April 2012 archive

Insider Guru Blog – Interview with Steve Rust, Managing Director of Panasonic Australia

Well, the title says it all really but I thought this deserved a plug. I’ve updated the Insider Guru Blogs page with my latest article that I have written on the Panasonic Australia blog as part of my involvement with the Insider Crew. This time around, I interviewed the man in charge of Panasonic Australia, …

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Beware of NTFS USB Drives and Encrypted Files

Perhaps an edge case for a lot of people out there but perhaps something worth considering if you have formatted your USB stick with NTFS rather than FAT or FAT32 or you use portable hard drives formatted with NTFS. Some corporations will enforce the use of folder encryption on your computer (rather than whole disk …

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My Computer Switches Off When Switching to UPS

Here’s a tip for those of you with an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or thinking of getting one. Today, while I was working from home, there was a short dip in the power but long enough to trip the UPS and have it switch to its internal battery to power the connected equipment until the …

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Translator for Windows Phone 7

Translater - Panasonic Headphone Manual (German to English)

Here’s something that travellers might find handy if they find themselves in a bind. Microsoft has quietly developed an app that offers translation of typed text, optically recognised text (i.e. using your camera) and voice while using the power of its Bing platform to do the translation for you. Sure, there have been a few apps out …

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How to Shutdown Windows 8

I have had a number of people who are trying out Windows 8 that are stumped by how to actually execute a shut down. Since Windows 95, you could shut down a computer by clicking “Start” then “Shut down” but with Windows 8 that doesn’t work as the Start Menu has been replaced with the …

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Panasonic 2012 Home Entertainment Launch – Smart Viera Highlights

Last night, I got along to check out the new range of Panasonic televisions, recorders, players and Hi-Fi out at Dunbar House in Watson’s Bay, NSW. The venue was very swish with some tasty food on offer and it presented a setting similar to what you’d expect to experience when you’d be using home entertainment …

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Quickflix – On Demand Movie and TV Streaming in Australia

One of the neat features in the new televisions coming out from Panasonic in 2012 is the ability to natively stream content from Quickflix in addition to existing services found on the Viera Connect platform (such as ABC iView and Yahoo!7). Given that I have my eyes on the Panasonic VT50A 55″ plasma television, I thought …

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Kickstarter Watchlist – Pebble Smartwatch

Pebble Smartwatch Colours

Here’s another gadget initiative that the iPhone and Android smartphone users out there might fancy as an auxiliary screen or control for their devices. The Pebble E-paper Watch is not quite the “Dick Tracy” watch that people have been after but I reckon it’s pretty close and a whole lot more. In short, this is an app-extensible …

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Disable Java in Mac OS X

Here’s a tip for Mac OS X users out there that want to tighten up the security on their computers given recent exploits targeting Java and the slow release of updates from Apple. The simplest way to turn off Java is by searching for “Java Preferences” in the Spotlight search and opening it. Once opened, …

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Panasonic 2012 Home Entertainment Launch Event

A very quick update this evening to let you know that I am attending the Panasonic 2012 Home Entertainment Launch. There’s going to be a stack of AV products to check out and some killer features as well. Stay tuned and I will spill the beans later this week!