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Comment on Palm and Treo Hacks: Tips & Tools for Mastering Your Handheld by Meryl K. Evans "Content Maven behind meryl.net"

Meryl K. Evans "Content Maven behind meryl.net" — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:53:09 +0000

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

Nice book that will teach PalmOS owners a few new things, January 23, 2006

Meryl K. Evans "Content Maven behind meryl.net" (Plano, TX) -

This review is from: Palm and Treo Hacks: Tips & Tools for Mastering Your Handheld (Paperback)

The Treo takes up one whole chapter of this book plus references in the communication-related. Still although the Treo is a popular PalmOS-based device, it rightfully doesn't dominate the book. After all, many owners of PalmOS devices don't need or want to have a powerful device like the Treo.

In spite of "hacks" in its name, the book isn't as geeky or technical as it sounds. A hack is also known as a trick or add-on for adding more power to a program or system. However, not all of the tips are technically hacks because they provide how-to advice: annotate everything, find anything, get the most out of the date book, how to become a better student, and so on.

One caveat, when the book references another hack or figures, the light gray text barely appears and it is difficult to read. MacHaffie also refers to third-party software as a way to add more options, games, and functionality to the PalmOS device. It's tough to please people with varying interests. It might've been better to refer to places where you can find and download software. Many people would appreciate these discoveries.

The games section, for example, has references to quite a few role-playing games (RPG) in comparison to other types of games. Most of the sections only take a few pages, so it's not a big waste if the topic doesn't catch your eye. Again, it's tough to address a wide audience and there wouldn't be enough material to create a separate book addressing only PalmOS games, student tips, and advice for business users.

Roughly about a fourth of the book covers communications, phone PDA hybrid tips, and multimedia. So those who have basic PDAs without any connections still get a bulk of information they can use. The 55 tips are listed in the table of contents listed on the book's Web page (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/palmtreohks/toc.html) and checking it out should give you a good idea if you'll find the book useful or not.

You won't find much tech jargon so the hacks are easy to understand. The book has tips for beginners, moderate users, and experts and each hack is represented by thermometer's temperature (high for expert and low for easy) for quick reference. Very few hacks are at the expert level, so beginners and moderates should have no trouble applying most or all of the hacks.

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Comment on Palm and Treo Hacks: Tips & Tools for Mastering Your Handheld by Jerry Saperstein

Jerry Saperstein — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:23:14 +0000

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Lightweight survey of Palm OS capabilities, March 26, 2006

Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) -

This review is from: Palm and Treo Hacks: Tips & Tools for Mastering Your Handheld (Paperback)

[...] The "Hacks" series started off with some titles like Google hacks that were really loaded with good information. But successive titles have stretched the concept so far that they are nearly worthless. "Palm & Treo Hacks", while not worthless, is pretty lightweight.

There's nothing in the book that the reader couldn't easily find in one of the numerous websites, forums and newsgroups devoted to the Palm line, including the Treo smartphone. Much of the information in this hacks book is also found in the Palm user manual.

Twenty-nine pages are given to very brief reviews of various Palm applications. Anyone who is seriously looking for a replacement calculator program for their Palm can find several within seconds on the web: they don't need this book. Eight pages are giving to running Linux on the Palm. The section begins with the proviso that "Linux doesn't run on a lot of Palms." Excuse me, but I think you'd have to be a pretty die-hard tinkerer to spend a considerable amount of time getting Linux to run on your Palm.

All said, there's nothing here that can't be found elsewhere - and there is precious little that would qualify as a "hack." The writing is clear and the layout is nice. This book might be worth a quick browse, but in my opinion is certainly not worth $24.95. I noticed that at the time I'm writing this, Amazon has it for slightly less than $10. It's a maybe at that price.

Jerry

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Comment on HAUPPAUGE USB-Live2 (610) by Kenneth E. Wendel

Kenneth E. Wendel — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:02:40 +0000

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

Hauppauge USB-Live2, June 22, 2010

Kenneth E. Wendel (Dallas, TX) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: HAUPPAUGE USB-Live2 (610) (Personal Computers)

I am using this product with Windows 7, 64 bit. The purpose of this product is to transfer analog video to a digital format via a USB interface on a computer. It will do that but it is very difficult to tell that it is, in fact, working. I was able to see the video during the conversion process only on one video tape that I transferred. The balance of the conversions were "videoless" during the transfer and there was sound only, however, the mpg file created had video and audio quality equivalent to the orignal video 8 tape. The software for the product has a "source" setup that permits either using a TV or analog video source. The setup does not save and indicate the source that you are using, however, it does seem to save the source from session to session. The software for the product could use a lot of improvement.

