There’s a great ‘simulated’ preview of what you can expect to see over at TimeAndDate.com.

And do check out the awesome resources that Dr. Phil Plait (@badastronomer) has curated here: Eclipse followup part 2: tons o’ links on how to safely watch

Viewing the Solar Eclipse from Edmonton this evening? from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Viewing the Solar Eclipse from Edmonton this evening? originally appeared on bradgrier.com on May 20, 2012.

All things in life, as with the Force, have a Light Side and a Dark Side. The Logitech Harmony 900 Universal Remote Control has both.

A bit of a background
I have a history with Logitech Harmony remotes and currently own a Logitech Harmony 720. I’ve always found them challenging to program and set up. As well, in my experience, Logitech has never really succeeded in pairing ‘Activities’ (watching TV, listening to streamed music, etc) with my devices or components. My wife sets up and maintains our current Harmony remote — I get frustrated with it. 

So, when I was offered the chance to take a look at the Logitech Harmony 900 I was curious. Has Logitech been able to address my concerns? Let’s find out…

What’s in the box

• Touchscreen IR / RF remote
• Rechargeable battery
• IR Blaster
• Two Mini IR Blasters
• Two power supplies
• Recharging base/cradle
• Management software disc

A tale of two computers
The first part of setting up a universal remote control usually consists of installing some sort of remote management software on your computer.

In this case, Logitech provides a disc in the box. I promptly ignored it and went to the website to make sure I had the latest version of the installer — which turned out to be two versions newer than the one in the box.

#Protip: Always check for new installer versions online first. Often times you’ll save yourself a headache.

OSX You Say?
So, OSX installer safely downloaded and installed on my current-model MacBook Pro. Fire it up, follow the directions, connect the Harmony 900 remote to the MBP with the handy included USB cable and.…

Nothing… other than what you see in the troubleshooting screen below. After making sure I didn’t have a firewall interfering, and attempting to configure the USB drivers as indicated…

Nothing. Same problem persists. Ok, roughly 1.5 hours gone by now. Lucky for me that I have another option available, so, let’s see how this works under Windows XP.

Old, but stable Windows XP
I really wanted to keep the remote management software localized to my MacBook Pro laptop, so I decided to install it on the Windows side of my unit. #Sidebar: Yep, I run Windows XP on my MacBook Pro. I use a handy virtualization package called VMWare Fusion which creates a virtual Windows computer inside the Macintosh. Handy for playing some Windows only games, or working on things like this.

And, in this case, the installation went flawlessly. Despite the fact that I was running XP in a virtual session inside OSX. The computer found the remote, did all the appropriate grunting and wheezing, and then we walked through the remainder of the setup process.

The Set Up
And, Logitech wins. They’ve finally got the device setup and activity paring process drop-dead easy. Yes, even a frustrated techie should be able to set up most devices by answering a simple set of device and activity-related questions. If you’re familiar with the ‘Wizard’ concept you’ve got the picture.

My setup is a bit more complex than simply trying to control a home media centre. I have a small TV in my kitchen, that gets TV signal from a Set Top Box in another room around the corner and down the hall.

First let’s talk about the hardware usage and placement. Since the Set Top Box that controls the TV signal is in another, I’d be controlling it using the RF / IR blaster when I’m in the Kitchen and changing channels.

The Harmony 900 would basically use IR to talk to the Kitchen TV to turn it on, and adjust the volume. Then it would use RF to talk to the IR blaster, telling the IR blaster to send the correct IR signals to control the Set Top Box.

Another use for the IR blaster and mini IR blasters is if your equipment is hidden behind a cupboard or wall panel. This tech works great and allows you to use the Harmony 900 in a multi-room configuration, as I did.

So, in my setup, I’d be using the Harmony to manage the following Activities:

• Watch Kitchen TV
• Watch TV (in the other room)
• Stream movies via Apple TV
• Watch DVDs or listen to CDs
• Power up & basic control for Xbox

Lots of different things to do, with a few different devices, and the Logitech Harmony 900 software walked me through activity and device configuration quite easily.

