LIVEdigitally

Want a surefire way to make the best headphones on the market even better?  Easy, add a mike.  Confused?  Well, Shure (the makers of my favorite E4c and runner-up E2c headphones) did just that, and believe it or not, it all makes perfect sense.It turns out you can divide people into one of two camps when it comes to headphones: innies and outies.  Innies are the people who enjoy wearing in-ear headphones, the ones that go inside the ‘lobe and pump the sound right into your brain.  Outies prefer on-ear headphones, such as the Bose QuietComforts, which sit on top of your ears.  I’ve tried quite a few of both, in a variety of situations, and am quite certain of the fact that I’m an innie.  I like being able to fall asleep with the buds in my ear, I find the Bose set makes my head get a little, sweaty, and I find they simply can’t block out the sounds of a wailing child three rows behind me.

Until a short time ago, the Shure E4c’s were my favorite headphones.  I’d even tried the E5c’s, and while the sound quality was stunning, they just weren’t comfortable for a 13-hour flight to Hong Kong.  The E4c’s were the king of the innies in my world, with only one major nag: the process of removing/inserting them is unpleasant to repeat on a frequent basis.  Welcome to the Shure E500PTH’s.

Packaging
As with all Shure products, the headphones are nicely packaged inside a small box.  The box has an inner metallic shell with a very nice finish, and inside that shell is a molded foam case to hold all the pieces.  Nice, simple, luxurious, and not overly wasteful.

Contents
When you buy the E500PTH’s you receive:

• The headphones
• The microphone
• A mini-extension cable
• A 1/8″ to 1/4″ adapter
• Oval carrying case
• Lots of extra earbuds

Headphones
I’m going to stay a little light on discussing the headphones themselves this time.  Others like Gary Krakow have already reviewed the overall sound quality of them (here’s Gary’s take on the E4c’s, and he’s about 100x a discerning listener compared to me) and CNet made them an Editor’s Choice.  Suffice it to say - they sound as good, possibly better, than the rest of the Shure lineup.  You’ll have nothing to complain about when it comes to the sound quality, be it at home, on a plane, or anywhere else you are using the E500PTH’s.  They sound great.

Microphone
Now this is where the E500PTH’s get interesting.  Their noise-cancelling capabilities are tremendous, but as I said above, taking out and shoving in little rubber buds in your ear every time the person next to you wants to share some little detail of their life and why they love their home town can get, well, annoying.  And I have a hunch quite a few of Shure’s customers shared that sentiment with the company, since the E500’s specifically address that situation. 

Through some quite clever ingenuity (in my opinion), Shure added a microphone and a little on/off switch to the headphones.  When switched “on” (which does require a single AAA battery), the E500’s effectively mute the incoming audio source, and amplify the microphone.  This translates to: when you turn them on, you can hear the outside world again.  There’s actually a little volume control dial to adjust the level of amplification, and while it took me a little tweaking and a lot of getting used to, I finally got it right.

The next time the flight attendant walked by my seat (my original fiddling with them was on a plane), I was able to order my drink (and, of course, thank her for it), without whispering or screaming at the top of my lungs.  Again - it takes some getting used to, but once you’ve tried it for a few minutes, you’ll find yourself hitting the switch and carrying on a conversation as if you weren’t wearing the headphones at all. Very very impressive!

Overall
I have only a single annoyance with the Shure E500PTH’s, which is the size of the carrying case.  Granted, I was spoiled by the “fits in the palm of my hand” size of the E4c’s, and it’s still nothing compared to the mega-case which carries the Bose QuietComfort 2’s (forget the 3’s, they make ya puke).  So chalk that up as the only negative thing I have to say, otherwise, the E500’s are a winner.  Another nice touch is if the microphone battery dies, the headphones still work (unlike most over-the-ear noise reduction headphones).They are now, in fact, a permanent addition to my laptop case, and should be in yours as well.  However, they do cost over $400 (Amazon link), so if you already have headphones you like, you can opt to purchase the “push-to-hear” component instead (Shure site).

