So, last time I wrote about Air Mouse Pro I was really negative about it.

Since then, I stopped trying to use it as a regular mouse and started using it as a remote for my iMac to surf and watch movies and TV shows.  My wife and I both love the app and use it daily.  I was very wrong in my first impression and attempted use of this application.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and you need across the room access to a windows or mac computer.  This is the way to go.

Air Mouse Pro connects over your network via Wi-Fi.  There is a small piece of software that you install on you computer that allows the App to interact with the OS.  Here is a list of  Features:

• Accelerometer based mouse
• Trackpad with vertical and horizontal orientation
• Media keys with volume and eject controls
• Web keys
• Application switcher/launcher
• Application notifications
• Unlimited custom media and web remotes with scripting capabilities
• Remote keyboard with modifier keys
• Function keyboard with arrow keys
• Oversized numeric keypad
• Programable hotkeys (can be set to run a program or keyboard combination)
• Scroll pad
• Multitouch gestures (supports scrolling & right click)
• Remotely wake up and put your computer to sleep
• Password protection
• Custom sensitivity settings
• Foreign language keyboards
• Supports Bonjour or static IP
• Works over Bluetooth PAN (requires carrier support, currently not available on AT&T)
• No screen size limitation. Works with multiple monitors
• Works over WIFI, no line of sight limitations
• Built from the ground up for Mac and Windows

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I have come to rely on the remote and mic so that I can work and answer calls and then go back to my music or netcast.  I give them 4 stars.  I could give them 5 stars, but Apple would have to ship them with the iPhone or iPod for me to do that.

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I have SuperDuper! up and running again and I have most of my site and everything else setup.  All in all for a disaster, it wasn’t as bad as my first hard drive crash back in 2001.  Of course, I only had my computer a month and Western Digital replaced it right away.  It didn’t take long to rebuild and acquire an operating system that was much more robust than Windows ME.

Snow Leopard is very nice, the load times on reboot or cold start.  The screen switching for Spaces is lightning fast and I have to admit that I am looking forward to running the install for my wife on the iMac.  I will make sure that I have 2 back-ups before I start that install.

iron wil

I got these in the mail & charged them right away.  It was very easy to connect the A125s dongle to the BT620s headphones, once I understood that order to do things.  They headphones were light enough and had full over the ear coverage.  The sound was rich and deep, my only problem is that they made my ears hot.  The other problem that I constantly faced with them was intermittent connection.

I know that Bluetooth is not the same as wireless, but I expected a lot less interruption in the connection.  If I turned my head or if I got just 5 feet away from the iPod & dongle, the music would start to drop off.  I didn’t experience any problems when sitting in front or beside my MacBook or iPod.

The BT620s also functions as a headset for phones or computers, think Skype, and that worked well with good sound quality.  The built in controls worked very nicely and even paused the music for incoming calls, as advertised.

I sold them for 2 reasons, the padded full covered ear muffs and the broken connectivity.  I would give them a high rating if you are just going to be using them at your desk.  The BT620s would be a great headset for VOiP applications via a computer.

iron wil

I have used DBAN and find it to be a very useful disk, I keep one in my tool [CD] case.

get your here.

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I have been looking for a ‘cloud’ back-up solution that was reasonable and viable as a solution. Yes, I know that Apple has the .Mac [now MobileMe] Service for 99$ a year; however, I wanted something a cheaper and easier to use.

You can pick-up Jungle Disk for 20$ and that includes all future updates and upgrades. Once you download and install the software package you need to enter you information. Next, head over to Amazon and the AWS site and sign in with your account information and then register for the S3 services. Once you are registered you will need to collect 2 Access Keys from Amazon. The first is your Access Key and the second is Your Secret Access Key.

With both of these, you can then connect to Amazon’s S3 service. I found it easier to add one directory at a time and let the upload take it’s time. It took 3 nights for me to upload 4 folders, Documents, Sites, Library, and Downloads. I have about 3.3GB of data from my MacBook that I have put on the cloud. It isn’t much, but it is my essential stuff.

Jungle Disk does a smart back-up.  You can schedule back-ups to run daily on down to every 5 minutes. I have mine set for 6 hours. If you have application like Mail or Firefox open it will error out on files that appear to be in use by the application. The application stays open and sits in the Dock. It would make sense for a Dashboard widget or a Menu Bar status icon to allow users quick access to the application monitor. Something like Caffeine or Time Machine.

It is worth the cost, which is on Jungle Disk’s main page here.

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Note: This will work for OS X, Windows, Windows Home Server, and Linux.

I have to say it is nice to have enough room to carry software packages I recommend and install on my clients computers. i even have all the Apple “Get a Mac” ads and half a dozen of the Heroes Graphic Novels. However, Technolust filled up her flash drive in about 2 weeks. I don’t have any idea what she has on that thing; but I am sure it is important.

