The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
Apple has had the tablet computer market almost to itself. All the sales of all the competing tablets combined only add up to a fraction of the sales of the Apple iPad. At $500 or more per unit, the iPad is expensive but has still been (by far) the best-selling tablet computer in the world. Until now.
Amazon announced a 7-inch Kindle Fire yesterday. That's a smaller screen than the 10-inch iPad and many of the reviews in the press are saying the small size is a mistake. I disagree. To me, the 7-inch screen is much more practical than the larger iPad screen. I have a Barnes & Noble Nook with a 7-inch screen and love it. It is much better than the Apple iPad at slipping into an overcoat pocket or a lady's purse. In short, the smaller screen devices are much more practical to take with you.
However, the shocking news is the price: the new Kindle Fire will go on sale November 15 for $199. That's right, less than half the price of the iPad. To be sure, it only has 8 gigabytes of storage and it doesn't have a camera or a microphone, but that's a killer price. (Did you ever try to take a picture with an iPad 2? It's awkward to use.)
I'd love to own one of these! Actually, it is more likely to be found in libraries. The book2net Spirit is a high resolution book scanner that is designed to replace photocopiers. By eliminating the need for paper, toner, and maintenance, libraries can reduce costs. The Spirit can easily be attached to a cost recovery system or coin-op to generate revenue.
I know that many readers of this newsletter live in rural areas that do not have high-speed Internet connections available. All that will change within the next few years as the new IEEE 802.22 standard has been published.
Remember that we all had to switch from analog television to digital television about two years ago? The new IEEE 802.22 standard will use the frequencies vacated by the old television signals. The standard will provide networking in areas over a 62-mile radius at speeds of up to 22 megabits per second. That is as fast as or faster than most of today's fiber optic connections to private residences.
Four days ago, I published an article in which I wrote:
I think I have written the following statement at least a dozen times: "The price of disk storage keeps dropping." Today I am writing that statement one more time.
Now, only four days later, I am writing about still ANOTHER huge drop in the price of disk storage. Yes, "the price of disk storage keeps dropping."
Backblaze , the cloud-based backup provider that I have written about several times (see http://goo.gl/gpi9L), has revealed how it continues to offer online storage at very low prices. Backblaze builds its own 135 terabyte Storage Pods which cost just $7,384 in parts.
Have you noticed the trends in computers? Optical drives (CD and DVD drives) are going away.
This isn't new. The so-called netbook computers became popular two or three years ago and most of them do not contain optical disk drives. The reason is simple: the netbook computers are so small there is no room to build in a CD or DVD disk drive.
The MacBook Air laptop was introduced a year or two ago. It is full sized, but does not contain any sort of optical drive. Now Apple introduced a newer version of the MacBook Air on Wednesday but still omits the CD and DVD drive.
Late last year, I purchased a MacBook Air, the 2½-pound laptop computer from Apple. I love it. The machine quickly became my traveling companion; I take it on all trips, even on shorter trips of only a few hours. It is lightweight and thin, so it is easy to take most anywhere. That, plus a Sprint 4G/3G air card, provides wireless Internet connections most anyplace within range of a Sprint cell phone tower.
Today, Apple announced a new and improved MacBook Air.
Starting at $999 for the U.S. market and at £849 in the U.K., the new MacBook Air is an evolution, not a revolution. It is quite similar to the previous model, but with several nice additions:
In the past fifteen years that I have been writing this newsletter, I think I have written the following statement at least a dozen times: "The price of disk storage keeps dropping." Today I am writing that statement one more time. I recently purchased a three-terabyte NAS hard drive and added it to my in-home network. I now have even more space for my backups and those of my family members. Best of all, the price was so low as to be undreamed of only a few years ago. You can do the same.
I elected to purchase a network-attached storage (NAS) drive, not the normal USB drive.
Do you or someone you know have lots of files saved on floppy disks? A lady contacted me this week and asked how she could read her old floppy disks that she had saved from many years ago. It seems her present computer does not have a floppy disk drive in it. I suggested she do something NOW to save the disks. Before long, floppy disks will be about as useful as buggy whips.
