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fling – Gaming on the iPad Just Got Real

Chris Sully — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 14:38:26 +0000

Over a year ago, I sat in disbelief as Steve Jobs unveiled the newest toy in the Apple arsenal, the iPad. I had already owned an iPod touch and used iPhones long enough to know that the iPad was going to be a huge success, but gaming was listed as one of the key uses of this “magical” device and I thought that sounded a little off.

Gaming, for myself and many like me, is a term reserved for console game systems (like the XBOX 360 and PS3) and desktop computers. I’ve been playing games for years and when someone mentions a “gaming system” I think of fast graphics, surround sound and a controller. That’s what seemed so “off” in Steve’s speech. How can you “game” on the iPad when there are no buttons?

CES 2011

Fast forward to January 2011. iPad in hand, I traveled to CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, where over 34 football fields worth of electronic gadgets were on hand for viewing, touching and testing. Of the thousands of new tech toys I saw, many were geared for use with the iPad, but only one caught my attention enough to warrant a purchase. That item was fling.

Geometry Wars

At one small, unsuspecting booth at CES I came across two guys from Ten One Design who were showing off the fling, a tactile joystick for the iPad. In the simplest terms, the fling is a button on suction cups that attaches to the front of your iPad. Use one or pair up two of them for a controller-esque experience. Only a few seconds passed before I was standing with the “flinged out” iPad in hand playing one of my favorite console games of all time Geometry Wars. One word crossed my lips. “Awesome!!”

After the Demo

I played for 5 minutes, then finally headed on my way, but that experience changed the iPad for me forever. Upon returning home to Houston, I pre-ordered a pair of fling controllers and 2 weeks later they were in. I’ve now had my fling controllers for a couple weeks and I can’t put the iPad down. These simple little add-ons have made the iPad a true gaming experience for me. In fact, within 48 hours of receiving the flings I had cracked the top 10 on the all-time leaderboard for Geometry Wars, something I could never have done simply using my thumbs.

What Now

If you are interested in seeing the fling in action, check out the official demo video:

The fling lists at $19.95 or you can pick up a 2-pack for $29.94 at tenonedesign.com right now.

UPDATE: In my research since posting this article, I came across a few more great reviews of the fling, including this article on Apps for the Fling Joystick. In case you were wondering on what games to get for your fling, this is a great reference tool to start with.

Check out my app picks for
“Flingers – Games Best with the Fling Controller”

UPDATE 2 (posted 6-07-2011):

This just in. Ten One Design now has the Fling mini Joystick up and available on their website for pre-order. This new Fling is designed for use on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

** Just so you know, I was not compensated in any way for this post. Ten One Design did not ask me to write this article. The views and comments above are all mine.

Convert Your Gmail Ad Space to a Contact Info Sidebar

Chris Sully — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:49:26 +0000

Every once in a while, I stumble onto a product that just makes life easier. Rapportive, defined as a social CRM tool for Gmail, is the most recent add-on to find it’s way onto my PC. Rapportive (available for Firefox and Chrome users) replaces the advertising space in individual emails with up-to-date social networking contact information on the people you correspond with.

My first thought was “this looks like XOBNI for Gmail” and, according to the comments and feedback I have read on this product, I am not alone. XOBNI is another fantastic tool, but unfortunately is only available for Outlook users, and a product that I have missed terribly since switching from Outlook to Gmail. Both of these products make it very easy to see what social networking services your friends, family and even customers are using.

Once installed, the social networking information on the person/company that emailed you appears out to the right of an open email. Icons (with links) are provided for services like Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, etc. Simply click on any of these to open the profile page of that individual in a new tab. Below the links you will find a comment area that you can use for keeping track of customers, but I am sure individuals will find some other creative and unique ideas for this space.

Installation

First of all, Rapportive is an add-on, so there isn’t the same commitment level that you might have with a full-blown program installation. If you don’t like it, it takes just a few button clicks to disable it. I had it up and running in less than 5 minutes, thanks to the well-thought out installation page from the Rapportive web site that includes step-by-step install instructions.

Link: http://rapportive.com/install

** One user did comment that any users of the Ad-Block Plus add-on (Firefox) might have to disable it to perform the installation of Rapportive.

