Shai Perednik.com » Bluetooth

DriveSafe.ly Reads Messages Aloud and Auto-Responds for You

System — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:20:04 +0000

Automatically pulled from Google Starred

I know some people who just won’t keep their hands off of their telephones while they drive, no matter how much I chide them. Combine this with the fact that most states either have or are considering laws that prohibit texting while driving, and it’s clear that keeping your eyes on your mobile device when they should be on the road isn’t just dangerous for you, it’s dangerous for everyone around you.

If you’re the type who can’t resist a glance at your mobile phone while you’re behind the wheel, there’s DriveSafe.ly, a new mobile app that will read your incoming text messages aloud to you so you don’t have to take your eyes or your focus off of the road. Additionally, the app will automatically respond to incoming text messages to let the sender know you’re on the road and you’ll get back to them when you get to your destination.

DriveSafe.ly is currently available for BlackBerry smartphones and mobile phones running Android. The developers are working on versions for the iPhone and Windows Mobile, and claim they’re coming soon. The fact that the apps are free is what’s really compelling: -ou don’t have to pay to stay safe, and the fact that there’s no cost associated with downloading and running the app means more people will use it if they know about it.

The app doesn’t just work with text messages: if you’re an e-mail junkie and love to check your incoming messages at every red light or down every straight piece of road, DriveSafe.ly can also read your e-mails to you in real time as they land in your inbox. The app even recognizes common abbreviations like LOL and BRB and will read them to you in context. Once you have the app running on your mobile device, you can just sit it on the seat next to you and it’ll read everything aloud to you as you get it.

If your phone is Bluetooth-capable or you have it paired with your car’s stereo system, DriveSafe.ly will push the audio out via Bluetooth so you can hear it over your car’s speakers instead of your device’s tiny speakerphone.

For added benefit, you can configure DriveSafe.ly to auto-respond to text messages and e-mails that you receive while the app is running. This feature is perfect for the nagging boss who insists you immediately respond to their e-mails and texts no matter what, or if you just want to let your friends know that you’re on your way to the party and they can stop texting you to ask where you are.

The basic version of DriveSafe.ly is free, and likely works well enough for most people. The free version reads up to 25 words per message and includes the optional text and e-mail auto-responder. The “pro” version reads up to 500 words per message, lets you choose between a female or male voice (the basic version has only the female voice) and lets you choose the voice used based on the gender of the person sending you a text or e-mail, and also includes the text and e-mail auto-responder. The pro version is available for a one-time fee of $13.95, or you can pay a $3.95 monthly subscription for it.

Whether you’re the type who can’t resist a peek at your mobile phone while you’re driving or you know someone who is, DriveSafe.ly is a worthwhile download. In fact, take your friend’s BlackBerry away from them and download DriveSafe.ly for them – the app can give you the peace of mind of knowing what’s going on at the office or on your phone while you’re driving, but also keep you and everyone around you safe and focused on the road. Best of all, the basic version of the app is free, so you have no excuse not to use it while driving.

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DriveSafe.ly Reads Messages Aloud and Auto-Responds for You originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on October 11, 2009.

New Motherboard Coming From Asus

System — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:40:03 +0000

Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online

Asus AT3N7A-I – that’s the name of the new Ion-based motherboard launched on the market. The team at BlogEee prepared a review of it:

The motherboard packs a 1.6 GHz Dual-core Atom 330 processor and supports Dual-channel DDR2 800MHz memory, 7.1 channels audio (S/PDIF also), Bluetooth, eSATA and SATA connections. The HDMI port is also present in order to benefit of the 1080p video rendering on a large screen. Displaying a Mini-ITX format coupled with all these features, the board is intended for use in Media-Centers or HTPCs.

Asus AT3N7A-I

Source

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New Motherboard Coming From Asus originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on August 29, 2009.

