Noted: Softbank's Speeek iPhone App Translates Spoken Japanese to English On the Fly

"Noted" items are interesting items that come from my daily RSS feed reading and added to my Google Reader Shared Items. You can also receive these Noted items by following me on Twitter.

Softbank's Speeek iPhone App Translates Spoken Japanese to English On the Fly [IPhone Apps]

from Gizmodo by John Mahoney

Speeek is an app that can recognize up to 1,500 spoken Japanese phrases and translate them into either English or Chinese. Pocket Babel Fish? Yes please.

This is, of course, only for Japanese speakers, and it only covers basic hello/goodbye/where is the bathroom type phrases, but this doesn't seem like too far of a leap for Google's voice search app, which would be pretty exciting. Even if it didn't read the words back to you—seeing your jibber jabber translated in close to real time into any one of Google Translate's 34 languages, well, sign me up. The app costs around $20 in Japan, and the English and Chinese versions are separate. [BBSS (translated) via DVICE]

In association with Amazon.com

New Wells Fargo Envelope-Free ATMs confuse users

Wells Fargo ATMs now take a stack of checks at one time, but confuse many users

For the record, I think the new Wells Fargo Envelope-Less ATMs recently installed in our California branches are pretty neat. First it saves the need for an envelope (and I am sure it makes it easier for bankers to not have to open all those envelopes). Next, you can get a receipt that lists not only each check and its amount, but it will even print out an image of the check on the receipt itself. Pretty cool!

Of course, as with any new technology, there seems to be a bit of confusion when using these new ATMs. I first noticed this when my wife complained about having to hit so many buttons to deposit several checks. Now, I had been to the new ATM and even as a tech geek I had to read the directions carefully, but in the instructions it says to insert all your checks or cash at one time, in a stack with the account numbers arranged along the right hand edge.

I think the confusion arises as we are not used to inserting a number of items sans envelope. It just seems weird to us and I still am getting used to the new system.

When I saw another complaint about the ATMs on Twitter a few days ago, I thought perhaps they were having the same problem as my wife. Sure enough, the customer was inserting one check at a time and annoyed that it made her do each deposit transaction separately. In fact, that message is what caused me to write this post, as it clearly falls under the 'Control your technology. Don't let it control you!" motto of TechnologyIQ.

Here is a PDF Brochure from Wells Fargo explaining the new Envelope-Free ATMs

Link: Wells Fargo Envelope-Free ATM

I hope this helps those of you who have been having trouble with these new ATMs. Furthermore, it shows yet another reason why companies like Wells Fargo should be monitoring Twitter and other social network sites for customers who are having trouble with their banking systems.

Lego Mindstorms NXT - A Great Gift!

Listen to Lego Mindstorms NXT - A Great Gift!

My wife and I think we did the coolest thing for Christmas this year...and we think our son agrees. In lieu of the Nintendo Wii hs "really, really, really, really, really wants", we gave my son Lego Mindstorms NXT for Christmas. This is a starter kit which contains tons of special Lego parts and, most importantly a computer "brick" and a variety of sensors (light/color, ultrasonic, touch, sound) which can be used to build programmable robots of all shapes and sizes. My son had attended the short Legoland course on Mindstorm and also did a week-long Summer Camp where he got to design his own fighting robot, so the minute he opened the box Christmas morning he was off and running.

On Christmas Day he built the first of 3 included robot plans and we quickly had them doing all sorts of things, You first assemble a basic robot and then run it through a series of demos to learn how all the sensors work. Then you build a more complicated robot, complete with grabber arm that can do a variety of tasks. We programmed it to sense when a ball was placed in front it it, advance to the ball, pick it up, turn around, return to its start location and release the ball on sound command. We were also able to program this same robot as a "line follower" (a common robot competition task where the bot follows an unbroken black line as fast as possible.) Finally, I was able to program it to the one thing I really wanted to try...robot that would wander around the room, sense when it got too close to something, back up and turn away from the obstacle and continue on its way. Using the included software and the the things we learned from building and programming the demo robots made this an easy task.

The last several days have been spent adding new features, testing them out and my son even dismantled the original robot and retrofit an existing (and much cooler looking) Lego model with all the robot parts.

