Automatic Pro now offers free 3G service

When I read the post describing this product it really began to intrigue me. First, let me say that I wish it were free 4G but any “G” is better than none. This device plugs into your car’s OBD-II port, unlocks the data in your car’s on-board computer and connects it to the internet. While that is a concern to me as far as security, I’m planning on looking into the repercussions of adding this to a vehicle.

This is the same concern I would have for any of the IoT devices that are constantly showing up around us. There are an interesting list of things that this device will bring to the table that might be of interest to you though.

The primary reason this device was created was allow you to connect into the on board computer system of your car to allow you to also access the diagnostic information about your vehicle. The Pro version takes it one step further to actually connect the device through an internet connection to applications to make use of that data. Many other things become available to take advantage of once this has been unlocked.

Have you ever forgotten where you have parked your car? Now this device provides the ability to find it again. Tracking driving statistics is also an interesting feature. I need to provide my driving information for sales/service trips to the IRS every year so this device along with one of several available Apps can automatically log the exact mileage for these trips without me having to write it down.

Interesting enough this also works with IFTTT and the Amazon Echo. I am also playing with a Pebble watch right now and there is a an App available to connect that as well.

I sure you guessed that I am excited about this device, so I placed an order for one for my Jeep. I’ll get back to you later after I have put it through its paces.

Should Smart Watches like the Apple Watch be considered a handheld device?

Yesterday I posted an article about Smart Watches being distracting to drivers and today I found an article at Appleinsider.com that reports that an Apple Watch owner was just fined in Quebec for operating his new Apple Watch while in the driver’s seat (report from CTV Montreal). The driver stated that he was using the watch’s built in music app to control his iPhone that was connected to his car’s stereo.

The ticket cited Section 439.1 of the Quebec Highway Safety Code, which reads, "No person may, while driving a road vehicle, use a hand-held device that includes a telephone function." Use of Bluetooth accessories, like headsets and hands-free equipment, is allowed. A literal interpretation could find Macesin not technically in violation of the statute, as the "handheld device" in this equation — Macesin's iPhone — was stowed in a bag and therefore unreachable.

My belief is that it is as much of a handheld device as a phone, being in this case an screen extension of the phone control. Just glancing at the watch to see what time it is, is one thing, but actually going through the menus and choosing options is another. What do you think?

OWA available for iOS devices now

Take a quick look at the Exchange Team Blog entry announcing the availability of the new OWA App for both the iPhone and the iPad. It will show you setup and screenshots of the application but the one drawback is that you need to have an Office 365 account to get it.

See the article here.

Will Voice to Text and Voice Recognition be taking over all of your phone functions?

My use of voice to text recognition software goes in spurts.  I don't use it routinely just because I am very seldom in a quiet enough area to make a good environment for the voice to text recognition software work well.

On my Windows 7 machine I use the built in Windows 7 software for speech recognition.  It does pretty well, but I can't help but think that Dragon Naturally Speaking would do a much better job at this.  I sometimes use the Dragon app on my iPhone to create like texts that I send out.  But other than that, I don't use any of the boys search programs that are out there for my phone.

I have written a lot of blog posts using the voice to text technology on my iPad, and more recently on my new Nexus 7.  On the iPad am using the Dragon app to create a note that I eventually will paste into another application to post up to my blog.  The Nexus 7 has a very similar voice to text recognition application that you can use inside multiple applications on the device.  This makes it a little more usable then the dragon app.

New wants is the software manufacturer of the Dragon series of software packages, and they are in constant development of their software to place it on as many devices that they can.  We're starting to see it on some smart TV use and even in cars.  They are hoping to have their software power in every application that you use.

They're placing a new software development kit so all iOS and Android app developers can use the same voice recognition technology in any app. This might be exciting for some of us that there is a scarier side to this coming to fruition.  They are also hoping to combine actual voice ID’ing to financial applications to access banking and payment functions.  Think about one click purchasing at Amazon being processed totally by voice control.

What is frightening is the possible loss of control as someone overhearing, recording your voice, or some other IP capture system to be able to take advantage of this voice function on devices and within applications that could hurt you financially.  The question is do you want to open this Pandora's Box or not?  Think about it.

