Tim and Chad announce an all-new contest! This week, listen to the show for your chance to be one of three winners for our B2Stuff.com prizes. Up this week, each winner will receive a miJam Mini Guitar, a miJam Drummer, and the Wassup! Also, David Cohen looks at VPN using a Mac to connect to a PC network. Finally, Robert reviews both the The i.Sound Dream iPod speaker system and the everki The Plung iPod case.

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Links from this show
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FRITZ!Fon 7150 –
Company: AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH
Price: €149.00
http://www.avm.de

The FRITZ!Fon 7150 is a DSL modem and wifi router combination. So far not really spectacular enough for a review. The reason I am still sitting down to write one is that this is more than just a wifi router, it is a cordless VoIP phone as well.

AVM is the market leader in DSL hardware in Germany, they have about 50% of the market. They have achieved this dominant position by working closely with ADSL providers to ensure that their hardware is bundled into contracts. So if you go out to eBay there are literally hundreds of their boxes available. I purchased mine from a big online store, after I had grown tired of my "standard" VoIP phone, which neatly sat on my desk and kept me there, while making a call.

But let me start from the top:
The box is roughly 14 cm wide, 17.5 cm deep and 15 cm high, when the handset is placed into the charger. It really looks like your average cordless phone and like every cordless phone you will want to place it within easy reach.

The unit itself has surprisingly few ports – there is WAN port for connecting your DSL splitter and standard landline phone (or ISDN), plus a LAN port to which you can connect a switch, a USB host port for attaching a printer (more about that later) or a hard drive, and it does Wireless LAN. A small antenna sticks out like the fin of a shark, though I am not quite sure whether that is for the DECT handset, or the WiFi. In addition there is a single button on top of the unit that contains a status LED.

The box contained all the cables you could possibly need, which I always think is a big plus. Why make you go out and buy another set of cables if you can bundle them for a few cents only.

So from a basic perspective it isn’t a spectacular box and I would recommend to the manufacturers to come up with a few more LAN ports at the back. My other recommendation is to make the USB host port USB 2.0 rather than USB 1.1. The slower USB 1.1 protocol makes the port not really suitable for attaching a hard drive or USB Memory Stick – ignoring the fact that accessing that storage space via FTP would still be a pain, even if it was faster.

The DSL Modem itself supports what has been christened "ADSL2+" in Germany – which allows DSL speeds of 16MBit/s and above. I run my DSL line at 6MBit/s, which is plenty fast for me. Measuring speeds is not something I have been able to do for this review (for the lack of sophisticated equipment and knowledge), but I get the feeling that the modem runs slightly more efficiently than my prior model.

The WLAN module itself is 802.11g (54MBit/s) and if you were to purchase special AVM equipment you could run it as "802.11g++" at 125MBit/s (after reading the small print you’ll learn that this g++ will achieve about 35% higher throughput than standard g). Still as my laptop has the typical Centrino setup – 802.11g is perfectly fine by my standards.

There are two features to do with WiFi networking I would like to mention here:

1) The box comes with WPA encryption enabled – so it isn’t a matter of whether you take the care to set it up or not, it is just there and the key comes on the back of the "installation CD". I would hope that EVERY provider of such a device was to go down this road. When I drive up and down my road, there are still plenty of unsecured WiFi networks out there.

2) If you press the single button on top of the unit for 5 seconds, you can activate or deactivate the WiFi network. I love this feature, as most of my devices are all wired – but every so often I feel like sitting on the couch and check eMails. There is no need to waste energy on WiFi if it isn’t being used and thus an easy on and off switch is just perfect.

The cordless phone does DECT, has an integrated phonebook for 200 entries and is said to offer 120 hours of standby and 17 hours of pure talking time. The handset has been paired with the base station at the point of manufacture, so no pairing needed later on. In addition it has a digital answer phone, which I don’t use, as my VoIP provider does offer free voice mail for me.

The handset is light enough not to be a pain when making a call, but large enough to offer you proper buttons. It is very easy to navigate and use – only the ring tones are very much a matter of taste.