I think the NXT is going to used a lot more than the Wii and I also think it provides much more fertile ground for imagination and learning. My son has been so engaged and so thoughtful for the last several days that I am sure we made the right choice.

If you have an avid Lego builder in your family around the age of 10 or above, I think Lego Mindstorms NXT would be a great gift. If they really like it, they can even join Lego robot competitions as part of the First Lego League.

Lego Mindstorms NXT at Amazon.com

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Elsewhere Online: Boost your PowerPoint Skills

This is an interesting post from Lifehacker that seeks to improve those all-important Powerpoint skills. It seems that everyone needs to use Powerpoint these days, so why not make your presentations the best that they can be. I'll be working through this blog post myself once I get a few free minutes.

Boost Your PowerPoint Skills Inside PowerPoint 2007 [Powerpoint]

from Lifehacker by Kevin Purdy

Are you decent with a bulleted list in PowerPoint 2007, but need to get a bit more creative? You can learn how to pull off a few useful effects right inside the program.

Microsoft's Office Online team provides eight instructional PowerPoint templates that teach you how to pull off the effects demonstrated inside them. They'll show you where to click, what to enter, and you don't have to switch between instructional videos or text and your app. 3D shapes and graphs, backgrounds, process graphics, and more are free for the download.

Example slide effects with instructions [Microsoft Office Online via Lifehacker AU]

Cool: Laser Cut Gingerbread Bridge from Instructables.com

Another cool project from Instructables.com. Food and tech merge!

[slideshow] Laser Cut Gingerbread Bridge

from explore by rstraugh

This year for Christmas I decided to build something out of gingerbread. I didn't want to build the typical gingerbread house so I decided to do a bridge of some sort. I saw the Oberbaum Bridge in Berlin when we were there in May and thought it would look great built out of gingerbread. I recentl...

By: rstraugh

Merry Christmas from WelchWrite.com

We present our 3rd Annual LIVE Reading of Dicken's A Christmas Carol from Sunday, December 21, 2008 as our holiday present to you.

You can listen to the audio or watch the video from uStream.tv.

Presented by WelchWrite.com

Music courtesy of Incompetech.com

Listen: A Live Reading of Charle's Dickens A Christmas Carol

Click Here to Watch and Listen

Douglas' Noted Items

As I read through my RSS feeds each day, I always find a number of interesting items. Google Reader allows me to easily "share" these items, both within Google Reader itself and at this web page and RSS feed. To the right you will find a widget containing my latest "Noted" items and a link to see even more. I found them interesting and I bet you will, too! Subscribe to the RSS feed to track what I find interesting every day.

Elsewhere Online: Green Gift Guide from Make

Another great gift guide I came across today.

The green gadget gift guide at MAKE - Environmentally friendly for the holidays!

from MAKE: Blog by Phillip Torrone

It's that time of year again so why not start it off with a guide to the greenest gadgets this holiday season! MAKE intern Peter Horvath and Jill Fehrenbacher of Inhabitat.com and Greenergadgets put together an amazing list!

Cool: Uncle Mark 2009 Gift Guide and Almanac

The item below is a great reminder why I subscribe to so many RSS feeds. There is so much great information on the Internet, but it can be hard to find. That is where your online and IRL (In Real Life) friends comes into play. They can direct you towards stuff you might otherwise have never noticed.


(Want to subscribe and manage your own RSS Feeds? Check out Google Reader,  this Intro Video and this great video, RSS Made Simple from Commoncraft.com)


Enjoy the Uncle Mark Gift Guide, which I discovered via the Make Magazine blog. I attached a copy to this email. Even better, share it with your friends.

Douglas<

Uncle Mark 2009 Gift Guide and Almanac from MAKE: Blog by Gareth Branwyn

Today's Cool Tool mailing reminded me about one of my favorite year-end publications: the Uncle Mark 2009 Gift Guide and Almanac. Put out yearly (this year and last, anyway) by Mark Hurst, who runs the Gel Conference, this guide is tremendously unglamourous (in a great way).

Uncle Mark 2009 Gift Guide and Almanac

(Continue reading this article)

End-of-Year Cleanup and Catchup

I recently sent this email to all of my computer consulting clients, but thought you might find it interesting as well.

http://welchwrite.com - douglas@welchwrite.com - 818-601-0051

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Reminders

As we approach the end of 2008, I want to take the time to issue some timely reminders that can help to keep your computer in top operating condition. Every day there are a myriad of new attacks on your computer and you need to protect yourself accordingly.

