You might remember when I mentioned the CyberPower TRVL918 during a recent Dot Com Pho episode. It is a direct competitor to a very similar product from Belkin. The TRVL918 is a travel surge protector that provides a few useful functions. First, it’s a surge protector, saving your electronics from unexpected damage. Second, it is a power strip, giving you three standard outlets for your various technological gear. Third, it is a USB charger, offering two USB charging ports for whatever you have that charges via USB.

Rated at 918 joules (hence the name, the CyberPower TRVL918 is roughly brick-shaped and should fit in your usual gadget bag when you go traveling. It helps that the wall plug folds right into the unit itself, so you don’t have errant prongs damaging your other equipment. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the folding wall plug doesn’t sit all the way at one end of the TRVL918. It’s indented somewhat, so when you plug it into the wall, it effectively blocks two outlets. I was able to get it to fit so that the one outlet was still available for a two-prong (non-grounded) plug, but your mileage will certainly vary. It still does the job, but you may lose an extra outlet in the process.

Thankfully, you still get three regular power outlets, plus two USB charging ports. I scoured the web for more information on the amperage of these USB ports, but I could not find a definitive answer.

As such, I can’t say for certain whether the CyberPower TRVL918 can be used to charge higher-draw devices like the Apple iPad 2 without having to use the specialized charger though a regular wall outlet. I can report, though, that both USB ports were able to provide enough power to charge both my Palm Pre 2 and my Samsung Galaxy S.

I would have liked to see any additional standard outlet at the end, given the relative bulk of the TRVL918, but it was still perfectly adequate thanks to those USB charging ports.

No, this isn’t exactly the most exciting piece of technology you’ll carry in your gadget travel bag, but it could prove to be one of the most useful. The build quality is good, the dual USB ports are handy, and the folding prongs make packing a breeze.

The CyberPower TRVL918 travel surge protector can be found on Amazon for $18.65. For my part, it was twenty bucks well spent.

So, the tradition continues here on BTR. I’ve been giving away my CES swag for a while now, and this year is no exception. A big difference this year is a push toward video by many of the media outlets on the web, including MEGATechNews. As such, I’ve decided to take a similar spin with my CES swag bag giveaway.

Here’s the official contest video:

What Can I Win?

In case you can’t figure it out from the picture at the top of this post and the video embedded above this paragraph, I’ve put together quite the eclectic batch of CES swag for one lucky reader.

The giveaway consists of a Zotac baseball cap, a calendar from Cooler Master, a pair of Cooler Master cufflinks, a Cooler Master notebook, a Toshiba notepad and pen, some MakerBot stickers, iBuyPower sticky notes, an ADATA pen, an AMD wristband USB flash drive, a Cherpie massager, an Ice Dragon canvas bag, a Coby shopping bag, an NZXT blinky cube, and a Speck iPod touch case.

I’ll let you figure out the total value.

How Do I Enter?

There are two steps to enter this giveaway:

1. Subscribe to my YouTube channel (nte604).
2. Leave a comment on the contest video page.

For a bonus entry, tweet out a link to either this blog post or the video page, including the hashtag “#mkswag” so I can find it. It’d be helpful if you included a link to your tweet in a comment here, just to be sure.

Who Is Eligible?

The contest is open to anyone in the world with reasonable access to postal service. Bear in mind that international shipments will take longer, so you’ll need to be patient if you happen to be the winner. I also reserve the right to veto a win for any reason.

When Does the Contest Close?

The CES 2012 swag giveaway opens right now and entries close at the end of the month. That means you have until January 31, 2012 to enter and I’ll announce the winner on this blog the following day on February 1, 2012.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask through the comment section below. Good luck and let the winning begin!

“Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.”

The above quote from Amazon founder, president and CEO Jeff Bezos is probably even truer today than it was in previous generations.

Technology is constantly evolving, moving forward at a breakneck pace. If you simply follow what other people are doing, chasing after that same gold nugget, you’ll quickly realize that there are no more nuggets to be found by the time you get there. This is why it is more important than ever to lead the pack.

