We all know how convenient the mobile internet can be when it comes to staying online, no matter where we go. It doesn’t matter if you’re a business broadband user or someone who uses mobile connectivity for purely social reasons, having the right gadget to get the job done counts for a lot too.

With endless options open to the mobile broadband user it can be a little tricky deciding on which device to buy in order to meet your requirements. However, there are three gizmos that can prove highly useful if you’ve got a growing need to stay connected on the go.

MiFi

The MiFi is our first suggestion because this is a great little twist on the traditional mobile broadband dongle. Where a dongle normally plugs into an available USB port on your laptop or netbook, and subsequently allows your machine to connect to the mobile network, the MiFi does the same but enables multiple computers to connect instead.

There are quite a few of these MiFi devices around now, and come via numerous mobile network providers. They’re perfect if you have more than one person in the house or workplace who needs to connect to the internet. You’ll need to be mindful of the fact that data allowances get spread out over the connected users, which means your quota may get eaten up rather quickly, but aside from that, the MiFi is a real boon to mobile internet fans.

The Tablet PC

Next up is the humble tablet PC , which has become the tool of choice for many mobile Internet fans and that’s easy to see why when you compare them to bulkier laptops or slightly more svelte netbook computers. While the Apple iPad is hugely popular, there are now plenty of alternative options available too, including the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

There’s a new version of this device currently available, the 10.1, which offers an improved experience over the original. It runs the Google Android operating system, has a slim and stylish design plus a quality build. If you’re looking for a truly portable gadget that’ll keep you connected on the move, with a decent keyboard and screen size, then this tablet offering makes a sound investment.

The Smartphone

A smartphone is the third mobile gadget that has become an essential part of any well connected Internet fans hardware arsenal. Right now, there are endless options to choose from, although one of the leading manufacturers, HTC, is proving a hard act to follow when it comes to producing a raft of excellent handsets, many of which come armed with the pretty bulletproof Android operating system.

Combine slick performance and some super cool designs and you’ve got a range of phones that have something for everyone. While some might say that it’s the Apple iPhone that is top of the smartphone tree, it’s well worth investigating one or two models from the HTC camp if you’re looking for all the toys, but without quite the same sort of financial outlay. Shop around and you may even get all three of these gadgets bundled into one super deal, which is just about as good as it gets.

Joe Linford writes for Broadband Genie, the consumer advice site for mobile broadband, smartphones and tablets.

As a blogger, connecting to the internet is essential. You need access to update your blog, respond to visitors’ questions, and give feedback. However, if you are away or in a remote place without internet or Wi-Fi access, you have two choices: purchase a wireless broadband stick for 3G or 4G wireless access, or save yourself the trouble and use your smartphone to achieve the same effect. Smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone, several Blackberry models, and any phone powered by Android, can be turned into a broadband modem and be tethered to your notebook for wireless internet access.

How to Turn a Smartphone into a Wireless Broadband Modem

Smartphones today are equipped with data capability for high speed internet access. The process of setting up a smartphone as a modem to another device, such as a notebook or desktop for connecting to the internet, is called tethering. First, you need to make sure you have a wireless data-access plan. The tethering fee for each carrier is different; you need to do your research. You can check if your wireless carrier includes tethering in your current plan. If it is not, you can request this for an additional fee. Many phone carriers such as Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint offer tethering plans in their wireless services. Additionally, make sure to subscribe to a data plan that gives you a large amount of bandwidth—such as 5 GB per month.

Next, you will need software to tether your smartphone to your notebook. Usually, the wireless provider will include the software when you choose their tethering plan. Alternatively, Android users can use an open source application called PdaNet. You can connect your smartphone directly to your notebook through a USB cable, or Bluetooth.

Benefits of Having a Wireless Broadband Smartphone

Having your smartphone as a modem for your notebook is beneficial when you are stranded in a remote place, especially when you need internet access. In another instance, say in an environmental disaster such as a flood or earthquake, a wired internet connection may be slow to get restored. Using a smartphone to tether is convenient and helpful to connect to the internet.

Most free Wi-Fi hotspots are not secure, and chances your data will be intercepted can be high. However, using your smartphone for wireless broadband access is more secure. This is important if you want to log into your blog or use your email. The traffic is encrypted, so you do not have to worry about anyone stealing your data.

