Canon have created a rather nice unit here. A networked multifunction printer. It prints documents fast. It scans well but the real deal breaker in our opinion is the duplex print, copy and scan function. This means that it will scan and copy double sided originals, as well as print double-sided. Now I don’t know about you but this function is perfect for an office in desperate need of controlling the volumes of paper that pile up.

This unit was included in my office to help digitise file keeping. So all those paper bills, contracts and other records can now be easily scanned and filed in an electronic filing system. Still need to do some work on what the best electronic document management software is for a small business, but for the moment the included software from Canon will do the job.

Well, actually the Presto Pagemanager 7 software is a crock. It conflicts with something on the PC and so doesn’t even open. The CD Label Printer software did the same thing but the removal of some PDF Printer freeware fixed that problem.

Now, there seems to be many reviews that bitch about this unit, but for me, its use will primarily be for business rather than photo printing and so far so good. It prints crisp documents and the photo copy function is reasonable enough. I don’t expect this machine to perform like a high end photocopying unit or even a high speed scanner. But what it does do is put a range of rather convenient functions into one relatively cheap unit. Expect to pay between $300-400 for the MX850.

I must say I found the networking function pretty easy to set up, and more importantly very stable. Uses as a network printer I can finally print without having to have the main desktop turned on. It finds my laptop on the wireless network easily and so I can scan documents directly to the laptop.

I haven’t tried out all of the functions but I will add to this review as I go. But my first impression of this unit is that it’s a serviceable printer that is reasonably easy to set up and work with. It has some good power management so shouldn’t be too much of a power drain in the standby mode.

But by far the most useful feature for me is the duplex copy/scan function. This is going to save a lot of time for me and it was really the only unit in it’s price range that offered this function in an inkjet multifunction (and in a laser multifunction in the price range).

All in all I am impressed with the unit so far. I would recommend it if you are looking for a decent scanning solution.

This has been driving me crazy for a while and I have found a solution thanks to the good contributors at this link:

Google Maps does not work in Firefox 3.0.

Simply turn off your Skype Firefox Plugin and all will be fine.

It’s very hard to be a supporter of daylight saving when it creates havoc with timers on your Beyonwiz or other electronic devices. For the last two weeks things have been recording or not recording on the Beyonwiz with no rhyme or reason. For some reason the things started taping Neighbours - what a horrible mistake. And for no other reason it stopped recording some of my favourite shows or taped them an hour earlier thus missing most of the program.

It’s a little hard to determine whether this was an IceTV or Beyonwiz problem, but I now seem to have solved the problem.

The first thing I did was to make sure to have the Beyonwiz box set up to enable DST (daylight saving time) in the set-up area of the box. Not hard to find. You need to switch the unit to auto time - I live in Sydney but this is potentially a pain for people in SA.

Next I had to delete all of the timers that were set up on the Beyonwiz, and then use the IceTV website to resend all the timers to the box. You do this through the ‘My Account’ and ‘Options’ tab.

I was very disappointed to find that this actually didn’t work. Oddly some shows did tape and other did not.

The next step that sealed the deal was to delete all the timers from the STB again, then go and delete all the timers on the IceTV website. Then I just reset the timers via the IceTV website and voila, I seem to be back in business.

This is a real nuisance and I hope that IceTV and Beyonwiz work out what was going on. But on the other hand it gave me a chance to review the timers and get rid of some that I no longer really wanted. There’s just not enough time to watch all the things that the Beyonwiz can record!

So I’m back in love with the Beyonwiz, after a couple of annoying weeks when I thought the affair was over!

Google has released a new browser called Chrome. I have test run it for the last day and it’s a reasonably impressive offering. It seems designed to be a forerunner for the development of complex web applications - it has a seamless interface with Google Gears.

It lacks the add-ons and extensions of Firefox 3 and it is unclear at the moment what the plans for such things are. It has been developed using similar software to Apple’s Safari but is only available for windows at this stage.

It has a wonderfully simple interface and looks minimal and neat on the screen. There is not a lot of clutter in the design yet most functions are self-evident and easy to find.

The address box is the most interesting innovation, combining both a place to enter URLs as well as search terms. Based on your browsing history and Google search a number of options will appear in a drop-down list - you can choose to go straight to a URL or go to a Google search page. You can also determine what your default search engine will be if you don’t like Google search.

The pages load extremely quickly and from what I can determine, most sites render very well using this browser.

It will be interesting to see where this browser will fall. I suspect it’s designed more to take market share from Internet Explorer than from Firefox. Google will be appealing to those who use IE pretty much as is. That market doesn’t really want to use add-ons and wants a browser from a brand they trust. So it’s just possible that Google are onto something here.

