It used to be that going online was a bit of a novelty. We’d buy a computer just so we could go online, and internet connectivity was something that we looked at as special. Remember those AOL discs?

Today, many of us are SURROUNDED with stuff that goes online. Let me just count what I happen to have:

1. My main desktop computer.
2. My laptop.
3. My iPhone.
4. My iPad.
5. Roku
6. Apple TV. In fact, we have 3 of these in our home. Yeah, I’m crazy.
7. My cable box. It pulls digital content (like weather, news, etc.) off the Internet.

So, that’s nine devices. And those are the ones I use regularly.

If I were to expand this to just the ones I own (not necessarily use alot), I’d have to include several other devices, including an old Kindle, a couple of old cell phones, and more.

Some of us even carry speciality devices which connect to the Internet. For example, the FitBit has been pretty popular in fitness circles. It connects online and reports in your fitness information. Some people have appliances like refrigerators which connect to the Internet. If you’re a gamer, surely your game console connects to the Internet. There’s a good chance that your DVD player or Blu-Ray player connects to the Internet. Many TVs connect directly to the Internet.

So, what do you have? How many devices do you have which go online?

Post in the comments below what your number is, and what those devices are.

I’m somewhat familiar with this, because this is something we dealt with within my own family recently.

Well, technology is here to solve problems. And, we recently came across a story online which talked about Lively.

Lively is a high-tech service which allows you to keep tabs on the everyday activities of your loved ones at home. It is also marketed as a way to bring families together:

Lively offers activity-sharing products that tighten the connection between older adults living independently and their families. By giving generations new ways to share their life, we’re adding to everyone’s peace of mind.

Lively consists of a set of gear installed in the home. It consists of a central hub which resembles a kind of router, and six sensors which can be installed throughout the home. The sensors can be placed in various parts of the home which correspond to everyday activities. Say, the refrigerator door, a bathroom door, a pill box, you name it.

Each sensor has a small accelerometer in it, so whenever it is open or closed, it detects it and pings the hub. And the hub reports back to the main service so that things are logged. The communication doesn’t require any kind of cell phone plan or internet connection. It works similar to Amazon’s Whispernet. Everything is included and… it just works.

The software portion of it will learn the regular habits of your loved ones and detect any irregularities. There is no location tracking or anything like that.

Certainly, there is a bit of a “big brother” feel to this. However, the company claims that their testing shows that people don’t mind it being there. Plus, it enables the older generation to live in their homes independently – longer. And it provides peace of mind to the family.

Lively begins shilling in July, 2013. Right now, they are raising funds on Kickstarter. They have a $100K goal by May 16th. If this is something you might be interested in getting behind, perhaps consider backing them.

And you know what? They’re right.

But, who cares when you’re making all the money?! At least that’s how the people inside Apple are looking at it, I’m sure.

Asymco recently published an economic look at the PC market. It correctly shows that the PC market is shrinking, most likely due to consumers buying tablets and being completely satisfied with them. But, what’s also interesting is that it shows Apple has a 45% market share, when looked at in terms of money being made.

45% market share

Yes, Apple just has larger profit margins on their machines. They also maintain a tight hold on the Mac and the OS X operating system, so if you want a Mac, you do business with Apple. On the contrary, the PC market is heavily fractured and always has been.

Profit margins for PC makers has always been pretty low. But, that fact was made up for in volume. Problem is, that’s changing. From the post:

The real problem for the PC vendors is not that they have such low margins–they’ve had low margins for decades. It’s that the volumes which “made up for” low margins are disappearing. Apple is not immune to a gradual erosion of Mac volumes, but they have positioned themselves for growth with devices and content commerce and services. They have essentially “escaped” PCs and indeed caused the need to escape in the first place.

While 45% of profits in the PC market is already impressive, it is nothing compared to the 72% of profit they have in the mobile market.

That, my friends, is one big company.

While Apple won the battle on U.S. shores, it lost in several other nations all around the world, including South Korea, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Commentary on the sorry state of American patent law aside, the echoes of that lawsuit have lately gotten me wondering…what exactly is the difference between iPads and Android tablets? Obviously, if Apple brought such a cumbersome lawsuit to bear against a former hardware partner, it thought there were enough similarities between the two products.

So…with that in mind, how exactly does one differentiate between the two?

Note that I’m going to be carrying out an objective comparison. I’m not going to favor one device over the other. We’re interested in the difference between the two, not which one is ‘better.’

