It’s a hard battle that you have to fight with temptation whenever new gadgets are introduced and new technology is out on the market, but if you set a few ground rules for yourself, you don’t have to break the bank and end up broke in your desire to own the latest gizmos.

• Don’t buy just because it’s new – instead, check out the features of the new device to see if there are any that your old one doesn’t have and if these new features are aspects that you would use on a regular basis. When you buy technology just for the sake of doing so and without taking into consideration its utility value, it’s only going to gather dust in your drawer or closet. So if you respect technology, buy it only if you’re going to use it.

• I’m not going to suggest you buy a phone or a notebook or any other technological gadget only if you really need it; that doesn’t work for people who’re crazy about gadgets. What I would suggest however is that you space out your purchases; so if you’ve just invested in a new smartphone, don’t buy another for at least six months, even if it’s being touted to be the “best in the business”. But you’re free to buy a laptop computer or netbook or any other gadget that’s just out and which features the most innovative technology. This way, you don’t end up craving too much.

• Never borrow to finance your passion – buying up gadgets as soon as they’re out is forgivable; what’s not is when you use borrowed money, like a loan or a credit card to finance the purchase. If you don’t have the required funds in your account to pay off your credit cards in full every month, then you’re not doing yourself any favors. All you’re going to do is end up in a very deep hole of debt. So go ahead, treat yourself to any fancy gadget you like; just ensure that you have the money to pay for it.

Personally speaking, there are some gadgets that I would give my right arm to own, not just for their utility value, but because they’re so sleek and sexy that you just want to possess them. But then, if you give in to every whim and fancy, the gizmos you buy are going to sour in value when your credit card bill comes in. So think your decision through, check your bank balance, and make your choice accordingly.

This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degree. She welcomes your comments at anna.miller009@gmail.com

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Better still, this thing looks as good as I expected but also seems to do a wonderful job not only at holding the iPad in place, but also protecting it in the event of bumps and falls. Ben of Quirky practically throws it around in this video.

I’m proud to be a part of it and it’s exciting to see it finally shipping!

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I found these hard drive desk clocks for sale at the First Friday Art Walk in Phoenix and they can also be bought online at TimeRecycled.com. Though I haven’t yet bought one, they look even better in person and appear well made.

Computer Art Timepieces

Here’s a little more information from the site:

These are hand-crafted timepieces created from recycled hard drives out of personal computers. Each hard drive is disassembled, painted, and fitted with a timepiece and custom stand. Each unique stand is cut out of recycled motherboards, modems, video cards, and other various electronic components. No two clocks are the same!

Clock hands and hard drive components can be painted in a variety of colors:
- Black, White, Gray, Dark Blue, Blue, Dark Red, Copper
- Red, Orange, Neon Orange, Yellow, Neon Yellow
- Purple, Pink, Dark Green, Green, Neon Green, Teal
- Custom Color Combinations are available

Each clock comes with a “AA” battery so your clock will be ready to keep time.

The clocks run $30 to $40 and cost $10 to ship. That’s not bad for these geeky conversation pieces, but I emailed Ben and he was cool enough to provide a 10% discount to all my readers! Mention JoeTech.com at the time of purchase and he’ll knock 10% off the clock price. Throw one on your desk at the office and let me know what you think.

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UPDATE: This stand now has a web site and will be taking pre-orders in the near future : Perfect iPad Stand

Yeah… The bottom part is a bowl meant to eat food from. I’ve posted a couple times about Quirky, a site that takes product ideas through a community-driven process that refines the idea into a product, logo and all. This is where a site member, Jeff Tromp entered his idea for the perfect iPad stand. Just watch the video to see how it works.

A Better iPad Stand

What will make this iPad stand better than everything currently on the market? The thing that stands out the most to me is the full range of motion it provides. Jeff makes some great points in his video, showing how Apple’s stand sticks you with portrait positioning and walks away. His racing game demonstration in the video above (and additional racing-specific demo) show his iPad stand going beyond portrait or landscape, turning the iPad, itself, into the steering wheel for the game. From what I’ve seen, it really seems to provide the freedom that all the existing stands are lacking.

The amazing part about this new (hopefully) soon-to-be-product is that people are already reviewing it and consumers are lining up to buy one. Across the globe, a site in Korea posted a favorable opinion (translated) and views on his YouTube demo just keep going up. A lot of his video traffic is viral and that says a lot.

Make it happen (and make some money)

The two best things about Quirky are that you can help guide the development of a product and that you can make money doing it. This is no exception. Jeff’s Perfect iPad Stand is in the running to be chosen as Quirky’s Product 46 and I think it will win, too. Just click that link and create a free account at Quirky to vote for Jeff’s idea. If it wins, your vote will earn you a little piece of every single sale. Seriously. Not only can you say you helped it become a product, but when it’s ready for sale, you can wake up in the morning and see earnings from its sales. I know this because I’m currently earning on 21 products at Quirky and the highest earner for me is their Cloak iPad case.

