Neptor Battery Pack Review

By George Harding

Need a way to charge both your cell phone and your tablet? Look no farther than the Neptor Battery Pack. This innovative product meets both needs in a very attractive package.

This compact charger has one button, two USB ports, a charging port and a flashlight.

One of the USB ports is dedicated to charging cell phones and similar low power devices. The other provides the higher power required to charge a tablet. Both can be used at the same time, if needed.

The battery is lithium polymer and charges in 5-7 hours, and can be recharged more than 500 times.

The button shows the battery charge status in four LED lights. A double press turns on the flashlight.

The charger has an appealing feel to it. The cover has a smooth, velvety feel to it. The charger is small enough to fit into a shirt pocket. Five colors are available for you to choose: orange, red, pick, lime green and teal blue.

A handy extra feature is the flashlight, which you can use to illuminate a door lock or even a book.

The product comes with the Neptor,  a micro USB to USB cable, the user manual  and a handy lanyard.

Neptor Battery Pack by Eagle Tech Computers        
 www.eagletechusa.com                      
Price about $50

Angry Birds Go!

Angry Birds Go! Rovio’s ambition is to make Angry Birds bigger than Mickey Mouse. But to do that, it has to keep making games that are more popular than their predecessors. With the launch today of Angry Birds Go!, Rovio’s ability to do that will be put to the test.

After all, we all may be a little sick of the cute-and-angry fowls. The pigs are getting on our nerves too, after nearly 2 billion downloads of the previous games. Still, Espoo, Finland-based Rovio is giving it its best shot as the free-to-play Angry Birds Go! storms into app stores around the world in a simultaneous global launch.

With Rovio games, downloads aren’t a problem. But staying in the top ranks of the top-grossing games is a challenge. Right now, in the iOS app store in the U.S., Rovio doesn’t have a game in the top 50 grossing games, and Angry Birds Star Wars II has fallen to No. 96 on that list, according to market researcher App Annie. Angry Birds is No. 27 on the top paid games list, while Angry Birds Star Wars is No. 45, Angry Birds Seasons is No. 65, and Bad Piggies is No. 85.

These are not the kind of rankings that Rovio has been used to. With Angry Birds Go!, Rovio has taken its birds into three dimensions as they race through Piggy Island. The game is a downhill kart racing title akin to Nintendo’s Mario Kart. It has 50 different soapbox karts.

Yahoo Mail Outage

Despite promising to restore Yahoo Mail service to its customers by 5pm EST, an unknown number of users are still unable to log in, and remain without email service.

An unknown number of users have been affected by Yahoo's as-yet-unnamed problem, spanning at least two and a half weeks - a problem that was not openly acknowledged by Yahoo until yesterday.

Only today Yahoo Mail's head Jeff Bonforte finally addressed the massive outage that has kept Mail users from sending or receiving email since at least November 25, in a blog post on the Yahoo Mail Tumblr.

As of this writing, Bonforte - the man who told employees at a staff meeting last Friday that the only way Yahoo Mail customers would leave the service was if Yahoo kicked Mail users in the [testicles] - is on Twitter hurrying to politely placate Mail's outraged users.

Ubuntu for Smartphones

Canonical has just signed its first deal to supply a smartphone with its mobile operating system, Canonical founder and product strategy leader Mark Shuttleworth revealed in an interview here at the LeWeb conference. He wouldn't say which company has agreed to use the Linux-based OS, but said it will be offered on high-end phones in 2014.

"We have concluded our first set of agreements to ship Ubuntu on mobile phones," Shuttleworth said. "We've shifted gears from 'making a concept' to 'it's going to ship.' That has a big impact on the team."

And, he said, Canonical is in board-level discussions with several others: "We are now pretty much at the board level on four household brands. They sell a lot of phones all over the world, in emerging and fully emerged markets, to businesses and consumers."

It's significant progress for a nine-year-old company that has specialized in the Ubuntu version of Linux. But it's a very long way to making even a small dent in the dominance of Google's Android and Apple's iOS.

Another MSFT "Error"

Last week, Microsoft made it public that it planned to stop allowing its PC partners to sell machines with Windows 7 preloaded as of October 30, 2014.

The Redmondians are now saying that date was posted in error. The new official word is that Microsoft still has yet to determine when the Windows 7 preload cut-off date will be. (Neowin reported the change from October 30, 2014 to "TBD" over the weekend.)

