As Microsoft struggles to fix a constant reboot problem that some people upgrading to Windows 7 are experiencing, support firm Rescuecom has recommended that consumers avoid a Windows 7 upgrade, period. Interesting, the firm also recommends avoiding PCs with Windows 7 installed, at least for now.

Josh Kaplan, president of Rescuecom said:

“From the calls we’re getting, as well as our own experience in the past with all Microsoft’s operating systems, we’re recommending that people stick with their time-tested OS and wait for the dust to settle. There are some compelling reasons for both businesses and home users to move to Windows 7, so we’re saying ‘just wait for a bit.’”

The comment regarding the history of Microsoft OSes is interesting, and must make Apple happy. One of their first ads skewering Windows 7 noted how Microsoft always says their newest OS won’t have the issues of their prior one(s) (watch it above).

I’ve already said several times: if you have Windows Vista there’s little reason to upgrade your system to Windows 7. Even if you have Windows XP, there’s little reason to upgrade, unless, as with me, you want to use the latest and greatest. In fact, the hassle isn’t worth it.

On the other hand, if you do want to upgrade your system to Windows 7, don’t bother with an in-place upgrade. In other words, do a clean install of the new OS. This is the same recommendation I made about Windows Vista vs. Windows XP, as well. A little trickery, BTW, and you can use an upgrade DVD to do a clean install of the OS, as well.

That’s why I would not recommend upgrading an older machine. Doing a clean install means you have to reinstall all your programs. It also means that you’ll have to back up — and restore — any data you want to keep. Of course, in a household like mine, most of that data is stored on network hard drives, not individual PCs, but that’s not the case for most.

Microsoft also has to solve the aforementioned endless reboot problem with some PCs. There are quite a few people suffering the issue, posting on Microsoft’s support sites.

While there hasn’t been a solution offered by Microsoft yet, this sounds vaguely familiar. During the move to Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft warned that users who had certain driver versions could see … endless reboots … when trying to install Vista SP1, due to driver incompatibility.

Since these issues are only occurring with PCs that have tried to executte an in-place upgrade, it seems like a good theory to me. Of course, I could be completely off.

For now, if you want to try an in-place upgrade, make sure you image your hard drive using something like Acronis True Image. If the upgrade fails, it’s easy to back out and return to your old OS by restoring your image.

As Microsoft struggles to fix a constant reboot problem that some people upgrading to Windows 7 are experiencing, support firm Rescuecom has recommended that consumers avoid a Windows 7 upgrade, period. Interesting, the firm also recommends avoiding PCs with Windows 7 installed, at least for now.

Josh Kaplan, president of Rescuecom said:

“From the calls we’re getting, as well as our own experience in the past with all Microsoft’s operating systems, we’re recommending that people stick with their time-tested OS and wait for the dust to settle. There are some compelling reasons for both businesses and home users to move to Windows 7, so we’re saying ‘just wait for a bit.’”

The comment regarding the history of Microsoft OSes is interesting, and must make Apple happy. One of their first ads skewering Windows 7 noted how Microsoft always says their newest OS won’t have the issues of their prior one(s) (watch it above).

I’ve already said several times: if you have Windows Vista there’s little reason to upgrade your system to Windows 7. Even if you have Windows XP, there’s little reason to upgrade, unless, as with me, you want to use the latest and greatest. In fact, the hassle isn’t worth it.

On the other hand, if you do want to upgrade your system to Windows 7, don’t bother with an in-place upgrade. In other words, do a clean install of the new OS. This is the same recommendation I made about Windows Vista vs. Windows XP, as well. A little trickery, BTW, and you can use an upgrade DVD to do a clean install of the OS, as well.

That’s why I would not recommend upgrading an older machine. Doing a clean install means you have to reinstall all your programs. It also means that you’ll have to back up — and restore — any data you want to keep. Of course, in a household like mine, most of that data is stored on network hard drives, not individual PCs, but that’s not the case for most.

Microsoft also has to solve the aforementioned endless reboot problem with some PCs. There are quite a few people suffering the issue, posting on Microsoft’s support sites.

