Mobee Magic Charger for Apple Wireless Keyboard

| April 12, 2011

After a couple years of using two of the Palm Pre Touchstone induction chargers, they are great. Although I complain regularly that the battery in the Pre will not make it an entire day, it generally isn’t a big deal since I keep one Touchstone on my desk and the other on my nightstand. About […]

Epsilon

| April 4, 2011

Having one company divulge my personal information is bad … but having three (to date) divulging my name and email information is ridiculous. One would thing that that companies like Chase, Walgreens and Tivo would fear a class action suit enough to be a bit more protective with their clients privacy? In other words, don’t […]

Google takes another crack at social networking with +1

| March 30, 2011

The next big Google thing? Not wanting to fall too far behind leading social sharing sites (primarily Facebook), Google is rolling out it’s new socially connected experiment they are calling “+1.”  The new “+1” button is an opt-in service and will permit socially connected users to give their stamp of approval to a search results, […]

Another reason the VW Phaeton is such an expensive car

| March 28, 2011

How much of Volkswagen’s unique ‘transparent’ Phaeton factory in Dresden, Germany will be found in their new Chattanooga, Tennessee operation? (The VW Phaeton is Volkswagen’s flagship ‘premium class’ automobile)

Browser and Windows 7 upgrades

| March 24, 2011

The DSL connection at the hotel was shockingly fast so I took advantage of the speed to update my Windows 7 with a Service Pack 1 update … and decided to update a couple of Internet browsers too. After installing Mozilla’s Firefox 4 and realizing that several of my add-ons needed to be disabled, I […]

Google Voice and Sprint partnership will benefit cellphone users

| March 22, 2011

Google Voice will integrate with Sprint phones according to recent press releases from both companies. With the new partnership, Sprint customers will be able use their existing number as their Google Voice (GV) number or be able to use their GV number instead of their cell number for outgoing calls. The features of Google Voice […]

HTC Merge Android phone makes an appearance at SXSW 2011

| March 16, 2011

While waiting for the HP Palm Pre3, I’m keeping my eyes on the QWERTY keyboard Android phones. One of the anticipated models from HTC was demoed at SXSW 2011 and it will be available on several carriers — the Merge. It has a 3.7 inch touchscreen, a full QWERTY keyboard, and Android 2.2 with HTC […]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs says US will have iPad2 on March 11th

| March 2, 2011

The big tech announcement today came as Steve Jobs introduced a follow up iPad 2 to Apple’s previous tablet success. Apple has pretty much been the only game in town since the introduction of the iPad. This year’s model isn’t necessarily full of surprises, but does hold the price point while adding a camera, some […]

The concept of the Motorola Atrix smartphone computer

| February 21, 2011

I like the concept of the Motorola Atrix which combines the larger working area of a lightweight laptop display/keyboard/battery and the portability of a pocketable smartphone. I’m not sure that I’m ready to give up a full-powered Windows 7 notebook, but IF the new Windows 7 mobile OS running on an Atrix-type phone with a […]

Tinkering with my old Garmin GPS 75 and an old solar panel

| February 20, 2011

While doing a few chores around the yard on a bright and warm-ish Saturday afternoon, I decided to hook my old Garmin GPS 75 (early 1990s) to a solar panel scavenged from the boat to see if they both still worked. Besides being  clunky, and slow to acquire the satellites, the GPS worked after putting […]

Brokerage software continues to improve for investors and traders

| February 17, 2011

On the days that I am connected to the Internet during Wall Street’s market close, I often stream a tiny Slingplayer window of CBNC’s Closing Bell. Today I chuckled at someone on the trading desk holding up a “Hi Mom” sign (left). Also changes in technology has helped investors and traders in recent years by […]

Video: HP-Palm product announcement event

| February 10, 2011

Archiving Wednesday’s HP-Palm Veer, Pre3 and TouchPad product announcement event video — yesterday’s posts 1 and 2.

