Software

WordPress

by Doc Coleman February 14, 2012 Reviews

One of the hallmarks of Nifty Tech is the fact that it takes work off of your hands. As a result, one very easily begins to take it for granted. The tech blends into the background, and instead you focus on just getting things done. This week I’m going to be looking at a piece of tech that I’ve been taking for granted for a while. This may not be useful for many, but for some of you, it could be very interesting, indeed. Today, we’re looking at WordPress.

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

This is a preview of WordPress. Read the full post (1171 words, 8 images, estimated 4:41 mins reading time)

Tagged as: Wordpress

2 comments

EEE Pad Transformer

by Scott Roche September 26, 2011 Android

I’ve been wanting a tablet for a long, looonnnnng time. To tell you the truth, apart from the coolness factor, I couldn’t tell you why, but I was told to get whatever I wanted for my birthday. My Mom had planned on throwing me a big party, and that hadn’t materialized. So, she gave me the money she would have spent. Now was my time to decide. So what did I chose and why? The former should be answered by the title of this review. The later is a much larger answer.

I could have gotten the bottom end of the iPad range with the money I had. I thought about it though, and the iPad is still a flawed device in my opinion. As sexy as it is, a lack of Flash support, internal SD card support, and dual cameras – in the model I would have gotten – are all major short-comings.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

This is a preview of EEE Pad Transformer. Read the full post (972 words, 4 images, estimated 3:53 mins reading time)

Tagged as: Android, EEE Pad Transformer

5 comments

Waze

by Doc Coleman June 6, 2011 Android

For some time now, we’ve been looking at different turn by turn navigation apps. We’ve seen a number of them that were pretty good, but costly, some that were decent, but free, and even a few that were very useful, but required an annual subscription. The big problem with turn by turn apps has been traffic. Add some traffic problems and the best GPS can become worthless, unless it can route you around the traffic. As a general rule, a dedicated GPS tends to do a better job, but there are times when your dedicated GPS fails or isn’t available. Having an app on your smart phone can make the difference between getting there and getting lost. While Waze isn’t perfect, it does have an innovative take on managing the traffic issue that we think makes it worth the look.

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

This is a preview of Waze. Read the full post (1190 words, 9 images, estimated 4:46 mins reading time)

Tagged as: Waze

3 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: 3.7/5 (3 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

14 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

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.