You could argue that Steve Jobs had much the same mentality. Sure, Apple borrowed more than a few ideas from competitors, but it was able to reshape them in new and interesting ways. Consumers and investors alike got increasingly interested and the perceived value of Apple and its products rose accordingly.

Innovation wins. It’s not so much about winning the game as it is about changing the game. Or playing a different game altogether. Jeffrey Preston Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, arguably making e-commerce and online shopping into what it is today. They went on to create the Kindle, popularizing the idea of having an e-reader with an e-ink display. More recently, they changed the game again by offering the very affordably priced Kindle Fire. Tablets don’t have to be expensive.

Yes, you want to be resilient. You want to be tough and you want to be persistent, but you also have to recognize that there are many more rewards to be had by heading in a different direction altogether. Professional and financial success is not dictated by an end destination. Instead, it’s about the journey.

It was Bill Gates who told us that there is no finish line at all. Put another way, Bezos once said that “what’s dangerous is not to evolve.” What are you doing differently? How are you asking new questions and capitalizing on new opportunities?

Thank goodness that the Internet is open. After all, it is because of the world wide web that I got into the business of freelance writing in the first place and I’m not entirely sure what I would do without it. And it is with that line of thought that we dive into this Internet-themed speedlink!

We access the web primarily through web browsers on our computers, but not all browsers are made alike. Vance Sova offers a post from a couple months ago that compares Chrome and Firefox, including a video of a conversation we had at Dot Com Pho. The post has over 100 comments to date and continues to spark discussion. Which browser do you use?

I’m glad that I own MichaelKwan.com, just as I’m sure the respective owners of JohnChow.com and StephenFung.com are pretty glad about that. But what do you do when YourName.com is already taken? That’s a question posed and answered by one Zac Johnson on Blogging Tips. Depending on your name, this can be a relatively inexpensive to a very pricey endeavor.

A very common writing tip is to write the way you speak. Taylor Lindstrom disagrees, saying that it is very foolish advice. While it is mostly true that everyone can talk, not everyone can talk well. As such, you should only write the way you talk “if you can speak persuasively, eloquently, and clearly.” Skip the filler and choose your words carefully.

Even with personal blogs, it’s sometimes nice to get a different voice in there from time to time. However, as Damien Riley warns, watch out for unsolicited guest bloggers. It’s typical to trade “free” content for a backlink, but not all of these guest bloggers are being completely honest with you. They might be getting paid to write that content by a third-party advertiser and you’re not going to see a dime of that money.

And finally, the SOPA hearings are set to resume today, as reported by Persian Poetess. SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) is a bill that could give corporations and other organizations more power to file complaints of copyright infringement, even when such a violation may not really have taken place. I’ve written about DMCA notifications in the past, but SOPA can take those rules to a whole new level.

Want to be featured in a future speedlink on Beyond the Rhetoric? I do one every Wednesday, so stay tuned to my Twitter for the call-out for submissions.

When you go shopping for a new computer, you usually go through quite a research process. You take a look at the specs. You have a look at the build quality. You consider the layout of the features. The same is true when buying cameras, cars, and other other bigger ticket item… but what about smaller accessories?

Memory cards are one of those items where most people don’t give much thought. They see them as simple commodities. They see them as all being roughly the same, but that’s not really true. I was offered a couple of SHDC cards from Samsung to do a product review, but I’d like to also discuss the topic of buying memory cards in general.

What Sets Them Apart?

Let’s start with the Samsung cards. I got an 8GB SDHC card and an 8GB microSDHC card, the former of which is a Class 4 while the latter is a Class 6.

By and large, they look like most other SD and microSD cards, except I do notice that the “lock” switch on the SDHC card is highlighted in blue here. That’s both good and bad, depending on your preference. I also found the textured finish to be a little refreshing, compared to the usually plasticky smooth finish of memory cards.

We’ve heard of rugged electronics that are better designed to withstand the elements, but it’s also important to remember that your accessories are equally tough. This is one thing that helps to set these cards apart from the rest: they’re designed to be waterproof, shockproof, and magnet-proof.