Now the neat thing about this phone is that it is both a standard DECT cordless phone and a VoIP phone at the same time. You can setup rules to determine whether it should use the standard phone line or VoIP. In my case I haven’t connected the router to a landline, so I cannot tell you anything about standard call quality, but from other reports on the internet it seems to be quite ok.

To learn more about what I think about VoIP call quality – which of course is partly hardware dependent and partly VoIP Service Provider dependent, read the conclusion of this review.

With a WiFi Router the setup is one of the most important aspects of your experience. Ideally it is the only time you really have to access the router at all.

Setup has however been the one point I have to say AVM let me down badly and not in any way you would expect. The box doesn’t come with a manual, it is on the CD, but there is a neatly folded Quick Start Guide. You’d think all you do is follow its instructions and I am sure that if you are a Windows user that works perfectly fine, but I am not a Windows users, otherwise I wouldn’t write here, I am a Mac user and the bloody thing drove me up the walls.

The secret to setting up the router is to type in http://fritz.box in the address bar of your browser, everything after that couldn’t be easier. Simply click on "Einrichtungsassistent" (Setup Wizard) and follow the instructions on screen. I just wonder why they wouldn’t put that bit of information in their Quick Start Guide somewhere.

I shall assume they don’t do that as they hope that their windows users will just pop in the CD and install a bunch of useless software. A friend of mine has a different box from AVM and he followed the instructions to the dot and he ended up having lots of problems with the software that came with his router. In the end he was advised to remove it and guess what, he hasn’t had a problem since.

Now I cannot say for sure that the software is rubbish or useless, but why would your WiFi Router need software to run on your computer? I know Apple goes down the route of having a piece of software do the setup, but still…

The FRITZ!Fon 7150 as a German product "knows" about my provider "T-Online" and its particular authentication method. Based on this the setup wizard was able to switch around the data form in a way that would ask me for access details in the terminology my provider uses – it does the same for all the big providers – which is a real plus.

Setting up the VoIP account was just as easy – all I had to do is select my provider (sipgate.de) and then fill in a simple form. Thinking back to when I setup a wired VoIP phone and remembering the pain of figuring out what value goes where, this was a breeze.

I have put a few screenshots below, but since they are all German I gather you might not be too interested. Let me point you though to the last screenshot that shows you neat statistics – so if you are into checking charts on speeds and all this is going to be fun for you.

The dashboard gives you a quick overview of your system’s health – what features are enabled and for how long your system has been running.

This screen just informs me on my potential upload and download speeds. Most providers will promise "up to" speeds and most of the time I get really close.

This last screen shows my line quality, which if you happen to have trouble, can be a good indicator as to what might be wrong.

As the box offers a USB Host port I figured I could attach my laser printer to that port and be happy ever after. If I was only using Apple Macintosh computers that would be true. Setting up the printer on my Mac couldn’t have been easier and AVM provided great instructions online. Unfortunately no matter what I tried on my Windows XP Professional installation I couldn’t make the printer work beyond the next restart. I have given up and since I use my printer for scanning as well (it is a printer, scanner, fax) I am not too sad. Still it is a bit of a shame, since it would have greatly enhanced my home office.

So now comes the real question – am I happy with my purchase:

DSL Modem / Router / WiFi

The answer has to be: yes – it just works and I haven’t had any trouble whatsoever. One of the nicest features is that the box will disconnect itself for a few seconds every morning at 4 a.m., or thereabouts. The reason it is doing this, is because my provider will force the line to cut for one second every 24 hours and in the past it used to happen at the worst time you could think of – not any more, I love that feature.

The modem also uses traffic shaping to allow VoIP packages to be prioritized, which is good for call quality.

So for the DSL Modem / Router / WiFi part, taking into consideration that it doesn’t have quite enough LAN ports, I would give the box 4 stars.

DECT VoIP Phone

The answer unfortunately isn’t all that clear – quality is "changable". Some of the time I have brilliant call quality, even when using my computer to download stuff. Then next thing I have lots of statics and crackling noises in the line, even when the computer is turned off and no other traffic is taking place.

