Crash Plan

One of the most important things you can do with your computer, is back it up. Backups preserve your important data and can save untold hours of work by letting you revert to previous versions when you discover that you’ve done something to mess up one of your precious documents. Backups also soften the blow of losing a computer to age, theft, or other disasters. But if all of your backups are in one place, then how safe is your data?

This is where this week’s pick, Crash Plan, comes in. Crash Plan provides automatic online backup services for home and business users and allows continuous backups to multiple destinations while you work. Crash Plan, the company, offers Crash Plan, the service, for home users, and Crash Plan Pro for businesses. Crash Plan, the software, is available for Mac OS X, Windows, Windows 64 bit, Linux, and Solaris. The Crash Plan Software is free, but you can purchase a license to upgrade to Crash Plan + and unlock additional capabilities for $59.99 per box. And you can easily have computers on the same account running the free Crash Plan, and Crash Plan +. The Crash Plan Pro software is available for the same platforms, and comes in both client and server versions. You can try Crash Plan Pro for 30 days for free, or purchase licenses starting at $350 for 5 licenses with additional savings for higher increments. Pro licenses come with 1 year of support and maintenance which can be renewed for an additional fee. For more information, check out http://www.crashplan.com.

Since this blog is primarily aimed at consumers, the rest of this review will deal with the Crash Plan for Home offerings. Business purchasers interested in Crash Plan won’t take my word for it anyway, and will check out the Crash Plan site.

So, when you download and install the Crash Plan software on your computer, Crash Plan will automatically start up and prompt you to create an account. Your Crash Plan account doesn’t cost you anything, and it is used to coordinate the backups of your different computers and associate them together as we’ll see in a minute. It is important that you give a valid e-mail address when you set up your account, as Crash Plan will send you regular reports showing how your computers are backing up and alerting you to any problems.

After you’ve created your account, the Crash Plan engine will start in the background. This runs as a service and is working to back up your computer even when no one is logged in. As long as the computer is on, Crash Plan is working to protect your data.

When the Crash Plan application comes up, you’ll see that you have four choices for backup destinations: Crash Plan Central, Friend, Another Computer, and Folder. This is the order that Crash Plan considers important for protecting your data. But for the purpose of getting you set up and working with Crash Plan, we’re going to look at these in the opposite order.

Folder is pretty much the most important for getting Crash Plan up and working. This lets you designate a local folder where you can store backups for your computer. This can be a directly attached drive or raid, or network attached storage, but the drive must be mounted on your computer for Crash Plan to find it. Crash Plan isn’t currently smart enough to mount network drives automatically. The Folder is important for three reasons: 1) it provides a quick source for data restores, 2) it is the default location for other computers to back up to your computer, and 3) it provides a way to seed backups for remote locations.

Let’s look at the last one closely. One of the big problems with online backup systems is the initial backup. It takes forever, and until it is done, nothing is really protected. Crash Plan gives you a way around this. Crash Plan will let you attach a drive and back up to it as a “seed” for a remote backup. Once this local backup is complete, you can disconnect the drive, ship it to the remote location, connect it to a computer there, and attach it to the remote copy of Crash Plan. The folder names that Crash Plan creates are encoded, so Crash Plan will know that that folder is the backup to your machine, and will automatically connect back to your computer and begin incremental backups. This is a great saver in time and bandwidth.

Selecting Another Computer allows you to backup your computer to any other computer on your Crash Plan account. If you’ve created a folder on the other machine, it will start backing up to a new subfolder for the new computer. I’m not sure what it will do if you don’t have a default folder set up.