Intuit’s Mobile iOS Credit Card Processing System

Last year in Jude a wrote a quick post on Square’s updated Credit Card Processing System and now Intuit is adding its product into ring with less cost and a more substantial reading device.

They have an updated free app on iTunes for both the iPhone and the iPad that provides easy processing of credit card payments to your account.

---FEATURES---

• Receive a free card reader compatible with your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch
• Avoid start-up costs, a long-term contract, and cancellation fees
• 2.7% per card reader swiped transaction rate with pay-as-you-go pricing plan
• Customers sign with their finger and a receipt can be sent by text or e-mail, so you can be paperless
• Access your GoPayment account on your Mac or PC and accept, refund, and review credit card payments online
• All transactions are secure and encrypted, unlike some card readers
• Add up to 50 users to your account so multiple people can accept payments for your business
• We’ve made it easier for you to get started by not requiring bank account information. The money you make with GoPayment can be deposited into your Intuit GoPayment Prepaid Visa® Card account. You can conveniently access and manage your money online at www.gopayment.com, or use the GoPayment Card anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted – in stores, online, and at ATMs
• GoPayment integrates with QuickBooks, making it easier to manage your finances
• From Intuit, the makers of QuickBooks, Quicken, and TurboTax

The app will run on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later
*You can also sign up at www.gopayment.com. If you would like to sign up for the High volume plan, you must do so on the website.
**Intuit GoPayment offers 2 pricing plans with the following rates to meet your individual needs:
Pay-as-you-go:
Swipe: 2.7%
Key-enter and non-qualified: 3.7%
High volume (option to pay $12.95/month for lower per-transaction rates):
Swipe: 1.7%
Key-enter: 2.7%
Non-qualified rate: 3.7%

---GET STARTED---

• Download the Free GoPayment Credit Card Processing App
• Complete the in-app application*
• Check your email for your approval notification, and then start accepting payments!

Once you’re approved, you can start accepting credit cards right away by key entering credit card info into the app.
Your free card reader will ship the next business day.
If you want to see GoPayment in action before you sign up, select the Test Drive button.

If you decide that this product is for you, then one of the things that jumped out at me right away is that the quantities field only seems to accept whole numbers. This can be a problem especially if you are selling by weight or if you are like me you are selling time. Another problem that you might have is that it only accepts one sales tax field. So if you are in a county that requires you to collect both a state and county sales tax you will need to make some kind of adjustment for that. Of course if you are not roaming around this is not an issue. If you are moving around it might be hard to track who you need to send the tax you have collected to the correct entities.

Otherwise, the interface seems to be simple and straight forward and if you don’t have the concerns about the limitations I stated above then it might be a good fit for you. The charge rates for processing are a little lower then Square’s and Intuit is a big player in the entry level accounting industry.

Compatible Devices

See all devices

Evernote vs. OneNote

And the battle goes on. There have been some recent updates to both of these programs that have prompted me to take another look to see which one is better suited for what I need.

Evernote’s general capabilities are still not as rich on the PC/Desktop side as they are in OneNote but it still has a better overall feel and function between all of the different devices that you can bring it up on. I have listed a table below on some of the major features and how each product rates in respect to each other.