A spokesperson supplied the following statement explaining the mix-up:

"We have yet to determine the end of sales date for PCs with Windows 7 preinstalled. The October 30, 2014 date that posted to the Windows Lifecycle page globally last week was done so in error. We have since updated the website to note the correct information; however, some non-English language pages may take longer to revert to correctly reflect that the end of sales date is 'to be determined.' We apologize for any confusion this may have caused our customers. We’ll have more details to share about the Windows 7 lifecycle once they become available."

Microsoft also confirmed that the other cut-off date -- the end of availability of boxed copies of Windows 7 sold at retail -- was, indeed, October 30, 2013.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft ends up sticking with the October 30, 2014 OEM cutoff date or not. That timing would make sense if the Softies think they can get more Windows 7 users on a path toward upgrading (or at least considering upgrading) to Windows 8 within a year's time. If things aren't going so well, perhaps Microsoft will push the PC-preload date out further.

BitDefender Review

By George Harding

Today we have many solutions for fending off viruses attempting to take over our desktops and laptops.

Their Total Security 2013 provides protection for desktops and laptops. Here’s what you get:

• Defense against viruses, spam and ID theft
• Parental controls
• Superior firewall protection
• Online data storage
• Syncing data across devices
• Loss or theft protection
• Safepay for online banking and shopping
• Lock and wipe facility when your device is stolen

These features make Bitdefender one of the leading providers of protection software for your laptop and desktop.

But what about our mobile devices? Similar protection is available for your mobile device. The Clueful series from Bitdefender protect Apple and Android devices against not only viruses, but also theft, electronic threats, and battery status.

Clueful checks your IOs apps to see which ones display possibly harmful behavior, such as uploading stuff from your contact list, allowing unencrypted passwords, uploading your location and those that manipulate your calendar

Similar protection is available for Android mobile devices.

These are worthwhile services to have, whether for your desktop/laptop or any mobile device.

www.bitdefender.com                        
Price $80 for Internet Total Security, $10 per year for Clueful for IOs or Android

Think Tank Photo Mirrorless Mover 30i Review

The second ThinkTank Photo case that we had the chance to review is also specifically designed for certain products. This case is the Mirrorless Mover 30i and it is designed to be used with mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras (MILCs). As our regular readers all know by now we are big fans of the Olympus PEN series of MILCs and this case proved to be the ideal travelling

The 30i is designed to carry two MILCs and two to four lenses. It can also carry a smaller dSLR and a couple of lenses. There is also room for small accessories, a smaller tablet and, of course, a cell phone.

The case is constructed of water resistant fabric and has heavy duty zippers. The bottom has a polyurethane coating to improve water resistance. The interior compartments are adjustable and have foam in the dividers to increase cushioning, There is even a seam-sealed taffeta rain cover included in the front to provide even more protection if it’s needed.

We took the 30i on an extended trip and used it to carry two MILCs and the equipment we thought we would need to shoot photographs for two weeks. The equipment list is:

1- Olympus PEN E-P3 body

1- Olympus PEN E-P5 Body

1- Olympus M. Zuiko Digital 17mm f/1.8 lens

1- Panasonic Lumix G. Vario 45-200mm f/4-5.6 lens

Body caps for the cameras

Front and rear caps for both lenses

Lens hoods for both lenses

Olympus VF-2 and VF-4 viewfinders

Wide camera straps for both cameras

Extra batteries and chargers for both cameras

Everything fit in the case comfortably and we had immediate access to everything with nothing being blocked or inaccessible. Since the case itself only weighs a pound it added very little extra weight to the compact system we were carrying.

There was also room in the 30i for a Smartphone and a tablet but we didn’t need to use those slots. 

We always over pack and actually carried three phones and three tablets for the trip. It seemed to be unfair from a reviewers perspective to try to jam all of them into a compact camera case.

There was one thing that we felt may have been missing however. There was no way to carry a compact but sturdy tripod. I’m not sure how they could have done it but they engineered everything else beautifully.

I can honestly say that this is the best small camera bag I have ever seen. It is extremely well built and provides excellent protection for all of your expensive camera equipment. It is the best investment you can make to help protect your equipment.

MSRP is $69.75 at

http://www.thinktankphoto.com/categories/shoulder-camera-bags/mirrorless-mover.aspx