Technology Guides

If you have been reading this website, you will realize that I finally bulked up (or bulked down, depending on how you view it) from my Blackberry 8820 to a superphone, the Samsung Galaxy S II. When I was walking to the store to pick it up, I had butterflies in my stomach and I could not wait till it was in my hands. I did a lot of work to acquire this phone and so I was overjoyed to finally have it. With that being said, here’s my review and I’ll try to be as unbiased as possible .

The Device

When people first saw my new phone, the first thing that people said was “Isn’t that phone big?” or something along those lines. I was completely blown away as to how many people said that. In retrospect, yes it is big but isn’t size relative? I mean, when the first iPod Touch came out, wasn’t that a big mp3 player compared to the norm? Yes it has a 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus screen that provides amazing clarity but to me, it’s not big. In fact, this phone is the thinnest and lightest in the Canadian market coming in at 8.49mm and 117g which in my opinion, makes up for the “bigness” of the phone. To put that into perspective, the iPhone has a 3.5″ screen and weighs in at 137g with its thinnest point being 9.3mm. To the casual observer this may not be a striking difference but compare it side-by-side and you’re looking at apples and oranges. They’re both fruit but strikingly different qualities.

I’ll admit that at first it was a little awkward to handle, but like transitioning from a physical keyboard to a virtual one, the end result has left me with no regrets. The ironic thing is, when I go back to my iPod Touch, it feels incredibly small but when I go from my iPad to my Samsung Galaxy S II, I don’t get that same feeling.

Another major difference between the Samsung Galaxy S II are the buttons on the bottom. Most Android smartphones have 4 buttons compared to the SGSII’s 3 which usually goes Menu, Home, Search and Return. I prefer the 3 button scheme that Samsung used on the GS2 because it’s less cluttered and there’s a definable center to it.

Software

I haven’t used the first iteration of the Samsung Galaxy S, but supposedly the new interface, TouchWIZ 4, is a drastic improvement from its predecessor. Most notably, the aesthetics and performance have been improved. I can’t speak much to this because I don’t use the default interface as I have installed an application called GoLauncher EX to replace it. I am currently fiddling with it and finding it quite versatile so I will keep you up to date on that one. Just recently though I updated my SGS2 from the stock 2.3.3 that Bell provides to a custom ROM called Sensation ROM 1.9 that has upgraded me to 2.3.5. The most notable improvements are the battery life (very significant) and when you scroll to the top and bottom, it flashes to let you know it’s reached the end. The call screen is more refined and allows for easier access to contact information. Overall, I’m in love with the software and thus the interface.

Battery Life

As I mentioned above, I’ve upgraded my phone and with that upgrade has come significant battery improvements. Before it would last me from about 10am-2am and the battery would be in critical mode. Thus when I would be heading out that night without my power cord I would recharge it before hitting the town. Now with the upgrade I have no worries as to whether it will last the day or not. On a power hungry day I’ll be down to 25% and on regular days it’ll be closer to 50% battery life left.

Features

Building on the software aspect of this phone, I was surprised to learn with the release of ICS, that a lot of the features that were innovative on it, were already a part of the SGS2. One feature was the “Reject a call with a text message”. This is a really cool feature and was already on my phone when I got it. It comes in handy for sure. I also enjoy the screen after the end of a call where it gives you the option of sending a message or calling again to that same contact. Another “cool” feature in ICS is being able to uninstall apps from the launcher. On my SGS2 I can do hold the apps and click uninstall. I can also drag apps from my home screen up to the top to remove it from the home screen.

Conclusion

Overall I am very happy with my SGS2. The only problem I had with it was the battery life but since that’s been resolved it’s been a dream to have. I still use my iPod Touch as it’s a great music player which I do believe Google still needs to improve on but since I like having two devices anyways I’m happy. Google is making strides with this, with the introduction of Google Music and so it will be interesting to see how it shapes up in the future.

If you have any questions about the SGS2 please don’t hesitate to ask and if any of you have comments about your experience with the SGS2 add them here. Until next time…

Popularity: 9% [?]

In these times, it’s important to save money wherever possible but you still need to get out, enjoy yourself, and splurge once in a while because you deserve it. With the recession hitting us hard, it’s made businesses and it’s killed businesses. One of the types of businesses that keeps on surviving would be discount stores, but the one I’d like to focus on would be the websites that help you find deals. My brother uses this a lot because he’s young and he still has a job that pays well and he likes to travel. So he uses a variety of websites to help him find the best deal on flights and hotels. Now since he lives in the States, he lives so close to many major cities so he usually only looks for hotels. For example, I was with him over the March Break when we went to Vermont and we found a great deal on a Best Western hotel that was up to standards like most Best Western Hotels. Regular price was $110/night, we got it for $54/night and this was on the weekend as well. 

Let me take you further into this with a brief overview of a variety of websites that will help you save money too.

The whole point of this is not to find the cheapest deal out there, but to find you the best value which can mean staying at a 2 000 square foot hotel for $120/night which is peanuts if you think about it. 

