February 4, 2012

Posts Comments

You are here: Home / Archives for Michael R Erb

Review of SkyTex Skypad Alpha2 7″ Android Tablet

February 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment


Skypad Alpha2 Available on Amazon: http://amzn.to/xmNtaY

I recently purchased this Skytex Skypad Alpha2 as sort of an experiment. I’ve got an iPhone but have always wanted to explore Android OS so I decided to take the plunge and get an Android tablet as well just to learn more about Android and have an alternative to Apple in my hands.

So far, I’ve been reasonably happy with this tablet. The construction of the tablet is solid. It does not feel like a toy at all. I’ve picked up some small tablets that just feel like plastic…not this one. It has an aluminum body.

The placement of the front-facing camera is odd since I usually expect a front-facing camera to be at the top of the device. But I also expect the home buttons to be at the bottom of the device, so I’m not quite sure what constitutes “top” or “left” on this tablet because the camera is at the bottom right of the screen if you have the tablet oriented so that the home button as at the bottom. In this case, the volume rocker and on/off button are on one side of the tablet while the adjacent edge of the tablet has the mono speaker, microSD slot, DC power in, USB, HDMI and headphone jack. The layout of ports, buttons and camera are not in optimal positions but they work where they are, it just seems a little odd and when holding the tablet I am always accidentally hitting the power button.

The tablet starts up briskly and the responsiveness of the screen was actually better than I was expecting. I have not yet noticed-with my limited use so far- any sluggishness whatsoever. Screen sliding is smooth and quick. I have watched several YouTube videos and they were glitch-free. Not the same experience with Netflix however. I experienced really bad pixelation and gradient issues with Netflix as well as some seriously bad sound syncing issues.

The tablet easily and quickly connected to my home network and surfing was very snappy. It seemed on par with my MacBook Pro quite honestly.

I’ve installed a handful of apps so far:YouTube, Kindle, eBay, Google+, Wired, Twitter and so far everything has gone smoothly. The touchscreen is responsive. Sometimes the screen doesn’t reorient when I flip the orientation of the tablet, but that may be due to the fact that some apps don’t change orientation and I’m not exactly sure how to figure out whether it should reorient all the time or not. Yet, sometimes when it is supposed to reorient, it does not.

The camera resolution is dismal but at least there is a camera. Don’t expect much from it though as it’s only 0.3 megapixels.

Obviously, with a tiny, mono speaker, sound quality is not spectacular nor very loud. I’d call the speaker barely adequate. Of course, headphones are going to give you a tremendously better listening experience.

The microphone quality was a big disappointment. Everything I recorded sounded kind of muffled and scratchy. This would not make a very good lecture recording device, for instance.

I do wish this had bluetooth, but I guess you can’t expect everything at the price point. I do miss not having bluetooth built in though.

I can’t say too much more at this point since I’ve not had the tablet very long. Buy my initial impressions are moderately positive and I eagerly await the release of the next version of Android which I will install on the Skypad as soon as I get it and will report back here with my impressions.

This seems to be a great value in a sub-$200 Android tablet worthy of your consideration.

Filed Under: Featured, Gadgets, Video Reviews

Book Review – CMS Made Simple Development Cookbook by Samuel Goldstein

August 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

PACKT Publishing recently released the book, CMS Made Simple Development Cookbook by Samuel Goldstein. The author states that the book “gets you started building feature-rich sites quickly, regardless of your experience level.” I might add that as long as your experience level isn’t that of beginner and as long as you a good familiarity with PHP, SQL and HTML the book may prove to be helpful. Beginners will be frustrated and therefore I would not recommend this book to them. Likewise, if you are a designer as opposed to a developer, this book is not for you because it is dealing with coding, not design, per se.

“Cookbook” style books generally provide targeted examples of features or methods you can add to extend the capabilities of an existing “thing” in this case the CMS, CMS Made Simple. By using recipes (code snippets) provided by the author, you are presumably able to add tags, user-defined tags and extensions to your installation of CMS Made Simple to give you functionality not present in the default installation. In my opinion, a recipe should  be able to stand on it’s own with minimal customization to be truly valuable. If you cannot simply paste in the code of a recipe to achieve immediate additional functionality, then the value of that recipe and in fact the entire book, is diminished. Thankfully you are able to obtain the code examples from the packtpub.com website after you register your book.