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I don’t move much, but when I do, one of the important things I look at is what broadband solutions will be available to me. I need my high speed access. Just last weekend, my mom, who has lived in the same house for years, got new broadband internet access. She called me for help with figuring out what all this stuff meant and which provider to use, but what if I didn’t know?

This is where a site like Broadband Genie comes in. They offer comparisons of broadband (and other) services along with guides, news, tools, etc. Here’s what they have to say about why you might want to use their site:

* Save time and money. We spend loads of time gathering and checking all the price and package data from all the top providers, so you don’t have to.
* Be a sheep, make your life easy. If you don’t want to trawl through the comparison tables looking for that special deal, see what our experienced editors and users recommend.
* Get an education. If you want to learn all about broadband internet, how it works and how to compare it, then let us translate it all into plain-English for you. We’ve got help guides, blogs, daily news, and loads of places you can ask questions or just have a good moan.

For those in the U.S., the site won’t be much help in regards to comparing services. Non-UK readers still have plenty of reasons to visit, though, so keep reading.

Compare Broadband Providers

In the interest of the review, I pretended I was in Staffordshire and used Google to find an address where I could pretend to live. This yielded much better results from Broadband Genie, which returned a list of broadband providers in order of suggested use. The list displayed the initial setup cost, monthly cost, contract length, speed, and download caps as seen below.

I was able to sort by any of the columns I mentioned above and more information was a click away, taking me to a page loaded with information specific to the provider. The provider page included service highlights, an overview of different packages, a “road test” widget showing overall user ratings, and customer reviews. This page proved to be a pretty good snapshot of what the provider has to offer.

Compare Mobile Services and More

This site goes beyond just home/office broadband to also compare mobile phone services, pay as you go mobile broadband, and even deals that give you a laptop (with a contract for the mobile broadband). These work in the same way, providing a sortable ordered list and detail pages.

Tools and Guides

Before buying any services, it’s helpful to get educated. Broadband Genie starts with a broadband guide right on the home page to answer questions like “What is broadband?” and “What are modems, routers & dongles?”. Additional guides help you determine compatibility, understand broadband speeds, and even help guide you through setting it all up. Along with the guides, the newsletter, frequently updated News section, forums, and “Ask the Genie” form seem to make sure you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.

Once you’ve learned all about broadband speeds, you can test your own to get an idea of what your needs might be. The first time I ran the speed test, it actually crashed Firefox. When I loaded it up again, it worked great, so I can’t say if that’s a bug or my browser was just having one of its fits. I’ve since tried on another computer in Firefox, and Chrome with no crashing problems, but I’m not sure the results are reliable. They seemed much lower than I had expected, so I headed to another site that returned vastly different numbers which were very close to my expectations.

Conclusions

The speed test didn’t impress me at all, but it was a small bump in a very smooth and freshly paved road to broadband knowledge. Broadband Genie had what I expected. Then it had more and more and even more. I still feel like I left some stones unturned on this site and can only imagine other features I’ve missed. It really only needs two things to be perfect, a U.S. sister site and maybe a better speed test (assuming it’s actually inaccurate).

Also, for those in Australia, Broadband Genie has an Australian site too, which also compares mobile broadband and broadband deals.

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Deleted Doesn’t Mean It’s Gone

Fresh Crop also provides software called MediaWIPE for your sensitive files you want gone forever. When you delete a file, it’s not really gone. Yes, even though you emptied the recycle bin. It’s still on your hard drive or other storage media but you just can’t see it. In fact, that’s what makes software like MediaRECOVER work. To truly delete something forever requires some additional steps. That’s what MediaWIPE promises to do for you, so I put it to the test.

Does MediaWIPE Really Work?

According to the site, they use US Department of Defense (DoD 5220.22-M) seven step erasing standard to completely erase your files. Armed with one large unwanted file and several small ones, I fired up the program and started with the big file (about 150 MB).

Getting ready involved just a simple browse and select for the file. This software will wipe full directories as well. With my file selected, I clicked the Next button. I then confirmed my decision to delete this file with a checkbox and about five minutes later, my file was gone. I then did this for the smaller files in the same way.

After deleting these files, I tried to recover them. Using MediaRECOVER as well as another file recovery program, I had no success finding my deleted files. MediaWIPE seems to have truly wiped the files from my computer completely.