Kinpo N03 11.6? notebook packs VIA Nano, WiMAX

System — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:01:15 +0000

Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online

Taiwan’s Kinpo Electronics has introduced a new mini-laptop that stands out from the crowd a bit in a few areas. First, the Kinpo N03 (PDF link)has a VIA Nano processor. That’s not that unusual these days, especially on an 11.6 inch model with a 1366 x 768 pixel display. But the laptop also has integrated 3G and WiMAX support, as well as WiFi and Bluetooth.

The N03 can handle up to 2G of RAM and runs wither Windows XP or WIndows Home Basic. The laptop has a 4000mAh battery, 3 USB ports, a 2.5″ hard drive or a solid state disk, and an SD card reader. It weighs less than 2.9 pounds and measures 11.1″ x 7.8″ x 1.1″.

It looks like you can pick one up in China from Alibaba for $350, but I wouldn’t expect to see this laptop released globally at that price, (or with the Kinpo brand name still attached).

via PC World

Post from: Liliputing

Kinpo N03 11.6″ notebook packs VIA Nano, WiMAX

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Kinpo N03 11.6? notebook packs VIA Nano, WiMAX originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on August 8, 2009.

27 Bluetooth-enabled Multiplayer iPhone Games

System — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:40:12 +0000

Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online

The iPhone/iPod 3.0 OS allows third-party applications to utilize the device’s Bluetooth capabilities for two-player games. The first (and only) application I had that supported this in an update was Flight Control, and since then, whenever my wife and I are on a train, we occupy our time playing this.

The huge advantage of multiplayer Bluetooth compared with Wi-Fi is that you just need the two devices, no Wi-Fi access points or Internet connectivity is required. This is truly awesome, although as we cry, “Arrrgh sooo close!” loudly on public transport we can get some strange looks. We’ve loved playing Flight Control, but I thought that by now there must be a good number of other Bluetooth-enabled games. So I’ve searched the App Store and found the following games are the only ones that support multiplayer gameplay over Bluetooth. This list will hopefully grow soon with more complex quality titles.

Flight Control — 99 cents

Direct planes so they can land without crashing into each other. Each player controls different colors and needs to send the other player’s colors off screen to the other player’s device.

F.A.S.T – Fleet Air Superiority Training — $1.99

For great graphics and a true dog-fighting two-player experience.

Bomberman Touch 2 – Volcano Party — $2.99

Play the classic Bomberman game against a friend in either head-to-head mode, or co-operative mode.

Attack From the Dead — 99 cents

Play with a friend in zombie killing, co-operative mode action.

iSamurai Bluetooth — 99 cents

Swing your phone around like a samurai sword and have a sword fight with a friend.

Showdown Poker — 99 cents

Play poker against a friend.

Showdown Quickdraw — Free

Have a Wild West-style gun-slinging match with a friend.

Tank War – Bluetooth Battle — 99 cents

Battle a friend with tanks in a bitter neon colored war.

Attack – Wireless Bluetooth Space Battle — 99 cents

If you don’t like tanks, maybe you prefer to fight in spaceships instead. Battle head-to-head.

Tic-Tac-Touch: FS5 — Free

It’s Tic-Tac-Toe; what else is there to say?

Touch4 FS5 — Free

Remember playing Connect 4 from your childhood? Relive the experience.

Briscola — $1.99

Play the Italian card game “Briscola” against a friend.

Heads Up Poker 3G — Free

This is another multiplayer Poker game.

SG Mahjong — 99 cents

This lets you play Mahjong against up to four people at once.

Scopa — $3.99

Play the Italian card game “Scopa” against a friend.

ShapeShape — 99 cents

In a game that looks like a cheap knock-off of Rolando, two-player mode lets you race against a friend to finish a level, as well as allowing you to share custom levels made with the level editor.

Pong – iPhone Edition — 99 cents

There couldn’t be a more simple game than pong, the first computer game ever made.

Checkers Lite — Free

The classic game of checkers. Everyone knows checkers.

Combat On Palm — Free

Two player head to head space combat action.

Trivia Wars — 99 cents

Challenge a friend to a trivia content.