The books’ 10 chapters takes a good look at the various ways that CMS Made Simple allows a user to add capabilities. In Chapter 1, the author describes the differences between tags, user-defined tags and modules and in what circumstances you would choose one over the other.

Chapter 2 introduces the reader to Smarty, the templating engine that powers CMS Made Simple and various recipes are introduced to show you how to use Smarty variables to alter colors, do math in your stylesheet to enable you to change the layout of your site while retaining proportions and more. For instance you are shown how to embed JavaScript in your template (something that is generally discouraged) in a way that prevents Smarty from generating errors.

Chapter 3 dives into Tags and User-Defined Tags. Some of the recipes here show you how to add the ability to display a User’s IP address for a user-defined tag, display a stock price from Yahoo, or how to add a Registered Trademark symbol to a name automatically.

Chapter 4 is where you will learn about Modules. The file structure of a module is discussed then tips on how to create a framework for a new module are presented.  There is also discussion about a tie-in with Smarty that enables you to make the output of your module as flexible as the rest of the CMS system.

When you create a module that is intended to manage data, you will need to make decisions about how best to handle that in the database. If a module is deleted, do you want the corresponding data and tables in the database to be deleted? These and other  Database API questions are looked at in Chapters 5, 6 and 7.

Chapter 8 deals with Admin Panels and provides recipes that enable you to create an admin panel for a module, deal with permissions for the module’s administration, and much more.

Chapter 9 looks at handling and using Events. For instance,  if a user is searching for keywords on your site, you might want to know not only what keywords they searched for, but  how many results they got. A recipe for attaching a User-Defined Tag to an event is shown to accomplish something like that.

Chapter 10 presents tricks to help with additional module-related features and touches on some tSearch Engine Optimization tricks.

This is not easy stuff if you are not a developer or programmer. But assuming you have the skill set needed, the chapters provide a consistent and  good flow in the way that the material is presented. Although the book is written in a direct, no-nonesense style some of the recipies are not going to be too helpful to many people. The demonstration of building the recipes and discussion of the concepts involved should give the competent programmer all that he or she would need to get pointed in the right direction and should prove to be valuable.

CMS Made Simple Development Cookbook can be purchased from Amazon as well as from Packt Publishing.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, CMS Made Simple

Book review coming… CMS Made Simple Development Cookbook by Samuel Goldstein. Packt Publishing.

July 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I have just placed an order for the book CMS Made Simple Development Cookbook by Samuel Goldstein and published by Packt Publishing. I’ll be reviewing it here once I’ve had a chance to work through it. Check back to read the complete review. In the meantime the book can be purchased from Amazon as well as directly from Packt Publishing.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, CMS Made Simple

How to combine PDF files in Preview under Snow Leopard

May 16, 2011 By 1 Comment

A handy feature of Preview is the ability to open two PDF files and combine them into a single PDF. The method used to accomplish this is different in Snow Leopard than it was in Leopard.

Here is the method to use in Snow Leopard

  1. Open each of the individual PDF files. This will result in two or more Preview windows being open, each of which containing a PDF file.
  2. Choose which PDF file will be the target file; the one in which all the other PDF files will be added to. PLEASE NOTE: if the PDF target file is actually a JPG image that has been opened in Preview, then you will need to convert the JPG into a PDF first or the combining operation will not be successful. To convert the JPG to a PDF, save it and be sure to choose “PDF” from the “Format” drop-down menu.
  3. Ensure that you have opened the sidebar for each PDF window and that the sidebar is in Thumbnail view.
  4. Drag the thumbnail of each PDF on top of the thumbnail in the target PDF (the one in which you are combining the PDF’s to.) NOTE: You cannot drag the thumbnail below the thumbnail in the target PDF or the files will not be combined, they will merely be two documents opened in the same window, but when you save the file, they will not be combined but instead will revert to their individual file state.
  5. Once you have dragged all the PDF’s to the target PDF window, you can easily rearrange the order simply by clicking and dragging each thumbnail to the order you want.
  6. When the order is how you wish, save the PDF. Congratulations. You have just combined multiple PDF files into a single PDF file.