I was reading Brad Feld’s blog today and saw his post with a photo from La Guardia airport.  I am stunned at the amazingly poor state of things with regards to flight and TSA policies.  I am more stunned that it seems to be status quo, and not changing for the better.  On Saturday Night Live last month, there was a great skit wherein they portrayed a TSA training session.  When presented with rules such as “no liquids over 3oz” a trainee asked the (obvious) question, “what if two people get together with 3oz each?  Is 6oz dangerous?”

When the liquid ban came into effect a couple of months ago, I was on a trip to Europe.  I flew home via Stockholm airport, where they told me to put all my carry-ons in a clear plastic bag, otherwise they’d get confiscated in Frankfurt en route to the USA.  Sure enough, I was the only guy walking around Frankfurt with a huge baggie full of my personal effects.

However on virtually every trip I have taken since that flight, my carryon bag contained multiple containers with liquids or gels (yes, I admit to grabbing shampoos from hotels, but only one per stay).  My secret?  Well, I’ve mastered the security system.  Here’s what I do: when asked “got liquid?” I respond “no” and move along.  Try it out, it works pretty well.

Last week, as my wife and I entered security in SFO and we placed our bags on the security belt, to my extreme chagrin she separated her makeup bag.  Big no-no, but I couldn’t stop her in time.  Sure enough, the TSA employee picked up the bag, and went through it.  She found some makeup and lotion, and gave her three options: check it (nope), put it in a Ziploc bag (huh?), or chuck it out (gee, thanks).

I tried reason.  I tried logic.  To no avail.  I politely (then again, slightly less politely) asked how the TSA could operate such a policy without providing a reasonable solution.  Her oft-repeated answer: “all this information is available on our Web site” (not the official link).  I must say, I felt quite a bit like Arthur Dent (the only hint for such a reference is it involves a bulldozer, the rest, dear reader, is up to you).

Kudos to Wal-Mart, US Airways, and whatever supervisor at La Guardia who did not actively prevent such a common sense solution to a stupid, self-imposed problem.  Although I must say, knowing that mascara and facial cream can only be carried aboard a triple-7 inside a see-through Ziploc bag makes me feel safe, and I can only imagine it really drives fear into the hearts and minds of the terrorists.

I’m voting in the USA for the first time in my life this Tuesday, but it appears my ballot (yes on 87) doesn’t have any option to vote out such incompetence.  Ah well, maybe in ‘08.

Finally!  I’ve wanted to use that subject line since I started the blog (yeah, I know others have used it too, but I discovered that after the fact)!  Well, I made it to the Digital Life show in New York City this week, took a few pics, and here’s the report…

The show opened on Thursday, and even before the doors opened, a huge line built for people who really wanted to get in.  This topic will come up a few times, but I think a lot of industry people miss the fact that this is an exciting show for consumers. Quite a few of my colleagues mentioned to me they didn’t see anything new, or there wasn’t much exciting gadgetry on display, but they forget that the average person out there does not see nearly the same stuff people like me get to see.  Show someone an HTC Excalibur (T-Mobile Dash) and they typically ask what is that???  I’ve read about it for months, and started using one weeks ago.  That’s what makes Digital Life fun - you get to see consumers’ reactions to the same technology that’s become almost mundane for us industry types.

That said, I personally wasn’t over-the-top excited as Barry Myers (the big brains behind the show) wished Sonic the Hedgehog a “Happy 15th Birthday” but a lot of the kids around sure got a kick out of it.  Sonic’s aging well, by the way, doesn’t look a day over 12.

The show was large (not CEDIA-large, but large enough), about 2/3 of the floor was dedicated to booths, the other 1/3 for gaming tournaments. Looked like the kids were really enjoying the gaming, again my assumption is that this was one of the first times most people actually got to play Xbox 360 in high-def (well, other than those in debt of course) or see the PS3 in person.  I even saw an area for “amateur” gaming, but judging by my ridiculously poor performance in Halo 2 against my 11-year-old cousin, I ran for the hills.