I was a bit concerned that the Harmony 900 wouldn’t work with the Apple TV 2, but no worries, it did.

The only real configuration hitch was when trying to connect a HDMI switch. The device wasn’t in Logitech’s database, and the remote was previously used as a dog chew toy and totally destroyed. So there was no way to ‘teach’ the Harmony 900 to control the switch.

Usage
The Harmony 900 is a large remote; about the size of a large telephone handset. Being a rechargeable remote, the base and remote unit do have a fair sized footprint, but will easily fit on a shelf or coffee table and take considerably less room than the three to five remotes it replaces. A good tradeoff if you ask me.

I really liked the bright colour display touchscreen, though the touchscreen does collect fingerprints quite easily.

Many Rooms. Many Devices
I also liked the ability to use it as a multi-room remote with the IR Blasters. My configuration is a little non-standard, yet it worked as I had hoped it would.

If you have multiple rooms with multiple devices, you can easily configure various device and activity combinations so that you really only need one remote for your entire household. The Harmony 900 will control up to 15 devices, and the learning capability means that you can really control anything that is IR, even a fireplace or air conditioning unit.

Though that’s less practical if you’ve got a family doing different things in different rooms at the same time. Which leads me to another niggle — each remote needs to be associated with your Harmony account. It’s a minor thing, but all your remotes need to be registered with a Harmony account. In other words, you can’t use the Harmony remote if you don’t have an Internet connection.

Conclusion
I’m converted. Kinda.

The fact that I couldn’t setup and configure the Harmony 900 using my MacBook Pro under OSX is a problem. Logitech is aware of the issue, and have a workaround in place — which seems to work for most people.

Some think its a Java issue or 32bit/64bit issue. I’m not sure why it didn’t work in my case, but I don’t think I’m unique. If it says ‘Mac OSX 10.3 or later’ on the box, it should work and I shouldn’t have to do a few hours research on the issue online to get it to work. If I didn’t have a Windows option available, this review wouldn’t have happened.

Upside!
Once I did get it set up though, I was very pleased by the improved setup and use experience. The real ‘win’ for me was the ease of device configuration and the integration of the IR blaster hardware. It allowed me to control RF devices that aren’t in line-of-sight with the handheld remote, which really increased the usability of the remote in my home situation. Basically, it does what any good appliance should do — it makes life easier.

So? Do you have experience with the Logitech Harmony 900, or other Harmony remote? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments!

Review: Logitech Harmony 900 Universal Remote Control from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Review: Logitech Harmony 900 Universal Remote Control originally appeared on bradgrier.com on May 17, 2012.

Last week ArenaNet announced they’d be running a brief ‘Stress Test’ for of their upcoming (and awesome) Guild Wars 2 MMORPG. It starts in a couple of hours, and is only going to run for part of the day, today. And, it’s only open to people who have pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 and registered their account.

So, yeah, I’ll be there. In my case, I’ll be running the test on my Macbook Pro, running VMware Fusion to host a Windows XP session. We’ll see how that goes!

Got to get your Guild Wars 2 Beta Fix? from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Got to get your Guild Wars 2 Beta Fix? originally appeared on bradgrier.com on May 14, 2012.

This post will wrap up my three-part series the latest offerings from Cisco / Linksys. If you want to check them out, part one looks at the Linksys EA2700, part two looks at the Linksys EA3500, and today we’ll take a boo at the Linksys EA4500, the top of the line entry in the EA-Series.

It’s the same, with one major difference
The Linksys EA4500 is essentially the same unit as the EA3500, with one big difference; this router is Dual Band at 450 + 450 Mbps. That improvement, and a few other tweaks, allows the EA4500 to be DLNA Certified – which means that it’s an awesome router to drive the backbone of your multimedia and gaming network.