In Leopard, the technique is similar. Instead of dragging the thumbnails on top of the target PDF thumbnail, you merely drop it underneath the thumbnail in the target. Then save as in Snow Leopard.

Here is a brief screencast demonstrating this.

Filed Under: Mac Software, Tips, Tricks and Hacks

Can I interest you in 16MB of RAM for $257.00?

May 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I had a reality check earlier today while I was looking through my Quicken registers. I came across some old transactions for RAM, Hard Drives and other assorted equipment that I had bought in years past. It was quite an eye-opening experience. What I paid 15 years ago for memory and storage space was absolutely outrageous by today’s standards. Try these on for size….

March 1996: 16MB RAM cost me $257.00
May 1997: 48MB RAM cost me $358.00
August 1999: 64MB RAM cost me $120.00
November 2004: 1 GB RAM cost me $220.99

On June 20, 2000 I purchased an 18GB Hitachi hard drive for $215.00. Just a few weeks ago I bought a 2TB external HD for $97.19.

I know that anyone who has been buying computer stuff for 15 years or more will have similar remembrances, but it’s not always something we think about unless we’re prompted by an old receipt or something.

Just thought I’d share my “expensive” purchases. I’m kind of glad I don’t have access to my Quicken receipts prior to 1996 because looking at prices earlier than that would be really upsetting. In 1982 I remember buying a 64K RAM module for my Timex-Sinclair ZX81 computer. I think it cost about $49.95… for 64K! The computer itself cost about $149 as I recall. Ah, the good ‘ol days. Let’s see, about the same time as the ZX81, I had a Texas Instruments Ti-99/4a and that was followed closely by a Commodore Vic20 and then a Commodore 64. Then about 1989 I bought my first Mac, an SE/30.

Do you have any fond memories?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

YouTube URL hack lets you access a precise point of a video

May 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I just learned of a neat little hack with YouTube URL’s that enables you to begin viewing a video at a specific timeframe of the video.

Let’s say that you have a video you’d like to share with someone but you don’t want that person to have to watch the beginning of the video. Using this hack you can specify an exact timeframe simply by adding this to the end of the URL. Begin with a hashtag and a “t”, “#t”, then add an equal sign “=” then the number of minutes into the video you want to begin followed by an “m” then the number of seconds followed by an “s” so, “1m36s.” Put it all together and you get:

#t=1m36s

So if the YouTube URL were http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ but you wanted the viewer to join the video a 1 minute and 36 seconds in you would append the URL so that it looks like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_b7RDuLwcI#t=1m36s

Happy rickrolling.

Filed Under: Tips, Tricks and Hacks

CablesToGo USB 2.0 to IDE or SATA Drive Adapter

May 6, 2011 By 2 Comments

cablestogo usb ide sata drive adapter>The Cables To Go 30504 USB 2.0 to IDE or Serial ATA Drive Adapter (Black)Electronics Cable Adapters) is a new tool in my arsenal and it’s made a huge difference in productivity when needing to work with bare drives or do diagnostics/maintenance on hard drives.

Not having to install a hard drive into an enclosure before being able to access the drive is a very convenient thing to be able to do. Previously I would have to use a Firewire/USB/USB 2.0 enclosure that I purchased from OWC in order to access a drive. But now all I have to do is hook up two cables to the drive (a power cable and the actual IDE or SATA output cable) and then hook the USB to my computer. When I’m done, I just unhook everything. It is just that easy.

You really can’t go wrong with this kit from CablesToGo and the price is right.

Here is my video review of the CablesToGo USB 2.0 IDE or SATA Drive Adapter.

The CablesToGo kit is available from Amazon.

Filed Under: Featured, Product Reviews

Automatically update the copyright year in your footer

March 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you work on many websites it doesn’t take long before you realize how many of them have out of date copyright dates in the footer. Back in the good old days when sites were hand-coded and php was seldom used, copyright dates were hard-coded along with just about everything else.