Mancala Lite — Free

Play the game of Mancala against friends.

Reversi Lite — Free

Play the age-old game of Reversi (also known as Othello) against a friend.

iPunchOut Boxing — 99 cents

Have boxing battles against a friend by holding onto your device tightly and swinging your fists around.

Speed Lite — Free

Play the card game of Speed against a friend.

Cheap Tactics — 99 cents

Challenge a friend to this simple strategy RPG game.

BattleFrogs — 99 cents

Similar to Battleships, but with frogs on lily pads. Guess where a friend has placed their frogs by throwing rocks.

Bluetooth Hot Potato — 99 cents

Pass the hot potato to other players before it burns up.

No doubt that despite my searching efforts I may have missed a game — or perhaps one has just been released. Let us know your favorite Bluetooth multiplayer game in the comments.

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27 Bluetooth-enabled Multiplayer iPhone Games originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on July 20, 2009.

It Must Be Nice to Be Verizon

System — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:00:11 +0000

Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online

It must be nice to be Verizon right now. Free from the intense scrutiny AT&T receives by having the hottest and “smartest” smartphone, it can appear to rise above it all. It can have TV ads to claim the best network on the planet, and it’s done. It can have legions of people claiming they’d drop AT&T in a heartbeat, or snap up an iPhone tomorrow, if only it could be on its network.

Even setting aside that the iPhone on Verizon would not likely be the iPhone we recognize, this is ridiculous.

Before we get into it, let me first say that if you live where there’s little or no AT&T coverage, then obviously Verizon or another carrier is what you need. But every carrier has holes in its coverage. Every. One. This article isn’t about that.

No, what this article is about are those places (and there are many) where either carrier is an option. In that case, there are general perceptions where Verizon seems to either have people fooled, or it’s no different than AT&T but it isn’t noticed.

It must be nice to sell phones with less usability than the iPhone so your customers don’t hammer your network, and then sit back and let people assume you could handle the load under which AT&T is straining.
It must be nice to utilize the same pricing and subsidy strategies as AT&T, but get to remain above the fray while AT&T takes the heat for what the whole industry is doing.
It must be nice to charge for carrier cash cows like SMS and tethering, but have everybody only complain about AT&T doing it.
It must be nice to brag about having visual voice mail on some phones, while quietly hiding that it’s an extra $3 a month.
It must be nice to not allow convenient syncing of data, media, bookmarks, etc., via the excellent iTunes environment, instead using clumsier tools if anything is allowed at all, and have your customers just take it in stride.
It must be nice to disable hardware features on many phones, such as Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi, with little complaint from the masses.
It must be nice to avoid GSM, still using CDMA-based technology that the rest of the world (and AT&T) has abandoned. Its rollout to a 4G network could come with headaches as a result.
It must be nice to brag about 3G speeds, and have no one point out that your CDMA 3G technology (EV-DO) can handle voice or data, but not both simultaneously. Browsing the web when a call comes in? You can have the call or the web, not both. Oops.

If Verizon received even half the scrutiny AT&T does, it’d be buried with criticism. If AT&T is getting a lot of bad press, Verizon would be ripped to shreds. But since it doesn’t offer a phone that’s particularly compelling, one that taxes its network, one that people actually want to use, few have bothered to look beyond the geek with the glasses it puts on TV. It must be nice.

Finally, this in not intended as a defense of AT&T, and in no way excuses it from legitimate complaints. I’ve certainly grown tired of all that company’s talk, but no action. However, the idea that Verizon would somehow be free from all these complaints — even assuming it allowed the iPhone as is — is not supported by its own actions. As a U.S. carrier it has far more in common with AT&T than people seem to realize.

I was a Verizon customer for years prior to switching for an iPhone over two years ago. The “Verizon envy” many AT&T customers possess is akin to the grass always being greener on the other side. Problem is, most of you would find out it’s crabgrass.

Market research you can use:
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It Must Be Nice to Be Verizon originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on July 20, 2009.