The Friend option is one of the cool points of Crash Plan. Let’s say you have a friend who also uses Crash Plan. You both need offsite backups, right? Well, each of you buys a drive, connects it locally, backs up your computer to the drive, and then exchange drives. When your friend attaches your seeded archive to his computer via the attach archive folder command on the Friends screen (see photo, below), Crash Plan sorts it out. He becomes your external backup, and you become his external backup when you connect his archive. All for free! Well, for the cost of the drives. Crash Plan’s online servers act as a Dynamic DNS service to connect your computers together, so you don’t even need a static IP. By default, all Crash Plan transmissions are encrypted, so your data is protected when going over the Internet. And the archives are also encrypted, so even if your friend is tempted to snoop at your data, he can’t. By default Crash Plan uses the password to your account as your encryption key, but you can specify your own encryption key if you want. Just don’t forget it!

The last Destination option is Crash Plan Central. This represents storage on Crash Plan’s online servers. Crash Plan will rent you unlimited storage for one computer for as low as $3.50 a month, or on the Family unlimited plan you can get unlimited storage for the computers of every member of your household for as low as $5 a month. You don’t actually pay these as monthly fees, you pay a lump sum for one, two, or three years. These prices are very comparable to other online backup services such as Mozy, Carbonite, and Backflash. And Crash Plan Central will even ship you a drive (for another fee) so you can seed your initial backup and then ship it back to them.

Those are just the destination options. You can use any of them, or all of them. If you’ve got a dozen friends using Crash Plan, you can back up to all of them. Crash Plan keeps track of what files are backed up to which destination so incremental updates are short and quick (unless you just copied Gigs of music or movies onto your drive, nothing will make that quick).

Beneath the Backup Destinations on the Crash Plan screen is where you select the files to back up. The same set is used for all destinations, but other than that you have full control over what gets backed up, and what doesn’t. Back up your entire drive, or just select files and folders. It’s up to you. But it is a good idea to avoid backing up the folder that Crash Plan uses to note what it has backed up where. And the backups themselves.

Crash Plan lets you restore files from whatever destinations are available, in real time. Obviously, the more you restore, the longer it will take. And local restores are much faster than restores over the internet. But if the only copy of that file you need is on Uncle Joe’s computer in Alabama, or if he’s just the only one online, you can get it

Crash Plan also has a web interface so you can sign on and change your settings, check your backups, or restore files from any computer on the internet. Get your laptop stolen while going to a conference? With Crash Plan, you can still download the latest version of the big presentation to any computer on the net.

Crash Plan also does its own maintenance. You set your retention policy for how many versions of old and deleted items you want to keep, and Crash Plan will review your destinations, prune the expired files, and will verify and fix any damaged files in your archive.

The free version of the Crash Plan application does have a couple of ads to support the service. But you only really need to run the application when you’re checking on your backups, changing settings, or dealing with a problem. Or you can upgrade to a Crash Plan + license and do away with the ads altogether. The Crash Plan + license also gets you support for commercial use of the service, continuous backup protection (the free version only backs up once a day), and 448 bit encryption (the free version only does 128 bit encryption).

There area few other features to Crash Plan, but I’ve covered the big points. Crash Plan is a simple, easy to set up way to back up your Mac, PC, or Unix box, or all three, to any number of local and remote sites. It works securely and automatically over the internet, and only costs you the price of the storage. It really is the only option for online backup that is anything close to free. For the simplicity, redundancy, security, and peace of mind it affords, Crash Plan really is Nifty Tech.

Twitter – an interview with Tee Morris

This week, in a special review, we’re going to look at Twitter, a free service available at http://twitter.com and available on any system that can operate a modern web browser. Now, there are many worthwhile clients that access and add value to Twitter, but we won’t be looking at any of those in depth until later articles.

When I realized that Twitter deserved a place in the Nifty Tech ranks, I also realized that I couldn’t do the review justice on my own. So I turned to the man who literally wrote the book on Twitter: blogger, podcaster, father of podiobooks, and author of “All a Twitter: A Personal and Professional Guide to Social Networking with Twitter," Tee Morris.

Nifty Tech Blog: Tee, thanks for taking the time to talk with me about Twitter.

Tee Morris: Not a problem. Taking about Twitter is something I do well.

