Phil South, Author at Make Tech Easier

Setapp Review – All Your Indie Apps in One Place

Phil South — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 17:25:00 +0000

Searching for apps to get your work done, have fun or expand what you can do with your computer is sometimes a bit of a full time job. First you have to find them, then download a trial and evaluate the software, and finally, you have to answer the question, “is it worth the price for what I want it to do?” Setapp takes a lot of the strain out of this process by giving you an app that curates the best of indie developers’ solutions to all your computing problems – and even some you didn’t know you had. This review will take a look at how well Setapp does this on macOS and iOS.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by Setapp. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.

Alternate App Store

Firstly, in order... Read more

Tronsmart Trip Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker Review

Phil South — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 17:25:06 +0000

Bluetooth speakers come in all manner of shapes, sizes and prices. There’s a very good reason for this: Bluetooth speakers have effectively replaced every kind of music player, and in the 21st Century, they are all you will ever need to play music and radio.

Shopping for the right one is the problem. The question you have to bear in mind when buying speakers is “What are you going to use it for?” And more importantly, “Where?” The answer to this question defines your choice, as speakers are custom-made for different uses. This review takes the Tronsmart Trip, a Bluetooth speaker that is very specific.

Outdoor Sounds

The Tronsmart Trip is a Bluetooth travel speaker. It’s designed to be light and portable yet powerful. It’s made to take a few knocks: it’s waterproof and dust-proof up to the IPX7 standard. While it is out of the box a mono speaker, it can team wirelessly with compatible Tronsmart speakers to provide stereo using its SoundPulse technology.

The case is covered in a tough... Read more

FlexiSpot BackSupport Office Chair BS10 Review

Phil South — Mon, 30 May 2022 17:25:00 +0000

Well-known for their standard office chairs, FlexiSpot also makes a range of more specialized business and home office furniture. Many office workers prize back support, as when you spend much of the day sitting quietly in a chair, it can play havoc with your back and spine health. It only gets worse as you age. This review takes a look at the FlexiSpot BackSupport Office Chair BS10 to see how it helps with such a problem.

Pain in the Neck

The FlexiSpot BackSupport Office Chair BS10 is an office chair meant for long periods of sitting. All office chairs are rated depending on the supposed average durations they will be used, so casual chairs for people in reception areas are obviously not designed for long durations. Standard office worker chairs are designed for quite a few hours – but not all day. Executive chairs are designed for entire days of sitting. This is all very logical and as you would expect.

The FlexiSpot BS10 is definitely in the latter category, with specialized back support... Read more

How to Turn Your Raspberry Pi into a Video Conferencing Station

Phil South — Sat, 28 May 2022 00:25:00 +0000

Post-lockdown, with working and schooling from home as a matter of routine, more people are turning toward video conferencing as a way to keep in touch and get things done. Tools like Google Meet, Skype and Zoom mean we can keep in touch with people outside the confines of our home, across cities, time zones, and even countries, making the world smaller and allowing for remote collaboration. If you’re looking for another great Raspberry Pi project, I urge you to try this one. This tutorial shows you how to turn your Raspberry PI into a video conferencing station.

Content

Gathering Supplies
Setting Up Your Pi
Zoom
Google Meet
Skype
Jitsi
Hardware Essentials
Frequently Asked Questions

Gathering Supplies

Here’s what you will need:

EaseUS Video Downloader Review

Phil South — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 17:25:00 +0000

There are many reasons you might want to secure an online video and have it offline for later use. Perhaps you are doing some research and you don’t want to risk the videos you are using as reference becoming unavailable. Maybe you want to keep all the videos in one place so that you can go through them all without searching or waiting.

In another scenario, for example, you uploaded a video to a streaming site and no longer have the original but would like to recover it. If you have it saved offline, at least you can have a backup of it. Perhaps you are going away somewhere remote with no Wi-Fi for a month. You can line up a bunch of videos to keep you entertained. This review takes a look at EaseUS Video Downloader to see how it could help you out in these scenarios.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by EaseUS. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.

Going Offline

EKSA E900 Pro Gaming Headset Review

Phil South — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 17:25:00 +0000

Gaming headphones are an essential bit of kit if you crave full immersion and comms with other players in MPGs. The only downside for me has always been the permanent mic stalk, as any gaming headset looks silly on the train or at times they’re used for your phone or other device. The EKSA E900 Pro Gaming Headset gets around this limitation in a couple of interesting ways and produces a set of headphones that are very decent in quality while being versatile as well. They score well in other areas too.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by EKSA. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence, even when a post is sponsored.

