Monthly Archives: October 2011

Kobo Touch

Over the summer I looked for a good little eReader that I could take with me during my travels or while I was sitting on a train heading into work. With a new job solidified, and knowing I’d be on the train for at least 60 minutes each day, I went out looking for an eReader that suited my needs. I didn’t have any fancy requests, I did not need it to be running a full OS or anything of that sort. I wanted something simple and light. Being a fan of Chapters and purchasing almost all of my books and magazines through them, I first decided to look at the Kobo Touch. It was light, came in a few different colours and did exactly what I wanted, stored books and held a charge for about a month. Perfect! Or so I thought.

Having done little research, I decided that I’d pick up the Touch. It had the features that I wanted, it was priced right and it fulfilled what I needed it for. At $139 it was a wise investment. Utilizing the Kobo library which I could not only use on the Kobo Touch, but also on my iPad (which was on its way at the time), my iPhone or even using the downloadable portal, I began my eReader journey and testing with some free digital downloads of Star Wars. The touch has built in wifi which made it very simple to load the books, I wasn’t required to do anything aside from logging into my Kobo account. The books loaded onto the device using OTA (over the air) technology which kept my library and bookmarks in sync. The most welcomed thing about having the Kobo library was that any device that I was signed into, would be synced to the exact point I had left off at. I could start reading on the Kobo, continue on my Mac and finish on my iPad.

The Touch also has some very useful features built in. Wifi aside, having the ability to customize the text size, font and switch between day and night reading makes it a worthy commuter or bedside companion. Think about it this way, like BlackBerries were the leader in email communication back 10 years ago, the Kobo Touch (in my opinion) is the perfect little eReader. I know that many people will scowl at the fact that I did not do any comparisons to other products but I won’t lie when I say I wasn’t interested in any other reader. I had done a bit of research through various readings, and I really did not need any other add ons such as connectivity to the internet through 3G, email or the ability to add apps. I’m unfamiliar with the Amazon store and didn’t feel comfortable trying to learn something new. I’m not one that is afraid of change or discourages it, but I don’t like wasting my time either.

Like I said at the end of the first paragraph, I thought the Kobo Touch was the perfect device, yet as I write this, I no longer own one. I actually ended up returning it before my two weeks were up. There really was only one thing wrong with it. Despite it doing what I wanted it to do, it exceeded my initial expectations to be honest (the OTA syncing really surprised me) but it kept having issues with the memory. After about five days, I continuously kept getting an error. Specifically the error said “memory corrupted. please reset to factory settings.” or something along those lines. There was an option to ignore it and so I did and kept on reading. What was discouraging and frustrating though, was the fact that after multiple factory resets, it still kept giving me this error. So before my two weeks were up, I returned it. And I didn’t really regret it.

While writing this, Chapters will be releasing on November 2nd a new Kobo. The Kobo Vox, which will be running a version of Android 2.2 (according to what I’ve read) and tout all the features that many other eReaders currently have. Kobo is coming into the eReader feature category a bit late, but we’ll see what happens. I’m hoping to pick one up, take it for a week long run and then provide another review. For now, I’ve put reading on any tablet or eReader on hold. Works been super busy and I’m having troubles getting time to get some quality reading in.

Unboxing the Kobo Touch.
[slideshow]

PayPal Scam

In today’s modern technology world, it comes to no surprise that we once again are faced with the inevitability that people try to scam us. As foolish as it may be, people still try because many of us still fall for it. I cannot say that I had not gotten excited or eager regarding an email I received at some given time, but what helps is that I am aware.

In today’s “scam edition” I bring to my readers a scam targeting PayPal users.

As I browsed my iPhone in the wee hours of the morning, while trying to struggle with making breakfast, the email I received at around 04:30 in the morning caught my attention. Reading into the details I was a bit worried about what it said. I had apparently made an iPad purchases using eBay. Unfortunate for the culprit behind this email, I know what to do in such a situation.