Many larger companies had booths, including Intel, Microsoft, HP, Alienware, Toshiba, Best Buy, etc.  It’s interesting to watch these companies try to learn and react to Digital Life in their attempts to build the right booths.  Toshiba’s booth looked like the same thing they use for CES, with the addition of a “Deal or No Deal” game (called “Mobile or No Mobile”), and Intel’s booth was all about futuristic tech.  AMD had The Quadfather (ugh - come on AMD, we like you and root for you, but nobody wants puns!), and HP had some medley of printers, displays, and pink stuff. I think Microsoft did a great job at showing off the two things the average show attendee was likely most interested in: XBox and Vista.  Sure they had some other demos incorporated as well, but the messaging was clearly consumer-driven.  Good job there.

Some of my booth/visit highlights:

• WowWee (the makers of the Robosapien product line) had a simple booth showing the robots in all their AI glory.  I really like this company, and am looking forward to seeing how they expand their product line next year. 
• White Box Robotics was located in the Ziff-Davis “digital lounge” where they were showing their $5000 “PC-BOT.”  My friend Steven Jones (from TechLore/Capable) thinks it’s a wonderful idea, but I’m mixed.  There’s clearly no consumer application here, so we’ve got to look at it as an industrial device.  I just don’t see why I need a “robot” that is really a computer on wheels with some sensors when I can diversify that into one computer (or even more than one) and distributed sensors and networked cameras.  With the “robot” approach, I have a very expensive thing to fix when it breaks, when it’s diversified I can cheaply and easily replace broken modules.  But maybe I’m not seeing the bigger picture here, any comments on this from the peeps out there?
• UT Starcom was, unfortunately, not showing the SMT5800, but they did have this waterproof cell phone instead.  Meh.  I guess it’s good for all those people who keep dropping their phones in the toilet, or maybe my friend Ben who thinks his phone is a good baby chew toy…
• Slappa showed all their awesome CD/DVD cases and laptop bags.  I really like this company and think they make some of the best products in both categories.  Got a chance to talk to them, nice people.  Check out their latest entry, a CD case specifically designed for DJ’s (not 100% sure if that link is right).  Want to know why it’s smart/cool?  They worked with DJ’s to design it.  It’s super easy to design products in a vacuum (Sony Network Walkman, hello?), and I respect the smart companies who understand their customers and target markets.
• Mio Technology showed a few of their “Digital Walkers” - GPS systems with a few extra frills.  I like the user interface and the well-done integration with Windows Mobile, but (as I mentioned to their reps), I really want to see them throw the whole phone integration in place.  Even as an unlocked GPRS phone, they could get a lot of traction in an HTC/Imate-like approach to the world.  Keep an eye on em (although since I still haven’t played with one, my Garmin Nuvi 350 is still my personal pick).

My personal “best in show” pick absolutely goes to the Sony Reader product.  Now I’m not saying to rush out and buy one yet, as I haven’t used it personally, but it is just soooo pretty.  Their user interface is a bit clunky (which, being a Sony product, might be a little redundant), and the buttons don’t feel right, but the size and screen are otherwise perfect.  It’s light-weight enough to hold comfortably, but I would love to see them add a simple strap on the back to easily keep it in your hand (would be very helpful for the people I know who fall asleep while reading).  Most important is the screen - it looks like paper.  It might be a generation or two until the product really works as it should (tbd), but it’s an amazing thing to see.

My last batch of pictures are all a little more personal… First, Michael Gartenberg gets interviewed where he is most likely prognosticating on gadgets, gizmos, and whatnots.  I didn’t see the taping, but I’ve got to assume he received no fewer than 7 calls on his 3 phones during the 5 minute shoot.