Eee PC hack: Adding an LED for Twitter, IM, Email notifications

System — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:20:03 +0000

Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online

Most netbooks have a handful of status LEDs that let you know when the computer is charging, when the hard drive is active, or when the WiFi or Bluetooth are turned on. But honestly, how often do you need those indicators? Wouldn’t it be more useful if you had an LED that lit up when you received a new email or instant message?

That’s exactly what netbook hacker Justblair decided he wanted, so he added an extra LED to the top left corner of his Eee PC 901 and wired it to light up when he receives incoming messages. The project uses an AtMel AtTiny45 microprocessor, a 5mm red, green, and blue LED, and a few other electronics components including diodes and resisters that should make it clear this hack is not for beginners.

For details and background on the project, make sure to check out Justblair’s blog.

Post from: Liliputing

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Eee PC hack: Adding an LED for Twitter, IM, Email notifications originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on July 6, 2009.

Best of the Best: Hive Five Winners, March through June 2009 [Hive Five]

System — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:20:05 +0000

Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online

The year is flying by, and so are our readers’ picks for software, hardware, and other tools. Come on in to see the winners of our Hive Five polls for the second quarter of 2009.

Every week we pose a question to you, the saavy and experienced Lifehacker readers. Pulling from current trends, popular reader suggestions, and our own brainstorming sessions, we search out the next “Which is best?” question to put before the collective knowledge of the Lifehacker readership. We read all your comments, tally all your votes, and summarize the top five contenders for you. You vote on the best of the best and we return the next week with the champion.

The following list showcases the winners in each of the categories we covered in the second quarter of 2009. If a particular category catches your eye and you’d like to see the other contenders, click on the name of the category to to jump to the original Hive Five post; clicking on the name of the winner takes you directly to the web site for the software.

Best Image Editing Tool: Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop has achieved such status in the design community and such widespread recognition by the general public that even non-designers recognize what someone is saying when they exclaim, “That’s photoshopped!” Many of the techniques and methods that are standard across photo editing software were pioneered in Photoshop, like layers, slices, and image correcting macros and filters. On its own Photoshop is a titan of photo editing power, but thanks to a nearly complete dominance in the graphic editing industry, there are entire companies devoted to creating plugins for it. When it comes to manipulating images, if you can’t do it in Photoshop, there’s a strong chance you won’t be able to do it at all. Photo by HVarga.

Best Portable Operating System: Ubuntu

The same qualities that make Ubuntu so popular as a desktop operating system and live CD bring it a lot of popularity as a portable operating system. Ubuntu isn’t the smallest portable OS in the portable operating systems Hive Five, but thanks to a number of factors, including strong saturation in the Linux market and an easy to use tool built right for flash-drive installations, Ubuntu makes a great addition to your portable drive.

Best Screen Capture Tool: Snagit

Snagit is as far removed from the classic Print Screen school of screen captures as possible. Snagit helps you capture both still images and grab frames from video. You can capture your entire screen or regions of it, and thanks to a robust profile system, you can create profiles for all manner of capture techniques. Whether you only want to generate a screen capture after a menu is activated or you want every screen capture to be automatically uploaded to a server, you can create a Snagit profile to fit your purpose. On top of the highly customizable feature set, Snagit offers a built in editor for annotating your screenshots and adding basic effects. Finally, the app’s screenshot organizer keeps your grabs in order with date, name, and tag-based searching. Snagit also has the ability to easily capture images from objects that are larger than the screen.

Best Malware Removal Tool: Spybot Search & Destroy

Spybot Search & Destroy has made quite a name for itself over the years, earning accolades from both general and computer-focused publications. Spybot Search & Destroy is the highest ranked freeware tool at 2Spyware.com, a website that ranks malware removal tools. In addition to scanning for malware, Spybot Search & Destroy also has a variety of additional functionality, including a botnet scanner, hosts-file modification (to keep malware from calling home), a secure file shredder, and a dummy code feature (it replaces malicious or questionable adware modules with inert code so the dependent program will keep functioning). As an added bonus Spybot Search & Destroy is compatible with every version of Windows dating back to Windows 95.

