Business cards are a fact of life. But filing them and being able to find the right card quickly is a major hassle. For the last few weeks I've been scoping out a business card scanner but the cost is, in my view, prohibitively high given that it's a piece of hardware that I'm only likely to use a few times a year.

Most scanners come with some software that performs optical character recognition, or OCR, on cards and then uses the text to populate a new entry in your address book. CardSnap turns your iPhone into a business card scanner. Rather than loading all the OCR onto the iPhone, CardSnap lets you photograph a business card. Once you've checked that the image is OK you send the card up to an online service where the OCR is performed. A couple of hours later, the scanned card comes back and you review the result of the OCR.

I put CardSnap through its paces by scanning a pile of 80 cards. Each card was photographed with my iPhone 3GS. It's worth noting that this app relies on the 3GS's superior camera. If you've only got a first generation iPhone or a 3G then you'll need to shell out for Griffin's Clarifi iPhone case as CardSnap relies on a decent camera to get the best result from the OCR.

Once a card is photographed it goes into a queue that you can view using the "Cards" button. From submission to return it takes about 24 hours although we received some cards within a couple of hours.

The OCR process was quite accurate although we did encounter some problems. For example, where the business card didn't have a country on the address the software populated the field with United States. I'd prefer to have an option to set the default country. Also, when an address had a dash or slash in it, like 2-4 Smith Road, the dash or slash was omitted.

Once a card comes back from OCR processing, it's important to review the card. As the photo of the card is retained this is reasonably easy although having a way to review the card and see the photo at the same time would make that much easier.

As well as testing CardSnap with a batch of cards we've used it at meetings to quickly capture the cards of other people. It works well - there's lots of "cool" factor when you do this - although it does mean that my meeting trick of arranging cards in front of me on the table so I don;t forget names is not longer practical as I don't keep the cards any more.

At $9.99USD ($12.99AUD) CardSnap is much cheaper and more portable than a business card scanner. It works quite well and the OCR accuracy is over 90%. The daly between scanning and receiving the result is annoying but given that I'd probably not carry a scanner to every meeting it doesn't make the actual workflow any slower.

If you collect lots of business cards and lack the time or discipline to enter all the details into your contact list then CardSnap is excellent value.

The new MacBook Pros, released in June, are the first Macs to ship with a SD slot. Although the slot is ostensibly for making it easy to get photos from your camera to iPhoto, it's also a bootable drive. You can install OS X to an SD card (32GB cards sell for around $130AUD). That makes it part of a viable backup and system recovery strategy.

With a pair of 32GB cards most of us could have a bootable disk with a core set of applications (including SuperDuper for rebuilding a broken system) and a backup of key data (maintained with Time Machine).

Even the most ardent Apple supporter would consider this ridiculous. When the iPhone, running Version 3.0, is connected to a Bluetooth speaker, like the neat little Sony Ericsson MBS-100 I'm playing with, there is no way to control the volume. The speaker lacks a volume control and Apple has chosen to not support controlling the volume with the A2DP Bluetooth Profile.

I guess that in one respect there is a volume control - the on and off switch - but to not be able to change the volume from the iPhone is a royal pain in the butt. Apple is working, as far as I can tell, within the A2DP specification (you can read it here) but are offering little other than the bare minimum.

Roll on iPhone 3.0.1

In today's Green Guide, the IT and TV supplement in Australia's best daily news paper - The Age, I have a story on creating your own website.

Titled, "Mastering your own Domain" it tells you about such technological wonders as DNS, IP Addresses, domain registrars and webservers.

You can read all about it by clicking here.

I'm not going to say anything. Just watch this an be totally amazed.

We don't often think about routers as being computers but they actually are. They have memory, processors and run an operating system. That operating system typically takes that comes into one port (usually the port labelled as "WAN") and routes to the other, numbered ports. All of this requires some smarts so that the traffic comes and goes between the correct LAN ports. That's what the router software manages.

Router software does a bunch of other stuff like manage communications standards, provide a firewall, keep all your wireless traffic protected by implementing encryption and a whole bunch of other stuff.