Feature	Evernote	OneNote
Notebook –this feature allows you to group notes together to make them easier to access	Two Level-You can create a master Group and then have notebook containers listed within the master Group or container.	On the surface it appears that you only have two levels here as well however, you may have as many Notebooks that you want. The second level is called a section in OneNote but there are two types of sections that you can create, the first is a Section Group which can create one or more Sections or more Section Groups. A Section then is what actually is the container for your note pages.
Free Form Entries	You don’t have this with Evernote	You can place your entries anywhere you wish on the note. I really like this feature and I miss it with Evernote.
Text Style	The basics are here but they are very limited.	A much richer choice of controls to enhance your text styles. You can create a much richer end product here.
Web Versions	Very similar whether you use the Web Interface or the Desktop Interface.	The Web interface is poor at best not only to the desktop version but also to what Evernote provides. This is the one feature that is a tipping point for me to continue using Evernote as my primary note taking application.
iPad App	Again, this is very similar to the both the Web and Desktop Apps. This makes it much simpler to move from one device to another.	Ugh! The newly released app is ten time better than it was but it still is a poor cousin to anything else. Still not good enough. Evernote wins here as well.
Application Interfaces	Evernote is very strong when it comes to integrating on the iPad with other applications. It should since this is the world that it has mostly evolved in. More and more secondary apps that I use have tie ins to not only Evernote but also Dropbox that these features keep me coming back.	OneNote has very strong tie ins with other Office Applications that I use a lot. This makes it very hard for me to stop using it but in reality, other than the task management associated with Outlook many of the other features that I want can also be found in Evernote.

So, for me I still lean towards Evernote as my primary note program but I still find myself jumping into OneNote when I need that extra formatting or connection to Outlook.

Let me know your thoughts!

Evernote has won me over from OneNote

Sorry Microsoft but as much as I love the interoperability between OneNote and Outlook, OneNote and IE and OneNote and Print Capture, Evernote has begun to win out as my go to app for note taking. Why you may ask. Well, let me tell you!

If you are a frequent reader of this blog you may notice that when I choose a program, I do so because of its breadth of access/use. What I mean by that is that if I am collecting information, which you are naturally doing in a note taking program, you want to have those notes available to you no matter what device it is that your have at hand. Evernote does this for me. Not only is it interoperable with all of the web browsers that I use, I also have the notes that I create available on all of my computers instantly, on anyone else’s computer via the web browser/login interface, on my phone, on my tablet, in other words everywhere that I work. I cannot say that about OneNote. Even though there is a web interface for the OneNote product, it loses most of its functionality when you use it in that environment. There is an iPhone version but not an Android, and there isn’t a native iPad version (you have to use the iPhone app). Not pretty, very low function and frankly, disappointing. On a Window’s PC I love OneNote. If this was the only place I used the product I would probably be staying with it. But the real world is much broader than just PC access to applications anymore and for a mobile guy like myself the OneNote application doesn’t have a wide enough usage model. Maybe this will change down the road and if it does I will rethink my position, but for now, Evernote has my vote.

Adding PDF’s directing to your iBook Library

I use my iPad for many different purposes but having it as a portable reference device is a big benefit. Besides creating my own PDF documents and storing them in either DropBox or iBook I also collect PDF’s from other sources as well. If you are using your iPad to do research on the internet using Safari as your browser and you come upon a PDF download you can now not only display that PDF in Safari but also save it to your iBook library for future reading/reference. Once you have the PDF loaded in Safari notice in the upper top right of the screen that you have a Open in “iBooks” button choice. The PDF will be immediately transported to your iBook App and displayed on the screen for you. If you exit back to the Library you can then Edit and Move the new document into the “Collection” that you wish it to reside. While it is displayed on the screen you have the ability to print or email it or, of course, just sit back and read it.

Should You consider upgrading to the new iPhone 4S?

There have a lot of articles written in the past few weeks that would leave you to believe that the iPhone 4S is the best smartphone that has ever been made and for a person like myself that love new technology the twinge has started deep inside me to make the leap. I am still sitting on a iPhone 3GS and it still does the job it was designed for fairly well. In all honesty, I really only use the app side of the phone for very limited functions and routinely pull out one of my iPads to do most of the things that I use these types of devices for. The reason is quite simple, I like the bigger screen. In fact, if the iPad was available in a 12 or 13 inch screen I would probably jump on that before upgrading my phone.

So let’s get back to my question. If you are a heavy phone user and want the technology upgrades that the iPhone offers then you may be a candidate. My first question: What are you upgrading from? If you own an Android, haven’t you already made the commitment in that camp to continue with the apps you have purchased and the learning curve of using that particular interface? I would probably stay with Android because you probably are there for many reasons the IOS technology cannot give you. However, if you don’t have a smartphone yet, or have and earlier version of the iPhone, then you are probably a good candidate to make the upgrade except if you are an iPhone 4 owner.