While there hasn’t been a solution offered by Microsoft yet, this sounds vaguely familiar. During the move to Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft warned that users who had certain driver versions could see … endless reboots … when trying to install Vista SP1, due to driver incompatibility.

Since these issues are only occurring with PCs that have tried to executte an in-place upgrade, it seems like a good theory to me. Of course, I could be completely off.

For now, if you want to try an in-place upgrade, make sure you image your hard drive using something like Acronis True Image. If the upgrade fails, it’s easy to back out and return to your old OS by restoring your image.

Google has responded to FCC questions about Google Voice and restrictions in calling certain regions of the U.S. In doing so, the company also noted the number of Google Voice users: over 1 million and growing.

Of course, Google didn’t mean for everyone to see the numbers. Thanks to a formatting error in the PDF version of the letter provided to the FCC, the redacted areas were available to Business wWeek for perusal. The nascent, still invite-only service has 1.419 million users, according to the letter. Of those, 570,000 use it seven days a week.

Although the service is still invite-only, Google recently began giving out 3 invitations per user to give to their friends. I just saw those invitations show up in my Google Voice account (sorry, they’re gone already!).

The FCC’s questions centered around the fact that Google Voice has taken to blocking calls to certain rural areas of the country. AT&T, which complained, cannot do the same, because of FCC regulations. Certain rural carriers charge phone companies extremely high connection fees to those areas. Google noted, in the un-redacted portion of its letter, that it had experienced an unusually high volume of calls to these numbers and blocked access by its user base to some 100 numbers.

Google argues that Google Voice is not a traditional phone service provider (for one, it’s free), it shouldn’t be subject to the regulations that require phone companies to connect calls to any number.

Meanwhile, the redacted portion of the document also had some other interesting information: Google hinted that it might go global with Google Voice, saying it has signed contracts with a number of “international service providers for inputs to Google Voice.” However, the company added that “none of the contracted services have yet” been launched.

BTW, the document has since been corrected. Additionally, these numbers aren’t that big a deal if they are exposed, but it just goes to show you how easy it is for even a corporate giant like Google to make an error that could, in other circumstances, reveal some pretty sensitive information.

This isn’t the first time the FCC has looked into Google Voice. Earlier, the FCC began examining the Google Voice application rejection from Apple’s App Store (which Apple continues to say hasn’t happened). AT&T, Apple, and Google were all questioned on the matter, and have since responded. Critics have complained about the rejection, and it has become the “poster boy” of useful applications seeming rejected, without sufficient reason, from the App Store.

Google has responded to FCC questions about Google Voice and restrictions in calling certain regions of the U.S. In doing so, the company also noted the number of Google Voice users: over 1 million and growing.

Of course, Google didn’t mean for everyone to see the numbers. Thanks to a formatting error in the PDF version of the letter provided to the FCC, the redacted areas were available to Business wWeek for perusal. The nascent, still invite-only service has 1.419 million users, according to the letter. Of those, 570,000 use it seven days a week.

Although the service is still invite-only, Google recently began giving out 3 invitations per user to give to their friends. I just saw those invitations show up in my Google Voice account (sorry, they’re gone already!).

The FCC’s questions centered around the fact that Google Voice has taken to blocking calls to certain rural areas of the country. AT&T, which complained, cannot do the same, because of FCC regulations. Certain rural carriers charge phone companies extremely high connection fees to those areas. Google noted, in the un-redacted portion of its letter, that it had experienced an unusually high volume of calls to these numbers and blocked access by its user base to some 100 numbers.

Google argues that Google Voice is not a traditional phone service provider (for one, it’s free), it shouldn’t be subject to the regulations that require phone companies to connect calls to any number.

Meanwhile, the redacted portion of the document also had some other interesting information: Google hinted that it might go global with Google Voice, saying it has signed contracts with a number of “international service providers for inputs to Google Voice.” However, the company added that “none of the contracted services have yet” been launched.

