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2010-04C

Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin             Issue # 2010-04c

             News in two dimensions can still run deep

In this issue:
  Antec versus the monorails... Perfect people don't need Fixmo
  tools... Franklin covers words to The Word in Spanish... More
  schmoozer than boozers among BACtrack users... Tiffen gear as PC
  accessory accessories... Special Report: Microsoft Outlook
  stumbles... Reviews: OmniPage/PaperPort, Apricorn Aegis Padlock
  drive, Hoover Linx Cordless Stick Vac, Monster LightSpeed 100,
  Targus Travel Power Outlets... plus our commentary on phones

Antec versus the monorails
  Imagine your house having just one main power outlet with a 250
  Amp circuit breaker. A zillion cube taps may power absolutely
  everything, but that's asking for trouble: it's not as safe, it
  creates waste heat, it lets wider power variations flow through
  to everything plugged in & any one thing failing can potentially
  crash it all. It's a lot like that inside a computer power supply
  where brands with single-rail supplies would rather make you
  believe they're somehow beefier. Antec multiple-rail designs
  split higher-power among several power buses for better
  reliability, better stability & cooler, quieter operation. Ask
  Victoria. Contact: Veronica Feldmeier, Antec Inc. (Fremont, CA)
  510-770-2150 vfeldmeier@antec.com http://antec.com

Perfect people don't need Fixmo tools
  If you're perfect, you probably don't need Fixmo Tools BlackBerry
  Edition ($20 with a year of updates). You probably never delete
  anything by accident, never send a flame message you later
  regret, never deal with a dead battery, never let a handset
  interrupt a meeting, never get memory gout, never need to edit a
  message you reply to or forward. Any of you not in that
  never-never land are invited to send your BB PIN to Rick to get a
  copy to review. Contact: Rick Segal, Fixmo (Toronto, ON)
  416-414-9726 rick@Fixmo.com http://Fixmo.com

Franklin covers words to The Word in Spanish
  See http://franklinespanol.com for some great products to tell
  about If you write for a Spanish-speaking audience. There are
  both Spanish & Spanish-English products there (including some for
  kids), from dictionaries to the Bible (including Santa Biblia
  Reina-Valera 1960). Ask Aline. Contact: Aline Boutin, Franklin
  Electronic Publishers (Burlington, NJ) 609-386-2500x4434
  aline_boutin@franklin.com http://franklin.com

More schmoozer than boozers among BACtrack users
  Often, when people first hear about BACtrack personal
  breathalyzer products, their first thought is that it's an
  enabling "cheat" for alcoholics. We don't know that there are no
  users for whom that may be true, but neither do we know of any.
  We do know that it's popular as an in-person socialization focus
  for young adults, ironically more popular with those who don't
  overindulge. Ask Keith. Contact: Keith Nothacker, KHN SOLUTIONS
  (San Francisco CA) 415-693-9756x113
  mailto:keith.nothacker@bactrack.com http://bactrack.com

Tiffen gear as PC accessory accessories
  When is the last time you bought a roll or reel of film or
  videotape? HD video editing is for the second year the
  fastest-growing Windows application category, meaning a lot of
  people are shooting with HD camcorders & you know as well as we
  do how electronic photography is now. So if all those cameras
  have become PC accessories, then all the things Tiffen offers for
  them (filters, mounts, lighting, etc.) are accessories to
  accessories. Drop Hilary a note telling him which cameras you use
  most to start working out which Tiffen gear makes the most sense
  for you to review. Contact: Hilary Araujo, Tiffen Company
  (Hauppauge, NY) 631-609-3216 haraujo@tiffen.com
  http:/.tiffen.com

Special Report: Microsoft Outlook stumbles
  We asked if Outlook 2010 will fix Outlook 2007 performance
  issues, like lags when typing while other activities (mail
  fetches, for example) are underway. A Microsoft spokesperson
  replied, "Yes, performance has been addressed & improved in
  Outlook 2010." That sounded promising, until: "In fact, the
  Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 included improvements for Outlook
  that were a result of the development of Outlook 2010." That SP2
  was released in February of 2009 & is here, complete with the
  lags that prompted our inquiry. We know that our huge message
  stores are one reason it's sluggish (we'll need several full days
  to properly groom those), but this is a 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate
  system with 12GB of CAS 8 RAM on a 6-core/12-thread CPU, so if
  it's still slow for us, it's not the hardware. A corporate change
  from Outlook to anything else is daunting, but for individuals,
  we wonder if these woes may result in user erosion to online
  alternatives. We will get & evaluate Office 2010 once it's
  released to see if those SP2 improvements are as far as its own
  performance improvements will go.

