Last year I took the plunge and canceled my cable TV service. A couple of months ago I decided to trim costs even more and cut the phone cable too. Keeping some kind of home phone service was important to me for convenience and as a backup for my spotty cell phone coverage. After reviewing the options I narrowed things down to the Ooma or using Google Voice through the OBiTalk Device.
While Ooma has the more established service, it does have a higher initial startup cost and very minimal monthly fees. The ObiTalk is a newer technology that allows you to bridge your Google Voice service to a traditional phone and after you purchase the OBi Adapter Bridge, the service remains free so long as Google Voice remains free. (Note Google has said that Google Voice calls to the US will remain free through 2012 but have not announced pricing after that.)Eric Mack’s excellent review for CNET pushed me over the edge. Because I already use and love the Google Voice service, I decided I had nothing to lose by trying the OBi.
After reading the overwhelmingly positive reviews on Amazon, I purchased the OBi110 Voice Bridge and VoIP Telephone Adapter. The physical setup of the OBi on my network was a breeze as it simply needs to be plugged into your network and a phone line. In my case, I have an electrical box in my laundry room where all the drops for my cable, phone and Ethernet ports in my house originate. The box has power and houses my cable modem, switch and other equipment so the OBi fit right in and I was able to make all the necessary connections the dial tone supplied by the OBi fed through to all the outlets in my house.
Activating the OBi and connecting it to my Google Voice account was a bit tricky. Although OBi provided an excellent video tutorial and written instructions on their website, I apparently had a non-standard configuration of Google Voice because I used it without a Gmail account. After struggling and failing for an hour or two I contacted OBi’s telephone support and was immediately set on the right path. Once I created a Gmail account associated with my Google Voice account and configured Google Talk per the instructions I was good to go. (OBi uses some kind Google Talk magic to connect the adapter Google Voice) I must complement OBi’s telephone support. I called about 9:00 p.m. Eastern on a Friday night and while their support staff appeared to be very small, they answered the phone call on the first or second ring and stayed with me and walked me through the setup until everything was up and running.
I’ve been using my OBi + Google Voice setup for a few months now and everything has worked flawlessly. The voice quality seems just as good as my cable telephone service and I have many additional features from Google Voice now that weren’t available from my cable company (or required an extra fee) including free long distance in the U.S., caller ID, call screening, call recording, transcribed voicemail, custom greetings and filters. I should note that with my Google Voice setup, the OBi does not support emergency calls, but OBi does have some suggestions for managing this. In my case, I do have a cell phone and a home alarm system that I can use to contact emergency services.
Now, I pickup any phone in my house, get a dial tone and start dialing. The caller on the other ends sees my Google Voice number on their caller ID but otherwise has no ideas what type of phone or phone service I’m using. Best of all, I haven’t paid a dime since the initial purchase of the OBi Adapter. My total startup cost for the OBi was $50 plus a little time to setup (more than normal because of my abnormal Google Voice setup). My bare bones cable telephone service was costing me $25.00 a month.
Part of me is concerned something may happen in the future to break the Google OBi connection, that the price of Google Voice may increase after 2012 to the point where this is no longer an insanely great deal, or the Google Voice service may go away all together as Google is known for adding and dropping services. These all seem like remote possibilities and none are under my control. Even if something does happen to break this setup, I’ve more than gotten my money out of the OBi device and am in no worse of a position than I was a few months ago before I started using the OBi. Overall I couldn’t be happier with the OBi and wish I made this switch years ago!
It was hard to miss the Doxie booth at Macworld|iWorld this year as my attention was drawn in by the person walking around in the 7-foot scanner costume. Now THAT has got to be the topic of conversation at halloween. However, I was also intrigued by their newest offering released at the show, the Doxie Go + Wi-Fi scanner.
