Blu-ray, DVD, HDTV, Video info and more at WesleyTech.com

Online file sharing now ubiquitous thanks to cloud storage services

Online storage, file sharing and data backup is all the rage these days. While perusing the latest tech news, you can’t go for long without reading all about the cloud, cloud, cloud! Cloud solutions! Cloud backup! Cloud storage! And while the term “cloud” might be the latest catch-phrase for storing data online, the concept has existed for quite a long time.

One of my first encounters with this type of service occurred back in the early 2000′s, when I signed up for a free Xdrive account. This now defunct service was one of the initial pioneers in online data storage, offering consumers free online storage space to house their data. Xdrive provided software that integrated with Windows Explorer, allowing for a seamless user experience. The online storage simply showed up on the PC as an additional drive letter, the X drive. It was easy to use and worked relatively well.

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Attack of the prepaid rebate cards

It’s a disturbing new trend in the world of technology retailing — Rebates — but these aren’t the rebates from years ago… these rebates come in the form of prepaid credit/debit cards.

No longer will you receive that fancy paper check in the mail that can be deposited directly into a bank account.

The old paper rebate checks were a treat to discover in your mailbox, as if you were getting a paycheck back for making your tech purchase, albeit a small one. But alas, these days that doesn’t happen anymore, as most rebates now come in the form of a square piece of plastic that is “preloaded” with your rebate dollars. I’ve seen Visa, MasterCard and American Express prepaid cards.

What’s wrong with a debit/credit card pre-loaded with funds? You ask…

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Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review

The good folks over at Corel sent us over their new Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus product to review. Yes, you read that right, Corel now owns Roxio consumer software. This hardware & software combo package allows you to capture and transfer analog video from sources like a VCR or an old camcorder, converting them into a digital video format.

There are many reasons for converting old analog video to digital. Doing so allows you to retain video quality, as analog video tapes continually degrade when they are played. They even lose quality when they aren’t used, as aging & environmental factors can cause tape to deteriorate. Converting to digital allows you to preserve these videos without having to worry about the source tape media wilting away and becoming unplayable.

Converting video to a digital format also provides you with the flexibility to copy your video to a USB storage device, a DVD, a Blu-ray Disc or upload it to a website such as YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo or countless other streaming video websites. This allows for portability and playback on computers, smartphones, iPods and other modern devices.

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I own a 46″ Sony HDTV powered by Google TV. I love having the web on my HDTV and I love being able to control my TV with my Android smartphone. Google TV is great, it has a lot of potential, but it’s just not fully polished, even after the latest major overhaul that upgraded it to a new version of Android.

My experience this past weekend is a typical example of how Google TV just doesn’t have its act quite together.

While using my smartphone, I often see an interesting video posted on Facebook or Twitter. If the video sounds interesting enough for me to watch, I’ll typically send the video link to my Google TV using the “Share with Google TV Remote” option on my Android device. This works great for “beaming” video content to the big screen in our living room.

I tried this twice this weekend, and both times, I got a big fail from Google TV.

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Convert virtually any audio file to MP3, WAV, OGG or WMA format with Media.io

I use my personal mobile phone for receiving pages text messages from work, as I’m required to be available 24 x 7 in case of issues and I also work a rotational on-call schedule with the rest of my team.

When you really need a text message to get your attention, the stock “bling”, “beep” or “boop” sound bytes used by most mobile phones to alert you of a new text message just won’t cut it. Due to this, back in my Windows Mobile phone days, I would set the WakeupAlarm.WMA file as my text message audio notification when I was on-call. This is a really obnoxious and loud alarm clock sound byte, and that gets your attention when a new text message arrives.

When I moved over to Android, first with the T-mobile G1 and then with the Motorola Droid, I kept using this sound clip by copying the WakeupAlarm.WMA file over to my phone. And why not? It was a proven, effective, paging alert sound.

Unfortunately, my Stand Operating Procedures (SOP) were thwarted once I upgraded to my Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Apparently Android 4.0 does not support WMA files, unlike previous versions of Android, which did so with no problems whatsoever. To continue using this sound file with Android 4.0, I had to convert it to a new format. Enter: Media.io

Media.io is an online audio file conversion service that allows anyone to convert virtually any audio file to an MP3, WAV, OGG or WMA audio file, all for free. As of this posting, the site also has zero advertisements and a very clean interface (see above for a partial image of the webpage).

I was able to quickly and easily convert my WMA file to MP3 format thanks to Media.io. There were no artifacts, distortions or any other problems found in the resulting MP3 file and I am now once again happily using the WakeupAlarm sound byte on my Android 4.0 smartphone.

I have tried using many other audio file conversion apps in the past, including some freeware found on CNet. None of the other apps that I tested were able to successfully convert a WMA file to MP3 with good quality. Many of the apps would do the conversion, but the resulting MP3 file would be static laden or contain other audio artifacts.

Huge thanks and many kudos to Media.io creator Johann Burkard for creating such a useful, effective and totally free audio file conversion service.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich: the not so tasty problems & issues

After my trusty ol’ Motorola Droid bit the dust, I selected Google’s flagship Android smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, as my new mobile computing device. This phone comes loaded with the very latest Android OS version 4.0, also known by its code name “Ice Cream Sandwich” (ICS).

In this post, I’ll explore some of the issues that I have encountered during my month and a half relationship with Android 4.0. But before I get into that, I’d like to preface the following segments by stating that I am very VERY pleased with the Galaxy Nexus and it is undoubtedly one of the best smartphones available on the market today. In that vein, I plan on featuring some of the more interesting (and positive) ICS features in future posts coming soon. In this post, however, I’ll be getting down to the nitty-gritty: problems & issues encountered in Android 4.0.

Android 4.0 issue: Voice Search doesn’t provide location based results for the call command

You know what’s awesome? Google Voice Actions and Google Voice Search. Before Siri captivated iPhone 4 users, Google’s Voice Search & Voice Actions were available on the Android platform, allowing users to search, text, send emails, call phones and complete many other tasks using voice commands.

Unfortunately, when I migrated from my Motorola Droid running Android 2.2 to my Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.0.2, I was sorely disappointed to find that the Google Voice Actions “Call business-name” feature no longer provides location-specific/GPS tailored results.

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Share & send web pages from a Windows PC to Google TV with Chrome to TV

Notebook computers are ubiquitous these days. It’s not uncommon to see someone typing away & navigating the web on a laptop in their living room, while comfortably lounging on the couch. Many of my friends do this on a daily basis, making their living room their personal base of operations.

If you’re a Google TV owner, you have probably wondered if it is possible to easily share & send links, websites & web pages to your Google TV from your Windows laptop. After all, if you’ve got a huge HDTV staring back at you from a living room wall, why watch that new YouTube video on the small screen? Well now you don’t have to!

Google TV has a very under-publicized feature aptly dubbed Chrome to TV, which allows you to send website URL’s to your Google TV from the Chrome browser, with just one click. If you’re familiar with the Chrome to Phone browser extension, then you’re halfway there, as Chrome to TV uses that same mechanism.

Enable Chrome to TV on your Google TV

From your Google TV device, press the home button, click All Apps, navigate down to the “Settings” app & click it, navigate down to “Input device” and click it. Navigate down to the “Chrome to TV” as shown below and click it.

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