BTW, the document has since been corrected. Additionally, these numbers aren’t that big a deal if they are exposed, but it just goes to show you how easy it is for even a corporate giant like Google to make an error that could, in other circumstances, reveal some pretty sensitive information.

This isn’t the first time the FCC has looked into Google Voice. Earlier, the FCC began examining the Google Voice application rejection from Apple’s App Store (which Apple continues to say hasn’t happened). AT&T, Apple, and Google were all questioned on the matter, and have since responded. Critics have complained about the rejection, and it has become the “poster boy” of useful applications seeming rejected, without sufficient reason, from the App Store.

The iPhone has finally reached China, or should I say, the iPhone has finally officially reached China. There were plenty of unlocked iPhones invading China’s GSM networks, but only Friday was it on the China Unicom network.

The first shipments manufactured for China Unicom, however, are missing wi-fi. It wasn’t until May, after manufacturing of the device had begun, that Beijing lifted the existing wi-fi ban on devices.

This will create problems for China Unicom, which has reportedly contracted with Apple for 5 million iPhones. China Unicom hopes to have WiFi in the next batch of phones, saying: “We are talking with Apple and expect the problem to be solved by the end of this year.”

Until then, though, what? China Unicom also is at a price disadvantage: unlocked grey import iPhones (with wi-fi, no less) cost around 5,700 yuan ($835) in China’s street markets, while China Unicom charges from 4,999 yuan ($730) to 6,999 yuan ($1,025) for the high-end, 32-gigabyte iPhone 3GS.

Hmmm. Unlocked iPhone for less money, or official iPhone, tied to one carrier, for more money. Which would you choose? To be honest, even with the wi-fi feature, the fact that the unlocked iPhone goes for less creates an issue for Apple, as well as China Unicom.

In other countries, unlocked iPhones go for more, and far more than a locked version. This backwards set-up in China may prove to be difficult to overcome.

Best Buy has started selling the Little Buddy Child Tracker. The device is supposed to help parents track their children, and it’s listed as $99. What isn’t mentioned however, are the recurring fees for the service.

The Little Buddy Child Tracker uses real GPS technology to help you track your children. It’s advertised as being able to alert you if your child isn’t in the location he’s supposed to be at a specific time. It does so by sending text messages to you.

The light bulb above my head went off when I read that. Obviously, there’s some cellular connection involved with the Little Buddy Child Tracker. Also, unless they are as generous as Amazon.com is with their Kindle device, you’re not going to get that for free. And since Amazon.com expects you to buy stuff with the Kindle, and that’s not the case with this device, you can see they probably aren’t going to be that generous.

And they’re not. Although Best Buy doesn’t mention the recurring fees, Insignia, maker of the Little Buddy Child Tracker, does on their site.

For unlimited service, of the type that would alert you if your child wasn’t in school when he should be, the cost for the Little Buddy Child Tracker is $14.99 monthly. For per-use service, it’s $0.99 per use. They aren’t specific, but this sounds like a service where you could “ping” the device to see where it is.

Clearly, one problem with the whole idea is that the company claims you should slip this into your child’s jacket or backpack. Kids lose backpacks and jackets all the time; hence, they are going to lose this rather expensive thing, too. The Little Buddy Child Tracker also comes in ugly blue and green colors, designed to get your child to leave it in his locker.

The problem with more “portable” types of devices than the Little Buddy Child Tracker, such as those that are similar to wristwatches, is range. There are a few like that on Amazon.com, but they are woefully bad in terms of the user reviews. The fact that this one, for example, was over $100 at first and is now in the $20s, along with really bad reviews, shows you why.

To be honest, you get what you pay for. More expensive devices like these work better. They’re also pricier, but some of them have no recurring fees yet can be tracked via Google Earth. For me, I’ll pass on the Little Buddy Cnild Tracker.