Nice Pro Features

Unboxing the EKSA E900 Pro headphones, you will find a nice chunky pair of gaming headphones with LEDs embedded on the outside of the earpieces, so you look super-cool in Zoom chats, but they also have some nice pro features. The mic is detachable, and although the headset is designed primarily to work via USB, you also have an additional cable... Read more

PrivadoVPN Review: Easy to Install and Use and Very Solid

Phil South — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 17:25:00 +0000

In the modern age of cyberwar, spam, and various other invasions of privacy, there’s no better time to consider getting a VPN. For proper VPN-masked IP protection, ideally you really need a paid, supported solution. PrivadoVPN is a Swiss-made VPN app that provides many nice features, covering all your needs in one package. This review takes a look at how it stacks up against other options.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by PrivadoVPN. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.

This Time It’s Personal

PrivadoVPN is a VPN, or virtual private network, which masks your IP from prying eyes. If your IP address is visible, then your ISP and any other traffic-spying organizations can see where you are and what you’re up to. IP masking removes this insult to personal privacy and lets you browse and download without being observed.

PrivadoVPN works as an app: you install it on... Read more

HitPaw Video Converter Review

Phil South — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 17:25:00 +0000

Video converters are everywhere, making it difficult to choose between them. If a converter has some features which set it apart from the others, then perhaps that it will make it easier to choose. HitPaw Video Converter works across macOS and Windows and does many useful things. It has a superbly easy and intuitive interface, making it more than worthwhile of a second look if you frequently do video conversion for work or pleasure and don’t have high-end tools to do that. Let’s take a look at what Hitpaw has to offer and see if it might suit your needs.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by HitPaw. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.

Introducing the HitPaw Video Converter

The HitPaw Video Converter is an easy, intuitive and comprehensive drag-and-drop video converter tool. After downloading either the macOS or Windows version from the website and choosing a payment plan (there is also a trial version), you then choose between convert, download and editing via tabs along the... Read more

SuperEQ S1 Hybrid Wireless Headphones Review

Phil South — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 18:25:00 +0000

Wireless headphones are convenient and modern and are now coming way down in price. As the technology develops, the price of entry is lowering, to a point that everyone can get on board if they choose to. One of the most recent entries into this genre of on-the-go audio listening gear is the SuperEQ S1 Hybrid Headphones, which can be either wired or wireless. Let’s put them to the test.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by SuperEQ. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence, even when a post is sponsored.

Be Young, Be Free

Using a Bluetooth v5.0 receiver, you can use the SuperEQ S1 Hybrid Wireless Headphones wirelessly with any Bluetooth device. Alternatively, using the included cable, you can attach them with a wire to older tech which doesn’t use wireless technology. Convenient.

Included in the box are the headphones, a soft matte vinyl drawstring carrying bag, a very short charging... Read more

EKSA Air Joy Plus Gaming Headset Review

Phil South — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 18:25:00 +0000

The EKSA Air Joy Plus Gaming Headset is a mid to low budget entry into that popular genre of headphone, the gaming headset. The very idea there might be a variety of headphones called gaming headsets is a marvel to me. Growing up in the era when multiplayer gaming was in its infancy, the idea that you’d actually need something so specific like this to do cooperative gaming is amazing to me.

It’s true to say, headphones are a well-developed technology by now and have become cheap and numerous, so they are all mostly good, and all that distinguishes them are price, build quality and audio fidelity. In this last area this headset is a mixed bag.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by EKSA. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence, even when a post is sponsored.

Comfort and Silence

The EKSA Air Joy Plus Gaming Headset is a USB gaming headset with big, comfortable ear pads which completely surround your ear. The main joy in the Air Joy... Read more

Collabio Spaces Review: Working Together in Real Time

Phil South — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 18:25:00 +0000

In this era of a global pandemic, collaboration software has become a necessity and not just a convenient creative luxury. It’s not as easy to hand off paperwork to a co-worker without triple sanitizing every surface and burying it all afterwards. Collaboration software allows you to still communicate with your co-workers and share documents, spreadsheets, files, etc. This review takes a look at Collabio Spaces to see how well this collaborative office suite will allow you to communicate and collaborate with your co-workers or team members in real time and in comparative safety.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by Collabio. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence, even when a post is sponsored.