But does it work?
Using the same setup software as the previous entries, the EA4700 was also a dream to configure and add to my network.

An added bonus to both the EA3500 and the EA4500 is the inclusion of a USB port for an external drive or printer. On the EA4500, When you combine the USB port with the DLNA Media Server certification, you get an inexpensive home media server.

Basically it means that you can just plug in any USB drive containing your media, and your DLNA enabled computer, TV or Set Top Box will automatically be able to find and view that content.

And it worked without a hitch. I was able to stream video from a USB thumb drive through the router to my DLNA TV and didn’t have any network issues I could see.

Overall?
Depending on your need, I’d easily recommend any of these three routers for almost any home networking situation.

I’ve included the handy product comparison chart below. It’ll easily let you look at the three unit’s I’ve evaluated to compare and contrast the differences.

And if you want more information, Cisco / Linksys have produced a combined product manual pdf for all three — which you can check out here.

I found their setup and installation among the easiest I’ve encountered over the many (far too many) router installations I’ve done. When I need to replace or extend my existing home network, you can bet I’ll be looking at these units first.

New smart Wi-Fi Router review part three — Linksys EA4500 from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

New smart Wi-Fi Router review part three — Linksys EA4500 originally appeared on bradgrier.com on May 11, 2012.

As we’ve seen previously (The more screens, the better — Our guide to multiple monitors ), having more screens to distribute your desktop across can be a huge benefit to your computing experience.

And as you’ll have noticed in the title, if you’ve got a tablet, you can even bring it into the mix, as long as you’ve got access to a WiFi network and have installed a few pieces of software. Lets take a look.

Apps
There are quite a few apps out there for Android and iOS, on both Windows and OSX. This post isn’t really about all the variations available, so to keep it simple, I’m using Air Display by Avatron, which is available for all four configurations (Android (OSX/Win), iOS (OSX/Win)).

It’s a simple matter to set up, just install a server application on your desktop, and a client application on your tablet. Configuration took a minute or two and then I was sharing my screen.

It’s about the network
The way these desktop-extending apps work is they basically fool your operating system into thinking you’ve just connected another monitor to the system. To your operating system, the tablet looks just like a monitor, and is treated as such.

You can drag windows on to it, launch your computer’s applications from it — it’s just another screen.

Screen with benefits
Ok, it’s not really just another screen. This new mini-monitor also becomes a touch screen. Yep, you can tap on your screen, and the computer’s cursor immediately snaps to the location you tapped. Which means all your mouse functions are also now available on the touchscreen tablet.

Portable
For me, one of the best uses of a tablet as an extended desktop is when I pair my iPad up with my MacBook Pro when I’m on the go.

Imagine pulling up to your favourite table at your local coffee shop, setup up your laptop, and next to it, your tablet. Extend the screen onto your tablet and poof! You are now uber productive while being extremely portable.

Refreshing
Since you’re actually getting an extended desktop sent through the network to your tablet, don’t expect blisteringly fast screen updates. Depending on the app and desktop, you can make Flash animations appear on your device. In my case, I managed to get just under 60 frames per second in my highly un-scientific HTML5 Fishtank framerate test 

Drawbacks?
No system is perfect. Using the tablet as a second screen requires a WiFi network connection. This can be a bit tricky in some locations where you’re only allowed one WiFi connection per person.

Also, if there are multiple WiFi networks in the same building, say at a university, you must make sure that your devices are all on the same WiFi network.

Why?
Well, I like using the extra monitor provided by my tablet as a news desk, tweet monitor and reference desk. Yep, just a passive display that I can occasionally glance at that means I don’t have to Alt-Tab to check on stuff. Much less distracting that way, I find. And it’s a portable solution to my multiple monitor addiction.

Thoughts?
Got a favourite computer and tablet configuration you want to share? Tell us about it and we’ll all learn something!

