LIVEdigitally

For the past three years, my wife and I approach each Fall season with one thought in mind: let’s try not to pick up any new shows.  We have a DVR (Comcast HD - Motorola DCT6412), and have a dozen or so subscriptions, and we just don’t want to spend more time in front of the set than we already do.  Well, the Fall lineup appeared, and with it came a decent set of new shows.

Let’s start with last years’ subscriptions (not necessarily in priority order):

• Saturday Night Live - sure, it’s 90 minutes, but with a DVR, it’s really about 25 minutes total
• Grey’s Anatomy - not my pick, but the wife and all the friends love it
• House - I can’t get enough of the “mysterious ailment drives patient into hospital, doctors wittily convince House to take the case, initial obvious treatment appears to work but almost kills the patient, side antics with some moron with a sexually-related issue that’s instantly solved in a derisive manner, main patient approaches death, inter-doctor conflict ensues, then 6 minutes before the end of the episode House stumbles upon the solution, fade out to cool classic rock music.”  Yeah, it’s formulaic, but I like it.
• Boston Legal - Shatner and Spader. Nuff said
• Criminal Minds - This is one of the shows I like to have on the DVR to watch via Slingbox when travelling.
• The Apprentice - Its our guilty pleasure.  Each year since the first we keep meaning to remove it from the list, but somehow it never disappears.  Plus I auditioned for it once - yeah, it’s true, I admit it.
• Scrubs - Great show with very underrated writing.
• Globe Trekker - Nice to see the world we live in, even if it’s not in HD (Equator on Discovery Channel may replace it soon)
• World Poker Tour - I still like watching TV poker, but this is the only one whose reporting is tolerable (can someone PLEASE replace the WSOP guys, they’re just horrid)
• My Name Is Earl - Best new show from last year, Jason Lee has found his calling.  Unfortunately it’s a scummy guy-turned ethical, but he’s darn good at it.
• The Office - Loved the BBC version.  Hated Season One.  Now it’s the best comedy on TV.
• 30 Days - Of the whole list, this is the one I’d call a must-watch.  Morgan Spurlock’s “reality” show pitting individuals against very alienating situations is very eye-opening.
• Arrested Development - So good I still watch it. Seen every episode. Willing to see them all again. 
• Simpsons - It’s really here for nostalgic purposes, as it’s been lousy for a few years running.  I figure the whole season has about enough material for two entire episodes these days.
• Family Guy - Not as good as the first two years, but has more individual LOL moments than anything else I watch.  Although I didn’t appreciate the so-called “Season Finale” last year, which was really just the Stewie movie divided into three parts.

See, it’s a long list!  Granted, a few of the shows (WPT, Simpsons, SNL) I/we don’t care if they get wiped when the DVR runs out of space, but there’s still just way too much television there. And, yes, there are new ones this year:

• Psych - I really enjoyed Monk for a year or two before I got tired of the same routine (although Tony Shalhoub is just great). I find Psych is kind of a “Monk 2.0″ with a different type of quirkiness.  Fun show that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and has some clever moments.  Especially the musical numbers during the closing credits.
• Studio 60 - It’s good, but not as great as we all want it to be.  The pilot was excellent, but it’s been a few notches below ever since.  Amanda Peet is completely unbelievable in her role, and we need to see a lot more of Timothy Busfield and a lot less Steven Weber.  But I’ll keep a-watching for now.
• Standoff - The interaction between the couple is a wee bit, shall we say, nauseating, but everything else about the show is great.  I doubt it’ll make it, but I hope it stays alive.
• Heroes - The best show on television today.  It’s like X-men lite.  Or a more serious Greatest American Hero.  Or Lost without an ever-expanding mystery (nope, I don’t watch Lost.  Why?  Well, I got burned by Twin Peaks, of which I was a huge fan back in the day.  When I have positive confirmation that the entire Lost storyline will make it to air, then I’ll go back and catch up with the DVDs.  Until then, I wait for the mist to clear up a bit).  Actually, it’s not like any of those - it is a truly unclassifiable show. I’d watch it for two hours a week if they’d make it that long. Other than a tiny bit of overacting by a few of the actors, it’s great. If you don’t watch Heroes yet, you are missing out.  It is the best show on television today.