After installing, you’ll just have to restart and then open an individual message (any one will do) to access the login button. Grant permission to Rapportive to access your Gmail account and you are on your way.

Concerns

Initial concerns from most seem to be the fear that Rapportive will have access to your login credentials and/or email content. Their FAQ page addresses this concern head-on:

“We never see your password. We use Gmail’s OpenID login system, which means only Google receives your password. All we get from Google is a token that proves you’re really you, and a few details (like your name and preferred language)… The contents of your email never leaves your browser, and we never store your emails anywhere. We’re finding peoples’ email addresses in the browser, and sending those back to our server to look them up.”

Verdict

I have only used Rapportive for a few minutes, but I am already a big fan. There are definitely some areas for improvement, but the makers of Rapportive have provided numerous areas within the sidebar and their website for you to provide feedback. I will be using their service and providing my ideas and concerns as time goes on and I encourage you to do the same.

Printing From the Web Without All the Waste – PrintWhatYouLike

Chris Sully — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:57:50 +0000

Printing information from web pages has always been a hassle. You find a web page with some information you want to print out so you click on the printer icon in your browser. Instead of the page or two that you expected to come out of the printer, you get 14 pages of complete randomness with your information sprinkled in. 12 pages go in the trash, your wallet gets a little lighter from the paper and toner that just went down the drain, and a few trees scream somewhere off in the distance. If you are like me, you avoid printing from the web so you can escape this hassle and waste. That was, until the introduction of PrintWhatYouLike.com!

PrintWhatYouLike.com was created by two developers who shared our frustrations with printing from the web and decided to do something about it. The PrintWhatYouLike tool comes in several forms (listed below) and provides users the ability to choose what elements of a web page they want to print before the information is transmitted to their printer. Print a single paragraph, an article, an image or several pages of information. It is entirely up to you. This truly amazing service is provided to you for FREE, so there is no reason not to start using it today.

For those of you who don’t want to print at all, or simply want to archive information found on the web in a different way, PrintWhatYouLike also offers the ability to save the pages you find as a PDF. Just use one of the options below to activate the PrintWhatYouLike feature and then choose Save as > PDF instead of Print. Save the file anywhere you want and access it later on. This is a great feature for those of us who don’t want to shell out several hundred dollars for a PDF creation software.

The Many Forms of PrintWhatYouLike

Every user has different ideas of how a tool should be used, so the folks at PrintWhatYouLike gave us some options on how and where we can implement their service.

Bookmarklet

Link: http://www.printwhatyoulike.com/bookmarklet

The bookmarklet is a simple way to integrate the PrintWhatYouLike feature into your browser without any sort of installation. Simply visit the link above and follow the instructions to drag some text to your bookmarks/favorites area in your browser. The next time you want to print something, simply click on the bookmark and the PrintWhatYouLike editor will appear around the page you are on.

The Bookmarklet Looks Like a Bookmark but Functions Like a Print Button

Firefox Add-on

Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9290

This add-on provides a more integrated option (for Firefox users). Visit the link above and install the add-on**. It is listed as “experimental” right now, but I have been using it for months myself. Replace the standard “print” icon in your browser with the PrintWhatYouLike button. This will help you remember to use this great feature when the time comes.

** After installing this add-on, you will need to restart Firefox and then take one additional step to get the icon to show up in your browser. Right click in the menu area (somewhere near help) and choose Customize. Scroll down and look for the PrintWhatYouLike icon (like the one at the top of this article) and drag it into your menu bar, wherever you want it.

Customize Your Firefox Menu Bar to Add the PrintWhatYouLike Button

Look for Our Pre-Configured Print Button

For regular readers of the JumpstartMyPC.com blog or anyone who wants to print out today’s article for later use, you can now use the green Print button located at the top of our articles. This button has been configured to print only our article and images, without all the menu options and sidebar information. Push print and send the information to your printer without any hassle or selection. We’ve done the work for you.