I’m not sure the difference in technology between the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s is great enough to take the financial hit you will probably take jumping out of you current service agreement. And how will you feel when in 8-10 months from now the new iPhone 5 finally does come out with whatever wonder technology it will bring to the table. I would really be tempted to wait and see in that case.

If you are a proud owner of an iPhone 3GS or earlier then the differences between the devices is much greater. You will get a better camera (8 megapixel) with a better lens, and two cameras at that. MG Siegler noted in his October 11^th post for TechCrunch:

The camera is an even bigger deal to me. As I’ve been following for some time, and Apple noted last week, the iPhone has become the most popular camera in the world if you go by the images uploaded to Flickr. And it’s not even close. This new camera in the iPhone 4S goes above and beyond. And it’s going to push that lead even further.

If the point-and-shoot market wasn’t in trouble before, it will be now.

Much will be made about the upgrade from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels with the iPhone 4S. But the bigger difference is the engineering behind the new camera. Apple notes with pride that their engineers were able to completely re-architect this tiny camera to produce images that are on par with the nicest point-and-shoots available. They credit five “precision elements” to record incoming light (versus four in the already excellent iPhone 4 camera) and the inclusion of a larger f/2.4 aperture to bring in more light.

Also great is that the iPhone 4S camera can shoot 1080p video for the first time. The iPhone 4 is limited to 720p. The 4S also features video stabilization, to ensure your home videos won’t make viewers want to vomit. Testing this out, it seems to work pretty well.

You will have a much faster processor so that those applications that you are running will run much more smoothly. There is even a big difference between the 4 and 4S which might make you iPhone 4 owners to make the leap anyway if speed is important to you.

You will get Siri, your own personal assistant, though it is in its beginning stages it is really kind of a neat application. In the coming months when Apple opens up the API to its army of third party programmers it will be interesting to see where they will take this part of the 4S. The limitations currently are that there only a few apps that it integrates with and they are all Apple applications. We need to see better integration with some business functions but it is really a fun and interesting start anyway. This one feature will probably be the tipping point for most new buyers and will be the ONE main competitive feature that other phones will need to compete against. The biggest downside with this technology is that it uses server side software to function and this means that you need to be connected to the internet for it to work.

So what do you think?

iPhone 4 owner – if you still have time on your contract this is a pricey upgrade. If the camera, speed and/or Siri are important to you then you may want to do this. If not you will need to wait out your contract and then take a look at what is out there at that time. You will get the IOS 5 upgrade anyway, just not with Siri.

iPhone 3GS or earlier or a new smartphone want-to-be’s – This will be a much easier decision. All of the features, including the IOS 5 will make a big difference in how you work with your phone. For me it’s an easy call. I have the 3GS, the camera will allow me to carry a much better point and shoot with me (I am a camera buff you know), I love faster and love Voice to Text Recognition functions (I use this a lot in my daily work when writing up long winded descriptions). So I will be one of those sitting in queue shortly to get my hands on this new device.

HELO TC Touch-Controlled Helicopter

Looking for a new toy for your enjoyment that allows you to use your IOS device as a control interface?

I have lately been acquiring different RC controlled helicopters and have had a lot of fun flying them around the house. Griffin has come out with this one that interfaces an infrared device with your IOS device so that you can control the helicopter in one of two methods:

• Touch Control: Use a virtual joystick on your Multi-Touch display to maneuver the chopper.
• Tilt to Steer: Tilt your iOS device to move the chopper forward, backward, and side to side.

Use the app to record and store up to three Flight Plans so you, or another pilot, can easily repeat a favorite flight pattern. Make up routes among the furniture, missions to fly, obstacles to avoid, goals to achieve, and replay them later with your friends.

Ready to Fly?

HELO TC comes complete with a precision twin-rotor remote-controlled helicopter and Flight Deck. The Flight Deck plugs into your iOS device's headphone jack and translates your commands into infrared signals that beam to the helicopter.

