Going Long Distance in a Third Generation Prius

This year, I drove down to Melbourne to see the folks for Christmas and it was the first time making this trip in our new 2012 Prius (third generation). I’ve been working out how to improve the fuel economy from its initial achievements of around 5.2L/100km through various means such as adjusting tyre pressure but …

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LastPass Sentry – Even More Password Protection

While this is a couple of months old I thought I would share this anyway as I thought this was a really neat feature. If you use LastPass as your password manager across your browsers you can execute a check of your account credentials through use of the LastPass Security Challenge. It will scan all …

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How to Soft Reset a Windows Phone 8 Handset

No operating system is perfect and Windows Phone 8 is no exception particularly given its relatively recent introduction into the marketplace. That said, issues should be addressed and ironed out in due course. However, a conundrum may be encountered if your handset locks up completely and you cannot pull out the battery. You may think …

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How to Close Your Instagram Account

Following on from yesterday’s article about how to backup your Instagram photos the next step for some may be to delete your Instagram account altogether. It’s very easy to do – just visit http://instagram.com/accounts/remove/request/ and, if prompted, login prior to verifying your attention to close your Instgram account. Be careful though as this is a one way process. …

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How to Backup Your Instagram Photos

Given the recent media flurry over Instagram’s changes to its Terms of Service you may have been considering whether or not to close your Instagram account. However, before taking that step, you might like to backup your photos or transfer them to an alternative service. Fortunately, there is a service called Instaport which can provide …

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Panasonic DMR-PWT520 Blu-ray Disc Player & Hard Drive Recorder Review

Another quick update. For those of you looking to get your first hard drive recorder (or PVR/DVR) then you might want to read this article I wrote on Panasonic Australia’s blog about the DMR-PWT520 Blu-ray disc player and hard drive recorder. If you’re looking to add digital recording capability to your home theatre setup while consolidating …

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Checking Out Qi Wireless Chargers

While I don’t have a need for another charger, I have been curious about seeing how well they actually work given their supposed standardisation when used with compliant devices such as the Nokia Lumia 920. They are a bit pricey compared to regular chargers and simple USB cables so whether or not you can justify …

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A Smarter Cellular Modem

In previous articles, I have written about cellular modems and their usefulness but beyond providing a connection to the internet they don’t do much else. When you next upgrade your smartphone then you might want to consider hanging on to your old handset and using it as a cellular modem with a mobile broadband SIM …

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Apple iPad mini Unboxing

Here it is, the unboxing video of the Apple iPad mini! It really came as little surprise with the success of seven inch tablets in the market in the Android space that Apple wanted to get a slice of the action. Coming in at the top end of the seven inch range at 7.9 inches …

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Incoming Gadget – Apple iPad Mini

My wife has had some issues with her iPhone 4S lately when playing music in the car with the volume randomly turning itself down. Obviously, this is counterproductive to listening to music and so we had to find a solution. Unfortunately, Apple was unable to replace the device as the moisture indicator had been activated …

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