That’s my list or now.  I watched two episodes of 30 Rock and I can’t figure out how such a good premise and cast can be so lame.  Twenty Good Years didn’t even have Twenty Good Minutes, and I felt like Tambor and Lithgow must’ve cringed every time they heard the embarrassing laugh track.  Didn’t want to bother with Brothers & Sisters, or Six Degrees, or The Nine - I hear they are okay, but I’m just saturated in each category they target.

UPDATED: for an excellent counterpoint on the health/quality of TV today, check out Steve Gillmor’s “TV is Dead” post.

I am on the planes a decent amount of the time (100,000 miles by late May) and tend to spend a chunk of my flights using my laptop.  Most of the time it’s productive, but it can also include a DVD or the occasional game (either Nethack or Battle for Middle-Earth 2, which are obviously similar).  When I was a-hunting for a laptop, battery life was a key criterion in my selection process, as was weight.  While I like my Vaio VGN SZ-160P, the standard battery was lasting about 3 hours (the extended life clocks in under six hours before my tweaks), not enough for the SFO-JFK route (now switching to SFO-EWR as a default due to Manhattan traffic, which is a huge bummer because United’s P.S. flights have standard AC outlets on board). 

So I did a lil’ Googlin’ for tips on extending battery life, and I found them all pretty, well, lacking.  Stuff like “don’t try to do real-time 3d rendering” or “fully charge up your battery before flying.” One of them even said “buy an extra battery.” Not exactly helpful (Sony’s tips are in the picture on the right).  The most common tip that I’ve found truly deceptive is on disabling wireless: many claim it makes a huge impact to disable it, but personally I’ve only noticed a minor difference.  I do in fact disable it (and Bluetooth) but on my Vaio the difference was about 10 minutes over 3 hours (but as I state below, it all adds up).

Alas, I’ve gone and done a lot of experimenting and have a list of my tips to really maximize battery life for my laptop.

Key to this process is having some good methodology.  While testing, I kept a plain text file on my Desktop (creatively called “battery.txt”) tracking the real clock as well as Windows’ expected battery life.  The problem with the Windows tool, is it really just tells you the current state of the battery based on the current system activity.  This means if you start with 3 hours remaining then spend 30 minutes doing something that rapidly consumes the battery, you’ll be down to 2 or less.  In other words, you need to track the actual history/lifespan of your battery if you want to get the best information out of your system.   You can check out my little tracking file for inspiration.

And now, with no more delay, here’s Jeremy’s Tips for Maximizing Your Battery, or How to Fly From San Francisco to New York City With an Average Battery and Not Have to Watch an Ernest Goes to Anywhere Movie):

