When Intel first introduced their Atom line of processors, they told us it was aimed at smaller, so-called MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices). Soon after that, Asus released the first netbook, and a new category of computers was born. But they weren’t really MIDs. In fact, the term MID hasn’t really caught on, and there are very few devices that are generally considered to be MIDs. Nokia’s internet tablet series for and Sony’s Mylo come to mind. But both predate the Atom processor.

Atom’s major advantage over other small, power-sipping CPUs is that it uses the same x86 instruction set as desktop CPUs. This means that Atom-based devices, if powerful enough, can run Windows. Intel probably thought this would be essential for MID adoption. But then Apple released what would prove to be a game-changing device.

Apple’s iPad

If there’s one popular gadget out there right now that could be called an MID, it’s the iPad. Building on Microsoft’s Tablet PC idea, it’s not as small and portable as the typical MID, but many people carry it around anyway, and use it to connect to the internet. And its single most important innovation is that is runs a mobile OS.

Right up until Apple revealed the iPad, it was believed to run their OSX desktop operating system. Instead, it turned out to run iOS. This makes the iPad much easier to use and maintain, and keeps using it fun. But is also means there’s no need for x86. iOS, like Android and Symbian, runs on ARM processors. And current ARM-based platforms, like nVidia’s Tegra2, are more than powerful enough to be used in devices with bigger screens. And that’s what seems to be happening with every MIDs currently being released, like the many new 5, 7 or 10 inch Android tablets.

Netbook innovation

At the same time, netbooks appear to be moving away from Intel’s Atom platform. First, most of the cool new ones swapped Intel’s motherboard chipset for nVidia’s ION to boost graphics performance, and now it seems manufacturers are looking at new CPUs as well. I’ve seen quite a few new models introduced with lower end Celeron processors as well as AMD’s Neo platform.

Intel hasn’t really done anything with the Atom line since introducing it. Clocks speeds are still pretty much the same, and the new integrated graphics are still no match for ION. As a result, Atom-based netbooks are still just barely fast enough for casual browsing, and frustratingly slow at everything else. Using a netbook with Windows isn’t nearly as snappy as using a mobile device running iOS or Android.

The end of Atom?

Recently, Intel bought Infineon’s mobile division, which means they’re back in the ARM game. Does this mean they’ve given up on Atom as a mobile CPU? Will the lowest end x86 segment, netbooks, continue to be dominated by Atom CPUs? I don’t know. Intel probably needs to seriously step up its game if it want Atom to succeed. The question is probably whether they really want to.

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The most important thing about keeping your data safe is that whatever backup or redundancy setup you choose, it has to be easy. If you need to remember to make backups, you’ll forget. For me personally, I’ve opted to go with a RAID1 solution, where my data is written to two separate disks. This means my data is safe from drive failure, and since I’m using a version control system, I don’t really need any kind of rotating backup scheme. That’s why I got a QNAP TS-210 a couple of weeks ago, and so far I love it.

I’m no expert when it comes to NAS devices (this is my first one), and so I’m not saying the QNAP is better than the similarly priced Netgear ReadyNAS Duo or the Synology DS210j. I couldn’t find any comparative reviews, so I went with the one I thought looked cool and had the best hardware specs. I did want to go with a specialist brand as opposed to something like the WD “World Edition”. I’ve never really trusted consumer solutions, and WD isn’t my favorite brand.

Installation

Installing two 1,5TB Samsung EcoGreen drives into the TS-210′s plastic enclosure was as easy as screwing them in place and connecting a couple of cables. The process is described in a Quick Start Guide and shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes. Once you’re done, you connect the drive to the network, and locate it using a small utility called “QNAP Finder”. The initial setup process is easy enough, although it involves downloading the latest firmware (95MB) and takes a little time.

Web interface

The device’s web interface is among the best I’ve seen for any type of device. There’s a silly slider-type menu that sorta mimics the Mac OSX dock, but it’s needlessly complex. I was happy to find it can be disabled in favor of a more conventional icon-based menu. From there on in, the screen layout is excellent, with the TS-210′s many features arranged and categorized very conveniently.

