MediaRECOVER 4.0 Review

• Posted: October 14th, 2010 • Author: mary • Category: Reviews

Have you ever taken those great photos while on vacation, returned home, connected your camera to upload them to your computer and have it tell you there are no photos on that memory card? Have you ever accidentally hit that delete button and watched as your camera or mp3 player deleted those important pictures or songs? How about sticking that flash drive into your usb port and it showed an empty disk when you know you had those important pdfs, spreadsheets, or videos on it.

Now there is a company that says there is an easy to use Macintosh software program to recover those lost or accidentally deleted files on your removable memory cards. It’s from Freshcrop Software and it’s called Media Recover. For $29.95 they say you can buy peace of mind and have an easy to use recovery method for those lost files. They claim it will recover over 250 types of files made by almost every digital camera. It works on audio/visual music files, RAW image files, emails, graphics, database, spreadsheets, and all sorts of document and archived files. Almost any type of file you can put on a removable memory card can be recovered if it has not been overwritten by another file.

It has a special recovery program to use to attempt to recover corrupted and damaged files on removable disks and memory cards.

I tested it out on my Olympus digital camera XD card and found 4 jpgs that I had previously deleted. They were recovered to my hard drive within minutes. Inserting a flash drive, formatted in Fat 32 (commonly used for storing Mac and PC files on USB flash drives), it showed over 80 “hidden files”, no longer visible, used by a program I have to diagnose laptop batteries.

It’s supposed to completely clean your removable cards and reformat them if they have become corrupted. I did not try that. The company says it will also recover files on external hard drives but I did not try that either as it showed an estimated time of over 6 hours to scan the drive.

You can download a free trial version (it’s 16.7mb) from the American company based in Scottsdale, Arizona. They offer lots of other different recovery and repair programs. Check out their website at: http://freshcrop.com/digital_image_recovery_apple_mac.html You can also download it at: http://download.cnet.com/

Here are the System Requirements for recovering camera cards files:
Firewire/USB memory card reader
Mac OS X 10.3 to 10.5.
Hard drive (or another storage media) space the size of your media to store the recovered files.

I tried to do some research on the history of this program and found it previously owned/sold by Alladin Systems, Allume Systems, and Smith Micro Software. Past versions did not have very high ratings and the current version appears to be only available for the past few months so other evaluations are very limited. I would advise getting your own evaluation copy before purchasing.

Review by: Jerry Brasseur
Saginaw Macintosh Users Group

Review: Wi-Fire—A Network Antenna For Your Macintosh

• Posted: August 9th, 2010 • Author: Randy Walker • Category: Reviews

By Jerry Brasseur, SMUG Treasurer

hField provided SMUG with a review unit of their flagship product called Wi-Fire.

Wi-Fire is an add-on antenna for improving your wireless internet reception on your Mac or Windows machine. It connects to your computer with a USB cable and requires you to install their proprietary software to enable it’s operation.

Installing the software, plugging in the unit and restarting your Mac places an icon in your finder toolbar that shows you the unit is connected. You can then open a window with the software (Wi-Fire Connection Manager) or by clicking on the icon that shows you any wireless networks being broadcast around you. It also shows you the strength of the signal and indicates if they are locked or unlocked networks. Without passwords you are not able to connect to locked networks.

We initially had some problem trying to get the antenna to activate without some frustration. Their instructions aren’t very clear when it comes to problem solving. Two of us from SMUG had the same initiation problem. We both reinstalled the software multiple times thinking that was our problem. After contact with one of their technicians, the problem was solved. A better step-by-step set of installation instructions would help.

After I got it working and rotating the antenna around to different directions, my list of wireless neighborhood networks jumped from my usual three to eight. Two of the networks were unlocked and, just to test it’s connection ability, I was able to log onto one of them. The nearest home is about 200 feet from me.

Comparing my Wi-Fire in home signal strength to my MacBook’s Airport signal strength (about 40 feet from my router) did not show any significant difference. Trying the unit at our SMUG meeting did not show any networks other than what is available inside the building.

The unit is now on loan to one of our members to try in an outdoor camping location near Oscoda, Michigan. He said his normal reception signal is pretty low so he thought it would be a good test location for the Wi-Fire. Our UG chairman tried it at a hotel on a recent trip. She did get a signal from the hotel’s wireless network. When the unit is returned, we want another SMUG member to test it in his apartment in an assisted living facility.

Would it be of value to you? If you are on the fringe range of a wireless signal it will offer you a significant increase in your ability to connect. In your own home of average size, I doubt it will significantly increase your reception. If you’re a traveller accessing hot spots, live in a college dorm or assisted living facility, or have a municipally available network it could help you pick up a reliable signal. Remember that it does not offer any ability to connect to a wireless signal that is password protected unless you have the password.

The company is offering a special 20% off of the regular price of $49.00 to User Group members through August 31, 2010. Contact admin@smug1.com for the discount code.

For more info on Wi-Fire, go to: http://www.hfield.com/the-wi-fire