It’s so easy to fix that problem and I”m going to show you how simple it is. You don’t need to know anything about php either. All you have to do is drop this little piece of php code into your footer and it will take care of the annual updating of the year for you. No more batch search and replace operations to replace 82 pages of out of date copyright years. Yay!

So let’s say your current footer looks something like this…

<p id="footer">copyright © 1998 by My Big Old Company, Inc</p>

To put that copyright year on auto-pilot, simply drop this bit of code in there and sit back and relax.

<p id="footer">copyright © <?php echo date('Y'); ?> by My Big Old Company Inc</p>

If your copyright is a range of years, like 2001-2011, just add the snippet after the dash of the first year like this…

<p id="footer">copyright © 2001-<?php echo date('Y'); ?> by My Big Old Company, Inc</p>

I don’t know much about PHP but I do know how to add that little bit of code and it takes away a big nuisance that used to occur every year. You can learn more about PHP and the date function by visiting PHP.net

Filed Under: php Tricks, Uncategorized, Web Development, WordPress Tutorials

Review: WordPress 3 Site Blueprints by Heather R. Wallace. Packt Publishing

November 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The recently published book, WordPress 3 Site Blueprints by Heather R. Wallace and published by Packt Publishing is an ambitious project that belies the slim volume that it is.

According to the author, the book is primarily geared to a “self-learner” or a “WordPress consultant” who is “interested in exploring all that this open source software has to offer…” The book’s premise is to provide a “blueprint” in the design of 9 different types of WordPress websites. Each blueprint or chapter walks you through the process of configuring a sspecific WordPress Theme. The types of sites  (blueprints) discussed are:

1.Migrating a Static site to WordPress
2.Building a Community Portal
3.Building an E-Commerce Website
4.Building a Local Classified Ads Website
5.Building a Consumer Reivew Website
6.Building a Job Board Website
7.Building a Micro blogging Website
8.Building a Local Business Directory
9.Building a Membership Website

In addition to the 9 blueprints, there is an appendix that presents several WordPress plugins that the author feels may be of value such as WP-DB-Backup, Akismet and several others. Another appendix provides a guide to installing WordPress Themes and plugins.

I found the first two chapters to be very helpful. Chapter 1 describes the process of migrating a static HTML site to a dynamic WordPress site. Although the author does not provide specific instruction as how to actually install WordPress, she does direct you to online resources to accomplish that task. A concise discussion gives you the information you need to add appropriate WordPress specific code to your HTML files to turn them into a working WordPress “theme.” Resources are also provided for free and premium ($) themes.

Chapter 2 shows you how to integrate bbPress, BuddyPress and WordPress to enable you to create a community portal site. bbPress provides a forum component, while BuddyPress enables users to interact in a facebook-like manner. The basics are covered but novices may require additional hand-holding to undertake such an ambitious project.

The other blueprints are covered in a similar concise fashion, providing the basic information you would need to get the specific type of site up and running. Each  blueprint presents a suggested way of configuring settings and adding specific plugins suited to the particular blueprint.
This slim volume covers a lot of ground. The author provides a lot of additional online resources which is helpful.

What I found most disappointing was that several of the blueprints require “premium” themes or plugins that cost real money. In some cases the plugins or themes are relatively pricey and this may diminish the ability for some people to carry-out the projects.

Overall, WordPress 3 Site Blueprints gives the reader a good idea of where WordPress can take you. It abolishes the notion that WordPress is only for blogging. In fact, WordPress is fast becoming a viable platform for just about any type of CMS site you can imagine. All it takes is the right combination of themes and plugins.

I do wonder whether the book is going to satisfy the inevitable quesitons that a novice will have while the more adept user may desire a deeper exploration of the mechanics of WordPress and plugins.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Featured

Poor iPod Touch – iPhone battery life after iOS 4.x upgrade

October 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I’ve got a 2G iPod Touch. It’s 22 months old. I had been running OS3 on it ever since OS3 was released and my battery life has been quite good. I’d be able to go several days before needing a charge. That all changed immediately following my updating to iOS 4. I was shocked at how quickly my battery lost its charge. I’d notice in the evening that I had 75% charge and in the morning it would be almost nothing. I never completely shut down my iPod but let it sleep instead. I also noticed that startup time took nearly 35 seconds where in OS3 it was more like 15 seconds to startup.