1. Brightness: how low can you go? Without any question, the fastest way to suck the life out of a battery is leaving your brightness high.  Turn it down as low as you possibly can without needing to up your glasses prescription.  On my Vaio, I can select from one of 8 levels.  During one test, at brightness level 3 my system reported 60% full, with 3:52 (all times are hours:minutes) of life to go.  I switched up to level 5 and in 17 minutes of use, I was down to 52% full, with 3:06 to go.  In other words, 17 minutes used 46 minutes worth of battery (all other variables were held constant).  You can even be so bold as to lower your brightness all the way down when sitting idle for a minute or two (for example, if you are writing a long blog post and pause to clarify your thoughts before typing).
2. Don’t use any external devices.  USB and PC-Cards (aka PC-MCIA) use your battery to function, even when you aren’t using them!  Have an EVDO card or maybe a USB mouse?  Remove them if you can.  Even a memory card reader in your PC-MCIA slot uses power just by being in there.  The effect varies based on the type of device, but even a few minutes here and there (as you’ll see) add up significantly.
3. Single-task, not multi-task.  The more you are doing at the same time with your PC, the more memory and CPU usage increases.  Both of which directly use up battery.  Close any applications you aren’t using, even the small ones.  When doing some experimentation, I found it more efficient to run a single application at a time, then close it and open a new one when ready to move on.  While your hard drive uses the battery too, if you are doing anything ‘productive’ you are probably hitting the drive on a regular (even if infrequent) basis anyway.
4. Keep it cool.  You can take a page out of the extreme gamer’s handbooks, and have your system perform more optimally by keeping it cool.  Make sure your air vents (inflow and outflow) aren’t blocked by anything, which often occurs by poorly positioning your notebook on your lap (which is known to have some other side-effects too, by the way).  Heavy CPU and memory use all contribute to heat as well, hence my comment on multi-tasking above.
5. Shut down unused services. MSN Messenger, Google Desktop Search, QuickTime, wireless managers, etc.  They’ve all gotta go.  You probably aren’t going to use them, and they all eat up valuable resources.  Especially things that ’scan’ anything.  For advanced users, I also recommend launching Windows Task Manager and getting rid of anything not used in-flight.  In fact, I put together another little text file with a list of all the services I don’t use, and I go down the list and manually shut down each one.  If you really want to get this one right, a little bit of research is in order.  While online, I launched the task manager (control-shift-escape) and for each service that has my User Name, I googled it.  There are a few good web sites out there which chronicle what all these mysterious services do, and you should be able to figure out which you need, and which you don’t.  Important warning: if you aren’t comfortable with this lingo, you should skip this step, or get some techie friend to help you out.  Less important warning: you may end up in a situation where you need to do a reboot after you get to your destination.
6. Do Hibernate, Do Not Suspend. I’ve found that my Vaio tends to use way too much battery when in suspend mode.  Not sure why, but the ‘instant-on’ effect isn’t worth the extra 30-60 seconds it takes to get out of hibernation.  Furthermore, the minor hit to the hard drive is unlikely to have a significant impact to your overall battery time.  Also, if you weren’t aware, going in and out of hibernate is much better than a full startup/shutdown sequence.  Note that you might need to manually enable Hibernate as a system option (once you have, the quick shortcut into it is ‘windows button’ followed by U followed by H, and some PCs will have even faster shortcuts available as well).  If you make a run to the bathroom, however, that’s worth a quick Standby, but anything over 10 minutes and I’d Hibernate instead.
7. Tweak advanced settings. Virtually all laptops manufactured in the past 24 months have some advanced power options.  Mine, for example, allows me to go into 16-bit color mode, force the CPU into a power-saving mode, disable my LAN port, and more.  This might seem obvious, but if you aren’t doing it already, go find these settings (probably in the control panel, or possibly through custom software provided by your manufacturer) and get aggressive with them!   If you don’t have any extra control, one good extra tip is to manually force your screen into lower color modes, as they use less CPU overall and can make a huge difference in the long run.  While you are at it, you might want to change your Alarms settings, as many laptops default to shutting down with as much as 10% of your battery still available (my Low Battery is just an alert at 5%, and my Critical is force hibernate at 1%)!
   