NTB: Let’s start out from the view of someone completely new to Twitter. Why Twitter? With all the different social networks around, what brings people to Twitter?

TM: As Shakespeare wrote back in 1602, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” This is part of the appeal in Twitter. I’ve heard people say that Twitter is a timesink, but I found that in Facebook, MySpace, and even the choice chat apps like iChat/AIM and Skype. You go off on tangents, and go, and go, and go…

Blogging was always a golden unicorn for me as I would spend hours on posts, and would not get anything done in my writing projects after blogging about writing. Twitter, by design, allows you to get to the point, keep it simple, and then move on. This is one (of many) reasons why it is so popular, but I believe it is its most appealing attribute.

NTB: How easy is it for someone to get started with Twitter?

TM: Very. You can have Twitter up and running in minutes. Heck, in All a Twitter, I have you up and running in only a few pages.

But this is the biggest mistake that people make when starting off with Twitter.

What I explain in All a Twitter (and I’m really proud of those readers that follow my advice) is that a first impression is everything. After you set up an account, but before your first tweet, new users need to take care of their profile. When the profile is complete, you then have to think, “Okay. What do I have to say?” Keep it simple.

Then, if you think, “I can get into this…” you need to find yourself a good third-party client like Twhirl, DestroyTwitter, or TweetDeck. You start to unlock the potential of Twitter.

So yes, you can get started in minutes. To get Twitter running efficiently, you need to invest some time.

NTB: Any advice for someone looking to build up his or her network?

TM: Yes. Avoid those “Twitter Follower-Gathering” services. This is a very common tactic people use to build up followers, but they don’t know (or if it’s for the Social Media Snake Oil Salesmen or some of the ‘Make Money Online’ authors, they don’t care to know) how these services work. The sites run script that follows random people en masse, then drops them 24-72 hours later, and then picks a whole new group of people, people you may — or may not — share anything in common. And if that inflation of numbers isn’t enough, they tend to slip in ads for their services at random times, usually without the knowledge of the user.

My favorite network builders are Mr. Tweet or Tweepi. Both of these services are unobtrusive, do not inflate numbers in a slimy or questionable manner, and allow you to “know” whom it is you’re following. Also look up hashtags of topics you’d want to cover, and look up Trending Topics that Twitter tracks. Not only do Trending Topics make great conversation starters but you can also use them to build your networks.

NTB: Can you take a second and explain what hashtags are, and how they’re used?

TM: Hashtags (covered in depth in All a Twitter) are a method used to track various subjects on Twitter. I’ve heard people say “Hashtags are dead like Facebook Groups…” (which is sad as I manage a few in Facebook) but I think this is because of goofy hashtags users (like me) tend to come up with to pepper a tweet with that sense of humor. Even with my goofy hashtags, I still use them in earnest. Currently I use hashtags for an event I’m helping out with their Social Media initiative. When people attend CREATE South 2010 this year, the plan is to amend our tweets with #createsouth2010.

That is the anatomy of a hashtag: a pound sign with a keyword. It is best to keep hashtags brief, but you need to make sure when people see the hashtag what it’s referencing. If, for example, we were using cs2010, would we be talking about CREATE or the 2010 Adobe CS coming out? Hashtags are great tracking tools, and really tap into the potential of how topics catch on in the Twitterverse.

NTB: OK. So you’ve set yourself up on Twitter, and developed a core group of people to interact with. Where can you go from here? What can you do with Twitter?

TM: You can use it for conversation. You can use it for promotion of a special event. You can use it to share resources with people that are in the same spheres of influence as you are.

Or all of the above.

Seriously, the question should be “What can’t you do with Twitter?” as your possibilities are endless provided that you participate.

What do I mean by that?

