SanDisk: Adventures in Memory

There are certainly lots of choices out there when it comes to memory media, but somehow SanDisk has always been my favorite. Over the years, I have amassed a small mound of SanDisk memory cards starting with the big CF cards, progressing to the standard SD card and then to the Micro and Mini SD cards and adapters. Let’s not forget the SanDisk flash drives that are also increasing in capacity.

It’s difficult to believe how much storage is available on a tiny micro SD card these days. It amuses me to think of all the old 3.5 inch floppies I had to shuffle in and out of the drive to accommodate a single document on a 1.44 MB disk. Can you imagine how many of those disks it took to back up files? Times have certainly changed.

I can hardly believe it, but SanDisk now has a 128 GB memory card created mostly for accommodating videos and photographs, which require a large amount of space. I can remember my first 1 GB hard drive. I paid $1400 for it and thought I would never run out of room. Ha!

The new 238 GB Extreme Pro compact flash card is a photographer’s dream come true with oodles of storage and rapid performance. Write speeds go up to 100 GB/s. It features Video Performance Guarantee for full HD quality.

In its never ending quest to improve and expand memory applications, SanDisk has some other new tricks up its sleeve. For instance, its new Secure Access software. This software protects your videos, photos, music, and data files in a private vault on your USB drive. You can drag and drop files into the secure vault online with 128 bit AES encryption for security. Your files are securely stored online up to 2 GB by Dmailer technology.

Even if your flash drive is lost or stolen, your files are still secure. Secure Access is available on SanDisk Ultra, Cruzer, Cruzer Slive, Cruzer Edge, and Cruzer Blade.

The new SanDisk Ultra USB flash drive will transfer files at speeds up to 15 MB/s. It comes in capacities of 8, 16, and 32 GB. It features password protection and encryption as well as up to 2 GB of free online backup.

Over the years, I have seen SanDisk’s MP3 players evolve. My MP3 player of choice now is the Sansa Fuze, which comes in 4, 8, and 16 GB capacities. Of course it has a micro SD card expansion slot so that the memory is really infinite. This device also plays, pauses, and records FM radio with scanning and presets for your favorite stations. It is also an audio recorder with a built in microphone for notes, music, lectures, etc.

Of course you can also enjoy videos, photo slide shows, podcasts, and audiobooks. You can even download free, unabridged audiobooks from most local libraries these days. Every night while I cook dinner I listen to the news on my Fuze that I have connected to an external speaker system for greater listening pleasure. When I’m on the road I enjoy hooking it up to my car speaker system and hearing my favorite tunes or an audiobook.

I also use it as a brag book and have pix of my grandkids in it to show anyone I can corner. It’s super bright 2.4” screen is perfect for photos and videos.

It can handle the following formats

Audio: MP3, WMA, Secure WMA, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WAV Audible, Podcasts

Photos: JPEG, MBP, TIFF, GIF, PNG

Video: H264, MPEG-4, WMV, Flip Video

Let’s not forget to mention the diminutive Sansa Clip MP3 player and the USB MobileMate Micro Readers for transferring data between a PC and a phone, camera, or MP3 player.

In the box, you get the MP3 player, ear bugs, micro-USB 2.0 cable, Quick Start Guide, and Rhapsody Software for music downloads and transfers.

If you don’t want to bother with downloads and creating libraries, you can pop in a slotRadio card that hold 1000 handcrafted songs on a playlist tailored to your taste, which is available from slotRadio.com.

The rechargeable battery lasts up to 24 hours for audio playback and up to 5 hours for video playback.

Another SanDisk innovation is its new Xbox 360 USB flash drive. Just plug it into your Xbox to save games, profiles, map packs, music, pictures, and videos and then take it with you on the road. It comes preconfigured for Xbox so that there is no setup required. It comes in 8 and 16 GB capacities.

SanDisk stands ready to help you expand and preserve your memory in a wide range of devices with its SDHC memory cards with capacities up to 32 GB and a wide range of other memory media designed for just about every digital device imaginable. The preservation of memory at an affordable price is a noble cause indeed. Two thumbs up for SanDisk.

HTC Introduces New 4G Phones

At CES, I always make it a point to visit the HTC booth on my first day to see what they are up to because I have long considered this company to be the leader in smartphone innovation. I have several old HTC phones that were way ahead of their time. I can remember when they used to make nothing but unlocked phones when they were in search of a carrier. Now I imagine they can pick and choose whatever carrier they wish for HTC has more than proven itself to be on the cutting edge of handset quality and innovation.

