Articles by Patrick Nelson

Losing a laptop may be less painful now than it used to be because the cost of replacing the physical device has trickled downward recently. You can now pick up a decent workhorse for three or four hundred dollars at a big-box retailer. Big deal if you lose it. What hasn't become less valuable, though, is the data held within. In fact, the data ha...

FriendCaster Pro, an app from OneLouder, is available for US$4.99 at theAndroid Market....

Unless you're driving a tricked-out late-model BMW or Mini, you're unlikely to have Internet-based media streaming options built into your vehicle However, there are ways to replicate that Internet media experience -- just without the integrated controls....

Open publishing platform Lulu is known for making a global print-on-demand, disc manufacturing, and distribution and fulfillment network available to independent authors, filmmakers and other individuals. For several years, creators have been able to make everything from hard-cover and paperback books to photo calendars, CDs and DVDs available in ...

The convenience of using your smartphone to store, stream and curate your music collection -- or simply stream music from online, personalized radio stations like Pandora -- doesn't mean you need to sacrifice your home stereo system for the dubious quality earbuds that came with the phone. The investment you've made in the stereo gear is as valid ...

Titanium Backup Pro, an app from Titanium Track, is available for US$6.58 at the Android Market. 4.5 stars.Anyone who's gone through the painful task of buying a new smartphone knows that the process of re-installing apps and getting the phone configured just-so is a major job, often taking hours.

The stuttering and freezing that can occur when you're streaming video are indicative of issues related to bandwidth. Commercial hosted solutions like Netflix and Hulu can suffer from degraded performance. ...

ABC News - Publisher: ABC News. Requires: Android 2.1 and up. Promises: video news briefs; local videos; daily top stories; daily top pictures; breaking news. Verdict: 1/5....

Impairments in the body's functions and structure, as well as the limitations in activities caused by those impairments, have historically placed disabled people at often insurmountable disadvantages. Reader Fred Cheshire, who's a C5/6 quadriplegic, asked how to use tablets and mobile phones when you have no finger control....

Amazon's US$199 tablet announced Wednesday for a November release will be one of the first sub-$300 tablets with a decent specification. ...

Orb Live for Android is available from the Android Market for US$9.99....

One antidote to escalating household budgets is to cut utility services. However, dropping trash pickup and dumping your garbage in neighbors' receptacles in the middle of the night probably wouldn't go down too well in the community. Likewise, terminating your electricity supply won't play too well with the family after the novelty wears off -- p...

Travel tools for the road include some of the killer apps that have driven the smartphone market, like mapping. However, the ball and chain is the cost of getting that data outside of your home market. For example, U.S. carrier Sprint currently charges a whopping US$19.45 per megabyte to use its GSM data roaming agreements in Europe. At that price...

As a Sprint corporate customer I'm referred to as "preferred," which basically translates to "preferred because I give them increasing amounts of money." Anyway, it gets me a phone upgrade annually, rather than the non-preferred biannual deal. The only problem with an annually replaced gadget is you have to figure out how to use it annually too. I...