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Todd Ogasawara

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  • Review

    Google Drive Third-Party Apps: An Introduction

    February 25, 2013

    The ability to install third party Google Drive apps only requires a supported browser and access to the Internet. This has the potential to be a truly disruptive technology for desktop platform ecosystems like Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. However, problems with the basic function of actually saving data to Google Drive by third party apps need to be addressed before widespread adoption is possible.

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  • Review

    Add Apps To Office 2013 on Windows 8/RT

    December 03, 2012

    Office 2013, especially the preview version of Office Home & Student 2013 RT that comes with the Microsoft Surface tablet, changes the model for writing add-on programs. There are now Office apps and an Office app section in the Windows Store. Many of these apps are free, but it's easy to see enterprise-oriented apps being developed and charged for. Microsoft's implementation of the apps in Office 2013 is clumsy in some ways, but promising.

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  • Review

    Surface With Windows RT: A Winner Despite Apps

    October 30, 2012

    Microsoft's Surface tablet with Windows RT is the first worthwhile post-PC device in our post-PC world. What it lacks in apps is compensated for by a near-desktop-class browser.

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  • Commentary

    iPhone 5 is Hot - Too Hot to Hold

    September 24, 2012

    The hot new phone on the market is living up to its billing. Normal use got my iPhone 5 up to 111 degrees F. At this temperature it's too hot to hold.

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  • Review

    Visual Tour: Microsoft SkyDrive For Android

    September 14, 2012

    Microsoft's long-awaited SkyDrive for Android lets users of Android devices tap into Microsoft's cloud storage service. This 1.0 release, despite a few minor weaknesses, provides a fairly good cloud storage alternative to services like Dropbox, especially if you use Microsoft Office every day.

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  • Review

    Microsoft Office Web Apps For iPad A Game Changer

    August 23, 2012

    iPad users, rejoice. Microsoft Office is finally available for the iPad. It's buggy in places and browsers aren't made to handle huge spreadsheets, but overall, Microsoft's Office Web Apps for iPad, including Web-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, rocks.

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  • Review

    Google Nexus 7: Latest Must-Have Tablet

    August 02, 2012

    Meet the Nexus 7, the first Android tablet sold directly by Google and the first to run Android 4.1, a.k.a. Jelly Bean. The 7-inch tablet is priced like an ebook reader but offers a lot more. Its low price, big screen, and impressive performance might give Apple's iPod Touch and low-end iPad a run for the money, too. Don't completely count out Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 just yet, though.

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  • Review

    HTC One X: Big Screen In Thin, Fast Phone

    August 01, 2012

    HTC's new HTC One X packages a big, beautiful screen in a thin and light phone. Although not perfect, it's a compelling smart phone we'd consider buying ourselves.

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  • Review

    Python For iOS Brings Coding To iPad, iPhone

    July 16, 2012

    Python for iOS supplies a much-needed scratch for those with an itch to write programs for the iPad or iPhone by letting you write software for the device on the device itself. The app provides a familiar interactive interpreter interface for Python programmers plus some extras that make it easy to use, especially on an iPad.

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  • Review

    Swype Android Beta Adds Dragon Speech, Handwriting Recognition

    June 25, 2012

    Nuance's Swype app offers a new winning combination for fast typing on Android devices: gestures and Dragon speech recognition, with handwriting recognition thrown in for good measure.

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  • Commentary

    Will Microsoft Buy Nokia?

    June 21, 2012

    Microsoft dropped a lot of clues at its Wednesday Windows Phone 8 announcement that it's getting close to buying Nokia. Here's what has BYTE contributor Todd Ogasawara convinced that an acquisition is in the works.

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  • Review

    SkyDrive, Windows 8 Metro-Style: A Visual Tour

    June 12, 2012

    We test drive the Windows 8 Metro final preview version of SkyDrive, Microsoft's cloud storage service.

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  • Review

    Microsoft on{X} For Android: A Visual Tour

    June 06, 2012

    Microsoft--yes, Microsoft--has a new Android programming platform called on{x} and it's great. Developed by the Microsoft R&D team in Israel, on{x} lets anyone turn an Android phone into an uber event-driven notification gadget.

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  • Review

    Diet Coda: The iPad Text Editor That Satisfies

    May 30, 2012

    Diet Coda turns iPads into Web developer productivity machines. It provides a code editor that can work with files on remote servers, code highlighting, and a keyboard that displays important additional keys depending on which programming language is used (HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and Ruby). It also includes an SSH client that provides secure remote shell access.