The Print Button is Now Part of Every One of Our Articles

Customer Service is King

On a side-note, I would like to point out that the PrintWhatYouLike.com team is as fantastic as their product. I ran into some trouble when creating the Print button for our articles and received A+ support from Jonathan, who is actually one of the creators of this product. This top-notch customer service, in addition to a great product, means I won’t even think about trying a competitor’s product. It is a shame that other companies don’t understand the importance of communicating with and helping their clients.

End Desktop Clutter and Get Organized with SaveLink

Chris Sully — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:06:53 +0000

We’ve all seen this before. A desktop with dozens, maybe even hundreds, of icons and shortcuts. I’m sure that the owner (and maybe you are the culprit in question) of this desktop had great intentions when they first started adding these colorful little images to their workspace, but things just got out of hand. I too used the desktop as a catch-all for some time, until I realized that anything more than about 10-15 icons was too much to handle. Part of the blame for this icon hoarding must fall on, what I like to call “future-surfing.” Future-surfing is the process of adding shortcuts of newly found web sites to your desktop for the purpose of returning to them later, when you “have time” or are “will be able to focus on it.”

We all find new and exciting sites as we explore the internet. These aren’t necessarily our “favorites” or sites we want to “bookmark” but sites we just want to investigate later and now there is a way to save the links for these pages without destroying our desktop. SaveLink is an add-on for Firefox that incorporates a new option to your File and right-click menus. That option, shown as “save link as file” allows the user to save an entire page or an individual link as a shortcut in a folder of their choosing. Below, we have some screen shots of this great Firefox add-on in action.

Installation

First, you’ll have to install the add-on for your copy of Firefox. Head over to this link and click on Add to Firefox.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/14019

SaveLink Add-on Web Site

Use

Once you’ve installed and restarted, you can begin using SaveLink in one of two ways.

Entire Web Pages – Simply navigate to the page you want to save, then go to File/Save link as file…

Go to File if You Want to Save an Entire Page

You’ll be asked where you want to save the file and what you want to name it. Pick any folder you like and then name your file, or use the default name that pops up. You can create a folder on your hard drive for “Sites to Research Later” or even put the new shortcuts into a Dropbox folder and access them on the go.

Individual Links – Right-click on any link within your browser and choose Save link as file …

Save a Link from A Web Page or Article

Now, you can go back to your newly created folder and access these shortcuts any time you want. Your desktop will thank you. Your friends and family will thank you. Best of all, you’ll actually be able to find that link again, without straining your eyes or your nerves.

Firefox Add-on BarTap – How Did I Live Without It?

Chris Sully — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:26:28 +0000

Windows Update in the middle of the night = Firefox restart. Find a great new Add-on for your browser = Firefox restart. Browser crashes = Firefox restart. There are so many reasons why you might find yourself in the middle of a waiting game with Firefox, but so few tools to help your browser through the process of reloading all of those tabs. If you have ever sat and watched as Firefox attempts to “restore your previous session” then you know what I am talking about. All of your tabs appear, but it could take a minute or five, depending on how many tabs you had open before the restart was needed.

Firefox Reloading Tabs after Restart

I am a tab person. If I see a link that I want to check out later, I right-click and “open in a new tab.” My thought process are arranged by windows and each tab is a work in progress. I jump around from tab to tab and use them as reminders of what I was researching, working on or playing. To me, they are kind of like post-it-notes. Thankfully, Firefox added the ability to restore sessions a few years back. Until then, my thoughts and projects would vanish. Until this morning, I would just have to wait patiently as all of those “dot circles” finally turned into real icons. I assumed that this was just part of life and something that I was gong to have to deal with on a regular basis.

What changed this morning? I was introduced to a new add-on for Firefox called BarTap. BarTap is a FREE add-on that loads your tabs, but holds off on loading the page until you click on the tab. By doing this, Firefox can load quickly and you can keep your system resources. Luckily, the names of the sites still load, so you get an idea of what was on each tab before the restart happened.

FireFox Reloaded with BarTap

BarTap is one of the many add-ons for Firefox that I have desperately needed forever but never thought to search for. Actually, that seems to be the case with most add-ons. It isn’t until someone else introduces me to an add-on that I would even think of trying it. Hoepfully, you will thank us for introducing it to you.

