Everybody needs a wireless router. Or knows someone who needs a wireless router. It’s the magical device that shares your internet around your apt/condo/house/office. One of those necessary things in life. Ever curious which one was best? And by best I mean the one that won’t need to be reset every single day and will give you full signal around your house.*

I make this real simple. You have two choices, both from the same company.

1. Asus Black Diamond RT-N56U-$125

2. Asus Black Diamond RT-66U-$199

The 56U is the gold standard and the 66U is the gold standard’s newly released bigger brother. Both are amazing routers. 99% will only need the 56U but if you wanna be a networking pimp (yes, it’s possible), go for the 66U.

$125 for the CHEAPER router? Is it really worth it when I go buy buy a $50 D-Link at Best Buy? Don’t be like Dawson. Pony up for the solid router and enjoy wireless bliss.

*as long as your house is not ginormous and made of microwaves/cordless phones.

For the impatient: Verizon. For the more patient and curious, here’s why.

The new iPad 4G being released on March 16th comes in two main flavors: AT&T or Verizon. Both have the same exact specs with one minor albeit obvious exception: the internal 4G LTE that connects to either the AT&T or Verizon network. Both networks have pro’s and con’s but as said above, Verizon is the winner.

Coverage

First off, since I’m sure you were curious, you should know that there is a big difference between “4G” and “4G LTE.” 4G is pretty much a marketing term to sell more phones whereas 4G LTE is actually considerably faster than 4G and wildly faster than pedestrian 3G (which you are using on your current iphone/iPad). That’s all well and good but that 4G LTE goodness won’t help you if it’s not offered in your area. Verizon has a head start on AT&T in this arena and has a much larger LTE network. AT&T has however vowed to expand it’s coverage.

When you look at AT&T’s coverage map, don’t pay attention to the blue bits. Just look at the orange dots — those are the cities with LTE coverage. As you can see, most states simply don’t have 4G LTE coverage. But it is in LA so…that’s good.

Verizon crushes AT&T on coverage. Obviously if AT&T offers LTE in your city and you don’t travel much then all is well but if you move around at all…Verizon should be your choice.

Network Speed

4G LTE can give you up to 27Mpbs download and 15Mpbs upload (ideal locations). That is insane, people. Most likely that is faster than your broadband internet connection at home. It’s fairly close between the two but AT&T can claim a bit faster speeds than Verizon. It could be because there are just less people on the AT&T LTE network sucking up bandwidth than on Verizon or the LTE gnomes who work for AT&T are working extra hard. Either way, both give such insane speeds you shouldn’t care anyways.

Plans and Pricing

Most of the data plan prices haven’t changed from the iPad 2 even though 4G LTE is dramatically faster than 3G. The exception is that AT&T now offers 3GB for $30 instead of just 2GB. iPad owners still have their choice of three AT&T plans and four Verizon Wireless plans. Just as before, these are month-to-month plans. This means you don’t have to sign any long-term contracts that lock you in for two years.

If you want to keep costs down, Verizon is the way to go. If you intend to use a lot of data, Verizon is also the better choice. If you plan to stick to 2GB or 3GB, AT&T wins out. But Verizon at least gives you more options. Most importantly, however, is this…

Mobile Hotspot

Being able to turn your iPad into a mobile hotspot with stupid fast 4G LTE internet makes me happy. Imagine a world where you never need to buy overpriced hotel internet? Just flip a switch on your iPad, connect your laptop wirelessly to the iPad, and bam, you are sucking down 4G LTE to your computer. You have a meeting somewhere without internet? Now everybody can connect to your iPad and suckle from WWW’s teat (Please remember to not go over your data plan. This will result in you re-financing your home to pay for overages).

So we know mobile hotspot with your new iPad is awesome. What’s even more awesome is that VERIZON GIVES YOU THIS FEATURE FOR FREE with your data plan. What’s the opposite of awesome? AT&T is not even offering it as of yet and even if they do, they might only give it to their 5GB/month users. Nuff said, AT&T hates you.

Conclusion

Verizon has better coverage, plans with better flexibility, and best of all, free mobile hotspot. You’re welcome.

Tons of fun new features for iOS5 but some of my favorites are rarely publicized: keyboard shortcuts, custom vibrations, LED flashes for visual alerts, instant definitions, cover your digital tracks, check app usage, and alternate routes in Maps.

1. Set Up Text Expansion (Shortcuts)

First things first, let’s get text expansion (or Shortcuts, as Apple calls it) set up. To get it set up, follow these steps:

Open up the Settings app on your iPhone’s home screen.
Tap the General section.
Tap the Keyboard section.
Swipe down to the bottom and tap the button labeled “Add New Shortcut…”
Under “Phrase” type the phrase you want the shortcut to expand to, and under “Shortcut” type the shortcut you want to type instead. For example, if you wanted “brb” to expand to “be right back”, you’d type “brb” for the shortcut and “be right back” for the phrase.
Tap save when you’re done.
Repeat for as many you as like.

Some examples to start you off (shamelessly ripped from Lifehacker):

EML -> your@emailaddress.com, so you never need to type your email when sending a message to yourself or sharing it with someone else.
PHN -> your phone number, so you can easily share your phone number without the need to type it or even remember it.
ADDR -> your address, so you don’t have to type out the entire thing.
SIG -> your email signature, in case you only want to use it sometimes and not with every message.
CTCL -> can’t talk, I’ll call you later, when you need to tell a friend you’ll get back to them a bit later but aren’t able to call (or answer their call).
FMIN -> I’ll be there in five minutes, for when you want to text someone that you’re five minutes away but only have a few moments to type it.
BRB -> be right back, for those of you who IM frequently on your iDevice.
THX -> thanks!, is one example of many ways you can abbreviate common endings to messages.
IDADBBWIDIPDE -> I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.