HELO TC's intuitive, easy-to-learn controls and twin-rotor design make for stable, controlled flight. And the HELO TC app provides features not available with other RC helicopters, such as Auto Land so you can bring HELO TC down for a safe landing with just a tap of the Multi-Touch display.

Download the free HELO TC app onto your iOS device, load your device into HELO TC's Flight Deck and you're ready to fly. Currently out of stock, this $49.95 device really looks neat. Griffin is well known for their mobile device add-on’s.

iPad-Paper Camera

Wow! It has been a while since last time I was so taken with a new program. I am really having a lot of fun with this application on my iPad taking different images with different filters to see what I can get out of them. So, what does this program do? This program will utilized the onboard cameras of your iPhone or iPad and create interesting “cartoon style images”. Priced at only $0.99 in the iTunes store, it is a great tool for adding another creative flair to your mobile equipment.

It is a bit tedious to do this after the fact in Photoshop but with a quick point and click you can create these fun images and share them from your device.

One of the uses that I am going to put the app through is to create images of people and products and give them a little flair by processing them through this application. The collection of filters include: cartoon/sketch/comic book/halfone/noir/neon and many other effects painted directly in your camera, no more boring post-effects, it's all real time, you simply won't stop wandering, wherever you are, having a look at things and cartoon-ize them!

You can import your existing photos into the program and apply different filters to them as well to give them a slightly different look. I put some examples below. For $.99 it’s hard to go wrong

Evernote News…

If you are using Evernote you probably have gotten this email notification from them. First off there is a new update available. To force an update on your desktop client click on the Help menu option and choose Check For Updates. You will be prompted to download and run the update if you don’t have the updated version already. While many of the changes are cosmetic, Evernote tells us that it should be more user-friendly to use.

What! You don’t have Evernote?

If you are running around with many different kinds of devices, you may want to consider looking at this program. This program has front end program interfaces for the iPad, iPhone/iPod Touch, Android, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry, Palm Pre, Palm Pixi, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It is a great way to share notes between all of these devices. Start with the free version and see if it is a good fit for what you do. I think that you will.

And…

If you have an iPad 2 you might be interested in the new Evernote Peek. This learning application works in conjunction with an iPad 2 and a smart cover.

Connect Peek to your Evernote account and brush up on a language, make flashcards for a quiz or test your trivia knowledge, all by simply peeking under the Smart Cover.

Take a sneak peak at how it works:

GoPano micro - Capture 360º videos from an iPhone 4

love the KickStarter program that allows people to come up with new ideas and throw them out there to see if there is any interest. It allows for short run manufacturing so that these products can actually be built and delivered to those that are interested enough in owning them. The GoPano micro is just one of these projects. The goal of $20,000 was set to to initiate the project and it has been met. The go ahead date for the project is May 14th so it will move forward. So what is it?

Click to read more ...

Apple's subscription plan: Time for an app work stoppage | ZDNet

Thought that this was an interesting article about how Apple’s “greed” may get in the way of their keeping their current high market position in the smartphone/tablet world. If they have companies like Amazon, Netflix and Hulu pull their apps from iTunes then they will begin to miss a large part of the entertainment market when it comes to streaming media. This might not be as big a problem for the iPhone but the iPad may see some serious fallout to the android tablets that will soon be plentiful. The sooner that these new tablets are out and provide and alternative the the Apple monopoly the sooner they may see this happen. I would hate for my sake, since I own an iPad to lose these streaming services because I do use them on my tablet but it isn’t my only use of it. If I have to go back to my PC or grab a new device I will probably do it.

Apple's subscription plan: Time for an app work stoppage | ZDNet

Sharing Files between all of your devices

I would be interested how you share information between all of your devices. If you are like me you may use more than one device on a moment to moment basis and you may be generating information that you need to share or have access to no matter what device you current have at hand.

I use primarily five devices on a weekly basis. I have desktops at home and at work, a netbook in a backpack to keep me mobile, an iPad and an iPhone. I also have a Kindle that I have used but it isn’t one of these primary devices that I use to share information for personal or company business. When I look at a service or application that I am thinking of using on any one of these devices the first thing I look at is how device independent is it and how available is the program/data that it works with to all of my devices. I have come up with a few that I have found indispensible and I would like to share them with you.