People tend to get on to Twitter and then attempt to fly through the Twitterverse on auto-pilot. They use the scripts for the numbers, fill their stream with pre-fabricated tweets, and then walk away without engaging their network. Success with Twitter is not — and I will say this again and again, NOT — the numbers or the amount of tweets you send a day, but it is about your network, how they respond to you, and how you respond to them. As I mentioned in Episode 10 of Bird House Rules, you need to take an active role in your network; and if both you and your Followers have a vested interest in each other, you can achieve anything.

NTB: I’d like to raise a counterpoint to this and say that there IS a place for automated tweets in the Twittersphere. For instance, under my Nifty Tech Blog account, I follow a number of Twitter accounts that are basically news aggregators. They automatically tweet headlines and links to articles. Now I will admit that in my personal tweet feed, I would never follow such a feed, but I have a special need to be able to scan headlines as part of my research for this site. So if you’re making the choice to be just an aggregator, you’re catering to a very niche market, and sacrificing your chance to build community.

TM: You mistake what I mean by auto-pilot. Automated tweets and auto-pilot are not the same thing. For example, I run two other accounts for organizations: IDGuardian and CreateSouth. I use HootSuite to schedule many tweets so that if I cannot tweet on a regular basis, I have plenty of content heading out to my respective networks.

This is not putting an account on auto-pilot though. There are plenty of accounts out there that are spewing out content, and a lot of it is repetitive. The same link and, in one case to many, the same tweet, is repeated ad nauseum. The tweets I’ve scheduled do get responses from people when questions or comments are made. This is what I mean by the engagement of the Community. If someone pings you on Twitter, ping back. Start a conversation, get people taking.

News services that you reference are also not spewing out spam or innocuous content. These feeds specialize in headlines on Social Media, on tech news, on the latest headlines from Mashable and Gizmodo, and so on. I don’t think automated tweets are all evil. Just the accounts that really don’t care what their community has to say.

NTB: A lot of critics of Twitter complain that they don’t care what someone just had for lunch, and don’t really want to see a bunch of tweets from the bathroom. Anything to say to those critics?

TM: In my four years on Twitter, I have never seen someone tweet “I’m going to be the bathroom...” and if they did, I would probably drop them.

In a talk I gave in New Zealand on Twitter, I did use the “I’m grooming my cat” example. What may seem innocuous is actually a great example of what a quality network can accomplish with Twitter. So let’s say you tweet “I’m grooming my cat.” Someone else can reply with “I have to every day. I have a Maine Coon.” You respond back with “Yeah, if I don’t, I’m stepping over hairball mines.” A third person can come back with a reply to both people with “Have you tried ((insert bit.ly link here)) for hairballs? Works like a charm.”

This is the power of a quality network on Twitter. Strength in numbers.

NTB: There are a lot of stories about scams on Twitter, people posting links to pages with viruses, stealing personal information, and hijacking Twitter accounts. What can people do to protect themselves from these scams?

TM: Something I’ve said about the Social Media movement on a whole: Social Media is the “Blinking 12:00” of the Internet. So many people want to play with the cool toys, but no one wants to know how they work. The Social Media cheerleaders also do not want people to know that there are some real bottom feeders and opportunistic con artists out there. There is nothing that sets Social Media apart from anything else on the Internet. You have to be careful.

For example — Phishing scams via Direct Messages. If a friend pings you with a message that just seems a little weird. In other words, they don’t make the DM personal, that’s your first warning. If you get a DM from someone you rarely hear from, and they’re asking you to click on a link, that’s another reason to be wary. Finally, if you click on the link and a site wants your username and password, the answer is “No.” You just have to be careful, and keep your brain in the “ON” position.

NTB: What is the coolest thing about Twitter?

TM: It’s people. I have met so many cool people through this service, and this Community never stops surprising me. I consider myself quite lucky to have connected with the people I have through Twitter.

NTB: So Twitter at its best emphasizes the social aspect of Social Media?

TM: I truly believe it is. There’s a lot of initiatives out there, but have you heard of any Face-to Facebook meetings? What about Podcast Pow-Wow’s? (Well, okay we got Podcamps, so I’m busted there…) but Tweet-up’s tends to happen left and right across the country and around the world. With all its faults and some of its noise, I still believe in Twitter, and I believe it works better than any of the initiatives out there.