The handset just works like any other phone – unless you know you are calling on the internet, you will not find a difference. It does caller ID, it lets me access my voice mail, it indicates missed calls, etc. All is good, except for the call quality problems I happen to experience.

AVM Support, which has been really responsive, advised to uninstall a firmware update (though that you can only do using Windows XP or Vista), my VoIP provider told me to switch the router to use "landline quality only". It hasn’t really worked so far.

A few nights ago I have dared to install a new firmware update and since have only really had two calls. I found the quality to be flawless for the time being and I am already rather hopeful that my woes might be over. However I cannot be sure and while the upgrade process was as simple as one could imagine, it is not something I should have to do.

So I am giving the phone component, which made me spent all that extra cash, 3 out of 5 stars, which as you know is still a very decent rating.

So the entire unit gets: MyMac.com Rating: 3.5 out of 5

OWC Mercury On-The Go Portable Hard Drive
160 GB SATA Model reviewed
http://www.macsales.com
Price: $279.99

I’m a bit of a nut when it comes to external computer storage, I can’t seem to have enough. I have 6 OWC Mercury Elite Pro HD enclosures, as well as an OWC Mercury Elite AL Dual enclosure. In addition, I also own an OWC Mercury On-The-Go 2.5” SATA enclosure, and finally, a MacAlly 2.5” IDE enclosure.

Yeah, I’ve got lots of storage. Maybe we’ll go into “why” I have that much in another article. For now, let’s take a hard look at the OWC 160GB SATA Mercury On-The –Go (MOTG) portable.

I think the stuff you get with the drive is rather impressive, so let’s take a look at what’s in the box other than the drive:

One Firewire (FW) 800 to 800 cable
One Firewire 800 to 400 cable (Short)
One USB 2 cable (Short)
One AC power cable
One carry pouch
One OWC Software bundle CD-that includes the following software: Prosoft’s Data back up 3 ($59 value), Intech’s Hard Disk Speed tools for OS 9 and OS X ($89.95 value), and if you are so inclined, a Windows program from Nova store called “NovaBACKUP” ($49.95 value).

So essentially, you have everything you need to operate the drive either bus powered or on AC, with FW 400, 800, or USB 2 connections and the software to use the drive as a back up or just for data.

The back of the drive has the following connections: two FW 800 ports, one USB 2 port, a power switch, and a DC power input jack.

The front side of the drive has a blue light that glows when the power in on, brighter when the drive is reading or writing and a red power-on LED. The case is translucent. You can see the HD inside. Seagate manufactured this particular drive. As I mentioned earlier, I bought a MOTG empty case for a 2.5” hard drive I had and it’s fairly easy to replace the drive in these cases by your self.

Performance:
I plugged the drive into the FW 800 port on my G5 tower using the supplied FW 800 to FW 800 cable and the drive icon immediately popped up on my desktop.
My Mac is a Dual 2.0 G5 running OS X 10.4.8.
I proceeded to copy a 2.94 GB file to the MOTG, then copied the same file with the FW 800 to FW 400 cable and finally the USB 2 cable all using the bus power option.

Using a stopwatch, this was how long it took to copy the files using the various connections:
FW 800 to FW 800 – :58 Seconds
FW 800 to FW 400 – 1:38 seconds
USB 2 – 36 minutes 14 seconds

You can see by these numbers that the FW connections clearly beat the heck out of the USB 2 connection for data throughput.

An interesting thing to note: while I was copying the file via the USB connection the drive ran for over 30 minutes but was only warm to very warm to the touch, not hot. The drive is whisper quiet. These drives will connect to any Mac that has the correct connections from Mac OS 8.6 and above as well as Windows 98 and above.

There is a folder called the “OWC Shareware Collection” on the drive when you first plug it in that contains the following items:
Apple Commercials-A collection of Apple commercials in QuickTime format
Apple software updates- A collection of updates from OS 9 through Tiger. There are a few for each operating system—certainly not all of them.

A folder of pictures for your desktop, a set of OWC drive icons and a shareware collection of programs. All in all, a nice 1.62GB of free stuff to play with.