I found it very easy to format the drives, set them up as RAID1 and set up network shares (Samba). I connected the NAS to my computer directly in order to copy my stuff onto it, and then moved it to my router. I’m on wifi at the office, and I’ve been working “off of” the QNAP since then. Large files take a little longer to open, but nothing serious.

Overkill

This may be an entry level NAS device, its feature set is amazing. There’s a download client (bittorrent), iSCSI support, a web server, FTP, automated backups, remote rsync and many other things of which I’ve yet to find out what they mean. I could even run WordPress off of it if I’d want to. I guess that’s what you get for buying a NAS from a manufacturer that specializes in professional solutions.

I have yet to set up FTP and other types of remote access, but so far I love the QNAP. It feels like a very solid product, and that’s important for a product that’s designed to safeguard your valuable data.

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I know they look good, but placing your external hard drive vertically (as many are intended these days) is actually a data security risk. Models like the Lacie pictured here, many WD models and countless others may be easier to fit onto your desk than horizontal designs, but you can knock them over. It happened to a friend of mine yesterday, and it looks like he’ll have to pay a lot of money to get his data recovered, or consider it lost.

This also adds a reason to why RAID1 drives (with two disks that store data twice) are safer. Typically, those type of devices have a wider base and are much less inclined to topple over. But anyway, if your drive is the kind that can be placed flat on your desk, I’d recommend doing so.

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I’ve been trying to come up with a clever title for this post for over half an hour. There has to be some brilliant pun with words like “desire” and “erect”. It just seems to elude me. Oh well. What really matters is that this little piece of plastic makes sure my Desire is always ready to go.

Modern smartphones run out of steam so quickly you need a quick way to charge them. This particular desktop charging cradle was sent to me by Mobilefun.co.uk, and it offers great value for money. The base has rubber feet that give it plenty of grip, and on the back there are two micro-USB connectors. One is used for power only, whereas the other offers full data sync capabilities. A data cable and a small power brick are supplied with the cradle.

I don’t usually use my phone while it’s in cradles like these, and this one clearly wasn’t made to do so. The phone doesn’t penetrate the dock very much so the micro-USB connector pretty much holds the device in place. Unlike the car kit I tested earlier, this absolutely is a Desire-specific product, and my guess is that this was done so the buttons beneath the screen would still be easy to press when the phone is docked.

Since I got a dock for my iPod Touch, I’ve been using it a lot more, and I hope this product will do the same for my little robot phone. Recommended.

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Google recently switched on full navigation for Android devices here in the Netherlands. Suddenly, my HTC desire doubled as a PND (Personal Navigation Device). The maps on my TomTom were starting to get old, and updating them costs about as much as a new unit, so Google’s timing was perfect. All I needed was a holder to affix my phone to my car’s windscreen. Luckily, MobileFun offered to send me a review unit of their “HTC Desire car kit“.

The “pack” consists of a car charger and a suction cup phone holder. One of the first things I noticed when it arrived is that to holder has a marking on the back that says “I-3G”. This sounded suspiciously like “iPhone 3G” to me. I contacted MobileFun and it turns out that this is indeed an iPhone holder, that also fits the Desire quite well. Despite feeling a little cheated about this being a “generic” product rather than tailor-made, I have to agree that it holds the HTC very well.

With three joints and a lever style suction cup, the holder is easy to use and position. Considering its low price, it feels sturdy and I have no problem entrusting my robotic sidekick to it. The charger also works well. Without it, constantly downloading Google Maps and using the GPS would drain the phone’s battery. It’s a good thing these two things come in a bundle.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Desire has an AMOLED screen. This type of display is known to have very poor performance in direct sunlight. Somehow, in my car this is not much of a problem. Your mileage may vary. Also, this is no car kit in the sense that it amplifies audio or has a microphone for handsfree calling. You’re still have to use the Desire’s abysmal speaker for that.

