Mac’s don’t get viruses. Right? Wrong. Not only do Mac’s get the occasional Mac virus (because yes, they do exist.) but you probably don’t even realize that there is a 33% chance your Mac is carrying around Windows viruses as well. This means that while you may not be affected by them, they’re at least taking up some valuable space on your hard drive, and you may be unknowingly sharing those same viruses with your Windows using friends. So how do you protect your Mac? Its a big investment, and you certainly don’t want it wrecked by a virus you could have easily avoided. There’s an easy way, and the best part? It’s free. But not everything that’s free is a good value, so read on to see if Sophos can help protect you! Read the rest of this entry »

Since the dawn of time (Possibly an exaggeration, but its definitely felt that long) iOS has desperately needed an update to make the iPad as useful as it should be.  While it’s a great device, it also had some major flaws. While billed as a laptop or netbook replacement, it lacked some of their most fundamental abilities.  Apple knew this though, and still sold millions of iPads, with the intent to improve their product over time, as usual. So check it out – it’s now November, and if you’re a super heavy iPad user and want multitasking, folders, and other cool stuff, you might want to follow my lead and install the newly released iOS 4.2.  After a super long wait, iOS 4.2 for iPad is finally here, and brings with it a slew of new features that make it far better than its been.  So plug in to iTunes, click update, and read on while it installs for our full review! Read the rest of this entry »

The technological war that has been raging on between the Android smartphones and iPhones (regardless of the carrier) appears to have no end in sight. However, if you are stuck between which phone is the one for you, perhaps you will find this review of the Droid 2 helpful. Before I begin here’s a little bit of background information on the Droid 2. The phone is manufactured by Motorola, and sports a 3.7″ touchscreen along with a slideout keyboard and 5.0 megapixel camera. Overall, on Verizon Wireless‘ website the phone has been given a 4 out of 5 star rating.

What did we think in trying it out for a while though?  Read on to see what we thought of the service, appearance, and more! Read the rest of this entry »

The idea of FaceTime for Mac is a great one: Video chat with your friends and family, no matter where they are or where you are, if you’ve got an internet connection and they’ve got a new iPod Touch or iPhone.  You’re always connected, face to face, in a way that people (here in the US at least) never have been before.  That being said, Apple released FaceTime for Mac as a beta application, and it really shows. Read the rest of this entry »

As Colin said in his post about Mac apps for blogging with WordPress, WordPress is an extremely popular blogging tool and proves to be very beneficial. Many bloggers, including Colin and I, choose to use WordPress to help manage various blogs. However, if you are on the go and happen to be without a computer, have no fear! The App Store offers a WordPress app for iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. Now let’s take a look at the app! Read the rest of this entry »

Tons of people use WordPress, and if you don’t, chances are you’ve heard of it. If you haven’t, WordPress is a site that lets you create your own blog free and easy, right in your browser. It’s incredibly popular due to its flexibility, ease of setup, and overall ease of use. I myself use it to run two of my personal blogs, and the tech site I write for, MakeTechEasier.com, also uses it. Sometimes though, when I’m writing for these sites, I just don’t want to have my browser open, as its often distracting and frankly, sometimes just not the best thing for doing serious work in. This led me to my search for WordPress editors that are native Mac applications, and little did I know, there are some real gems out there, so read on for my impressions! Read the rest of this entry »

Just a heads up for those of you planning your blog reading for the next few weeks…Looks like our friends over at Looxcie are hooking us up with a brand spankin’ new Looxcie unit to review for you guys.  This means not only will we get to give you guys our impressions of a product which has just hit the shelves, but we’ll also be able to give you guys a great gallery of shots, as well as, of course, video of the Looxcie in action.  We’ll be sure to provide video and our impressions of it in use, as well as the video we took with it, so you can really get a feel for how it performs.

For those of you who may not have heard of Looxcie, it’s basically billed as a super awesome life caster.  Life casting means showing people, on video, life from your perspective.  Whether your doing extreme sports, reviewing a unit that you’re holding in front of you, or having a conversation; if you record it and post it from your perspective, that’s basically the essence of life casting.  Looxcie aims to make these types of activities super easy, and most importantly, far more natural than it used to be.  (I honestly just can’t wait to do video reviews with the thing, as they dealing with cameras while playing with a new gadget can get super annoying.  And don’t worry, Steve’s new Droid 2 will definitely be getting the Looxcie treatment ASAP!)