Windows Updates

You first line of protection against viruses and spyware is to keep your Windows computer up-to-date. Windows Updates plug known security holes that can allow some nasties to "force feed" themselves to your computer. No matter what protection programs you have installed, if you do not have your Windows Updates installed, you are still vulnerable.


Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware

Every Windows computers needs anti-virus and anti-spyware installed. I have switched over entirely to free solutions for this protection for a number of reasons. First, I am finding the current commercial applications such as Norton Internet Security and McAfee Virus Scan to be bloated incredibly processor intensive. It seems these programs take up so much computing power it can actually slow down your productive work.

My choices for protection programs incude:

ClamWin Antivirus - http://clamwin.com

Also:
AVG Free Antivirus - http://free.avg.com/

Microsoft Defender - Comes as part of Windows Vista
Download for Windows XP at http://tinyurl.com/d9klo

Lavasoft Ad-Aware - http://lavasoft.com/single/trialpay.php

Macintosh

While Macintosh computers are not immune to virus, as of now they are much less of a target than those running Windows. This means that right now, I am not running any anti-virus or anti-spyware programs, even though commercial and free solutions do exist. This could and probably well change in the coming year, so please stay aware of any new annoucements regarding Macintosh viruses and spyware.

Backup

Backups are still the most pressing need I see among most of my clients. It is easier than ever today to backup your data, and even your entire computer, so there is really few excuses for losing data, even in the case of computer or hard drive failure.

One of the easiest way to create your backup is to purchase an external hard drive and then use backup software (some of which usually comes with the drive). While nearly any external drive will work for backup, you want a drive nearly equal to the size of your internal disk. This will allow you to backup multiple versions of your files without worrying about filling the drive completely. Most backup software today can intelligently manage its backups and should remove older data as new data is added to the drive.

You can find a host of portable hard drives via this link from Amazon.com - http://tinyurl.com/5quy5c

Macintosh

For Macintosh users, the Time Machine program included with Macs running 10.5.x is an excellent choice. In fact, when you first plug in an external hard drive, it will probably prompt you to use this drive for Time Machine backup.

I recommend that all my Mac clients use Time Machine to protect their data as well as create a backup that can be used to restore their entire Mac, should the computer or hard drive fail. I recently had a client whose new iMac proved to be flawed. After only 2 weeks it died completely. Because we were using Time Machine from the start, I was able to set up her replacement computer and restore it to look exactly like the machine that had failed, including all her software, preferences and even her desktop background.

I hope your New Year is a productive and happy one. Please contact me at douglas@welchwrite.com or 818-601-0051 if you have any questions or need any assistance in protecting your computer.

Noted: Puredyne Turns Any Computer into a Multimedia Powerhouse

Noted items are interesting finds from my daily RSS reading -- Douglas

Puredyne Turns Any Computer into a Multimedia Powerhouse [Featured Download]

<from Lifehacker by Jackson West

If you're looking to get some more use out of an old machine, or just play around with multimedia programs but not interested in shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars, download Puredyne. Based on Debian Linux, the downloadable disk image fits on a standard CD-R and will boot on almost any machine — you can even run it on your current system without having to partition any drives or re-install your operating system. The distribution includes all the software a multimedia maker might need, including Kino and Cinelerra for video editing; Audacity and Pure Data for audio; and GIMP and Inkscape for images, along with other fantastic open-source tools ranging from software synthesizers and drum machines to BitTorrent clients and encoding tools. Since all the software is free, it's perfect for educators as well as starving artists and enthusiastic hackers. It's a great introduction to Linux for creative types scared of anything besides Mac OS X — the interface is familiar enough to any casual computer user that you should be able to start watching videos from accross your network with media player VLC in no time.

Puredyne

Apple/Mac/Etc Geek Wear for the Holidays

Design-Milk.com highlights http://www.geekware.ca/, the epitome of Mac Geek Wear. I don't need cufflinks, but maybe something in a lapel button or something? Even more Geek Ware from the same company over at http://www.geekware.ca/

Click the photo to see more and buy