Common Paradox Tech Blog

The Blueant Q1 Voice Controlled Bluetooth Headset takes the voice-control formula from its older brother, the Blueant V1, and crams it into a slimmer and much more attractive design. The end result is a stylish headset with some handy controls quite literally available at the sound of your voice.

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A newly unearthed Apple patent application describes a process in which an iPhone could control a MacBook or iMac, remotely.

Essentially, the iPhone establishes a connection with the computer, then it can control the OS in a similar manner to a TV remote. Using a virtual d-pad, users navigate through apps, open them remotely and even print. But what’s possibly more promising that buttoning around an OS is that voice commands could be deployed to skip many of these navigational hassles.

Apple’s Remote app, which allows the control of iTunes over a local network, is still one of my favorite apps on the iPhone. If Apple were to evolve that app into what we see in this patent, it’d only become more handy. [Patently Apple via 9to5Mac]

Canon has already revealed that their EOS 5D Mark II would be getting 24fps 1080P, which is handy for transfers to film. But a new industry-focused meeting revealed the company would also add 60fps 720P support to the camera, which would be great for fast motion clips or half-speed slow motion. [Planet5D]

WordPress has a pretty decent role management in place, which allows you to create users and assign them certain privileges and functionality. However, there are few things which you cannot do right now with it. For example, creating new roles, modifying role privileges and so on.

The Role Manager plugin fills in that void and adds a very robust role management interface to WordPress. Though I won’t go into much detail about the plugin, I just wanted to highlight a simple trick, using which you can disable delete functionality for post and pages and retain it with only the administrator of the blog.

Disabling delete functionality may be done for several reasons, specifically on multi-author blogs. However, my sole reason for doing this is that “Precaution is better than Cure”.

To disable delete functionality for post and pages, install the Role Manager plugin (if you haven’t done it already) and click on the Roles link under the Users menu, in the admin dashboard sidebar.

Once you are on the Roles page, browse through the roles and click on the green checkmark (if they appear) next to the privileges highlighted in the screenshot above. Don’t do this for the administrator role though.

Once all the checkmarks have turned to red cross marks, the delete functionality will be disabled for the respective roles.

Role Manager is an excellent plugin and will come in pretty handy for multi-author blogs. I have just highlighted one of the many things you can accomplish with this plugin, so go ahead and give it a try.

Bookmarks can come in handy when working with long and complex documents, but the way this feature works in OpenOffice.org is not particularly intuitive.

If you ask an iPhone owner what he likes best about his device, you’ll often hear the following answer: well, it’s great for surfing, and it also has a fantastic Twitter and Facebook app…

And yet, owners of Palm Pre (which is a direct competitor to the iPhone) didn’t have an (official) Facebook application – until now. The app requires webOS version 1.3.1, and will also work on the upcoming Palm Pixi, but unfortunately, the word is that the app doesn’t really have all the latest bells and whistles; in fact, it’s very basic compared to the iPhone version.

We don’t have a Pre handy, but if you do, and if you decide to try out the app, please let us know your thoughts in the comments.

[Image courtesy of Engadget Mobile]

Reviews: Facebook

Tags: facebook, palm, webOS

How might one repair a cyborg’s eye in the future? Why, with this handy eyeball removing tool. How does one forget what’s seen in this image? Macallan 12 years, neat, that’s how. [Bloomers and Bows via Boing Boing Gadgets]

We’ve seen it happen time and time again: somebody breaks or otherwise disables their Pre’s touchscreen and they’re left without a way to access their USB drive partition to pull off pictures and music and other important stuff. We’ve tried and tried, but without screen access there’s simply been no way to access the USB partition.

Until now: webOS 1.3.1 brought with it a handy new key combination that enables USB drive mode without having to touch the screen. Simply hook up to your computer with a USB cable and hit Option + Sym + U (for USB) and the Pre will mount as a USB drive.

Google announced on the official Gmail blog a handy new upgrade to the Offline Gmail labs app. Before the update, you could enable Offline Gmail and it would use specialized heuristics to download messages for offline use.

With the new update, once you enable Offline Gmail, you can find some customizable options under the “Offline” tab in Settings. You can now select specifically which labels to download and how deep into your mailbox you would like the downloading to begin. Once the settings are saved, the app will immediately start downloading any emails weren’t already synced to your computer.  Of course, less downloads means faster Offline Gmail so you should be careful with the settings.

It’s a substantial upgrade to a very handy lab application for commuters or travelers.

In these tumultuous times you need some sort of protector; the kind that will prevent your iPhone from flying off the seat to who knows where. What kind of protector is here to save the day? The iGrip cigarette lighter mount of course! [$19.95 - TiPb store link]

This handy mount plugs right into your existing [...]

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iGrip Custom Fit Cigarette Lighter Mount Reality Review