HTC has already launched the first 4G phone in 2008 and the first Android 4G phone in 2010. At CES, HTC announced the introduction of 3 more 4G phones.

The Thunderbolt with Verizon is will spearhead Verizon’s venture into the 4G market. It will have Skype connectivity so the users may connect through voice and video taking advantage of its large 4.3 inch screen and front and rear cameras. The Qualcomm chipset will allow seamless switching between 3G and 4G networks. Thunderbolt will also have built-in GPS, digital compass, G-sensor, proximity sensor, and light sensor. It features a pull out stand, which is a handy feature I appreciate.

HTC has also partnered with AT&T to offer its Inspire 4G with the HSPA+ network. The phone will take advantage of THC’s Sense enabling users to find lost phones and wipe out data if necessary. It will have an 8 MPX camera with Dolby and SRA surround sound, active noise cancellation. The classy body design is machined from a single block of aluminum. This will also be an Android 2.2 phone. It will have a single 8 MPX autofocus camera with a dual LED flash. DLNA will be built-n for home networking. The screen size is 3.6 inches. The HTC Inspire 4G will be available in the first quarter of 2011.

The new HTC Freesyle is built on a seek aluminum unibody with a 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen and HTC onboard. It offers a FriendStream social network interface, FM radio, proximity sensor, and GPS. This phone runs on the Brew OS. I do not have any experience with the Brew system yet, so reserve comment other than to muse whether we need yet another operating system.

The HTC EVO Shift 4G is another Android phone with HTC sense and a slideout QWERTY keyboard. Used as a modem, the phone will connect up to 8 other devices in a network. It has a 3.6 inch WVGA touch screen display with digital compass, g-sensor, proximity sensor, light sensor, and GPS. There is a 5 MPX camera with flash. It is sponsored by Sprint.

There are two other HTC 4G phones available. One is myTouch 4G running on Android 2.2 with a 5 MPX camera and a popout QWERTY keyboard. The other is the T-Mobile G2 Android phone with a front and rear camera for video chat.

The first 4G phone on the market was the HTC EVO 4G, which is still available running on Android 2.2 with HTC Sense, HD video capture and a 8 MPX camera. It features a built in kickstand for hands free viewing.

Clearly, HTC leads the way in mobile phone technology and has more 4G phones than any other manufacturer, most of which are in the Android platform. If I were forced to pick a favorite with a gun to my head, I would quickly select the Thunderbolt with Verizon because of its rich set of features, not the least of which is the front and rear camera arrangement for video chats.

TidySongs Will Clean Your Music Library

We all probably have a flawed music library missing album covers, mislabeled songs, albums in the wrong categories, and artists missing or misspelled. We’ve probably vowed to fix as a rainy day project, but at the list of errors grows the task becomes more daunting and never gets done.

Enter TidySongs, a marvelous little application that you can buy at a retail store on a thumb drive for $39.95 or download it online. It will fix all the errors and omissions in your music library in a jiffy. So, if order , errors, and organization are important to you, this was send from heaven for it works fast, is user friendly, and puts your music house in order.

Not only does it fix misspelled song details, fill in missing artists, with years and genres, it also adds missing album artwork and removes duplicate songs.

It only works with iTunes, however. But it does work on both PCs and Macs. It’s all automatic; no typing required. Sweet.

While it’s push button simple, it also gives you complete control to retag genres and more. You can tell it what you want it to do or not to do.

So, if your music library is a mess and needs some housekeeping, you should put TidySongs to work for you. It costs $39.95 and you can get it at www.tidysong.com.

HTC HD7 Windows 7 Phone Review

Overview and Description

This HTC Windows Phone 7 is sleek and attractive with a black frame and gray body. It weighs 5.71 oz and measures 4.80 x 2.68 x .44 inches.

On the back, there is a little leg that folds out from the camera lens area to make a handy stand in the horizontal position. The stand surrounds the 5 MPX camera lens, dual flash, and rear speaker grill. At the top of the unit, there is a power switch. On the left side are two volume control buttons and lower down a camera button. On the bottom, is a micro USB port, a 3.5 mm audio output jack, and a microphone. On the front of the unit, there is a battery status light, above a 4.3 inch capacitive touch screen. Below the screen are three hardware buttons for Back, Start, and Search. There are two more speaker grills located at the top and bottom of the screen.

It is powered by a 1000 MHz processor with 576 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM on board. The build-in memory is 16348, but there is no storage expansion slot. It also has a T-Mobile SIMM card. The 1230 mAh battery has a 6.33 hour talk time with 310 hours standby. With a 3G connection, the talk time goes down to 5.33 hours. This phone operates on a 3G T-Mobile network.