I began to research this issue and discovered a lot of other people voicing similar complaints with iPod’s and iPhones that had been upgraded to iOS 4. And a check in the Apple Forums uneartherd numerous threads with many people also complaining about the greatly accelerated draining of the battery with iOS 4. Here is an excellent forum with extensive discussion on the battery life issue

Numerous suggestions were offered to improve the battery life. Some of the suggestions were…

  • In Settings>Fetch New Data, turn Push off.
  • In Settings> Wi-Fi, turn Wi-Fi off.
  • Make sure you do not have multiple applications running.
  • Sync and backup your iPod.  Restore the iPod to factory settings by going to Settings>General>Reset. Re-sync to restore your apps.

Well, none of those suggestions helped improve my battery life. To clarify, if I don’t have Wi-Fi on, my iPod becomes pretty useless for the things that I use it for so turning Wi-Fi off was no solution. Same with turning Push off.

The point is this: with no change in my usage pattern, my battery life plummeted with the installation of iOS4 leading me to conclude that there is something inherent with iOS 4 causing my iPod to suddenly suck battery power. It might be as simple as this… here is what I’ve learned about iOS4 compared to iOS3;  iOS4 has a persistent Wi-Fi mode which means that prior to iOS4, Wi-Fi turned itself off when the iPod Touch was locked. Not so with iOS4… Wi-Fi remains on even when your iPod is locked so that may explain my precipitous drop in battery life. I haven’t had enough time to investigate this further but in the coming days I will try to make sure I turn Wi-Fi off wen I absolutely don’t need it to see it helps. It certainly should because Wi-Fi definitely will use more power than not having it on in the first place. If that turns out to be the main reason, what a pain in the butt it will be to always have to turn Wi-Fi off when not needed in order to save battery life compared to pre-iOS 4 days.

I felt that downgrading to iOS3 would be the most logical thing to do but when I called Apple Support to inquire about this I was told that Apple does not directly provide a way to downgrade to a prior OS. The tech implied that it was possible to do via an unsupported Apple technique but I have researched and concluded that I don’t want to attempt that myself. If you search for it on Google, you’ll find tutorials explaining how to do it but there is some risk that you’ll mess up your firmware and you may not have a positive result. I’d rather not attempt that, your mileage may vary.

I have AppleCare so that leaves me with about 2 months of AppleCare extended warranty coverage. I decided to walk my iPod to the Apple Store near me. Once there the Genius ran some diagnostics on my iPod and concluded that the battery itself was nearing the end of its useful life. I realize that Li-Ion batteries have a limited lifespan that diminishes according to how many charge cycles it has gone through but I just wasn’t completely buying his conclusion since my battery had been holding a charge very well and it was only after upgrading to iOS 4 that the accelerated battery drain took place. The Genius on the other hand smirked at me and told me that my battery was 2 years old and was shot. He felt it was merely a coincidence that my battery life seemed to be less with the iOS4 upgrade. He recommended I replace the iPod and since I was under AppleCare I went with that option.

It’s a fact that eventually my battery will die completely so at least I’ve got a newer battery. After one last sync with my computer and Mobile Me, I handed over the nearly 2 year old iPod 2G and received a new replacement (still 2G though.) That’s a great reason to have AppleCare since it would have cost around $80 to have Apple to replace the battery. The peace of mind that comes with having AppleCare, for me, makes it a good thing to do. And I’ve still got 2 months left so if this doesn’t fix my battery drainage issue, I can go right back to Apple within the next 2 months and pursue this further.

Has it solved the battery drain issue? I don’t know yet. I’ll know the answer to that in a few days and will follow up with an update to this post. In the meantime, I’d like to hear your experiences with iOS 4 and your iPod and iPhones. Have you noticed any difference in battery usage since you upgraded to iOS4?

Filed Under: Featured, iPod
« Older Posts
Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes