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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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Go From Smartphone to Remote Control

The following is a guest post written by Bre Carter.

If you are anything like me, you probably talk less on your smartphone than any other activity. Texting, searching Google, playing games, and posting to Facebook all consume much more time than actually using the device for its main purpose. Communicating with each other has kind of devolved into a text based system that places a steep value on literacy. Fortunately for those who do not want to read, you can also turn your smartphone into a cool remote control for your home theater.

Most home theater systems require you to own several different remotes in order to control what you see and hear. This practice of remote control overload gets confusing really fast and keeps people from watching DVD’s or operating other cool features on their systems. By converting your smartphone into a remote control, you can do away with your useless remotes and enjoy the media that you want to.

Google TV Remote app

Instead of going out and purchasing a brand new remote with a specialized interface, most people are deciding to download free apps and products that convert their smartphones into remotes. While still costing up to $100, using a smartphone is a much cheaper option than the existing smart products on the market.

In order to use an app installed on an iPhone, you must purchase additional equipment from a retailer. Most televisions rely on an infrared system to communicate information with remote controls. According to PC World, you need to use products like NewKinetix for iPhone, or AV/Shadow for Android and Blackberry devices.

One of the most useful ways to control your television through your smartphone is the DVR. Companies like Direct TV, DISH, and AT&T U-Verse all have mobile websites that allow you to program your television. If you want to watch Jerry Springer, but have to work during the day, you can program the show from your office and have it waiting for you when you get back.

While the market for smartphone remote apps may be weak right now, once people start purchasing more smart televisions the need will start to increase. In order to get more brand recognition with consumers, brands like Samsung and Google will want to immerse their image in the minds of all of those watching with free apps.

If you are still only using your smartphone to make calls, or look up unknown numbers through Anywho.com, you are missing out on a wide world of diverse entertainment. Try exploring the App Store or the Android Market in order to find remote control options that fit your needs.

Editor’s Note: In our household, we use many Android remote control apps to manipulate our WiFi connected devices, including Google TV remote, Roku Wi-Fi Remote and GMote (used to control a laptop connected to a TV via HDMI). All of these apps connect to the device you’re controlling via Wi-Fi, so no additional equipment is necessary.

About this Guest Author: Bre Carter is a journalism student at Saint Louis University. Upon graduation, she hopes to travel the world while producing compelling content for the masses. When she isn’t writing, you can find Bre with her nose in a book, or her headphones in to block out the rest of the world.

Find large files taking up hard drive space in Windows with WinDirStat

Almost all modern day computer users have run into the pesky problem of filling up a hard disk drive (HDD) to near capacity. But once you’ve filled up all of your disk space with large files, or just a boatload of smaller files, how do you find what files are eating up all of that space? There’s no easy way to do it natively in the Windows OS, but thankfully there are many 3rd party tools to help you on your quest to find and clean files from your HDD.

My favorite at the moment is a completely free utility named WinDirStat. It’s simple, easy to use and has a very helpful graphical interface (screenshot below) that shows directory trees and file types in colorful blocks. As the program’s Help section explains, it ”Shows where all your disk space has gone and helps you clean it up.”

The image above (click for higher res) shows a completed WinDirStat scan on my Acer notebook’s HDD. I am just about at capacity and I needed to find out what was eating up all of my disk space so that I could delete some files.

I love how it color codes file types to give you a quick graphical view of how much the various file types are eating up your HDD. Notice all the blue? All of the blue blocks correspond to .MOV (quicktime video format) files that are taking up space on my hard drive. Quick time video files are by far the biggest hard disk space hogs on my system, eating up 61.6GB of disk space and 49.5% of my total HDD capacity.

With the disk space utilization information provided by WinDirStat, I will now be able to easily go in and copy off or delete the offending .MOV files, freeing up disk space and expanding the available free storage on my drive.

On other Windows systems, WinDirStat has helped me to find and eliminate temporary video editing program files and temporary ASP.NET files. Both of these file groups were eating up huge amounts of disk space and they weren’t needed on the systems at all.

What is your favorite Windows tool for analyzing disk space usage and identifying large files on your hard drive?

Swype: a better virtual keyboard for smartphones

For the longest time, I was a big fan of a physical keyboard on a smartphone. It all started with my very first “smarter” phone, the HTC Dash (Excalibur), which ran Windows Mobile. Of course, WinMo didn’t have any touch capabilities, so a physical keyboard was a requirement.

From the dark days of WinMo, I transitioned over to Android, first with the T-Mobile (HTC) G1 and then over to the original Motorola Droid. One of the reasons I went with the Droid was due to the inclusion of the slide out, full QWERTY keyboard. Many other Android phones at the time (and to this day) opt to skip a physical keyboard altogether and for good reason. Physical keyboards add thickness, weight and cost to a device.

Suffice it to say, the default Android virtual keyboard leaves something to be desired, although it has improved some with newer Android updates. Even so, I still find the Android virtual keyboard lacking and unacceptable for use as a primary input method.

Enter Swype.

Getting in on the Swype for Android beta

When I first learned about a new virtual keyboard that allows you to “type” words by connecting all of the containing letters in one fluid motion (think connect the dots with letters), I immediately wanted to try it. Fortunately for me, at the time they were getting ready to launch their Android application and were accepting beta testers. I was accepted into the beta program and I’ve been happily using Swype ever since. Nowadays, I rarely use a physical keyboard on a smartphone.

Swype is available to OEM manufacturers (eg HTC, Samsung) and now comes pre-loaded on many Android phones. The app makes for a fantastic primary input method, no physical keyboard required.

Unfortunately, if you have an Android phone that did not come pre-loaded with Swype, you are probably out of luck. The app is noticeably missing from the Android Market, as the company does not make it available for consumer purchase. Bummer.

If you’re in the market to purchase a new Android phone, I highly recommend that you get one that includes Swype pre-loaded. I’ve tried an imitator (another slide-typing keyboard app) on Android and it was vastly inferior. Swype does it right.

If and when I need to transition to another keyboard, it’ll be a difficult adjustment for me after using and enjoying Swype for so long.

Swype virtual keyboard Pros

Easier to use than the standard Android virtual keyboard
Word suggest
Quick
Customizable
Google Voice input key

Swype virtual keyboard Cons

Not available in standalone form to consumers (not on Android Market)
Beta Updater buggy, often requiring uninstallation & then a fresh install
No install to SD card option

Update: The newest version of Swype (3.26) now provides automatic app updating. Finally!! No more hokey installer app to mess with.

Shoot it! smartphone postcards app review

With the recent announcement of Apple’s new Cards service, it’s a good time to post about one of the original smartphone postcard services: Shoot it!

The concept is simple. Take a photo with your smartphone, upload it to Shoot it!, add a message, add a recipient, click “Shoot it!” and the service will deliver a real-world glossy photo postcard, for as little as $1.29 (previously a buck) for US addresses. The cost for delivering a to other countries is slightly higher.

These smartphone postcards are great for vacations, holidays, sending the parents or grandma a photo, sending a little something to a friend or for many other occasions.

So what do they look like? Here’s a sample.

Sample Shoot it! photo postcard – front

Please pardon the fatso photo. This was back in 2009, before I went vegan. Tera looks lovely as always, of course.

Sample Shoot it! photo postcard – back

Shoot it! postcards app review

Unfortunately, the Android app suffers from multiple issues, making it almost unusable. I tested the app using the Motorola Droid (original) with Android 2.1 and 2.2.

For starters, the screen layouts and design could use some help. On some screens you have to scroll past empty space for no apparent reason, just to get to the button that you need to press to proceed.

The biggest problems, however, are the session timeout and force close issues, which pop up frequently. If you’re taking awhile to prepare and submit your postcard order by adding multiple recipients or typing up your postcard message, the Shoot it! app often times out, dropping your session and completely losing everything you’ve worked on so far. It doesn’t even save work in progress cards to a draft section. The app crashes (Force close) and you have to start over again from scratch and login anew. Frustrating.

