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Steve Bass's Weekly Newsletter
TechBite's columnist Steve Bass writes weekly commentary on the technology products he loves, the strategies for getting the most out of them, and the gotchas that can cause computing misery. Plus a couple of weekly laughs.
Cool Downloader, CES Report, Radar Gun, Epson WorkForce
In This Issue
What's Cooking
CES: Winners and Losers
Pull Over, Mr. Bass
Epson Workforce All-in-One 610
JDownloader: Open Source, Free, and Terrific
Time Wasters
I'm Not Invisible
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What's Cooking
I have tons to write about, but your response to my decision to shorten the newsletter was enthusiastically positive. One subscriber had a smart suggestion: Take some of the content -- say, extra tips about a topic that not everyone might need -- and link it to an online spot. See how you like it with the JDownloader blurb.
CES: Winners and Losers
I spent three days at the not-as-big-as-before Consumer Electronics Show. I ignored the behemoth booths -- Microsoft, Panasonic, Casio -- and focused on the smaller, more interesting companies along the edge of the exhibit floor. I spotted some innovative products:
A smartphone app that turns off e-mail and texting features if the speed of your vehicle exceeds five miles per hour.
Lexmark's multifunction printer that has something very appealing: Lexmark ink cartridges for under $5.
Fashionable 3D eyeglasses for when you can afford a 3D plasma screen.
Something to bring your electronic gadget back to life if you drop it in water.
A video camera the size of a flash drive with two hours of recording time.
I have lots more, including a report on Terk's Hi-Def internal and external antennas and a new-style rechargeable battery. Below is my first blurb about a portable radar device; more in next week's newsletter. [top]
Pull Over, Mr. Bass
From CES: Need to give that speed-trap motorcycle cop some help? Whip out PocketRadar, a cell-phone sized radar gun, and get the real-time speed of any moving object. I've never had the need, but you might want to clock the speed of your child's pitch, see how fast that crow is flying, or aim it at your kid pulling out of the driveway. It's interesting, but at $250, too expensive for me. [top]
Epson Workforce All-in-One 610
You know how unhappy I am with multifunction printers. The last one I bought -- from Brother -- didn't last more than a year; the printer claimed the cartridges needed replacing even when there was still plenty of ink in them.
Epson sent me its Workforce 660 to try. I've had it a month (I ship it back to them in February) and I like the way it works. First, the stats: $200 list, but about $120 at Costco and $170 at Amazon.
Likes: It can scan, fax, and copy, and it prints faster than my laser printer. There are ports for memory cards and flash drives; the printer has Wi-Fi connectivity, so setup with my wireless router was easy. The automatic document feeder is handy for multipage scans or faxes.
Dislikes: No automatic duplexing. Also, the printer looked slick, but some parts -- the input and output trays, for example -- felt flimsy and cheap. The 100-sheet input tray shudders loudly when the first sheet of paper is pulled through the printer. It scares the dog each time. Plain paper black printouts were sharp; color, not so much. Photo printing on photo paper looked fine. The control panel has lots of info, but navigation is a little confusing. The killer, as you'd expect, was the cost of ink cartridges: Epson black at about $16 each; color roughly $12. LD Products sells reconditioned Workforce cartridges for $7 each.
For $120, and using remanufactured cartridges, the Workforce 610 is an okay deal. But before you buy, watch for my Lexmark review in two weeks. [top]
Epson's all-in-one printer
JDownloader: Open Source, Free, and Terrific
For years I used FlashGet to download freebie tools and legitimate movies and TV shows. FlashGet works fine, but it just hasn't kept up with a few innovative -- and downright lovely -- features in my new favorite, JDownloader.
It's free (and Open Source) and it remembers download passwords, checks for valid links before downloading, and automatically unarchives the file with a built-in WinRAR plug-in. It also does those simple things you ordinarily have to do, like removing the dots and underscores between words in file names. And built in is an online, real-time chat window to help you get support from other users.
I use JDownloader in Firefox; read the Install and use JDownloader with Firefox blurb to help you with the installation. Chances are good you won't have any problem with JDownloader, but I've put together a few JDownloader Tech Tips just in case you do.
JDownloader is a first-class downloading
program
with features galore. It's free and Open Source, too.
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Time Wasters
Masters at construction sites, a dog who knows how to fish, an almost invisible man, and Z_Rox, a brain-straining game.
You've probably know that lots of what you see on YouTube is rigged, modified, or digitally manipulated. What you probably haven't figured out is how it's done. Check out these three videos and see if you can spot the digital secrets. Start with The Absolute Master of the Tape Measure, move on to The Master of the Saw Blade Throw, and finish up with The Master of the Nail Gun. Guesses, anyone?
This dog knows how to fish -- and he's smart, bright, and gets very excited.
The Invisible Man: This guy paints himself -- no kidding. No trick photography; he just paints himself. [Thanks, Marla.]
He's sorta, kinda invisible!
Z_Rox is a frustrating game and it'll probably damage your brain. Or at least your ego. See that line? It changes length, sure, but what it's really doing is showing you a slim view of something scanned behind the line. It could be a letter, a symbol, a shape, or a number. Your task is to guess what it is. Level one is the capital letter "L" -- and if you visualize L, you can imagine it behind the line. Level two is another letter, one with up and down and horizontal lines. It's tough, I promise you that. Here's a spot with some hints. [top]
I'm Not Invisible
I sometimes try to be, but it's just too tough to take off the paint. Being that you can see me, take a sec and forward the newsletter to a bunch of friends -- or send 'em this link: http://www.techbite.com. By the way, if you're enjoying this newsletter and getting something out of it, become a TechBite member by sending us some financial support using PayPal. I promise, good things will eventually come your way... [top]
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Steve Bass is the publisher and self-appointed Chief Content Officer at TechBite; he continues to experience the cool feeling of having his own newsletter. Send him your feedback at TechBite. To sign up for TechBite's free Steve Bass Technology newsletter, head for our signup page.
Steve's also the author of "PC Annoyances, 2nd Edition: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Personal Computer," available on Amazon. It covers XP, but not Vista. If you haven't purchased your copy today, don't wait, supplies are limited...
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