8. Choose Wisely.  Good: Word, Excel, Outlook, Text Editors.  Bad: anything by Adobe (you think Microsoft has bloatware, have you noticed how long even Acrobat takes to launch these days???), all Google plugins, many ‘Widgets’, ‘Gadgets’, etc.  All I can say is pick your battles wisely.  50 minutes of a video game ate up over 2 hours of my battery time, whereas writing email or documents tend to use up less than what Windows predicts (about 105% of the estimate on average).  I’ve also found WinDVD is right on the money for battery consumption, and Windows Media Player is a little power-hungry (by the way, if you are using your laptop to play music make certain you disable visualizations).  On that note, don’t use your laptop to play music unless absolutely necessary, it’s a real resource killer.
9. Watch That Hard Drive. I just wrote, don’t play music, but the reason is mostly about your drive.  The more it spins, the more power it takes.  Make sure you’ve set your basic power option to turn off your drive relatively fast, but not necessarily too fast.  Some drives use more power getting started than staying running for short periods of time.  I set my Vaio to turn off the disk after 3 minutes of inactivity, you may want more, you may want less.  At the end of the day, if you are doing anything that prevents the hard drive from spinning down ever, you are draining your battery more than needed.
10. Like a Boy Scout, Be Prepared. I make a point of configuring my ‘flight mode’ prior to getting on the plane.  It may only take 5-10 minutes to get your system setup properly, but that just eats into your battery life if you wait to do it on the plane.  Once done with all the settings, the last thing I do before unplugging my power supply is hibernating the PC.

I hope some of these tips help you out.  Personally, I add around 30 minutes (or more) to the longevity of my standard battery (3:30 on average now), and almost an hour on the extended one (6:30 or so).  This gives me almost 10 hours of combined life (4 full DVDs guaranteed), which suits me quite well.

How computers work, ha. There are little elves that jam the printers! It’s like the Matrix, 1s and 0s all lined up, and they squiggle around all green-like! The internet, a series of tubes, right? That’s what the man said! I got this stuff DOWN.

Sometimes I feel horribly ignorant (but NO I don’t believe any of the above, now stop it!) and when I do, I feel the need to ingest far too much information at one time, so much so that I am almost guaranteed to forget every little snippet. It still feels pretty academic in the moment, though.
My latest wave of inadequacy is over computers. Born in 1985, I kinda missed the early bits (heh, bits) of computery goodness, and it’s sort of like a little hole in my soul. The history intrigues me. Also, one of my excuses for not driving a car is that that I feel like I would have to learn about how they work at least a little so I could do things like change the oil, switch out a flat tire, etc. How then, do I justify knowing exactly diddly-squat about the inner workings of computers? (Don’t ask me to justify my cell phone, my DS, the metro, my shoes, please. I realize it’s a silly roundabout way of getting to the point, but I thirst for knowledge!)

Luckily, this handy book comes along in it’s shiny 8th Edition: How Computers Work. Very ingenious title, I must say, but it gets the point across. Published this past November, the new edition is “Fully updated with coverage of multi-core processors from Intel and AMD; the North Bridge and South Bridge chip sets; digital cameras and photo editing; the iPod; TiVo; spyware and anti-spyware; PCI Express; SLI dual video cards; overclocking and overcooling; plasma displays; Internet security, spam, and chat rooms; plus a complete, new section on PC gaming.” In other words, it covers a LOT of stuff, and that’s only the recent additions.

Unfortunately, this bugger is in hot demand at the library, so I’ve got to take it back before finishing the entire thing. I will put it back on hold, myself, though, because I actually am enjoying it enough to finish it. Plus, I haven’t gotten to the good parts (”Games and Multimedia” and “How the Internet Works”) yet! Each part of the book starts with a timeline of relevant history (which often overlaps between sections) and then launches into a myriad of explanations ranging from “How PCI-Express Breaks the Bus Barrier” to “How eBay Sells Everything,” all with colorful and thorough visual aids. Note that this really only covers the Windows PC, but the author does recommend How the Mac Works for the Apple crowd. Oftentimes I still felt like things were going over my head (i.e. “How Memory Cards and Smart Cards Work,”) but hey, at least I know what a bit is now.

For the already techie folks of the world, this may not be the most useful book on the market, but for the curious mind craving an introduction to a broad range of PC technology, it’s certainly recommended.