Using your Android or iOS tablet as a second monitor from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Using your Android or iOS tablet as a second monitor originally appeared on bradgrier.com on May 10, 2012.

This week we’re going to look at the second router in my three-part series on the latest offering from Cisco / Linksys, and for this post we’re going to step it up a notch with the Linksys EA3500, targeted at folks with slightly more sophisticated network needs.

If you haven’t read my previous post on the EA2700, take a moment and do that now. It’ll give you a good framework to build upon, because that’s what Linksys has done with this router series and the EA3500 in particular; taken everything that’s great about the EA2700 and made it better while adding a few new features, at a slightly different price point, of course.

Still drop dead awesome
Another member of the App Enabled family (the iOS apps were released this week in Canada), the EA3500 improves upon the EA2700 by:

• Increasing the base speeds. The EA3500, like the EA2700 is a dual-band unit, but in this case Linksys has increased the speed of the second band by 150Mbps (300 + 450 improved over 300 + 300).
• Adding SpeedBoost, which is “higher quality antenna technology helps to maintain high speeds across greater distances throughout your home for maximum wireless coverage and in-home mobility.”
• Adding a single USB port for which lets you add storage devices and printers to your network to share files or print wirelessly throughout your home.
• Added tech to support your home entertainment system by building in an improved Quality of Service (QoS) technology which will prioritise latency-sensitive traffic that can help you to stream media, place a phone call or play multiplayer games without interruptions.

Who’s it for?
If you want a router for your home networks that’s easy to setup and manage, *and* you don’t want to take advantage of powerful hardware for streaming, and other bandwidth intensive tasks, then the Linksys EA3500 is an excellent choice.

In many ways, it reminds me of the simple, appliance-like functionality that my Apple Airport Extreme router provides. The Linksys EA3500 is simple and it works. Just like an appliance. Which is good, because frankly, I don’t want to spend time with my router. I just want it to stay out of the way as I do what I do on my network and the Internet. The Linksys EA3500 does just that.

New smart Wi-Fi Router review part two — Linksys EA3500 from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

New smart Wi-Fi Router review part two — Linksys EA3500 originally appeared on bradgrier.com on May 4, 2012.

There are those who eagerly anticipate online gaming events. And then there’s the rest of the world. I kinda fall into the first category.

This past weekend I participated in such an event — the first Guild Wars 2 open beta test. Basically it was two and a half days of fresh Guild Wars goodness! But first a little background.

Back in the day
The original Guild Wars, released in 2005, is an online multiplayer role playing game that is a little different from most other Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games you may have heard of. In addition to a huge fantasy-based story arc, Guild Wars brought you:

• No monthly fees. Buy it once and play forever
• Smaller ‘instances’ and tight group management
• Low level caps
• Competitive Guild vs Guild play

I’m not going to go into all the goodness that is the original Guild Wars, you can check out the Wikipedia writeup here, but rather, I just wanted to set the scene for the much-anticipated update and first public exposure of a cool game with seven years of history.

Guild Wars 2 Open Public Beta
After a few years of teasing, hinting, and running private (invite only) beta events, this past weekend ArenaNet opened up the Guild Wars servers to the general public. In this case that meant anyone who had pre-ordered or bought Guild Wars 2 online, or had otherwise received a ‘beta weekend’ invitation.

And of course, this meant that the servers were immediately filled to bursting with energetic and eager gamers, all wanting to experience the new world that is 200+ years in the future. Me too.

Fun!
Yep, it’s fun. My first hour was spent carefully generating a character that was almost a clone of my original Guild Wars character. After playing with her for a bit, I decided to see what else was available.

Of the five playable races, only three were open during this limited event. Over the course of the weekend, I managed to play all three, quite enjoying the new Engineer class the Charr race.

If you’ve played the original, you’re familiar with the skill and ability trees. Well, you can kinda toss them out. In GW2, your skills are related to the items you carry and use. Which means that if you really want, you can have your Warrior wield a rifle and your thief could use a longbow.