The use of a smartphone as a modem for tethering is a great backup for your regular internet service. You are still able to access the internet and can continue updating your blog in the case of power failure and other circumstances. This has become a life saver for bloggers.

You can receive a phone call and still remain connected to the internet if you are using your smartphone. Furthermore, you can save the battery life of your smartphone and your notebook, when you are connected through a USB connection.

Drawbacks

Despite the advantages of using your smartphone as your wireless modem for your notebook, it has several drawbacks. First, you can only access the internet where the wireless carrier has coverage. Second, if you subscribe to a small bandwidth the connection will be slow. However, these drawbacks do not eclipse the many benefits in making your smartphone a modem for your notebook.

Conclusion

For a blogger, the ability to use your smartphone as a wireless broadband modem to tether your notebook for accessing the internet is convenient. It is secure and you will not have to worry about not being able to access your blog. You can log in into your blog account virtually anywhere your phone service is available. A smartphone can be a wireless broadband modem that allows for mobility while you maintain your blog.

Blake Sanders writes tech at Australian broadband comparison site Broadband Expert and specializes in wireless broadband, mobile phones, and the latest in wireless internet provider news and information.

http://www.broadbandexpert.com.au/

Note: Photo courtesy of smurfmatic via FlickR Creative Commons.

I will show you how to tether a Samsung Behold 2 to use it’s data connection on a laptop. I recently did this for a friend and I had a difficult time finding the resources to do this. This guide is to help those who have Windows 7 64 bit in particular because many people have report errors when trying to install the drivers. The phone is with T-Mobile and according to them, they support tethering but at the moment they don’t have official support or guides for it.

On your phone:

1. Install PdaNet on your Samsung Behold II through the Android Market.
2. Go to Settings, USB Settings, select Samsung PC studio and click Save.
3. Go back to Settings, click Application Settings, Development, and check USB debugging.

On your computer:

1. Behold II Drivers: http://www.getyourdroidon.com/builds/otherstuff/Behold_II_USB.zip
2. PdaNet for Windows 7 64-Bit: http://pdanet.co/bin/PdaNetA245x64.exe (Check for the latest version).
3. Click Start, Right click “Computer”, go to Properties, and select Device Manager.



4. Connect your phone and find the “Android ADB interface” or “Samsung Android USB Device” with a yellow exclamation point.
5. Right click it and select “Browse my computer for driver software”.
6. Click Browse and select the unzipped folder of Behold II USB on located on the Desktop.
7. Click Next. A pop-up will appear; choose “Install this driver anyway”.
8. After installing, you’ll receive a pop- up that says “SAMSUNG USB Composite Device” has been successfully installed. You might also receive a few errors, disregard them.
9. Go back to the Device Manager and you’ll see that the USB Controllers and Drivers were installed.
10. You might have to disconnect and re-connect your phone to the computer for it to be recognized.
11. Now, install PdaNet for Windows 7. A pop-up will appear asking if you want to reinstall the Android USB driver; click No. The program should finish installing. Click Finish.
12. Run the PdaNet on both devices and you should now be able to access the internet.

If there are newer versions of software or drivers, I’m unaware if this guide will help you. Also, I’m not liable for any damages to your devices. Use this at your own risk.

I hope this helps solve your issues tethering the Behold 2. After this experience, I’m glad that I have an iPhone. It’s much more easier to mod.

The one thing I miss most about the iPod Classic is the ability to use it as an external hard drive (HDD). This feature is unable with the iPhone and iPod Touch since they use flash memory. The solution back then was to SSH (Secure Shell) into a jailbroken iPhone through a wireless connection. The limitation is that you can only transfer through a wireless connection. I didn’t like this because it was time consuming and slow especially if you transfer large files. I avoided transferring files with my iPhone until I found DiskAid.

DiskAid is a Product of DigiDNA. They have many other great products for your Apple devices.

Turn Your iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad into a Portable Hard Drive

With DiskAid, you can transfer files to and from your device with your PC. The best part is that you don’t need a wireless connection. You just need a USB cable. Here’s a video to see it in action for yourself!