The Problem

My LAN is not the usual home setup with a single router. As you'd know from the story of how I built my office I require two routers so that both the house and office have wired and wireless LAN access.

The first Linksys WRT310N has been running in the house for some time. It's connected to the cable modem and has worked flawlessly. I reviewed this unit for APC a while ago and I reckon it's a great router.

Until recently, I'd been using a Belkin N1 Vision. It's been OK but I find that it loses wireless connectivity from time to time. Also, I found that some of my shared devices, like my Thecus NAS became invisible unless I restarted the N1 Vision. I've updated the firmware but every week or so the router needed to be restarted. Incidentally, the reason I stuck with the N1 Vision was that it was super easy to use as a second router. It had a single checkbox that converted it from a router to an access point.

When setting up a LAN with two routers you can do one of two things; run each router as a seperate LAN or create one LAN that uses both devices. If you run them as two LANs it makes the job of sharing resources like printers and files far trickier. A single LAN is usually easier to use but you need to make sure that either you have only one DHCP server (a DHCP server gives each device on the LAN it's own unique address), set up both routers to use DHCP but with non-overlapping address ranges or use manual addressing for each device on the LAN (not impossible but a pain to maintain).

I decided that I wanted to use my original WRT310N as a true router, doing DHCP, and the second router configured to just act as an access point, with no intelligence.

The problem was that short of a bunch of complex manual configuration the second WRT310N couldn't be set up as a simple access point. That's what lead me to DD-WRT.

The Solution

My buddy Wayne is a full on Linux user and loves using open source solutions whenever he can find them. He put me on to DD-WRT some time ago.

According to the DD-WRT wiki:

DD-WRT is a third party developed firmware released under the terms of the GPL for many ieee802.11a/b/g/h/n wireless routers based on a Broadcom or Atheros chip reference design.

Installation was dead simple. All I needed to do was download the firmware and then use the default Linksys firmware to update the router's firmware with DD-WRT. There's a compatibility list so you can check if your router can be given the DD-WRT treatment. The whole process took just a few minutes.

What you find is that the DD-WRT does everything that the original Linksys firmware does. However, it adds a a whole bunch of other options.

For example, making the WRT310N into a simple access point and disabling its routing capability only required that I set a couple options. In my case I simply set the Internet connection to "Disabled" (I know that's counterintuitive but it works), give the router a new IP address (so that it's not the same as the main router), disable the DHCP server and then set the WAN port to take the incoming connection from the main router.

A full list of all DD-WRT's features can be found here.

Once all that was set, I restarted the router (following the instructions) and tested basic connectivity. I was able to connect to the Internet and see resources on my LAN. I then set up wireless with WPA2 and my preferred SSID so that wireless was secured. Another restart and I confirmed that all was working perfectly.

Conclusions

Ultimately, my decision to look at alternate firmware for the WRT310N was driven by the lack of a specific function in my router - a simple way to make the router into an access point. Many people tend to equate free software with poor quality.

DD-WRT is a great example of open source software and how free doesn't have to equal junk. DD-WRT takes a great product, the Linksys WRT310N, and expands its functionality significantly.

Let's face it - today's lounge room is far more complex than our parent's. Between the high-tech TV, Hi Fi system Home Theatre gear, DVD player, VCR and Media Centre PC we're all drowning in a sea of complexity and remote controls.

That's where the Harmony 525 Advanced Universal Remote comes in. Not only does it replace up to 15 individual remotes but it automates your lounge room by combining the operations of all those remotes.

What: Harmony 525 Advanced Universal Remote
Why buy? Easy to set up, easy to use
Why pass? LCD is a little small
Score (max 5) 4
Buy from Logitech Harmony 520 Advanced Universal Remote at Amazon [Affiliate Link]

Once I'd extricated the Harmony 525 from its packaging (no mean feat given the nature of the bubble packaging it comes in) I installed the accompanying software to my Mac. Installation was straightforward although why it insisted on a system reboot is a little beyond me. However, after the restart I launched the software and it was all good to go.