Hotwire

This site is great, whether you are living in the United States of America or The Great White North (i.e. Canada). I was amazed at the great deals they are giving in Toronto, ON for next weekend that I was really tempted to buy a weekend stay at a 4-star hotel in Downtown Toronto East just for the heck of it. Now don’t go with it just yet, because there are other measures you can take to find yourself the better deal. This site offers great deals but it’s at a fixed rate.

Hotwire

TravelZoo

This site also offers fixed rates and great deals and this is where my brother booked a hotel room in downtown Boston for 50% off the normal price. This is much harder to navigate and find deals but it’s still worth a try.

Priceline

Now Priceline is where you can really save some money if you’re lucky. Right off the bat they have some decent hotel rates and they organize it in a good fashion just like Hotwire. Priceline makes its money on the regular deals it offers that are usually higher than Hotwire which is why it can offer extroadinary deals with its unique “Name Your Own Price” option.

Priceline Search

Here, deals can be made or lost. The big thing you have to remember when going down this path is you only get one shot. So don’t lowball it but make sure you also don’t put the price too high. Another drawback of this is you don’t know which hotel you are getting. All you know is the area, the amenties and the star level. To me, this is good enough but if you want an exact location because of logistic reasons, it might not be the best way to go, and you might want to pay up for that luxury. 

Priceline Name Your Own Price

So next time you are looking to go on vacation, remember these very special websites as they will always save you money.

Popularity: 6% [?]

One day I was sitting down at my desk and turned on my laptop. I was looking for a file when I realized I had lost it and could not recover it. It tought me a valuable lesson and that was to never delete a file because it might be important later on. That lesson got thrown out the window when I realized that I had too many files piling up and slowing down my computer. So I decided to install a program to help me recover deleted files if I ever needed them again. Microsoft Windows Vista creates shadow copies of every files you have and Ultimate utilizes it to recover them if you need it. Other version of Microsoft Windows Vista cannot recover it, unless you download another 3rd party program like ShadowExplorer or a file recovery utility such as Recuva.

ShadowExplorer

ShadowExplorer as I mentioned before allows you to browse the shadow copies created by the Windows Vista Volume Shadow Copy Service. It needs time to get going so don’t start deleting files as soon as you download it. What this program does is creates a copy of your hard drive for one day and you’ll have to access the deleted file from this day.

ShadowExplorer

This program is a great free alternative to the more expensive programs because it organizes your files at that specific day much better than most. Other programs tend to just show all the deleted files that can include internet cache stuff which is useless.

Recuva

Strangely enough, Recuva, is pronounced “recover” but who cares in my opinion because it is free. The problem I find with this type of recovery utility is the fact that it has to scan your whole hard drive, and not all of the files it finds can be recovered. It also names them different so you have to sift through the different files very carefully.

It is better than ShadowExplorer because it helps bring back files that were lost through a virus, bug or crash which ShadowExplorer doesn’t do as well at. It takes up a small area of your hard drive and you won’t lose much CPU when you run it but that comes with its drawbacks. It’s much slower at finding files because it has to scan whereas ShadowExplorer can almost instantly show you your hard drive at a certain date. The interface is slightly more refined but still equally usable.

Conclusion

Both of these programs will get the job done but offer two different ways to do it. Personally my bet is on ShadowExplorer but it’s better to be safe then sorry sometimes, so why not download both.

Popularity: 9% [?]

On the same day Apple released an update for iTunes, Apple releases a new iPod Shuffle that has everyone talking, including the iPod Shuffle itself. The new Apple iPod Shuffle, scheduled to be released on April 3, 2009 has revolutionized the sub-$100 mp3 market, once again. Not only does it talk with its feature called VoiceOver, but it also is much smaller with a size of 1.8″ by 0.3″. This is about half the size of the previous generation, and that was small, but it is also smaller than a key! There are no controls on the actual device as they have been moved to earphone cord. The 4GB version, which can hold 1000 songs is available at a price of $79 USD or $99 CDN with two colours, black and silver. For some reason they’re phasing out the 2GB version, and keeping the 1GB. If anybody can explain this to me, be my guest. 

New Apple iPod Shuffle

The new iPod Shuffle has some things that might shake your head, but that might just be because your listening to your tunes with it. In any case, I’ve spotted some flaws with it. First off, the headphones with VoiceOver are great but what happens if you lose it or break it. Then you’ll have to shell out another $50 for the earphones themselves and that’s about half the cost of the mp3 player. It’s almost like buying a printer and paying for an ink cartridge. Another small thing is the lack of colour in the lineup. Only silver and black Apple? Come on now. To coincide better with the Nano lineup, I think it’d be better if they released the same colours so one sibling who is older can have a Nano and the younger sibling can have a Shuffle in the same colour. Last but not least, is the fact that the controls are on the headphones so you have zero flexibility in respect to changing headphones (as they fall out of my ear) and if you are using it while running or it’s cold, some people like to loop their headphones under their clothes and then you have a problem with changing tracks. 

