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For a small to medium business having trouble with Wi-Fi connections, this is a problem which can actually stop you dead in your tracks, or at least make you much less mobile than you would like to be.

If you have a conference room that isn't able to connect to the network or your office space might be on different levels causing connectivity issues, the solution can become costly and disruptive.

I had a similar situation at home, where my home router was just not powerful enough to travel a distance of several metres through walls and upstairs. The Buffalo Powerline Adapter came to the rescue, no need to drill holes and extend cables, or even buy a stronger router.

This solution was definitely a "plug-in-and-go" product. The box comes with two chunky units: use the Ethernet cable to plug from your router into the first unit and then plug it straight into the wall, I then took the second unit upstairs and plugged it into a second outlet. Within two minutes I was streaming HD content in areas of the house which were previously complete blackspots.

The units both come with individual access codes, so theoretically it can act like setting up a guest network for your business.

The technology runs the internet at top speeds of 500 Mbps through the home electricity grid - pretty clever if you ask me. And the whole solution couldn't be easier to set up.

At a price of ￡46.99 including VAT, it is a very cheap answer to your connectivity woes.

Now this was by far the coolest gadget I saw at The Gadget Show Live this week: Microsoft's Kinect for Windows software development kit, Kinect Fusion.

After all the (well-deserved) hype over 3D printers, I was seriously impressed to have a play with a 3D scanner which used only a Windows PC Kinect and this free developer software.

The software works by taking multiple images and fusing them together to create a 3D scan. It is still in beta developer mode, so can be subject to glitches, but it's a great way to allow people to have a go with this technology.  

I got my head and shoulders scanned by the Kinect and the next moment it turned up on the screen in front of me. It took a while to get it right, as it seemed a bit sensitive as I twirled around on the spot many many times. But finally I saw a morphed version of myself on the screen. This image can then be manipulated in 3D on the computer and sent through to 3D printer to print out. While the scanning process took only a few seconds, once we got the technique right, the printing takes an hour or so to print a miniature head - sadly I wasn't allowed to have a mini-me printed out.

In order to show you how this worked, I asked an unsuspecting, yet curious, passer-by to give it a go so I could film the process:

Take one regular Gadget Show visitor:

The fundamental Boogie Board technology has been around for 20 years under the name Kent Displays, but for the last two years the company has concentrated on producing touch slates which replace the need for paper notebooks.

The cholesteric liquid crystal display (ChLCD) screen was developed out of the company's R&D, and the slates remind me of a darker Kindle screen.

English: The Taj Mahal, complete with ripples in the reflection (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The basic slate requires no power to generate or retain an image, and only a small amount to erase (supplied by a small watch battery, which will execute over 50,000 erase cycles).

The next stage Boogie Board (£80) connects to a computer via a micro USB, and as you write on the slate it can be seen replicated on the computer screen, alternatively it can be written away from the computer, connected and saved before erasing. I also played around with a prototype of the next generation device, which will be launched in Q4 2013, giving the Boogie Board wireless connectivity via Bluetooth. 

It's not particularly glam, or sleek like a tablet, but I can definitely see the appeal in utilities, call centres and in health care.

Soladapt is a company that produces a touchscreen overlay for computer monitors. The start-up company uses a framed screen to provide touch functionality to Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8 computers, as well as Android tablets and Apple products. The overlay fits on top of existing monitors and can be fixed permanently by being strapped on by Velcro.

This solution connects to the computer via USB and is a cost effective way of providing a touch experience in the office, and also means that if you have or intend to upgrade to Windows 8 - which is all about the 'touch experience' - it no longer means that you have to buy new hardware also.

Starting from a couple of hundred pounds, this really does prevent waste from the disposal of unwanted monitors.

I had a play around with the Soladapt overlays at The Gadget Show Live and found the 22-inch two-point touch overlay really effective and reactive to my fingers, however typing can slightly more tricky than usual, as you can see in the video below:

The company can also offer the products bespoke, so that they can be custom built to different sizes. However, at the show, Soladapt was also demoing the screens on a 44-inch TV monitor which I found much less sensitive - even though it was a 10-point touch screen. I also found with the large screen it was easy to miss letters when typing as the screen warps the depth of field. Until this technology gets perfected, I'd stick to using the touch overlays on a smaller scale, which worked much more efficiently.