With roughly 20 million homes in the US today owning “HD-ready” TV sets, HDTV (High Definition Television) has become a bit of a catch-all acronym for roughly anything that is not standard definition (SD). Along with any new standard or technology comes the inevitable onslaught of abbreviations, acronyms, buzzwords, and otherwise cryptic terminology. For example, there is “over-the-air” HDTV content (used by the ATSC standard) – most people aren’t aware that a simple antenna bought at radio shack can potentially deliver a better quality HDTV signal than the latest digital cable box or satellite receiver! Want a better one? A recent study showed that of these HD set owners, roughly 25% had them connected to SD sources, and did not know they were not watching HDTV content!

Another key element to HDTV is the cables that are used to connect between a source and a display. Someone can buy the latest 61-inch top of the line Pioneer Elite plasma display and hook it up to a brand new Toshiba HD-DVD player and see a worse looking picture than on my $99 Samsung DVD player. Why? The cables. While it is technically possible to connect a player and a display using RCA or S-video cables, many buyers are aware that they need at least component video cables (they are red, blue, and green) to get an HD signal. Even then, however, it’s only an analog HD signal, and doesn’t compare to higher quality digital cable connections, either DVI or HDMI. The DVI (Digital Visual Interface) standard is slightly older and quickly becoming outdated by HDMI, its newer counterpart, although both offer the same video quality (and are compatible with each other). DVI connections are most commonly found today on monitors, as opposed to home theater environments.

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) connections are able to carry both the audio and video signal from one device to another, which is easy for hooking up devices, and also much cleaner from the living room perspective. HDMI is relatively new, and only became commercially available in 2005, but has become the effective standard for most newer digital cable boxes and DVD players, and is even featured in the Xbox 360 (well, probably). Now there is already another standard being proposed to replace both DVI and HDMI, called UDI (Universal Display Interface), although it is primarily focused on the PC market. There is a new standard for HDMI (version 1.3) ratified just this past month that supports new audio formats included in HD DVD (and Blu-Ray) players. One other good thing to be aware of for digital cabling is that, unlike analog cables, there is a limit (typically about fifteen meters) to how long a cable can transmit a signal. It’s probably also worth mentioning that even a 2 meter long cable can cost upwards of $50.

It may seem unusual to have such flux in cables and connectors, but the real drivers for such change have nothing to do with picture quality, it’s all about DRM (digital rights management). Even with CDs and DVDs, the audio/video quality presented to the consumer was highly compressed, but in the HD landscape, the quality is so pure (though typically still somewhat compressed) that content owners have much more to lose than ever before. If a user has a perfect quality version of a movie, they could make infinite perfect (or degraded) copies and it would be virtually impossible to differentiate a ‘professional’ edition from an ‘amateur’ copy. All this wonderful looking and sounding HD content needs new protection, and it is coming in the form of HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection). Most new digital cable boxes, satellite receivers, and HD-DVD players use HDCP on all content emitted on HD outputs (MovieBeam too).

Now it’s time to put this information all together. The HDCP-protected content will not output on a display that does not include HDCP unlocking. This means if you hook up an HD-DVD player to your plasma display with component cables, everything will look fine. But when you hook it up with HDMI cables, if your plasma doesn’t have HDCP support, nothing will play at all (whereas if it does have HDCP support, it will look better than the component cables). The good news is most consumer-grade LCD and plasma displays sold in the past few years have HDCP support built-in, and everything should work fine.

With the next-generations of media PCs, cable boxes, satellite receivers, DVRs, DVD players, and game consoles all offering HDTV services, the future has literally never looked so good. While there is no real winner or loser in the HDMI/DVI space, it seems extremely likely that HDMI is bound to be the dominant cable format for the next few years. Especially because it supports up to 10.2 gigabits per second throughput (that is a LOT of data) and has built-in HDCP support for the content industry. Although with all that fancy technology inside, the nicest part for consumers is finally having the convenience of only making a single connection from device to device!