As for Google’s navigation software itself, I found it to be quite usable. I’m not sure of this is the case in other languages, but the Dutch female voice sounds a little distressed. As if she’s more nervous than you are approaching that large intersection. And for some reason she’s consistently late in telling me to exit a roundabout. This is only a reminder, because it will tell me beforehand what exit to take, but still.

If you’re seriously considering using your HTC as a PND, I’d recommend getting this bundle. It’s cheap and works well. Chances are that a Desire-specific car kit will become available eventually, but why wait?

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I can’t help but wonder how they can possibly make this for 60 euros? The Lenco TFT-725 combines a DVB-T receiver with one of those 7″ screen typically found in portable DVD players. Throw in a card reader, MPEG 1/2/4 playback, a USB port and you’ve got a pretty amazing deal. And, as I tested yesterday, it all actually works as advertised.

Holland may be a small country, but with relatives living in every corner of it, my kids still spend a lot of time in the backseats of our car. I’d been considering getting them a portable DVD player when I came across the Lenco TFT-725. This thing plays the movies we’ve already encoded for use with our WD TV Live, and the ability to use it as a portable TV is a nice bonus.

Exterior

The 725 is an inch-thick slab of cheap-looking black plastic. It feels sturdy enough, but I wouldn’t risk dropping it if I can avoid so. There are a couple of buttons and a D-pad to the left of the screen, which in case you were wondering doesn’t respond to touch. There’s a kickstand on the back, and several connectors on the left and top sides of the device.

Battery included

It comes with all the necessary cables, including a car charger. What’s nice is that there’s an AV in and out, so you can use it as an extra screen for a DVD player, or add an extra screen to it and watch MPEG4 on two screens. There’s no built-in storage, but there’s a USB port on the top of the device, right next to the card reader. I popped in the SD card from my digital photo frame and it displayed the images without issues. I’m not sure how good the battery life will be, but I’m planning on using it with one of the included power cables.

Screen

The 725′s achilles heel is its screen. It’s not bad, but these cheap 7″ video screens usually come in low resolutions (the Lenco’s is 480 x 234 pixels). Viewing angles aren’t great but will do. Video playback doesn’t look half bad, but the menus look very ‘pixely’. The user interface design is poor at best, but once you figure it out it’s really not very hard to use. There’s a basic electronic program guide (EPG), and navigating the menus is using the D-pad or the bundled remote is a breeze.

DVB-T

The external antenna gave me excellent reception out of the box, but when I moved the device a couple of meters from said box it was gone. Antenna placement is still an issue with DVB-T, so it’s probably a good thing that the antenna has a long, flexible cord. In The Netherlands, only a couple of channels are free-to-air (FTA), but luckily, one of them will broadcast the football world cup . There’s no way to get additional channels, because the 725, like all cheaper DVB-T devices, lacks a smartcard slot.

All in all this device offers an amazing value for money. It’s not very slick-looking, but if you can live with the FTA limitation and the low resolution screen it’s the cheapest little TV you can buy. And it works.

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A little while ago, Nickelodeon started airing a new kids TV show called “Team Umizoomi“. It features a team that consists of two humans and a robot… which looks a lot like the green little mechanical man that Google uses as part of the logo for their Android mobile operating system.

On the show, Team Umizoomi solves problems using each member’s unique skills. Milli is great at pattern recognition, Geo has a thing for shapes, while Bot excels at math and has a large display. I see some parallels with the Android OS here too. Things QR codes and Google Goggles are all about shapes and patterns, and modern Android phones have speedy processors and large screens.

But then again, I may be reading way too much into this…

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I’ve been following the development of Google’s Chrome OS for a while now, and have played around with some of the early builds that have been floating around online. It’s well on its way to becoming a stable and usable operating system, but I’ve been getting the feeling recently that it may have been been surpassed by that other Google OS, Android. Especially since Android comes with a very good browser.

All about the browser

Chrome OS will be a browser-only OS. It will boot into Chrome and the idea is that you use online applications only. It’ll have no way to install other apps, and only very limited local storage capabilities. Aimed at netbooks and tablets, it doesn’t aim to replace your primary computer’s OS, but to offer a hassle-free way of sending out a quick email or looking up something online. This still makes all the sense in the world to me, but why not do it with Android?