In keeping with the HP-Palm webOS news …

| February 9, 2011

I particularly liked the new advertising coming to my email from HP above … nice! (I’m also including the specs and a couple hands-on first-look videos from Engadget below) Hands-on video from Engadget: Touch-to-shere demo: Press Release: HP TouchPad Brings webOS to the Big Screen First webOS tablet works the way you do, introduces fun, […]

HP-Palm devices may come sooner than expected

| January 29, 2011

While I’ve been anxious for the new tablet computer device from HP-Palm, expected to be announce at a California press event on February 9th, I wasn’t holding my breath as to when the devices would actually make it to market. Most industry watchers either have been told or expected them sometime this summer, although a […]

HP-Palm’s new tablet device needs a better name

| January 25, 2011

So the HP-Palm gadget many though might be the “PalmPad” is not going to receive the blessing of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; they sees the too close to other trademarks? (Palm, Palm Pre, etc) It sort of looks to me as if HP needs to go back to the ‘slate’ devices – […]

Flix on Stix kiosk for movie rentals

| January 17, 2011

The WSJ This Morning podcast mentioned Flix on Stix, a new kiosk similar to Redbox, as yet another way to rent movies. The self-service kiosk delivers a movie to a USB flash drive which eliminates the need to return the movie. At first look it sounds like a great idea, as after selecting a movie […]

Reviving an older Canon i70 portable inkjet printer

| January 16, 2011

Once upon a time, I packed a small portable printer — Canon i70 — in my car when I traveled, but found it to be a hassle to keep it working. Fast forward to 2011 and I have found a possible use for a small lightweight printer – on the boat. Who knows if it […]

Learning a bit more about the “4G” network hype

| January 11, 2011

While staying on the smartphone subject trend, I’ve been curious as to where the market is going besides the phone’s hardware and operating system – yesterday’s grumbling about HP/Palm and webOS. The devices is only half the picture and far less of the investment – the carrier may be the game changer. In reading a […]

My continued Palm Pre webOS grumbling, although with hope

| January 10, 2011

Well I’m not giving up on the HP/Palm and their WebOS entirely just yet as it does look as if there might be a few improvements in the new 2.01 operating system to keep me happy with my current Palm Pre for a little bit longer … if it is made available? Thanks to a […]

Looking for more ways to tax: cellphones and ebook downloads

| January 1, 2011

According to a Smartmoney.com article by AnnaMaria Andriodis, we could see states and counties increasing taxes on new technology such as cellphones and e-books. Unlike Uncle Sam, state and county governments are required to balance their budgets and as local sales taxes and both the real estate and income tax stream of tax revenue dwindle […]

Ending the year disappointed in HP, Palm and webOS

| December 31, 2010

Either I was way too early in adopting Palm’s webOS and the Palm Pre smartphone, or the powers that be are dropping the ball in moving ahead quick enough to satisfy me with their OS and product line. It is too bad that Palm, then HP, did not develop the alliances with partners and market […]

GoPro Camera/Video looks to be great for action sports, etc.

| December 15, 2010

I’m not endorsing this $259 GoPro Hero camera (“Naked” as they call it) since I haven’t used it, but from the promotional photos, and particularly HD video (see below), it looks great. The fixed lens setup may be a limitation but it is one of the nicest action sports cameras I’ve seen to date and […]

Upgrading WordPress again … this time to 3.0.3

| December 8, 2010

Here’s crossing my fingers that WordPress 3.0.3 will be as solid as previous upgrades.