With all it’s problems, comes benefits, definitely, in my opinion, outweighing the drawbacks. Previously you could not communicate with the Shuffle because the lack of a screen, but now it’s communicating with you, giving you an update when your battery needs charging or if you want the song/artist name, you can press a button and as the music volume dips, the iPod will tell you. On the new Shuffle, there is now the ability to have multiple playlists with the addition of VoiceOver. There are also 3 different modes of listening to your music, shuffle (if it didn’t have this feature, what would they call it?),  straight, and just regular.

Conclusion

This is without any doubt in my mind that this is the best Apple iPod Shuffle to date. Who knows what they’ll think of next. My hope would be a way to call someone. But that’s just a wish, first they’ll have to do it on the Nano. What’s your wish?

Popularity: 7% [?]

Digital cameras have become better quality, cheaper and with more choice, it’s sometimes hard to choose which ones right for you. But in any case, more people have digital cameras and more people have the internet which is why there are more choices to edit your photos online, and for free. There are four sites that I highly recommend. Photoshop Express, Splashup, Picnik, and Fotoflexer.

Photoshop Express

Photoshop Express gives every user a fairly familiar interface. Some of the buttons from Photoshop are here, but only the basic ones such as touchup, resize and distort. They have just added a Beta Decoration tab which is nothing special at all. The reason I do like it though, is because of its huge and clean interface as well as the ability to save your photos in a library online. The drawback is you do have to make an account although you can take a test drive to see how it works. It doesn’t provide a quick job, as you have to sign in, but it’s one of the quicker sites to use.

Splashup

This site is new to me. I came across it while doing this review. I was surprised to see it uses the same core as Photoshop Express and that’s the new Adobe AIR. This lets websites work much faster and it shows on Splashup. The great thing about Splashup is it looks like a real piece of software as it has the toolbar on top with File, Edit, and so on. It also is heavily based on Photoshop as the layout is virtually the same. An interesting fact is that it is one of the only web editors that will allow you to select a portion of the image and apply an effect. Usually you have to apply the effect on the whole image. Splashup uses layers which is very helpful when you want to do some more creative stuff. The downside is it isn’t very intuitive, much like Photoshop. 

Picnik

PC World gave Picnik top marks but I’m not a total fan. Yes I admit that it is very intuitive and fun to go on, but it doesn’t have all the features I’d like it to have for what I normally do. To me it has very basic features except for it’s resizing tool which does a great job I must say. It’s much faster that what every other editer has and it does allow you to print, unlike any online editor I’ve seen. 

Fotoflexer

I’ve saved best for last, because that’s what I do. Fotoflexer I will say right off the bat is that it is slow. But it makes up for that in a massive amount of useful tools such as it’s form of magic wand as well as other unique tools. Surprisingly, Photoshop Express and Splashup which is heavily based on Photoshop, does not have. It has 34 effects and you can go in full-screen mode. You are allowed to upload more than one image at a time which is great for editing images heavily. The tools are seperated into different categories and the only problem I found with that, is it’s hard to figure out which one a tool may be in as you can only see one category at a time. 

What to download for Editing Photos for Free on Your  Desktop

If you want something special for your desktop that you’ll always have access to, I highly recommend Paint.Net. It’s free, offers a ton of tools comparable to Photoshop and it has a much friendlier interface, almost like a Mac. To download Paint.Net go to download.com. It is compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista and you can get it for Mac.

Popularity: 7% [?]

I’m sure you’ve heard many times that the Apple iPod Touch is basically the same as the Apple iPhone except for a few notable differences. The Apple iPhone has a camera and can make calls. Well not anymore. With a free application from the App Store, now the only difference between these two devices is the fact that the iPhone has a camera.

Download Fring or TruPhone from the App Store. I prefer Fring as it offers not only free calling, but it offers Skype, MSN, Twitter, Google Talk and much more. Once you’ve done that, register for all the services that you apart of and now you are one step closer to start calling. You are allowed to dial straight from the Cellular tab within Fring. A small drawback for the application, Fring, is that when you search for your buddies it will only look at the beginning of the personal name. For example. Your buddy Bob has an email called bob@cool.com and has a personal name called (L) Bob (L). If you search bob, nothing will up. If you search (L), Bob will come up. This search feature is horrible for people who have friends that constantly change their name.

Next, what you’ll need is a set of headphones much like the Apple iPhone ones that offer a pair of headphones and microphone. Xpress Canada offers very cheap in-ear headphones that offer the required mic.

If you’re looking for a more true calling application then TruPhone is the better option. It allows you to make free Wi-Fi calls with VoIP with other Touch users and Google Talk users. They have plans to add the ability to place calls to landlines. They also plan to offer services such as MSN, Twitter, Skype and Facebook.

Do you have a different method for turning your iPod Touch into a phone? If so, share it here.

Update: The new Apple iPod Touch that will be released sometime in September will have a built-in mic so you won’t have to buy headphones with a microphone. Read about the new Apple iPod Touch.

Popularity: 33% [?]