Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 45 of 168)

Reading Material: Getting the most out of your NAS

NAS.If you’re like me, you’ve probably got way too much media. More movies and music than one person can possibly consume. There is a strange appeal to that kind of digital hoarding. It’s actually what prompted me to set up my first Network Attached Storage device. Technically, things have been made a bit easier for me with the help of Apple’s Airport Extreme, but anyone can put together a NAS of their own for enjoying content as far as your network will reach (and often beyond).

Gizmodo put together a guide for getting the most out of your NAS that I thought was worth sharing.

Getting a NAS set up as a simple file share is mostly a plug-and-play process. (More on that here.) And in raw form, it’s a dead-simple concept: Here’s a bunch of storage space that you can share among your home computers, over the network. But with a little work, you can do so much more than that, converting your NAS from a begrudging purchase in the name of caution to a vital piece of your very computing existence.

Take a few minutes to check out the ways a NAS can change your digital life.

Batman 3 gets a date

Heath Ledger as the Joker.

Hot on the heels of the Iron Man 2 release (actually a hair before, but hey), Warner Bros. made an announcement everyone has been waiting for. Batman 3 is coming people. He isn’t set to return until 2012, and technically the project hasn’t even been greenlit yet, but the studio still set a date for July 20.

The announcement came as part of the studios IMAX plans, which include 20 films before the end of 2013. Once again we’ll be treated to the directorial tastes of Christopher Nolan. His brother, Jonathan, will pen the script.

In most cases I’d call it strange to put out an announcement so far in advance without full approval/funding, but The Dark Knight made a billion dollars. I’m sure the third installment will do just fine.

Skype to release five-way video calls next week

Skype video callOnce upon a time I worked for a Steelcase dealer in Ohio. Though we specialized in systems furniture (the industry name for cubicles), we also dealt in some of the tech stuff associated with office life, including video conferencing solutions. The most expensive is a product from Steelcase’s conference room division, Polyvision, called Thunder. A basic system installation cost $100,000 and boasted a feature list that has now been largely duplicated by Skype. A few years back the ability to quickly share your desktop wasn’t as easy as right-click, share desktop. Now, though, Skype can handle it, and Skype’s free.

Next week Skype plans to add five-way video calling to its service offering. The new feature will be free for starters, but may start to cost over the course of the year. You can bet plenty of businesses will be reconsidering their video conferencing options (or consider using video conferencing for the first time) when this rolls out. On the personal side, this is perfect for families and friends spread across the country. My own immediate family is currently spread across three states, soon to be four. It would be great to jump on and video chat with all of them for free.

Google to enter the ebook market this summer

Google Editions.If the Wall Street Journal is right, Google could be launching its ebook store as early as this summer. You may remember the Google ebook store, Google Editions, from all the problems it had last year. Publishers were far from supportive – they were actually combative – and it didn’t seem like any progress was in sight.

It seems things have turned the corner, though. Google Editions will reportedly launch with somewhere between 400,000 and 600,000 titles. Hey, Amazon, remember how good it felt to be on top? With that many titles Google would be a top-notch competitor against both Amazon and Apple’s new iBookstore.

The most interesting news, though, will be whether Google Editions kept any of the original, consumer-friendly stipulations in contract. Will we be able to print? How about that copy/paste feature?

Source: WSJ

I’ll have what Carol Bartz is having

Tech comparisons.Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has had some…interesting…things to say about the future of the web and her company’s competition with Google. This latest tidbit, which comes courtesy of a BBC interview, is a real humdinger.

According to Bartz:
Google is going to have a problem because Google is only known for search…It is only half our business; it’s 99.9% of their business. They’ve got to find other things to do…Google has to grow a company the size of Yahoo every year to be interesting.

What’s that now, Carol? At the risk of sounding the Google fanboy, I’m willing to call this lady nuts. Completely bonkers, actually. No sane person can honestly say Google lacks diversity. The company is reaching into every aspect of web-connected living, or life as some call it. HP just dropped Microsoft in favor of Google’s OS for tablet devices and let’s not forget that Google as a search engine is the juggernaut of the industry. That says nothing of the other services Google provides. In case, like Carol Bartz, you’ve forgotten what that portfolio looks like, you can check out a full list of products here.

If that still doesn’t have you convinced, consider this chart from the NYT comparing the endeavors of the world’s great tech empires.

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