Boyd Chan

My name is Boyd and I’m a Service Management Specialist with a knack for operational data gathering, transformation, analysis and reporting. In 2012, I obtained my Masters of Science in Information Technology through the University of New South Wales @ The Australia Defence Force Academy (UNSW@ADFA). I was also part of an online community known as the Panasonic Insider Crew in the capacity of “Insider Guru” for Panasonic Australia where I interacted with other tech enthusiasts and find out more about Panasonic's latest gadgets. I love technology, gadgets, and the Internet and maintain a keen interest in these areas locally, nationally, and globally. I hope by sharing my views on these topics that people will receive an honest point of view from someone with a genuine interest in these topics. I have also written and edited articles for Neowin - you can check out my articles over @ https://www.neowin.net/news/poster/boyd_chan I hope you enjoy reading my blog!

Most commented posts

  1. How to Find a Missing Fitbit — 241 comments
  2. Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale and the Cold — 88 comments
  3. How to Fix Windows Activation Error 0x80072F8F — 71 comments
  4. Why is GainSpan on my Wi-Fi Network? — 54 comments
  5. There Was a Problem Installing Mac OS X (Lion) — 48 comments

Author's posts

Apr 19 2012

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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Apr 18 2012

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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Apr 17 2012

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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Apr 16 2012

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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Apr 15 2012

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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Apr 14 2012

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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Apr 13 2012

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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Apr 12 2012

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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Apr 11 2012

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!

Apr 10 2012

Locate a Seemingly Missing Mouse Cursor

With screens of massive size and resolution all the way down to those tiny screens on netbooks it can be difficult to find the mouse cursor for whatever reason. There is however an easy way to locate your cursor on your screen by enabling a handy feature in Windows 7. Windows Vista: Click the “Start” …

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