The Harmony 525 is programmed by using a database of thousands of devices that Lgitech stores online. I needed to create an account with Logitech (great, another account and password to keep) and from there I could add the various bits of hardware in my lounge to my user profile. I added at TV, DVD/VCR combo, Apple TV and home theatre system. Each component was of a different brand.

The next step was to create some macros. A macro is a collection of commands that, when executed, enable a particular activity. For example, to watch a DVD I need to turn my TV on, set the correct AV output, turn on the DVD/VCR combo and power up the home theatre system and set it to the correct audio output. In the past I needed to use three separate remotes and know what all the different outputs were to make it work. With the Logitech Harmony Remote Software, all I had to do was follw a wizard that configures the remote to all those things by pressing a single button.

I followed the wizard and created macros for watching DVDs, listening to the radio through my tuner, watching TV, playing games and using the Apple TV. I was even able to create a few macros while away from home - you don;t need the remote in order to create macros.

I then connected the Harmony 525 to my mac using the supplied USB cable. In fact, the remote even came with a fresh set of batteries in case the ones it ships with are flat from folks using its on-screen demo while it was still in the store. Having connected the remote, I simply hit the "Update Remote" button and my remote was updated.

The LCD in the top section of the unit was then labelled with four of various macros. As I'd created more than four, I can use the left and right scrolling buttons, below the screen, to scroll through my list. Pressing one of the buttons adjacent to my command automatically powered up each of my devices and set the correct out puts.

To give an indication of the quality of Logitech's database of devices, I added a new device, a Blu-Ray player and was able to set up the Harmony 525 so that I could configure the new device without ever using the original remote.

I could wax lyrical about how much easier my lounge room is to use now. Suffice it is to say that I'm a big fan of the Harmony 525 Advanced Universal Remote. It makes using the various devices in the lounge room easier and reduces the clutter by letting me operate everything from a single unit.

Another review of mine has popped up over at The Age. This one's for the Maxon Visimax.
Anyone who's had to give a visual presentation knows that carrying a projector and all of its associated bits and pieces requires a team of donkeys and a strong back. Well, Maxon has solved the problem with its Visimax projector, which fits easily into the palm of your hand.

 Maxon Visimax • projector

Yesterday, I penned a story for my weekly column on Hydrapinion on eBooks.

Why eBooks suddenly matter (to me): I've never really understood the whole eBook thing. I've tried - really, I have. I've also given audio books a go and quite like the idea of the convenience they offer. Studying requires that I read a wide variety of different references in addition to my lecture notes. This has lead me, for the first time, to establishing an electronic reference library so that I can carry my reference books with me.

By sheer coincidence, Drew Turney, who's standing in for Stephen Withers on the Mac column, also wrote a story on eBooks that's worth a look.

 eBooks

I've been a busy little bee preparing for exams and writing up a storm. Hence the lack of blogging action in recent weeks. I promise that I'll do better and be a little more disciplined after next week. I've not even been catching up with my RSS feeds as i just don't have the time at the moment.

in any case, a few more reviews of mine have popped up on APC Magazine's web site.

ASUS VW223B LCD display: dual screen without dual video cards: Although the "U" in USB stands for universal it's remained mainly focussed on storage and communications peripherals. However, ASUS turns that stereotype on its head with the VW223.

AOC Widescreen LCD Monitor 2219P2: an impressive display of wideness: AOC might be a new player in the local market, but they’re showing that they have plenty of talent when it comes to making great screens that don’t break the bank.

D-Link DNS-343 Four Bay NAS: ticks all the boxes: D-Link’s experience with network gear shows with the DNS-343.

Netgear RangeMax Wireless-N Gigabit Router (WNR3500): the router to paradise?: Netgear delivers a high-end router that gets close to networking nirvana.

Synology DS508 Disk Station: expand your storage beyond: If you’re running out of storage space with your present system, the DS508 is a ripping NAS for the home or office.

Netgear Wireless-N + Gigabit Router (WNR854T): not just a pretty face: While beauty is only skin deep, Netgear’s WNR854T ticks most of the boxes when it comes to specs and performance as well.

 AOC • DLink • Monitors • Netgear • Routers