Android vs. iOS

Well, the most obvious distinction between the two different breeds of tablet is that they use different operating systems. Android tablets run on Google’s java-based Android operating system, while iPads run on the C++/Objective C-coded iOS.

Believe it or not, that in and of itself isn’t actually as much of a distinction as one might expect: you might be surprised to hear this, but interface-wise, the two operating systems are actually  close to identical. While the two interfaces are noticeably different from one another, in terms of usability, they more often than not tend to be virtually identical (at least in the top devices).

The chief difference actually lies with the apps available on each platform. iOS tends to function more easily with Apple software such as iTunes, while Android is more closely tied to Google’s various services than its rival OS. While a few variations on the interface do exist within Android based on device, as a whole there’s not a lot of difference.

Obviously, we’re going to have to dig a little deeper.

Openness vs. Control; Unification vs. Fragmentation

Honestly, this is the penultimate difference between Android Tablets and iPads. Every other difference is secondary: the whole debate between Android vs. iOS often tends to come down to a single argument: openness versus control. Apple’s operating system is closed and proprietary, Google’s system is free and open-source.

Consequently, Google doesn’t exert a great deal of control over Android, allowing users to freely and readily ‘root’ their devices and customize them in ways beyond what might have originally been allowed. It’s also free for developers to use and tweak as they see fit. The fact that Android isn’t a proprietary system means also that there’s a considerable degree of platform fragmentation where Android tablets are concerned. Just about anyone can make a ‘droid tablet, while iPads are one-of-a-kind. While this does mean you have a great deal more variety when it comes to hardware choice, it also makes the lives of application developers considerably more difficult. On Android, you have no guarantee your app is going to work on every tablet on the market.

Plus, you’re bound to wind up with a few lemons.

Contrast this with iOS, which is a closed, proprietary system – one over which Apple holds a considerable degree of influence.  This may sound like a rather unattractive way of doing business, rather than Google’s apparent “do what you like” policy, but it actually does have a few advantages of its own (these will become clear as we move forward). The unified infrastructure of the iPad means that Apple can more readily offer support for technical issues and exert more control over its brand, while app developers can sleep secure with the knowledge that if they develop an application, it’s going to work on every iPad that goes to market.

The iTunes Store vs. The Android Marketplace

Interface-wise, the differences between the iTunes Store and the Android Marketplace are mostly aesthetic. As with the hardware, the primary difference between the two hearkens back to the “openness vs. control” dichotomy.

Much like iOS itself, the iTunes Store is a tightly-controlled, highly-regulated environment. Apple dictates which apps actually make it to market, determining on a case-by-case basis whether or not a developer is violating their application store’s terms and conditions. While this does make it somewhat more difficult to put out apps for the platform (the approval process can take a while, particularly if your app gets rejected for some reason), it also means the iTunes Store is virtually virus free. Sure, a few pieces of malware might slip through the cracks here and there, but as a whole, it’s safe.

The Android Marketplace, meanwhile, doesn’t have an approval process, nor is it the only means of obtaining apps on Android.  While this does mean that you have a larger variety of applications, it also means that you’re going to need to exercise a great deal more care in what you download. Malware is much more prominent on the Android Marketplace, simply by its open nature, while third-party app stores can hide a whole host of nasty surprises behind their digital shelves.

Flash Support

Last, but certainly not least, iOS doesn’t actually offer native flash support, while Android offers both Flash and HTML5.

Steve Jobs back in 2010 gave a fairly detailed explanation for his decision not to allow Flash on iOS, including differences in philosophy, security and stability concerns, interference with application development, and a lack of touch-screen support. What this means for iPad users is that a wide range of content will be unavailable to them, while Android users will suffer from no such difficulties (though, as Jobs pointed out, most of this Flash content is readily available in a new, more modern format).

Conclusion

So at the end of the day, the main difference between Android and iOS lies in the fact that one’s open-source, the other isn’t. Every other difference: from the various hardware variants of Android Tablets, to the store, and arguably even Flash support can be linked to this.

As such, it ultimately doesn’t really matter which of the two you use – it’s just a matter of preference, truth be told. Neither is really all that superior, as both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses.

Apple gave the Macbook Pro a single DisplayPort. That allows you to power an external monitor – obviously.

And, if you want to power more than one monitor from it (which the laptop has the horsepower to do), you’ve got to pony up for two big Thunderbolt monitors from Apple. Why? Because, you connect the monitors in a daisy chain and you can power the whole thing from one port on the laptop.

