Adi's Tech Site

Since I did not share a pick last week, I have two picks this week.

Up first is FoxIt Reader. Essentially, it’s an alternative to Adobe’s Reader application.  Like Adobe Reader, it’s a PDF reader which allows you to open PDFs.  However, it also allows you the ability to create PDF files from within Microsoft Office using their add-ins. I have been using this as my PDF viewer for about a month now and it is just awesome. From turning on my computer to opening my PDFs, it blows Adobe reader right out of the water. The other thing that makes FoxIt reader cool is the ability to open multiple PDFs in the same window using tabs(just like web browsers).  I highly recommend that you check this one out.  I can tell you that FoxIt Reader is free and is available for Windows PCs(and yes it runs on Windows 8).

The second of my picks is the iRig Pre Universal Microphone Interface for iOS and Android devices . This allows you to plug your XLR microphone into your iOS or Android device(along with your headphones). Of course, the device also has a 48V switch(AKA phantom power), so it makes it compatible with all XLR microphones which need phantom power and those which don’t need phantom power. It is powered by a 9 volt battery and comes with a velcro strap as well. The other thing I should mention is that you also have a gain control on the side to control the amount of gain going out of the interface.

I will have a test recording uploaded on this site very soon so you can be the judge of how good the sound quality is. By having this interface with you, it will allow you to turn your tablet or phone into a mobile recording rig.

I have been also testing it on some Skype calls for three weeks on my iPad and I have to say that this works like a dream.  If you’re a podcaster who’s been looking to record content on-the-go then this is a really good interface for the job.

I would highly recommend picking up one of these for yourself.  The iRig Pre XLR Interface is available for about $40 on Amazon USA
(£24.75 on Amazon UK).

Update: You cannot monitor using the headphone jack on the iRig Pre(by monitor, I mean hearing what’s coming out of the XLR microphone)

For my pick of the week, I have chosen a website called CodeAcademy. There are a lot of cool websites which teach you how to write code in different languages including HTML, CSS, PHP, jQuery and Javascript to name a few.

They highlight parts of code as you would expect and as you can see from the screenshot, it also shows you a live preview of the code you are writing. When you finish a certain component of your chosen course, it also gives you an achievement badge. You can also share your achievement via facebook or twitter. Additionally it allows you to keep track of how far you have progressed in your course.

I have been using this for the last two weeks and I love it. I know that there are services like Lynda and W3Schools. That being said, CodeAcademy will cover some of the HTML and CSS skills which w3Schools and Lynda will teach you. Therefore, CodeAcademy is going to be good to get you going if you want to learn the basics.

I can tell you that CodeAcademy is free of charge. You can use it without signing up for an account. However, I recommend getting an account or logging in with Facebook or Twitter so you can keep track of your progress.

With Windows 8, one of the main things that I’ve heard people moan about is the Start Screen which a lot of people have called the Metro UI. So my pick of the week for this week is Classic Shell.

Essentially, what this program does is put a start button and a start menu back on the Desktop for Windows 8.  I’ve been using this for about 3 to 4 days and I have to say that I am impressed. It works really well and has no problem handling the Metro apps.  In fact, I will also say that Classic Shell makes using Windows 8 a lot better.  Better yet, when I press the Windows key in a metro app it takes me back to the start menu on my desktop.

I would highly recommend it to anyone using Windows 8 on a desktop PC or laptop who does not like the metro UI.

Classic Shell is free to download and will work with Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Time for another quick insight into how us podcasters do what we do. So, my pick of the week is Levelator. When you record podcasts, you might get the odd occasion certain segments are not at the same volume level. This can be a problem because you don’t want to have your listener turning the volume up or down just to hear something.

That’s where Levelator comes in.  What it does is analyses your recording and it will level out everything to the same volume level. I have used it myself and the results are superb. It made everything so much better. You will need to make sure that your recording is WAV or AIFF file because this is what Levelator supports.

Overall, the interface is dead simple and Levelator is just super easy to use.

I can tell you the Levelator is made by the Conversations Network and it is available for free for Mac OSX, Windows, Linux.

I recently covered a news story where Google was going to shut down Google Reader.  So my pick of the week is an alternative service called Feedly.

It essentially allows you to pull in your RSS feeds from Google Reader and show them to you in a magazine style similar to FlipBoard.  It looks really clean and and works really well with Google Chrome.  When you click on an article you want to read, then it will expand it and allow you to read it on the site it originated from. Of course, you can add more sites to get more content really easily and it’s a great choice if you want an alternative to Google Reader.  I can tell you that Feedly is free and it also has a free iOS, Android and Kindle Fire app.