If you’ve followed me for some time, you know I’m a big proponent of Going Paperless and I’m also not a big fan of wires. Doxie Go + Wi-Fi seems to solve an interesting problem of being a compact scanner that integrates an Eye-Fi wireless SD card to create a wireless connection to your Mac, iPhone or a variety of cloud services including Evernote, Flickr or an FTP account. The Doxie software also includes the ability to OCR documents and combine single images to make multi-page PDFs. These days, I’m keeping more and more documents in Evernote which makes the Doxie Go + Wi-Fi all the more appealing to me.
The scanner itself is fairly basic, it has no document feeder so will only scan a single-sided document at a time from business cards up to 8.5 x 12”. It also scans fairly slowly compared to more traditional document scanners. The Doxie is designed to be a mobile scanner which means it’s dependent on the battery for power. Their website claims you’ll get about 100 scans per charge but after that you’ll have to give the scanner a rest and allow it time to recharge which will take about 2 hours for a full charge.
The Doxie Go + Wi-Fi was dead simple to use. Simply power it on and insert the item to scan. Using the companion software you could configure it to simply scan and store the document on the SD card for later use or if you had an available Wi-Fi connection, you could send the scan to your computer, iOS device or cloud service. This is something you could easily setup with a less than tech-savvy family member. Because the scans are stored on the SD card, you could also use the Doxie Go + Wi-Fi with the camera connection kit for iPhone or iPad meaning you could setup a mobile scanning station without a computer or Wi-Fi connection.
While Doxie Go + Wi-Fi won’t be replacing my ScanSnap S1500M anytime soon, it still has its place. The Doxie is made to be mobile and that’s where this device will find its niche. Based on my brief hands on time at the Macworld|iWorld booth, the Doxie scanner was compact and solidly built and could easily be tossed in a bag or briefcase to take on the go. Doxie Go + Wi-Fi would make an ideal companion on a trip, when it wasn’t convenient to carry or be near a computer or where space was limited.
At $239 for the Doxie Go + Wi-Fi ($199 for the version without the Eye-Fi wireless card) the Doxie Go + Wi-Fi felt a little over priced and makes it a tough choice against the ScanSnap S1100 which lacks the wireless capability. That being said, I was impressed by the Doxie Go + Wi-Fi and could very easily see many places where this scanner could fit into my life.
Hello, my name is Katie and I am a hard drive addict. For years, being diligent (read paranoid) about backups and data redundancy has caused to develop a love of hard drives and accumulate quite a collection. Thankfully, the Drobo FS loaded up with a handful of 1.5 TB drives combined with an unlimited CrashPlan+ subscription has solved most of my hard drive clutter around the house. I do still love my hard drives, especially cute little portable drives and despite worldwide hard drive shortages, there was no shortage of offerings at Macworld|iWorld.
These days, most portable hard drives you can buy at any major box store are pretty standard. For me, the differentiating factor is the speed. While current model Macs don’t support USB 3.0, some support FireWire 800 and the newest models support the highest speed Thunderbolt technology. When I’m using a portable hard drive compared to a flash drive, I’m usually transferring large amounts of data and to paraphrase Maverick and Goose “I feel the need for speed!”
Seagate displayed several offerings at Macworld|iWorld that caught my attention this year. Many of their hard drive offerings supported their GoFlex technology. GoFlex is unique because it has the ability for the user to choose or mix and match the cables to best suit their needs. This means you can customize the GoFlex drives to work with the fastest port on your computer and buy multiple adapters so the drive will work most efficiently with different computers. While USB 2.0 is the most compatible and standard on portable drives, it’s also the slowest of the technologies. With the GoFlex adapters you can buy adapters to match your preferred connections like FireWire 800, USB 3.0 and eSATA. Cables are about $30 each, so while they’re more expensive than a run of the mill USB or FireWire cable, they do offer more customization, especially if this is a drive you plan to use with multiple machines or would like to upgrade as your hardware changes.