Best Free Data Recovery Tool: Recuva

Recuva is a user-friendly Windows-based tool. When you run Recuva, you can resurrect missing files using either the file-recovery wizard or the application’s manual mode. The file-recovery wizard is handy when you’re sure your data is gone but you’re not quite sure where it went or how to get it back. The wizard lets you narrow your search type to pictures, music, documents, video, or all files, and you can set the search location to everywhere on your computer, removable media only, in My Documents, the Recycle Bin, or a specified location. If you don’t need the wizard you can jump right into manual mode and get to work searching where you know the file should be. Recuva uses a green/yellow/red light system to indicate how probable the recovery of your files will be, and when available, it can provide previews image files available for recovery. Recuva also includes a tool to securely wipe files you find, handy if you’re attempting a file recovery just to ensure the files are actually dead and gone.

Best Journaling Tool: Pen and Paper

Long before people were pecking out their missives on typewriters, let alone keyboards, they were quietly scribbling them onto paper. In an age of instant sharing and easy digitization, many of you showed a strong affinity for recording your most private moments with the solidly analog and difficult to share medium: pen and paper. For many Lifehacker readers there is no substitute for the privacy and ease of use that comes with keeping an old fashioned paper-based journal. Among the variations of the pen and paper motif you submitted, readers showed a distinct passion for high-quality pens and Moleskine notebooks. Rich paper and smooth flowing ink is apparently the icing on the cake of analog journaling. Photo by MShades.

Best Exercise Planning and Tracking Tool: RunKeeper

RunKeeper turns your iPhone into an exercise tracking tool. Once installed you can monitor your speed, how far you run, and track your route on a map. You can review your data on the iPhone itself or upload the data to the RunKeeper website for analysis. The pro version includes audio feedback to make the application easier to use hands free, announcing how far you’ve run and other relevant stats. Finally, if you’re so inclined you can have RunKeeper update your favorite social tools like Twitter or Facebook with workout updates. For more, check out our guided tour of RunKeeper.

Best MP3 Tagging Tool: Mp3Tag

Mp3Tag is a an MP3 tagging tool with a rather spartan interface which lends itself to easy use. You can batch edit your MP3 tags, including iTunes specific tags like media type or TV Show settings. If your MP3 files are named with tags in the file name like band-album-track-title.mp3, you can tell Mp3Tag to convert the naming convention of your files into the actual tags. You can also go in the opposite direction, renaming your files to reflect their tags. The latter trick is handy if you’d like to make the file name easily recognizable during searching and also have a backup of sorts should the ID3 tag become corrupted or overwritten with an incorrect tag. Mp3Tag also supports expression-based renaming, allowing you easily reformat the naming convention or formatting style of your files. Mp3Tag supports multiple online databases such as Freedb, Amazon, Discogs, and more for easy tag importing.

Best Netbook: ASUS EEEPC 1000HE

When netbooks first appeared onto most peoples’ radars, it was because of the earlier EEEPC models gaining surprising popularity several years ago. ASUS has continued to crank out rock-solid netbooks, building their reputation in large part to some of the longest battery lifes. While they claim 9.5 hours under ideal conditions, under real world conditions it’s more like 6—still radically better than the 3 hours you can squeeze out of most netbooks. The 1000HE sports a 92% size keyboard and a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 1.3MP webcam, 10.1″ display, Wi-Fi b/g/n and Bluetooth for connectivity, and weighs in at 3.2 pounds. Every ASUS netbook comes with 10GB of online storage, free for 24 months after purchase.

Best Alternative File Copier: TeraCopy

TeraCopy is one of the best known alternative file copiers, winning people over with an interface and functionality that one might call “just advanced enough”. TeraCopy integrates with the Windows shell for drag-and-drop support and includes a solidly laid out right-click menu. It doesn’t overwhelm you with a plethora of settings or options, but it provides enough advanced functionality to speed up file copying, notify you when files don’t copy correctly, and allow you to bulk approve overwriting, renaming, and skipping of duplicate files. TeraCopy is also available in a portable version. The $21 Pro version adds the ability to select files by extension and remove files from the queue without having to start over.