Playing The Game
My wife and I, and two close friends, must have killed 50 billion enemies in the original Guild Wars, and it’s with this group that we’re taking on the GW2 beta weekends.

Which means we’re completely re-learning things. Party management and adventuring for example. Whereas before we used to meetup at a town, form a party and journey to the ‘instance’ that would house our adventure, now it’s seamless. We can be almost anywhere in an area, with hundreds of other people, working on completing our quests and helping others who happen to be in the same area, but not part of our party. In Guild Wars, this is new. In some ways, it’s very similar to RIFT.

Annoyances?
Yep, there were a few:

• Some areas were at capacity — which meant we were shunted to an ‘overflow’ area which sometimes meant our party was scattered when a few made it to the target area and others were in the overflow
• Not yet at current tech standards — yes, it’s in beta so this is minor and likely to be fixed by whenever the ArenaNet developers decide to release it, but the game uses DirectX 9, not the current DirectX 11. Perhaps this is done for compatibility reasons whilst they nail down this beta.

Cool things?
Of course, there were many! Here’s a few that got my attention:

• Macintosh playable — I installed and ran it on my current-model Macbook Pro, running in a VMware virtual Windows XP machine. Yes, it was a little slow and some of the animation was choppy, but it ran and was playable.
• Classless society — I mentioned above that I enjoyed the Engineer class, and I did. But I also like the fact that every character is also able to heal themselves and others, and indeed should heal others as much as possible to build up Karma values.
• Role your own — And I like that I can pick and choose the weapons and armour I want to use to suit my style, and not be forced into a role. Much more like traditional tabletop gaming.
• The world has evolved — I totally like this new world. The original Guild Wars is set in a traditional Dungeons & Dragons type of place. Here, in GW2, it’s more of a fantastical world vibe, where technology and fantasy work together cleanly.

What’s next?
The developers have said that they’ll be running the open beta weekends about every month. Given the level of polish and the lack of serious technical glitches for this past event, I’m thinking the next one will be amazing… whenever it is. And yes, I’ll be there — as can anyone who picks up a Guild Wars 2 preorder.

Guild Wars 2 Open Beta Weekend Overview from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Guild Wars 2 Open Beta Weekend Overview originally appeared on bradgrier.com on May 1, 2012.

Riding atop NASA’s modified Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, NASA’s drop-test article – the not quite an Orbiter Enterprise – flew to the New York area on April 27, 2012. It’s final home: the Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum.

Final flight of the shuttle Enterprise as it arrives at its new NYC home [Video] from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Final flight of the shuttle Enterprise as it arrives at its new NYC home [Video] originally appeared on bradgrier.com on April 28, 2012.

Since the last time I looked at home Routers, home networking has gotten more complex. These days, folks are hooking up almost everything to their home network, either wired or wirelessly: game consoles, audio systems, tablets, handheld gaming devices… the list goes on. And older routers have occasionally been cranky when mixing brands and types — causing more network headaches.

That being said, home networking just got much easier with the recent introduction of the new smart Wi-Fi router lineup from Linksys.

Over the next few posts, I’ll be looking at three members of this linup — starting with the powerful Linksys EA2700.

Overview
I’m going to start by looking at a feature that shows a lot of promise in this product series. The Linksys EA2700 is the lowest priced of the Linksys EA lineup that is ‘App Enabled’ — a feature and function set that allows 3rd parties to develop hardware and software that work seamlessly with these routers.

According to Cisco/Linksys press material, soon you’ll be seeing computing devices and smart appliances (fridges, etc) that take advantage of the App Enabled architecture. This will allow consumers to control their devices from anywhere in the home, or, by using Ciscos’s Connect Cloud service, literally anywhere in the world. I can’t wait to try this stuff out!

You can expect to see Connect Cloud launching later this year, and with it, a host of App Enabled products.