Tech Friday: posting etiquette and email signatures

| December 3, 2010

Admit it, you’ve been pretty annoyed receiving emails with extensive signatures or while reading in forums where regular users post distracting, offensive or just plain long-waste-of-screen-space signatures. This practice is one of my pet peeves when visiting certain‘permissive’ forums that allow ‘spam-vertising’ by user signature or avatar. This becomes doubly irritating when the same user […]

Tech Friday: Soluto helps to speed up Window 7 boot times

| November 19, 2010

The boot modifying program called Soluto seems to help keep my Windows 7 notebook computer’s cold boot a bit snappier. Although my older Windows machine may not be up to netbook, tablet or Macbook speeds, the improved one minute and 44 second boot is better than without the Soluto tweaks. The company’s tagline as “anti-frustration” […]

Windows that generate solar electric power with “buckyballs”

| November 9, 2010

Where would you install photovoltaic solar panels if they were clear? Perhaps they will be in the not so distant future as contemplated by Alyssa Danigelis in her Discovery News article. And here’s a new word of the day: buckyballs – spherical or ellipsoidal cages made up of covalently bonded carbon atoms discovered in 1985 […]

Tech Friday: Create a newspaper page with Paper.li

| November 5, 2010

Here’s a last minute Tech Friday idea; a website that creates your own newspaper from Twitter connections.  Paper.li is a service that assembles a newspaper-like page with links, photos and media from Twitter users, lists or #keywords. Within a minute you can publish and share a randomly composed page of interesting, or not so interesting, […]

TED app coming to HP Palm webOS devices

| November 5, 2010

For those of us who enjoy TED Talks, there’s a new app on its way for the HP webOS devices like the Palm Pre that should make content available on the go. According to a post on the Toondoctor, the app will be free as well as ad free. Features Browse, search and view video […]

Tech Friday posted on a Saturday: At-Large Recorder 2

| October 16, 2010

Not that I’ve been all that regular at posting a “tech tip” on Fridays, but I did try out a new video recording program this week. It is called At-Large Recorder 2 (Windows only) by Applian Technologies and is a DVR of sorts for the Slingbox … which is a piece of hardware that broadcast […]

Upgrading Palm Pre apps: I should know better

| October 12, 2010

While struggling to stay productive during my out of town trip last week, I found it necessary to tether my computer to my Palm Pre a couple of times. On previous trips I bragged about MyTether as a way to do this, but after a summer webOS update it no longer works … so I […]

Apple iPhone TV marketing and social networking sites

| October 7, 2010

I don’t recall recall if the Apple iPhone advertisement appeared during the Philly’s no-hitter 4-0 win against the Reds or not, but the ad was intriguing in that the Twitter and Twitpic information had me checking the links. The marketing establish @gagebock account (currently 60-some friends) and Twitpic photo (700+ views) that was used in […]

Tech Friday: Finally adding Disqus commenting to my blog

| October 1, 2010

It’s been on the list of things to do, but since my personal blog isn’t necessarily a ‘must read’ for people, I’ve been slow to adopt a better commenting methods or in this case “discussion” method — Disqus = dis·cuss • d?-sk?s’. After reviewing and listening to the opinions of tech savvy friends, I’ve opted […]

Lastpass.com – a tech Friday tip on a Monday

| September 27, 2010

How do you keep all of your online passwords safe and secure? I’ll admit, I wasn’t all that smart about managing mine. About a month or so ago, a technology friend of mine shared his method of using the stand alone KeyPass Password Safe on his PC and explained how he then plop the encrypted […]

Tech Friday: Simple Thunderbird email add-on to pass on

| September 10, 2010

I’ve used Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client for quite a few years now and as it is with most software, it all in what one get use to using. Recent upgrades have required me to make adjustments to my set-up and I grumbled a bit … but for the most part upgrading to 3.1.3 has been […]

Newsday and the iPad app

| September 10, 2010

While still not quite ready to buy another gadget, I’m thinking a better time to adjust to using an eReader, iPad or tablet device might be winter? 😀

WebOS 1.4.5 requires cleaning & speeding up my Palm Pre

| September 4, 2010

As the Labor Day holiday weekend kicks off, I did some light technology housekeeping chores on my Palm Pre smartphone. Besides finally getting around to smoothing out my app card screen order, I updated my UberKernel and the  Govnah app to include a 1gHz screen-on mode. The doubling of clock speed may be pushing things […]