Multi media support includes a music player supporting MP3, WMA, M4A, and M4B with a video camera and playback supporting MPEG4, WMV, 3GP, and 3G2. It also has an FM radio.

Internet browsing is available with HTML but Flash is not available for a full Web browsing experience. A Facebook application is built-in. Caller groups are supported with multiple phone numbers per contact. You may search by first or last name, It has picture ID, ring ID, and voice dialing. It also comes with a calendar, alarms, todo/tasks lists, document viewer, flashlight, calculator, and converter. You can do SMS, MMS, and it supports various email accounts. My Gmail contacts were imported automatically and were appeared before I knew it. This phone features Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi 802.11b,802.11g, and 802.11n. It also has an accelerometer and a compass.

What a pleasure to have a Microsoft phone that has office applications already installed for no extra charge, which, in this case, include Onenote, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Sharepoint. You can view, edit, and create documents in any of these formats and share them or collaborate with others.

However, I have to shake my head in disbelief. There is no way to copy, cut, and paste from one document to another with this operating system. I thought that the iPhone was a big joke because it couldn’t do that either for three generations or so. Why would Microsoft leave out this fundamental utility to make its applications work they way there were meant to work? Why didn’t Microsoft learn from Apple’s mistakes? It’s beyond me.

While we are at it, this system does not have the ability to capture screen shots either. Nor can it place a copy of the handheld screen on a desktop monitor for interactive data transfer between devices with a mouse and keyboard. These are all things Windows Mobile was able to do for years. It seems we’re going backwards here.

A nice feature of Windows 7 phones is the Hub concept in which you can place related items as icons in a single button on the home screen. Just scroll down if you run out of viewing space. On the home screen there is an arrow that you can tap or flick right, and it will roll to a screen containing all of your installed programs through which you may scroll vertically to select.

While the phone comes equipped with built-in GPS, the navigation program it offers actually costs $2.99 a month to use. That bugs me. The map program seems lame and takes forever to respond. There is no voice-turn-by-turn navigation, and the map is blurry. Google maps is far better, but not available on this machine.

All the incredible Google apps are free downloads in the Android store, but none of them exist for this phone. You will be missing out on such familiar apps as maps, gmail, docs, earth, goggles, talk, voice, reader, books, notebook, and so many others, especially developments from the labs. At least there is YouTube and you can get Picasa online, but again, it takes forever. I guess that may be one advantage of Google owning the apps and the Android system.

I found the screen to be bright and crisp. The scrolling was smooth and responsive. Programs that are stored on the device seemed to pop up in short order without delay. However, if a program must access the Internet to invoke, it can take for bloody ever. This is definitely a consistent negative feature of this phone. It would benefit immensely from a faster network connection.

In the Box

This phone comes packaged in a small box into which is tightly packed a micro USB charger cable, a 110v AC adapter, and a stereo headset. There is a small, printed manual, and some other informational material.

Getting Started

When I first took the unit out of the box, I couldn’t get it to turn on. Was there no battery installed? I couldn’t find a battery in the box. So, I opened the back cover and found a plastic insulator that must be removed for the battery to make contact.

When you plug in the micro USB connector to a computer, a box pops up notifying you that you need to get Zune software so that you can get updates, find apps, sync music, pix, and videos. What about files guys? Is this just another iPod touch with Zune instead of iTunes?

You can sign in with existing MSN or Hotmail account or get a new one. You are given the opportunity to become part of the Zune Social networking group. Now you can share everything you’re doing with your friends and who knows who else. You must create a Zune tag for the forums etc.

Now you can get a 14 day Zune pass to try out the services. After that, it’s $14.99 per month, $44.97 for three months, or $149.90 per year. You get unlimited access to download as many songs as you like and last as long as you are a paid subscriber. You can keep 10 or your favorite songs each month forever. Frankly, this plan does not appeal to me in any of its forms.

Now you can download the Zune software and plug your phone back into the computer. The Zune software allows you to sync your stuff back and forth between computer and phone. Zune offers free channels to subscribers for creating and updating playlists. This is also where you find the apps for Windows Phone 7.

Apps

I have been very curious about the quality and quantity of apps available for this very new platform and suspected that it must be sparse. The first thing I noticed, which isn’t surprising I suppose, is several apps for Xbox. Then there’s a list of top ten paid apps, which are all games. Going over to the free apps column, I see that there are some more serious apps there such as YouTube, Facebook, Adobe Reader, Amazon Kindle, Weather Channel, and Shazam, but the rest are games. How many apps are available anyway?