It also depends on their plans for web applications. If they can tie Chrome into the package for web applications then they might just make some significant in-roads into Microsoft’s browser market.

And beyond all of this, I think it’s good to have another serious player in the browser market to drive innovation. So between Firefox, Opera, Safari, Microsoft, Chrome and a few others we should see some interesting developments in the world of browsers over the next couple of years.

The Firefox 3 download record attempt will officially begin on June 18 in Australia at 3.00am (EST). This URL http://tinyurl.com/4e7fv5 provides the timezone details for people. The 24 hour period is counted from US Pacific time on 17 June, which for most of us on this side of the world will mean downloading won’t start until the following day.

Happy downloading.

The same can’t be said for Firefox. And having tried the Firefox 3 Beta, it really is a vast improvement. Maybe not in looks, but certainly in performance - much faster in speed and much better on the memory leaking front.

So if you have time and the inclination please help out and download Firefox 3 on 17 June. And if you haven’t tried Firefox before, now’s your chance. I’m confident that you’ll really enjoy it if you spend some time getting to know its functionality and spend some time playing with add-ons.

The add-ons is really where Firefox comes into its own. And it’s all open source and free - although donations to the creative and innovative add-on developers is always encouraged.

So join the fun and download Firefox 3 - you’ll love it.

The Beyonwiz DP-P1 is a pretty remarkable product. For those tossing up between a fully-fledged home media centre PC and a PVR, it’s a natural (and cheaper) and compelling option.

It’s won an Australian Design Award and it’s easy to see why. It’s a very neat package. It combines a hi-def dual receiver tuner, a hard disk with 200GB capacity, networked file sharing and more recently a remote (via web) programming function. All this in a package that you can get for less than $1000. Still a pricey undertaking, but not unreasonable given its feature set.

I have found the hd image quality to be excellent. It looks great with very good colours and crisp outlines. It has a strong digital receiver and improved the reception quality of all stations above my old Strong STB.

The firmware that drives the whole thing has been recently updated and this works quite well. There are still a few glitches (e.g., subtitles don’t toggle on and off, there is no resume facility when you want to finish watching a recording you previously had started, and you can’t modify the seconds on the FF arrow button to skip you through ads much quicker) but these are all fairly minor niggles in the grand scheme of things and not enough to put me off this device.

The networking ability of the unit is solid. It’s not fully robust, but if you are not going to be using that function regularly it’s not going to bother you. What is great is the ability to add files to the unit or indeed copy or move files from the unit to other PCs on the network.

I don’t have a DVD recorder so this means I can burn a DVD through a PC if ever I need to (mind you I don’t find myself wanting to preserve a lot of television in this way!!)

It has a well laid out remote control that places functions generally where you want them. I’d argue the record, play, FF and RR buttons are too small but again, it’s not a deal breaker.

It plays photo, music and video files across the network or via USB generally well. There is a wide range of compatible file types so most of your collection should play. The photo slide show is a little clunky but to be honest I haven’t really had cause to play a slide show that often.

Remote Programming

One of the things that really makes this device stand out (since the latest update of the firm ware) is its ability to set timers for program recording remotely. That means if you have an IceTV account (this costs around $99 per year) you can actually program your DP-P1 via the web. It can even be done via your mobile if you have Internet access.

This sounds pretty cool doesn’t it? The only baffling drawback is none of the programming works if the device is in stand-by mode (i.e, turned-off not powered-off). At first I thought this was slightly frustrating and bizarre - I didn’t want to leave the device running all day. Then I realised you can do a non-recording timer start up of the device thereby giving it time to download all the latest remote record updates from the IceTV server - phew. It won’t really solve the emergency, “oops, I forgot that program is on in ten minutes and I’m down at the pub” situations, but it will cover you for most remote recording needs. Perhaps that’s something that Beyonwiz and IceTV can look at in the future.

Conclusion

It’s all good. I really like this machine. It does what it says it will do and does it reasonably simply and with a minimum of fuss. Firmware updates seem to have been reasonably regular so there is the reassurance that Beyonwiz are committed to the product. There is a good forum for the product too.

If you are thinking of a media centre PC I’d be giving this product a closer look. It does most of what you’d need from a media centre for a good price.

If you’ve happened to pop into GUB in the last couple of days you may well have seen some strange layouts and columns in wrong places. This was due to the switch to Wordpress 2.5.

It didn’t play particularly well with K2 but things seems to have settled down a little now.