In conclusion:
This drive with it’s Oxford 924 chipset, software and shareware bundles, and FW/USB connect options is a really great deal. The only thing I can knock them on is how short the included USB and FW 400/800 cables are. Otherwise I highly recommend these drives.

Mymac.com Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Every little kid knows that there are good surprises and bad surprises.
If the Christmas package hides a box, it’s probably a toy and, therefore, a good surprise.

If it’s a soft package, it’s probably clothes and that’s a bad surprise.

The iPhone comes in a box and will probably be a good surprise with lots of neat features and more downloadable goodies promised later.

But more ominous, is the fact that we are locked into AT&T and, as of a week before release, that company has still not published the rate plan for the iPhone.

This could be a bad surprise . . . a very bad surprise.

This could actually be a deal-breaker of a bad surprise.

Here I sit, money in hand, ready to plunk down $499 x 2, plus buy my way out of SunCom for a hundred or two, plus sign up with AT&T for two years. I’m obligating myself for at least $2,200 EXTRA for a couple of cell phones.

Without knowing how much AT&T will charge?

Not bloody likely!

I’m not springing two grand for those iPhones for me and my wife until I know what AT&T is going to soak me each month.

AND! If it’s too much? — well — there’s nothing actually wrong with our current phones.

This week I’ll cover the third menu you can use in your web browser. I’ll call this the Link Menu, since it appears when you control-click (or right click) a link. As with the prior menus, the terms might be different from browser to browser.

Open the link

Normally, clicking a link will open its corresponding page or image in the current window (unless it causes a pop-up window or something else). If you want to keep the current window present, you can choose “Open Link in New Window.” This will make a new browser with the new page in it, and leave the old window in tact. If your browser supports tabs, you can choose “Open Link in New Tab” instead. The same result will occur, but in a new tab instead of a new window.

Download

Sometimes a link will point to a file for downloading. Nine times out of ten this file will download automatically by clicking the link. Sometimes, clicking the link will give you a new page full of a coded mess. This is when you want to control-click that link and choose “Download Linked File.” This will download the file instead of opening the file in a webpage. You might be presented with a Save window, and you’ll choose where to save the file. If you are not given that window, the file will be downloaded to the default location specified in your preferences.

Bookmark it

Choosing “Add Link to Bookmarks…” is a quick way to bookmark a link.

Copy

Finally, choosing “Copy Link” will add the link to your clipboard. You can then paste the link into a document, email, another browser, etc.

Remember, your browser might have other options in this menu, but they should all have the options mentioned above in some form or another.

There you go, three weeks and three menus to use when surfing the web.

Leave your comments and questions below.

Dear MyMac.com readers,

This column started in July 2006. The intent is to give MyMac.com readers a resource to use when they need help with problems. Over the past 11 months I have been proud to help people all over the world. It’s fun to hear from people in other countries and other parts of the US, but there’s always been one little problem – the quantity of email received hasn’t usually been enough to sustain the column.

Maybe the problem is all the other help resources available on the internet. There are web forums galore, and the response from those can be quicker than waiting for a reply from me, although the advice can be questionable. There are podcasts. Dave Hamilton’s Mac Geek Gab and Adam Christiansen’s MacCast do a great job answering questions weekly. There’s some overlap between this column and Macspiration from Donny Yankelow here on MyMac.com, but I can’t think of any other web columns like this one (although the magazine help letters are usually online too), but Google can be very helpful when you’ve got a question. Google, of course, is instant. Waiting for me to answer your email generally isn’t, although I usually am able to reply within a day or occasionally two.

Right from the start I said this wasn’t my column, it was our column. Do you, the readers of MyMac.com, want to see MyMac.com continue to have a help column? I need your help trying to decide if this column should continue. How you can help is easy. If you want to see the MyMac.com Help Desk continue, send me an email at tom@mymac.com. If not, don’t.

In case this is your first time reading this column, please go back and have a look at the previous 11. Also let me tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Tom Schmidt, and I am a service and support technician at First Tech Computer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. First Tech is consistently rated as one of the very best Apple Specialist dealers in the United States, generally regarded as the best between the east and west coasts. The knowledge and experience we have here is a cut above the rest.