Soladapt are currently in talks with ICT boards in the education sector, which especially might find it difficult to spend a lot of money to convert to touch, but may find the touch experience very interactive for students. 

Prices start at £114.99 for a 17-inch display.

Log into the desktop browser for MobileNow to have all the power to manage a fleet of mobile device users.

Currently available for iOS, with Android and other operating systems in the pipeline, MobileNow solves the security questions raised in an age where mobile working is the norm and more and more employees are using their home devices in the workplace (BYOD).

The minds of IT departments around the world are frazzled by the security issues these portable devices cause: data leakage and privacy issues being the main worry.

Appsense has launched a solution to securely manage devices within a company. The SaaS mobile device management (MDM) platform provides an easy to use dashboard for administrators to track who has what device and to go in and alter to a degree, what the devices can do.

Designed for enterprise and mid-market organisations, it bridges application/data access, corporate compliance and strong security to personal devices in work environments.

MobileNow boasts a single interface for IT departments to get a programme up and running, while continually monitoring with no further infrastructure. The product is quick to get started, while offering a number of different profiles with a range of security features which can be applied to different groups within the organisation.

Additionally, MobileNow enables the user to still freely use their device without any fears that their personal data may be remotely wiped if the company feels as though it needs to protect confidential data. Apps and emails which are used for business purposes sit safely within the MobileNow platform, while business email messages and attachments are secure in transit by Encryption AES 256-bit encryption.

"MDM been around for a little time in an early stage which tends to lock down the device," said Ashley Tuberfield, product marketing manager of Appsense. "This is the next generation around mobile information management concerning apps and data rather than the device."

I gave MobileNow a run for its money on an iPad mini this week and firstly, I must note that I was experiencing the solution from the perspective of the IT department (through the administration console in a web browser) and also the as an employee (through using the iPad device). 

Administrator and adding users

My first experience was to set up the administrator page, which was fairly straight forward, once I got past all the passwords I had to note down to remember. I can imagine an IT department finding it very straightforward.

Appsense also told me that IT departments can import all the company's users from an active directory. If a company has already grouped its users, this will be recognised, otherwise it would be beneficial to spend a little time organising users into groups such as 'finance' or 'sales' which then can have different levels of access and restrictions, which you can add later on.

The level of organisation was very formulaic, with a clear dashboard of sections. It just takes a bit of time, like with anything, to get the hang of the different areas. But after setting up your employees and devices the main sections to familiarise yourself with should be 'device policies' and 'app policies' this is the brains of the operation.  

Device policies

This is the main part of the MDM solution. Here you can set policies and apply them to different employees or groups of employees.

Your policies affect the functions of your device, from whether you can screen capture , to allowing the camera to work on the device.

This feature was very useful, imagine IT departments want to stop you using the device's camera, gamecentre, allowing Safari to collect cookies or to use iCloud backup - then a change to the policy could be pushed to the device in an instant. However, when I tried this out first hand, it did work the quickest over WiFi, I tried it on a medium strength 3G connection and it took about 30-60 mins to push through from the desktop browser where I changed the settings to the iPad mini in my hands.

App policies

MobileNow claims to securely isolate business applications - both in-house and 3rd party apps - from personal applications. Again, it ensures business data is always encrypted, compliant and protected by the policies you have set. Here you can set policies such as whether you can print from the app, geolocation restrictions (in the US only), timeouts, or password lengths.

You can also upload internal apps and the solution wraps it securely in real time. Additionally, you can add an app link to the iTunes Store to use the Apple Volume Purchase programme. Rather than everyone buying an app individually, you buy licenses beforehand and make them available. For instance you can buy 100 licenses, which gives you 100 redemption codes. You can then upload them to mobile now, and when a user goes to download the app, Apple takes one of the redemption codes seamlessly in the background.

Finally you can push company apps onto employee devices.

Final thoughts

This piece of software is very intelligent and for enterprises thinking of moving into the tablet space, but worried about security, this solution can solve most worries. However, the system is very "Big Brother" and the power is in the hands of the administrator. While the administrator can't see your screen or know your whereabouts, it is slightly creepy how functions can just disappear or reappear from your device without you doing anything.

That said, if it is a company device, the administrator is completely in their rights to do so, but from a BYOD perspective, you might start to get annoyed if your camera disappears on the day you want to take a picture of your kid doing something cute in the park. However, at least with MobileNow you will know that any existing photos will not be remotely wiped off by an over-eager administrator.

