Motorola Droid RAZR ReviewMotorola Droid RAZR Review The past month I’ve had the chance to fully test the Motorola Droid RAZR. This phone is big and thin, and it’s very nice looking. I do have to say that it’s a much better phone than the Bionic, so...

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Droid Bionic ReviewDroid Bionic Review I recently had a few weeks with the Droid Bionic and some accessories. In the spirit of full disclosure after about 4 days with the first Bionic, the device went dead because of the battery, and after...

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Apple's Let's talk iPhone AnnouncementApple's Let's talk iPhone Announcement Apple has it’s iPhone event tomorrow. It says Let’s talk iPhone, but we all expect them to announce iOS 5 and iCloud, as well as a new iPhone of some kind. The Times to start listening and following...

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Droid Charge ReviewDroid Charge Review The Droid Charge by Samsung, is a decent Android phone, but it's very underpowered and outdated as far as the Android software. It has a 4.3-inch, 800x480 display, but inside it only packs a single...

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The Case for Google Voice

Category : Featured, iPhone, Mac, Web/Tech, Windows, Work, Life, etc.

gvoicelogo.jpgI’ve been using Google Voice for a long time now, I started using the service when it was still called Grand Central. Since the Google takeover, the service has become more and more useful. Here is my case for everyone to make the switch to Google Voice.

NewImage.jpg

The newest feature that they’ve added is number porting. This of course means that you can port any current number you own to Google Voice for a small $20 fee. I myself wouldn’t want to port a cell number because you will be responsible for all ETF’s and other fees, but this makes more sense for people who want to get rid of their landline service and keep their number.

 

The part of the service that I use the most is the SMS, it allows you to send unlimited SMS messages for free through the service. This can be done on the iPhone and Android apps, as well as from the web interface. You can also send a message to up to 5 people as well.

The other feature that sells it for me is the phone forwarding options. This allows you to add all your current phone numbers to the service, and then when someone calls your Google Voice number it will ring to all those phones. Phones can be mobile, home or work, as well as Google Talk, and you can customize the times the phones will ring, so if you aren’t going to be home between 8-5 on weekdays, you can choose to not have it ring your home number at those times. If you are going to be in a meeting or have some work to get done, you can turn on the Do Not Disturb feature and all calls will go straight to voicemail. You can also record calls if you need to, of course you need to be aware of local laws regarding call recording.

If you don’t want to make the full switch, you can sign up for the service and just use it for voicemail on your mobile phone, because when you get a voicemail, it’s transcribed for you, so you don’t always have to listen to them. The transcription is not perfect, but 90% of the time I get the gist of it without having to listen to them.

The other thing that I love about the service is the call blocking, ever since I’ve been with the service, I hardly get anymore unwanted calls, and if I do, I block them and then the next time they call, they get the standard phone company “We’re sorry this number is no longer in service” message, and you’ll never get a call from them again.

It’s best also to keep your contacts in Google contacts and I would also recommend that you keep them in groups such as Family, Friends, Work, etc. That way, you can record separate voicemail greetings for each of those groups. Since it is a voip service, you can also buy credits to make very cheap international calls.

The service is great for what it does, and they seem to be rolling out new features on a regular basis, so go to the Google Voice website and get your number now and start using it.

As always if you have any questions you can email me or leave a comment below.

 

AirVideo: One of the Best iOS Apps

Category : Featured, iPhone, iTunes, Mac, Software, Video, Web/Tech, Windows

watch video on iphone

I started using this app during the first version, and if you don’t know what it is, I’ll explain that now.

AirVideo comes in two flavors, the free version and the $2.99 paid version. The main difference between the two is that the free version limits the number of items displayed in each folder.

AirVideo: Air

AirVideo Free: Air

Here’s the lowdown:

  • Video Streaming: Watch videos from your computer, over the air via WiFi or 3G, on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. No need to sync with iTunes or transfer files.
  • Live Conversion: Convert video from a non-iPhone friendly container like AVI or MKV, or codecs like XviD or DivX while you’re watching. No need to convert first, watch later.