Android is more versatile

Android offers the same ease of use, is just as hassle-free, and offers the Android market. Unlike Chrome OS, you can run apps on it. When I first heard that Apple’s iPad would be running iPhone OS, I thought that was a stroke of brilliance. You don’t want a full-fledged desktop OS on a secundary computer. It should boot quickly and not bother you with updates and maintenance. Just imagine booting up your HP tablet at night to check your Twitter and having it do ten minutes of Windows 7 and virus definition updates. Apple has proven that iPhone OS is exactly right for the job, and Android is simply just like it.

Android comes with a browser that like Chrome is WebKit-based. It’s fast and works really well. It can do anything you’d be able to do in Chrome OS. Both of Google’s efforts are Linux-based, and both target mobile processors (ARM, Atom). They’re more alike than you might think, except that Chrome OS isn’t done yet and has far less functionality, whereas Android is stable and in the hands of millions of customers already. Literally.

Should Google abandone Chrome OS?

If I were Google, I’d probably merge the two teams, and ask them to work on Android, with more emphasis on netbooks and tablets as a target platform. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google did this, and would choose to kill Chrome OS. Android could become more cloud oriented in future versions and incorporate much of what is Chrome OS’s philosophy.

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Google’s Adroid mobile operating system is in a bit of a tough spot here in The Netherlands. The first phones running it were released exclusively on T-Mobile, who at the same time were offering the iPhone. Besides the fact that the G1 (HTC Dream) and G2 (HTC Magic) weren’t very appealing by comparison, T-Mobile seemed to not market them much. And then there’s the fact that Nokia had a firm grip on the smartphone market in Europe. I too have been using an E71. But not anymore. My HTC Desire arrived last friday, and I’ve spent some time with Android. What I was wondering most was how it would compare to the iPhone OS.

I’ve had an iPod Touch for almost a year now, and my wife has a 3GS. I love the simplicity of the OS, and can see how this is an ideal way to get smartphone capabilities into the hands of novice users. Symbian, while very versatile and configurable, has really dropped the ball in the UI department, and has only recently been made finger-friendly. I was hoping for Android to cover some of the middle ground, and I think it does.

Android adds flexibility but sacrifices simplicity

The Desire runs Android 2.1 with HTC’s Sense layer on top of it. The screen layout is almost identical to Apple’s OS, with some basic functions at the bottom, and a grid where you can place app icons that makes up the rest of the screen. Like on the iPhone you can swipe sideways to get from one screen to the next. There are two main differences.

First, not all the apps you have installed are on the grid. You have to place them there, or choose to leave them in the fold-out menu that has all the apps. Basically, you control whether you want an app to be front and center or not. But what really makes Android’s UI more flexible is that you can not just place apps on the grid. You can also place widgets, shortcuts and folders.

Widgets are extensions of installed apps that can display content or offer functionality. For instance, there are widgets that show your next appointment, or the number of unread tweets. Like on the iPhone, you control the layout of the screen, and can drag icons and widgets into an arrangement that suits you. By default, the first home screen focuses on phone functions like messages and contacts. If you want to, you can easily remove those elements and opt to create a screen that’s all about Twitter, or you can fill it with apps to mimic iPhone OS.

The drawback to this approach of course is that it adds some complexity. On the iPhone, an icon is added to your home screen when you install an app. Using Android, you’d need to put the icon there through a two step menu. Trivial for anyone used to working with computers, but there’s no denying the extra steps.

Hardware buttons

Android phones are required to have a couple of hardware buttons, and while Apple has repeatedly shown that a single button can be enough, I love this requirement. Having a physical back button for instance eliminates the need for a menu bar in many apps, and in doing so allows then to make better use of screen real estate. ANother thing I noticed is that there are separate volume controles for ‘media’ and phone functions. This makes so much sense, and I don’t think the iPhone has this?