Seagate boosts performance on their GoFlex line of drives by shipping with 7,200rpm drives compared to more traditional and slower 5,400rpm drives. Their higher end drives like the GoFlex Turbo bundles in two years of free DataRecovery services. Seagate also pre-loads their drives with software for encryption and backup. Personally, I prefer to use the built-in encryption options with OS 10.7 Lion and my own backup solutions. Of course, these OS X native features are only applicable if you reformat the drive to HSF+ which does reduce the ability to use the drive cross-platform. As a Macbook Air owner and someone who appreciates slim mobile design, I was particularly drawn to the GoFlex Slim which is only 9mm thick.
New at Macworld|iWorld this year was the announcement of the GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter (link to PDF Data Sheet) which boasts transfer speeds of up to 10Gb/s. While this adapter does supercharge your hard drive with blazingly fast transfer speeds, it comes with a few tradeoffs. For one, the adapter adds quite a bit of bulk to a portable drive as the adapter doesn’t simply connect to the drive like other GoFlex adapters but instead surrounds the drive. As with all Thunderbolt devices, there’s a hefty price tag. The adapter ships for $99 and doesn’t include a Thunderbolt cable which means you’ll have to shell out another $50 for that if you don’t already have a spare. Still, the price is not bad compared to other offerings. Out the door a 1TB Seagate hard drive, Thunderbolt adapter and cable will run you around $250.
All in all I was impressed by Seagate’s offerings at Macworld|iWorld and next time I’m shopping for a new portable hard drive the GoFlex drives will be at the top of my list.
Tucked away in a corner of Moscone I found the Microcone. Their booth didn’t have a lot of flash and was rather sparse (apparently because they sold out of all their product) and otherwise would’t have drawn a lot of attention, except for the Macworld Best of Show award they were sporting that drew me in. Good thing, because it turned out the Microcone may solve an interesting problem.
The Microcone is a cone-shaped USB microphone that is designed to record up to six voices sitting around a conference table. What’s unique about the Microcone is the software that’s bundled with it will allow up to six different voices to be recorded on six different audio tracks to allow for separate adjustment and editing. I was given a demonstration on the show floor, under less than ideal audio conditions and the device worked well. It was able to correctly identify three different vocal patterns and record three separate tracks of audio. However when I moved from one side of the Mic to another it did pick me up again and register a fourth audio pattern, though I would imagine in a true recording session most of the speakers are likely to be stationary.
I immediately thought about the few times a year the Mac Roundtable gets together live to record a show. We either have to deal with a complex audio setup and mic ever speaker, or we have to pass around a single microphone from speaker to speaker. Each of these solutions provide less than desirable audio quality. With the Microcone, we could carry one device, set it on a table between a series of speakers and not have to worry about passing around microphones, be able to individually calibrate and edit the audio channels for optimum quality and still be able to have the experience of a live panel with people talking over one another and all that comes with a live show. There are of course other applications for the Microcone besides podcasting such as recording of panel presentations, conferences or meetings. Though the device seems to work best when used in a “roundtable” setting.
I wasn’t able to get the exact details of the recording specifications, but I’m told that the Microcone does record audio as a compressed MPEG file and is suitable only for voice, not music. There are pros and cons to this. As a podcaster, I like to record in a lossless format, then edit and only compress down to MP3 at the final stage for distribution. By compressing the audio twice (once as it’s recorded and again for distribution) with the Microcone, you’re going to have some loss of quality, but it will likely be minimal in the overall scheme of things. If you were to record six tracks of any length in a lossless format you would quickly run into very large file sizes that would be overwhelming for the average use. Perhaps the better option would have been to default to the compressed quality with the option for advanced users to record lossless.
At AUD $359 (about $381.72 at the time of this blog post) the Microcone isn’t cheap, but it’s certainly a lot less expensive than buying individual microphones for multiple speakers and wiring up a conference room. The folks at Dev Audio must have been doing something right because by the time I hit their booth on Saturday afternoon they had one lone Microcone left to sell and it was their demo unit. I’ve never seen another product like this on the market and it fills a nitch
The folks from IDG have posted a highlight video of some of the events at Macworld|iWorld 2012. I’m thrilled to see our Mac Power Users Session with Rob Corddry and Merlin Mann made the cut (0:50). If you squint, you can even see me sitting next to Rob!
