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The Unibody MacBook: This is not your Father’s MacBook
Monday, October 20, 2008 / Product Review / 0 Comments
It shouldn’t surprise many that Apple is always looking to differentiate the MacBook from the MacBook Pro. With chip speeds at their current level, today’s processors can handle most operations with aplomb… so the two product lines need reasonably significant differences to justify the extra expense, and not just in screen size.
EyeTV, iPhone Home
Monday, October 8, 2007 / Product Review / 0 Comments
Elgato released its latest version of EyeTV software with a special feature just for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Version 2.5 now supports a special web server that will broadcast your recorded programs over a home network, or the internet. No longer do you have to come home first or connect to your computer before you have access to your newly recorded TV programs. Although this may seem like a minor addition to the slew of TV encoding options available with the EyeTV family of products, it marks yet another TV venue that Elgato is attempting to take the lead in. Watch out Slingbox™, Elgato has you by the tail.
Bare Naked Drives
Thursday, May 3, 2007 / Product Review / 0 Comments
The longer you use a computer, the more your data piles up. Sometimes you migrate those files from one computer to another. Other times those files stay locked up, forever entombed inside a retired computer.
If you are anything like me, you have old computers sitting in your garage or tucked away in closets. Perhaps you ditched the computer, but removed the hard drive and saved it. I have a small stack of those drives sitting on my desk right now. For years I asked myself why I was saving those drives. As it turns out, I was just waiting for Newertech to develop their Universal Drive Adapter .
The Incredibly Hackable Apple TV
Saturday, March 3, 2007 / Product Review / 0 Comments
Never before in the history of Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) has one of its products been so quickly and thoroughly hacked as the Apple TV. The swarm of attention surrounding the Apple TV is a phenomenon that defied all expectations, and deserves examination.
Almost all of Apple new releases get inspected by the faithful with the enthusiasm of a newly discovered archeological dig. New product “un-boxing” pictures make their way around the net within hours of the first FedEx delivery. Every detail of Apple’s award-winning packaging is displayed. The Mac-geek photo spreads often include disassembly pictures. I myself have had my hand in a few of those online Mac centerfolds. For the last few years, the bar has not been raised beyond that point, but now we have the Apple TV. Not only was it un-boxed and disassembled like other recent Apple releases, but this time the product was re-engineered by Apple-loving zealots, and within a matter of hours.
Monster on Vacation
Sunday, December 24, 2006 / Product Review, iPods / 0 Comments
Whoever said that “half the fun of travel is the journey,” must have been an iPod video owner. That’s because without your iPod, trudging through the long security lines and the otherwise endless waiting can be too much for a lot of modern Americans to endure. The longer we wait without anything to occupy us, the higher our stress levels climb. It defies logic, but doing nothing at all can really be more stressful than a full day at work.
Slimming Down Your Keyboard
Wednesday, September 6, 2006 / Hardware, Product Review / 0 Comments
Often people think of the display as being the most important point of contact with a computer. It is true that a bad display can make even the best computer look worthless, but the display is only half the story. A display will get the information out of a computer, but your keyboard is what gets most of the information in. As important as a keyboard is to the computing experience we often give it the least amount of thought. We buy expensive mice and tablets but few people invest in a new keyboard. The included keyboard from Apple is a quality keyboard that lasts through years of key pounding. Undoubtedly that’s why they are rarely upgraded. But just because Apple makes a good keyboard doesn’t mean that a different style keyboard would not serve you better.
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Getting TV to Your iPod Video
Wednesday, August 16, 2006 / Product Review, iPods / 0 Comments
After opening the iPod I gave my wife for our anniversary, she had only one question: “Can I get Oprah on this?” The answer was not an immediate ‘yes,’ but instead a tentative ’soon.’
There are really only two ways to put broadcast TV on an iPod. The first, and by far Apple’s preferred method, is through the iTunes Music Store. It’s certainly a simple way to add TV to your iPod, but not every show is available and the $1.99 cost per episode can add up quickly. Which leads us to the second option: capturing TV with a Personal Video Recorder (PVR). There are a variety of external PVRs, but converting video for your iPod requires many extra steps. For direct TV recording to your iPod there is one name that is universally respected. EyeTV 2 is the Mac PVR software from Elgato that turns any Mac into an impressive entertainment system. Although Elgato currently makes hardware to work with their EyeTV software, they encourage other hardware manufacturers to use the EyeTV software with non-Elgato devices.
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Another Hybrid For Your Shopping List
Sunday, March 19, 2006 / Product Review / 0 Comments
A wise man once told me “Be careful what you ask for, you just may have to buy it.” For me this advice has never been so relevant as it is now, with regards to the EyeTV Hybrid. Several years ago I reviewed Elgato’s EyeTV 500 and was substantially unimpressed. In my opinion, it lacked versatility because it could only be used with over-the-air HD broadcasts. If you wanted to capture standard definition TV or an analog video source, you would have to buy a different EyeTV box, and use it with the EyeTV 500. I wanted both units in one box for a reasonable price, and that is just what I got from the EyeTV Hybrid . Not only did Elgato pack the contents of two boxes the size of hardcover novels into one unit, but it all fits in a case smaller than my two fingers put together.
First Look at the Intel iMac
Wednesday, March 1, 2006 / Product Review / 0 Comments
It was widely expected that Apple would introduce at least one Intel-based Mac at the 2006 MacWorld Conference. So most attendees were not surprised that there was an introduction of the two Intel Macs, but they were in fact shocked by what models Apple chose to introduce. The year before, Steve Jobs had said that Intel processors would first be introduced into low-end Macs. Many assumed that would mean iBooks and Mac minis. Instead, we see the middle of the Mac lineup offered with the Intel chips. Apple really just slipped them in, quietly discontinuing the G5-based Macs, and in a very unconventional way kept the new Intel systems nearly identical in appearance to their PowerPC counterparts. The iMac G5 and the Intel iMac are so similar in fact; it is better to talk about what is different between the two instead of reviewing it by itself.
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Bluetooth Enabled Artistic Freedom
Thursday, July 7, 2005 / Product Review / 0 Comments
I don’t like being chained to a desk. Often I will have to pace around the room or change my sitting position to find inspiration. This has always meant I had to stop working, walk away, and run back to the desk when I had an idea. That is until now, because Wacom recently introduced Bluetooth to their popular Graphire tablet line. For those who are unaware of Wacom and their products, they are the undisputed heavyweight of penned input for computers. Many companies have copied Wacom tablets but few have bested them in innovation, and the Bluetooth Graphire is no exception.
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