Like Apple, you have to sign in with a password to download apps. But unlike Apple, you only have to do it once, which I appreciate. Apple’s system is a bother. Of course with Android you don’t have to sign in at all.

Microsoft has probably exerted a valiant effort to have a variety of useful and entertaining apps available for their new phone platform. Recognizing that it is a brand new arena and that it will take time to mature and develop a larger corpus of applications, it is probably not fair to observe that the app store shelves seemed stripped bare with relatively few choices. Another observation is that there are surprisingly few free apps. When you visit the app store, you better have some jingle in your jeans. There no such thing as a free trial either. Some apps that are free in Android and iTunes stores cost money in the Microsoft market. Why would that be?

Traditionally, I suppose that Microsoft Windows Mobile users are accustomed to paying extremely high prices for software programs. Typically a program would cost from $15 to $30 and often more. But these applications were of high quality and worked seamlessly. So, if you are after quality instead of quality, maybe that is what is being delivered. But it would be good to have more choices, free trials, and more reasonable prices. Maybe the market will smooth all this out in time.

I was surprised that few of the developers with whom I have worked for years on the Windows Mobile platform have applications in the Windows 7 app store. Maybe it’s too early? Maybe the market is still too small to interest them? I hope they will soon appear however, because they are what made the Windows Mobile system so robust.

When you search the app store a strange thing happens. If there are no relevant apps to satisfy your search it doesn’t want to disappoint you so it brings up a bunch of music and Websites that may be relevant to your search query. Weird.

Jumping through hoops

Eager to put the new Windows Phone 7 through its paces, I loaded it up with some apps so that I could play games, watch TV, listen to music, create and edit documents, send email, sms, mms, photos and videos. In performing all of these tasks, the machine performed as expected. I particularly enjoyed the voice command feature. My only reservation would be that it seemed sluggish on the Web many times, and I don’t think it was my connection.

I appreciated the large screen and its clarity The smoothness of navigation when scrolling is perhaps even better than Android phones. I like its sleek look and how it nestles in your hand and wants to be yours. I like the fold out kick stand. I appreciate the integration of Microsoft office programs, which makes it a real productivity tool. I applaud the fact that Netflix comes already installed and works beautifully, but why not Hulu, Pandora, and other streaming apps? I like the fact that you can sync files between computers and the Windows 7 phone wirelessly.

A note on syncing

The Windows Phone 7 does a superb job syncing Music, Videos, Pictures and Podcasts, which makes it a super MP3 player. But when it comes to perhaps more important things like data, it falls far short of the old Windows Mobile sync interface. Remember how you could check boxes on what you wanted to sync such as notes, calendar, contacts, and files? Now you have to go through Windows Live online and it’s a precarious process. I could not drag and drop files either. We’re going backwards here folks. I could not even get the phone to come up as a drive on my desktop directory so that I could address it and exchange files manually.

Conclusion

What I find lacking and hope will soon be corrected are some glaring oversights, some cannot be avoided problems, and I have a wish list of missing features.

The biggest deal breaker for me is the unit’s lack of ability to copy/cut/paste. I just do not understand this omission. Of course, you will have to live with the paucity of apps, but I expect this to be remedied with time. I wish the apps were more reasonably priced and that there were more free ones. It’s too bad that none of the Google apps are available for this phone. I wish the camera had higher resolution as it is on the low end of the spectrum these days. Another deal breaker is that it doesn’t have a front and rear camera for video conferencing. I don’t like the navigation system and resent having to pay $2.99 a month for the one offered. This system does not support Flash for full Web browsing capability. The whole syncing process needs to be revisited, improved, and perhaps restored to Windows Mobile 6.5 functionality.

“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”

I have long awaited Microsoft’s return to the smartphone market as it seemed to be laying fallow for the past three or four years. While I applaud the Windows Phone 7 and consider it to be a worthy competitor for all its functionality, I am in the end disappointed. I do not see that it is substantially better than iPhone or Android. Somehow I expected it would be. If fact, I must say that in many respects it seems to be a step backward when you compare all the things a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone can do.

If you are an early adapter to the latest technology, you may wish to purchase one of these units and ride the wave as the improvements roll out and the apps become more plentiful. However, I think I would wait until it matures, works out some kinks, adds functionality and far more applications.

As usual, I think HTC has created a superb product that is appealing and functional. I only lament that the Windows 7 system it houses is not more robust and highly developed.