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How To Import Email From Outlook to Apple Mail.app Using Thunderbird

Category : Featured, Mac, Web/Tech, Windows

The folks over at the How-To Geek have written a great article on how to do this, it’s pretty long, and if you are switching, or need to get mail out of one into the other, it’s a great read.

Read the full article at How-To Geek

TweetDeck for iPhone is Live

Category : iPhone, Mac, Software, Windows

One of my favorite desktop twitter apps TweetDeck has released their iPhone version, and it will definately get a spot on my home screen, it’s a good iPhone twitter app. The best new feature in both apps is the ability to sync colums across platforms. You can download TweetDeck for your computer and the iPhone now.

TweetDeck for desktop download

TweetDeck for iPhone download

(photos via Kevin Rose)

3 Ways to Get Facebook Information Into Your Contacts

Category : Featured, iPhone, Mac, Software, Windows

In a neverending quest to keep my contacts up to date with photos and other information, I sought out three applications that would sync your Facebook contacts with Outlook/Address Book/iPhone.

Fonebook for Outlook

Probably the easiest way to get this info into Outlook 2003/2007 is to use Fonebook. You log in to Facebook from the application, and it will smart match your address book to your Facebook contacts and sync them. It will also let you add a Facebook contact to Outlook.

Download Here

AddressBookSync for Mac

AddressBookSyncThis is the same context as Fonebook, but for mac. It’s another easy to use app, and it lets you customize what you want it to sync.

Download Here

feX for iPhone

I have tried several iphone/facebook sync apps, and this one is the one I like the most, you log into facebook from the app, and it downloads the data and syncs it to your iPhone, this will then also sync back to Outlook/Address Book if you sync that stuff to your computer, but if you don’t it will let you keep photos up to date. feX for Facebook is $1.99 from the app store and it’s worth the price.

Download from iTunes

Hulu Desktop

Category : Mac, Windows

hulu-blackHulu surprised us all a couple weeks ago by dropping a desktop application  into the mix. The desktop app works on Windows and Mac, and moves the content from the browser to the desktop via a Hulu approved app.

Hulu desktop is easy to use right away, however if you have a Hulu account with prefrences and subscriptions set up, it’s easy to log in and access all your personal stuff.

huludesktop1_ars

The application is very easy to use and let’s you browse by movies, TV, and all the other selections the website lets you. It also doesn’t suck the CPU and memory as bad as Joost for the desktop did, and this is a good direction for the Hulu folks, but I still believe they need to move towards letting people watch their content on the TV, but this is definately a step in the right direction. If you are a Hulu user, I would definately recommend you check this out.

huludesktop2_ars

Hulu desktop is part of the Hulu Labs offering, which will offer a peek at the things the Hulu developers are working on. You can grab the app from the Hulu Labs Webste.

Hulu Desktop Download

Windows Vista SP2 Available for Download

Category : Windows

Service pack 2 is available for download today bringing better Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, native Blu-Ray support and faster search, for the full list visit the TechNet article here. You can download the installers below, or wait until June 30th for it to appear in Windows Update.

Download Links:

Vista Service Pack 2 (32-bit)

Vista Service Pack 2 (64-bit)

Nifty Windows 7 Tip

Category : Windows

I have been running Windows 7 full time since the beta, and found this nifty little tip. If you hover over the taskbar you get a preview of the windows or tabs that are open, however if you middle click on one of the windows, that window will close.

win7tip

That’s a nice little feature, and Windows 7 is becoming more and more impressive the more I use it. Have you made the jump to Windows 7, if not, let me know what OS you are using in the comments.

Facebook info to Outlook

Category : Software, Web/Tech, Windows, Work, Life, etc.

image In an effort to link up my outlook contacts to Facebook, I have been searching for an app to sync photos and birthday info. There are a couple good ones for the iPhone, but I haven’t really found a good PC client that will handle that until I found Fonebook.

Fonebook will transfer contacts from Facebook to Outlook and if you don’t have the contact in Outlook, you can add it. One of the limitations is that it doesn’t add email or phone numbers due to a limitation in Facebook, but those aren’t that hard to add manually. All in all, Fonebook is a great windows application, and I would recommend you download and try it today.

Fonebook Download

-Brian