First, check the email that it came from. Almost always will you notice it never came from where it says it’s originating from. In this case it came from @refundsecure.com As though that might entice me to actually click the embedded link, nice try.
Secondly, log into the service directly through a web browser but not utilizing any of the links provided in the email. Open a fresh browser window, type the URL of the service and log in directly.
Thirdly, check the activity on the account. In the case of PayPal there is a way to check any and all authorized transactions waiting to be processed. If anything you don’t remember pops out, then contact the service provider directly.
Fourthly, check the company/services website for any news of hacks or data loss. Most companies are very transparent or they might have published information on the web.

Keep in mind that it might not be a scam as well, hence the four step process I’ve outlined for those who are unsure. Take extra care with such services like PayPal, and never click or open links embedded in such emails. Hackers and scammers are becoming more sophisticated each day. Mimicking company emails and websites to replicating domains in emails to make you believe that it came from the service.

If in doubt, always check with the larger community. It’s what we are here for.

Unlocked iPhone4S in the US

It doesn’t come with great surprise but Apple has finally released an unlocked iPhone for the US. Officially hitting the web this past Friday. Until recently, every individual from the US whom I’ve met, has had to come up to Canada and purchase their unlocked iPhone here. With Apple touting the iPhone4S as a World Phone it does not come as a surprise that this happened. What is also encouraging, is the fact that from what ZDNet reported, pricing here in Canada seems to match the US store. Until earlier this year Canadian’s have had to purchase their Apple tech at roughly a $100 increase over their US neighbours. Now however with the dollar roughly at par, it seems Apple has finally aligned and in many cases lowered pricing for us here.

With more and more people traveling between Canada, the US and abroad, I am anticipating that other phone producers like RIM, HTC and Samsung will begin to also look at selling unlocked versions of their phones. This trend is more then welcomed, as many of us would prefer to pay the extra price for a phone which we can take and use anywhere in the world.

Getting Ready for iOS5 and iCloud

With iOS5 being released within a few hours along with iCloud, anyone looking to upgrade their devices should be a bit cautious. Half of us will upgrade right away and the other half will wait for the early adopters to work out the kinks. Either or we must make sure that our systems and devices are backed up.

(UPDATE: There is no official release time for iOS5 to be dropped on the world, however, historically it has been released between 12:00 and 13:00 EST. iCloud.com has been released to the public at this time.)

In order to properly backup your systems and devices, I thought I would share how I went about preparing for this update and let those interested follow along. (DISCLAIMER: Readers should note that I have been beta testing iOS5 and iCloud as part of the iOS developer program. I have not however been testing for the Mac.)
Let us start with the easy part, backing up your devices. With iOS devices it is best to back them up periodically using iTunes. Make sure that you are running the latest version of iTunes before you backup your iPod, iPad or iPhone. The best way to check is to go to the top left hand corner (the apple on the top left corner) and select Software Update… From here your computer will check with Apples servers for any new versions of iTunes or any other software that you may need for your Mac. Once all updates have been installed, plug in your iOS devices and sync them with iTunes. This will ensure that when the new iTunes version is installed overtop of your current version, your devices backups are there. It is best to do another backup after Apple releases the update and you have installed it. Although in theory you shouldn’t have to, I recommend it to ensure that the backups are done using the latest software version.

Once you have backed up your devices, its time to back up the critical data in Mail, iCal and your Address Book. To get started, open up all of the applications and do a check to ensure that all the data that is currently there, is what you want. It is always a pain when you think you’ve done a backup with the latest information imbedded, only to discover later that you did not. Lets start with a few backup basics. If you’ve read about backing up your system through such websites like macworld.com or maclife.com, many of the articles recommend having three separate backup locations.