On to the router itself. Who’s it for?

So with three routers in this lineup, who would benefit from the EA2700 most. Well this unit is really designed to provide advanced performance for streaming video on tablets, gaming and file sharing. According to the marketing material, it’s ideal for:

• Networking larger households and home offices
• Surfing the web, emailing and printing wirelessly
• Connecting multiple users and devices at high speed
• Transferring and downloading larger files
• Adding storage, printers, or other devices

And I agree! In my home test environment, with multiple wireless devices and a rather extensive wired (Gigabit) layout, the EA2700 worked like a champ — concurrently streaming video from my local storage, streaming music to my mobile device, copying files to different locations, and downloading Linux distros without a hiccup.

Adding it to your networking mix

Setup was a breeze, using the provided installation disk. This helpful company video profiles the setup process.

Getting your hands dirty
Or, if you, like me, have a more complex network setup with maybe two routers, and if you’re not afraid of digging into the arcane innards of networking, you can easily customize and configure the EA2700 from the browser. Though most common settings and features can be managed through the computer application (or the free downloadable mobile device app).

Features
And as long as we’re dealing with ‘advanced’ subjects, here’s a brief list of some of the key features of the Linksys EA2700:

• High speed (up to 300 + 300 Mbps)
• Extended range with MIMO antenna array
• Gigabit Ethernet Ports for 10x faster wired speeds than Ethernet
• Simultaneous dual-band to maximize throughput and help avoid network interference
• Cisco Connect Cloud (Available summer 2012)- Get anywhere, anytime access to your home network from a browser or mobile device. Plus, optimize your online experiences with included apps.

Thumbs up!
There you have it. I really like the Linksys EA2700 router. I love the simple ‘Guest Internet Access’ setup and management feature, among others. It’s a great entry-level first router that has quite a few advanced features. It’s also a great add-on or extension for an existing home network.

Up next, I take a look at the Linksys EA3500… watch for it!

Oh, and if you have any thoughts or aspects about these routers you’d like me to touch on, let me know in the comments!

New smart Wi-Fi Router review — Linksys EA2700 from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

New smart Wi-Fi Router review — Linksys EA2700 originally appeared on bradgrier.com on April 27, 2012.

In this increasingly security conscious online world, consciously practicing online security is becoming more and more difficult. How many of us use the same password, or set of passwords for many of our online activities? Or look have software license keys stored in random locations? And have yet another browser app or plugin to help avoid malicious websites?

Earlier this week a new entry appeared in the personal privacy and security space – Norton Identity Safe.

Basically, Identity Safe is a combination of an online password vault, secure storage for private personal information, safe surfing utility, and automated form-filling utility.

It runs within your browser and is available for PC, Mac, iOS or Android device. As well, the application is cross-browser functional so it’ll work within Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.

Here’s a list of a few key features:

• Safe Search & Norton Safe Web – Help consumers protect their identities and avoid potentially risky sites by letting them know whether a site is safe to visit directly from their search results.
• Share³ – Allows users to safely share online content by sending URLs through email and social networking plugins, directly from Norton Identity Safe.
• Multi-platform synchronization – Synchronizes information across platforms and devices, eliminating the hassle of remembering multiple user names, passwords, contact information and credit card numbers. Norton Identity Safe allows users to access their credentials anywhere they go.

Free?
So it seems. According to the Identity Safe website, the application looks like it’ll be a subscription service, but if you install and use it prior to October 1, 2012, it’s ‘FREE of charge forever. No strings attached.’

Of course, there are many other free applications and web services out there that offer one or another of Identity Safe’s features, but Norton’s offering is really more of an online privacy suite, and may be worth checking out, especially if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution.

Norton Identity Safe — a personal online security suite from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Norton Identity Safe — a personal online security suite originally appeared on bradgrier.com on April 25, 2012.