I usually carry a couple spare memory cards in my camera bag and that was the case for my trip to Australia too. The Samsung card served me for about half of the holiday.

Have the Need for Speed?

There are many considerations at play here, particularly if your digital camera (or whatever other device) is finicky with memory. One is compatibility, so it’s best to do a little poking around on the Internet to see if your camera has any compatibility issues with certain brands of cards. Another is reliability, since you don’t want to have your cards fail in the middle of a shooting session.

The third is speed. I ran the 8GB SDHC card through CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1b using the default settings and got the results shown here:

Without geeking out too much, you can see that the sequential read speed is about 4.8MB/s while the write speed is about 3.6MB/s. That’s right in line with the Class 4 rating. For the average consumer, that should be sufficient for now. However, if you are using a SLR and shooting in RAW or you are using this card with a HD camcorder, a Class 4 might not cut the mustard. You might find yourself spending too much time waiting for the card to finish writing your image data and you could miss the magic shot as a result.

This is partly why I also keep a Patriot LX Series Class 10 SDHC memory card in my bag. I haven’t really experienced the need for that kind of speed just yet — I still only shoot in JPG on my Olympus E-PL1 — but it’s good to know that it’s there if I need it.

The Little Things That Matter

Just as it is prudent to do your research on tires for your car and cases for your phone, the same should be said about flash memory for your portable device. Not all SDHC cards are made alike and while most will likely be adequate, you don’t want to be the one stuck with something slow, unreliable, and overpriced.

The Internet is everywhere, except that it’s really not. There are going to be circumstances where you won’t have that pervasive access to the web and, if you’re anything like me, you may start to feel at a loss. It’s like suddenly being without a limb. Thankfully, there are offline equivalents or suitable alternatives to some of your favorite online tools.

Sure, you could say that snail mail is an offline equivalent to e-mail and shouting outside of your balcony is equivealent to Twitter, but that’s not entirely fair. At the same time, just because I’m saying that these are suitable offline equivalents does not mean that they are going to bring you back to the age of using a stone club to acquire your supper.

Let’s have a look.

Instead of WordPress…

I blog six times a week here on Beyond the Rhetoric, but I don’t necessarily do all of that from an “online” standpoint. In the case of my trip in Australia, for instance, my Internet access has not been nearly as omnipresent as it is back home. At the same time, I wanted to be able to maintain my same blogging schedule.

So while I still need access to the web to finally publish my posts, I don’t need to compose them there. For that, I use Notepad on my Windows-based laptop. It’s simple, keeps the text simple, and encourages me to stay focused on the text itself. I could use other word processors, but they sometimes insert superfluous characters or ones that don’t play nice with raw HTML.

Instead of Google Maps…

To figure out how to get to where I need to go, I usually do my pre-research with Google Maps on my computer. There is also the Google Maps app for my smartphone. However, neither of these store the actual map information locally, so you need ongoing access to the Internet to use them at all.

And that’s why I turn to my trusty Garmin GPS device. It already has the maps and doesn’t need web access to look for points of interest or point me in the right direction. When I rented (“hired”) a car here in Australia, I also reserved a temporary GPS device to go with the vehicle. Without it, there is a very good chance I would’ve gotten lost.

Instead of TripAdvisor…

Continuing with the theme of travel, particularly in foreign countries, I make fair use of sites like TripAdvisor and Urbanspoon and so on to get suitable advice about what to do, where to say, where to eat, and so forth. Again, these useful online communities need online access.

No, they may not be quite as crowd-sourced and may not be quite as current, but regular book-based travel guides can be infinitely useful in this regard. Examples include the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide series, both of which are typically available from your local public library. I have a couple of these with me on my Australia trip.

I Still Want the Internet

Is it an addiction? Perhaps. This is much the same kind of argument as saying that I am addicted to watching high-def television, driving around town, or having a mobile phone. These are all integral parts of my modern lifestyle and the Internet is perhaps even more powerful in that regard. Even so, we all need to find ways to survive and maintain our ways of life without the web, even if only in the short term.