Next there were a couple of Slingbox demos.  First, we had the Slingbox PRO on display in the ZD digital lounge (hooked up to a new Digeo Moxi box).  Also I spent some time with Matt Whitlock (from SlingCommunity and TechLore) who interviewed Brian Jaquet (Sling Media’s Director of PR) about the upcoming SlingPlayer Mac software.

I also got to walk around with Dave Zatz for a bit (read his moblog of the show here). Highlight moment was goign to the iBloks booth, where we watched a couple of go-go dancers shaking their stuff.  I perched in front of the booth while Mr. Z walked into the middle, and we snapped a fantastic pic of the dancers trying to figure out what the heck he was doing there.  CLASSIC!

Lastly, my Dad happened to be in New York at the same time, so I had him come by the show for an hour or so and we walked the floor together.  This was especially fun for me, as I rarely get the opportunity to really show him anything about my industry.  Sure he knows what a Slingbox is, and he gets that a lot is afoot in the digital media space, but this was his first tech trade show.  He was genuinely interested in walking around and seeing new stuff, and that experience was really insightful for me to watch.

I’ll reiterate what I said at the beginning of this post:  DigitalLife is a great consumer show.  If you are an industry guy or gal, it’s not going to show you new tech.  Instead, you’ll see your customers’ reactions to the products you build.  And that, my dear readers, is truly priceless.

I am traveling this week from San Francisco to Boston to New York, then back (more on the trip some other time), and had booked a simple itinerary to get around.  While in Boston, two colleagues of mine mentioned they much preferred the train to NYC over the flight, since it ends up being about the same amount of time.  As a frequent traveler, I’m all for anything that is an easier journey, and the described train ride sounded quite blissful.

It took less than 10 minutes from leaving the station (maybe less than 5) for me to realize how much of a bad decision this was for me.  I’m sure many folks find it more relaxing, less rushed, etc etc.  I am sitting here pulling hairs out of my beard, one at a time.

First, I can’t do email because the bumpiness is causing a ton of retyping and this is about all I can bear.

Tried watching TV using my Sprint PPC6700 tethered to my Vaio to watch my Slingbox.  Was painful, but killed an hour until I couldn’t deal with the dropouts anymore.

I’m sitting at an angle, because I’m too tall to have the laptop right in front of me, so I’m sure I’m putting a nice crick in my back.

I had a hot dog for dinner (Hebrew National at least).

It’s just one of those things where you realize how different people are.  Me?  I’m perfectly fine with a drive to the airport, dealing with security, boarding, flying, etc.  Maybe I’ve just done it so much (~175K miles on the year).  Maybe I like “the action” of it. 

I think, at the end of the day, when you have a short flight you may spend “as much” time as you might on the train, but you only have to kill an hour or so.  The ~4 hours on Amtrak is just too much for me.

Plus I think I feel a little safer in the air.

ps - to make matters worse, I forgot my DVD pack at home, so the only thing I have to watch is Monty Python and the Holy Grail - great flick, but you do have to be in the right mood for it.  I’m listening to the Director’s Commentary this time through.

I was in Hong Kong once before in my life, but it was for about 90 minutes before I had to run off to the airport.  Last week I spent two and a half days there (training the customer service and technical support team for HK-based sales of the Slingbox, it’s part of what I do), and while most of the time I was hard at work, I did get to see a few things.  More importantly, I got to eat a lot of local food (at my insistence).  

This first batch of pictures is from the drive from Hong Kong airport to the hotel (Sheraton in Tsim Sha Tsui, a central area of the city).  Interestingly, there is only a single bridge to connect the airport with the rest of the city.  One other thing you won’t really notice from the pictures is the unbelievable pollution - as we landed it was almost as thick as the fog in San Francisco!

