Initially when I used Gmail, I saw the Buzz turned on by default and some of my most emailed people being followed automatically. This is where privacy issues cropped. Why add everyone, especially the most contacted in the list? Google was under fire from privacy advocates. It gave apologies after apologies and fixed some issues.

Why Goodbye?

I think I have enough social media sites I am frequenting like Twitter, Friendster and Facebook. It seems to be just another me-too social media site like FriendFeed, except that it is integrated with Gmail. 

I think Buzz is currently over rated. But you cant dismiss it as a passing fad. It definitely will not die like other Google projects but I believe it will take some time before it becomes something significant. Until the Buzz becomes something significant I am not using it. It is currently turned off.

Goodbye Google Buzz!

Received a review set of the Epson Stylus TX550W. An All In One(AIO) machine which is easy to setup and use. Just does what you want and need out of this AIO. Wi-Fi connectivity is what got me attracted and request a review set.

Features

Lets start with a quick reference to the features which most of us will consider before purchasing any printer

1. 1. 2.5” LCD
2. 2. Multi card reader
3. 3. USB, Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity
4. 4. Individual ink tanks. 4 colours

The LCD panel can be used to do minor editing like cropping and zooming before printing. You dont even need it to be connected to a PC

More features and specifications on Epson’s site.

Installation

Installation was a straight forward affair on Windows. Just make sure you have the latest and the correct drivers with you. In my case, I tried it on my Windows 7 x64 and it went through smoothly.

I would suggest installing the driver before plugging in your printer to the PC via USB.

Mac users will find installation much easier. Plugin the printer and the Mac will do all the installation by downloading the latest driver automatically. I have tried it and works flawlessly. Again, this is via USB.

WIFI connection

Connecting to my Wireless is simple. Just go the Network Settings Menu and connect to your Wi-Fi. This printer also does Ad-Hoc connection whereby your PC can connect directly to the printer wirelessly instead of through the router. 

Mind you that the best available wireless configuration is WPA-PSK. It is sad that there is no WPA2-PSK. It doesn’t matter to me though. Since I keep my Wi-Fi at WPA in order for my older laptops to be able to connect properly. The Wi-Fi light will turn on when successfully connected

Now to the fun part. Printing and Scanning via Wi-Fi.

Under ‘Networks’ in Windows 7, I could see the printer and scanner detected. But we cant do anything with it yet. Yes, the drivers are not set up yet.

Just click on Add Printer under Devices and printers. Select Network printing and Windows will find the printer and install the correct drivers.

Mac users will not find adding the Wireless printer and scanner that straight forward. You will need to install the Mac OS X printer and scan driver(2 downloads).

After which go to your System preferences and add the printer and select “IP” and key in the IP address. The printer name will be auto recognized and proceed to install.

To get the scanner working. You have to access the Utilities folder under Application and click Epson Scan Settings. Add the wireless printer from there and you can scan stuff with the Epson Scan under the Applications folder.

Print and Scan Quality

I don’t have a set standard procedure for testing like what tech magazines do. This is based on what I as a consumer deem to be of quality.

I printed this very blog article and other documents and find the print speed to be equivalent to other printers. If you have more images it is definitely going to take longer obviously. Printing text only files were super fast.

Print quality was good and no smudging was noticed but I cant say that about printing photos on normal paper. It is not acceptable to my standards. You can make out the image but colour quality is pretty bad. Normal charts and bitmap images like icons and clip arts and ok but not photos.

Photo printing on the other hand was good. Yes while printing on 4R sized photo paper. I will not consider it the best for printing photo albums, but reasonable to print and show off your photos to friends and family.

There is nothing much to say about scanning. The quality is great and the speed is good. I don’t really see much difference from my HP scanner. Colour quality of scanned images and great too. Anyway we have software’s to tweak them, so no worries there.

Conclusion

If you cant put the printer near you PC no worries. Just put it somewhere convenient with a power plug nearby of course. Let the wireless do the magic of transferring data to your printer.

This is a great AIO for home and office printing scanning and basic copying needs. Not so much for great quality photo printing though. I am particular about photo qualities so have never trusted any normal printer to do a great job.

With a price tag of S$368, I am wondering who would splash the cash to buy this machine.

For some reason, you might need Windows to be running on your shiny Mac. It might be some Windows specific application or for our development project or whatever. Here I am not talking about dual booting using Boot Camp but running Windows within Mac.

If you had been looking for a Virtual Machine you might have come across Parallels which you have to pay. I recommend a free application which does the same thing. It is Virtualbox.

From Wikipedia:

A virtual machine (VM) is a software implementation of a machine (i.e. a computer) that executes programs like a physical machine.