In one form or another, I’ve been taking care of and fixing Macs (and PCs too) since 1986. I started doing it professionally as the systems manager of a small marketing firm in 1990. From there I went on to work in technical support for Mirror Technologies and Envisio, and I started at First Tech in 1994.

If you want this column to continue, I need you to let me know. Got a buddy that needs some help? Send ‘em my way! Keep those letters coming to tom@mymac.com. And if this is the last Help Desk column, thanks. It’s been a fun ride.

Tom

——————————

There are no letters this month. Sorry. I only received one email, and it wasn’t something I could use. Spring fever keeping everyone outside? iPhone mania?

——————————

Tom has been a service technician with First Tech Computer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, one of the most highly regarded Apple Specialist dealers in the US, since 1994. Previous to that, Tom was the systems manager and a graphic designer for a small marketing firm from 1990 to 1992, then worked in technical and product support with Mirror Technologies and Envisio for 2 years.

Please send your questions to tom@mymac.com. He will personally reply to each message when received and select letters will be included in the MyMac.com Help Desk column.

I’m going to stretch my prognosticatorial wings here and write about that of which I know very little. (Yeah! I do know the sentence sucks.)

The use of beta software is not for the faint of heart. Beta software (as most MyMac.com readers know) is software that is not quite ready for prime time . . . but the developers think they have the most egregious kinks ironed out.

AND, (This part is important) they know there are still going to be issues; so they put it out there for the beta testers to find out where those little varmints lurk, and report back so the slippery rascals can be properly dealt with.

—

Which brings us to who uses beta software.

Answer: Two types of people. The first is the techitype. He loves to go in and try to break that new version. He will gleefully report back to Apple that Safari will hang on a Wall Street PowerBook if you click on Dilbert.com while dancing widdershins around an open grave during the second full moon of odd-numbered months.

The second just wants the latest and greatest.

I hereby report that a) I am in the second group, and b) Safari Beta has not crashed on me yet. In fact, one of my portal sites now renders correctly after several years of giving garbage instead of dates.

Be advised that some plug-ins and widgets that depend on Safari’s engine are broken due to Safari 3.

Windows developers quickly found "vulnerabilities" in the PC version of Safari 3. Apple quickly patched them.

—

So — What was Steve Jobs thinking when he decided to release Safari 3 Beta for Windows? It was obviously not quite ready for Beta . . . much less prime time!

He’s thinking money. Lots and lots of money. Billions and Billions of wheelbarrows full of dollars being dumped into Apple’s bank account.

Let’s look at iTunes/iPod.

The iPod is a runaway success. The iTunes Music Store sells tunes and videos and GIVES AWAY ALL OF THE PROFITS! Apple is making money hand over fist from the iPod.

Enter the iPhone. The amount of hype over this half-baked, underpowered, last generation cell phone, with a dinky 2-megapixel camera that isn’t even out yet (and the fine print not even printed) is totally without precedent.

There is NO WAY it won’t be a success.

But what what will make it a Phenomenon?

Safari!

Safari for Windows!

Steve Taketh Away and Steve Giveth

Steve first tooketh away by locking out third party applications on the iPhone. Then he turns around and givethed by announcing that developers could write for the iPhone using Web 2.0. (Forget that Web 2.0 runs a poor second to a full-fledged application.)

Here is where Steve’s patented reality distortion field is going to conquer the world.

Developers. Windows developers — can now write "Applications" for the iPhone and test them on Safari Beta for Windows. Tons of widget-like, Javascript-based applications; to which Steve can point proudly and state, "There are already more than _____ hundred third-party applications for the iPhone!" (Fill in the blank with a random number and ignore the wizard behind the curtain telling you that Web 2.0 is just as good as a real application.)

This alone will sell millions of iPhones.

You see, Steve doesn’t give a rat’s attooey whether or not Safari makes a dent in the Windows browser market. The sole reason for Safari on Windows is to sell iPhones.

In that, he will succeed.