I have not given you my pick of the week for the past few weeks so I am giving you three picks today.

My first pick is a WordPress plugin called Compfight. When creating posts, there will be the odd occasion where you will need to get a picture to use in a post. The problem is that you need to make sure that you use something which is creative commons licensed.  What  compfight will do is allow you to find a picture, select the size you need(small,medium or large) and properly attribute it to its author.  If you are running a WordPress site and need pictures to use in your posts then I would highly recommend checking out this plugin.

Up next: It’s the Joby GorillaPod Original. I will have a review for this one out shortly so I won’t say much just yet. However this is a flexible, portable tripod that can cling onto almost anything.  It’s really good for me because I have unsteady hands so it’s really useful.

My final pick of the week is the Logitech Trackman Marble mouse. It’s a trackball mouse for both Macs and PCs. With most modern computers  you  should be able to plug it into the USB port, and the right and left-click functions should work right out of the box. For more functionality you should install the software which you can get from Logitech’s website.  I will of course have my review of this hardware really soon.

This week, my pick of the week is a mixture of a pick plus some news. A lot of you might not know this already but Adobe(the people behind PhotoShop) currently have three ways you can get PhotoShop, Audition and some of the other Creative Suite(CS) apps.  The first way is to get the apps on their own.  This is useful if you’re just going to use one the many apps that are available in the creative suite. You can also get different flavours CS which give you some of the many different applications.

However, there is a tiny secret about CS that you may not know. Right now you can get Adobe CS2 for free.  You don’t need an Adobe account or anything else. All of the downloads and serials you need are on Adobe’s site. True, these might not be the latest and greatest that Adobe has to offer but for what it’s worth, I can tell you that all of these applications are full, working versions. I have tested them myself and I confirm that they work.

However, I should warn you that this software is from around 2005. Therefore it will run on most modern Windows PCs but it will not run on newer macs. If you are on a mac and you need to use this then you might want to consider installing WINEBottler. You can of course also use Crossover.  Better still, if you have a Windows 7 virtual machine on your mac or Windows installed on the mac using Boot Camp then you should be good to go.

On many occasions, I find myself in a situation where I have to get rid of some stuff on my iPhone in order to get some more free space.  That’s why I have chosen PhoneClean as my pick of the week.  The way it works is that it will scan your iPhone for any unnecessary junk. Then, it will give you the option to go in and see how many files there are for every application and get rid of it.

I have used it myself and I can tell you that it saved me a couple of gigabytes worth of space and I now have more room to put hundreds more songs or take some more pictures.  This has been a really useful tool for me to have in my arsenal(so to speak), and I highly recommend that you check this one out.

PhoneClean is free to download and it is available for Macs and Windows PCs(XP/Vista/7/8).

My pick of the week is HandbrakeBatch. You may have already heard of handbrake, the cross-platform app which allows you to take your blu-ray or DVD movies and convert them into a format which can be played back on any iOS or android device. Well, the idea of this app is that you can convert multiple video files in one fell swoop.

Just simply find the video files you need, select them and drag them into the software. After that, tell it the tablet or phone you have and choose where you want the converted video files to be saved. Then, at the click of a mouse all of the video files in the queue will be converted automatically and you don’t have to think about it.

I recently had to use this to convert a whole bunch of videos that someone recorded on a camcorder a couple of weeks ago.  I just simply took the videos off of them, dragged them all into HandbrakeBatch and set it to convert to Apple TV 3 and it converted all of them for me. Best of all, I did not have to think about anything. Sure, it took some time to convert 78 videos but I can confirm that it does work. I played a couple of videos in QuickTime and it played with no problems.

If you have a lot of video files that you need to be converted in one go without having to think about anything (apart from what device you have), then this might be the software for you. I can tell you that HandbrakeBatch is free for download and it’s only on the Mac at the time being.

This week, my pick of the week is GIMP. recently, I have been using this app to create graphics to be used in the upcoming video version of my podcast.  For what it’s worth, GIMP is a really powerful tool that will allow you to do some image manipulation.   Of course you have the usual features of most image manipulation software such as gradients, ink-pot tool, pencil tools and transformation tools to name but a few.  If you’re into creating video podcasts and you need to make some lower thirds then this could be the tool for you.  That being said, GIMP can also be used to create other kinds of graphics.

On a side you might also want to check out a similar piece of software called InkScape, which is also free to download for Macs, Windows PCs and Linux PCs.

GIMP is free to download for Macs, Windows PCs and Linux PCs.