device will launch in Europe first, which would be a new route for Palm’s webOS devices. Of interest, Elan was the name of a company that sued Apple and means “tree” in Hebrew.
Wirefly is currently offering a pretty nice deal on AT&T phones—they are all free. Of course, there does seem to be one exception to that statement, the iPhone. Otherwise, any AT&T phone that Wirefly carries is now free on-contract until midnight tonight (for reference, today is Monday March 8, 2010).
Bottom line, visit Wirefly, find the phone you want to get and sign up for free. Of course, you do have that two-year agreement, but those are pretty standard.
Some phones such as the Samsung Mythic, LG Arena and LG Xenon even give you a $40 bill credit. Plus you also get free shipping via Fed-Ex.
You can even get the recently released Motorola Backflip, which would set you back $99.99 (after mail-in-rebate) with AT&T directly.
Earlier this month we saw Microsoft post and then quickly remove details on a “buy Office 2007 get Office 2010 free” offer. Thankfully though it seems that those details were accurate at the time, albeit made available for the publics eyes a little earlier than planned.
Anyway, it seems that those who are planning to pick up a copy of Office 2007 can go ahead and do so safely knowing that they will be able to get upgraded to Office 2010 for free when it comes available in June.
The details of the offer are simple, buy a “qualifying” copy of Office 2007 sometime between March 5, 2010 and September 20, 2010 and get a free upgrade to Office 2010.
Its nice knowing you can buy an expensive software program and be confident that it will not be outdated by a new release in just a few months.
So LG has this super skinny, super nice looking netbook, its the X300 and it is going to be available beginning later this month. Unfortunately this is one of those times that we here in the US are going to be a little disappointed because the LG X300 netbook is not headed here, at least not at first. Instead LG has chosen to release it in Asia and then the Middle East and South America.
Feature wise, to begin with the skinny part comes in regards to the 0.69-inch thickness. Otherwise the LG X300 netbook comes sporting an 11.6-inch display, 2.0GHz Intel Menlow processor, a 1.3-megapixel webcam and is running Windows 7 Home Premium. Other perks of the LG X300 include built-in 3G connectivity and that it can handle up to 2GB of RAM, up to a 128GB SSD and ships with a spare 2-cell battery. Yes, spare 2-cell battery. Finally, it weighs in at 2.14-pounds and will be available in either shiny white or light brown.
No word yet on pricing, of course March is not all that far away to wait, assuming you live in one of the areas that LG is planning to make the X300 available.
FROM APPLETELL - What’s worse than seeing your MacBook’s battery dip below 10%? Seeing it hit zero? If this happens to you often, you need a solution. HyperMac has an entire line of batteries just for this purpose. MORE »
A new wave of scareware hitting the net has nearly taken over the field. On February 8th and 9th the attack pumped out enough malware to end up accounting for over half the total malware distributed for the entire month. In other words, it's huge.
The malware is called Security Tool and is distributed via spam and through poisoned search results and Black Hat SEO techniques. Unlike the fake anti-virus programs that have been glutting the net, Security Tool has a very nasty twist. It takes over the computer and locks down the apps and all data. The only way the user can get their access restored is to pay via the one app that's not locked down-Internet Explorer. This goes beyond scareware and into the realm of ransomware.
The botnet responsible for this new malware wave is Cutwail/Pushdo, one of the largest botnets around. Cutwail is also responsible for the recent DDoS attacks on Twitter, Paypal, the CIA and the FBI.
How do you protect yourself? It is crucial that you keep your anti-virus software up to date at all times. Don't click on links or open attachments in emails that come from people you don't know or that come from people you do know but seem suspicious (emails with no subject and a message body with a link and nothing else are a huge red flag, especially if the link looks like gibberish.) When using search engines, stick to results that come from familiar, reputable sites. Don't click on banner ads or pop ups, and think twice about downloading from Bittorrent sites which are often infested with malware. Limewire is one of the worst!
FROM GAMERTELL - A couple from Germany found a great idea for their wedding invitation, a video game. You must complete the game to get to the invitation. MORE »
As warmer weather starts to creep back in to the northern reaches of the US, it’s time to start thinking about getting back on the roads and trails with your bicycle. If you’re like me, the bike has sat idle while skiis and snowboards got their fill. Here are some easy things you can do to get back in riding form.
Many know, and many are waiting for Google to release Chrome OS, which is expected to be available towards the end of the year. But now it seems as if that version of Google’s Chrome OS is not the only one in the pipeline. According to Will Drewry, who is a Google software security engineer they are planning to also release a business version sometime in 2011 that will feature “more management muscle.” Sadly though, aside from the brief mention little else is known about this second version of Chrome OS. Of course, I am sure that just like everything else Google, the rumor mill will eventually churn up and details will come to light.
CTIA is coming up later this month, March 23-25 and is the US wireless biggest event that focuses on mobile carriers and devices. If you were a smartphone maker looking to make an impact in the US, you’d look to CTIA to do so. That appears what Palm may be doing.
Earlier this month we saw 
A new wave of scareware hitting the net has nearly taken over the field. On February 8th and 9th the attack pumped out enough malware to end up accounting for over half the total malware distributed for the entire month. In other words, it's huge.
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