Last week I discussed a browser contextual menu to use for images in websites. Well, there is also a "Basic Menu" (what I am choosing to call it) you can use to navigate your way through a site, and more. Like the menu discussed last week, this menu has different options in different browsers. It also might have different phrases for various actions. I’m just going to cover the standards.

Go back and forth

To go backwards and forwards between recently visited webpages most people use the “Back” and “Forward” buttons at the top of the browser. You can also choose these options from the "Basic Menu." There is even a “Reload” or “Refresh.” In Camino you can do a “Force Refresh” by accessing the menu with the Apple key pressed.

Save the page

Maybe you want to save an entire webpage for future reference. To do this choose the “Save Page As…” option. This will open a Save window, and you choose where to save the page. I highly recommend saving a webpage to a new folder because you will be getting an html file along with all of the files that make up the page. Not saving a page to a new folder can cause a mess in the folder you do save it into.

Printing

Instead of choosing “Print” from the File menu, you can just choose it from the "Basic Menu." Once chosen, the same Print window will appear like you are used to.

View the source

For the advanced readers out there, you can also choose the option to view the source code of a website. This will show you the code used to program the page. This is a great way for those into web design to learn how to do different things on a webpage.

There is one more menu in a web browser, and that is the menu you get when you control-click a link. I’ll cover that one next week.

This week’s Macspiration is a short one, but on that has the potential of saving you A LOT of money. A LOT of money, as in having to pay for computer repairs or buy a new one.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about a few steps to follow for those times when you turn on your computer, or attempt to, and get nothing. No chime sound, no fan spinning, no power.

You first instinct, after you say a few words not appropriate for this article, would be that you need a new computer. This is not necessarily the case. Before ordering your new Apple or buying one at your local Apple Store try the following:

1. Check the power cord. Is it plugged in? Is it securely connected to the computer? Unplug it from both sources and plug it back in.

2. Is your surge strip turned on or plugged in?

3. Try another outlet on your surge strip. The one you are currently plugged into could have gone bad.

4. If #3 does not accomplish anything, try plugging the surge strip into another wall outlet. Preferably, the outlet would be on another wall, or even another room.

5. Not the outlet? Plug the computer directly into the wall to determine if the entire surge strip has died.

6. Find another power cord, and plug that into your computer. Your power cord could have gone bad or munched on by four legged creatures in the middle of the night.

7. Unplug everything from your computer, except for the power cord and see if it works. One of your external devices could be causing the problem.

8. Try any combination of the above.

9. This is extreme, but you can always try the computer in another office or house as a last resort.

If all of the steps above prove to be useless, it might be time for a new computer or a visit to the repair shop. Of course, you could bypass all of these steps and use this power issue as an excuse to get a nice, new, shiny Apple computer.

Tugo Wireless MP3 Headphones
Koss Corporation
Price: $300
http://www.koss.com
* * * * *

Don’t let the similarity between Tugo and Yugo prejudice you. Instead, think: "To GO!" Tugo is a clever, if less than perfect, way "to go" anywhere, anytime, with any music. If you can conjure a generic iPod shufflesque player embedded within a pair of premium over-ear stereophones, you are heading in the right direction. Keep reading.

But first, study or skim the marketing info and specs for Tugo, located here. This official product description is accurate, especially "deep bass and a balanced midrange." Treble output is somewhat lacking, meaning Tugo is consumer non-audiophile gear for on-the-go listeners with deep pockets to match their passion for deep bass response. The "specifications" chart is not helpful, because it only says Tugo’s audio delivery is dependent upon the quality and compression of your original tracks, transferred to Tugo from your Mac or Windows computer.

* * * * *

Here’s a full explanation given to MyMac.com by the Acoustical Engineer of Koss Corporation:

The sound of the Tugo is biased toward the low frequency, though not excessively, only a "touch." Add to this the poor treble (high frequency) response of the typical MP3 files and the sound of the Tugo will appear "bassy." I have never had a problem with the treble level when the Tugo is used with a high quality audio sound file.

You may experience the perceived reduction of treble due to the slight bass frequency lift. If you record a good, clean, high bit rate music file, of something you are familiar with on the high frequency content and then listen to it through the Tugo, you will find that the treble response is adequate.