1. Design

2. Speed

3. Battery Life

4. Track pad

5. The Dock

7. Finder and Cover flow

8. Time Machine

Absolutely useful and fool proof method of backing up you system and data. Plug-in you external hard drive and make it time machine compatible. After that your Mac will be regularly backed up.

If you happen to reinstall the OS all your data and applications can be restored from the time machine disk. Cool huh!

Enter the time machine to restore files.

9. Parental Control

You could probably live without it. Basically you can control what a particular user can do on your machine. Even has timer function where it only allows a use to login during a particular time. Useful if you have kids and you want to limit the time they use on the PC. Go and Study Kids!

10. iLife application

iLife applications really saves your life. No frustrations using them. It is so easy to use and powerful. I finished editing 3 DVD worth of movie clips in 6 days. I have waiting to edit the movies when I was using the PC. Moreover absolutely free and comes with the Mac.

- iPhoto to manage your photos
- iMovie to edit movies
- Garageband to make your music. If you are a musician an excellent peice of software. Too bad I am not.
- iWeb to create simple websites.

Concluding

Its money well spent for me. It is portable and powerful enough for my use. Battery life is absolutely a boon as I can use it for long periods without much worry.
Try a mac and you will know what I mean.

The package includes:

• Dreamweaver CS4
• Flash CS4 Professional
• Photoshop CS4 Extended
• Illustrator CS4
• Fireworks CS4
• Acrobat 9 Pro
• Soundbooth CS4
• Contribute CS4
• Adobe Bridge CS4
• Adobe Device Central CS4
• Version Cue CS4

Absolutely fantastic deal for students and academics. The Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Acrobat and Southbooth is definitely much more useful to me than anything else in the package.

Go to mine.com.sg and make your purchase now! This anyway is for Singaporeans only.

Image from mine.com.sg

Windows Update is known for causing problem by forcing you to install the Windows Genuine Advantage(WGA). WGA has caused issues to people that it blocks genuine users from receiving security updates if WGA fails.

Secunia Online Software Inspector

You can still keep your Windows OS security patch updated by using an alternative called the Secunia Online Software Inspector(OSI).

Here are the features from their site:

• Detects insecure versions of common/popular programs installed on your PC
• Verifies that all Microsoft patches are applied
• Assists you in updating, patching, and protecting your PC
• Activates additional security features in Sun Java
• Runs through your browser. No installation or download is required

Searching around the net, I found two excellent pieces of software that will make your USB drive/ thumb drive into bootable Windows installer. It works great with Windows XP/Vista and Windows 7.

WintoFlash

This is a great no-brainer software.

Simply download software and launch it. Plug-in your thumbdrive, pop-in your Windows OS CD into your PC and let it do its magic. Here is how:

1. Download from wintoflash.com

2. Extract the files the your lour choice of drive

3. Lauch the WinToFlash

Ignore the warning. Click ok

4. Click the Windows setup transfer wizard

5. Click Next

6. Select the Windows files path and the USB Drive and Click Next
You will need to accept the warning that come up after this.

7. Transfer begins and you should be set to install Windows to your CD/DVD driveless PC/netbook.

Unetbootin

Unetbootin is mainly used to make a linux distribution bootable from USB drive. You can select the list of distribution and select the USB drive. Unetbootin will automatically download the distribution from the net and make it bootable.

We will make use of this to make a Windows ISO image to be transferred to the USB drive and made bootable.

1. Download Unetbootin and extract

2. Launch the app

3. Select the ISO image of your Windows OS and select the USB Drive

Click ok, wait and you are done.

Final Thoughts

WintoFlash is the easiest to use of the two applications. It makes a USB Drive bootable by making use of your Windows OS CD. The unetbootin will require you to convert an existing CD to an ISO first.

By the way I do not recommend piracy. Please always use a licensed OS to do these.

The method detailed below works both with Windows Vista and Windows 7.

On the Windows Vista/7:

1. Share the printer

- Click Start >> Control Panel >> Hardware and Sound >> Devices and Printers

- Right Click your printer and Click Printer Properties.
- Share your printer

2. Disable password requirement for sharing

- Go to the Control Panel >>Network and Internet >> Network and Sharing Centre

- Click on “Change advanced sharing settings” on the left side of the panel.

- Expand the “Home or Work” option

- Go to the portion where it states “Password protected sharing” and ensure to turn it off

Windows Firewall might need some exceptions added here. In my case I am using Norton Internet Security and it is smart enough to let me do the sharing without much of changes to the firewall.

On your Mac OS X

1. Connect the printer directly to the Mac
2. Let it automatically install the neccessary drivers. Just follow the prompts. It will be pulled from the internet.
3. Connect the printer back to the Windows machine

4. Go to System Preferences

5. Click Print & Fax and Click the “+” button

You will see a printer already installed you can safely remove it if you will not be connecting the printer directly in the future.