I checked into the hotel (quite nice, by the way, I definitely recommend it if you head out there), then went out for a stroll.  This is my typical ‘fly to East Asia from San Francisco’ ritual I use to try to get a little tuckered out and avoid as much jet lag as possible.  The streets in Tsim Sha Tsui are busy in the evenings, with many of the local stores open for business.  Tourist business, that is.  This definitely the region to come if you want a cheap (fake) watch or hand-made suit, and about every 5 feet someone reminds you of that fact.  “Rolex, sir, you want Rolex?” comes across a little funny when pronounced with a bit of a British accent…

One of my favorite food groups is, well, all food actually.  But I definitely enjoy dim sum (when staying in San Francisco, check out New Asia in Chinatown.  New Asia, for all your dim sum needs), and enjoyed a nice variety for lunch on the first day.  For dinner, I was taken to another Chinese restaurant (both meals were had in malls by the way), where I had a very interesting variety of foods.  The most interesting, but definitely my least favorite, was the fruit and lobster salad covered in mayonnaise.  I’ll just say that the Hellman’s didn’t quite bring out the best in that dish, but the rest of dinner was very good.

I found the architecture of Hong Kong quite interesting, but unfortunately didn’t get to take enough pictures (damn Swedes, I was primarily using the 2MP phone in the HTC Mteor I was using - more on that in a couple of days).  Tons of high-rise apartment buildings, literally in sight in all directions at all times.  The newer office buildings all had a very futuristic Blade Runner-like look (no surprise, since the sets were partially based on Hong Kong).  But the older building all looked a little decrepit and run-down.  Interesting blend.  By the way, you have to zoom in on the picture on the right - trust me.

On day 2 the whole team and I went out for dim sum lunch, and we had quite a spread.  Once they realized I really liked Chinese food and dim sum, and realized I had decent chopsticks skills, they started egging me on to try just about everything they ordered.  The quality of the food was great, with a lot more flavor and less greasiness than I typically find in American dim sum establishments.  Although I don’t really think I need to get duck foot dumplings in the future.  Mmm, cartilage.

We finished training at the end of the day (Friday) and before meeting up for dinner, I had about an hour to kill.  They directed me to an area called Mong Kok, which is basically the shopping region of Hong Kong.  Electronics stores on every corner, featuring a huge array of cameras, laptops, and, of course cell phones.  There are actually 1.25 phones per resident of Hong Kong, and there are over 400 different models available for purchase at any given time (as compared with about 40 in the entire US).  I also found a small street of tent-based merchants, selling a variety of different fake stuff, including shoes, clothes, purses, and watches.  I picked up a nice replica of a ‘color dreams’ from Franck Muller.

I found my way back to the hotel via the subway system.  One of my favorite things to do when travelling is take at least one ride on a local subway, I find it really gives me a bit more of a feeling for how people live in a given city.  The plasma displays at some of the stops was a nice touch.

For my last dinner in Hong Kong, I was taken to the top of Victoria Peak.  Unfortunately we left slightly too late to see the nightly laser show across the skyline of the city, but the view from the peak was amazing.  We went to a famous restaurant, Cafe Deco, where I managed to stay awake through the worst part of jetlag (yes, it’s the third night)  long enough not to face-plant into the great New Zealand lamb chops I was served.  I was totally out (as predicted by my host) during the drive back to the hotel.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to catch the convenient (and free) shuttle bus to the Kowloon express train station.  I was able to check in to my flight there, then a zippy train ride took me to the airport for the flight home.

One more thing to share with you (wow, can’t believe you made it this far!) was regarding airport security.  I was in Sweden two weeks ago, and my flight home came via Frankfurt airport, about three days after the huge ’shampoo+iPod’ scare at Heathrow.  In Frankfurt I was told to dispose of my water bottle, and then let on the plane.  In Hong Kong a team of about 40 people was hand-screening every single passenger and all of their bags.  While they moved along quite efficiently, I couldn’t help but think how ridiculous it makes America look that we are so scared of someone getting on a plane with a bottle of lotion.

Doubly-so, since I walked on with my toiletries bag including toothpaste, shampoo, moisturizer, and conditioner.