Note Taking – EVERNOTE is my application of choice for this that I use to share information between my iPhone. iPad and computers. I use OneNote a lot on my computer but until recently it was only available on my PC’s and that wasn’t quite flexible enough. Recently Microsoft released an iPhone version of OneNote that can access notebooks that are stored in the cloud (SkyDrive). While this is interesting it isn’t quite as useful as Evernote is for me. The iPhone OneNote application isn’t as functional as the PC version and leaves a lot to be desired. In a pinch it has some use though. If they come out with an iPad version with more of the PC version’s capabilities then I might consider jumping back to this program for more use.

When I am sitting down with a client I am using a program called FastEver XL that allows me to quickly and easily type in text that can be saved to my Evernote account. I then save it and it becomes available no matter which device that I am currently using. So when I am out on the road collecting information at a client’s site that I will need at my desk later on, I am typing that info into FastEver XL and before I get back to the Office it is already waiting for me at my desk.

I have also been playing with an application called aNote (Awesome Note) that also integrates with  Evernote. It synchronizes with the Evernote folders so that you can use it’s capabilities It is meant to be used as a To-Do List manager with hooks to both Google and Evernote.

Document Access – I store many of the documents that I need to have access to using either Microsoft’s Skydrive or Dropbox. Skydrive gives you 25GB’s storage for free and this is where I put data like my OneNote Notebooks so that they are synchronized between all of my systems. However, Dropbox is the storage are that I primarily use because it is compatible with many iPad/iPhone applications for document storage. A Dropbox account comes with 2GB’s of storage for free and you can purchase upgrades to the service as you necessary. I have increased my storage to 50GB’s at a cost of $99/year and you can increase that to 100GB’s for $199/year. I also have storage over with mobileme and Google docs so there is plenty of places I can drop a file and have it available. I opened up my subscription to mobileme only because I decided to play with Pages and Keynote which are Apple applications that I am using on the iPad. I am not a big Google docs user but I know that it is there if I need it.

So what kind of information do I store in Dropbox. Most of it is temporary but some of it includes documents that I am constantly sharing with my clients. Things like product brochures can easily be shared through email on the fly when I am at a client’s site. I also create and store reports that I use when I am at a client’s site. This gives me instant information wherever I am. I will also store an office document here if I need to continue working on it from home. That way I can pick up right where I left off without having to save it off to a flash drive. I seem to be constantly losing those anyway. I have also stored program files here so that when I go to a customer’s site I can download those onto their machine quickly and easily. There is no concern of malware contamination because I’m not using hardware to transfer between systems.

Research – I use Instapaper quite a bit as I am going through my RSS feeds and from my internet browser. If you haven’t used this internet service before you will really love it once you do. One of the biggest benefits is that it will strip out most of the unwanted material from the website that it is pulling the article from and makes it much easier to read. I can access this information from my iPhone, iPad or any of my computers. It is easy to organize and I do this mainly from my computers. The browser based controls are much easier to use to organize my captured documents and once I have them there they are very easy to share with others as well. One of the ways that I am using this is to allow me to collect information from different photography blog sites that I am putting together as a self-help guide in MS Word. I have set it up with a table of contents and then saved it as a PDF file. I then send it up to my iPad and store it in the iBooks application. The articles in the document are then accessible using the table of contents to jump to the page that it is located on in the document. This makes it very easy to move around in the document using either the TOC or using the search feature to find keywords about something that I am searching for.

Photo’s -  If you have been following me at all on any of my blogs, you know that I love to take photos. The one thing that a photographer loves better than the taking of a photograph is the ability to share it with someone. I do this in a number of ways but the two primary ones are using my iPad as a presentation device and a website called SmugMug as my online gallery. SmugMug is accessible from most any device that has internet access and allow you a pretty large number of choices to separate you pictures and to be able to document them. It’s a great way to backup your pictures from your local storage and it allows you setup several layers deep of gallery settings. But the ability for me to point friends and family to this site easily and for them to self navigate makes for a great experience for them or for me when I am showing them using my devices as well.

