Monthly Archives: June 2012

Episode Links

More Links for Episode 02: One Browser to Rule Them All…

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On this week’s episode J.D. and I discussed my search for a browser that would sync my bookmarks across multiple OSes and devices. The hunt was precipitated by my frustration with the Safari browser. Of course you could save yourself a lot of hassle and just throw money at the problem by signing up for a service like Xmarks but with two mini-Kaisers at home I have to watch every pfennig.

I settled on a dual approach with Atomic Web Browser and Skyfire for Flash enabled sites on my iPad. I also tried the stripped down, very fast, and apparently home brewed Perfect Web Browser. Mercury, from iLegendSoft, offers support for Firefox Sync but I found the Firefox Home app easier to use for accessing my bookmarks.

On the Google Android front I encountered many of the same apps that I did on iOS. The zippy Puffin Browser is available on iOS and Android and supports Flash. Dolphin HD is also available on both platforms but despite the developers claim that it is easy to use I found it difficult to get used to.

If you’ve listened to Episode 02 you already know that Opera and Firefox both came the closest to being the one browser to rule them all but a strong contender was Maxthon. No support for Mac OS X forced it out of the race but It is an impressive browser on iPad, Windows and Android.

 

 

Software

UPDATE: The Kaiser Chooses a New Default Desktop Web Browser…and Continues Referring to Himself in the 3rd Person

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Long time listeners know I don’t do the “change thing” so well. Actually, that’s not 100% accurate. What I don’t do is hop on bandwagons. I am NOT an early adopter. Every time I go against my better judgement and get the newest breathlessly over-hyped doohickey or doodad I am invariably burned. Exhibit A: the Blackberry Playbook. I rest my case.

I’ve been a Firefox user for ages, but only after waiting an appropriate time while it worked out its kinks in beta, and learned to accept the pokiness of running the 32-Bit app on my 64-Bit Windows machines. When the super-speedy Google Chrome came along I tried to love it but I’m still not comfortable with it. The Chrome icon sits on my Windows 7 desktop like a sports car that spends most of its existence under wraps in the garage, only making rare appearances to impress friends.

Enter the Mozilla-based Waterfox 64-Bit browser. The makers of Waterfox 13 claim it is the fastest 64-Bit variant of Firefox. While I can’t claim to have speed tested every 64-Bit variant of Firefox out there I can say with certainty that it is an incredibly fast desktop browser for Windows — but still not as fast as Chrome. Doesn’t matter to me at all though since what sold me on Waterfox is that it looks identical to Firefox PLUS all my add-ons worked without a hitch. The speed difference between Waterfox and Firefox is significant on my desktop with an 8 core CPU but still quite noticeable on my laptops. While Waterfox 13 won’t be capturing all that many checkered flags it won’t be eating much dust either.

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint, Episode Links

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint: PDF Files on Hand

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Want to stash those important documents, receipts, confirmation numbers or other files on your phone before you go someplace? Here’s how.

Step One: Convert File to PDF 

On the Mac, you can quickly make a PDF out of a Web page, email message or other document just by pressing Command-P. Yes, this is the Print box, but in the bottom corner is a button marked PDF. Click on that to se a menu of options, including Save as PDF.

On Windows, there several options that let you make PDFs out of Web pages and other documents. Cute PDF Writer, the browser add-on Web2PDF or even with the Google Chrome browser.

Step Two: Move the PDF File to Your Phone

There are a number of ways to transfer the PDF files from the computer to the phone. You can email the PDFs as attachments and open them on the handset. (Just make sure you don’t have personal information in the documents that you may not want to email openly.)

Just open the message, select the attachment icon and save it in a PDF-ready app like iBooks  or the mobile version of Adobe Reader X for iOS or Android. There are a ton of third-party PDF apps out there, like EverNote, GoodReader or PDF Expert.

If you want to avoid emailing, you can also sync PDF files to an iPhone through iTunes. You can also copy files from the computer to an Android phone with a file manager app (Kaiser Pedro likes Astro File Manager).

So the next time you need to refer to these documents you’ve saved, you don’t need to dig through your email app or struggle with one bar of signal strength. The files are right there — ready and waiting on your phone.

Episode Links

Episode 02 News: Time to Drink the Donuts

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The Electronic Entertainment Expo brought its usual flurry of gamed-related news this year. Sony’s new Wonderbook peripheral for interactive storybooks on the PlayStation 3 looks especially interesting, especially since J.K. Rowling (She of Harry Potter Fame) has created the first title, The Book of Spells, to let Hogwarts wannabes practice heir wizarding lessons on the big screen. Nintendo also announced 23 titles that will ship when its fancy new Wii U game system hits stores later this year, including Batman: Arkham City, Super Mario Brothers U. and Pikmin 3.

Microsoft isn’t just sitting still. Representatives showed off the company’s new SmartGlass technology that links all your screens — Xbox, tablet, computer, smartphone, etc. — together to share movies and games on whatever device you happened to be using at the time. Oh, and Microsoft officially buried the Zune brand (2006-2016) for good with the move to “Xbox Music and Windows Phone Marketplace just passed the 100,000 apps mark.

In non-gaming news, Google bought QuickOffice, the productivity suite of apps that lets users create and edit files in Microsoft Office formats on iOS, Android and Symbian-based mobile devices.

Is Facebook losing its mojo? While it hasn’t slid into AOL Oblivion quite yet, a new online poll out from Reuters and research firm Ipsos has found that four out of five Facebook users surveyed have never brought a product or service because they saw an ad or a comment about it on Facebook. The poll also found that 34 percent of Facebook users surveyed were spending less time on the site than they were six months ago. 20 percent of users, however, were spending more time on the site. A poll from the Associated Press and CNBC last month also found that 57 percent of Facebook users polled said they never click on ads or other sponsored content when they use the site.

And finally, vodka that tastes like glazed donuts? Who knew? I doubt we’ll partake of 360 Glazed Donut, but we’ll definitely be celebrating National Donut Day next year.