NTB: Anything else you’d like to say to someone thinking about getting on Twitter?

TM: If you want to give Twitter a spin, be patient with it. Don’t think you have to be brilliant with every tweet or as charismatic as Chris Brogan or Coach Deb. All you have to be is yourself, look over your incoming tweets, and chime in with your opinion or viewpoint. That is, after all, what Twitter is all about.

NTB: There are a lot of books out now about Twitter. What is different about your approach?

TM: All a Twitter is the first, and perhaps the only, title that is written from a user’s perspective. Most of the books that are out there are written by marketing experts, by people who only have one aim: To make a fast buck. They love to talk about communities in between their sales pitches and flavor of the month; but if you review their streams you will notice the comments tend to be one-way, questions asked without follow-ups to replies, and (of course) motivational quotes. I approach Twitter as a guy who wanted to know what his friends were talking about. All a Twitter is my own journal of what I’ve discovered about Twitter, how it works for me and others, and what you can accomplish with it. Throughout the book, you not only get practical exercises on how Twitter and the various applications and services work; but you also get a philosophy on how to work Twitter, and it’s a philosophy that works.

NTB: If any of the readers would like to talk to you more about Twitter, how should they contact you?

TM: They can find the more professional side of me on ITStudios, but if they want the snark and the sense-of-humor, find me on TeeMonster. You can also hear me speak at CREATE South 2010 on April 17, and on Memorial Day Weekend I will be a guest at Balticon which has evolved, in my opinion, into the BIGGEST tweet-up on the East Coast.

There’s also Bird House Rules, the companion podcast to All a Twitter and Sams Teach Yourself Twitter in 10 Minutes. I ask for feedback there following topics that I’ve covered in the episode. While I do have the show pre-planned, I never shy away from tweets or requests from people who have topics they’d like to hear about but were not addressed in either books or new to Twitter. My door is always open and I love talking shop.

NTB: Thanks for talking to us, Tee.

TM: Thanks for giving me a chance to talk Twitter.

This has been an interview with Tee Morris of TeeMorris.com and ImagineThatStudios.com. Tee is the author of “All a Twitter: A Personal and Professional Guide to Social Networking with Twitter," and its companion podcast “Bird House Rules”.

BluBridge Auto - Talk

[This week's review for The Nifty Tech Blog is a Guest Review by Odin1Eye of the View from Valhalla blog. I'd like to thank Odin for being Nifty Tech's first Guest Reviewer, and for providing such an interesting review.  Enjoy! - Editor]

Welcome to Nifty Tech. I am your guest blogger, Odin1Eye, and today I will be detailing the wonders of the BluBridge Auto-Talk by Miccus. So please, relax, put down your tray table, recline way back and enjoy the ride.

The BluBridge Auto-Talk (BBAT) device by Miccus is a straightforward hands-free bluetooth speaker phone device. As such it is priced at what I would consider to be slightly above the mean at US $99.99. However, doing a quick web search will (on most weeks) provide sites that have it at a much more reasonable $59.99.

As it’s name indicates, the BBAT is intended for the commuter. In many areas of the country, using a cell phone while driving has begun to become highly regulated. Currently, in the state of Texas, you can drive with a cell phone, but must use a hands free device in school zones. This on again off again legality makes the probability of an accidental violation much more likely and many drivers are opting for hands-free solutions. As well as using it during the drive, it can easily be used as a desk speakerphone if your cell phone’s speaker is not loud enough.

The BBAT is about the size (and looks roughly similar) to a closed communicator from Star Trek TOS. (No, it doesn’t open.) The exact dimensions, provided by Miccus, are 3.89”L x 2.16”W x .66”H. The device utilizes only four buttons. The largest of the four by far is the Talk button, and is nicely placed in the middle of the device. This button also functions to power on/off the device. Two small toggle buttons reside underneath the Talk button providing volume and a small mute button hides on the left hand side.