Best Recipe Manager: Paper

Traditionalists rejoice! Despite the creep of technology into all realms of our lives, many of you have eschewed search-friendly text, embeddable images, and virtual recipe sharing for storing your recipes traditionally on paper. Not all of you hand wrote your recipes—some printed and stored them—but there is a certain intimacy that comes with keeping handwritten recipes that some of you haven’t abandoned. The votes for paper-based systems were scattered among 3-ring binders, bound notebooks, and 3×5 cards. Paper is an excellent and timeless choice for those wanting to avoid whisking an egg all over your laptop screen. Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography.

Best Clipboard Manager: Ditto

Ditto is a portable clipboard manager with a hefty feature list. Not only does Ditto support plain text, but it can also copy formatting and even images. You can search your stored text clippings and synchronize multiple copies of Ditto together to update your clippings across computers. Ditto has full unicode support, so you can paste foreign and non-standard characters without a problem. You can group together your clippings to keep things organized by task or project, as well as assign hotkeys to frequently used clippings. On top of the user-defined hotkeys, Ditto sports over a dozen built-in hotkeys for entering, searching, and retrieving your clippings.

The second quarter of 2009 was just as packed with goodies as the first, including everything from portable operating systems to recipe management. If you have a topic you’re dying to see covered in future Hive Fives, drop us a line at tips at lifehacker.com with “Hive Five” in the subject line to ensure your wishes get forwarded to the proper helper elves.

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Best of the Best: Hive Five Winners, March through June 2009 [Hive Five] originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on June 29, 2009.

How-To: Proximity Automation

Shai Perednik — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:03:47 +0000

Would you like to be able to use the magic of Bluetooth to automatically pause iTunes, set your away message in Adium, and lock the screen simply by standing up and walking away from your desk? Of course you would — it’s future-tastic (jetpacks not included)! Let’s take a look at how to pull this off.

What You’ll Need

First you’ll need a copy of Proximity, a handy (and free) little application which monitors your Bluetooth-enabled device and fires off AppleScripts when it leaves and enters connection range. As an added touch, we’ll also use a copy of DeskShade to lock and unlock the computer with style, leaving a nice away message displayed on the screen and opening a “Hacker Log” to display what activity took place while you were away.

DeskShade actually does a lot more than just allow AppleScript to lock and unlock your screen. I won’t go into a full review of it here, but essentially, it will also help keep your desktop clean, your wallpaper fresh, and your mind uncluttered. If, however, you want to forgo the use of DeskShade, you can instead lock and unlock the computer by having AppleScript launch your screensaver and adjust the security settings required for waking it up. AppleScript files for both approaches can be downloaded here (8kb, ZIP).

Getting Set Up

Install Proximity, and from within the preferences pane select your Bluetooth device. I used my iPhone, but any “discoverable” device should work. In the AppleScript section link to OutofRange.scpt for when the device moves out of range and InRange.scpt for when it moves back in range. Make sure that monitoring is enabled and set a frequency for proximity checks — I used 60 seconds. If you decided not to go the DeskShade route, then just swap in the second set of scripts for that step above and skip ahead to the testing.

Install DeskShade and on the DeskLock tab set a password, enable AppleScript to unlock, set the Hacker Log to open after unlocking and set the away message to something appropriate. I used the same “More than 30ft away from my computer” message that is set in Adium via the out-of-range script.

Future Perfect

It’s as simple as that. Get up and take a walk around to test it out; by the time you get back, your computer should be unlocked, and you can have a look at the Hacker Log to see what happened while you were gone. Now all we need are jetpacks, flying cars, and a reliable way to prevent “sock-loss” when doing the laundry, and it will be future perfect.

via theappleblog.com

How-To: Proximity Automation originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on June 11, 2009.