Anyhow, Hong Kong was great, I’d really like more time to explore and take in the sights and all, but I guess that’ll have to wait for next time. In the meanwhile, please beware of stairs.

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.

This is my desperate plea to anyone who on absolute random chance flew SAS flight 526 (that’s SK0526 or SK526, depending on how you read it) from London to Stockholm on August 09, 2006 who found a Canon SD100 digital camera in a small leather case.  You are more than welcome to keep the camera (although I’d obviously appreciate it back), but if there is any chance you find this post and have not deleted the pictures stored on the camera, I’d greatly appreciate it.  The last picture of it I took is to the right, I left it on seat 02E.  Please!

For verification purposes, well, you’ll find pictures of me, including

• camping photos (including the picture of the skunk by our tent)
• pictures of an iRiver Clix and HTC Mteor/Breeze I planned to review
• photographic evidence of the Loch Ness Monster

On the assumption I never see it again: this sucks, and I’m terribly annoyed - I rarely lose stuff, as in just about never.  I’d have given up just about any other gadget I own to not lose the pix.

Does anyone have or know about some Web site where people might have posted lost and found photos (or will I be as lucky as this guy)? For the record, SAS has a kick-butt Web site for finding stuff lost on their planes.  And yes, for those wondering, this is much worse than the incident with my tires. 

Losing memories is pretty rough.

Driving is a lot like life: we simply want to enjoy the journey to the destination. But some forces frazzle us along the way. So, driving a car can be an incredibly stressful experience. It’s actually not so bleack as it is often painted. And I’m convinced that we are the ones who might make this a pleasant and salubrious undertaking.

This time I’d like to tell you about the gadget that was designed especially for cars. It’s an emoticon display that can express the emotions and feeling you experience behind the wheel. So, you can share your “thoughts” with the drivers behind you.

If it seems to you that the driver behind you is too close to you, just press the “:(” button and he will understand that the distance between you is too small. If somebody dropped back for you, you can thank the driver with the smile.

This gadget makes driving funnier and if driving alone you’ll have a wonderful possibility “to communicate” with others. The display module is battery-operated and is fixed to the rear widescreen. It is activated by remote control. No wires are needed.

It’s a nice way to make your journey more exciting! It is available at http://www.au-my.com/english/Driv-e-mocion.htm

The Weekly Girl’s Gadget Report is brought to you by http://www.gadget4girls.com/

I spend about 12-16 hours a day connected/online.  That time is spent doing email, surfing the Web, researching various topics for work, browsing products, blogging, and the rare game of Hearts or Spades (okay, very rare).  I’ve spent 4 of the last 7 days totally off the grid, and it’s an interesting dichotomy with my regular life. 

Normally I get frustrated when I can’t use my PPC-6700 to get an EVDO connection and am stuck at 1x.  I had no signal of any kind at either Lake Sonoma (loved it) or Costanoa (nice time, but it was very windy and totally overpriced).

I tend to check email at worst every 10 or so minutes (and that’s without owning a blackberry, which I refuse to use when in North America).  I came home to hundreds of emails to read through.  Been 2 days, still deleting the ones I don’t need to respond to.

While traveling, I always use my Slingbox to watch something (recently lots of World Cup soccer), typically from my DVR, before going to bed.  I watched no TV whatsoever, even though Costanoa actually had wifi access in their main cabin, but I didn’t even have the laptop with me!  Funny thing was the Costanoa camping areas even offered power outlets at each ’site’.  I’m proud to say I didn’t use em.

I used exactly three gadgets this week:

1. My digital camera (lowly Canon SD100 - anyone have a spare SD450?) - here are the pix we took (including our visiting friends, the Arnowitz family).
2. My PPC-6700 to play solitaire before going to sleep (in between good books right now)
3. My Nuvi 350 GPS receiver (review coming soon!) to help find a few spots along the way

Bottom line: get yourself off the grid for a few days this summer, it’s a good feeling.  No matter how many emails you have to sort through when you are done.

