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All Nice and No Naughty – Scan those Photos!

We caught word that our friends over at Visioneer have a Contest taking place on their Facebook Page giving you the ability to share some of your fine holiday photos but also have a shot at winning a Visioneer 9520 Scanner. There probably isn’t any doubt that Digital Cameras will sell well during the Holiday Season. So many great new devices are on the market with Fill features, sequential photos for action and large megapixels for printing from the Digital Image.

One piece of technology that is still a constant for photo enthusiasts, archivist and those working with graphics is the Digital Scanner. Gloria and I bought our first photo scanner back in 1991 for our new Desktop Publishing business and its features were about 25% of what is available with today’s Scanners, pricing is now considerably less as well. In 1991 our scanner set us back about 700 bucks!

One of the companies that has offered affordable solutions for the consumers and business user is Visioneer. We’ve had several models over the years of Visioneer scanners that have served us well. We still have a need to scan those photos, logos and other documents into the computer and with today’s software, the user is really able to fine tune and achieve a great looking photo from a scan. Most users of scanners I’ve talked with have made photo archives of all the film photos in the home for safety and ability to easily share them online with sites such as Flickr and Facebook and then store the originals away for safekeeping. It is incredibly easy to scan a photo and save it as well.

The Visioneer 9520 scans at 4800DPI and captures in 48Bit Color. For those of you that have amassed a collection of Slides, the original way a slide show was presented, a built in 35mm Slide transparency adapter makes it easier.  One Touch scanning of the 9520 gives users the option of easily selecting Fax and Send, Send to Printer or open up the Scanning Program to scan to your specific program. The Visioneer 9520 also ships with Corel and Arcsoft programs.

While the website may seem a bit confusing in its support of Windows 7, Drivers for Windows 7 and Vista are available on the Visioneer Site. If you visit the site and select the Home Products, then the product itself, scroll down to the bottom right of the page you will find drivers and there you will locate the Windows 7/Vista drivers. Probably the easiest step is to visit the Visioneer Like Page on Facebook and participate for your chance to Win one of Three Visioneer 9520 Scanners.

A Photo of the 2001 Christmas Card with Ozzy
Andy Taylor and Family with Adopted Kid Ozzy

All you have to do is submit your Nice Holiday Photo in the Holiday Photo Album and the folks over at Visioneer will select a winner December 22nd 2010. I was thinking about submitting this Holiday Family Photo from 2001 with Gloria, myself, the girls and our adopted friend Ozzy but I already have a 9520 and wouldn’t want to take away your opportunity to win!

For your chance visit http://www.facebook.com/visioneerinc

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Upstaging the Gifts this Holiday Season

Photo of Andy Taylor holding a Prank Pack
Andy Taylor with the CoffeeTalkies Prank Pack

Nothing says loving, like a great holiday prank. The receiving end of a prank can be funny for the person pulling it off and in some cases, a bit of an embarrassment for those falling prey to it. I think most of us have seen the video on American Funniest Home Videos of the poor saps that scratched off a Lottery Ticket thinking they Won thousands only to be slapped with the realization it was a prank. I always felt sorry for those people thinking of how in their heads they had already spent the money and had those dreams taken from them of buying just about anything they wanted. I bet you a Wooden nickle that some of those had dreamt of taking those lotto winnings and developing products in the garage such as the Pet Petter or with today’s technology, the iArm. 

These are just a couple of products that have already been created though, at least in the minds of Ryan Dolan and Arick Nordby. These inventive geniuses behind the Company 30 Watt have created a Wonderful gift idea for that holiday season that could even upstage the gifts themselves. Prank Pack’s are boxes, and just that – boxes, that feature some of the most outrageous gift ideas imaginable. When we featured a few of the boxes during the TechtalkRadio Webcast, we had a few comments in the chat room of “How Cool” and “Why Didn’t I think of That!?” to the formidable Scooby Doo “Huuuuhhh?” 

Photo of the iArm and Pet Petter Prank Pack Boxes
Two fo Our Favorite Prank Packs

Imagine receiving a Gift Box with the Contents indicated to be a pair of  Swiss Navy Coffee Talkies with a 1200 Foot Range. Everything about the boxes feels real and not unlike anything you could pick up off the shelf next to the Camo Snuggie. The Prank Pack ships flat, similar to a New Year Calendar and can be opened easily to store almost anything from a pair of Socks to a shirt to even another box holding an iPad (Hint Hint). The Boxes construct to about 11.5 inches long, close to 9 inches across and almost 3.5 inches deep. Everything about these Prank Packs screams authentic with some of the most absurd but realistic photos and graphics on them. When the receiver opens either end of the box, they are greeted with the official prank. This isn’t a mean spirited prank, it is really designed to get a good laugh and that it does. 

