{"id":2853,"date":"2012-03-04T19:27:09","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T03:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/wordpress\/?p=2853"},"modified":"2024-12-14T21:35:01","modified_gmt":"2024-12-15T05:35:01","slug":"356-csun-disability-expo-hp-folio-13-windows-8-customer-preview-apps-gone-free-abiseee-eyepal-reader-future-of-osx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/356-csun-disability-expo-hp-folio-13-windows-8-customer-preview-apps-gone-free-abiseee-eyepal-reader-future-of-osx\/","title":{"rendered":"#356 CSUN Disability Expo, HP Folio 13, Windows 8 Customer Preview, Apps Gone free, ABiSEee EyePal Reader, Future of OSX"},"content":{"rendered":"

CSUN Persons With Disabilities Expo<\/a>, Hype 1.5 update to last week’s review from tumultco.com<\/a>. HP Folio 13 Review from hp.com<\/a> compared to the current Macbook Air from Apple. More Windows fun with a first look at Windows 8 Consumer Preview from windows.microsoft.com<\/a>. Knightwise gives us a review of Apps Gone Free from the iTunes store<\/a>. Eyepal Reader from ABiSee at abisee.com<\/a>. In Chit Chat Across the Pond Guy Serle from mymac.com<\/a> and I talk about the future of OSX.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/nosillacast\/NC_2012_03_04.mp3<\/a><\/audio>
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\nHi this is Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast Mac Podcast, hosted at Podfeet.com, a technology geek podcast with an EVER so slight Macintosh bias. Today is Sunday March 4th, 2012 and this is show number 356. This has been a big tech adventure week, I’d better dig into it. I often think I won’t have enough tech content but then something ALWAYS comes up! This week I went to the CSUN Persons With Disabilities Expo<\/a> and it was SUCH a blast. After six years I FINALLY got to meet up with Darrell Shandrow<\/a> of the Blind Access Journal Podcast<\/a> again. He and Allison Hilliker<\/a> do the show together and I finally got to met her! We had a great time on the exhibit hall floor and we even took a break for them to chat with me about how I got mixed up in all this disability tech fun. I blame it all on Darrell – he was the first blind person I met outside of my own family. I’m not sure the show is posted yet, but check out the Blind Access Journal at blindaccessjournal.com<\/a>. I did a video interview with Allison because I wanted to see her Braille display for her iPhone. I’ve always wondered what they look like and how they work, I love learning about the tools for accessibility, they’re fascinating. We don’t have the video of Allison’s Braille display ready yet but we will by next week. <\/p>\n

I was also thrilled to meet Kevin Chao<\/a> with whom I’ve been emailing and tweeting for ages. I think I need to get him on the show soon because he’s got a lot of experience in the development community and I bet I’d learn a lot from him – just hanging with him for about an hour on the show floor I learned a lot! I also ran into Lore Schindler, my friend who teaches blind children in the LA Unified school district. I wish we’d had more time together, it was almost a fly-by!<\/p>\n

The exhibit hall was awesome – really about a day’s worth of entertainment, and since that’s exactly how much time I had it was perfect. I did SEVEN recordings, all just with my iPhone because I didn’t have my trusted videographer at my side. I had no idea I would be able to go when I started writing up this week’s show, so I’d already written up a lot of content I wanted to tell you about. I’ll have to sprinkle these interviews out over the next few weeks. I love having too much to talk about! Back to our original programming and I’ll give you one interview from the CSUN Disability Expo later on.<\/p>\n

Hype<\/h3>\n

Last week I gave you a review of Hype from Tumult Company, the drag and drop HTML5 creating application. They had just released a brand new version 1.5, so I based my review on that. I had one problem with the software, that there was no longer a button to add keyframes, that you had to use the recorder to do everything. I wrote to the developers to find out if it was a bug or a design decision, because I couldn’t see how you could be very efficient without adding keyframes at will. Luckily it WAS a design decision but what I didn’t realize is that they improved it. With the new version of the software you can actually add keyframes by property now, so it’s much easier to add effects (like opacity, rotation, etc) and add their own timeline keyframes. Jonathan (one of the developers) showed me how it works by sending me a link to a video they produced showing 25 new features in 10 minutes. I put a link in the show notes to the video<\/a> so you can see all the new features.<\/p>\n

I’m really glad he sent it along because he showed SO many cool features I hadn’t discovered! In particular I was thrilled that you can now zoom in to view things better, you can copy objects AND their animations to another scene, you can group elements (my favorite new feature), you can even lock items so when you’re grabbing other things they don’t get moved.<\/p>\n

Overall the folks over at Tumult have taken a wicked cool application and made it so much better with the new version. Check it out over at tumultco.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HP Folio 13 Review<\/h3>\n

So I appear to have a slight Macintosh bias, but I do try to keep an open mind. HP has been a good company over the years, known for making quality hardware and I’ve always loved their printers. One time I strayed away from HP printers, and bought an Epson, and it was the 2nd worst piece of tech I’ve ever used (the Blackberry Storm will go down in history as the very worst of course). Because of that I’ve had a soft spot in my head for HP ever since.<\/p>\n

I also find it fascinating how Apple keeps defining categories. the MP3 player, the smart phone, the tablet\u2026and it looks like they’re defining yet another category, which the other manufacturers are calling the UltraBook, started by the Macbook Air. HP has a model called the Folio 13 that is obviously targeted squarely at the Macbook Air. I got my hands on one to give it a spin. I like that they reused the name Folio – when they bought Palm they evidently got custody of that name. I bet you don’t remember the Folio, it was debuted at All Things D quite a few years ago. It was this weird companion device that you’d plug a Treo into that would give you a big screen and keyboard so you could type email. Sort of like a Blackberry Playbook but not as good. <\/p>\n

Let’s do a feature and cost comparison of the HP Folio 13 against a 13″ Macbook Air:<\/p>\n