If you hit my mac/pc pics pages you will get an idea of what I am carrying around on my flash drive.

Thunderbird & FireFox, ClamXav, AVG Free, TrueCrypt [Win & Mac], Filezilla, 7-Zip . . . etc.
iron wil

First impressions, it is huge compared to my SanDisk. The IronKey is almost 3 times it size; however, there is a reason for this SECURITY. Physical, electronic, and physical access. It is designed to withstand some physical abuse and water; electronically, the drives are not mounted until you clear the secure login; and then lastly the USB key is filled with a resin to protect the hardware which fills in every nook and cranny.

The best place to see how the encryption works is the IronKey website, they have a very good video that provides a virtual cut-away.

The usb device has a chip that handles the encryption and the software that drives the device. This chip provides full flash encryption which can kill the flash drive if the password is entered incorrectly to many times. Some people may balk at this feature; however, the IronKey team provides 2 different ways to protect against the loss of your data; 1) you can us the back-up service that comes with the device and stores it with IronKey or 2) you can create an encrypted data blob that will sit on your computer. You can recover your data if the device is destroyed after purchasing a new IronKey and then connecting to the server or running the restore option from the USB key.

Portable FireFox (FF) is the whole enchilada! I was able to move my FF profile to the IronKey and have all my plug-ins and settings take hold right away. I was also able to update FF to the latest version. As for the TOR feature [the anonymous web surfing], FireFox has a built in button that allows you to easily turn the TOR Client On and Off. I was surprised how quickly it pulled up websites and I was able to move around the web. From what I have been able to learn IronKey provides a private TOR network for IronKey users – this can be seen as good or bad . . . you will have to decide.

Overall, if you need lots of security for portable docs or you need a secure [and portable web browser] IronKey is worth the size and cost trade-offs.

I have two sets of screenshots, one is for the Enterprise Version and Personal Version.

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Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte did an interview with Dave Jevans, CEO of IronKey and they focused on the security and it works, so if you want a technical review, see Security Now #135.

I have been using Skype for a few years and I am quite happy with it. I have friends and family making calls and we are trying to get one of my grandmothers online too. I am still waiting for the phone call to make that happen. Recently we moved into a new apartment and I am dead set against paying for services we don’t really need – like a phone line. Really, why pay 60$ a month for static? Standard cell phones have all the services that we ‘need’, including 911 – if my memory serves me correctly.

The wife wanted a handset, why when she has a cell and can Bluetooth the Skype Pro account on the iMac – I don’t know. So, I convinced her that we just need to get a phone for our Skype account. I was surprised that she went for it, but at about 90$ a year for the phone number and unlimited US calling why not!

So, a few weeks later the Philips VOIP 841 arrived. I bought it through the online Skype store, since I wanted to go back to them and complain if it didn’t work. Not only does it work, the wife is very happy with it, her only complaint is that it doesn’t have all our phone numbers in it [yet]. My only complaint is that each handset runs off 2xAA batteries. They don’t seem to last more than a day or two if you are making phone calls.

They are super easy to setup and I had the main handset and base station setup in about 10 minutes. It took a few days for the second handset because I hadn’t read the directions. The second handset automatically links to the registered [Skype] account and the handsets sync through the base station, unless the account is actually managed there [which is my thinking].

Overall, the system is a buy, just remember that you don’t have 911 service and you can’t video chat.

iron wil

I was not sure if I really wanted to order the mouse or not; but every time I went online RadTech kept popping up and so I ordered the BT600. I was notified in the order process that the mouse was back-ordered. I decided, it must be pretty popular.

About 2 weeks ago I finally got my BT600, disappoint set in as soon as I opened the shipping box. The write up on the website said full-sized mouse. It didn’t look full-sized to me in fact it looked more like the wife’s notebook mouse I had been using [and am still stuck with]. As you can see in my picture that the BT600 is larger than a micro-mouse and smaller than my MX1000. I was saddened by this fact.

I used it for a day or two and it just didn’t settle with me, especially because OS X didn’t recognize it and allow for the 5 button functionality that I need [okay not really but it saves a bunch of hand movements].

I just couldn’t live with this mouse being undersized and without its full functionality. What can I say, am I a mouse snob? I don’t know, but I would love to see, Microsoft, Logitech, Belkin, Kensington, or RadTech make a full-sized Bluetooth mouse that doesn’t need a desktop recharger [and some of those desktop mice have been small]. What I would love more than that is a full-sized trackball that is Bluetooth, but I will probably pass out from holding my breath before I see that.

Is there a problem with people’s hands shrinking that I am not aware of? Or do these companies just thinking everybody wants a tiny ‘notebook’ mouse??!

I am still searching for a good mouse to go with my MacBook Black.

iron wil

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