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Comment on Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS Receiver by Serge van Neck

Serge van Neck — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:42:16 +0000

156 of 158 people found the following review helpful:

Great for geocaching, astronomy!, March 10, 2008

Serge van Neck (Phoenix, AZ) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS Receiver (Electronics)

I got this unit after much research into different brands and, after settling on Garmin, different models. It's a great all-around GPS at a great price. It's my first, so I can't comment on the increased sensitivity of the HC chip, but I get plenty of coverage inside my house, and when I step outside the accuracy goes to about 9'. I would have liked the compass and altimeter of the Vista, but really don't have much need for them since I'm not an avid hiker, and didn't need to spend the extra money.

The Venture HC is great for geocaching. I took my family out on our first hunt last weekend, and although we only had about an hour to spare, we had a great time finding caches stashed around a park nearby. I can see this as a fun family activity on road trips as well. The Venture has built-in geocaching features that let you download waypoints directly from geocacher.com (using the free Garmin browser plugin), and even mark caches as found right on the GPS. The color screen is very readable in sunlight. Although the Venture HC doesn't have a proper compass, the "compass" page is very useful for closing in on the target.

The Venture HC is also great for amateur astronomers. My computerized telescope needs to know lat/long/time to accurately slew to and track objects in the sky. I can get coordinates on standard addresses on geocoder.us, but if I just want to set up at a dark site somewhere, a GPS is a must. Rather than pay $200 to get the GPS option on my scope, I can use this general purpose GPS and just plug the numbers into the telescope's controller, or even connect through my laptop. Although any GPS will give you the time and location, not all have as nice a backlit screen as this one, a good thing when you're out in the dark. The customizable color schemes (with automatic night mode) and the variable backlight intensity are also great for astronomy to keep stray light to a minimum.

If I'm disappointed with anything it is with the built-in base map. Again, because this is my first GPS I was somehow expecting more detail, not necessarily in terms of street names, but certainly with respect to canals, mountains, even major cross streets etc. The only features I've been able to distinguish are freeways, lakes and cities. There are many mountains where I live and none of them are shown on the map. More detailed topo maps are available, but cost anywhere from $80-$120. I'm not subtracting any stars for this, because I'm sure all basemaps are pretty much the same. And with 24MB of memory, there's room for decent quality maps.

Garmin updated the firmware for the Venture in February 2008, so one of the first things I did was download their free WebUpdater utility to automatically install updates. I had one scary moment when my GPS lost the USB connection in the middle of the process, and I was worried my unit would be disabled. But after turning it off and back on it came right back up and, after a second try, the new firmware was installed in about 5 minutes.

All in all, I'm very happy with the quality of this unit. It feels sturdy yet light weight, with a nice rubberized feel to it. It's also waterproof, so no trouble using it in the rain. The interface took a little getting used to, but after a while it becomes second nature. The Venture lets you customize almost every screen to your taste; for example, I wanted to have time, elevation and location on the same page for astronomy purposes, so I set one of the screens up to show all these fields. At $130, the price point was perfect: significantly lower than the next model up (sacrificing only the compass/altimeter and microSD slot), and not much higher than plain-vanilla black & white units without geocaching features.

I highly recommend it.

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Comment on Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS Receiver by Ken A. Huth

Ken A. Huth — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:30:19 +0000

229 of 233 people found the following review helpful:

Great geocaching unit at a good price (with notes for Mac users), February 11, 2008

Ken A. Huth (Williamson, NY United States) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS Receiver (Electronics)

I was totally chessed off at Magellan when my Explorist 100 died under warranty and they refused to support or repair it (this was a new unit!). So I only considered Garmin based on liking my car unit.

Mac Users:
It's a bit tricky, but I am able to use the USB cable and the 'send to Garmin' to automatically load waypoints from geocaching.com. One warning is that they have a Mac firmware web updater and it's very new and froze on my attempt to use it, which blanked my unit. [...]. I did the update for this unit on a friends PC and it went fine.

There are some Mac caching software, but none of them are working for me with this unit. So keep that in mind if you really want to go beyond the web waypoint downloads. That's a bummer, since Maccaching and GeoJournal look like they'd be great.

The included software does not work on a Mac, so ignore that CD. From the Garmin site, you can download the plugin for Mac to make Safari aware of the unit so you can do the "send to Garmin' trick. They also have the Mac version of their WebUpdater (the one that hosed my first unit) on their site. Finally, you don't need any USB drivers for Tiger or Leopard OSX, so don't worry about them only being for Windows on the Garmin site.