Portable File Wiping

One feature that makes this software even more convenient to use is the MediaWIPE Portable Maker. It’s a little program that comes bundled with MediaWIPE and it installs a portable copy of MediaWIPE onto a portable storage device like a memory stick. To try it out, I installed it on an 8GB MicroSD card I carry around with me. I popped the card into another computer and was running MediaWIPE straight from the card pretty quickly. If it’s not the same full version installed on my desktop, it sure looks like it. Providing the same secure file removal experience as the desktop, I can now wipe any file or folder on any computer without ever installing software on that machine.

The portable install of MediaWIPE has some obvious uses. I imagine most people might use this when checking their email from a friend’s computer or a computer in a public place. Anything you downloaded to the public computer can be securely removed without installing a thing on it. This method doesn’t require Administrator privileges, so it’s quick and easy. Not bad!

Conclusions

Living up to its name and its promises, MediaWIPE does the job when you need files gone permanently. The software installed, started, and ran quickly and easily which, combined with the $19.95 price, makes it an easy choice for anyone concerned about sensitive data.

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The device pictured above is a USB PC to TV audio and video adapter from a company called Warpia and it’s designed to transmit the audio and video signal from your computer to a receiving unit attached to your PC.

Setting It All Up

The setup for this device really couldn’t have been much easier. Following some simple instructions, I installed the software from the included CD and then plugged in the USB PC adapter. After looking over the settings, I plugged in the A/V base adapter and hooked it up to the HDMI cable I borrowed from my DVD player (will connect via VGA, too). After a couple seconds, everything on my laptop screen was being displayed on my 42 inch TV as well. Check out the video of everything in action:

The refresh rate for video was pretty good, but could be a little better. Other than that, HD video came across as true HD and looked really good. All my applications refreshed seamlessly and I had a very clear picture.

Features and Flaws

One of the things I liked about this was that it’s treated as an additional display, so I can tell Windows to either Duplicate the display or Extend it. When I extend it, I get to keep my normal laptop screen just on my laptop, and a second desktop for the TV. A great example of how that’s beneficial presented itself the other night. I purchased a movie online for direct download and watched it on the TV over my wireless A/V connection. At the same time, I was able to tweet, read and respond to email, etc. from my original desktop. Pretty cool.

The SWP100A also comes with mounting screw slots on the bottom of the TV adapter and that end’s USB stick can plug in horizontally or vertically in case you want to wall mount it and keep it as flush as possible.

The only real concern this device presented was the heat it generated. The USB adapter can get pretty warm and the TV adapter gets downright hot. I’d have loved to see an on/off switch on the TV end of the setup. Not only would this help with the heat problem, but it would be a lot easier than having to unplug it and plug it back in every time I want to use it.

Conclusions

At $179.99, it’s not my cheapest device, but it’s cheaper than setting up another computer just for the TV and a lot, I mean a LOT easier. I went from sealed box to completed and in use in about 5-7 minutes. If you can handle the price, it’s a decent solution to get your audio and video from PC to TV in a snap.

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For a limited time Codero is offering a 50% discount on all new servers purchased during the promotional period and that appears to be managed, too. A press release on their site says:

The price-cutting campaign is being offered for a limited time in an effort to give something back to businesses as they make their tax payments. According to Phillip Spencer, Chief Executive Officer of Codero, “Organizations nationwide are seeking cost-cutting measures even as the economy rebounds. This is our way of helping companies fuel growth for the future with a more secure, high-performance online presence at a substantially reduced price.”

Obviously, it’s good marketing to run a special like this during tax season, but it’s a good deal, too. Codero’s dedicated servers start pretty low as it is and are incredibly reliable. The deal doesn’t last too long, though, so if you’re thinking about it go check out their dedicated hosting plans and pull the trigger on this one.

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Recover Lost Files At Home

It seems like every year, there’s newer, cheaper, easier data recovery software on the market. Just last year, I paid about $70 for a program that I’ve sworn by since the first time I used it and this week, I was given a copy of MediaRECOVER Pro. It’s cheaper at only $49.95, is really simple to use, and pretty fast, at least compared to the program I was using before. To compare, I ran both on a 2GB Flip video camera. MediaRECOVER Pro took only 8 minutes to scan compared to 20 with the other software. (My test was with an advanced scan, while a normal scan was significantly faster) My other software also takes a minute or so to load before you can do anything, but MediaRECOVER Pro loaded right away. Both did equally well at recovering old deleted files. The install was pretty simple, too. I clicked “next” a few times and it was ready to go.

The software also comes in a cheaper version, called simply MediaRECOVER for only $29.95 The big difference between the two is that the Pro version includes the optical storage recovery and is only available for Windows currently. In both versions you can also see previews of your files in image form (when possible, ASCII, and HEX).

How To Undelete Files

When you run the software, the first thing you see is the main menu. From here, you can choose to perform a regular or advanced scan, perform a scan on optical storage like a CD or DVD, use Tools, or view the Help.