This past Wednesday, Joan Green and I held a webinar on technology supports for writing which was based on our new eBook, “Technology Supports for Writing” which we recently released. The 51 page eBook which is accessible with Adobe Acrobat Reader includes a great compilation of resources for anyone who needs to support students in the area of writing. Included in the ebook iare over 12 videos that are embedded that let you actually see how the software works. You can view the videos in full screen and get a sense first hand if you think that the program may have application for the students you are working with. During the webinar we highlighted a couple of reesources, ie. PixWriter, Livescribe Pulse Smartpen, Ginger, and NaturalReaders. You will find the eBook to be a helpful resource to have on your computer which not only includes a breakdown of features and interactive links to the publishers website.

Clickable topics in our video e-book include:

* Software with customizable drill-and-practice exercises to improve writing
* Software to improve spelling
* Software to help stimulate written content
* Features of word processors and assistive writing technology
* Text-based word processing features
* Text- based word processors
* Picture-based talking word processors
* Stand-alone word bank program
* Dictionaries
* Graphic organizers: technology for organizing written narrative
* Technology to help with the physical aspect of writing
* Speech-to-text and voice recognition
* Initiation of the writing process
* The physical act of handwriting or typing
* Portable word processors

A recording of the webinar is now available for everyone to view for one week- until November 7, 2009. Please feel free to pass along this information:) If you know of colleagues, friends, teachers or others who might be interested in this topic, it would be great if you could email them the info to access the recording. If you are involved with support groups, listserves, blogs and Facebook – we would appreciate your help posting this info.

To view the recording go to http://tr.im/Do3z.

In this 60 minute presentation, you have the opportunity to see how assistive technology can help individuals with the writing process. Joan and I demonstrate and discuss several products such as Ginger Software, PixWriter, Livescribe Pulse Pen and Natural Readers and present information about our book titled “Technology Supports for Writing” (available as an instant download or on a CD from www.ittsguides.com.

Until Nov. 7th, use the coupon code “presentation” for a 30% discount for online orders of the download. Contact me at Joan@innovativespeech.com for an order form if you prefer to pay by check or need to use a purchase order.

You will need Windows Media Player on your computer in order to view the webinar recording as well as high speed internet access. If you don’t have the software, it can be downloaded from here.

After ordering the ebook, you will neet to have at last Adobe Reader 9 to view the integrated videos. If you don’t have at least that version, it can be downloaded here .

We are both available for consultations as needed (on this topic or others) if you would like to explore in greater detail which resources might be most appropriate for your situation. Our contact information is included below. We’d also appreciate hearing from you about other topics you would be interested in learning about.

Brian Friedlander, Ph.D.
Brian@assistivetek.com
908-852-3460
Skype: assistivetek
Blog: assistivetek.blogspot.com

Joan Green, M.A. CCC-SLP
Joan@innovativespeech.com
1-800-IST- 2550 or 301-602-2899
Twitter- @jgreenslp

A new iPhone app, Jibbigo, translates English-to-Spanish and back again, but does it without requiring the user to select phrases or enter them manually with the keyboard. Instead, you simply launch the $24.99 app and speak into your iPhone’s microphone and the translation is played over the speaker.

Only on the faster iPhone 3GS is the app truly handy. With the newest of Apple’s smartphones, the app can handle translating both languages simultaneously. That’s nice because that’s usually how a conversation happens.

With older iPhones, sadly, you have to choose a “direction” of translation when starting the app and have to back out and restart the app to reverse the translation. In other words, it’s kind of lame on anything but a 3GS.

Here’s how the application is described on the App Store:

Jibbigo is not a dictionary and not a phrase book, but a speech translator: You simply speak a sentence in English or Spanish into Jibbigo, and it speaks the sentence aloud in the other language, much like a personal human interpreter would. Jibbigo also shows the recognition and translation in English and Spanish as text on the app screen, so you can be sure your translation is accurate to what you spoke.

Jibbigo is bi-directional; it translates a spoken sentence from English to Spanish or from Spanish to English for a two way dialog between English and Spanish speakers (Bi-directional operation is available on 3Gs only. Older iphone models, 3G phones and iPod Touch run uni-directionally; the language direction is chosen at start-up.).
Best of all, Jibbigo runs completely on your iPhone and does not connect to remote servers via data-communication links. There are no connection delays, no roaming charges and no disconnects! That means your pocket interpreter does not disappear on you during foreign travel when you need it the most.