As with most security, it's a balancing act. IT departments should have good communication with employees so they know what is going on with the hardware that they use on a day-to-day basis.

MobileNow is a very strong solution and will take a lot of pain out of deploying a mobile workforce. 

Click here for pricing.

I first came across gDoc Binder at CES on a table Windows PC. The software enables you to digitally create a ring binder of documents, which can be formatted and organised as you would with a real-life ring binder. The table PC showing off the product in Las Vegas really helped demonstrate the ingenius user experience of the product, you could swipe through pages just as we are now used to when reading books on tablets.

gDoc binder officially launched on the 5^th of March, and I've been playing around with a copy for a couple of weeks now. I've been trying out the traditional desktop experience. The instruction manual (which is a gDoc) was really useful in setting up, but it was really easy to get going.  You start off with a template, choose how many tab dividers you want and create.

You "open" the binder by clicking on the cover once, and it opens to reveal a traditional looking ring binder along with a table of contents. Now this is where I began question the desktop user experience opposed to the tablet - the way the binder opens and pages turn is a little clunky on the desktop and also to mention that the graphics are a little Windows 95 for me.

The good thing is that it supports over 32 different file formats, including PDF and word documents. I found that inserting files took a little while to load, but once it got passed the first couple of documents, it sped up. You can also drag and drop documents as well as multiple files, but it did have a little trouble with over ten documents.

The table of contents also automatically updates with the file names of the documents you insert.

I found the tablet view quite intuitive, being able to drag it into different positions and angles, and it also demonstrated to me again how I think this works much better as a tablet application. It currently exists as a Windows 7 and 8 PC and tablet application, with other operating system applications hopefully in the pipeline,

You can also create documents within your ring binder using the gDoc software - but for myself this wasn't particularly useful as I could just as easily import my word documents. You can share the binder in an email in a XPS document

The company recently won a KnowList Award for the professional service industry in the Technology Innovation category. The award was granted to the developer version of the software which allows IT departments and consultants to customize the software for clients, such as adding connectors into existing document management systems.

During the awards it was noted that the judging panel felt that gDoc provided a "tangible benefit" to the legal profession in managing their documents. By using a familiar and natural concept, users found that it saved time when producing closing bibles and court bundles.

"gDoc Binder makes it easy to review and track an entire matter in a completely natural way because it is based on the familiar paper binder concept that has worked in the legal sector for centuries. I've been looking for an electronic file that you can flick through and mark up for years but there's been nothing available until now," said Robert Cohen, IT Director at City firm Speechly Bircham.

When you consider companies who have to import hundreds of documents this would save time and space. And just think at the end of the day, how much physical shelving space you are saving.

It would just be nice to soon see the enterprise benefitting from the same graphics quality as consumers are now used to, because at the end of the day, there is a continuous cross over in expectation.

The company is offering the software for $10 which gives you the ability to create 10 binders. Available to buy from the gDoc Store and Amazon.

The Epson EB-1945W projector sits in the mid-high end of Epson's fleet of products. This projector is targeted at larger meeting rooms, which sit 30-50 people, or university lecture theatres, as it has a maximum diagonal screen size of 280-inches.

The first thing you notice is how clear cut and bright the image is, this is down to the projector having a resolution of 1280 x 800 and a brightness measurement of 4,200 (brightness in projectors usually sits between 2.5K - 10K).

WiFi

This version of the projector also has WiFi as standard. It has a USB dongle which you plug in to turn it into a WiFi projector and you can then connect your laptop or mobile on a wired or wireless network, as well as remotely managing it through Epson software.

There is also a free app for iOS and Android which you can use for basic projection control from your mobile device. It accepts most file types through the app, however iOS accepts Office documents, while Android doesn't.

When projecting video Epson recommends that you use a cabled connection, however on test a 720 short video worked with minimal jumping over WiFi, which was very impressive

Portability

While it has the connectivity to be ideal to be fixed in one place, it is also fairly portable, being easy enough to pick up and place in a different room. It also features screen fit and keystone correction functions, which are very useful if you intend to move the projector around regularly, rather than keeping it in a fixed position. The keystone correction fixes the distorted tombstone effect that you get if you project an image at an angle, or if the projector is not centred onto the screen. The distortion can be set to be automatically recognised and corrected by the projector in seconds.