2. Create Custom Vibrations for Stealth Alerts

You’re in a high-powered business meeting. Your phone volume is mute because you don’t want to offend the client. But you really need to receive that critical phone call from your pilates instructor scheduling a rain check. By assigning a unique vibration sequence to any contact, you can leave your iPhone on the table and listen for the sweet euphony of a customized “zizip, zizip” as your device resonates against the table top.

Interested? Go to Contacts, choose a contact and tap Edit. Navigate to Vibration>Create New Vibration. You’ll be greeted by the screen above. Simply tap out a new vibration rhythm, save it, and prepare for near-stealth notifications of when special people are trying to reach you.

3. Create LED Flashes for Visual Alerts

We all have different preferences when it comes to how we receive iOS notifications. Some people like audible alerts, some like vibrating alerts, some like no alerts at all. But the more flamboyant among us may prefer a new visual alert buried in the Accessibility menu in General settings. Toggling on “LED Flash For Alerts” will prompt your iPhone to trigger your camera’s LED whenever you receive a message or email when the phone is set to silent mode.

This feature offers great utility to anyone who can’t hear, but we also see great potential for multiplayer gamers who like to create a chilly-spooky vibe in darkened rooms. Huzzah! says the flash. Your pizza has arrived!

4. Instant Definitions

Much has been made about iOS 5’s new text formatting options. You can select a word or text string, and then make it bold, italic or underline. That’s well publicized. But check out all the other options that become available when you hold down a selection of a word.

The Suggest function provides a list of other words you may have preferred to type. Quote Level either increases or decreases the number of vertical lines that appear before text — helpful when you’re annotating a threaded conversation. But one of the niftiest options is Define, shown here, which provides a tight (but surprisingly robust) dictionary entry for the selection, complete with a definition, usage examples, and often information on word derivatives and origin.

5. Cover Your Digital Tracks

The new iOS includes a number of key features that foster more private, secure use. In Safari’s settings menu (shown above), you can toggle on Private Browsing. Once enabled, Safari will refrain from building a history of your browser activity (hey, we all have something to hide).

Over in the new Message app, which provides for seamless transitions between traditional carrier-hosted text messaging and Apple-hosted iMessages, you can define whether to allow Read Receipts, which notify your friends when you’ve read their messages. So, if you want to continue the charade of, “Oh, did you send me a message? Never saw it,” then head to Settings>Messages, and turn Send Read Receipts to off.

Finally, you can put an end to those awkward conversations that occur when you leave your iPhone on the table, and someone reads the first few sentences of one of your text messages or emails on the lock screen. Go to Settings>Notifications and turn off Show Preview for both Messages and Mail.

6. Check App Usage, Dispatch Offenders

If you fear your iDevice is approaching the limits of its storage capacity, head on over to Settings>General>Usage, and start surveying your worst offenders. Clicking on an app name will provide a bit more detail — specifically, the footprint of the document and data files associated with the app. You’ll also see a button to delete the app entirely.

7. Alternate Routes in Maps

Views of alternate routes have always been available in the desktop version of Google Maps, and now they’re finally available on iOS devices too. After defining where you are and where you want to be, just tap Route 1, Route 2, etc., to toggle between Google’s recommended directions.

Enjoy!

source: Wired.com

I have 10 left…just in case some of you have not tried out Spotify yet…for shame…

ask and you shall receive

Osama is dead, which is great.  He should have died a long time ago.  Let’s not celebrate and party in the street, people.  You’re better than that, America.  Play it cool.

Ever talk on anything besides your cellphone?  Buy this headset.  Slick, easy setup, looks great (for a headset), ridiculous range, and performs perfectly.  Enough said.  Sells through Headsets.com or Amazon for the spicy price of $299.  Worth it.

Common problem: you have a nice list of bookmarks on your main computer but don’t have them on your laptop or your work computer. Even worse, what if have to wipe your computer then all your precious bookmarks you’ve saved over the years will be lost forever (you don’t seem like someone who knows how to frequently backup your bookmarks). Woe is you.

Enter: XMarks. A free add-on for the internet browser of your choice (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, or Safari). After a quick install and a creation of an XMarks account, your bookmarks will automatically be saved to the XMarks server. Nothing else needs to be done on your end. As you add bookmarks, XMarks will automatically update the list of bookmarks on their server.

You want your bookmarks on another computer? Just install XMarks on that computer, log into your account, and bam the bookmarks are pushed to that new computer. Now feel free to add bookmarks on either computer and rest assured that they will show up on both computers.

All free and pretty darn slick.

Have fun bookmarkin’

Grats on your new toy.

Secondly, here’s how you get the new toy working:

1.  Plug in and sync your current iPhone (not the new iPhone 4) with iTunes.  Make sure to “Check for Update” while you’re here to make sure you have latest iOS 4.

2.  Unplug your current iPhone and TURN IT OFF

3.  Plug in your new iPhone 4 with iTunes running on your computer

4.  Follow the directions till you get to a happy page that looks like this:

Just make sure “Restore from the backup of <your old iPhone> is selected and click Continue.

5.  AT&T will then do the whole activation party, follow the directions

6 (optional). If you have any email accounts on your iPhone you need to manually go into the mail settings (settings, Mail/contants/calendars) and enter in the password(s).

7 (optional).  Make sure iTunes is syncing the music/movies you want correctly.

Congrats!  Now you have your new iPhone 4 with all your contacts, text messages, email accounts, and photos.

I know, a bit nerdy, but our little blue marble planet looks pretty damn cool from up there.

Click to see full size