The Creativity doesn’t stop with these guys as they have recently introduced the latest Prank Pack, good for the Entire family, the Family Blankeez. Great to cover a Family of eight or a Medium size SUV.  Again, while the idea sounds like a winner, it’s a Prank Pack!  From the Beer Beard to the iArm to the nine inventive and fun Prank Packs priced at just around 8 bucks, this will be one of the most shared and talked about gifts under the tree or at the Company Gift Exchange. For more info and to see some of the different Prank Packs available, take a look at http://www.prankpack.com or the company behind it all 30Watt at http://www.30watt.com 

Photo of the Family Blankeez Prank Pack
The Prank Pack Family Blankeez

Andy TaylorLeave a commentTTR Website

This Weeks TechtalkRadio Show

This weeks Full Show has been posted, In this weeks Cast we talked about a variety of Subjects including The Samsung Galaxy Tab and Why Andy isn’t going to CES but the Search is on for Sponsorship for Slick to Attend, Andy talks about the New Wirecast Interface and the Help from Steve of TechBuzz to get it up and Runing as well a look at the new Studio. Western Digital sends over the 3TB Internal and External USB 3.0 Solutions. A Look at Flock and RockMelt and Slick shares some info on Spike TV’s Coverage of the Video Game Awards December 11th.

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Help, I am Out of Hard Drive Space

We’ve all been there! You want to do some work on your Computer and you keep getting a warning telling you the Hard Drive is Full. Going through your drive and deleting files would be the nice thing to do, especially those ones that just seem to be duplicated throughout your Hard Drive. If you don’t have time to do that, adding storage is always a great solution. In fact, with the pricing on Hard Drives currently, it is really to your benefit to plop down a few bucks and get that deal on the 1TB or 2TB drive you had your eye one. Getting some of that clutter and files off your hard drive can also help your system run better. A Good Defrag after moving a bunch of files off your hard drive is like a nice oil bath for C3PO, but I digress.

We talked with Wilson Tang from Azio Corporation on a New Hard Drive Enclosure the company is producing called the E377-U31. This Aluminum cased Hard Drive enclosure with a Slide Out Tray gives users the ability to Add a SATA Hard Drive with a Couple of easy steps. Seriously, it could get easier then this! The Power Connector and USB Cable, which was supplied, connect up in seconds to the Enclosure which offers a screwless design so after a couple of snaps the Drive is in place. Viola!

Pricing is great on this Enclosure system and it really looks pretty good on the Desktop. Users can opt for a USB 3.0 connection or go for the current standard USB 2.0. If you decide on the USB 3.0, you are backwards compatible with the USB 2.0 and USB 1.0 designs. You’ll need a USB 3.0 to get that full speed or you can purchase a USB 3.0 Expansion Card which can be placed in an available PCI Express Port and connected to an available Power Connector.

We like the Sturdy Design, Ease of Access and Side Mounted Fan on the Unit. Listen in to our interview with Wilson Tang of Azio at http://www.techtalkradio.com/hardware/azio.html You can also view photos of our tester unit on the page.

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SteelSeries helps gain the advantage in Gaming

Bruce Hawver talked with Andy Taylor of TechtalkRadio
Brcue talks with Andy Taylor of TechtalkRadio

I talked yesterday with SteelSeries CEO Bruce Hawver about some of the products we will be seeing this holiday season from SteelSeries. It’s not the first time Bruce has been on our show and certainly won’t be the last. Since the previous discussion with Bruce, the company has expanded it’s product line to include more branded gaming items, eyewear to combat eye strain and fatigue and a new way to pay for the products you would like to get.

With the upcoming season, it is expected that peripherals will make up a huge portion of the gift buying. While many look to add USB Web cams and storage, SteelSeries knows that gamers want the products they make. Over the years we have looked at many of these products including Headsets, Gaming Mice and the very cool Merc Stealth keyboard produced by Ideazon which SteelSeries acquired. Some of the new product from SteelSeries include headsets with removable ear cups, connector cords which can be disconnected and put away and even a few with USB connections. For the gamer that likes to be part of the conversation, a variety of the headsets include microphones that collapse inside the ear cups. This is valuable considering the few different headsets we’ve looked at from other vendors with microphones that detach could be at risk of losing the microphone piece. Even the Console game can benefit with the SteelSeries latest Spectrum 5XB for the Xbox360.

The gaming mice products from SteelSeries are a must have for fans of World of Warcraft. The latest product branded with Blizzards MMO title, is the World of Warcraft Cataclysm MMO Gaming Mouse. This peripheral features the ability to bind all 14 buttons to the in game selections for WoW as well as advanced illumination and drag and drop setup with over 130 preset game commands. The Mouse is beefier and almost looks as though it would come from the World of Warcraft! If you’re not the big WoW fan, you could also get into intense combat with the Medal of Honor branded products or Starcraft II to name a few.

SteelSeries has also partnered with the folks at PaynearMe which allows shoppers to select a product for purchase on the SteelSeries website and visit a local participating 7-Eleven to have the payment processed. This can come in handy when a credit card is not available or the buyer wants to pay with cash.

Check out our Interview with SteelSeries CEO Bruce Hawver and be sure to take a look at the SteelSeries Website for a full look at the products the company offers. Our interview can be found at http://www.techtalkradio.com/hardware/steelseries.html You can also get some great information and updates on the Unofficial Official Blog for SteelSeries at http://fragyou.net