First a external hard drive (HDD)
Second a cloud storage system
And third, a backup system such as Time Machine or another automated backup

In my arsenal of backup glory, I utilize for backing up specifically my Mail, iCal and Address Book a external HDD, Dropbox and a local backup directly on my Mac’s HDD. I like to keep backups close by and I dedicate a special folder just for them.

Lets start with Mail. When you open up your Mail app you most likely have many folders and possibly a few different accounts linked to it. You can either bundle all of the different folders and inbox’s together or separate them for better archiving, which ever you prefer. I personally like to bundle my different inbox’s with the folders I’ve created on the servers. In order to do this, I first highlight all of the online folders by selecting the first folder and holding down the shift key to select the last folder. Once all of the folders are selected, go up to the menu bar and open up Mailbox. From the drop down menu select Export Mailbox…After selecting, you will be prompted with a location request for where you want to have the archives stored. In my example, I am going to store them in the Cloud using Dropbox. I have a special folder created specifically for my archives, based on the application that I am backing up. In the application folder, I have specific dates of when certain backups were done, as can be seen with the mail archives I have below. After selecting Choose your folders or mailbox will begin to populate.Once you’ve exported and backed up your mailboxes and folders to the first location, take all of those files, copy them and paste them into another location. This new location should be a external hard drive for example or even a thumb drive (also known as flash drive). Having multiple backups helps to ensure that if one backup fails, then you have another to fall back to.

Now that we have gone through a in-depth step-by-step outline of how to backup your mail, lets look at doing the same with the information in your iCal and Address Book. With both applications we will use the same principal of location and multiple storage however, the format in which the applications save a backup are slightly different.

Open up your iCal and make sure that all of your appointments have been added and that it looks generally right. Once you’ve done this check, it is time to export and backup iCal. With iCal selected, move up to the menu bar and click on File. In the drop down move the curser to Export, select and click on iCal Archive… You will then be prompted for a location to save the backup. Unlike the Mail backups, iCal uses a single file to back up your entire iCal application. In the event that you loose or your iCal becomes corrupted, you can recover every calendar you had created and every event or appointment by importing a single file.

If you want to export only a single calendar, then follow the same steps but substitute iCal Archive… for Export… Save the same way you would an entire iCal backup.

Backing up your Address Book is just as simple as backing up iCal. With Address Book opened, move up to the menu bar a click on File. From the drop down move down to Export, select and click on Address Book Archive… Once again select the location where you would like to store the archive and save it.

If you want to save an individual vCard, (a vCard is a single entry in the Address Book), follow the same steps but substitute Export vCard… where you would have selected Address Book Archive… This can be useful if you want to send the vCard through email or perhaps save only a select set of contacts and not your entire address book.

With all three components backed up, you can worry less that when Apple releases its update for the Mac to utilize iCloud syncing between it and your devices, your critical information is backed up and can be recovered if something unexpected happens. There are a few other files and folders that are on your Mac that might be worth saving an offline copy of just in case. All of which are located under your Home Folder.

Your iTunes library located under Music
Any picture files as they may possibly be affected
Finally, any documents that you find important … since we are already on the task of backing up

As I mentioned before, I like to keep three different locations of my backups. A external hard drive which can be picked up at almost any store selling electronics for a very good price. Most HDD’s with a capacity of 500GB or even more at times, can now be picked up for less then $100, depending on the brand and the built in features. I also keep backups on my Dropbox and a local backup saved on my Mac’s hard drive, just in case something gets corrupted and I need to reload a previously saved archive.

Backups should be done once a month at minimal if not more often. A good strategy is to create a repeating event in your iCal with an alarm to help remind you to do your backups. In the notes you can also outline what folders or files need backing up. If you are running on OSX Lion or Snow Leopard, go out and grab a desktop hard drive. Plug it into your Mac or Airport Extreme and configure it to work with Time Machine. If you are unaware of Time Machines benefits, go to Apples website and read up on the wonderful features that Time Machine provides.

Now you are ready for iOS5 and the companion update to your Mac, 10.7.2.

Enjoy