More reading:

• The official HDMI web site
• HDCP basics
• HDNet TV service
• HD Beat HDTV blog

My current picks for HDTV gear:

• For the absolute best option, with no price limitations, get a Pioneer Elite plasma – any size will be good. Year after year they are, as the wise Tina Turner once said, simply the best
• For a great midrange choice, check out Panasonic PX-60/600 series plasma or Samsung LN-S series LCD – both consistently get good marks from consumers
• For the absolute best bang for the buck, get the Syntax Olevia LT32HVM (or LT32HVE) 32” LCD – I like it so much, I have one at home!
• Do NOT forget to budget in cables, TV stands (or wall mounts), and shipping costs (if buying online) when shopping for HDTV. Also, check in with the local cable and satellite companies to understand all the available options for your area!

Good luck, and welcome to the HD club!

Let’s face it. The transition to HDTV has been a painful and confusing one. It’s bad enough that there are now 10 different types of TV technologies available in the market, but what’s worse is that display makers, content providers, set-top box manufacturers, and the entire PC industry has been pushing several completely different ways of connecting high definition components since the launch of the first HDTV products in 1998. What’s the end result? There are now millions of high definition products in the market, and they all have different plugs on the back. Component video, FireWire, DVI, and HDMI have all graced the back of a TV set at some point over the last eight years, and now consumers are thoroughly confused.

Fortunately, understanding the differences among these types of connections doesn’t mean you need a degree in rocket science. With a little bit of knowledge you can get a grasp of the current state of video connections, and learn which digital connection is the one you want to look for when shopping for a new HDTV.

Read the rest of this entry >> (external link)

So, as I wrote previously, it’s time for a new laptop.  The only problem is, I am a bit of a nut about buying laptops, I like to make sure I get the ‘right’ one for my needs.  And I’m a picky guy, here is what I want:

• Fast, good performance.  I need to be able to leave, at least, Outlook, Photoshop, Word, and IE running simultaneously.
• Decent battery life, enough to last 2:30 while actually doing the above
• Standard IO, including 2 USB ports, WiFi, PCMCIA, and preferably a DVD drive
• Bright screen, preferably wide-screen, of at least 13″, maybe even 15″ (the D800 was 15.4″)
• Lightweight, no more than 5lbs (my back is killing me!  hopefully the newest Slappa backpack will show up soon so I can switch to it)
• Must have Intel Centrino Duo!

That’s a tall order, but I didn’t think it’d be impossible.  I’ve seen some new Toshibas and Thinkpads that I thought would fit the bill, but then I remembered a cool ASUS laptop I saw at CeBIT.

So, I went to their web site and found the V6J.  Next step, I Googled “asus v6j review“, and read reviews at CNet, and PCPro (UK). Decent reviews, but not great, so I continued at PCPro to read their review of the Evesham Voyager C550.

They liked it, but it was clearly too heavy for me. I decided I really liked their reviews, so browsed their notebooks section, where I found the Sony VAIO VGN-SZ1VP, which sounded, well, fairly awesome.  I then cross-checked the review at TrustedReviews, who gave it a 9/10.  From this read, I was hooked.

I did a few more scouting reads, including this Acer, some Lenovo news, and then I went to read some Editor’s picks at Cnet.  I have to say that Cnet, normally one of my favorite sites, was absolutely worthless here.  Check out the screenshot on the right.  In the “Work thin-and-light laptops” category, only a SINGLE model was reviewed in 2006, and one review dates as far back as June, 2005.  Furthermore, not a single notebook on the list had an 8.0 or higher score!  I’d rather them say “nothing, we can’t recommend anything right now” than see this worthless list.  Very frustrating.

Anyhow, I decided to buy the Sony, which proved harder than it would seem.  Turns out that the SZ1VP model is a “pro” edition, not really even distributed regularly in the US.  But at the Sony Style Web site, I did find the VGN-SZ140.  After a couple of calls to the local Sony Style store, it turns out it is virtually identical. 