About a week ago I received the newly designed SeV Performance T-Shirt by Scottevest Incorporated. The shirt is part of their “Technology Enabled Clothing (TEC)” line. This t-shirt is for the avid technologist who is constantly on the go.

Fitting into the shirt and installing your portable devices is a bit tricky. Once I put the shirt on, it did not make it clear where exactly the wires and devices fit. It took more than a few minutes to “figure out” how exactly the devices fit.

When I first tried out the shirt, I could tell that it was light weight, but with an iPod and digital camera it made the shirt feel incredibly off-centered. When using the shirt on a hot day, the fabric did not “soak up” the sun; the shirt did not get that hot. After the first use, this shirt is not designed for the average iPodder.

The shirt is designed out of 100% Polyester 3M Quick Dry fabric – the same materials that athletic clothing is made out of. This type of Polyester is designed to repel moisture from your body, which in turn means the shirt dries faster and the user is not left with a “soaked” shirt after a good workout.

The shirt comes equipped with a patented Weight Management System; in essence, the shirt has extra fabric in the shoulders in which it evenly distributes the weight.  

The shirt comes equipped with the patented “Personal Area Network” in which wires are run in the lining of the jacket. All of the pockets have a little hole in the pocket, in which it allows you to connect all of your devices. For example, if you wanted to connect your phone to your Pocket PC you could do this without having any wires showing. The shirt also has a hidden compartment to store a pair of ipod sized earbuds.

After having used the shirt off and on for a little over a week, it has proven to be a great shirt for the outdoor businessman. Having tested the shirt with a Motorola RAZR, Video iPod, and Digital Camera, the shirt held up to all of its claims. The Personal Area Network was very difficult to set up, and was not that much of a help.

Pro’s

• Light weight
• Comfortable fit
• Cost efficient
• Attractive Design

Cons

• Difficult to install devices
• A bit heavy when installing more than an iPod and phone
• Lack of documentation or step by step set up guide.

I would recommend this product to those who are constantly on the go and care about having people see your “cords” or “earbuds.” For $34.99 (Plus Tax and S&H), it is a nice luxury, but certainly not a shirt you could wear everyday.

For more information and to purchase the product directly from the manufacturer, please visit Scottevest Online Store. The shirt comes in sizes Medium thru XX Large and is available in both short or long sleeve designs.

 Courtesy // Scottevest

This is a diagram of the various components of the shirt.

 Courtesy // Scottevest

This is an “inside out” view of the shirt.

Courtesy // Scottevest

This is the shirt as it will first appear once you open the packaging.

For a video demonstration of the Personal Area Network feature see Personal Area Network (PAN)*

… and for the Weight Management System feature see Weight Management System Demo*

* Windows Media Player Required

Akihabara is Tokyo’s “electronics town”. Prior to about 2001 or so it was about the coolest place in the world to go look at gadgets, as it was often the only place to find really interesting stuff. With today’s globalization, it’s definitely lost some of its allure, but is still a must-see spot in Tokyo. Heck, even my wife got a kick out of it! Here’s a fun assortment of photos I took in my extremely rapid stop at Akihabara last week…

In-store demos actually show the insides of these machines and how they work. Of course you can only wash one sock at a time.

Here I am at the Akihabara subway station

Remember Taito? Anyone? Cool 80s video games… Well, they seem to be alive and well in Akihabara!

More English here than anywhere I saw in Japan!

How can Sega even afford the lease anymore?
(also if you look in the background of the picture you’ll see a reflection of Ishimaru - I like the effect here)

Ishimaru is a “middle tier” store in Akihabara

These Panasonic headphones have replaceable ear buds and retractable cables - nice.

These Panasonic headphones have replaceable ear buds and retractable cables - nice.

Despite the popularity of the iPod, Akihabara stores are full of tiny shiny mp3 players to choose from. After which, everyone inevitably picks the iPod…

One of the better in-store demos I’ve seen, both displays had the same DVD playing, with the obvious quality difference of the HD player. And with titles like “The Brothers Grimm” I’m sure people were rushing out to buy the players!