Actually, there are THREE separate problems:
The first problem is that floppy disks were never designed for long-term storage for years and years. The manufacturers usually stated ten to twenty years' life expectancy for floppies if they were stored in ideal conditions. A typical residence isn't ideal.
A scanner is a very useful tool for a genealogist. With so many available on the market today, how do you know which is the best fit for your needs?
James Tanner has just published the first of what he promises to be a series of articles about selecting a scanner for your genealogy needs. He promises to discuss scanners in general, opening with the issue of price and the types of scanners available for purchase.
It is a never-ending, escalating war of ebook readers. Perhaps I should write, a war of "de-escalating prices." Google has announced a new ebook reader, to be called the iriver Story HD. It will sell for $139.99 and will be available in Target stores next week on July 17.
The iriver Story HD includes easy access to the 3 million free titles Google Books already has online in addition to a few hundred thousand paid titles. The device uses wi-fi wireless Internet connections to access Google books. It has a monochrome screen and a full QWERTY keyboard. Users will be able to read books directly via the Story HD's WiFi connection without having to download the book to the device.
Finding appropriate digital preservation file formats for audio/visual materials is not an easy task. While much of the recorded sound preservation realm has agreed upon the viability of the Broadcast Wave file format for sound materials, the video realm is still kind of the Wild West in that there is no broad consensus regarding what kinds of file formats or codecs are appropriate for preservation.
I recently wrote about a Plus Edition article at http://eogn.com/wp/?p=16209 about my new Google Chromebook laptop computer. These new laptops do not run Windows or Macintosh. Instead, they use the new Chrome operating system, created by Google. I was impressed with the laptop although I do not recommend it for everyone. Instead, I suggest that it is a great computer for the person with limited or no technical skills. Apparently, Jason Perlow of ZDnet agrees.
Perlow wrote an article about his 70+-year-old in-laws' experience with a laptop running Chrome. The in-laws have very little experience with computers. They already had a Windows 7 laptop but Perlow gave them a Google Cr-48 (a predecessor to the new Chromebooks) to use side-by-side for a few weeks. Perlow now reports, "Well as it turns out, my mother-in-law, Sandy, has taken to it like a fish to water. She loves the thing. In fact, she likes it so much that she’s pretty much stopped using her Windows 7 notebook, a Lenovo ThinkPad T61..." However, Perlow also agrees with me that the price is too high.
I have written before about the handheld VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand scanner. It is a great tool for use in libraries and archives for scanning documents and even pictures up to 8.5-inches wide (A4 size) and any length. I wouldn't use it on any fragile and delicate documents, however, as the rollers built into the scanner do exert pressure on the item being scanned.
I paid $99.95 for my handheld Magic Wand scanner a bit more than a year ago and I have used it a lot since then. I scan not only things of genealogical interest, but also most of the bills I receive in the mail, owners manuals (after checking the manufacturer's web site to see if the manual is already available as a PDF file), and much more. It is portable and easily slips into a backpack, briefcase, or even the smallest suitcase.
Now I see that the same units are on sale on eBay, listed as "manufacturer refurbished," for half that price: $49.99. That price even includes free shipping. Customers located in New York will pay 8.675% tax but the item will be tax-free in all other states. At this price, it only ships to U.S. addresses.
Do you ever have a need to delete all the information on your Windows computer's hard drive? For instance, if you are about to sell or give your old computer to someone else, you might first want to remove all your personal information.
If you search on Google, you can find a number of stories about private data being retrieved from computers purchased on eBay and elsewhere.
Don't let that happen to you!
Many people are surprised to hear that Microsoft Windows doesn't delete very much when told to delete files. Windows simply marks the space as "available for reuse." In other words, when you tell Windows to delete a file, your old information remains on the hard drive for an indefinite amount of time. It remains available until the operating system eventually writes new information in its place. In fact, even reformatting a disk with Microsoft's format command will leave much information behind. This is true of hard drives, floppy disks, flash drives, ZIP disks, and other storage devices.