But, what if you don’t feel like throwing down almost $2,000 on screens?

Your solution is one of two options:

1. Buy a USB-to-VGA adapter. Yes, you can power a monitor off a USB port. It will work, but it does sometimes get moody. Plus, there can be some video lag because… let’s face it, the USB port was never designed for powering a monitor.
2. Buy a Matrox Dualhead2Go Digital ME.

I chose route #2. And, here is a video I recorded for my other site where I show it in action:

This setup works quite nicely.

The ONLY thing that is a bit annoying is that the two monitors are seen by the Mac as one big super-wide monitor. So, if you try to maximize a window, it will try to span both screens. Also, because of the way it works, if the two monitors have different native resolutions, one of them is going to look a little weird. So, best bet us to use two identical monitors.

But, it works. It works nicely. And, I can now use my Macbook Pro as a work machine and not feel as if I’m sacrificing all the screen space that my desktop has.

This laptop originally came with 4 GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive. And it served me perfectly fine for awhile.

After awhile, however, I started to become more aware of the speed. My usual activity with the laptop was perfectly fine, however I could feel it choking a bit when I had a lot of simultaneous things happening at the same time. This got me thinking about doing a memory upgrade. Memory is insanely cheap these days anyway.

As I continued to look into it, however, I realized that I wasn’t going to see a major speed bump with this laptop unless I replaced the hard drive. In fact, that is the case with MOST computers these days. The bottleneck to performance is very often the hard drive itself. My desktop computer has an SSD drive in it and I know just how snappy the things are.

So, I headed on over to MacSales.com and bought 12 GB of memory and an OWC 240GB Mercury Electra 6G SSD drive.

And, like a good little nerd, I recorded the process and made a video. This video will show you how to perform this upgrade on a Macbook Pro.

Now, this video would have shown the hard drive preparation process as well, but I began having mic issues. However, here it is in short:

1. BEFORE I took the laptop apart, I did a full clone of the old hard drive onto an external Firewire drive. For this, I used Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. I then did the upgrade as shown above.
3. When complete, I booted the laptop using the cloned image from the external drive. To do this, I held down the OPTION key while I turned it on and I held the key down until the startup manager came up. I then selected my external drive and booted the machine.
4. From there, I opened up Disk Utility and I partitioned the new SSD drive. I simply set up a single partition. I then did a quick format on the drive, just for good measure.
5. I then used Carbon Copy Cloner again to re-clone the external drive to the SSD drive.
6. When it was done, I turned everything off, unplugged the external, then rebooted normally. Only this time, it booted from the SSD automatically.

Booyah. Major speed increase.

The ONLY negative I’ve seen so far, and I just haven’t yet looked into it, is that the computer does seem to draw the battery down quicker than it used to. Not a lot, but some. I don’t know if this is normal. A quick search around sees a lot of people speculating that it wouldn’t draw more power, but few actually reporting real-world results. Well, my own real-world result is that it DOES draw more power. Not enough to be a bother, but it is noticeable.

Overall, really happy with the upgrade.

Oh, and for you PC people, I bet you could do the very same upgrade and get the same results. Hardware is hardware, after all. It isn’t much different just because it has a picture of fruit on the lid.

With the way the system is designed, you can only boot a single operating system per SD card, which can get more than a little limiting if you’re not willing to shell out for additional cards.

Thankfully, a (free) solution exists: Berryboot, a boot management utility designed for Raspberry Pi. Using it, you’ll be able to boot multiple operating systems off of a single SD card. These operating systems can be configured either to be stored on the SD card itself or on an attached hard drive, in which case the card will simply function as a launcher.

As far as the installation is concerned, Berryboot is a fairly straightforward application. Simply download the installer, and extract the contents of the .ZIP file to a FAT-formatted SD card. This card will be utilized as your multi-boot platform. From here, it’s simply a matter of plugging the SD card into your Raspberry Pi and running the installer. You should be able to get through the installation process more or less unaided, so we won’t spend any more time on it.

Once you’ve gotten everything properly set up, you can start installing different distros to boot from. Note that if you want to install them to an external hard drive or USB drive, you’ll need to have said drive plugged in during the setup process. Beyond that, the GUI shouldn’t take you all that much to figure out.