AirEdge is a company offering various 3G connectivity options

When the Japanese do mobile TV, they do it widescreen - check out these Aquos branded phones from Vodafone

I don’t think it’s perfectly clear from this picture, but this thing is bigger than the PPC6700. From AirEdge/Willcom, this is one big honking Windows Mobile PPC phone!

When the Japanese do mobile TV, they do it widescreen - check out these Aquos branded phones from Vodafone

Laox is the 2nd biggest store in Akihabara, behind Yodabashi. It has a bit of a K-Mart feel, but is a good stop.

I know it was big in Europe (it is huge in Belgium), and maybe Japan too, but at the end of the day, MD was lame, and good riddance. But, Laox still has a shelf full of the things…

While not commonly known, it’s actually illegal in Japan to run a store with no Hello Kitty products. This doll/gadget has built-in speakers (in the feet) and … uh.. hmm..

This portable media player is nicely sized, and plays all the ‘popular’ video formats, like xvid.

Oh, so shiny!

I think this one is pretty cool. Not sure if I’d pay $700ish for it, but it’s a cool idea.

Inside Laox Bose has their own store where they show their tiny speakers that sound awful or their really really big headphones that sound good but weigh 14 pounds

Panasonic brings you full 1080p vacuuming with their new HD unit

Love the concept, love the sign.

I really like the idea of video games that have exercise themes (note: I like the idea, but I don’t want one), Xavix has a full working in-store demo

Get your bronco workout in the convenience of your home… ?

I think this is where Tom and Katie picked theirs up

Shows you which floor on Laox to find your rodeo machine

Right across from Laox is a store with all sorts of wires and cables, they’ll even make your own custom cable there!

Another view of the buildings in Akihabara

A recent addition to Akihabara is this giant-sized Yodabashi store

Aww, so cuuuute

Someone’s still trying to push keyboards in the living room… ugh.

Seems similar to the new EVDO units we have in the US

I guess a lot of people are buying these things here…

If you haven’t found a way to thoroughly embarrass and spoil your pet yet, well, here’s the answer. Print your own design then clothe your lap-dog with this kit!

Yep, all mice.

I hadn’t heard of marimekko before, but I thought these were a little distinctive…

My wife thought this Disney-themed mouse was the ‘pick of the litter’ (so-to-speak)

Fans, lights, vacuums, cup warmers - if you have USB, you can do just about anything now!

Yodabashi sells generic power supplies for virtually any laptop

Lots of routers and ADSL modems on display in Yodabashi

Yep, we’ve seen em before, but the display was nice. I especially like the touch of putting them under glass

This kids camera allows you to take pictures and instantly print them on customized little papers, some with different designs too.

Need a telescope? Binocular? Yodabashi’s got it!

Last I checked the local Best Buy has about 3 different varieties… Yodabashi has… more.

I like Canon cameras. That’s it.

8-in-1? got it. 11-in-1? got it. 13-in-1? got it.

Just follow the simple chart and display

Not sure why, but I’ve enjoyed taking escalator pictures recently.

This is the best way to train your children how to use a remote control, a skill they will need much later in life.

They sure do look nice

When you get to Yodabashi, just go to the 7th floor and take the escalators down from there.

In a rare sunny moment, here I am outside of Yodabashi

Small cubes and other tiny non-competition for Apple

Sigh, couldn’t Walt have inspired more in his team?

Never heard of it, but it’s iPod-white, so it must be good.

See, it’s red! Sharp’s iPod non-knockoff

I like the form factor AND the blue, but I’m sure Panasonic has otherwise messed up this small mp3 player

Yodabashi has about 400 different MP3 players to try out. And then you go buy an iPod (you know, to stand out from everyone else)

For all those times you’ve dropped your TV in the bathtub, fret no longer, thanks to this portable Casio unit