You may not always have Google Docs at your fingertips (Google Gears can help), but you can have similar functionality with something like OpenOffice if you don’t want to buy Microsoft Office. You may not always have Google News, but you do have regular newspapers and 24 hour news networks. There are options.

For better or for worse, I have a really hard time disconnecting from the matrix. The Internet is at once the source of my livelihood and a major component to my daily lifestyle. And so, before heading across the Pacific Ocean to Australia, I did a little bit of research about getting a prepaid plan for my unlocked smartphone.

Weighing the options, I ended up choosing Telstra, one of the biggest cell phone (or “mobile” phone, if you prefer) providers in Australia. This decision came mostly because I heard that Telstra provided the best reception and service in less populated areas, whereas a provider like Virgin Australia was more suited to the cities. Since I spent five days in the Northern Territory, Telstra seemed like a sound choice.

Has it worked out? Allow me to share my tale.

It Starts With the Plan

Like most other carriers, Telstra has several prepaid plans available. The Cap Encore, which I chose, currently comes with a free bonus 500MB of wireless data when you add $30. That’s in addition to a few other bells and whistles, but I was mostly interested in the data. So, I went with that.

Getting the SIM Card

In Canada, buying just the SIM card isn’t nearly as cheap as it should be. Carriers can charge $25 or more for just the SIM. Thankfully, Australia is not at all like that. The Telstra prepaid SIM card on its own is just $2. There is also a $30 prepaid starter kit that includes the SIM, but it does not qualify for the bonus I described above.

Going to the Cairns Central shopping centre, I visited the Telstra store on my first day. It’s set up much like an Apple Store, both in look and operation. Upon arrival, I was greeted by someone who added me to the waiting list to see a genius prepaid specialist. After waiting nearly half an hour, I was told that they were sold out of the $2 SIM cards. Great. I was then told that I could go to the Target store in the same mall to get it. So, I did.

Buying the SIM card from Target was easy enough, but the sales associate need my ID to fill out a form. I was then told that I could activate the SIM online or over the phone. Being the techie that I am (and seeing how my hotel had free Wi-Fi), the online activation sounded like the way to go.

Activating My Prepaid Account

So far, so good, right? Well, this is where things starting to get awfully sticky.

When I tried to activate the SIM card on the Telstra website, it would not allow me to enter a non-Australian mailing address. This forced me to phone into the Telstra customer service line. Using the phone in the hotel room, I called in, jumped through the usual hoops, and was told that the activation could take up to 24 hours to take effect “though it usually happens straight away.”

I waited 24 hours. And the entire time, my phone told me that I had an “unregistered SIM.” I called again. The service representative said that the first activation provided an undefined “error” and that she would have to start the activation process again. And it could take another 24 hours, though it should activate “straight away” or “in the next five to ten minutes.” Guess what? After 48 hours, I still had nothing.

In the interim, I got in contact with the Telstra Twitter account (interacting mostly with a bloke named Dylan) to tell him about the situation. He tried what he could, but ultimately got nowhere.

After going back and forth with customer service, one rep eventually said that it may be a faulty SIM card and that I should go into a Telstra store to get a free replacement. Great. Just great. And this was on my last day in Cairns before heading into the middle of the Outback for five days.

The In-Store Activation

Going through the same process again, I waited another 30-40 minutes to speak to an “expert” in the store. And then we went another 45 minutes trying to figure out what went wrong. They tried swapping for another SIM, which didn’t work.

Eventually, the in-store rep activated a brand new account with a brand new SIM. The kicker is that the activation on this new SIM was instant. My phone recognized it and connected to the Telstra network straight away. I went through the basic menu system to add $30 using my credit card and was off on my merry little way.

The Take Home Lesson

It seems that no matter where you are in the world, the wireless telecommunications industry has a bad reputation for a reason. I’ve had my fair share of less than desirable experiences with both Canadian and American wireless providers, and it seems that the Land Down Under is not immune to this.