Berryboot includes a whole host of Pi-optimized Linux distros with the download(via How To Geek):

• BerryWebserver (Webserver Bundle: Lighttpd + PHP + SQLITE)
• Berry Terminal (LTSP/Edubuntu Thinclient)
• Raspbian (Debian Wheezy)
• MemTester
• OpenElec (Media Center Software)
• Puppy Linux
• RaspRazor (Unofficial Rasbian branch, lots of programming tools)
• Sugar (The One-Laptop-Per-Child OS)

In addition, you can add your own distributions as well, either through converting the images to SquashFS and importing them or through downloading Pi-optimized images to the SD card. The former tends to be a bit more difficult and involved a process, and requires a bit of tinkering with the command line, unfortunately. Unless you’re fairly confident in your abilities with the Linux platform, I’d recommend against attempting it. If you’re still dead-set on the process, you can find a step-by-step guide at How To Geek. Otherwise, just stick with what you’ve got. It’s not like you won’t have choices, after all: as you can see, you’ll be able to select a number of the most popular Linux distros currently available.

via LifeHacker

Tampa, FL, April 1, 2013 – Tampa based technology blog, PCMech.com, is announcing today that it will be re-branded as MacMech.

PCMech.com began in 1997, making it one of the oldest technology blogs on the Internet. Started as a hobby by founder, David Risley, it was formed around the idea of explaining complicated computer topics in plain English. David was interested in building and upgrading computers, and created one of the most popular tutorials available on building your own computer. From there, PCMech shifted over the years to include more topics, including the Internet. Less and less people were still building custom PCs.

In order to get ahead of coming trends, and recognize what truly is the better computer, the team at PCMech decided to make it official and rebrand as MacMech.

“What it comes down to is this – Macs are better than PCs”, stated David Risley, founder of PCMech.com. “I have been using one for the last 6 years. I could never go back to the PC again. Windows Vista is what scared me over to the Mac. Then, Windows 7 came out and, I guess it was OK. But, have you looked at Windows 8? What is it with that Metro interface? They call that usable?”

David made the decision to rebrand after looking at the market. In 2012, the Mac gained market share while the PC sales actually dropped. In the mobile space, the Apple iPhone is the leader in market share. The Apple iPad dominates the tablet space. Research indicates that people who buy PCs would rather have a Mac, but they buy the PC simply in the interest of saving money.

So, that’s the news. The PC is old news anyway. I mean, let’s face it… it has inertia and it will take a while to die, but everybody is going out and buying iPads anyway.

Plus, from a business perspective, it makes more sense for me to take this site where the money is, right? Mac users spend GOBS of money. PC users don’t. I’ve sold a few Macs and got a few hundred dollars for them. Sold a first generation Mac Mini for almost $300. Try to sell an old PC? Nobody wants it. Sold an old laptop for $25.

Plus, from a content perspective, it is just easier to write about Macs. They never break! Windows PCs are breaking all the damn time. Ever looked in the PCMech Forums at all the weird problems people are having with their PCs? Anti-virus programs eating up resources. Drivers getting screwed up. Blah blah blah.

You should all be doing this.

With the Macs, we can talk about software. And accessories, of course. Love those accessories. And, there are only a few different models of Macs to talk about, so that makes our job a lot easier.

Plus, if we stick to Macs, that means we can forget about Linux. Thank GOD! If I wanted to get no actual work done, I would use Linux. What’s the difference between Linux and a computer virus? At least a virus does something.

So, PCMech has to adapt to the future. We’re going all Mac. Once you go Mac, you never go back.

Unfortunately, some other dude owns MacMech.com. But, whatever. “PCMech” is a made up word anyway. I can make it mean anything I want.

Tomorrow, we’ll begin posting Photoshop tutorials.

Now, where’s my doobie?

UPDATE: Yes, this was a joke.

Turns out that didn’t happen. Almost two years later and the Chromebook is more or less forgotten.

It was a very unique idea and one that no one had attempted before – a laptop well and truly relied on the cloud for the vast majority of its computing needs. A secure, browser-based operating system. A fast, efficient workplace device. On paper, it seemed like a rather brilliant idea.

In practice however, the Chromebook didn’t really work out. Primarily, I feel that this was simply because the world wasn’t quite ready for the technology yet. Until we have a readily available network connection at every corner, until we can lock down secure, reliable Internet worldwide; devices based wholly on the cloud simply aren’t feasible or viable. The Chromebook… while it was a unique, efficient, and well-made device, simply wasn’t meant to be. An over-reliance on the cloud essentially killed it.