Add-on Link – CLICK HERE to visit the BarTap add-on page.

Site Launcher – Like Having a Remote Control for Firefox

Chris Sully — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:56:55 +0000

Just like television viewing, surfing the internet quickly becomes a repetitive, addictive activity. You stare at a screen and before you know it, you find yourself on the same channels (sites) day-in and day-out. The only problem is, there are no on-screen guides or remote controls in the world of web browsing. Well, at least until now. Today, we take a look at yet another add-on for Firefox, called Site Launcher (Sorry all you Internet Explorer users).

Site Launcher is a “simple Firefox add-on that gives a highly convenient and clutter-free method to quickly open websites that you need often. One keyboard hotkey makes the ‘Launcher’ panel instantly appear, followed by a single key press to jump to the site you wish to open.” (quote taken from donesmart.com web site) I took a few minutes yesterday to install and test this great new FREE feature and I have to say I love it! The only trick now is remembering that it is there.

How it Works

You install the Site Launcher add-on (which only takes seconds) then “setup” the launcher application to assign the sites you visit most often (see image below). Setup is a loose term because the makers have already assigned a number of the most popular web sites (amazon.com, ebay, facebook, google, etc.) and I really didn’t have to change or add many additional sites.

Once, you have your “channels” set up, you can go on with your normal browsing. When it’s time to visit one of your favorite sites just press CTRL + Spacebar (that is Control and the Spacebar at the same time) and the “on-screen guide” will come up (see image below) . You can then click on the site you want to visit or simply press the letter for the corresponding site. It really could not be any easier.

There are a number of options for the program which can be found under the Site Launcher menu options (now appearing in your FireFox menu system right next to Tools). You can change colors, number of columns, size of icons… The list goes on and on. I just tested different options until I finally came up with a setup I liked (shown above).

Surf Safely with Web of Trust for FREE

Chris Sully — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:55:16 +0000

Yesterday, we warned you about the nearly 10,000 passwords that were stolen and posted online by cybercriminals. Further information indicates that these passwords were stolen via a fake Hotmail website, identical to the real thing. This phishing scam tricked users into entering their email address and password. Twenty-four hours later a similar list of thousands of Google Gmail, AOL, Yahoo Mail, Comcast and Earthlink accounts were revealed as well.

Scams like these are becoming more and more common. As PC and internet users we have just a few choices. We can avoid using the internet completely (not likely) or arm ourselves with the right tools to prevent malware attacks, spyware trickery, phishing scams, etc. In the case of the Hotmail passwords, a simple anti-virus or spyware program would NOT have prevented the crime. No software was installed and these programs would not have sent up any flares to warn us of the potential danger. That’s why we need a program like My Web of Trust (WOT).

WOT is s a FREE Internet security add-on for your browser (Firefox and Internet Explorer). It will keep you safe from online scams, identity theft, spyware, spam, viruses and unreliable shopping sites. WOT warns you before you interact with a risky website. The WOT add-on investigates the links you see on your web browser and checks their trustworthiness, vendor liability, privacy and child safety. With the sum of all these, WOT assigns a rating of green (trustworthy), yellow (proceed with caution) or red (warning). The rating is indicated by a tiny, color-coded icon that is displayed next to each of the links in your browser.

WOT uses both the users’ ratings and the trusted lists, such as phishing website links to assign ratings. This user-based rating system is what really gives strength to the Web of Trust. With over 5 million users and ratings for over 24 million websites, WOT serves as an exceptional second-layer of security for your web browsing experience.

In addition to the ratings posted within the most trusted sites on the web (Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, Wikipedia, digg, …), WOT also warns you about dangerous links in Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail. Had the users affected by the Hotmail password scam yesterday been running WOT, they would have been greeted with two warnings and would not have unknowingly provided their email address and passwords.

1) A red WOT rating icon would have been displayed

Notice the red circle, indicating an untrustworthy site

2) If the user did click on the link, they would have been warned again, with this full screen image

WOT Full Screen Warning

Get WOT today and add a new level of security to your web browsing experience. Visit http://www.mywot.com for more information and download links. Remember, it is FREE. What do you have to lose?