Matthew @ How-To Geek

Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 15, 2010 | 0 comments

What’s the best way to make tech simpler? Well, what’s better than detailed how-to guides on the very best of Windows, virtualization, apps, the cloud, and more?  How-To Geek has been doing a great job at this for some time, and they have many very helpful posts with vibrant screenshots and detailed instructions on ways to make tech work better for you.  And I’m proud to announce that I’ve joined their team!  I’ve been getting situated this past week, and today my first post has been published as the featured article of the day!  I couldn’t be more excited.  So, without further introduction, here’s my first How-To Geek post about a product I love, Windows Live Mesh:

Sync Files Between Computers and Mobile Devices with Live Mesh

This is only the start, and I have tons of other exciting articles coming in addition to the usual great articles that How-To Geek publishes.  But not just there; stay tuned here too, as I’m still continuing to publish new, unique articles both here at Techinch and at Digital Inspiration as well.  Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS or Twitter feed, and I’ll post all of my new articles across the ‘net right here.  Enjoy, and let me know anything you’d like to see covered and I’ll make sure it’s covered at one of these places!

With Social Networks, it takes a village

Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 10, 2010 | 0 comments

Social networks can make your life easier.  In the past, you had to individually email each of your friends, or perhaps print out 30 pictures to mail to them all.  Now, one update and everyone know’s what’s important to you right now.  Social networks can also make your life harder.  Who wants to join and update the 35 trillion networks there are today?

So why do you use the networks you do?  Likely, because there’s a village.  Facebook may not be the best possible social network, but with over 400 million members, likely almost everyone you know is already on it.  Facebook must have been very quiet when it started, but now it’s buzzing with activity from people you know.

Switching social networks is almost just a click away, but why switch if you get no value from the new service?  If no one’s there, then you’d be simply talking to yourself.  Google Wave has this problem; it’s only a quasi-network, but still has little to no value if no one you know uses it.

Email doesn’t have this problem, and that’s why Gmail could grow from no users before 2004 to being the 3rd most popular email service today.  But email is decentralized; you can still email all of your old contacts from your new address.  The only problem is getting people to switch their address books to your new email address.

Today Google unveiled their new network - Google Buzz.  It’s built into Gmail, so it brings all of Gmail’s users into Buzz automatically.  So will Buzz automatically have a 37 million-member village, or will it still be starting from ground zero?

After all, to be successful, a network takes a village.  No one wants to be talking to themselves.

Easy and cheap surveillance with Vitamin D 1.0!

Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 9, 2010 | 0 comments

Ok, when’s the last time someone told you to give your computer vitamins?  We try to protect our computers from viruses with antivirus software, so what would giving your computer vitamins do?  Well, antivirus (and antimalware) software protects your computer from digital harm and data theft, but vitamins might protect your computer and more from physical theft!  Well, Vitamin D that is.

Vitamin D is an amazingly powerful home security program that was just released after a beta testing period.  I recently reviewed several home surveillance programs, and came away exceedingly impressed with Vitamin D.  This program lets you easily monitor your home with as many webcams as you’d like.  All that video would be hard to process, though, so this is where Vitamin D’s power shines.  It has sophisticated searching capabilities that let you identify motion at specific places in your video and be immediately notified via email when motion is detected.  Then, if you want to review your video, you can see those instances and can even add new criteria to monitor.  It will then immediately rescan your video and show you the motion from the new area you selected.  I tested this in the Beta version, and it worked great!  This is only a sampling of Vitamin D’s features, so check out their feature list for more information.

The best part is the price.  Vitamin D is available as a free Starter edition for 1 webcam and QVGA video, or you can purchase a Basic edition ($49) for 2 cameras and up to VGA resolution or a Pro edition ($199) for an unlimited number of cameras.  This makes it accessible to everyone, and you can easily choose the level of power you need.  So if you’d like to make your home more secure with hardware you already have, check out Vitamin D … you might find that vitamins make your computer better, too!

First thoughts on Windows 7 Starter

Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 9, 2010 | 0 comments

I recently purchased a Samsung N150 Netbookso I could do college and work on the road easier.  Desktops aren’t very portable, and smartphones aren’t enough for everything (think 1000 word essays or blog posts), so a netbook seemed like a great way to fill the gap.  I plan to review the netbook soon, but wanted first to put down my initial impressions of Windows 7 Starter.

I have been running Windows 7 as my main OS since the beta release over a year ago, and upgraded to the release candidate and then the final version as soon as they were released.  During the beta and RC I was (obviously) using Windows 7 Ultimate, but then purchased 7 Professional as soon as it was publically available (thanks to the Win741 student offer!).  There has been a lot of discussion about the features (or the lack thereof) in Windows 7 Starter, but until now I hadn’t experienced them firsthand.  Here’s my impression of Windows 7 Starter after a day of use:

Make any Printer a wireless printer

Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 2, 2010 | 0 comments

Would you like to be able to print from anywhere in your house without the difficulities of sharing a printer over the network? Then check out my latest article at Digital Inspiration:

How to Make Your Wired Printer Wireless

This article has some great tips on converting your existing printer into a wireless printer, as well as advice on whether it makes more sense to simply invest in a new wireless printer.

One other exciting wireless print server I discovered through my research (but was not included in the published article) was the ASUS RT-N13U.  This is both a wireless print server and 802.11 n router for less than the price of any one of these devices from many other companies.  I’ve never tried it out, but at least on paper it looks very interesting and I’d be very tempted to try it if I didn’t already have a n router.  So check out the article, and if none of the other devices catch your imagination, come back and check the ASUS RT-N13U!