Over the last few weeks we’ve read that hundreds of thousands of Apple Macintosh computers running OSX have become infected with the Flashback trojan, which is a type of virus that could, through a hole in Java security, infect your Mac and connect it to a botnet of over half a million other Macs.

And we’ve also read that Apple has released updates to fix the security problem and clean up any infected computers.

The problem is, the Flashback.s malware is pretty tricky and, it seems, is able to hide from Apple’s latest fix:

“On Monday, however, researchers at Intego, another computer security firm, discovered that a new variant of the malware, called Flashback.S, continued to spread through the same Java vulnerability. Security researchers said the variant was “actively being distributed in the wild” and noted that the malware deletes traces of itself on victims’ machines to avoid detection.
The original Flashback variant used infected computers for click fraud, in which clicks on a Web advertisement are manipulated in exchange for kickbacks. Intego researchers did not say what the new variant of Flashback is being used for. But as with all malware, its creators can choose to use infected computers however they like.”

So, what’s a body to do?
Well, right now, there doesn’t seem to be a fix addressed directly at this Flashback variant. That being said, I’m sure that Apple and security companies are on it and will have updates available shortly.

In the meantime, the first thing is to make sure your Mac is happily protected updated with the latest software updates and patches from Apple – here’s how to check on your Mac.

Then, you’ll likely want to look into some sort of antivirus or security software. Future Shop has a whole host of solutions here.

And finally, you’ll want to improve your downloading habits. Remember, you are your Mac’s best security:

• Use common sense when considering downloading a file
• Only download files from large, reputable sites
• Keep your system software (step one above) and anti-malware software (step two above) up to date with the latest malware definitions and patches

Ultimately, the best way to protect your computer is to keep an ear open to the current virus activity. By staying informed, there are fewer chances you’ll fall prey to a carefully crafted scheme to get malware on your precious Mac.

So, got a Mac? How do you keep it safe?

Macintosh Java malware has mutated! from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Macintosh Java malware has mutated! originally appeared on bradgrier.com on April 24, 2012.

Adobe Creative Suite 6 Kicks! from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Adobe Creative Suite 6 Kicks! originally appeared on bradgrier.com on April 24, 2012.

Earlier this year, I attended SXSWi (South by SouthWest interactive) and immersed myself in social media, gamification, and technology. Oh yeah, there was the odd party or two

Being that this was my first time in Austin, I relied heavily on my technology to keep me on schedule and help me navigate this unfamiliar city. Using 4G was a treat, the best I get back home in Edmonton is 3G. But boy, does navigation really suck up the bandwidth. And power!

Yet, in order to be effective at that crazy SXSWi you have to be at all the events all over the convention core. And the tech is on *all the time*.

Which meant that while I was mobile, I was using up my iPhone’s battery faster than I normally do.

Luckily for me, I’d taken the excellent advice of Liz Strauss and picked up a Morphie Juice box — basically just a very smart, fast charging battery box that’s pretty much the same size and shape as an iPhone 4.

And it works, as advertised. Kept me mobile and my devices in use — I wasn’t tethered to a wall outlet for significant periods of time — as many other seemed to be.

Initially charging the 400mAh battery pack took around four hours, using my iPhone charger adapter and an included mini-USB cord. The Powerstation doesn’t come with it’s own wall adapter; use your own.

Then, it’s basically pack and forget it, until you need to juice up your iOS device (yep, it’ll power an iPad too, but it won’t give you a full charge).

I didn’t test it on other devices, but anything with a USB charging system could likely be powered. PCMag.com offers the following detail on that:

With its 4000mAh battery, the Powerstation helped a Droid RAZR get 5 hours, 13 minutes more of solid LTE streaming, and let an iPad 1 watch video for 4 hours, 16 minutes more than before.

Overall I like it. Small, does what it advertises, and (as long as I remember to charge it) is ready to power and charge my iOS devices when I’m out and about, and running low. A good $70 investment.