Connectivity

The projector supports display port and HDMI (which is useful as most business laptops do not tend to support HDMI, while many projectors have gone over to this standard). And it also has a 1.6 optical zoom which allows the installer much more flexibility when fixing the product in a particular position.

A nice little feature was the AV mute, which is a window which you can close to power down your presentation into sleep mode, if you wish to focus attention away from the presentation for a moment. When you open up the window again you immediately get the presentation back.  

I found the USB port one of the clever add-ons to the device. Plug in your memory stick and away you go with your presentation, no need to find the WiFi network on your mobile, or laptop. In a situation of multiple presenters it would also reduce the need for people to arrive early, or even worry that the laptop will run out of battery, as the presentation can be run straight off the memory stick (however, you'd have to convert your PowerPoint to PDF, as again, Office is not supported).

The Epson EB-1945W projector has been available since last summer, and at £1,568 (inc VAT) may be seen as the cheaper option for such quality and portability on the market. 

While I was at CES in Las Vegas a few of weeks ago, it was not surprising that a fair few gadgets caught my eye. While at Eureka Park where the technology start-ups were all stashed away, I came across Nio, "the unforgettable accessory".

Essentially, Nio is a very small key ring which uses Bluetooth technology to pair with your Apple device (but they have to be either a iPhone 4S, iPad 3 or later!). Clip the Nio to your bag and when the Nio wanders too far away from your phone, it will sound an alarm.

You can set the alarm between two and 20 feet, as well as being able to adjust the sound, volume and vibrate settings. You could also attach the Nio to other precious things like your wallet, keys, laptop, luggage or even pets, and as long as you stay with your Apple device, it will alert you if these things move out of your designated area.

It is tiny and weighs a mere 10 grams so you would hardly notice it and it also holds a three month charge. It is intended to retail at $59.99 which is rather a hefty on-off price to pay, but I only think that because I'm not a forgetful  person (touch wood!), however some people I will not name in the Computer Weekly office, I would recommend buying three!

While in Las Vegas, Nio was looking to speak with retailers and more interestingly, with telecoms companies for accessories for corporations. Everyone has a colleague who has left their work laptop in the back of a taxi at least once, this would go towards protecting company hardware as well as data protection issues by preventing the device from getting into the wrong hands. 

The iX500 is Fujitsu's new offering for a desktop scanner, with hardware updates, including the option of wireless scanning to iOS and Android devices.

Where the company's very portable ScanSnap S1100 is an extremely thin and portable device, you would have to manually scan one-by-one, single sided, with a maximum speed of eight sheets per minute, the desktop iX500 scans both sides of a document at 25 pages per minute.

The scanner automatically scans both sides of a document, recognises a blank page and deletes it. It also recognises the orientation, and if the page has been skewed during the feeding process, correcting it as you go along.

The accompanying software offers a Quick Menu when you scan your documents, with options such as scan to folder, iPhoto or Photo Gallery, print, email or cloud applications such as Evernote and Dropbox. You can organise the various options into 'favourite' to make the Quick Menu even easier to navigate.

What I found particularly clever about the software was the option to import any internal business applications you may need to use. If your business application recognises PDFs, you will be able to import your scanned item straight into it.

Additionally, you can use the settings to make the device as independent as possible. For instance, when using Gmail, if you select to attach a document and then open the software and scan an item, it will attach automatically and can also be selected to delete from your computer locally, avoiding  a build-up of unnecessary files.

Wireless

The iX500 is fitted with a GI chip to enable wireless scanning. Download the software through an app from the App Store or Google Play, connect the scanner and away you go. You can even remotely press the scan button 'on' from your tablet and a few seconds later the item appears on your screen with the option to view in various applications such as DropBox, iBooks or email. It is expected that future scanners from Fujitsu will also come with wireless capabilities.

Business card heaven

While I was using the scanner and becoming more and more smitten, it was when I realised I could pop up to 20 business cards in the feeder and have them scanned in seconds, which is what the video below demonstrates.

The Fujitsu software, Card Minder, recognises the business cards and extracts the scanned data into relevant fields, this data is then editable and exportable - like creating and alphabetising your own virtual rollerdex. For an organised soul, this is a dream!