To use Jibbigo: simply hold down the record button and speak. Then let Jibbigo translate and speak the translation aloud. It’s really that easy.

I have to admit, this intrigues me, although not Spanish. Give me French, German, or Polish (yes, Polish; my wife is Polish) and I’m in (they are working on more languages). I have to say, though, that $25 is a little pricey for a single language.

The first step toward Star Trek’s universal translator? It could be.

Apple has released a new version of iTunes, 9.0.2. While admittedly the release has higher aspirations than messing with the Palm Pre, such as adding support for Apple TV 3.0, a new dark background option for Grid View, and additional accessibility support, it does indeed break the Pre’s iTunes sync capability, as well.

Apple TV 3.0, released earlier, adds new UI and as well as support for the iTunes Extras (movies) and iTunes LP (music) formats. From the press release:

Apple® today introduced new Apple TV® 3.0 software featuring a redesigned main menu that makes navigating your favorite content simpler and faster, and makes enjoying the largest selection of on-demand HD movie rentals and purchases, HD TV shows, music and podcasts from the iTunes® Store even better on your TV. You can now enjoy iTunes Extras and iTunes LP in stunning fullscreen with your Apple TV, as well as listen to Genius Mixes and Internet radio through your home theater system. The new Apple TV software is available immediately free of charge to existing Apple TV owners, and Apple TV with 160GB capacity is available for just $229.

The redesigned main menu on Apple TV gives you instant access to your favorite content. Recently rented or purchased movies, as well as other content including TV shows, music, podcasts, photos and YouTube, are accessible directly from the new main menu. The new software also allows Apple TV users to enjoy stunning fullscreen iTunes Extras and iTunes LP, including great new movie titles such as “Star Trek” or classics like “The Wizard of Oz” and albums such as Taylor Swift’s “Fearless (Platinum Edition)” and Jack Johnson’s “En Concert.” iTunes Extras gives movie fans great additional content such as deleted scenes, interviews and interactive galleries. iTunes LP is the next evolution of the music album, delivering a rich, immersive experience for select albums on the iTunes Store by combining beautiful design with expanded visual features like live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, album credits and more.

Now Apple TV users can enjoy Genius Mixes through their home theater system and listen to up to 12 endless mixes of songs that go great together, automatically generated from their iTunes library. Customers can also enjoy Internet radio, allowing them to browse and listen to thousands of Internet radio stations, as well as tag favorite stations to listen to later. Apple TV’s support of HD photos is enhanced with iPhoto Events, which simplifies finding your favorite photos on Apple TV, as well as iPhoto® Faces, which gives access to photos organized by people identified in iPhoto.

That’s all well and good, but we know that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is most pleased with blocking Pre Sync again, as their contentious back-and-forth battle continues.

LG GD910
LG Electronics has developed the Watch Phone capable of the world’s first 3G VT Service & GSM Quadband Network with sophisticated philosophy of ‘Simple & Easy connectivity’ by applying the world’s best wireless technology merged with miniaturization and large scale integration technologies. LG Watch Phone is not just simple but also user-friendly, so we would like to you to experience our state of the art wearable gadget.
Feature :
• World’s first 3G supporting / VT call watch phone
• Capacitive Touch
• TTS(SMS, Schedule) Voice Command
• Speakerphone
• Water Resistant
Specification :
SMS○MMS-Connectivity USB○General NetworkGSM Triple / WCDMA Single / HSDPA 7.2TypeWrist WatchPC Sync○Display External LCDQQVGA 128×160Display Internal LCD-Basic Specifications RF band900/1800/1900/WCDMA(2100)Dimension [LxWxD] (mm)49 x 39 x 13.8/mmStandard Battery, Max (mAh)510Display External LCD (pixel) #of Color260K Color Transflective TFT/1.43
Touch ScreenActive Area : 28 X 23(Capacitive)Advanced Features MIDI (palyphonic)64CameraVGAInternal Memory (MB)80MBExternal Memory (MB)-MP3○Bluetooth○ (2.0)