Most of us just want to dive in and get our files back. You can do this with the normal scan if you’ve just accidentally deleted files, but in other cases, you may need to do a advanced scan, which will scan sector-by-sector for your lost files. Initiating a scan either way is pretty straight forward. You select the drive you want to scan and can narrow it down to a partition. Then click the scan button and wait. The amount of time the scan takes can depend on the size of the drive and how many files it had on it.

Once scanning has completed, you just select the files you want to recover and click the save button to save them and you can get right to the folder they’re in with the browse button. In my test, I ended up with a video from a wedding that I shot over a year ago, which was a fun little surprise.

Professional Data Recovery Services

While FreshCrop, the company that makes MediaRECOVER, tries to “teach a man to fish”, you might say, not everyone is going to be able to just install and recover. There is the rare case in which recovery doesn’t work or you just don’t want to do it on your own. For those times, FreshCrop provides data recovery services. You package up your drive or flash card and send it out and they’ll do their magic on it. Looking at the prices, they’re a lot more wallet-friendly than all the services I’ve seen in the past.

Delete Files For Good

Sometimes you have the opposite problem. You have files on a drive or portable storage that you need removed permanently. After all, with programs like MediaRECOVER, you need to be sure sensitive data is unrecoverable by others. I hate to break it to you, but just emptying the recycle bin isn’t going to cut it. For this reason, FreshCrop included some extra tools.

In the Tools section, you can wipe the media of all files, format it for re-use, and even add Secure Delete, which will let you wipe files from Internet Explorer. These tools are a handy addition to this package.

Conclusions

Admittedly, I haven’t used many data recovery software packages, but I haven’t had to, either. What I had worked well, and this is not only better, but it’s cheaper, too. For $50, the Pro version (which I would buy) pays for itself the first time you recover your vacation photos or the video of baby’s first steps. Easily worth the money, it works very smoothly. Although you may not need it right now, it’s worth bookmarking for when you do. Personally, I keep a copy of my recovery software on a thumb drive with me just in case.

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What Is A Geofence?

Wikipedia has this to say about geofences:

A Geofence is a virtual perimeter on a geographic area using a location-based service, so that when the geofencing device enters or exits the area a notification is generated. The notification can contain information about the location of the device and might be sent to a mobile telephone or an email account.

Although I think they’re pretty close, I’d like to add that a geofence is really just the area that is defined for a notification trigger (or other event) and the notification isn’t exactly part of the geofence. As an example, you might have a device in your car that is linked to a service and that service has a geofence (that you defined) around your neighborhood. On your way to work the service detects that you’ve exited the geofence (your neighborhood), and shuts off specific devices in your home through a home automation system. When you re-enter the geofence after work, it sends a text message to your wife that reads, “Honey, I’m (almost) home!” or turns on your laptop.

Practical Uses For Geofences

I know the above example may seem a little Jetsons-like, but the technology is actually here today and already in use.

One real-world example is the annual Iron Dog® snowmobile race in Alaska. It wasn’t long after the race began that the first team entered a checkpoint and like many other people, I received a text message on my phone letting me know about it. Making this happen was software developed by Ontec Technologies, the company that has provided real-time tracking and mapping of each racer for the past few years. In the software, every checkpoint was defined as a geofence and each racer was outfitted with hardware from Applied Satellite Engineering that sent data over the Iridium satellite network to Ontec where it gets mapped and triggers alerts for geofences. In this example, friends, families, and fans were able to know very rapidly as their racer hit each checkpoint.

The article, Searching for Real Estate Made Easy: Geo-Fences Plus Mobile Phones from SoftwareAdvice.com describes, in detail, a scenario in which a young couple on a leisurely stroll is alerted that they’re near a home for sale that they may like. It seems the couple’s tech-savvy realtor entered their search criteria and cell phone number into a system that has geofences around properties and when their phone’s GPS location entered the geofence, it triggered an alert. The story is just a made-up scenario, but the reality of such a service is just over the horizon. We already have the technology in the phones and all it will take is for someone to build an app for the iPhone, Android, and Windows Mobile 7 and the web service to pair it with.

The practical uses for geofences are numerous and I’m certain we’ll see them in use more and more. Imagine an alert on your phone when your young child wanders off your property, or a friend is near the coffee house you’re sitting at. A system that turns on a couple lights when I get within 50 yards of my house is entirely possible right now with a little hardware and some programming.

Possible problems

Any really good technology that makes use of your personal location information brings with it concerns about misuse of that information. However, if used with consent and in the proper applications with these concerns in mind, the advantages far outweigh the unlikely possibilities of misuse.

If you could geofences for anything, what would it be?

Disclosure: I am a part owner/founder in Ontec.

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