Usage:
Crazy fast turn on and acquiring satellites. We are thrilled that we can turn it on in the car and it will start to pick up satellites right away. Our Magellin (an cheap 100 unit) would take awhile even outside in cloudcover.

It also seems to save all the time, as the shutdown is very fast, with no 'saving' note like our Magellin made us wait for.

I guess our only complaint is that we like to use the backlight a lot and that sucks batteries. It's winter now, and so many days and locations are dim, and without the backlight, the unit can be pretty dim to read. It takes 2 AA's. It also has a system pref for the type of battery you use (Alkaline, NiMH or LiOn), why? Maybe to only USB charge when they are NiMH's?? But remember to set that to the correct type.

We really love auto loading the coordinates. And even with the free account on Geocaching.com, we get the cache name, GC# and coordinates. That saves tons of time and mistakes. We find ourselves loading up any cache that interests us, just in case.

Accuracy:
The unit seems right on. Our other unit would usually be more like 20-30 feet accurate in the woods, and this one led us right to the cache and showed 16' accuracy at that point under normal tree cover. It also refreshes more often than our old unit, so it feels more responsive. No more going 20 feet and then seeing that the arrow just didn't update to show we were going the wrong way, or overshot.

Build:
It seems solid and took our last rainy hike well. The back has a bit of a gap, but the seal must lock in fine. It uses the 'D' lock, so just half a twist to lock and unlock, which is fast and appreciated on a cold cache while changing batteries. We always had to dig to get the Magellin's ring out and turning to pop the back.

Thumb toggle:
If you've used the old Garmin's with button input, the toggle on the front is really welcomed. We zip through data entry and you push the toggle in to accept an entry. It's also a shortcut to Mark your current location (holding down the toggle button). Another tip is that holding down the lower left button brings up the 'Find' menu quickly.

Speed:
One thing I noted was that when I went just one setting more on 'detail' for the maps, it really cut the redraw speed (which is a tad slow to begin with), so that was disappointing.

Hope that helps someone and happy caching!
for Team Spiderweb4-2

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Comment on HAUPPAUGE USB-Live2 (610) by Charles W. Locklin Jr.

Charles W. Locklin Jr. — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:29:29 +0000

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

Charles Locklin, January 22, 2011

Charles W. Locklin Jr. -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: HAUPPAUGE USB-Live2 (610) (Personal Computers)

Easy to use with multiple software. Does not drop frames as often as my Dazzle does and keeps excellent footage for mpg movies. I recommend this product espically for the novice who wants to capture video with the minimum setup requirements.

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Comment on Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS Receiver by ideas

ideas — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:43:50 +0000

576 of 583 people found the following review helpful:

An outdoor GPS receiver as revolutionary as the original eTrex, February 4, 2008

ideas -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS Receiver (Electronics)

Before buying this new Venture HC, I had spent many hours trekking with several of the original eTrex models over the years. I think it's fair to say that while the concept of the original eTrex was great, the execution was frequently disappointing.

It disappoints no more. The Venture HC is the eTrex perfected. It remedies almost every shortcoming that plagued the original models. The new high-sensitivity receiver is amazingly effective. Countless times I've stood in wide open spaces cursing my old eTrex because it wouldn't acquire a single satellite. Last night I turned on the Venture HC on the bottom floor of my two story house, and it locked onto 8 satellites...through the roof and the upper floor! No more "need a clear view of the sky" messages. Amazing.

The old monochrome display has become color, and the user interface is now substantially more intuitive, while adding even more functionality. The cable, which was serial on previous models, has been upgraded to USB, another welcome improvement. The case is somewhat wider than before, but the design bears a strong resemblance to the original eTrex.

A basemap is included but it's just that - basic. It shows the largest highways, bodies of water, and has some limited capability to display highway exit services. If you need turn-by-turn street directions, an eTrex is not for you. This is a GPS receiver true to Garmin's outdoor GPS heritage.

Promised battery life (14 hours) is near the bottom of the range when compared to the existing eTrex models, but is still perfectly adequate and has posed no problems.

One weakness that remains is Garmin's waypoint manager PC software. It has the feel and functionality of a software product released circa 1994. Garmin could certainly develop a better PC interface. For $49 you can buy ExpertGPS from Topografix, or download the free version (EasyGPS)from their website. Either is far more functional than the Garmin OEM software.

Still, the software criticism is a quibble. The Venture HC itself is great. It is a market changing product that renders all previous eTrex models (and many competitors) obsolete. Finally, an affordable outdoor GPS receiver that I can wholeheartedly recommend.

