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  • Dropbox lands on Android!

    Finally, Dropbox, my favourite file sharing service, is available on Android!

    The app is relatively simply – sign in, initially, to DropBox and you can view and scroll through your shared files and folders. Click on any to download it and launch. Files on your phone can be shared by simply going into DropBox and clicking the “Upload” option from the menu – sadly it doesn’t add any sharing ability to other apps (e.g. photo albums), so you have to go into Dropbox itself to choose the file.

    You can even take pictures and videos and have them immediately saved in your Dropbox by opening the app first and using a further upload option from the menu. A nice touch.

    You can also send links to files via email, to allow them to be shared with others.

    Overall, it works well – quick, looks good and doesn’t appear buggy. It’s not amazingly powerful in its capabilities, but then neither is the desktop version. It just does what it’s supposed to – share files.

  • Download ZyXEL NSA210 firmware to fix iTunes

    After speaking with ZyXEL, they are happy for me to make public their firmware fix for media not appearing in iTunes when using their NSA210 NAS drive.

    1. Click here to download the firmware from MediaFire. It’s a little over 26 MB in size.
    2. Unzip the resulting file. You should find a .bin and a .txt file
    3. Sign into the NSA210 administration screen
    4. Click Maintenance > FW Upgrade to open the following screen…
    5. Follow the on-screen instructions to upload the .bin file you downloaded and uncompressed previously
    6. Once complete you should find your firmware level to be shown as V3.20(AFD.0)2010Apr06
    7. I’d now recommend turning off and on the media and iTunes server and rebuilding the database.

    If you are having further problems and are from the UK then you need to contact ZyXEL customer services via their email or call them on 0845 122 0301. If you are outside the UK, then you’ll need to contact your local ZyXEL support team.

  • WordPress – Create an instant link to Wikipedia

    WordPress – Create an instant link to Wikipedia

    I’m often wanting to create quick and useful links to Wikipedia. Obviously, you could add a link manually each time, but wouldn’t an automated system be so much better?

    Well, crack open your functions.php file within your theme folder and add the following code.

    (more…)

  • ZyXEL NSA210 – Firmware fix to iTunes problem

    ZyXEL NSA210 – Firmware fix to iTunes problem

    About a month ago I blogged about some excellent customer service from ZyXEL where, after a hesitant start, they fell over themselves to help me with a problem with my recently purchased NAS.

    It’s taken a month to resolve the problem, but a lot of that was due to me, but it is now fixed!

    (more…)

  • Google Reader redirect issue – security concern?

    Around 2pm today, I found that attempting to display Google Reader caused a redirect to a Google Docs login page – more specifically, a signin page for Google employees (Well, I assume so – it was insisting on an email ending with google.com!).

    Looking on Twitter I found only a couple of other people reporting it, although one person mentioned it in relation to a blog from Google SEO expert Matt Cutts. I also follow his blog feed, so I guessed it was related.

    Google Reader would briefly display so I clicked on the first unread item title – this caused the feed entry to open seperately and mark the feed item as read. Eventually I got down to the Matt Cutts feed item and, after clicking on that, my Google Reader worked perfectly again. I sent details of the workaround to those on Twitter reporting the same problem.

    Matt Cutts has now stated..

    Doh! Sorry about the redirect on the most recent blog post. Should be fixed now

    The post itself contains a video and, possibly the cause, an embedded Google Docs presentation (did he originally have it pointing to a protected document?).

    But this obviously raises a question about security of Google Reader. How is it possible for a news feed to cause Google Reader to, effectively, stop working and divert to another web page. Is this a vulnerability that could be exploited by spammers, for instance?

    I’ve sent a Tweet to Matt Cutts and will report back if I get any further details.