For more info, check out Looxcie’s site here, and be sure to check back in a couple of weeks for the full review!  What would you use the Looxsie for?  Think its something you’d be interested in getting?  What about for its list price of $199?  Let us hear it in the comments!

Like we posted about this past Wednesday, Twitter has gotten a makeover.  The new redesign was meant to offer a more rich Twitter experience on the web, one that could better compete with the various full-featured Twitter applications that exist for Macs, PC’s and Mobiles.  For the redesign, Twitter reevaluated what Twitter has been, and what it is today.

Of course, the quick and easy way to describe what Twitter does is microblogging.  For the uninitiated, its a way to post messages of 140 characters or less to all your followers.  Its a tool for quick and simple communication.  And while from Twitter’s inception this has included status updates, location updates, and more, the real power users have found and exploited Twitter’s greatest ability – the ability to share links and information.  To a great extent, that is what Twitter does today…It allows people to share information directly with groups of like-minded people.  For business, as well as individuals, its become a goldmine of knowledge.  These are the people Twitter needed to redesign for – the people who do the most sharing, because they are the site’s heaviest users.  The second reason Twitter needed a redesign was because so far, Twitter doesn’t make a profit, and that is a problem for obvious reasons.  So how has Twitter changed, with these improvements in mind?  And is this change for the better?  Read on to find out! Read the rest of this entry »

Access or transfer any file on your network

Where’s My Stuff?

We all know how intuitive the iPad is;  literally anyone can pick it up and do things with it (once it’s turned on; sorry, Mom).  After I got passed the initial ‘wow’ factor, however my first reaction, and I know I’m not alone here, was “OK, now where’s all my stuff?”  Turn’s out it was all right where I left it, of course, but it was NOT on my new iPad, and I couldn’t get to it.  FileBrowser changed all that in a big hurry.

Disclaimer:  I’m not an Apple junkie; in fact, in a lot of ways I’m the anti-Apple.  I use a Droid, not an iPhone.   My primary laptop is a Windows 7 machine, and my family server is Windows as well.

Practical?  What, the iPad?

That said, I’m quickly becoming the iPad’s biggest fan, but not for the usual reasons.  As you may have guessed from the last paragraph, technology for me is a question of practicality, not entertainment.  The iPad’s primary claim to fame as an entertainment device just didn’t do it for me, but I’ve come to understand it’s application in some (very) specific business situations, and frankly in those situations it’s unmatched.

But if it’s going to be practical it’s got to be able to access practical information in practical ways.  Apple has not made this anywhere near as intuitive as the rest of the device, another in a long list of examples of Apples inability to play well with others.  Fortunately, other developers have stepped into the breach. One such developer is Stratospherix, and their FileBrowser application brings practical network and file access “direct to your iPad” for less than three bucks.

Oh, There’s My Stuff!

The install and setup of FileBrowser was a breeze.  I’m sure the QuickGuide and Setup Documentation (both Mac and Windows versions, depending on the computer your connecting to) are very nice documents, but I never read them.  I installed the application and started right in.  Click on Menu, click on the ‘Machines’ button, and there’s the ‘+’ to start adding connections.  Connecting to all of the other machines on my network was a snap, but remember that spelling counts here; if the name of the computer for the machine your connecting to isn’t right, it won’t connect (obviously, but…).

Stream Video and Audio from Anywhere (On Your Network)

Once the machine name and login information is supplied, the connection is instantaneous – this thing is fast!  Now that you’ve connected to another machine, you can browse the entire directory, including attached devices.  You can copy to and from the other machines, or execute or stream files stored remotely.  Read that part again – you can execute or stream any file stored on any other device! That means that you now have direct access from your iPad to the 250GB of BitTorrent movies you’ve been collecting for the last year.  And we’re back to the iPad being… an entertainment device.  Sheesh.

Bottom line, this application has saved me more time and made my iPad use more enjoyable than any other software I’ve come across.  It’s one of those essential utilities that you take for granted when you have it, but couldn’t live without.

As promised, we’ve got a short video walkthrough of Google Instant Search for you.  As one of our YouTube commenters pointed out, don’t forget that if you don’t like Instant, you can always turn it off in Google Settings.