6. Most like you will not see the Advanced button show below.

- Control + Click (right-click) on any area on the top and Click “Customise Toolbar”

- Click and Drag the “Advanced” icon to just beside the “Windows” icon and Click Done. You will see the Advanced Icon appear.

7. Click the Advanced tab

8. Select “Windows’” from the drop-down for “Type”

9. Key in you windows computer name. eg. smb://babu-pc

10. Select “Select  Printer Software”

11. Scroll and Select the driver.
(Now you know why you will need to connect the printer directly to the Mac – to install the driver)

12. Click Add. Depending on the type of Machine you might get the second prompt.

13. Almost done. Below is how it will look

Test Printing

1. Click “Open Print Queue”

2. From the Menu Bar click >> Printer >> Print Test Page

You should be able to print from your Mac now. If necessary reboot both the Mac and PC to test if the connection has any issues.

Any questions? Please feel free to ask here and I will try my best to help.

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PRESS RELEASE

Singapore – 27 August 2009 –WD® (NYSE: WDC), the world’s leader in external storage solutions,
today introduced a new version of its popular WD TV media player. The new WD TV Mini Media
Player now enables playback of RealNetworks®, Inc.’s RealVideo™ content and provides a more
affordable way for consumers to play their stored digital content in up to 1080i HD resolution directly
on their HD television.

The WD TV Mini Media Player connects to a user’s TV or home theater and plays digital movies,
music and photos stored on USB drives such as the best-selling WD My Passport™ portable drive. As
with other WD TV models, the WD TV Mini Media Player supports playback of digital media on most
USB mass storage devices such as digital camcorders and digital cameras. The new compact design is
small and portable enough for users to easily take with them when they travel and play their digital
media anywhere on any TV in up to 1080i HD resolution.

According to research firm Parks Associates, the average consumer household currently has
approximately 298 GB of digital media, which will reach approximately 898 GB of digital media by
2012.

These large personal digital libraries are all but trapped on users’ computers. In order to play their
content on their TVs, consumers have struggled with clumsy solutions such as copying onto multiple

CDs and DVDs or connecting their PCs to their TVs via wires or complicated home networking
solutions. The new WD TV Mini Media Player perfectly suits the needs of those with a large media
collection that are looking for an easy and affordable solution to watch their digital media on their
TVs.

“The popularity of the RealVideo format and its compatibility with the WD TV Mini Media Player
makes it an excellent solution for consumers who wish to enjoy their RealVideo content on their TVs,”
said Scott Nelson, director of business development for RealNetworks.

“For those who desire an easy, affordable and portable solution to enjoy their digital media on their
TVs and who have content in RealVideo format, the new WD TV Mini Media Player fits the bill,” said
Craig Davis, Director, Sales & Marketing, Branded Product Group, Western Digital Asia Pacific
Region. “The new WD TV Mini Media Player unlocks the content from their PCs and storage devices
and makes it simple for people to enjoy their media on their home theater systems, without the need to
spend time configuring a complicated device or transcoding files to make them compatible.”

Features of the WD TV Mini Media Player include:

? Play video, music and photos on your TV in up to 1080i HD resolution;
? Supports widest variety of file formats including RealMedia Variable Bitrate (RMVB);
? Rich HD 1080i advanced navigation and user interface;
? DVD-like navigation with chapter support, trick modes and subtitles;
? Expandable:  buy more storage, delete fewer movies;
? Photo slideshow with unique transitions and music on your HD TV;
? Thumbnail support including photo thumbnails and music album art;
? Ability to preview your video during navigation (480 and 720 mode only);
? Video, music and photo auto-play for users digital signage solution;
? Subtitle support including multi-language subtitle support for video playback;
? Picture Transfer Protocol to view or backup content from your digital image device;
? Compatible with USB Camcorders and USB mass storage devices;
? Component and composite video output;
? Digital optical audio output via SPDIF;
? Ultra-compact design making it perfectly portable for travel; and,
? 1-year limited warranty.

Pricing and Availability

The WD TV Mini Media Player is available now at selected retailers and is distributed by
AMC Pacific Pte Ltd in Singapore. The MSRP for the WD TV Mini Media Player is S$129.

About WD

WD, one of the storage industry’s pioneers and long-time leaders, provides products and
services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company
produces reliable, high-performance hard drives that keep users’ data accessible and secure from loss.
WD applies its storage expertise to consumer products for external, portable and shared storage
applications.

WD was founded in 1970. The company’s storage products are marketed to leading systems
manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital® and WD brand names. Visit
the Investor section of the company’s Web site (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of
financial and investor information.