Two years down the road, and Google’s not yet given up on the brand yet. They’ve released an updated model, designed to compete with the high-rent computing sector against the likes of the Windows 8 Ultrabooks and the Macbook Air. It’s called the Chromebook Pixel, and it’s been said to represent the next tier in Google’s Chromebook portfolio. It is all a part of what IT Pro Portal terms a deliberate, intentional strategy. The original Chromebooks were just the first step. They were Google’s idea of testing the water.

The Pixel is the next step. Again, it looks very good on paper. It’s got a full terabyte of storage on Google Drive for free, a beautiful 2560×1700 display which puts most laptop screens to shame, 4 GB of RAM, Intel Core i7 processors, integrated HD 4000 graphics from Intel, and (on the $1449 model) an LTE connection. It’s also got touch capability, incredible speakers, and a top-notch keyboard.

All things considered, it’s a rather sexy beast. Unfortunately, it still suffers from the exact same failing as the Chromebooks before it: its operating system is a web browser. What this ultimately means is that while it’s a compelling system, it loses a great deal of its draw when a network connection isn’t available. Worse yet, while the previous Chromebook models boasted rather impressive on-board batteries, the battery life of the Chromebook pixel is reportedly rather sub-par. That coupled with the severely limited on-board storage (also a sticking point for older Chromebook models) will be a considerable sticking point for many.

Of course, there’s also the fact that, given the Chromebook’s price point, it’s not a very high end system.  It’s certainly got a few impressive features over Google’s previous models,  but when compared to several other notebooks at the same price, it falls far short of the mark. Most people aren’t going to want to drop over a grand on a system that only runs web apps, no matter how pretty it might look .

So, as to the question of whether or not the Chromebook Pixel is worth buying? For most users, the answer to that question is a resounding “no.” However, if you’re looking for an ultra-portable, lightweight, cloud-based laptop and constant connectivity isn’t of much concern to you, the Pixel’s an excellent choice.

Ultimately, I’d say we should just wait and see what Google does with this nifty little device.  Who knows? We might be surprised.

Nothing wrong with that, right? Why pay full price for something when you can shell out a fraction of the cash for something that works just as well?

Of course, there are a number of risks associated with purchasing a product used that you’d never encounter when buying new. How do you know what you’re buying is of suitable quality? How do you know whether or not the person you’re buying from is reputable? These problems are never more pronounced than when buying old electronics. If you’re not careful, you will get burned.

And trust me, it’ll hurt a lot more than buying a poor-quality shirt.

Understand What you’re Buying

Your first task when buying a new piece of tech is to understand exactly what you’re looking for. Knowing the ins and outs of whatever it is you’re buying will make you considerably more effective at spotting a bum deal… much better at working out when you’re being fleeced. By forming an understanding of your target product, you’ll also know what questions to ask prospective sellers.

Basically, do your homework and know exactly what you want. Don’t expect a “salesman” to honestly tell you the in’s and out’s.

Know who you’re Buying From

It can’t hurt to run a bit of a background check on potential sellers. If you’re buying on eBay or a similar website, you’ll be able to tell quite a bit about your seller based on their rating. If you’re buying from a business or retail outlet, troll a few review sites such as Yelp (or just ask around your social networks).

Generally, try to avoid websites such as Craigslist. Although it’s certainly possible to find some downright awesome deals, there’s also no foolproof means of verifying whether or not a posting is legitimate. There are phishing scams and the like which run on Craigslist and it can sometimes to be hard to tell the difference.

Exercise caution.

Test the Product

Just as you’re probably not going to want to buy a car before you test-drive it, it’s not a good idea to purchase any gadgets unless you can try them out. While this isn’t necessarily feasible in the case of online transactions, when you’re buying something in person, you should insist on making sure it works before you finalize the deal.

Know the Terminology

While there are a few additional technical terms you might do well to learn based on what product it is you’re planning to purchase, there are two basic terms you should be familiar with when purchasing a used product from any location:

Refurbished: Basically, an item that has been repaired after being sent back to the manufacturer. A used Xbox, for example, likely suffered a red ring of death and was sent to Microsoft for repair before being re-sold.

Reconditioned:  An item that’s simply been used and then fixed-up for resale. More often than not, this will be the item you’ll end up purchasing. A reconditioned item is also most likely to come with a warranty.

Keep the Paperwork

In all cases, once you’ve finalized your purchase, be sure to keep any paperwork you received through the sale. Particularly any papers pertaining to the warranty of the item you just bought. You’ll never know when you might need a receipt.

What other tips can you think of where the purchase of electronics is concerned?