2007 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

I'd like to recommend the Xbrand 360° Height Adjustable Laptop Stand with USB 2.0 Hub. I have one at work and now I even have one at home, both with full-size keyboard and a mouse already plugged in, meaning my Powerbook is a real workstation where ever I'm working as when fully tilted up it lifts the laptop's screen to a more ergonomically correct eye height above the desk. My Powerbook's front drive slot is accessed by swinging the X support down and flipping down the front cradle. This is a bit tricky the first time but once software I had on DVD and CD was loaded I've never had to use it again. It takes about 20 seconds to unplug everything and lift it off the cradle.

More info <http://xbrandproducts.com/>

Something I just ran across courtesy of Dave Winer's blog is the
Chumby. Seems so wonderfully useless!

<http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/11/16/myChumbyIsHere.html>

<http://www.chumby.com/>

Happy Holidays!

-Paul

At the risk of seeming obvious, I'd like to suggest an external FireWire drive for use with Time Machine. I recently picked up a LaCie d2 Quadra Hard Drive - 500GB which looks good and handles the job nicely. Having space for both a bootable backup and Time Machine volume offers some great peace of mind.

<http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10894>

Also check out www.buy.com for good prices.

How about an external hard drive for your Leopard-enabled family members. Finally you can set up a backup solution that might be relatively foolproof.

I'd personally clone the Leopard DVD to a small partition on it so you don't need the disk handy if there is a problem. See Macfixit's article.

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20071101112529955

-- Jonathan Ploudre If this message seems brief: http://five.sentenc.es/

On 21/11/2007, at 10:40 AM, Peter Sichel wrote:

At the risk of seeming obvious, I'd like to suggest an external FireWire drive for use with Time Machine. I recently picked up a LaCie d2 Quadra Hard Drive - 500GB which looks good and handles the job nicely. Having space for both a bootable backup and Time Machine volume offers some great peace of mind.

<http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10894>

I bought that identical drive... and so did a friend. Both sent them back after repeated failures involving extended 'freezes'; his on a PC, mine with my (previous) iMac. Never did find out why we experienced this issue... .

Hope yours works well. Apparently we weren't the first to experience this... .

Paul, W. Australia

I love my iPhone. Yes, it's the "it" gadget this year and everyone's
talking about it and everyone's sick of everyone talking about it. But
the bottom line is that I've never before been able to:

  - Be IM'd or SMS'd wherever I am (all previous cell phone SMS
clients were dreadful to use)
  - Post to Twitter
  - Look up movie ties while in the car on the way somewhere
  - Read a few websites in bed at 4AM when I can't sleep and opening
my laptop would wake up my wife
  - Go for a long walk with music playing and answer a call without
having to turn off the music, get the phone out, open it...
  - Answer arcane trivia questions when out and about (google, imdb,
and more always at my fingertips)
  - Entertain my son in the car with stupid YouTube videos ("White and
Nerdy" by Weird Al, The Llama Song, and Hamster Dance) while waiting
in the parking lot for someone.
  - Check the weather for anywhere from anywhere
  - Maps. Maps. Maps. Maps. Maps. I cannot count the ways Google Maps
has been useful to me.
  - Read a draft of my friend's book that he shared with me in Google
Docs.
  - Take rather decent photographs of my son's soccer games, cub scout
meetings, a pretty tree in the fall, pumpkins, the license plate of
someone driving excessively recklessly on the road, and much more...
  - Know where a meeting is being held without having to unpack my
laptop to look it up.
  - Have ALL phone numbers on my cell phone be current with the
numbers on my Mac (and email, and addresses, and... and... and...)
  - Vote for our favorite Dancing with the Stars star (Oh Jennie! We
tried, we really tried!) via SMS.
  - Check a few stocks for the Honda dealer shuttle driver who was
anxious about a rate cut and what it would do to his portfolio.
  - Take extensive notes at meetings and email them to myself (Apple,
would it KILL you to add notes sync? Really?)
  - Track my to-do list on ToodleDo (and add to it)

And about a few hundred more... all on a single, small device. My wife
commented that I no longer schlep my laptop around the house like I
used to. Now I just carry the phone. It's changed how I access and
consume information and it's changed how I stay in touch with people.
It really is a revolutionary device and I'm loving the Kool Ade.

Of course, it's an expensive gift... :)

-A


Andy J. Williams Affleck
<http://AndyAffleck.com>

Author: Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac <http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/podcasting-mac.html
 >

When my mother-in-law moved in with us, I had to move my home office
to make room for her. The best place in the house short of the
basement (ugh) was the back of the kitchen in the breakfast nook. It's
got windows, it's remote from the rest of the house, it works.
However, it's just far enough from the Airport base station that I get
very poor signal back here. So, I got an Airport Express to extend my
network. And the best location for it was right next to the Bose Wave
in the Dining Room. And since it was next to the Bose Wave anyway, I
figured I would just hook it up... well, the ability to stream music
to a stereo in the other room has been huge for us. Previously, we
kept CDs nearby or moved the iPod dock over and connected it or the
iPhone. Now, from the kitchen, I can play anything at all and it's
been one of those "Aha!" moments for us. We thought we were clever
using the iPod and leaving the CDs in boxes in the basement. Streaming
over the wifi makes that plan seem archaic and silly. So, loving the
Airport Express.

-A



Andy J. Williams Affleck
<http://AndyAffleck.com>

Author: Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac <http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/podcasting-mac.html
 >

As an alternative to the LaCie drive, there is a new system called Drobo that is very easy to use, offers data protection and is expandable. You can find it at http://www.drobo.com - watch the video on the home page to get a feel for how it works.

You can also see a review at MacWorld here: http://www.macworld.com/2007/08/reviews/drobo/index.php

Happy Holidays!

Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks webcam for use with iChat.

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/webcams/devices/3055&cl=us,en

Until recently Apple's official position was that you had to use the
built-in iSight camera, the discontinued firewire iSight camera, or an
firewire DV camera to use the video conferencing features of iChat.
So, if you had an old Mac, you were pretty much out of luck. Starting
with 10.4.9, they quietly introduced USB webcam compatibility to
iChat. Specifically, USB webcams that are compliant with UVC should
work with iChat out of the box (even if the webcam box says PC only).
It is surprisingly difficult to find out which webcams are UVC
compliant, but Logitech provides a list here:

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/webcams/devices/3055&cl=us,en

I'm sure if you look hard you can find comparable information on
webcams from other vendors.

The above mentioned notebook webcam has decent picture quality, clips
on to the top of an PB or iBook screen well (thus mimicking the
postiion of the iSight camera), comes with a stand for desktop use,
and is much more compact than either firewire option.

Tn

It is surprisingly difficult to find out which webcams are UVC compliant, but Logitech provides a list here:

<http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/webcams/devices/3055&cl=us,en>

I'm sure if you look hard you can find comparable information on webcams from other vendors.

The above link to the UVC list is wrong. Do you have the correct one?

Logitech doesn't seem to know (or care) which of their own products are Mac compatible. They are missing out on most of the Mac market.

Vic Guess

On Nov 25, 2007, at 8:42 AM, vicguess wrote:

> <http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/webcams/devices/3055&cl=us,en
> >
>
> The above link to the UVC list is wrong. Do you have the correct one?
>
> Logitech doesn't seem to know (or care) which of their own products
> are Mac compatible. They are missing out on most of the Mac market.

Sorry about that. Here is the correct URL:

<http://logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/logitech_en_amr.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5336
 >

Tn

The Logitech HarmonyŽ 659 Advanced Universal Remote - $129 (list)

Connects via USB to your Mac and you can download all the latest controls for the newest devies (even after the Harmony Remote was made). Nifty.

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/remotes/universal_remotes/devices/379&cl=us,en

You can probably find it cheaper: http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/64/379&cl=us,en&retailer=1

A Subscription to MAKE Magazine: http://makezine.com/magazine/

This is HANDS DOWN the best magazine I get! If you have EVER opened the case on ANYTHING (toaster, computer, VCR) then you must get this magazine.

I submitted this too late to make last year's list (or maybe it just didn't make it).

You'll be upset if you lose your computer, but you can buy a new one. You'll be upset if you lose your data, but you can back data up. But if you lose your teeth, you'll never get them back as good. Scrubbing teeth manually in the 21st century? Buy someone an electric toothbrush. Geeks will get the utility straight away. And with luck, parents will find their kids enjoying toothbrushing.

http://oralb.com/us/home.asp

NewerTech Universal Drive Adapter

Adam wrote an article about this a few months ago.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9089>

It's a handy device for those who have a few bare drives laying
around. At around $30, you cannot go wrong.

--
Ryoichi Morita

One Mac feature that switchers may find annoying is the line-level audio input. The microphones on cheap headset/mic combinations widely used on PCs tend not to work on Macs. All the notebooks and iMac all have built-in microphones. But still, I have lately found that video chats are much more pleasant with a USB headset/microphone. Echo is eliminated, and chats get less "shouty".

Logitech has several models. I find the newer ClearChat Pro USB to be more comfortable than the earlier USB Headset 350 model. However, both work well. iChat and Skype are quite robust in that we can select the application USB audio in/out separately from the System audio. Note though, that the hardware volume controls only control the System audio -- the same as the controls on Mac keyboards -- and may not be worth the price premium.

<http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/internet_headsets_phones/&cl=au,en>

There are no drivers to keep updated. And of course, they work as general headphones too.

For those who travel a lot, and prefer a mouse to using the trackpad on
the MB/MBP, the Kensington Slimblade Tracball Mouse is rather nice.

http://us.kensington.com/html/13880.html

This two button bluetooth mouse is slightly smaller (and flatter) than
the Apple Mighty Mouse, but is still big enough that it is comfortable.
It has a built in scrollball similar to the one on the Apple mouse that
allows you to scroll both vertically and horizontally. It also includes
a built in battery indicator---a nice touch.

The feature that sets this one apart is that the scrollball can be used
as a trackball when using the mouse is not possible (on a small confined
space like plane tray tables or on glass surfaces). Switching between
the trackball and mouse is a simple double click of the power button.

Tn

On Dec 3, 2007, at 09:33, Tomoharu Nishino wrote:

> For those who travel a lot, and prefer a mouse to using the trackpad
> on
> the MB/MBP, the Kensington Slimblade Tracball Mouse is rather nice.
>
> http://us.kensington.com/html/13880.html
>
I presume since it was suggested here that it works with Macs . . .
some of their other BT mouse don't. Anybody know for sure?

>> For those who travel a lot, and prefer a mouse to using the trackpad
>> on
>> the MB/MBP, the Kensington Slimblade Tracball Mouse is rather nice.
>>
>> http://us.kensington.com/html/13880.html
>>
> I presume since it was suggested here that it works with Macs . . .
> some of their other BT mouse don't. Anybody know for sure?

Yes it works just fine. Using it with my MBP right now.

And the included setup manual has a Mac section, so Macs are
"officially" supported.

Tn

On Dec 6, 2007, at 16:30, Tomoharu Nishino wrote:
> Yes it works just fine. Using it with my MBP right now.

Cool . . . it's been added to the wish list for my wife:-) I've been
using a wired mouse with my MBP as I don't think much of trackpads and
it's time to upgrade to something that doesn't need a wire.