Introducing Collabio Spaces

The goal of Collabio Spaces seems to be to provide alternative P2P collaboration without the risks associated with sharing via the Cloud. The problem is that our lives already revolve around using some cloud or another, so trying to remove existing collaborations from the process can be a bit difficult. When interaction doesn’t come as easily,... Read more

Bietrun Wireless Recording Microphone System review

Phil South — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 18:25:41 +0000

The Bietrun Wireless mic system is both a lavalier mic and a versatile wireless broadcast system suitable for both phones and cameras. Do you need a separate recording system? Isn’t there one already in your phone and camera? We explore these question and give our impressions of the Bietrun system in this review.

The Benefits of a Lavalier Mic

Sound is one of the biggest challenges when you are vlogging. Cameras and phones have reasonable microphones, but they are notoriously small and basic and stuck inside the camera. This means you have bad sound. The mic may be half-decent quality, but that’s not what’s causing the dip in quality. It’s the distance from the mic to your mouth that’s to blame.

Too much air between mic and mouth means you pick up a lot of ambient sound bouncing around the room and very little goes directly into the mic. An ideal solution is a lavalier mic, a small mic clipped to your clothes and closer to your mouth, like what you see on TV. This is the benefit of the Bietrun system.

Wireless Sound

iSyncGenius Review: Back Up and Transfer Your iPhone Data

Phil South — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 18:25:00 +0000

The market for tools that enable you to back up and manage your data on your iPhone is still very brisk. Yes, of course there is an existing ecosystem for backup and restore built into iTunes and parallel systems using Wi-Fi and the cloud, but some users want more control. For those iPhone users seeking more control, there is iSyncGenius. Find out more in this review of iSyncGenius.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by iSunshare. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.

Easy Back up of iPhone Data

iSyncGenius promises easy and direct transfer of iPhone data to a Windows computer without going via iTunes, also allowing for direct backup to an external hard drive attached to a Windows PC.

Having connected your phone to your Windows PC or laptop you can backup and restore your data, either a partial or full backup. You can also selectively transfer specified... Read more

MockGo Review: Spoof Location on iPhone without Jailbreak

Phil South — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 18:25:00 +0000

MockGo iPhone GPS Location Spoofer is a piece of utility software which takes over the GPS location in your phone. Using an interface on your PC or Mac that looks a lot like Google Maps, it lets you choose a new real-world location for your phone. Once you’ve chosen a new location, you can click a button to “teleport” to it. So what is this software, and who would want to use it?

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by Foneazy. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.

Location Spoofing for Beginners

Admittedly, being able to spoof the location of your phone is very cool, and being able to do so simply with a graphical interface makes it all very easy. Once you’ve chosen a new location, you can click a button to “teleport” to it. All apps which use location are fooled into using the spoofed location.

Similarly, jumping to new locations there will simulate the location changing over time: mimic someone walking,... Read more

Tronsmart Studio Bluetooth Speaker Review

Phil South — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 17:25:00 +0000

Bluetooth speakers are a must for the music fan. Headphones and earbuds are fine outside for the comfort and sanity of members of the public who don’t share your wicked taste in music. But when you’re alone as well as with friends, who may not share your so-called “taste” but do at least tolerate it, you need a speaker. Tronsmart has a reputation for making cost-effective, good-quality audio products. Having enjoyed their earbuds, I was curious how the Tronsmart Studio Bluetooth Speaker would measure up.

Inside the Box

The Tronsmart Studio Bluetooth Speaker is a 30W retro-styled Bluetooth speaker with aux input and a microSD card slot. It charges with a USB-C cable and has presumably spill-proof rubber-covered buttons on the top. These buttons control on/off, volume, and pause and play, and activate the two modes; SoundPulse and TuneConn advanced broadcast. The latter links multiple Tronsmart Studio speakers... Read more

SVGator Review: Expert Vector Animation

Phil South — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 17:25:00 +0000

The world of online content animation has changed markedly over the years. Flash (and similar tech like Macromind Director) underpinned the beginnings of the modern Web, but when support for Flash was withdrawn, the SWF file format died. Fast forward to today with SVGator arriving on the scene. With SVG the modern vector format of choice, SVGator provides you with one of the best and easiest ways to animate the format. Let’s take a closer look at it in our review.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by SVGator. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.