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Comment on Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade by Just Anonymous

Just Anonymous — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:42:54 +0000

860 of 900 people found the following review helpful:

Worth the Wait, October 22, 2009

Just Anonymous (Georgia, USA) -

This review is from: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade (Software)

I'll admit, I've been running Windows 7 for six months now: the preproduction version of it and have just upgraded to the gold code. So I have quite a bit of experience with the operating system. Let's get to the nitty gritty:

Should you upgrade from Windows Vista? YES! I mean it - upgrade today.
Windows 7 is quite simply faster, more stable, boots faster, goes to sleep faster, comes back from sleep faster, manages your files better and on top of that it's beautiful to look at and easy to use. Even the preproduction version of Windows 7 was better than my Vista with SP2.

Should you upgrade from Windows XP? Maybe, but for different reasons.
XP is a good operating system and if you don't need to add new hardware or software, XP is good. However, XP is old as an operating system. Also chances are that if you're running XP, you might not meet the minimum requirements for Windows 7 - check the compatibility site at Microsoft to see if your system will support Windows 7. That said, Windows 7 is light years ahead of Windows XP in terms of functionality, ease of use, etc - to me it's worth buying a new system.

64 bit or 32 bit?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's ok skip this section. If you have a core2 duo or core 2 quad or a multi cpu machine, go with the 64 bit OS, it handles memory and the CPUs much better. If you have a single core CPU, one CPU or run special programs that require 32bit, then stick with 32 bit for now.

BEFORE INSTALLATION:
I recommend you have:
-a core 2 duo or core 2 quad machine
-4gig of RAM (That's about $50 in today's market)
-good hard drive with (200 gig - it doesn't need that much but that's another $50)
-back up your files to a USB drive like Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive WDME5000TN (Midnight Black)
-check to make sure your computer is compatible with Windows 7

INSTALLATION:
Installation was very straight forward. You put in the CD and reboot your machine. You might have to enter your bios and enable the "boot from CD" option. Once the machine reboots a nice screen comes up to guide you through the installation. You have the option to upgrade your PC or do a clean installation. I did an upgrade and it brought in all of my files and settings from my windows Vista system. It worked great.
The upgrade did take about 2 hours for me so definitely consider.
I noticed that early on in the installation the operating system went out to Microsoft's site to look for the latest and greatest updates, so I think this should help Microsoft respond quickly to any hiccups with compatibility.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK:
The driver from my old HP Inkjet printer for 2001 doesn't work on Windows 7 so there are some things that will not transition. I had to use a generic HP driver which doesn't give me the quality that I got from an injet - so overall, I'm up and running with that printer but I'm degraded on the inkjet front. That said, I recently upgraded to a HP CP2025DN Color LaserJet Printer that I love so no real loss there. I'll likely pick up a cheap inkjet for the occasional photo that I might need to print. Everything else upgraded.

BENEFITS
-faster boot time
-faster go to sleep
-faster wakeup
-faster about 20% to 30% faster at running applications than my Vista - seriously (but those are my results without any benchmarks or anything like that, just seeing how fast Adobe Illustrator loads, and how fast all the applications respond)
-joining wireless networks is much easier
-the interface is just plain beautiful
-my wallpapers are now a slideshow that can be set to change every few minutes (I'm not stuck with the same picture)
-Gadgets - these are wonderful little small applications that you can drag onto your desktop. I have a weather gadget and a calendar gadget on my desktop that tell me
-Better taskbar management - hovering over the taskbar icons shows me mini windows of what's running
-Better file management - I can organize my files into Libraries that are sortable not only by type but by folder or other data. It's great! I can browse through my presentations or illustrator files!
-Windows Media appears to be smoother which I love.
-You get some virus protection and firewall with Windows 7 but consider something more comprehensive like... Read more

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Comment on Seagate Expansion 500 GB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive STAX500102 by Naomi (Storm)

Naomi (Storm) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:22:43 +0000

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

Not a bad cheap external, but not amazing, September 12, 2011

Naomi (Storm) (Texas) -

This review is from: Seagate Expansion 500 GB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive STAX500102 (Personal Computers)

Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)

I have quite a few external drives so I'm pretty familiar with their general specs, so honestly I wasn't expecting too much out of the Seagate Expansion drive. Other than the USB 3.0 connector, there's really nothing really "new" about this drive.