I hope this article has given you some ideas of how you can set yourself up to be as productive and satisfied with all the programs and data that you want at your fingertips when you want it.

QNAP adds iOS streaming via WiFI and 3G

While this is the headline streaming through the technology blogs, QNAP (Quality Network Appliance Provider) has a great inventory of products to choose from for your network storage needs. While this announcement highlights some of the neat features in their latest home designed appliances that provide digital media streaming to more of your devices in your home, they are much, much more than a home media streaming company.

The QNAP TS-x12 Turbo NAS Product line provides an All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI for SOHO and Home Users. The TS-412 appliance supports a 3-bay hot swappable  system with RAID 0/1/56/5+Hot Spare and JBOD. It also supports both 2.5” and 3.5” drives as well.

If you are looking for a repository for all of your Home Entertainment needs to share Photos, Music Movies and Videos, you can do worse than this device. With support for PS3, Xbox 360 or other network media players you will be able to stream full HD 1080p movies to your TV or Projector. You can even provide access to your digital media over the Internet by web browsers or iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Android mobile devices.

Of course you will have file share and backup of all your network devices as with most NAS compatible devices. With DLNA and iTunes Server support.The NAS features high-speed data transfer of exceeding 70MB/s, fast enough to support multiple 1080p HD streams. The whisper-quiet design brings you the best cinema-grade home theater experience right in your living room.

QMobile is an application dedicated to iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Android users. You can view and play Terabytes of photos, music, and video files on the NAS by QMobile from anywhere regardless of the actual storage size of your mobile devices. You can also upload photos to QNAP NAS straightway from your iPhone for instant sharing.

If you are using a Surveillance system at home you can easily use this NAS device as a central storage area for your IP cameras. The Surveillance Station of QNAP NAS enables you to connect to multiple IP-based security cameras for real-time monitoring, recording, and playback. It supports leading network camera brands such as AXIS, D-Link, IPUX, LevelOne, Linksys, Panasonic, and VIVOTEK. By using particular models, you can use two-way video and audio monitoring and recording, and smart PTZ control to control the monitoring direction of the IP cameras by a web browser.

Versatility seems to be the watch word with these new devices by QNAP.

CES 2011

Last year Jude and I had launched our video studio right about this time and had produced some videos about products that we thought were neat and that we wanted to have. Many of these products never came into production as is the nature of the beast, but it is still interesting that the same basic theme this year seems to be the same as last year.

Hands down I think that one of the most exciting products of last year was the iPad and I am so glad that I found a way to justify my purchase because once I did get it into my hands, I found many more uses for it then I originally imagined. One of the things that I do daily is look for either new applications or peripherals to add to my collection of supporting items for my iPad. My two newest purchases being speaker docks that charge my iPad and iPhone while playing content. Productivity enhancements and ease of sharing data between systems is still my biggest concern when choosing a new application.

So, enough of my Bully Pulpit! The main focus of new and improved upcoming products include iPad type devices either using Android and Microsoft's Windows for operating systems. Throw in products from HP and RIM and we have a large number of choices in many varying sizes. For many of these we will still have to wait and see if they will actually reach production.

Another carryover from last year is the eBook reader. My feeling is that Amazon and Barnes and Noble are our two leaders with Sony in as a distant third. I am not sure that there is any more room for anything else out there but when people see a successful product they will try to ride the coattails of those products with what they feel is a better mousetrap.

3D TV was introduced last year but this year we see it being put into almost everything with a screen. I am not sold on this yet as anything more than a gimmick, but there is a lot of money being poured into it.

Believe it or not there are some interesting things happening with desktop and notebook computers with the new integrated video residing right in the same silicon with the CPU. there are many benefits to be found doing this that I will discuss in some follow-up articles. But we are seeing a small resurgence in Tablet Notebooks (convertibles), and more units in smaller more powerful form factors.

I haven't seen any new product groups yet but we are still pretty early in the show for me to determine that, more on this later. Anyway, over the next few days we will be perusing CES from afar and as we come up with products that we fill compelling, we will be sure to bring them to your attention.
So for now I'll go back to work and see what I can find!