Powering your devices while on the go — Morphie Powerstation review from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Powering your devices while on the go — Morphie Powerstation review originally appeared on bradgrier.com on April 8, 2012.

So, I’ve been watching the amazing work of Peter Hollens for a while now, both through Empire Avenue and his YouTube channel. And this Skyrim theme cover is some of his best. And yes, I’m writing about it because it hits a few areas for me, multi-voice tracks, video gaming, soundtracks. Oh, and it also has the amazing violin work of Lindsey Stirling. Nuff said. Watch and enjoy!

Love Skyrim? Love creative music videos? Then this video’s for you! from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Love Skyrim? Love creative music videos? Then this video’s for you! originally appeared on bradgrier.com on April 5, 2012.

UPDATES Wow, another one today (Thursday, April 12, 2012). LogMeIn has entered the ‘cloud storage space’ space by announcing the invite-only beta of Cubby — which gives you DropBox-like access to 5GB. I’ve requested an invite and will post about it when I have some hands-on time.
DropBox has doubled the amount of free space they’re giving out through referrals and Spider Oak is also in my testing suite. It starts out with 2GB free, and I’ve just opened my account so I’ve just started testing, but you can expect I’ll write about it in a week or two. If you want to check it out, here’s an affiliate link (which will get you one extra GB of storage!).

Currently, the latest buzz is all about a possible April launch of Google’s much-anticipated free cloud storage app called dubbed GDrive.

Reports say it’ll come with a local, desktop client for most operating systems that will enable you to store and access about 1GB of files in the Cloud. Nice.

But it’s not here yet, and there are already other excellent cloud / drive solutions that offer the same or better. While it’s hard to compare apples to apple (different providers offer different storage and utility packages) here’s my thoughts on the current leaders:

Dropbox
The current market leader, offers 2GB free, desktop and mobile clients for all leading hardware. Recently, DropBox has become more active in the enterprise space offering solutions for groups and teams.
Affiliate program allows you to expand your storage space by signing up friends etc. Nice that it’s pretty seamless. Install the app on your device, log in, and your files are instantly accessible. I’ve written before about Dropbox here and here.

My affiliate link is here, if you want to check out Dropbox.

SugarSync
SugarSync ups the ante a bit by offering a free 5GB account. They also have a nifty desktop client, great web interface, and the ability to extend your storage capacity through an affiliate program (signing up your friends, blogging about it, etc). Here’s my affiliate link if you feel so inclined to check it out:

Box
Recently made the news by announcing Box OneCloud — a collection of mobile apps designed to work with Box’s cloud storage systems:

Signing up to Box gets you an initial 5GB of storage, but they often run promotions with prizes up to 50GB.

While Box does offer free clients for mobile devices, if you want to have the seamless integration of Dropbox or SugarSync, you’ll have to upgrade to the $15/month Box business plan.

Microsoft Live SkyDrive
This is the big surprise — Microsoft is offering 25GB of storage, Mobile apps, online MS Office integration (and you don’t need to have Office installed locally), group collaboration, and public file sharing.

For example, here’s a public link to an Empire Avenue promotional video, stored in my public SkyDrive space.

Currently there isn’t a desktop client available, so you will need to use the web interface (which is quite slick, even in Chrome and Firefox) to manage your files. But a Windows and OSX desktop client is rumored to be available shortly.

One or many?
Well, for me, I’m actually using a mixture of these. Dropbox is my daily go-to storage solution, simply because I’ve been using it for so long.

SugarSync I’m using to keep some backup files stored safely. Box, well, I’m not consistent in my use of it, and SkyDrive, well that’s my new darling. I’ve neglected it for a while but now will be trying to integrate it into my workflow wherever I can. And yeah, you’ll here from me if there’s problems.

So, did I miss anything? What’s your online storage solution look like?

Taking a look at free online storage options from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian lifestyle technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Taking a look at free online storage options originally appeared on bradgrier.com on March 30, 2012.