Another neat feature of DiskAid is File Sharing with third-party apps on your Apple device.

Other products by DigiDNA:

TuneAid -  Backup songs from your iPod. Now, you can transfer songs from your iPod to your PC.

PicsAid – Copy and Backup pictures from iPhone, iPod, or iPad to your computer.

BackOff – Free utility that speeds up iTunes sync for the iPhone or iPod Touch.

FileApp – App to manage and read files on your iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. FileApp has a feature called Document Interaction that lets you manage files on third-party apps.

I am happy to say that all the products are reasonably priced and affordable. One thing they could do is integrate the functions of all desktop applications into one program. But they do offer a Bundle pack for DiskAid, TuneAid, PicsAid. You’ll end up saving more with the Bundle pack than buying all the products individually.

Another improvement I would like to see is portable versions of the applications. Though, the installation is simple enough, a portable version would be easy to run on work restricted computers that don’t allow program installations.

DigiDNA is an awesome company with a great list of products. I forgot to mention that you can try all those products for free!

As an added bonus, my readers get a 20% discount from prices that are already low. Just redeem the coupon code: d3sodotcom20 upon checkout to obtain your discount.

I know that these products will help you use your Apple devices to their full potential. Let me know what you think about their products and if you’ve used them before. Also, are there things that DigiDNA can improve?

I’m giving away a free copy of FileApp Pro to a lucky commentator. You can use FileApp Pro on your iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. The winner will be announced next week and will receive a voucher to redeem the app on the Apple App Store. So, don’t forget to leave a comment!

I currently use a Gateway NV53 notebook. I purchased it back in February this year, 2010. The whole time I’ve had it I noticed that the mute touch key was always lit, even when it wasn’t on mute. Also, when adjusting the volume, no pop-up volume bar would show. Some of the other touch keys were also unresponsive. I never sought to find a fix until recently. Doing some research, I found that others have had the same problem with different NV notebooks.

The fix is simple and takes less than ten minutes to complete.

1. First, click the “Start” or Windows button then click on “All Programs”.
2. Scroll to the “Gateway” folder and run the “Gateway Recovery Management“.
3. Click “Restore” on the top left.
4. Then click “Reinstall Drivers or Applications” on the bottom; select “Contents”.
5. Scroll down to “Launch Manager” or “Launch Management” and click the install icon located on the right.
6. After the installation is complete, restart your computer and the touch keys should now work properly.

I had to wait until my computer fully loads until the touch keys start functioning. I hope this helps you solve the problem.

September 1st, 2010, the day Apple announces its release of new products. Woowee! I’m going to briefly share my thoughts on the new line of products and leave out the useless details.

iOS 4.1

Will fix bugs (YES!), Game Center (Can’t wait to see how this goes.), TV show rentals (no thanks!), HD video upload (ok.), HDR (nice). I can’t wait til the Dev-Team releases a jailbreak & unlock.

iPod Shuffle

It’s square and the buttons are back! Nice line of colors I wish they had for the iPod Touch. Costs $49 with 2 GB.

iPod Nano

It looks the same size as an iPod Shuffle except no buttons; It has a touchscreen! Basically is a mini iPod Touch.

Once again, they’ll come in a nice line of colors and will be priced $149 for 8 GB and $179 for 16 GB.

iPod Touch

This is the iPod Touch I’ve been dreaming about since the 1st gen was released (I still have the first-gen ). It’s got pretty much the same hardware as the iPhone 4. The A4 chip, retina display, and even FaceTime with the front camera! In a nutshell, it’s the iPhone without the phone. It comes in 8 GB for $229, 32GB for $299, and 64 GB for $399; no new line of colors, #FAIL

iTunes 10

It’s going to have Ping, a social network for music.

Apple TV

It seems they couldn’t get the name iTV. It’s smaller, more content for cheap, and the price was reduced to only $99.

That’s seems to be everything. If I missed anything, it didn’t catch my attention. These products will be released within the next four weeks. The product to be released next week is the iPod Touch, which is also the product that has caught most of my attention. I’ve been stuck with the first-gen Touch since it was first released and wished that it would someday have a camera included. Every time I purchase an Apple product I always purchase the version with the highest capacity because I am a media whore, which means for me the $400 iPod Touch is far from affordable. But where there’s a will, there’s a way right? I’m known for my persistence and will find a way to get one of these in my hands.