The basics - it's a 2.5" 5400 RPM "green" drive - which means the disk has a habit of going to sleep when not in use, but it also means that it's pretty light on the power consumption. It's also quiet and has a very low heat signature. Average read/write speeds (over USB 3.0): 30/25 MBps (see "customer images" for my benchmark results).

What it's good for:
At 500GB, this drive is pretty small when compared to its 2-4TB neighbors. However this drive is nice because it's completely powered via USB and has a small footprint. The portability comes in handy when a USB memory stick just doesn't have enough room. And this is where the Expansion might be the best fit - as an IT Consultant it's nice to be able to have an extra hdd portable enough to take along on business trips. It's large enough that you can hold presentations, installation binaries and even a few movies or TV shows for the long flight (or boring hotel room).

While the speed isn't phenomenal (you probably don't want to run graphically intense games directly from the drive) it is quick enough to handle playing 720p video without flicker or stuttering (I didn't try 1080p, sorry).

The Bad:
At 500GB, this thing is tiny by today's standards - and the 750GB version isn't much better. Unfortunately once you start looking at the 1TB and 1.5TB drives, they get physically larger and lose their compactness. If you're planning on using this drive as an external storage for movies, music and images, you'll probably find yourself filling it up rather quickly and wishing you bought a drive with more room for growth. I know that some people probably are looking at this drive as a possible backup drive to use in case of a hdd failure on their main drive, but keep in mind that this is also a standalone drive with no physical redundancy - and drives that you physically move around generally tend to go bad before stationary drives like those in workstations do.

Conclusion:
The Expansion drive fills a niche but it's a very specific niche. If you plan on traveling and need a drive that's "ok" on speed and uses very little power, this thing might be the perfect fit. As an generic storage dump the size hampers its usefulness and a multi-terabyte option is probably a better choice.

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Comment on Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade by Pyanfar Chanur

Pyanfar Chanur — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:58:54 +0000

421 of 428 people found the following review helpful:

Best if you Plan Ahead, November 1, 2009

Pyanfar Chanur (USA) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade (Software)

Windows 7 Home Premium is the best version to choose for older machines and/or simpler networks. The "Backup" offered in 7 Pro can be done easily with free tools, and unless you need complex networking, 7 has what it takes to manage a home network. Last, the 'XP Mode' promised in 7 Pro and above will only work on hardware new enough to support "Virtualization Technology" (stop by Microsoft's website to learn more). This isn't the same as "XP Compatibility Mode", which you will still have for all versions of Windows 7 (there's a great video explanation of this on CNET's website in their Windows 7 Center at CNET TV).

Some very important things you need to know about upgrading:

1) There are two types of upgrade: "in-place" (where a Vista machine upgrades to 7 and you get to keep all your programs) and "clean" (where you lose all your old programs and settings).
2) Anyone going from XP to 7 will have to go "clean".
3) Anyone going from a different Vista to 7 (for example, Vista Home to 7 Pro, or Vista Ultimate to 7 Home) will also have to go "clean".

If you have to do 2) or 3), all is not lost--I'll explain in a moment.

Before you even buy 7 for your machine, stop by Microsoft's website for two things:

a) download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. Run it with every device connected to the machine that you'll ever want to use in 7. It'll thoroughly examine your machine for any roadblocks and give you good advice about upgrading.
b) Go to the Windows 7 Compatibility Center and double-check anything that came up negative in the Upgrade Advisor (or didn't show up at all). This site lists detailed compatibility info on a LOT of different devices.

Anything major, like a video card or sound card driver, I'd recommend double-checking with the manufacturer's website to be sure. This almost burned me on two of the machines that I upgraded.

Last, make a backup. There's a free tool called Macrium Reflect that can do this for you.

Do you have to do a "clean" install, but just want to carry over your user accounts and settings? Microsoft makes a program called Windows Easy Transfer that's already in Vista (and can be downloaded from Microsoft for XP) that will export your accounts and settings and let you import them back again. It's very easy to use and does a good job of putting your accounts back together again, even going from XP to 7.

Do you have to do the "clean" install, and you don't want to reinstall all your programs? Laplink has an offer for $19.95 that will let you use a special version of their program "PC Mover" to upgrade one machine one time. Read the documentation in detail.

The most important thing to doing a "clean" install is that in the Upgrade setup you choose "Custom". Windows will take all of your major files and place them in a folder called "Windows.old". PC Mover and the Easy Transfer program will use this folder to reconstruct your system from, so this is VERY important.

I wish I had more space to go into detail here...bottom line is, if you plan ahead a bit, upgrading to 7 will go very easily (and if it doesn't, you'll have something to fall back on).

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