Here’s a few comparison photos between the old and the new.  Roughly a 2lb drop in weight (~35%), a supposed 60-70% increase in speed, and a 100-200% increase in battery life, and all I feel like I’m giving up is about 40% smaller screen.  Mister, you’ve got a deal.

Previously, we reviewed the Solitude noise-canceling headset, and were quiet impressed. Here is a detailed, side-by-side comparison with the Bose QuietComfort2 headset.

Photo Gallery:

carrying case headsets carrying case battery compartment headsets carrying case headsets headsets ear piece top case contents headsets headsets

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According to the Motorcycle Industry Council over 1 million dirt motorcycles were sold in 2004, this being the most recent in an steady upward trend since 1993. It appears that Americans have a new found fascination with off road motorcycles not seen since the 70’s. If you are among the masses that “Do it in the dirt” or even if you are toying with the idea of tearing up trails in the great outdoors, there is good news. Not only has the recent decade brought more numbers to the world of off-road riding, it has also brought some new innovations as part of our digital world. I am here to give you insight into some of these new innovations and take you from the back of “Pa’s” truck to the latest in dirt rider technology. So put on your Internet helmet and reading gloves and try to keep up, kid.

Autocom Auto-Volume Music System for Motorcycles

Nothing gets your blood pumping like a nice ride through the peaceful trails of our great nation, being at one with nature, breathing the fresh air, observing the wildlife and gassing it over every obstacle in your way with Slayer blasting inside your helmet, right? Well the gods of technology have smiled upon us with the Autocom Auto-Volume Music System. This little gem was originally developed for street bikes but it works equally well for the off road rider too. It adjusts the volume of your favorite adrenalin inducing tunes according to the amount of noise picked up in a cleverly disguised microphone in the headphone connector. So now when you are riding full throttle you are able to hear every note of that wailing guitar solo and when you come to a stop and need to communicate with others, your not fumbling through a backpack looking for a volume adjustment knob on a Discman.
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With each passing year, notebook computers constitute a greater percentage of overall computer sales. Soon, for many folks, their only computer will be their notebook computer. One of the disadvantages of a notebook compared to a desktop is their inferior interface. Keyboards are cramped and have limited key travel. They never have a mouse. To control the cursor, they have either a pointing stick or a touchpad interface (or in a few cases, both). Personally, I greatly prefer the touchpad, but both options have their proponents.

Many newer touchpads have a scrolling function built in. Homebodies and road warriors alike use their notebooks ever increasingly and they seek both comfort and ergonomics, not to mention trying to avoid RSI (repetitive stress injury). This is why users need a portable mouse. These tend to be smaller than a standard mouse in order to make them convenient to carry around. I chose to focus on wireless mice because they are the newer products with the latest technology. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first attempt to compare these products against each other in such a fashion. As usual, here at LIVEdigitally.com we set the bar just a little higher.

Just a note of caution: None of these wireless mice (or any other wireless anything) should be used on an airplane. You probably don’t have enough room for a mouse anyway with those cramped tray tables. If you did, than you would need a wired mouse to comply with airline regulations. In other words, don’t blame me when the Flight Attendant is reporting you the Sky Marshall for mousing at 40,000 feet.
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Which Card Will Quietly Dominate and Why

The humble flash memory card quietly provides the storage for today’s electronic devices. Handheld computers, iPods and other portable music players, digital cameras, and even some cellphones and camcorders utilize flash cards. These cards are available in more varieties than Baskin Robbins ice cream flavors, and there’s always some new smaller card that just came out with some reported advantage. Thankfully, selecting a memory card format to invest in is not as random as selecting a roulette number at Vegas, and the key is putting the house advantage in your favor. This article reviews the current cards on the market with their potential advantages and uses, and highlights some future directions. No one likes choosing a dying standard, and I’ll point out the likely winners of this high wager business. After all, no one needs a drawer full of expensive, but outdated and useless memory cards.
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