Reviews

Google Docs: Word Herding

by Scott Roche April 26, 2011 Reviews

This will be the first post in a multi-part post on the phenomenal tool that is Google Docs. First I tackle their Document features.

I write a lot more these days than I used to. I’m also collaborating on a staggering number of projects, and I need an easy way to share, create, and edit documents from any computer I happen to be near. I have a computer at work and two at home (one of which is a Mac) so while something like Dropbox might work, it’s not quite what I’m looking for. I need something that’s platform and software independent. Enter Google Docs.

Rating: 4.7/5 (3 votes cast)

This is a preview of Google Docs: Word Herding. Read the full post (624 words, 2 images, estimated 2:30 mins reading time)

Tagged as: Google Docs

2 comments

SpamCop.net

by Doc Coleman April 11, 2011 Reviews

Everyone hates spam. I’m not talking about the canned luncheon meat that has many fans and detractors, I’m talking about the untold volumes of unwanted e-mail that fills your mailbox, offering you “opportunities” to have larger breasts, lose weight quickly, to make millions with no effort using Multi-Level-Marketing, or to gain ill-gotten millions by helping some Nigerian widow unfreeze the assets of her late husband. All of these are scams, most if not all of them are illegal in some part of the world, and for our purposes we can just consider them to be fraud comitted via e-mail. So what can you do about it? How can you stop the endless flood of spam into your inbox? How can you complain and set the police after these guys?

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

This is a preview of SpamCop.net. Read the full post (769 words, 6 images, estimated 3:05 mins reading time)

Tagged as: SpamCop.net

0 comments

Plain Text

by Scott Roche March 28, 2011 iOS

I’m a big fan of programs that do precisely what I need them to do – no more, no less. It seems that the folks at Hog Bay Software are of the same mind, because their free app Plain Text is a great example of just that. I’ve been enjoying my iPhone immensely and one of the things I wanted was a basic text editor. I don’t plan on writing any novels on the micro computer, but the idea of being able to take a few notes here or there appealed to me.

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

This is a preview of Plain Text. Read the full post (510 words, 1 image, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Tagged as: Hog Bay, iPad, iPhone, PlainText, text editor

5 comments

Nike+ GPS

by Doc Coleman March 14, 2011 iOS

As spring approaches and the weather gets warmer, parts of the world shift to Daylight Savings Time, and many folks turn their minds towards the things that they can do to get themselves into shape. There are a lot of products out there to help you track your diet or your exercise. Some even track both. Most of these tools require you to know what you’ve done in terms of exercise so that you can record it. Today’s review is for a product that watches you while you exercise, tracks your progress, and give you the data you need to put into your other tracking utilities. We’re looking at Nike’s latest tool to end all tools for runners, Nike+ GPS.

Rating: 4.0/5 (4 votes cast)

This is a preview of Nike+ GPS. Read the full post (1789 words, 11 images, estimated 7:09 mins reading time)

Tagged as: Nike+ GPS

20 comments

iTeleport

by Doc Coleman February 15, 2011 iOS

[Editor - Sorry for the delay in getting this one out folks. Unfortunately, there is little that you can do when your guts kick you in themselves. Hope you enjoy.]

Ever go off somewhere, to a meeting, or to visit a friend, and realize that you wanted to show something on your computer to someone? Maybe you had your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad along with you, and you checked Dropbox and Evernote and cursed yourself because the file wasn’t in either one, but was safely on your computer at home, just out of reach. Well, if you have iTeleport installed, that file won’t be out of reach anymore. You’ll be able to connect to your home computer, find the file and drop it into Dropbox, e-mail it, or anything else you want!

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

This is a preview of iTeleport. Read the full post (1466 words, 14 images, estimated 5:52 mins reading time)

Tagged as: iTeleport

4 comments

AVG Anti-Virus

by Scott Roche January 31, 2011 Featured

My personal philosophy when it comes to anti-viruses is, so long as you follow a few simple rules they shouldn’t be necessary. Most of the big name commercial anti-virus packages are what I call “bloat-ware”. They slow down even the newest computers and in my experience either lull people into a false sense of security or bombard their owners with too many “false positives”. As a result I actually don’t load them on my personal computers as a general rule.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

This is a preview of AVG Anti-Virus. Read the full post (658 words, 2 images, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)

Tagged as: AVG Anti-Virus, Security

9 comments

Craptech: The Apple iPad Dock

by Doc Coleman January 17, 2011 Craptech

Normally, here at The Nifty Tech Blog, we try to bring you examples of the best and most useful technology available. If it doesn’t measure up to that yardstick, we just don’t mention it. Or we wait and watch it to see if it manages to rise above the pack and ask for our notice. But sometimes we run into a product that just utterly fails to provide any kind of utility. For those products, we created the category of Craptech. These are the products that are full of so much fail that everyone had best be warned not to waste their money on them. And the first one of these products that we are going to talk about is the Apple iPad Dock.

This is a preview of Craptech: The Apple iPad Dock. Read the full post (716 words, 6 images, estimated 2:52 mins reading time)

Tagged as: iPad

5 comments

Scrambled Bits – Part Three: TrueCrypt

by Scott Roche January 3, 2011 Featured

In parts one and two of this series I talked to you about the encryption software native to the newer versions of Windows. Contrary to what some would like to believe there are a lot of older versions of Windows still running around out there. There are also a number of operating systems other than those put out by Microsoft that people are fond of. And that’s not counting people that aren’t fond of Vista or Windows 7. So what if you find yourself in this group?

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

This is a preview of Scrambled Bits – Part Three: TrueCrypt. Read the full post (551 words, 3 images, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

Tagged as: TrueCrypt

0 comments

Scrivener 2.0

by Guest Author December 20, 2010 Featured

[This week's review for The Nifty Tech Blog is a Guest Review by author Philippa Ballantine. Pip is the author of Geist and the co-author of the forthcoming Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel. We are happy to have Pip's review as part of her Blog Tour promoting the release of Geist.

Some notes not included in Pip's review: Scrivener is published by Literature & Latte Ltd. and costs $45 . Up until this year, it has been Mac OS only, and developed by Keith Blount. But now Keith is assisted by a number of contributors, and a new Windows version is now in public beta. But enough of me, here's Pip! Enjoy! - Editor]

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

This is a preview of Scrivener 2.0. Read the full post (980 words, 10 images, estimated 3:55 mins reading time)

Tagged as: Philippa Ballantine, Scrivener

2 comments

Scrambled Bits – Part Two: BitLocker To Go

by Scott Roche December 6, 2010 Reviews

Previously on “Scrambled Bits” I told you about how to encrypt your computer’s hard drive using a Windows tool called Bit Locker. It’s fairly straightforward and better yet it’s free. Even more important than encrypting a PC’s hard drive, is encrypting the ubiquitous USB drives that so many people carry in their pockets. It’s easy enough to misplace them and without encryption any stranger can plug one into any PC and read its contents.