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Phone and Desktop Computing are Finally Combining in 2015

By
Tyler
– February 3, 2015Posted in: Editorial, featured, Microsoft, Phones, Ubuntu, Windows Phone

Windows_Product_Family_9-30-Event-741x416 rs

I’ve written about my “dream device” — a phone that could dock to become your laptop or desktop. It is an idea that pops up from time to time but has yet to fully materialize. However, more and more, people have been latching onto the idea. While it has been tried (see the Motorola Atrix), I believe 2015 may be the year that a company does it in a way that makes it both a good phone and a good computer. There are two companies attempting to pull it off: Microsoft and Canonical (makers of the Ubuntu OS).

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Getting Around Attachment Size Limits — Update for 2015

By
Tyler
– January 28, 2015Posted in: Email, featured, Google, How To, Microsoft

attachment

Without question, the most trafficked post I have ever done on this blog is this one: Get Around Attachment Size Limits — Update and Expansion. I wrote it back in 2010 about ways to get around email attachment file size limits. This can be a frustrating problem, especially with a lot of corporate email having very small attachment size limits, and little warning about those limits until you hit them. I figure that now — almost five years later — the time is right to update the information from the original post.

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Can the largest ever crowdfunding project succeed?

By
Tyler
– July 25, 2013Posted in: Crowdfunding, featured, Phones, Ubuntu

ui-3

On Monday, I wrote about Ubuntu edge, a proposed smartphone that will run a version of Linux optimized for phones that also allows you to use the phone as your desktop computer (which is the feature that I was particularly excited about). In order to produce the phone, Canonical, the company behind it, is turning to crowdfunding. On IndieGoGo they are trying to raise $32 million in just 31 days. If they succeed, it will be the largest crowdfunding project ever (and if they don’t, it is still the most ambitious). But, can that amount of money actually be raised through crowdfunding?

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My “Dream Device” is Real! (Kind Of…)

By
Tyler
– July 22, 2013Posted in: featured, Phones, Ubuntu

ui-4

Yesterday, I wrote about my “dream device” — a phone that could be docked into desktop or laptop to act, in essence, as your main computer. All of your settings and software would travel with you in your pocket, and you could go from having three devices (tablet, PC, and phone) to just one. Today, just such a device was announced.

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My Dream Device — What It Is, Who Could Make It, and Why They Probably Won’t

By
Tyler
– July 21, 2013Posted in: Editorial, featured, Microsoft, Windows

Atrix-Webtop

Back in early 2011, Motorola came out with an Android phone intended to be its “flagship” device, called the Atrix. It was announced at CES 2011 where it won the Best of CES award. It was a nice phone, with specs that were cutting edge at the time (it was the first phone in the US with a dual-core processor), but there was a feature about it that really caught everyone’s attention. You see, Motorola sold two accessories for the Atrix, a “desktop dock” and a “laptop dock”. When the phone was placed into either of these docks, it could in theory act as a full desktop or laptop computer.

I say “in theory” because it didn’t work that well in practice. The phone would boot into a customized version of Linux called Webtop OS. It ran the desktop version of Firefox, a emulator for Android that would allow you to access the contents of your phone, and not a lot else. Worse still, it was slow, laggy, and buggy. But the promise of it was enticing — one device, that you would always have with you, could serve as your only computer. You could have all your files, software, and preferences with you at all times wherever you go.

Currently, many people carry three devices with them — laptop, tablet, and phone. In this vision you would only need to carry one. At work or at home, you could just plug your phone into your monitor and keyboard, your TV, or your laptop and not have to worry about carrying anything else.

2011 wasn’t the right time for such a device, and Motorola wasn’t the right company to make it. However, the time may be right for another company — and I have one in mind — to try again. This is what I want, and what I would buy if it were available.

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iWork for iCloud Beta — First Look and Early Review

By
Tyler
– July 20, 2013Posted in: Apple, featured, iCloud, iPad, iWork, Review

keynote_hero

Yesterday, I was invited to try the iWork for iCloud beta. Just earlier in the day, Apple started sending out beta invitations to non-developers, so it did not take me long to get an invite. I was excited to try it out.

iWork for iCloud, which was announced by Apple last month at its WWDC developers conference, is a version of its iWork office suite that lives in the web browser–you can access, edit, and create documents, spreadsheets, in Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Apple’s Safari (but not Firefox) on any computer. In addition, Apple promises that these are some of the most advanced web software ever made, with an experience more akin to a native application than a web app (which have typically been more sparse and less feature-rich).