If you’re sending to someone in your contacts that has a second line in their address, like an apartment or suite number, the Shoot it! Android app will fail to import that part of the address and you’ll need to manually enter it in the app each time. Very annoying.

I have no idea how the iOS Shoot it! app performs, but if it’s anything like the Android app, I’d be surprised if they maintain any regular customers.

Shoot it! Positives

High quality glossy photo postcards
Send from anywhere in the world using a phone or computer
Support for mailing to numerous countries
Low cost
iOS, Android & web browser support

Shoot it! Negatives

Android app is buggy, unstable and almost unusable
No editing or crop control
Doesn’t support all countries (I could’t send to Peru)
Address book stored on website isn’t accessible in Android app
Can’t edit address book entries stored on the website
Postcard font size not adjustable to allow for more text

Disclosure: Shoot it! provided me with 50 credits for helping to beta test the Android app. I provided a lot of feedback on the many bugs & issues with the Android app, but they never did get them fixed.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich unveiled

Last night, Google unveiled the latest iteration of the Android OS platform, version 4.0, code named Ice Cream Sandwich.

According to Google; Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich brings an entirely new look and feel to Android. The lock screen, widgets, notifications, multi-tasking and everything in between has been rethought and refined to make Android simple, beautiful, and beyond smart.  

Here’s a quick video preview of the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone, the first device to support Ice Cream Sandwich.

Google is highlighting the following as the primary features of Ice Cream Sandwich

Face Unlock

Android 4.0 supports facial recognition phone security! Now this is pretty cool. Using the front facing camera on the Galaxy Nexus, you can unlock your phone with a mere smile.

Android Beam

Using NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, Android phones will now be able to “beam” information to one another quickly and easily when in close proximity. You’ll be able to share contacts, websites, apps, media, just about anything with another Android phone, no cables or network connectivity required.

Voice Typing

Google’s innovation with voice input and voice recognition continues. The new voice typing feature will allow you to “type” emails, blog posts, or any other text just by talking.

Google +

Google’s social networking service is getting another big push thanks to tight integration in Android 4.0. The Android app will offer easy sharing options, a messenger app that allows you to communicate with groups of friends and a video chat feature.

The debut device

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone itself will feature a dual core 1.2GHz processor, a 720p HD display, single motion panoramic camera, zero shutter lag, “top notch” low light performance, 1080p video recording AND editing!

Booyah! This is what I’ve been waiting for. I’ve actually be considering the purchase of an iPhone 4S lately, primarily due to the video editing capabilities. Now that the Galaxy Nexus is set to arrive in November, it’s looking like it will be my next phone.

For more deets, check out the Google blog post on Android 4.0 and the Galaxy Nexus website.

Are you looking forward to getting your hands on Ice Cream Sandwich?

Tanaza: Cloud management for WiFi access points
If you are a small business that owns and operates multiple WiFi access points, you are probably already aware that wireless routers and access points lack administrative standards.

There are a plethora of companies out there that provide WiFi solutions, including D-Link, Netgear, Linksys, Belkin and many more. All of these companies seem to use their own proprietary interfaces for providing administrative access to the WiFi settings. With so many different GUI’s, settings and options, this can quickly become a nightmare for any organization. But what if you could solve this headache with a simpler interface?

Tanaza aims to provide a solution to this mess with the Tanaza Cloud WiFi Management SaaS. Their cloud solution provides a unified interface for you to manage WiFi access points from numerous vendors, easing administration, saving time and reducing confusion. Yep, that’s right, Tananza says it’s compatiable with multiple vendors and it’s cheap.

Let’s take a look at their video explanation of the service.

Tanaza sounds like a good solution for those organizations in need of managing many different WiFi access points. If your business or organization needs something like this, it looks like their service is worth checking out.

Disclosure: This article was a sponsored, paid post.