The basis of the computer was invented for use in the census? Yes. It was all the brainchild of Herman Hollerith, a New York statistician. He invented the device for the U.S. Census Bureau for use in the 1890 census. That is the census that was later destroyed by a fire and by the water used to quench the fire.
Determining the results of the 1880 census proved to be a monumental task, requiring eight years to complete. The Census Bureau knew that there had to be a better way and asked for bids from companies to improve the process.
Hollerith invented a tabulating machine to quickly count information that had been entered on punched cards that were the size of an American dollar bill at that time. (The dollar bill was later reduced in size but the so-called Hollerith cards remained at 3.25 by 7.375 inches.)
A new computer revolution may be upon us. To be sure, I don't know if this revolution is going to change our computing habits or if it will fizzle out. Either way, I plan to find out. I ordered one today.
ChromeBooks are low-powered (and cheap) laptop computers built and optimized for the web, where you already spend most of your computing time. With a ChromeBook, you get a faster, simpler and a more secure computing experience without all the headaches of ordinary computers.
ChromeBooks also might be called "cloud computers." They have very low-powered processors, very little memory, and tiny disk drives. That doesn't sound very attractive until you realize they are designed to always be connected to the Internet. A ChromeBook boots up in eight seconds or less. That's fast! As the ChromeBook boots up, it quickly connects to your favorite wireless network so you're on the web right from the start.
Of course, the purchase price of $350 to $500 is also very appealing for a computer with infinite storage capacity and hundreds of applications available.
Google announced a new generation of Chrome OS–based laptops at the company’s I/O developer conference today. Called the ChromeBook, the new device and its interface are based entirely on Google’s Chrome operating system. In other words, most everything you do with a present laptop or desktop computer will be available on and through the web with the new ChromeBook systems. The 3-pound laptop compuers do not run Windows or Macintosh or Linux operating systems. Instead, they run Chrome, the new operating system from Google.
Quiring Monuments, Inc. has introduced a new twist in cemetery memorials: a code affixed to gravestones that can be scanned with a smartphone to give more information about the deceased. Company President Dave Quiring said he’s been exploring interactive gravestone technologies for years, but prior attempts were too expensive and the technologies were too temperamental and limited. Now he thinks he has found the right combination.
Quiring has now developed its own way of incorporating a QR code — a squarish-lookingbarcode that smartphones can read — into a grave marker through a small plastic-metal composite tag affixed to the gravestone, no batteries required. A QR-operated website provides the information. Scan the code with a smartphone and a web browser wil open, taking the vistor directly to the web page associated with that tombstone.
Anyone can scan a grave maker with their smartphone and learn more about the person buried there, Quiring said. Only friends and family members who have log-in access will be able to leave comments.
This has nothing to do with genealogy, but a newsletter reader asked the question today so I thought I would share the answer with everyone who might be interested.
Yesterday, I wrote a one-line comment of "I will be carrying an assortment of laptop computers, wi-fi and 3G networking equipment, plus a cell phone that also acts as a wireless modem..." A newsletter reader wrote and asked:
I am planning to buy an iPad soon to go along with my Mac and iPhone. You mentioned in today's letter that you were taking your cell phone along to England to act as a modem for your computer. I'm sure many of us would like to know how that works when we are not near wi-fi and do not have wireless. I would appreciate it very much if you could give instructions.
This article has nothing to do with genealogy. However, a newsletter reader sent a message today asking a question about technology, and I thought others might be interested in the answer:
Have you heard of some type of computerized system or tool that works with a cell phone? A friend told me that when she received a cell phone call, the caller claimed that he could use this complimentary tool to tell her exact location. She lives on a farm down South. Her caller friend claimed that he could tell exactly where she was standing on the farm, while her friend was on a cell to cell call with her. Have you ever heard anything like this?
ANY law enforcement agency or the cell phone company the woman uses can see that information. In addition, she can voluntarily allow others to see her location by signing up for any of a dozen other services. However, voluntary location sharing is under her control.
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