Skype 3.0 adds video calling

Those of you that use Skype will be interested in the new release from Skype of its IOS release of Skype 3.0. We tried it out over 3G yesterday and while it was a little grainy and choppy was useable for basic communications on your iPhone 4 and 3GS and 4th generation iPod. While the image displayed is really grainy you can make out larger objects but if you need to send text you are better off taking a picture and sending it that way.

You can see the image to the right that the back camera from my iPhone 3gs can only do so much. This was a screen grab from my computer’s Skype communication box. You can easily flip your phone’s camera on and off but the receiving system needs to accept the image as well.

iPad's big upgrade: The top 10 iOS 4.2 features for business | ZDNet

TechRepublic has published their choices of the top 10 iOS 4.2 Features for iPads used in business.  I have found some of these features as very valuable but I haven’t been able to take advantage of several of them as of yet.

Multitasking: I played with the multitasking some and so far I have found it to be a great boon to my productivity but I sure would have liked two more things added to this function:

1. An easy way to close an application when you are through with it and
2. I would like to have the application continue to run in the background when I jump to another application.

I find it really annoying that I can’t listen to a video without it running in the forefront. Sometimes it is nice to continue listening while you jump to some research or to make notes about what you are listening to.

AirPlay: This could really be a neat app in as TR discusses for presentations. It works with the new Apple TV $99 product and you could hook this up to a projector or large screen TV to give presentations, training or any other kinds of video in your conference room.

AirPrint: The list of printers that are capable of taking advantage of this feature are very few at the moment. There are several HP’s working right now but there are several manufacturer’s that seem to be working on this but for now I have to rely on my little Lexmark App to allow me to print at home. It works pretty well out of the utility but it is limited to printing pictures and websites that are brought up within the application. It doesn’t take advantage of the built in functions with iOS 4.2.

Find My iPad is now free. Whoopee!

Folders: I have hated having so may screens just as I did on my iPhone but you have to be careful how you group applications because I have found that even though my initial consolidation seemed to make sense at the time, as time goes by you forget sometimes where you put apps that you don’t use very often.

Unified Inbox: This feature makes it easy to quickly look at multiple email account inboxes at one time. This is a real time saver if you have many different mail accounts for different things.

Web Browser Search: This is a nice addition that allows you to find key words on a webpage and is especially useful big full pages.

Quick Controls: By double tapping the Home Button (takes you to the multitasking screen) and swiping left to right on the panel that appears you will get to the the quick controls panel that lets you work with the following functions: play/pause button and forward/back buttons for the iPod app, a volume control slider, a brightness slider, and a new virtual orientation lock setting. The old lock above the volume buttons is now a mute button, which I think is stupid but you go with what Apple gives you and you like it!

The Wireless app distribution and Remote device management functions sound great on paper for Enterprise support of large numbers of iPad Corporate supported units and I will have to see this in use before I can comment further on it. Anyway, take a look at the link listed below to see what TechRepublic has to say about these new features.

TechRepublic Top 10 New iOS 4.2 features:

Multitasking

AirPlay

Wireless app distribution

AirPrint

Find My iPad

Folders

Unified inbox

Remote device management

Web browser search on page

New quick controls console

iPad's big upgrade: The top 10 iOS 4.2 features for business | ZDNet

Instapaper Updates Its Product to include new Sharing Options

Instapaper is one of my key applications that I use to capture articles for websites and RSS feeds for later reading and archival library storage. I am quietly putting together a wonderful library of photographic and photo editing application articles and notes that I am acquiring daily. I don’t know how I would do this without the use of this wonderful program. The great thing about it is the acceptance that it has received in the community and the other support programs that use its API to grab info on the fly for me.

The New released update provides several User Interface improvements and adds new sharing options as well. This new version adds preview text to the list view on the iPhone and iPod Touch similar to the iPad capabilities. If you are not using this application on your mobile devices and your PC you are missing a great tool to add to your arsenal to crate your own personal research library.