Tech News & Reviews

Have you ever found yourself looking for a place to scan a document when you were not at home? Trying to get an electronic copy of a document, but no scanner could be found? Well, this is one scanner you have to see to believe! It’s called the ScanShell 3000DN, and it’s a portable scanner. Yes, you heard me right, it’s a truly portable scanner! But you haven’t heard the best part yet … ever heard of a Duplex scanner ? Well, this baby has it … it will scan BOTH sides of your document at the same time and store it internally in PDF format. Talk about a sweet piece of equipment!

So what’s the catch? External power required, right? Wrong! It’s a standard USB 2.0 interface for downloading your scanned PDF files, it doesn’t require any external power sources, and best of all … it’s Windows Vista compatible (excluding the 64-bit versions). Another nice feature is the bundled software that comes with it. It’s called DocShell, and provides for easy scanning, sharing and organizing of photos and documents. DocShell is easy to use, and can export scanned documents into existing, pre-installed application on the user’s pc (PDF,Microsoft paint etc.). The scanned document can be saved to one of the following image types: BMP, JPG, TIF, PSD, PCX, PNG or TGA.

So if you’re in an industry (sales, tech support, etc.) where you handle paperwork on the road … don’t be caught in a bind again! Get one of these beauties and never be left without an electronic copy of your documents!

Well, the new laptop I purchased back in August has Windows XP Pro on it. I thought this would be great, since I have heard a lot of good things about the ‘pro’ version. Recently I have started to experience lock-ups and odd issues, so I thought I would run some standard diagnostics to see what’s up.

That’s when I discovered that XP Pro has changed some things around. I attempted to run Scandisk, something I had not done on any XP machine before. Guess what? It’s been moved, it’s no longer called Scandisk, and it doesn’t log it’s activity to you can follow up on it! How rude is that?

Have you ever wished that Microsoft would leave well enough alone? As my wife always tells me, if it ain’t broke … don’t fix it!

Ever wonder if you’re getting ripped off by your mobile phone company? Looking at the bill, it always seems to be higher than what you figured it should be? Perhaps your rates have gone up, and you’re just not prepared to do the comparison shopping to make sure the rates are still good?

Well, look no further for help. Wirefly has an awesome service that will help you determine the best cell phone plan for you. This handy calculator uses information about how many minutes you use per month, what provider you’re with, and how much you’re currently paying. You will also need to specify anytime minutes vs. night/weekend minutes and roaming percentage as well. Add in your zip code and viola! - out comes the comparisons for you.

Now, I don’t have a “regular” phone service - I use Tracfone. However, I thought I would give the calculator a shot anyway. I estimated that I use about 300 minutes a month (when I’m out on service calls). That would cost me about $30. These are basically anytime minutes, but about 1/3 are roaming,so that adds up to another $10 extra per month. I’m looking at about $40 a month for my services.

So, after putting in all of my information into Wirefly’s calculator, what did I find out? Well, I discovered that T-Mobile has a plan with 300 anytime minutes and unlimited nights / weekends for only $30 a month. Now realize that if my usage was much less, say 100 - 150 minutes a month, then a pay-as-you-go service like Tracfone would be ideal. However, since I’m over the threshold of regular rate plans, it appears that I can save roughly $120 a year using Wirefly’s recommended service.

The calculator also presents about a half dozen other profider options as well. In addition, each provider plan is rated based on market coverage, and JD Power rankings for cost & service and customer care. So if you’re in the market for a new phone plan, or you just want to make sure you’re getting the best deal in town, you need to check out this handy calculator from Wirefly!

Mozilla is making sure it won’t be left high and dry in the future release of it’s browsing platform, Mozilla2. It’s already telling it’s coders that mobile services will be a part of their future. With the success of the iPhone, they are taking their cue for which way technology will be heading.

That isn’t to say there won’t be some roadblocks however. Both Microsoft and Apple are already offering browsers for phones that run on their operating systems. Other third party vendors like Opera have also been dabbling in the market, tweaking their mobile browser for some time now.

Let’s think for just a minute. Who would be the perfect platform for Mozilla to launch it’s mobile browser with? Who would be in the market to compete against the big names in the mobile Internet cellular marketplace? Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here (just remember you read it here first!) and say that I see a partnership between Google and Mozilla as a potential on this one. Google is already rumored to be working on their own “Gphone” … and I suspect that Mozilla’s browser would be the perfect addition to the team.

Have you ever been out on a service call (or over at your mother-in-laws for all you d-i-y people out there) and come up short on a cable or USB adapter? It’s a real pain in the rear when you’re on site and you don’t have the equipment you need.

That’s why it’s better to stay stocked up. Simply put: you can never have enough of some things around. Computer cables, adapters, and wall plates are just a few of those things.

So today I bring you TCA-Inc., a company that has a ton of stuff to choose from when stocking your geek supply cabinet. You don’t want to miss out on some of these deals. One of the things that caught my eye was one I had not seen before: the flex USB Adapter. Now that looks like a handy little jewel!

They have a variety of categories to choose from: everything from fiber optics, firewire, iPod accessories, SCSI cables, etc. You name it, they probably have it. Their website is easy to navigate, and things are categorized in a user-friendly fashion. Combine that with the confidence that they have the store hosted as a Yahoo! store, and you’re set for a secure online shopping experience. Quality looks good, and the prices look even better. Don’t miss out … check it out today!