A buck-forty-three for the new Neato! Palm Pre app today

| August 30, 2010

Every once in a while, the point of sale technique works on me … and today was the day. I coughed up $1.43 for a Palm Pre app called Neato! It’s a simple little application that runs on the webOS smartphone and receives webpage links, copied text and maps from a computer browser using a […]

Finally getting around to the Palm Pre’s webOS 1.4.5 update

| August 25, 2010

A couple day’s before our vacation, Sprint pushed out the webOS 1.4.5 update to Palm webOS phones. I resisted the urge to update prior to leaving (thankfully), as I had some concern that the Pre Backup Utility wouldn’t be sufficient to restore the ‘homebrew’ apps, patches and tweaks I installed over the past year, an […]

The Dell Streak tablet/smartphone ‘tweener’ device

| August 12, 2010

Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal (mp4) calls the Dell Streak a “tweener” device … with a lot of glitches. Download now or watch on posterous 081110ptech_1500k.mp4 (57428 KB)  Operating System Android 1.6   Processors QSD 8250   Bands : UMTS 2100 / 1900 / 850 MHz GSM / EDGE 1900 / 1800 / 900 / […]

SMS celebrates 25 years of text messaging this month

| August 11, 2010

According to Sherri Wells, a leading expert on SMS messaging, the “SMS (Short Message Service) was developed in 1985 by a collaborated effort between Germany and France and was created by Friedhelm Hillebrand, Bernard Ghillebaert, and Oculy Silaban .” Ms. Wells also states that the first practical message was “Happy Christmas” and was sent in […]

NetTalk offers new videophone software for PC

| August 10, 2010

The VOIP service called NetTalk now has a videophone software application for both it’s new DUO and TK6000 device. To used the videophone, the device must be plugged into the USB port rather than functioning as a stand alone box that plugs directly into the router (one of it’s most compelling features). I have not […]

Rethinking eReaders after hauling around fat books

| July 21, 2010

I met my daughter at the Barnes and Noble bookstore tonight and had a chance to play with her electronic Nook reader again, but this time in the store. I have to admit for reading, the screen is excellent and reading text easy even for my presbyopia. Reading from the eReader has me re-thinking that […]

Updated computer-less VOIP NetTalk Duo device announced

| July 16, 2010

The NetTalk VOIP device and service that I use at the house has been far from perfect (initial post), but then again the cost is peanuts compared to landline or many other VOIP services – our device is grandfathered with lifetime service. Usually I’d be smiling to have something like this, but the recent have […]

Chat: How I ended a long term technology relationship

| July 15, 2010

Unfortunately I’ve been forced to end my fax to email service after well over a decade. At one time I had several EFAX or JFax (J2/JConnect) phone numbers, but as business changed so did justifying ‘paying’ for service. I did appreciate receiving faxes to my email box and have used several other freebie sending options, […]

Google Docs now works much better on the Palm Pre

| June 28, 2010

Thanks for the tip Dieter Bohn – PreCentral.net … Google Docs is much improved on the Palm Pre; it is actually usable now!   Fire up Google Docs on your webOS browser and you’ll find a nicer interface, courtesy of Google finally up and getting Document viewing working for Android browsers. The Google Mobile Blog […]

Trying Poster for WordPress on the Palm Pre

| June 23, 2010

Since Palm is encouraging webOS Pre and Pixi users with a half price app sale, I picked up a couple applications including one to manage and post to both WordPress.com and server installed WordPress.org  blog sites. So this is a first post from the Poster for WordPress (for $1.00) app posted from the Palm Pre. The smartphone based […]

Windows: So Easy Even a Child Can Do It

| June 22, 2010

I found this online security story from one of the tech blogs I read interesting. This is from Paul Thurrott who co-wrote the book Windows 7 Secrets who shared a bit about his kids online spending spree. This is amusing to me because my kids are 8 and 12 years old. You may have heard […]

Techie stuff: Canon 550D/T2i & WordPress 3.0 update

| June 19, 2010

I saw some video shot with an under $1000 Canon Rebel T2i/550D camera today that had me drooling to upgrade my digital camera. Although I’m not really in the market for a new 18 megapixel DSLR, the advertising video shot for Amber Mac’s (Amber MacArthur) book Power Friending had me thinking about it. The encoded […]