However, when I tested it out on my array of different business cards I have stacked on my desk, it wasn't as easy as scanning a stack of identical cards. It was still astonished at how quickly they scanned through and how the software (most of the time) managed to recognise the different types of information and pop them into different fields. However, if a business card was double sided or more "creative" than the traditional white card with lines of text, about 2 out of 10 times is wouldn't recognise my cards. This was slightly frustrating, but it was still easy enough to edit the fields manually if you were determined to use this system. However, I do blame working in media and the array of whacky business cards for this problem.

A desktop's new best friend

I've previously reviewed the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i scanner and I was really pleased with the speed and features, however due to not really being portable, I didn't really see the point, when there are ultra portable scanners, like the S1100, which you can pop into your laptop bag without a thought.

The iX500 should be a staple piece of equipment for the office desk, perfect for the individual who does the most scanning, such as a secretary, and due to the wireless features, anybody in the office with a tablet can also easily access the joys of ScanSnap.

The iX500 was available from January 7 for a RRP of £395.00 ex VAT. 

Facebook launched its new social search function, called Graph Search, last night, and I have been lucky enough to try out the additions which the company have said are still in beta test mode.

The social network, which boasts one billion members, 240 billion photos and one trillion connections, will enable users to "naturally" search through people, photos, interests and places.

Graph Search will enable users to filter content on Facebook to find out particular things, such as which nearby restaurants their friends have liked or which friends like a certain movie, or to search for photos including selected people.

Facebook will then order answers depending on the number of "likes" or the level of a user's interaction with their chosen person, place or photograph, placing more familiar links at the top of the search results.

Dressed in his statement black zipped-up sweater (for the love of God, you're a millionaire, shell out for a checked shirt at least? No? OK), Zuckerberg stated that while Graph Search is not a web search, like Google, Facebook has partnered with Microsoft's search engine, Bing, to enable users to search the internet when Facebook fails to find an answer.

When I used Graph Search for the first time last night, Facebook provided me with a two minute tour which showed you how to type questions into the search bar. It seemed to personalise the tutorial for me, using "Cardiff University" as an example search term.

However, that's where the personalisation ingenuity stopped, for me at least.

During the press conference Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his cronies were describing different types of searches and how they had enabled Graph Search to recognise natural language. They suggested 'photos I have liked' as a search term to gather all the images you have positively engaged with.

Trying out Graph Search for the first time at about 11pm last night, I forgot the "correct" terminology and typed in 'my favourite photos'. Facebook decided to autocorrect my sentence to 'my favourite girl photos' and presented this page of rather nude women, which may I add, I haven't 'liked'.

I found another couple of faults, which can only be expected in a beta test version - It seems that my best friend who lives in Bangor, North Wales, lives in Cardiff, because any Cardiff filters I put in she pops straight up.

I can see this going down particularly well with users who wish to check out single men and women. Just type in 'single friends of friends who live in London' and friends of friends who have publicly shared their relationship status will appear as the results. Maybe if everyone everyone knows is taken, Bing will direct you to Match.com?

While the tech industry generally seems underwhelmed with the added functionality, it will be interesting to see how small businesses may be able to explore their customers' likes and dislikes and target advertising at them. For instance if a user has liked a bar, it will be interesting to see if the bar can then go ahead and filter, finding that user to like a particular cocktail or cuisine, then pointing out special offers to them which will in theory be more attractive to the customer.

Zuckerberg kept a quite tight-lipped on using Graph Search for business, avoiding questions, but answering in regards to existing sponsored advertisements on Facebook:

"You build good businesses over time, by people wanting to use something," said Zuckerberg. "Sponsored ads extend quite nicely to Graph Search, but there is nothing new for this."

I predict that Facebook users will not mind the inclusion of Graph Search in general. It's not a redesign of the site, which is when users usually get up in arms about scandalous changes to their ever-so-familiar pages... for about two days. 

The search bar will feature at the top of Facebook on the blue bar, with the home button moved over to the right. Facebook users do like complaining though, so they might kick up a bit of a fuss, until they realise the power of the Graph Search functionality to increase stalking by 600%.

Still in beta, Graph Search will be rolled out to a "very small audience" from 16 January. The company will collect feedback from users before rolling out to a wider audience. Graph Search will also go through tests before being available on mobile devices.