I had a thought several weeks ago that I shared with some friends and family. With flash memory prices dropping, and storage sizes expanding, I wondered how long it would take for PC manufacturers (especially laptop makers) to utilize this to their advantage.

Apparently they already have. However, because the cost of the equivalent of a top-end hard drive in flash memory is so expensive, one company has decided to bridge the gap for now. Seagate has come out with a laptop hard drive that will boot up off of a flash memory partition … saving A TON of batter power in the process. Extending battery life is the holy grail in terms of notebook computers - just ask anyone who’s got one.

If you want to read more about this new development, check out the Tech News article here.

Do you burn your own CDs? Are you in a garage band, or maybe you use your CD burner to distribute free copies of Linux or some other open-source software? If you are into CD duplication or burning DVDs, I’ve got a great resource for you to check out.

Supermediastore.com has been in business since 2002 and has become a major player in the wholesale market of blank CD and DVD media products. Hailing from southern California, they supply a large variety of blank media, packaging, hardware … even memory, ink, and toner! This helps those of you who are interested in printing custom disc labels as well.

I just wanted to give you a couple of things to think about … consider it food for thought.

Publishing was the first form of mass communication, but required a lot of time to “spread the word”.
Radio, while it didn’t replace books, provided a way to communicate with a wider audience instantly over the airwaves.
Television became one of the fastest growing mediums next, followed by the Internet.

However, the Internet has developed a few trends in and of itself.
At first, everything online was free, and people were happy just to find something interesting.
Then, people started to look for specific things, and other people started to sell them.
E-books came on the scene, and instant downloads beat waiting on something in the mail.
Web 2.0 arrived, and everyone wanted to know what everyone else was doing online … and social networking Internet-style was born. This phenomenon, of course, has happened in real life. But, as with anything else, the Internet seems to have a way of taking it to the next level … reaching a potential audience larger than any other.

Take YouTube for example.It’s the #4 visited website in all of cyberspace. What’s it about? Videos … that’s it. User submitted, user rated. It’s all about you, and what you are watching.

Now, as with any other Internet trend (banners, ebooks, mp3s, etc.) people have decided that maybe it would be nice to get paid for their videos. Not surprisingly, a number of sites have sprung up that are willing to do just that.

Revver.com shares a 50/50 split with their video producers, minimum $20 payout. Seems okay, but they don’t get as much traffic as the next program … so it “pays” to promote your video. Oh yeah, it also “pays” to promote other people’s videos too … 20% revenue share to people who simply share the video on their blog or site. Revenue is based on view and click-throughs, depending on the ad type. So, there’s no real “average” or way to be certain what you will get. Top producer stats aren’t revealed, but the top video took in around $50,000 (it was the infamous mentos in a coke bottle video) … and the site paid out $1 million in total revenue sharing in the last 12 months. They did say around 25,000 users had earned $1000 or so.

Metacafe.com on the other hand, has a much more interesting service. You only get paid for views on their site, but they get over 1 million hits a day. It’s set up much like YouTube, with users rating videos. You qualify for payout once you hit 20,000 views. It’s not based on click-throughs, just views of the video. The payout is $5 for every 1,000 page views, so once you hit 20,000, you’ve earned $100. At 40,000 you’ve earned $200. You don’t get paid for sharing, but the potential is there to earn big bucks because of the traffic. Top producer has earned over $60,000 in the last year with around 80 videos. Read that again … that’s impressive, isn’t it? And no, their not sex videos either. This guy is actually a tech geek. He has quite a few “how to” videos in the collection. One of the others in the top ten had a video earn him $6,000 in the last month. I saw it … unbelievably simple.

Anyway, I’m sharing this because I really believe that video is the next BIG thing online. I mean, I know it’s big now … but I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet. Nada, zero, zilch. I have started noticing that Pay Per Post offers a substantial payment for videos. The blog doesn’t have to have a high PR, just be willing to post the video to YouTube and on the blog. Payment for videos on PayPerPost ranges from $35 to as high as $100. It’s unbelievable what they will pay for a 1 minute video clip. Stay tuned, because the next year or so is going to be something else …

If you are an Internet entrepreneur and have the need of a shopping cart on your website, how are you going to accomplish the task? I’m going to tell you how: outsource it! Many entrepreneurs get tied up doing all the little things in their business, and it flounders because they can’t give the necessary attention to the big things (like website promotion, social networking, etc.). Well, today you can outsource your shopping cart needs to Ashop.com. This is truly shopping cart software made easy. With the ease of Ashop.com’s shopping cart software, you’ll be up and running in no time. This will help free up your personal time and allow you to focus on other business activities. Right now they’re running a 10 day free trial right now, so what’s stopping you? Take advantage of this offer, and see just what the Ashop ecommerce software has for your business.

Well, it used to be said that MSN’s LiveSearch was the easiest search engine to get a high placement for your keywords.  That simply may not be true anymore.  It appears that LiveSearch has recently updated their algorithm and the results are pretty impressive.

The entire goal, obviously, is to produce more relevant results than Google.  Did they succeed?  I think they did.  At least in the half a dozen search terms I queried, their first page of results was much more focused than the first page of Google’s results.

Based on past product launches, I think Google should start getting concerned.  Microsoft has never come out with a stellar product from day one.  However, they have a very good history of upgrading their products.  Once upgraded, they seem to go from underdog to wiping out the competition in a minimal amount of time.  Will it happen in the search engine arena?  Only time will tell, but I wouldn’t count this dog out of the hunt just yet …