* * * * *

I hate to be a party pooper, but the circular logic in the statement above is insufficient to address our most pressing question: with 512MB capacity, why should people pay $300 for dedicated MP3 headphones into which serious listeners must load space-hogging high bitrate files that severely limit Tugo’s playing capacity? Am I missing something obvious?

On the positive side, Tugo’s battery charges quickly via its lengthy, heavy-duty custom USB cable; battery trickle power loss is negligible; playing time is substantial; right-earcup controls are convenient and easy to master; headphone construction is durable, flexible, and comfortable; noise isolation is decent; and Tugo’s semi-rigid carrying case is high-quality. Eyeglasses are a minor inconvenience that you will eventually tolerate inside Tugo’s tight-fitting temple areas.

Tugo is NOT an iPod, so get over it if that is your only criterion for evaluation of a new class of product. When connected to your Macintosh, Tugo appears on the computer Desktop as a generic "No Name" volume having 493.5 MB capacity. A few MP3 and WMA songs are pre-installed. The easiest way (remember, you are NOT using iTunes to communicate between Mac and Tugo) is to create a folder in the Finder with up to 490 MB of MP3 audio tracks, and select/drag all of them into the Tugo "No Name" volume. I currently have 70 songs on Tugo, consuming 300 MB. Unprotected $1.29 songs purchased from the iTunes Store may play on Tugo, and I’ll test that within the next week or two, now that it’s finally available.

The very best attribute of Tugo is that it is fully wireless, once it’s charged and loaded with music. Don’t give me a hard time by grumbling, "Hey, Nemo, that’s faint praise after your recent reviews of Koss Cobalt and Etymotic Research ety8 wireless headphones." Fine, except both of them require an iPod to generate audio output, while Tugo is its own music player.

Tugo’s listener experience is an immersive audio environment. With good fit and comfort, you are completely in tune to the music within your head, not just entering your ears. I’m trying to write now while listening, and it’s very difficult. Do not not not! try to drive or operate heavy machinery while under the influence of Tugophones. The outside world is far away, and you may be able to smell the roses, but twittering birdsong is beyond your delight. Washing the dishes is probably a safe toe-tapping task.

Tugo is expensive. Notwithstanding its booming bass and potentially inadequate treble, Koss needs to provide more than 512 MB capacity for $300. Flash "thumb" drives and camera storage cards are getting cheaper daily, and 4 GB capacity would not adversely affect Tugo’s manufacturing cost or Koss Corporation’s profit. They would sell many more! MyMac.com hopes Koss wakes up to the realities of high-end listeners who want to be able to place more than 100 songs on their non-iPod devices.

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I conducted triple-blind listening/comfort/controls testing on a dozen different music students and their parents last week, and EVERY PERSON rates Tugo between 4 and 4.5 out of 5 for ease of use, audio quality, and fit. Nobody complained about excessive bass or weak treble. When I’m wrong, I admit it, and I’ll keep my opinion to myself on that matter from here onward. But when I asked all twelve adults and teenagers how much they would pay for Tugo, prices ranged from a low $60 from one thirteen-year-old to a high of $150 from another, and a couple of the parents, without any of them asking or caring about Tugo’s capacity. At $300, not one person thought it was priced fairly. I’m a little easier on Koss, placing Tugo’s value closer to $200, because I know what goes into engineering, developing, and marketing premium headphones.

I am not a market research guru, but I wonder if Tugo’s upscale target purchasers would prefer a full-spectrum sound instead of a hip-hop heavy bass. No too many teenagers are ready to plop down $300, when they could buy nearly four iPod shuffles for the same price and have full control over their equalizer settings, earphone cables notwithstanding.

If our listener panel awards Tugo a generous 4 out of 5, your reviewer takes exception to audio capacity for the price. Due to high cost and small storage, the MyMac.com rating is a balanced 3 out of 5, rapidly ascending when 512 MB for music storage is ancient history and 4 GB is reality.

Tugo is currently for sale directly from Koss Corporation and from Amazon.com.