The Mount, the BBAT, and an iPhone (for scale).

The BBAT easily pairs to your cell phone and is quite easy to setup. Initially, probably due to user error, I had to re-pair the device several times, but after fairly heavy use, I can say this has not happened since getting to know the device.

The BBAT also will allow you to Voice Dial if your cell phone supports it. Since my iPhone 3GS does, it was one of the first things I had to try. Simply depress the talk button briefly, and the speaker chirps and your phone is ready to accept your voice command. Specifically in regards to the iPhone 3GS, you can also use this capability to “tell” your iPhone what music you want to hear if you have it set up to play through your car stereo.

It is also quiet easy to download your address book into the BBAT. Why would you want to do this? Because the BBAT also supports Caller ID. By default it will tell you the number of the person calling you, and once the address book is loaded, it will phonetically pronounce the name of your caller (sometimes with hilarious results).

The speaker volume and quality is really quite good from a relatively diminutive device. The BBAT has a suction cup bracket that ships with it. The intent is that you will place it in the corner of your windshield and basically forget about it. Great in theory, but in my experience this didn’t work quite as well as would be hoped, but about as well as would be expected. Placed on the windshield, the device resides a considerable distance from the speaker, this distance, and the obligatory road noise, results in a situation where the listener is unable to discern what the speaker is saying. This was easily remedied, however, by moving the device to the side window. Once this was accomplished, all of my test callers were unable to distinguish any difference from my normal call quality. (Don’t forget to remove it before rolling down the window however.)

One more note on the suction cup bracket however. The bracket doesn’t seem to hold the BBAT quite as snugly as would be hoped and with placing it right beside your ear, you will hear a bit of rattle occasionally which can be a bit annoying.

So, the BBAT is a great little device, but Bluetooth speaker devices are nothing exceptionally new, so what makes this worthy of NiftyTech?

Well, as the device is suction cupped to your window, it is in reality also charging via the solar panel built into the back of the BBAT. The fine folks at Miccus have created a Bluetooth device that easily defeats my biggest criticism of Bluetooth devices. I can never keep the danged things charged!

Miccus states the the BBAT provides a huge 800+ hours of standby time, (that is over a month of standby time!) which is quite remarkable in itself, and 13 hours of talk time! Add to this fact that as long as you live somewhere that sees the sun at least ones a month, you will more than likely NEVER need to charge the BBAT!

When I initially heard of this device, I felt it was too expensive. However, I told a coworker about it and he rushed out and purchased one at Buy.com during the Christmas sale at $49.99. After having borrowed his for a bit, I decided it was a must and now have one for myself. I truly enjoy it and would recommend it highly to anyone that spends any amount of time commuting and has a Bluetooth cell phone.

[Odin1eye is a husband and a father.  To make the odd coin to pay the bills, he also works as a Teacher Educator.  In what little spare time is left to him, he publishes the blog View from Valhalla, known for his series of podcast reviews.  Odin has retired from the leadership of the Norse Gods, and lives with his wife and godlings in South Texas.


If you'd like to be a Guest Blogger for The Nifty Tech Blog, write to us at NiftyTech@NiftyTechBlog.com.  Give an example of what you'd like to review and why it should be Nifty Tech. - Editor]

The Boom Effect: Follow up

Back on February 27th, podcasters converged on a house in Virginia, and people of all different stripes converged on their computers all over the world. They came together for an internet auction to raise funds for the future of a small girl called Sonic Boom: The Boom Effect. During this 10 hour event, goods and services donated from all over the world were auctioned off in an online chat room while a live video chat defied space and time by managing to LAG AHEAD of the actual bidding.

It was an amazing event. And during the event, over $8000 was raised for Sonic Boom's trust fund. It will stand for a long time as a shining example of how technology can form a community and can help bring that community together for a common purpose.

