Christmas Gifts for the Shutterbug

It seems every family has at least one person in charge of taking family snapshots. After looking over dozens of catalogs and even more web sites, I have compiled a list of great gifts for that camera buff. Under $20 Giottos Rocket Air Blower. (About $12) Every camera bag should have one of these indispensible gadgets. The Rocket Air Blower shoots a powerful stream of air that will clean lenses and filters. It’s design prevents dust from being blown into the object being cleaned and it does... Read More

Cooking your Turkey with Laser Beams, and other Gadgets for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is coming up, so I thought I’d do a roundup of gadgets to help on Turkey day. Qooq (pronounced Cok) http://www.qooq.com/ Approx $520: Qooq is a device meant for the kitchen that connects to your home network by Ethernet or WiFi to look up recipes. You can even subscribe to a monthly update that includes tips and recipes. This device also has a meal planner, so you can put your entire 4 day Thanksgiving meal spread in there and look up a new way to prepare cranberries. The Qooq... Read More

Interview with SCOTTEVEST CEO Scott Jordan

Recently I was able to interview founder and CEO of SCOTTEVEST, Scott Jordan. SCOTTEVEST manufactures clothing with a proprietary system of routing wires and cables into clothing for gadgets along with unique pockets for all your electronics. RS: First off, WHAT is SCOTTEVEST? SJ: It’s a full line of clothing designed to carry, among other things, all your electronic devices. We have a patented Personal Area Network that enables you to wire your devices in your garment in a fashion that... Read More

Save Your Hard Drive, Check out SpinRite

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm ($89) Since a hard drive typically lasts for 5 years before the chances of failure start dramatically increasing, you may find yourself at some point with a drive that either fails partially or completely. First, calm down and don’t panic by throwing the drive from your 5th story apartment window only to land on someone’s cherry red Toyota Carolla. Instead, check out SpinRite. What sets SpinRite apart from the dozens of other hard drive repair utilities... Read More

The Droids: Google Phones

Friday was the release date for two Google phones, called Droids, with Verizon Wireless. Both phones run Google’s Android Operating System and both look like they’re the start of some exciting mobile options for Verizon customers. Both phones, the Droid Eris by HTC and the Droid by Motorola, are both phones similar looking to an iPhone with large touch screen interfaces. This is not surprising, as Apple’s iPhone is likely going to be the main competition for this new deal between... Read More

Windows Home Server–Why don’t more people use this?

 Windows Home Server—what is it? Windows Home Server http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx I have a small network at home with 8 computers attached to each other.  I had various shared external harddrives across the network, but finding things became cumbersome and unwieldy.  I wanted something like a server that I have used for many years at my place of employment, but I didn’t want a full server.  I wanted something that was easy to set... Read More

3 things you REALLY need to know when buying a digital camera.

Have you ever been shopping for a digital camera and the sales person has approached you and started boasting about the various camera features?  Have you ever had that panicky feeling that you only understand about half of what the sales person is saying?  This is why I started this list.  A list of three things to look for to help you decide what you really need when buying a digital camera. 1.  Megapixels.  This is one of the big selling points.  More megapixels means better photos, right? ... Read More

Secrets that the printer companies don’t want you to know

We all have at least one.  Those sometimes temperamental machines that sit atop our desks and churn out page after page of   invaluable data.  Our printers.  If you are like me, you have a love/hate relationship with these little boxes of joy.  They allow you to make cyber material physical with a click of a button, but at times they like to get jammed with paper, run out of ink at the least opportune time, or possible just stop working altogether. The printer companies know of this love/hate... Read More

Popcorn Hour C-200 and the Internet TV Revolution

It would appear that our televisions have gone from analog to digital stations just fine. Okay, just fine is a little too broad of a generalization; after all, there was a record number of calls (317,000) to the FCC last Friday on this subject. However, the FCC was prepared, and they had 4,000 operators on hand to answer what they knew was going to be a rush of calls. Many of these calls were handled by re-scanning the converter boxes. The www.dtv.gov website had a record number of hits. Of course,... Read More

iVisit Raises Video Conferencing Potential

Right now, I am in a situation where my family and I are moving to another city, and so my son is temporary living with me while my wife and I have the other two kids at our destination. Just minutes ago, my son was missing his mommy, and so I called her up on her cell and put it on speaker. All I could think about was: if only there was a way that people could visit together in some technological way. Okay, that wasn’t one of my better lead-ins, but I think that the company iVisit is... Read More

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