Viva Verizon

One of the most impressive bigger than life presences at the Consumer Electronics Show this year was Verizon. It started in the press rooms and blogger lounges, continued with free delicious lunches every day, extended to a meaningful keynote speech by Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, and was further demonstrated in a behemoth booth in the South Hall of the Convention Center.

To get to the press room, you had to run a gauntlet of Verizon staff who were eager to tell you all about and demonstrate Verizon innovations. I was glad that I took the time to get acquainted with some of Verizon’s new technology, and I want to share it with you too.

Of course I was already keenly aware of and am eagerly awaiting the dissemination of Verizon’s new 4G network. Of course I will have to acquire a new Android 4G phone to take advantage of it, which is a downer for people who have recently acquired a new 3G phone—no firmware upgrades will be possible. L.

Seidenberg emphasized in his address the importance of faster and more commodious broadband as the key to connectivity and technological expansion. Hence the deployment of a 4G LTE based cellular network that will be 10 times faster than the current 3G standard.

In fact, Verizon’s 4G LTE network will be the fastest in America with speeds of 5-12 mbps. You can download a song in 4 seconds, 20 photos in a minute, a 10 MB presentation in 10 seconds, a TV show in 5 minutes, or an entire movie in about 20 minutes.

Another exciting development from Verizon I was glad to learn about is the new FiOS network with Flex View. Unfortunately, FiOS will only be available in select markets at first, but will eventually cover the entire country. It will offer an alternative method of acquiring television entertainment and give cable and satellite networks some much needed competition. Hopefully the consumer will benefit from lower pricing spawned by competition.

The FiOS network features Flex View, and that’s the exciting part. With Flex View, subscribers will be able to stream live or recorded content to mobile phones, laptops, and desktops. Signals may be shared among up to 5 devices simultaneously. It means you can enjoy the same entertainment in your living room or on the road. It means you can control your DVR remotely to view, record, or watch whatever you wish, whenever you wish, from wherever you wish.

Subscribers will have 70 GB of storage with each account. You can use this space for all your content including your own pictures and videos for viewing wherever and whenever you wish with Flex View.

Home Control is another feature bundled with FiOS. It allows you to monitor your home security system remotely with cameras, burglar and fire alarm systems, door locks, energy management, door locks, lights, thermostat, and more.

Also available is Umi by Cisco in conjunction with FiOS. Umi allows for teleconferencing and is designed to get families together as if they were all in the same living room at the same time over live video on your HDTV. Vidoes can be recorded and shared on YouTube, Facebook or email.

FiOS will have an On Demand feature as well. On Demand allows you to view first run movies on a pay per view basis. You can also watch a host of free movies and content on major networks and cable networks such as HBO, Showtime, and Starz. The glory is that the programs are already recorded so that you don’t even have to worry about programming them on your DVR.

Thank you Verizon for your pioneering, innovative efforts and results. I just hope you hurry to my neighborhood. I am looking forward to being an early subscriber to FiOS and taking advantage of 4G, Home Control, Flex View, and Umi. Thank you Verizon for all the delicious free lunches at CES and a comfortable place to sit to get a little work done with a WiFi connection.

I suppose another big news item than cannot be ignored is that iPhone will now be available on Verizon. Too bad iPhones can’t handle 4G, which as far as I’m concerned is just another reason to get an Android phone. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out with iPhone on Verizon. I know a lot of iPhone developers who are eager for the new customers it will represent.

At CES, Verizon unveiled 10, count them, TEN, new 4G Android phones such as the LG Revolution, HTC Thunderbolt, Motorola Droid Bionic and a Samsung Smartphone. In addition, there will be several new Android tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Motorola Xoom. HP will offer Pavillion and Compaq notebooks for 4G consumption.

In my estimation, Verizon characterizes the most important theme of CES, which was innovation with convergence through cooperative efforts with other entities to bring beneficial results in advancing technology to improve our lives.

CES 2011: Impressions and Convergence

If you’ve never been to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it’s an unimaginable extravaganza teeming with hordes of people streaming through the venues attempting to absorb all the latest technology on display. The super stars in the consumer electronics industry such as Microsoft, Samsung. Toshiba, Panasonic, Casio, HP, and more are all computing for your attention with blaring music, flashing lights, uniformed employees, dancing girls, live stage performances, robots, game booths, scads of HD and 3D TVs, and other gimmicks. It’s a total assault on the senses. Perhaps the most soothing was Microsoft whose entire exhibit area was bathed in blue light for a much appreciated nerve-calming effect. Purportedly there were over 130,000 attendees this year, which is a lot of humanity in any one place. That’s ten times more people than live in my entire town.