The auction may be over, but there is still time for you to help.  On the right of this paragraph is the Widget for the Sonic Boom Trust.  There is still time between now and March 31st for you to click the ChipIn! button and make some small donation (Or a large donation.  That works, too.) and know that you're helping a young girl have a brighter future.  She's five years old now, and her father is Tee Morris.  I expect that over the next fifteen years we're going to be watching her grow up on the internet in one form or another.  And it wouldn't surprise me if she didn't take the mike and camera away from her father and blow us all away, too.

This cause gets my personal stamp of approval.  Please help.

Time for a Poll?

Now that Apple has announced Pre-orders, I thought it was time for a poll to see how you feel about the new iPad offerings.  The press has been filled with glowing reports, and brutal criticism.  There has been very little in between.  I'm not making up my mind until I can get my hands on one.

But I want to know what YOU think.  Go or no go on the iPad?  I've added a poll over on the right so you can vote on when and how you'll be looking at picking up Apple's latest offering.  This poll will be open until the iPad goes on sale on April 3rd, but future polls will typically be open for about a week.

So vote, or comment here, and tell the world what you think.

Gelaskins Marvel Collection

Earlier in the blog, I mentioned that I had changed my host so that I could apply labels to posts and introduce some new features.  This is one of them.  Items under the tag Personal Stamp are things that are less tech related and more about me and my life.  I hope you'll appreciate these little diversions.

Every now and then, one finds some thing that isn't really tech related, but is just so cool that you just have to share.  This article is about one of these things.  I'm tagging it under Reviews, but it is kind of a mini-review.  Consider it a bonus!  Woo!  Bonus!

Ok, enough silly.  On with the cool.  What I'm here to rave about is Gelaskins new offering.  Gelaskins (at http://www.gelaskins.com) makes colorful decals to decorate (and to a limited extent protect) laptops, iPods, and other mobile devices.  There are other companies in this market, but Gelaskins is one of the more established ones.  Gelaskins started with collections of art from independant artists, but now allows you to upload your own images for them to make into colorful device covers.  This is a great way to make your laptop, iPhone, or iPod distinctive so you always know which one is yours.

But I'm not hear to talk about that.  I'm hear to talk about Gelaskins newest addition to their collection: Marvel Comics.  Yes, the folks at Gelaskins have done a deal with the folks at Marvel and they have gotten a selection of Marvel Comics artwork for creating new skins for your devices.  Some is artwork from the old traditional comics, and some is newer artwork that may have been created just for this effort.  I'm not sure.  It's all cool.  Right now they have 16 Marvel images available for a variety of devices.  Most feature Spider-Man and Iron Man, but there are a couple of X-Men images and one that features a collection of Marvel covers.  Hopefully more images will be coming soon.

Normally on The Nifty Tech Blog, I won't review something unless I've actually had a chance to touch it and live with it and I can really vouch for it.  While I do have Gelaskins on all of my laptops, and my wife has them on her iPod and iPhone, and those have all been beautiful and relatively easy to apply, remove, and change, I have not (yet) gotten my hands on anything from the new Marvel collection.  But there are some beautiful images to customize the devices of any Marvel Comics fan.  Based on the pictures on site, and my past experience in Gelaskins, these look like a safe bet.

Now I want to know what YOU think.  Do you like this product?  Do you like the blog?  Something else you'd like to see?  New features?  I want to hear your opinion, so please comment using the form below, or drop me an e-mail at NiftyTech@NiftyTechBlog.com, write on the wall of The Nifty Tech Blog Fan Page on Facebook, or drop me a note on Twitter @NiftyTechBlog.  Let me know what you like, what you don't like, and what you'd like to see.  And if you like what you see here, share it with your friends!

iPhone

Icon courtesy
of Apple

No discussion of Nifty Tech could be complete without mentioning the iPhone. I know, I know, some of you wouldn’t take an iPhone if someone put a gun to your head and threatened to pull the trigger. Many people have a hatred of AT&T Mobile that makes your typical Holy War look like a children’s squabble. Others are sure that Apple Inc. is the source of all evil. Well, tough.