Yes, Dylan from the Telstra Social Media Team was kind and courteous, but that didn’t help to get my phone up and operational. The people on the phone-based customer service line were not as friendly and even less helpful. The associates in the store eventually got it going, but that took three visits too. I am glad that it got working before heading into the Outback (where it was my only connection back to the world at large… and only intermittently).

The irony is that if the first activation did really happen “straight away,” I probably wouldn’t have written this blog post. It does make me wonder if it really was a faulty SIM and also if my experience would have been any better with Virgin, Optus, or whoever else.

While I was down in Portland, I did a little random shopping and somehow ended up buying the Garmin nüvi 1390LMT. It’s not that I really needed a new portable GPS navigator, but I convinced myself that this unit (at the price that I paid) was worth buying.

You see, up until then, I had been using my old Garmin nuvi 250. I bought that nearly four years ago. The maps are severely outdated, particularly when it comes to points of interest and newer developments. The familiarity with the Garmin interface had me leaning toward getting another Garmin, but there were other reasons why I got this too.

Free Lifetime Map Updates

Not every GPS navigator on the market today includes this invaluable feature. As mentioned above, my old nuvi 250 had very outdated maps, making it sometimes less than useful on my trips. Buying new maps costs almost as much as buying a new GPS device altogether. With lifetime maps (updated four times a year by Garmin), I don’t have to worry about upgrading for quite some time… assuming they stay in business.

Subscription Free Traffic Alerts

Navigation is one thing, but finding the optimal route is another thing altogether. The nuvi 1390LMT also comes with free real-time traffic alerts, helping me avoid the bumper-to-bumper gridlock that can sometimes occur. I haven’t used this feature yet, but it’s good to know that it’s there.

Lane Assist and Junction View

My old nuvi 250 didn’t even speak the road names, but this nuvi 1390LMT does. It was an expensive feature at the time, but it’s become standard. Helping the navigation experience even further are these two additional features.

Lane assist helps you get into the right lane well ahead of time. That way, you don’t have to frantically cut across several lanes of traffic to make that right turn. You can see that in the top-left corner of the photo at the top of this post. When it comes to complex highway crossings, the “junction view” depicted here is very helpful too. From what I remember, it displays an actual photo!

No Need for Wireless Data

When researching routes from the comfort of my home, I use Google Maps. Even when I’m on the road, I’m more inclined to whip out my Android phone and use the corresponding app. However, the app uses a lot of smartphone data. I’ve scaled my cell phone plan down to save some money, so it’s good to know that I can rely on the Garmin for navigation without using data.

This is particularly true when I am traveling in the United States. I don’t want to use roaming data on my Canadian phone and my American prepaid phone plan isn’t necessarily the cheapest option when it comes to wireless data either.

The Little Extras

Many people will tell you that the standalone GPS navigation device has gone the way of the dinosaur thanks to the rise of the smartphone. There is some truth to that, to an extent, but I feel that having a separate GPS navigator still has its value. And I’m happy with the Garmin nüvi 1390LMT.

Added bonuses like Bluetooth connectivity and ecoRoute are nice. I also like how the speed limit is clearly displayed on the lower-right corner next to your current speed, just in case you’re driving along an unfamiliar highway. The only downside is that the Garmin nuvi 1390LMT only comes with North American maps. International maps would come in handy during this Aussie trip.

The Internet is filled with endless supplies of information (and misinformation) and it can be difficult to filter out the bits that you need. You could use a series of Google search tricks, but it’s also important to keep other online tools (and reference sites) in your toolbox too. And so, I thought I’d share a few that I use on a fairly regular basis.

Naturally, there are many others that you can use too. Wikipedia is great, for example, as is Dictionary.com. This doesn’t include social networks and media management sites that I use too. In any case, here are five great reference websites and online tools that I use for my freelance writing business.

Howjsay.com
The Grammar 101 series on this blog can help to clarify some of common confusions when it comes to word choice, but sometimes you’ll encounter a word in print that you have no idea how to say. And that’s where you would want to use Howjsay.com. You can type in just about any English word (and even some non-English words that are making their way into our vernacular) and it’ll pronounce it for you as a streaming audio file. Dictionary.com does this too, but Howjsay.com is much more purpose built and streamlined for its intended purpose.