I’ve been looking for something like iWork for iCloud. You see, I primarily create and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on three devices — my laptop (running Windows 7), my iPad with Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard cover, and my work PC (Windows XP). I only have Microsoft Office on my laptop; my work computer has Libre Office (and I can’t install new software on it), and my iPad has iWork for iPad and any other apps I choose to download. I want a service that will let me create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on any device, have them be compatible with all those devices, and sync them all automatically.

Sometimes, that seems like a tall order, but I think this is a common dilemma for users who need to work with various types of documents and spreadsheets across platforms. So, can iWork for iCloud fill this need? Read on to find out.

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Tyler Walks Into… Best Buy (and plays with the iPad Mini)

By
Tyler
– November 3, 2012Posted in: Apple, featured, iPad

Today, I walked into my local Best Buy store. It’s been a while since I’ve been in one, but in the last week there have been a stunning number of important new products out and stores like Best Buy give me an opportunity to use and test a bunch of them in one shot. I managed hands on time with the new iPad Mini, the 4th Gen iPad, Windows 8 laptops, and a Windows RT tablet, and I wanted to share my impressions (today, I’m sharing my iPad impressions; tomorrow, I will talk Windows). I’ve been noticing more and more that gadget reviews across the web all focus on the same things, and few talk about what it is like to actually use the product. I spent 10 minutes with an iPad Mini, and I can tell you things that I didn’t read in any review (and I did read quite a few).

Click on the links to jump to the sections: iPad Mini | iPad 4th Generation

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Why Tyler the Tech Guy Looks Different… Again

By
Tyler
– August 26, 2011Posted in: featured, the site, Updates

Many months ago, but not that many posts ago, I launched a redesign of this site. I found a WordPress theme that I really liked, modified and tweaked its look quite a bit, and the end result was something that I was proud of and thought looked really cool.

Then, sometime in the last several months, my site was hacked. I’m not entirely sure how it was done — I am not an expert coder or a hacker by any means — but the end result was that clicking this site from any search engine results would redirect you to a .ru page and try to install a virus on your computer (though, fortunately, it was a virus that up to date browsers and virus software were able to block).

To make matters worse, this problem affected other websites that I hosted, including my mother’s personal business webpage Orene.net (she’s a wardrobe and image consultant located in the San Francisco bay area) and my personal homepage TKearn.com. This really hurt my mother’s business, as her webpage was one of her main forms of advertising, and redirecting to a virus will cause you to plummet in the search engine results even after you fix the problem. Additionally, the hack remained undetected by me for quite a while, both because I was very busy at work and because going directly to the sites, which is what I usually do, still worked and only search engine results that were affected.

Some outside help was able to get rid of the hack and make the sites safe again. What the person who helped me reported was that the hacker exploited a vulnerability in my theme. I needed to delete my old theme, get it off the server, and start fresh with something else.

So I did. The result of that is the site that you see now. It’s still a work in progress, and I have a lot of additional tweaking that I intend to do. If you see something that you like or hate, or anything that isn’t working, please let me know.

Additionally, I would just like to reiterate that the site is safe again. I want to apologize for to anyone who may have experienced issues because of it — I really do feel bad about it, and I wish I had known about it earlier or taken further steps to prevent it (though I do not know what those might have been).

A few notes about this site and the conspicuous lack of new content: In the last several months, I have started a new job, which has taken up a lot of my time and energy. But, with this hacking incident taken care of, and with me settling into the job, the time is right to start getting back to one of the things that I enjoy — writing about tech. I want to get this site on the map again. And I need your help to do it: please comment on stories, let me know your opinions on things, and help me make this site more than just my own personal tech soapbox.

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How To Opt Out of Advertisers Tracking You

By
Tyler
– January 27, 2011Posted in: Chrome, featured, Firefox, Google, How To, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Mozilla, Web Browsers

It is a little disconcerting when you’re surfing the web and suddenly see an ad that knows who you are, what what your hobbies are, and what restaurants you eat at. However, if you feel like your privacy is being violated there is now something that you can do about it.

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Verizon finally has the iPhone. . . but should you get one?

By
Tyler
– January 14, 2011Posted in: Apple, featured, iPhone, Phones, Verizon

People have been talking about Verizon getting the iPhone for at least the last two years, and it seems that today is proof that if something is buzzed about for long enough, eventually it will come true. Yes, in case you have not heard it by now, Verizon is getting the iPhone. Specifically, they’re getting the iPhone 4, almost the exact same model – and for the exact same prices – as what is on offer at AT&T. The wait for the Verizon iPhone has been so long that people are undoubtedly going to run out and purchase them in large numbers, but that doesn’t mean that you should head to the nearest Apple store and buy one. Read on to find out why the Verizon iPhone is not necessarily better than the AT&T one, and why, if you are going to buy one, the wisest move may be to wait just a little bit longer.

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