Special Report Bonus Review: OmniPage/PaperPort
  This started as we approached spring cleaning & faced up to the
  avalanches of desktop paper. Paper filing has lots of overhead &
  finding filed folios is far from a sure thing. Inspired by how
  much easier things got when we added Xobni to Outlook, we asked
  Nuance to send OmniPage 17 Professional & PaperPort 12
  Professional for review. We hit a few bumps: no direct support
  for our ScanSnap scanner (it wants to see TWAIN or WIA drivers) &
  the scanner action buttons for our CanoScan & Lexmark scanners
  aren't configurable from our Windows 7/64 Control Panel. We
  dodged that by telling PaperPort to monitor the default scan-to
  folder for ScanSnap, turned off Abbyy OCR within the ScanSnap
  workflow & started digging at our paper piles. The cool thing
  about scanning into OCR is the added PDF text layer making it all
  searchable by Windows, Google desktop search (which we don't use)
  or by the misnamed PaperPort "All-In-One Search" (which searches
  only PaperPort-managed scans & files). We set up a clean, new
  main folder then subfolders for things like payables, product
  docs, shipping documents, etc. As we scanned, we could add
  searchable keywords, clean & straighten the scans, file each one
  in an appropriate folder & use any of those search options to
  locate it by content even if we don't remember where it went.
  There's a lot more depth to both products, but for now, cutting
  down those paper piles is enough to please us. Bottom line: the
  combo of OmniPage 17 Professional & PaperPort 12 Professional is
  making reasonably quick work of bridging the gap from piles of
  paper to PC-searchable files of digital doppelgangers.

Special Report Bonus Review 2: Apricorn Aegis Padlock drive
  The huge storage capacities of pocket-size USB drives makes them
  at once very convenient & very dangerous to tote. The danger is
  in the vulnerability of anything sensitive you may have on the
  drive & the ease with which a stranger can, by accident or
  design, get their hands on that drive. Apricorn has a long
  reputation for cleverness in dodging that danger; we still adore
  their portable Aegis drive with a built-in fingerprint scanner
  that means only one person can use it. That's one reason we asked
  to review their new Aegis Padlock drive with a 12-button keypad
  on one side. One administrator & up to 10 other users can enroll
  6-12 digit PIN codes to unlock its AES-encrypted files; the one
  they set up uses 256-bit AES & stores 250GB. Even out of its
  protective case, extensive shock mounting guards it against up to
  300G in use, 100G when parked. Like other Aegis drives, it's
  self-contained with an integrated wrap & tuck USB2 cable (no
  power adapter needed). Bottom line: Apricorn Aegis Padlock
  accomplishes solid, secure data protection for more than one user
  in a compact totable USB2 drive.

Special Report Bonus Review 3: Hoover Linx Cordless Stick Vac
  Our third spring cleaning theme item from Hoover is a Linx
  Cordless Stick Vac, which has both good & not so much so things
  going for it. To the good, they use LiIon batteries to deliver a
  very decent runtime without the power fade of NiMH. It's a fine
  little vacuum for small area rugs when you have its motorized
  brush engaged. It's that brush, though, that leads to some
  frustrations in cleaning uncarpeted floors, especially in a place
  (like ours) with pets. With only the vacuum going, not the
  brushes (uncarpeted-floor mode), pet hairs get drawn into the
  bristles where they snag & stay; in our first test, the dirt cup
  was essentially empty while the brush looked like it was growing
  a beard. We tilted the sweeper back, turned on the brush & that
  swept almost all the pet hair into the dirt cup. Bottom line: the
  Hoover Platinum Series Linx Cordless Stick Vac is a light &
  easily totable vacuum with good run-time that's very useful for
  small areas & for throw rugs, especially where there's not much
  pet hair there.

Special Report Bonus Review 4: Monster LightSpeed 100
  It was time to rejigger the home theater stack & bring in a new
  receiver, BluRay player & Roku box. That called for one more
  optical audio connection, so we asked to review the Monster
  Digital Interlink LightSpeed 100 4-meter fiber optic cable. As
  we've seen in many Monster products, there's solid engineering
  behind its rugged & durable connector housing & jacketing. Our
  big feet snagged & yanked at it (unintentionally) several times
  during the retrofit with absolutely no ill effect; the sound is,
  of course, terrific. Bottom line: the Monster Digital Interlink
  LightSpeed 100 4-meter fiber optic cable made audio happen but
  not trouble.

Special Report Bonus Review 5: Targus Travel Power Outlets
  In less than 6" & less than 6oz, Targus offers an impressive new
  way to carry extra outlets when you travel. The Targus Travel
  Power Outlet Strip has a grounded AC plug that lights up to
  confirm that an outlet is active, an 8" cord & a body with 4
  3-prong outlets (one on one side, two on the other, one at the
  far end) spaced to give your wall warts elbow room. Put the plug
  in the far-end outlet to pack it compactly; a Velcro wrap helps
  keep it all snug. At a hefty 400 Joules, surge/spike protection
  kicks in & blows an internal fuse (suicide to the strip, but
  better it than your gear); it also has 10A overload protection
  via a resettable breaker. Bottom line: until the places we stay
  add a lot more outlets for the gear we bring, Targus Travel Power
  outlets are a reach-for accessory that belongs in the bag for
  every trip we take.

Phones
  Thanks to all of you who sent your suggestions about curing the
  PC to POTS phone gap we covered several issues back. As you'll
  see in a special "phone slam" review section in our next issue,
  we found a great way to log incoming & outgoing call info, dial
  from any app with a keystroke & more. We may also see a device
  that (VOX) auto-logs incoming call audio plus data. We'll look at
  several nice answers to getting good audio quality from the phone
  line into the PC. We still think that a POTS phone designed to
  connect to a PC to provide these features would be a better
  answer, but who's likely to build one? Contact: Martin Winston,
  Newstips (Novelty, OH) 440-338-8400; marty@Newstips.com
  http://Newstips.com

                               # # #

Newstips Bulletin [Novelty, OH] +1.440.338.8400 http://Newstips.com

(c) Copyright 2007 Martin Winston and TwandaCorp - all rights reserved.

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