Apps

Apple’s App Store has a mindboggling number of apps, and there’s nothing that can rival it in terms of choice and volume. If you’re moving from an iPhone OS device to Android, you’ll inevitably have to do without a few apps for which there’s no alternative. But the Adroid Market is growing rapidly, and I’m sure it will become the dominant mobile OS sometime in the next few years. Perhaps in part as a refuge for disgruntled iPhone developers, but mainly because there’s now a wide selection of phones available from many manufacturers, and at many price points.

Desire

As for the Desire, it’s a very impressive phone with a stunning screen. I may do a review later, but there are many out there already that seem to agree that this is the reigning champion of Android phones. If you’re looking to dive into this OS, I’d recommend looking at it.

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I’ve recently decided to move my business out of my family’s home, to a nearby office building. While this is very convenient in many ways, it also meant I had to find a way to move data to and from there safely. As a web freelancer, I feel it’s my responsibility to keep client data very secure. Not only do I not want to lose it, I also need it to remain private. That’s why I looked into things like RFID protected and rugged harddrives.

There are two distinct threats I wanted to keep my data safe from. One is from data loss through drive failure. I’m going to be taking it with me every day, so I needed a sturdy drive that could take some (accidental) abuse. The other threat is theft. I wanted the contents of the disc to be protected in case it fell into the wrong hands. It was essential for me that I’d be able to use the device on Windows, Mac and Linux computers, which rules out most products that use software encryption.

Freecom Mobile Drive Secure

One product that immediately grabbed my attention was the Freecom Mobile Drive Secure. I used their products at a former employer, and they’re great. The ‘Secure’ is an external 2.5″ harddrive that secures data using RFID technology. The supplied tags are used to lock and unlock the drive without the need for additional software. If you’re looking for a ready-made solution, I’d recommend considering the Freecom. However, it’s not very rugged and uses inconvenient creditcard-sized RFID tags. It’s also quite pricey. As it turns out, there are other options.

In-Win Ammo

There are at least two commonly available external “bring your own drive” enclosures that use the same RFID technology as the Freecom. One is the very sleek Silverstone TS01. While renerally regarded as being very sturdy, it’s not designed to be extra tough. In-Win’s Ammo on the other hand is. It’s a drive enclosure that looks like a ammunition clip, and has a US military drop test certification.

In-Win has won the prestigious Red Dot design award for this product, and they carried the military theme all the way through in the packaging. One of the RFID tags is a dog tag, and the back of the manual poster can be used for target practice. While obviously aimed at gamers, I like the Ammo for its features. It’s made from 0.8 mm thick steel and the drive is enclosed in rubber to soften potential blows.

The actual hard drive

The ammo will fit any standard size 2.5 inch hard drive or SSD. I went with a 500GB Samsung M7. They’re cheap, reliable, fast, quiet, and can withstand impacts of up to 400G. While operating. If I remember correctly from an older Mythbusters episode, 50G will kill a human being. Basically, if this drive should be able to easily survive me in case of an accident. Especially when inside the Ammo.

Encryption

The Freecom, Silverstone and In-Win products all use the same chip to handle the RFID protection. Besides making the disc inaccessible without the key tags, it also encrypts whatever you write to the drive. So if someone takes the HDD out of the casing and connects it to a PC, it’ll not spill its beans. Unfortunately, the chip isn’t quite as safe as its advertising suggests. Unlike what you’d expect, the 128 bit AES encryption specified in its specs isn’t used to encode the data on the disc. It’s used to store the RFID codes in the chip, but data is stored using a much less potent algorithm. Most thieves will probably just format the disc, but if an encryption expert really wants the data, he’ll likely get to it.

Truecrypt

That’s where Truecrypt comes in. This brilliant piece of open source software allows you to encrypt hard drives, partitions or disc files using one or more(!) algorythms. You can pretty much make it as secure as you need. As a final step, I created a disc file to keep sensitive information like passwords and such safe. I’ll mount it when working on one of my own computers. The rest of the drive is accessible without Truecrypt. This way I have two levels of data security in a drive that’s a tough as they get.

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