The upgrade through the Automatic Upgrade plugin worked well and with a minimum of fuss. There is a spooky moment of a blank or stalled screen just after upgrade, but a refresh of the admin login page rectifies that.

There is a fresh new interface in the admin area of Wordpress and this works quite well.

I’m still wading through the plugins to see what works and what doesn’t. The automatic plugin upgrade function does not work for me at the moment.

Otherwise, I’m reasonably happy and encourage people to try and upgrade when they can - but first check that all your favourite plugins are compatible. And check your favourite theme is compatible!

There’s been an awful lot of hype about this particular mouse. I’ve managed to resist for a few months, but I was really interested in seeing if this product had some significant benefits on the ergonomic, health and safety front. I have to admit my hand sometimes gets a little tired operating a traditional desk mouse and the chance to try using a mouse in a different way was tempting. Given some of the other reviews I’d seen into the product I was a little hesitant.

I’m very pleased to report that they were all wrong. The big technological leap with this mouse (although I do believe there are others on the market) is that you can use it off the desktop (or laptop) and in the air to interface with your computer. This has potential benefits on the ergonomic front as well as making it possible to have the laptop at a greater distance from the user - good for surfing the web etc. In fact, you can use this mouse more as a remote control than mouse. In any event, I think some early adopters have misrepresented this product. The YouTube reviews I think are most hilarious as you watch reviewers waving the mouse about like their directing a jumbo jet into a gate at an airport.

On the contrary, subtle movement is the order of the day. This mouse if very sensitive and using it in the air is really good. It took me about a minute to get used to the movement in the air and it is extremely accurate when pointing at objects and clicking on them on the screen.

You can use the mouse in the air in any direction - while this is potentially useful my brain hasn’t caught up with the spatial relations necessary to do this with any accuracy - I still find myself need to orient the mouse’s nose to the front of the screen.

It has some useful buttons on it, but I find it a little awkward to look at the mouse as I’m working on the PC so I’ll just keep using the basic right and left click and scroll buttons. Most programs have short cuts and other features that are more than adequate for two buttons and the scroller.

The mouse can be used to control a media player. I don’t have Windows Media Centre and so can’t really comment on its functionality from that perspective.

It does control the volume and track forward/back in Windows Media Player, but again, I don’t use that much.

The mouse can be used on the desktop where it behaves just like a normal mouse. It knows whether its meant to be an air mouse or a desktop mouse without any prompting from the user. Although it seems to want a flat level surface in order to be a desk mouse - pretty reasonable I would have thought.

All in all this is a very useful idea. And if you like lazing about on couches using your laptop your probably likely to enjoy the relief this device provides from having to hold traditional mice in a particular way. It is going to be quite liberating I think.

The only draw back is it’s price. Let’s hope they will become cheaper as the idea takes off - you can find some good bargains on the net, expect to pay about $150AUD.

Another fascinating development on the topic of portable applications is the emergence of Mojopac. Now this isn’t only a portable applications pack, it’s a portable operating system pack. That’s right, you can now take your mojo anywhere you choose and run your USB portable drive or even memory stick with its own Windows XP operating system on it.

It’s very similar to other offerings in the Linux world such as Puppy Linux (more on that later). This mojo pack really does seem to work. I loaded it into a USB stick, plugged the stick into my computer and voila, I can run Windows XP from the stick. Of course it is a little slower, but not annoyingly slow.

I even loaded a couple of applications like OpenOffice and MindManager and they worked flawlessly. It is a really useful idea. Mojopac comes in a Freedom flavour and a Pro Flavour, the former being free and the latter comes at a cost but with more configuration possibilities.

So for those who like to travel light, you can now take a slimmed down version of your PC with you on portable drive or USB stick. With a high storage portable drive you may well have a virtual computer with you - I haven’t tried it with such a device yet, but it is the recommended option.

Once programs are loaded your device is listed as C drive on the host computer, and is the only accessible storage. You can however switch back to the host computers operating system at any time which makes transferring files to the USB stick reasonably painless.

Networked drives are not available from the device running Mojopac but DVD drives and so forth are. Mojopac is also kind enough to alert you when a popup appears on the host computer so you can switch back to take care of business if necessary.

Mojopac would be a useful solution for those who like a particular software that can’t be used at the office or on a public PC. You can now take that application with you wherever you go. It may not work with all software, I haven’t had time to try everything, but it does seem very robust and emulates an operating system very well (if that is indeed what it is doing - who know, I don’t understand the technicalities of it all!).

So there’s another string in the bow of portable computing. GUB will be watching this area with interest.