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  • Review

    Diet Coda: Visual Tour Of An iPad Code Editor

    May 30, 2012

    Diet Coda lets Web developers leave their notebooks at home. The $19.99 code editor for the iPad from Panic, Inc., is portable friendly, including an adaptive keyboard that tunes itself to programming languages for making it fast and easy to work with remote files.

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  • Review

    How To Collaborate Using Google Cloud Connect On Microsoft Office

    May 25, 2012

    Need a better way to collaborate? We reviewed Google Cloud Connect to see how it worked in semi real-time.

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  • Review

    Documents To Go: Terrific Office App For Android

    May 14, 2012

    Documents To Go is a workhorse app on my Android tablet. I use it for note taking during meetings as well as reviewing text documents and spreadsheets. It can open and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files without conversion and is faster and more flexible than the free Google Docs for Android app.

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  • Review

    Samsung Galaxy Tab 2: The First Must-Have Android Tablet

    May 03, 2012

    The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) doesn't cost much more than the ultra-popular Kindle Fire, yet this 7-inch tablet comes loaded with iPad-like hardware and the latest Android operating system, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich. Here's hoping the Galaxy Tab 2 launches a new breed of affordable yet capable Android tablet.

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  • Review

    Microsoft Boosts SkyDrive Software, Storage

    April 25, 2012

    SkyDrive, Windows' free personal cloud storage service, now appears as regular files and folders on Windows and Mac, just like Dropbox.

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  • Review

    Google Docs App for Android Tablets: The Ugly Truth

    April 23, 2012

    The Google Docs for Android app provides a potentially useful tool for mobile users. However, its lack of presentation creation tools, weak spreadsheet experience, and general instability reduces its potential. But wait, there's more: It's also slow.

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  • How To

    How To Create Personalized Dashboards With Android Tablet Widgets

    April 19, 2012

    Android, unlike iOS, can display on home screens widgets that update live data. The Evernote, Google Voice, Twitter, and Facebook widgets can tell you a lot without you ever having to touch the screen.

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  • Review

    Adobe Integrates EchoSign e-Signature Service Into Adobe Reader

    April 13, 2012

    Say goodbye to the hassle of printing out, signing, and faxing back documents. Adobe has integated its e-signature service, EchoSign, into Adobe Reader X for the desktop, Android, and iOS, so you can sign and return electronic documents from anywhere. The Android and iOS versions of Adobe Reader add the ability to annotate PDF documents by using highlights, strikethroughs, underlines, and sticky notes.

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  • Review

    Focus On The Lytro: A Visual Tour

    April 02, 2012

    Who hasn't been frustrated by an out-of-focus photo? The Lytro Light Field Camera might be the most revolutionary change in photography since digital came along: it lets you refocus your photos after you take them. Don't sell your old digital camera just yet, though. The Lytro has some serious drawbacks, including a fixed amount of storage. Take our quick tour of this unusual camera's features, from touchscreen to output. To experiment with the other dynamic photographs we took using the Lytro, read our full review.

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  • Review

    Lytro: The Next Big Thing In Photography

    April 02, 2012

    Light field photography can eliminate the biggest problem photographers have: out-of-focus pictures. Don't toss your digital camera just yet, though. Although a major breakthrough, the Lytro is far from perfect.

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  • Review

    Taposé's Split Screen For The iPad: A Visual Tour

    March 29, 2012

    Taposé (pronounced "tap-oh-ZAY"), a new note-taking app by Zanther, Inc., addresses a problem a lot of iPad users probably wish they didn't have to endure: switching back and forth between two full-screen apps in order to copy and paste items. Taposé lets you split the iPad screen into two side-by-side panes. It comes with five apps that work in the dual panes: Journals, a note-taking app; Web, an integrated browser; Maps, a subset of Google Maps; Contacts, which accesses the iPad's contact list; and Calculator. You can display any two apps at once, or work with two views of the same app. Unfortunately, version 1.0 of Taposé has a beta roughness about it with too many limitations to be useful. I wouldn't rely on it for creating polished business documents.

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Bio

Based in Honolulu, HI, Todd is a founding senior contributor at BYTE.
Todd has actively commented on technology in books and articles for many years and was a Microsoft MVP in mobile technology (2000-2011). You can his other mobile musings at MobileViews.com. Follow him on Twitter as @ToddOgasawara.

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