bradgrier.com

Tag: hardware

  • Review: Drobo FS Network Storage Array

    Wow, that title’s a mouth­ful — Net­work Stor­age Array — but don’t let that tech­nic­al-jar­gony sound­ing term scare you, this Drobo FS device is really as easy to use as your Fridge. And for me, that’s a Holy Grail — some­thing that you use and basic­ally for­get the complexity. Whut? But let me back up…

  • Oldschool Atari games arrive on the iPad [video]

    This video review of the new (and free with Pong) Atar­i’s Greatest Hits app gives you a great over­view of the games and func­tion­al­ity. Pair it with the upcom­ing iCade hard­ware iPad arcade cab­in­et and you’ve got a winner!  

  • I think I’ve bought my last desktop computer

    A couple of years ago, I was all into and enjoyed build­ing desktop com­puters, pick­ing out the right video card, select­ing the best mother­board and gen­er­ally dig­ging deep into the innards of my future com­put­ing plat­form. And design­ing the per­fect ‘office’ com­put­ing envir­on­ment with short cable runs, ample power for my accessor­ies and lots of…

  • Need a mic? Find a Yeti.

    In the last few years it’s got­ten a bit easi­er to use a micro­phone to record audio on your home com­puter — USB head­sets with qual­ity micro­phones have been avail­able for a while, but only recently have USB desktop micro­phones oved out of the niche and spe­cialty retail­ers into the main­stream, driv­en mostly by the…

  • It’s cold! Pamper your tech

    With the amount of gear I have around I’m sur­prised this does­n’t hap­pen to me more often. The weath­er in Edmon­ton has been rather cool of late, in the ‑20 to ‑30 degree range in fact. And today, since it’s warmed up to a reas­on­able ‑2, I decided to drive the car, rather than our oth­er,…

  • Hardware helps information be free

    Inform­a­tion wants to be free, an inter­est­ing phrase sum­ming up the concept that tech­no­logy has the poten­tial to be lib­er­at­ing, rather than oppress­ing. It was first used in the 1960’s and attrib­uted to the founder of the Whole Earth Cata­log. Today, that phrase is often used to sup­port open file shar­ing activ­it­ies. And recently I…

  • DOS on the iPad? There’s an app for that.

    [UPDATE — looks like Apple has pulled it from the app store again] I’ve got a rather strange, yet fam­ily friendly habit — I tend to col­lect com­puter emu­lat­ors; soft­ware writ­ten for hard­ware, that acts like older hard­ware in order to run older software. With me so far? Over the last few years, Apple has been slowly…

  • When is an iPad not an iPad?

    Ok, per­haps it is actu­ally “magic­al and revolu­tion­ary”. Or per­haps we’re just mov­ing toward the day that yes, there really is an app for that. Smart phones and tab­let com­puters are set to explode this year, but what will really move the hard­ware is innov­at­ive soft­ware cre­ated by developers who can see bey­ond the tra­di­tion­al fare…

  • Best Skins Ever — Perhaps

    I’m a bit prissy when it comes to my dis­play screens on my mobile devices and tech­no­logy. I like put­ting screen scratch pro­tect­ors on them. To pro­tect them. To give me the peace-of-mind that they’ll sur­vive the harsh treat­ment they get in my vari­ous bags and packs, and that the pro­tect­or, not the screen, will…

  • Dilemma: Offloading old tech

    Ok, so here’s the deal. You want a new com­puter, or iPad, or BluRay play­er or whatever. But your old one is still work­ing per­fectly fine. Yet, the fea­tures of your next tech­no­lo­gic­al acquis­i­tion are so good, so cool, that really, that new tech item will make your life much better. Great, so you go…

  • Remote control your computer from your iPad

    Some say that the iPad is a magic­al device. I won’t go that far, but it is kinda cool, though it does have its short­com­ings — espe­cially when you com­pare it to a desktop or laptop com­puter. There are just many things done much bet­ter on a com­puter than on an iPad, which is why…

  • Tablets will be the story this holiday season

    The iPad has been out for a bit now, and it’s the tab­let that all the oth­ers will be com­pared against as they jockey for pos­i­tion going into the hol­i­day season. But over­all, I think this is the year that tab­lets finally start to make some head­way into the mar­ket­place; a mar­ket­place already crowded with…