Sly as a Fox: Or is it just ‘genius’ in Apple’s case?

| June 7, 2010

FLASH VIDEO REMOVED While watching smartphones and connected portable devices (tablets and pads) continue to take center stage in the technology world, it is interesting to contemplate the marketing and “name recognition” angle.  I spotted a forum post sensing that Steve Jobs of Apple knew exactly what he was doing in releasing their new iPhone […]

Sprint 4G HTC EVO started selling Friday

| June 5, 2010

I’ve had my Palm Pre about a year now and have been pretty satisfied with the webOS smartphone. Unfortunately the news coming from the acquiring company, HP, isn’t a confidence builder so it’s time to ponder the options …  still most likely a year away. The buzz at Sprint is the higher data speed from […]

The Palm Pre and Pixi’s future is in question … again

| June 3, 2010

After HP purchased Palm, most developing and carrying around webOS mobile devices had a sigh of relief believed that having a bigger company behind Palm would give them a chance to compete in the crowded handset device market. Unfortunately HP CEO Mark Hurd isn’t seeing things the way Palm advocates did? Thanks for the link […]

Video: Impressive clmc.usc.com ‘LittleDog’ Robot

| May 25, 2010

via youtube.com Posted via web from richc’s posterous

American Express marketing USB gadget – Safe?

| May 3, 2010

American Express continues their rich and creative advertising using USB technology  computer technology to entice card members and ‘would be’ card members to apply for one of their credit cards. I started to ponder the safety of popping the little fold out USB plug into a waiting computer … wondering just who made the card […]

American sized all-electric vehicles by AMP Electric Vehicles

| May 1, 2010

A few years ago when I posted about the opening of AMP Electric Vehicles in my backyard of Blue Ash, Ohio (Cincinnati), the company company was in the planning stages of electrifying two place vehicles like the Pontiac Solace and Saturn Sky. As technology and battery technology improved, so did their vision in building useful […]

B&N Nook gets an upgrade and is selling better than Kindle

| April 26, 2010

Since my daughter left her Barnes and Noble Nook at home, I took advantage of updating to the much speedier and improved version 1.3 software. The eBook reader has substantially improved its page turning and now has a less than exciting web browser. I’m not sure I’d use it for much more than very light […]

Think twice before you Facebook “Like”something on the web

| April 22, 2010

What are you doing when you click the Facebook “Like” button? You might want to think twice before you divulge your taste to companies who might be interested in marketing to you … especially if you prefer your privacy. The social networking giant Facebook has a potential goldmine of user information that can be marketed […]

Slower than expected release reinforced by Adobe’s CEO

| April 19, 2010

Delayed or no delay? In an interview with Fox Business News, Adobe‘s CEO Shantanu Narayen commented that Flash 10.1 for mobile devices would be available in the second half of 2010. Earlier this year many Palm webOS users expected to have Flash available much sooner (link) and have been disappointed in the delay. Some suggest […]

Customer (friend) announcing retirement and a training webinar

| April 14, 2010

It was a melancholy day in that a friend who has been a loyal customer for over 20 years announced his retirement. Of course I’m happy for him in that he’s leaving work with his sanity and will have more time to enjoy life at his own pace. I asked him what his intentions were: […]

Patched Palm Pre to run at 800mhz; so far so good

| April 9, 2010

The weekend has arrived none too soon and I’m securely at home and safe to patch my Palm Pre. I’ve been anxious to see how well it runs with the processor clock speed boosted to 800mhz. I know I’ll need to be careful when overtaxing the processor, but knowing Scott Bilik reads this once in […]

Will the iPad blend?

| April 5, 2010

This Will it Blend video will probably will get a few snickers from those who love their ‘old fashion’ eReaders or just can’t handle all the hype Apple generates from introducing new devices. Posted via email from richc’s posterous

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
My Desultory Blog