Cut & Paste Word Count
Yes, I realize that WordPress has a built-in word count as part of the “edit post” utility, but sometimes I still want a separate tool for counting the words in a document. The Javascript tool is lightweight and is faster to use than a conventional word processor, especially since I do most of my writing in Notepad.

GSM Arena
A big part of my writing surrounds the consumer electronics industry, particularly when it comes to smartphones and tablets. There are so many different models and variations out there, it can be difficult to remember the precise difference between Galaxy S II and Galaxy S II Skyrocket, for example. GSM Arena has a huge catalog of phones with all of their most important specs, including the ability to compare multiple models. There are even a few CDMA phones in there.

XE.com
Shifts in the currency exchange are outside of my control, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to know about them. There is an automatic currency converter built into Google, but XE.com is great for checking up on multiple currencies. The historical rates on Yahoo Finance are pretty useful too.

10 Minute Mail
Sometimes, you need to enter an e-mail address in order to access a site or use a certain service. You could have a “junk” address set up here or there, but the service offered by 10 Minute Mail could be even more convenient. It does exactly what you think it does: you get a temporary e-mail address that automatically expires in 10 minutes. You get a fully functional inbox during that period so you can “confirm” whatever it is you need to confirm.

Do you have a favorite online reference site or tool?

Everyone is getting hacked these days. Sony had their servers hacked. Regular people get their bank accounts hijacked. That’s why it is so important that you do everything that you can to keep yourself safe. And if you’re anything like me, that means protecting your Google account and Google 2-step verification is one way to do that.

I’ve admitted in the past that Google dominates my life. If someone is able to gain access to your Google account, it means that the hacker now gets into your Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Plus, and even your YouTube account. Worse yet, you might not even know that your Google account has been compromised.

So, what is Google 2-step verification? Basically, it sets up another layer of security for your Google account by getting you to verify your identity every time you use a new computer or new device to access your G-content. This also allows you to still re-gain access to your Google account should the username and password get hijacked by hackers. You can re-claim it.

How do you setup Google 2-step verification? First, you’ll need to log into your Google account and head over to the Google account management page. That’s when you’ll see what’s shown in the screenshot above. It is also here that you can see what Google products are currently a part of your account (scroll down that page to see it).

Under personal settings, the first heading is security. The third link in that section is “Using 2-step verification.” I’ve highlighted it with a red arrow above. Click on that.

That will bring you to this page. I already have 2-step verification turned on, but you will find a button or link asking if you would like to activate this feature. Click that to start the verification process.

With Google 2-step verification, you will need to have a phone. A cell phone is preferable, since you always have it on you, but a landline works too. It will ask you to verify either by an automated voice call or with a text message. This code must then be entered on the appropriate webpage and you’ll need to re-login to your Google account.

It also asks for a backup phone number, just in case you don’t have your primary one. This is important, since you need to verify every new device (laptop, smartphone, tablet, etc.) that accesses your Google account. You also get printable backup codes for when you don’t have access to either phone. These codes can be used only once and they are really only for emergencies; they can be regenerated at will, but when you get new codes, all the old codes automatically expire.

Some products can’t use the 2-step verification process properly, like connecting your Android phone to your Google account. This is where you set up application-specific passwords that are entered just once, granting access to that device or application. You can revoke access to these at any time.

The whole process of setting up Google 2-step verification takes about ten minutes, plus the time that you’ll need to invest to “connect” each of your various devices and computers. This is an extra hassle, but it sure makes it harder for hackers to gain access to your account. Unless they steal your physical laptop or smartphone, you should be reasonably safe.

Google has a help page for 2-step verification, in case you need any further guidance. They also have this handy tutorial video.

I can’t imagine Facebook or Twitter implementing a similar level of added security, so maybe this is another huge plus for Google Plus. Either way, before traveling abroad, it’s probably a good idea to connect your trusted devices to your Google account first. This way, you don’t have to fumble with the verification process while roaming on a foreign network.