Let’s face it people. All cell phone carriers suck. They just don’t have any incentive to NOT suck. It is the worst kind of collusion, a conspiracy of mediocrity.  AT&T is no worse than Sprint or Verizon or any other carrier.  And for all of Apple’s faults and mistakes, they do turn out some pretty nifty products. So let’s just accept that and move on to look at the tech.

OK. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last three years, you pretty much know where you can get an iPhone and how much it will cost you. If you’re still not sure, your best bet is to look around at http://www.apple.com. I’m sure you’ll find something.  In the states, a subsidized iPhone 3G can be had for $99 and an iPhone 3GS starts at $199.  If you want almost all of the Apps, and none of the AT&T, you can get an iPod Touch starting at $199.

But back to the Tech. To be honest, there area a number of things about the iPhone hardware that really aren't all that special. The camera is low resolution, it eats battery power, and the reception is fairly iffy. Two iPhones, side by side will show different signal strengths and may not have the same call quality. While the touch screen gives you intuitive control over the software, it isn’t very accurate and it may not register every touch. And it poses problems with use in cold weather. The iPhone isn’t perfect by a long shot.  But it does have its fair share of good points.

The software is full of Nifty. The iPhone is a platform that opens up a world of very nifty tools. Some of these will be covered in future articles, so for now, we’ll just look at the ones that come with the iPhone out of the box.

Whether you’re using the Original iPhone, the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 3G S, or the iPod Touch, the iPhone OS now gives you previously unknown mobility when accessing e-mail, the web, calendars, and a wealth of other information. Mail and Safari aren’t the best of all possible applications, but they do seem to be head and shoulders over anything else on the mobile market. Part of this is no doubt due to the Unlimited Data packages that many carriers are requiring for iPhone customers. Since you’ve already paid for the all-you-can-consume data service, why not just consume data? Got a question? Look up the answer on Safari. Need to send a message? Pop off a quick e-mail with Mail or send an SMS with Messages. Need directions? Get them from Maps.  On my last phone, I never used the browser because the data cost would have quickly broken the budget.  With the iPhone, if you have signal, you're connected.

Naturally, a small screen doesn't make an ideal browsing experience.  But we are talking about browsing on a phone.  Safari on the iPhone does a fairly good job for a phone.  If a screen renders with the font too small to read, just double-tap the section you want to read and Safari will zoom in on that section.  Double-tap again and you're looking at the whole page.  Some people will cite the lack of Flash support as a fatal flaw in the iPhone.  While this may be true for some, Flash isn't perfect either.  Not all sites require Flash, and many of those that do have found that they have to create Flash-free versions for mobile devices anyway.  And even without Flash support, mobile Safari still does the job for quite a lot of the web.

Mail likewise works well for managing mobile e-mail, now that push mail has become available for those who need it.  The only real drawback I've been able to find with Mail is that it only shows up to 200 mails in each account, and it sometimes doesn't push off old mail to make room for new mail.  It renders html based mail well, supports creating folders, composing, forwarding mail, even sending an attachment.  And with some add-on apps, mail can even send multiple attachments in a single e-mail, although it only does one attachment per e-mail by default.

On top of all that, the iPhone allows each application to implement a user interface unique to it’s needs. The touch screen allows each application to place buttons anywhere on the screen, and to change the layout whenever the context changes.  The motion sensors built into the iPhone give it a completely unique control interface. Not every application makes use of this, but those that do give the user a more natural control over the application.

The iPhone is one of those tech devices that is Nifty, not because of what it does, but because of what it makes possible. It makes computing a thing that can be done from anywhere and puts internet tools in your pocket. It can become the right tool for almost any job, providing a programmer can figure out the right way to use the tools at his disposal. It’s not perfect, but it is Nifty Tech.