Disclosure: Smile sponsors Mac Power Users and I have been beta testing PDFpen for iPad for several months. Regardless of their sponsorship, I think the product is awesome and am thrilled to finally be able to talk about it publicly.
When I first learned that the Smile team were working on PDFpen for iPad I was over the moon with excitement. PDFpen is one of my must-have applications on the Mac and the ability to have some of that functionality on the iPad would open up a whole new level of productivity on the go. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received a PDF on my mobile device but had to wait until I got home to do something with it. With PDFpen for iPad, no more.
PDFpen for iPad incorporates many of the key features of it’s bigger brother, PDFpen for Mac including the ability to add text, images and signatures to PDFs, make changes and corrections to PDFs, fill out PDF forms, save commonly used images (like your signatures, initials, company logos etc) in your image library for future use, and annotate and mark up PDFs with comments, notes, shapes and more.
Because simply having PDFpen functionality on the iPad wasn’t enough, the Smile team also decided that they were going to incorporate iCloud support both for PDFpen for iPad and their desktop applications. This means you can store your PDFs in the cloud edit them on the fly on your iPad or Mac and the changes will always be in sync. If developers like Smile can figure out how to make iCloud access work so seamlessly for their Apps, it makes you wonder what Apple’s problem is with iWork.
Given the type of work I do in my day job, I interact with PDFs on a daily basis and unfortunately I have to do most of this on my work PC at the office and fumbling around with Adobe Acrobat. In fact, I have been known to remote access into my home Mac from my PC at work JUST so I could use PDFpen. Since my iPad is with me just about everywhere I go, I see a lot more work being accomplished on my iPad and on the go.
Because of the restrictions currently put in place by Apple, iCloud support is available natively for copies of PDFpen and PDFpenPro bought directly from the Mac App Store. If you purchased your copy direct from Smile, you’ll need to purchase and install the $0.99 companion application PDFpen Cloud Access which is available on the Mac App Store. While some may see this extra hoop as a disappointment, I have to give kudos to the Smile team for finding such an elegant workaround to this restriction and bringing iCloud Support to all versions of PDFpen regardless of where it was purchased.
The team at Smile is always innovating, ridiculously smart, and on top of it all, they’re above average dancers. I’m thrilled to have PDFpen on my iPad and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
This is the first in a series of posts of interesting things I saw at Macworld|iWorld 2012.
I’ve been on the lookout for a new podcasting mic for a while. I currently record with a Heil PR20 plugged into an M-Audio breakout box to convert the analog sound to USB for use with my Mac. While the Heil’s audio quality is a step up from my previous Mic, the Samson CO1U, I do miss the plug and play connectivity of an all digital setup. There are quite a few pieces that I have to pull out of the closet and drawers each week to setup the podcast. I’ve also felt that the audio quality on the Heil could be better. I’ve felt like my voice sometimes comes across as sounding too “tinny” and the Heil has to be right up in my face which causes the mic to pick up my breathing from time to time, especially if I have the sniffles.
Many of the podcasters on 5by5 use the Rode Podcaster and I’ve been eyeing a $350 package that includes a USB Mic, shock mount and boom arm that would permanently attach the Mic to my desk. However at CES this year Blue introduced two new microphones that I had the opportunity to see at Macworld|iWorld that make me wonder whether they may be my next microphones.
Last year I took the plunge and canceled my cable TV service. A couple of months ago I decided to trim costs even more and cut the phone cable too. Keeping some kind of home phone service was important to me for convenience and as a backup for my spotty cell phone coverage. After reviewing the options I narrowed things down to the Ooma or using Google Voice through the OBiTalk Device.
It was hard to miss the Doxie booth at Macworld|iWorld this year as my attention was drawn in by the person walking around in the 7-foot scanner costume. Now THAT has got to be the topic of conversation at halloween. However, I was also intrigued by their newest offering released at the show, the 
Disclosure: Smile sponsors 
This is the first in a series of posts of interesting things I saw at Macworld|iWorld 2012.
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