Online Animation Power

SVGator is an online SVG animation editor created with VueJS and designed to simplify the way you animate scalable vector graphics (or SVG). The stated aim of the company, based in San Fransisco, is to “make SVG animations achievable by even nontechnical users, thus encouraging the extensive use of SVG animations on the Web.”

Tronsmart Apollo Air+ Wireless Earbuds Review

Phil South — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 17:25:00 +0000

I’ve looked at a number of Tronsmart products recently and have found them to be quite good, considering how reasonably priced they were. So it was with considerable anticipation that I received the new Tronsmart Apollo Air+ Earbuds, having liked the original Apollo Air model very much. Let’s take a look at the newer earbuds in this review and put them to the test.

Upgraded Kit

The Tronsmart Apollo Air+ wireless earbuds are a development of the original Apollo Air units with a few refinements. They are, of course, like most modern earbuds, Bluetooth 5.2 based wireless earbuds permitting cable-free connection to any Bluetooth-enabled device that plays audio. According to the specifications, the units contain full frequency hybrid active noise cancelling, meaning you can listen in noisy environments.

The base of the headphones is the popular Qualcomm QCC3046 chip, just like its older sibling, the Apollo Air, with the same aptX audio decoding technology too. All that amounts to a proprietary codec for streaming high... Read more

Flexispot Flexi-Chair Oka Office Chair BS9 Review

Phil South — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 17:25:00 +0000

Flexispot makes a range of office furniture, more particularly what you’d call “home office” furniture, including desks and even an exercise bike-desk I reviewed short while ago. The lineup also includes the Flexi-Chair Oka Office Chair. Personally, I’ve always thought that there are certain things in life you shouldn’t scrimp on. Office chairs are definitely one of those things. Let’s take a look at the Flexi-Chair chair in this review and see how it fares.

Take a seat

Let’s go over some of the physical attributes of the Flexispot Flexi-Chair Oka Office Chair. It’s meant for office use and is evidently designed for long duration of sitting. It’s not an occasional use chair and meant for extended sessions of seated work.

The seat material is a modern breathable mesh, in a striking orange, which means when sat in, it feels comfortably similar to the ambient temperature in the room, being neither colder nor warmer than the surrounding air. The chair back fabric is tensioned on a frame rather than... Read more

Tronsmart Onyx Apex True WirelessTM Stereo ANC Earbuds Review

Phil South — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 17:25:00 +0000

The Tronsmart Onyx Apex True WirelessTM Stereo ANC Earbuds are the latest in a line of wireless earbuds, and once again, as with my previous experience with this brand, they are pretty darned good. Being able to wirelessly listen to your tunes without threading a cable through your clothes like a police informant working undercover is a big plus, but it sure helps if they sound good. This is the second time I’ve reviewed a pair of buds by Tronsmart, and having mostly enjoyed the previous versions, expectations were high.

What Are the Tronsmart Onyx Apex Earbuds?

The Tronsmart Onyx Apex True WirelessTM Stereo ANC Earbuds are a pair of Bluetooth-enabled active noise cancelling earbuds. In other words, they have the technology in them that “listens” to the ambient sound around you and reverses the phase – effectively cancelling it out so that you can’t hear it. Using this technology while listening to the sounds and music in noisy environments becomes not only possible but enjoyable.

Of course, the... Read more

Tronsmart Apollo Air Earbuds Review

Phil South — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 17:25:00 +0000

The Tronsmart Apollo Air Earbuds are part of a new midrange market for quality, yet cost effective, wireless listening. This upsurge of new wireless earbud headphones on the market can be a little baffling for buyers. There are so many ultra cheap headphones that it’s easy to look at the lower end of the scale and ask why you would pay extra for a pair. That’s an easy answer: for the sake of your ears. Let’s face it, you only get one pair of ears and have to look after them.

Music from the Air

The Tronsmart Apollo Air wireless headphones are Bluetooth-enabled active noise cancelling earbuds. What this means is that they contain technology which listens to the ambient noise and reverses the phase (it’s technical – don’t worry about it), effectively cancelling out any ambient noise. This means you can listen in noisy environments.

The pair of rechargeable earbuds in the kit each contain microphones for phone calls and have a charging case, which means when they are in the... Read more