If you didn’t get to watch the event, you can watch it here.

Are you planning on purchasing any of these new products?

Next week, the iPhone 4 is going to be released. I plan on getting it but not anytime soon because I currently have an iPhone 3GS running on the T-Mobile network. As you’ve probably noticed, my iPhone is jailbroken & unlocked which means I’d have to wait for the iPhone 4 to be unlocked (I believe in the Dev-Team). Another obstacle to overcome is the Micro-SIM. I’ve seen videos of cutting standard SIMs down to Mirco-SIM size but I’m kind of worried I’ll mess up. Anyone know if T-Mobile uses Micro-SIM cards? The price isn’t going to be reasonable buying these phones without a contract but you get what you pay for, right?

Considering the iPhone 4′s new features, Apple took it to the next step.

• Flash for the camera? FINALLY! I was hoping that Apple would surpass that new droid phone that has an 8 megapixel camera but sadly the iPhone 4 will have a 5 megapixel cam, which isn’t bad at all.

• The two-cameras will make it easier for us to take conceited photos of ourselves put up on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.

• FaceTime video chat is going be real interesting, haha. I wonder if they’ll integrate a community interface such as Stickam or Chatroulette .

• Retina Display? We’ll see how this looks when I get to see it for myself.

• Mulitasking is not new to me and I bet Apple will limit which apps can be run on multitask. I use Backgrounder a jailbreak app, and it works great. The only thing that would make it better is if my iPhone had more memory.

• HD Video Recording, nice, now I’ll probably be able to use it for video blogging especially with the new iMovie app which lets you edit your videos with more features.

• Folders for Apps (not new to me), and iBooks (I admit it’s kinda hard reading books on the iPhone) is also going to be included.

That’s a nice list of features. I really can’t wait until this gadget is in my hands, others could care less. I was hoping for a higher storage capacity and we’ll still be limited to 16 or 32 (this is not enough space for movies, music & other stuff). As usual, they’ve promised improved battery life. I’ve heard that the iPad battery was pretty good, maybe we can expect the same for the iPhone. I’d like to leave the floor open for discussion. Will you be getting the iPhone 4? What are your thoughts?

P.S. You see the the KISSinsights box that says “What other information would you like to see on this page?”. Please input here topics and suggestions I should write about for future posts. Thanks!

I was browsing around the web yesterday and I happened to see a link titled “iPhone 4G”. My first thoughts were, “No way! They already have info. on the new iPhone?!”. To my surprise, the post contained pictures of a new iPhone that was said to have been lost and found at a bar in Redwood City, California. The phone in my opinion looks sleek and similar to an ice-cream sandwich. I love the fact that there’s a camera located at both front and back of the device; the front most likely will be used for video chat or taking pictures of yourself. The screen resolution is reported to be of higher quality than that of the iPhone 3GS, and the battery is larger as well. Also, the new iPhone uses a Mirco-SIM card instead of the standard SIM. I currently have an iPhone 3GS and I can’t wait till the next generation is released. I hope that it’ll still be able to work with the T-Mobile network, which is what I’m currently using. There’s much more I haven’t covered and so I’ll direct you to two valid sources on the net.

Be sure to check out the video here or on the sidebar.

Gizmodo – This is Apple’s Next iPhone

Engadget – iPhone 4G: proof

This is an awesome video that captures the iPhone’s potential to create music. I used the apps featured on these videos and they are nearly perfect emulators of real music production tools/instruments, such as the “Beatmaker” app is considered to be a pocket-sized MPC. The “I am T-Pain” app is also pretty cool as it lets you sound like T-Pain with auto-tune.

Featured on this video is Applegirl002; She performs two well known songs. The first, is Poker Face by Lady GaGa, a song I find repulsive as I do with most of her songs; the only song I liked was “Just Dance”. The second song Applegirl performs is Irreplaceable by Beyonce, which is a better song selection in my opinion. Despite my thoughts towards the songs, Applegirl performs them very well. Enough talk, now it’s time to show you! Let me know what you think.