Archive for the ‘Applications’ Category

Adventures in Moving to Windows 7

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

by Brian Underdahl

Well, Windows 7 is here and it’s been creating a lot of buzz. Having sat out the upgrade to Vista due to incompatible systems, I was quite pleased when Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor indicated that I could move to Windows 7. What didn’t please me was finding out that you can’t directly upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7–at least not unless you are ready to reinstall everything. I didn’t really want to try and find all of the program CDs, downloaded install files, and product keys. Fortunately I heard about a program that promised to make things much easier.

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Don’t Rent What You Already Own

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

by Brian Underdahl

GPS navigation is a wonderful tool. With it you can confidently find your way to almost any destination and you don’t have to ask anyone for directions, either. Having GPS navigation built into your Smartphone means that you should always be ready to travel. But there’s one little problem and it’s that many cell service providers expect you to pay extra to actually use your Smartphone’s GPS features. In effect, they want you to rent something you already own-the GPS receiver in your Smartphone. (more…)

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Opera Mobile on the Pharos Traveler 137

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

by Brian Underdahl 

The Pharos Traveler 137 smartphone gives you choices. As a Windows Mobile device it can use many of the thousands of different applications which have been developed for Windows Mobile over the past ten years. One of those applications, Opera Mobile, is a Web browser which provides an excellent alternative to Internet Explorer. Opera Mobile is one of the extras which comes already installed on the Traveler 137.

Opera Mobile offers many features to make Web browsing on the Traveler 137 enjoyable. For example, you can open three Websites in different tabs, you can easily zoom in or out on a page, and you can use touch-and-sweep gestures to quickly navigate on a page. Opera’s browsers are well known for fast performance, too.

Let’s have a quick look at how Opera Mobile works on the new Traveler 137. (more…)

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An Interesting Traveling Companion

Sunday, July 13th, 2008

by Brian Underdahl

If you have the money to travel you probably have your share of gadgets, too.  Today’s review tells you about a handy little application that will make at least one of those gadgets into a more useful travel too. It may even save you from an embarassing situation!

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Automate and Forget

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

by Brian Underdahl

When was the last time you backed up your files? You don’t quite remember, do you? Sure, everyone knows they should make backups on a regular basis, but almost no one ever does. In a way, backing up your files is a lot like preparing an emergency kit so you’ll be able to grab the important stuff and run when a disaster hits–it’s just too much trouble and besides, it will never happen to you, right?

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Dump Your Long Distance Bill

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

by Brian Underdahl

Some years ago we signed up for a long distance plan with our local phone company and at first we were happy with the plan. But you probably know the drill. Sure, it started out fine at $3 per month and 3 cents per minute, but the phone company wasn’t happy with that level of profit (come on, how much does it REALLY cost the phone company for the minutes?).

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This Is So Weird It’s Cool!

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

The other day someone said that I should give CrazyTalk 5 Pro a try. It’s not like I need more things to do, but my friend thought I might have a little fun with it so I said I’d have a look. What is CrazyTalk, you ask? Well, it’s called a “face puppet animation studio”, but when you see the results you’re more likely to say that it’s creepy, weird, or something similar–along with “that’s really cool!”

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