Part 3 (Read Part 1 here, or Part 2 here)
Back in September, I decided to see if USB 3 was worth my time and money. I installed a USB 3 PCI card (CalDigit SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Card - $79.00 USD) in my Mac Pro and set out to take a look at drives that offered USB 3 as an interface option.
As you can see in this chart, USB 3 is advertised as being much faster than USB 2 or Firewire 800, but much slower than Thunderbolt.
Continue reading »
If you own a MacPro, like me, then you know that this is Apple’s most expandable Macintosh computer though there have been rumors as of late as to whether or not Apple will continue to manufacture them. I think not building some kind of expandable Macintosh computer would be a mistake. Apple needs one model of computer that can be customized by the user.
The current MacPro model can hold up to four internal hard drives, you can add PCI Cards, and you can even install a second optical drive. The geek in me loves to play with all of these options, if for no other reason, just because you can.
Today we are going to look at a variety of “stuff” for our MacPro.
To USB 3, or Not to USB 3. That is the question.
Part 2 (Read Part 1 )
Back in September, I decided to see if USB 3 was worth my time and money. I installed a USB 3 PCI card (CalDigit SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Card - $79.00 USD) in my Mac Pro and set out to take a look at drives that offered USB 3 as an interface option.
As you can see in this chart, USB 3 is advertised as being much faster than USB 2 or Firewire 800, but much slower than Thunderbolt.
I do have a Thunderbolt port on my new Macbook Air but there are no drives out there yet, and there may not be any Thunderbolt drives for a while with the flooding in Thailand. Listen to Techfan Podcast #55 for more information.
Continue reading »
BookBook for Air Continue reading »
$79.99
Twelve South 
Back in December of 2010 I reviewed the BookBook for iPad. I still use that case because of the construction and protection it gives my iPad as well as the way it disguises it. The BookBook for MacBook Air brings that same protection to Apple’s lightweight portable line of computers.
Tom Bihn Bags and Accessories
Tom Bihn
See the links below for specific item links and prices
Tom Bihn, bags made in the USA
Would you like to buy a bag made in the USA? Look no further. Continue reading »
Tom Bihn has been designing and making bags for over 20 years in the Seattle, Washington area. All of the bags sold by Tom Bihn are made in their Seattle factory. These wonderful bags caught my eye on a website I was viewing and they looked so good I just had to get a closer look.Tom Bihn manufactures many different styles of bags for a large variety of computers and other devices. These include Messenger, Briefcases, Backpacks, and Travel Bags, to name a few.
Kensington Protective Cover & Stand
Slim case for iPad 2
Price: $39.99
Company: Kensington – Direct link
I look for iPad 2 cases that are thin, lightweight, and cover the back of my iPad. While I like the idea of the Apple Smart-cover, frankly, I don’t think it covers enough for $69. I prefer to look at the high quality cases offered by Kensington.
Products used to create this review:
CalDigit SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Card - $79.00 USD
Data Tale Mobile” 2.5” HDD Enclosure - MSRP – $29.95
FireWire 400/800 and USB 1 and 2 are the peripheral interfaces we’ve been using with Macs for many years to connect printers, scanners, external hard drives, and to plug in our iPods, iPads, and iPhones. Technology marches on and we continue to see new interface types that promise faster connection speeds. Today we have eSATA, Thunderbolt, and USB 3 that we can use with our Macs.
Thunderbolt is the brand new interface Apple has included in all of its latest Macintosh computers. I have a Thunderbolt port on this new MacBook Air I am typing this review on, but there are no drives that will work with it, yet. For those of us who have a Mac Pro, we can install PCI cards that allow us to use the other peripheral interfaces such as eSATA and USB 3.
USB 3 is supposed to be faster (at least that is what the charts say) than firewire, eSATA, or USB 2, but much slower than Thunderbolt.
Add Thunderbolt to the mix and USB 3 is considerably slower.
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Guardian MAXimus mini
Company: newertechnology
Price as tested: $229.99
NewerTech – Other World Computing
Are you backing up? Do you have enough storage for your laptop, or your Macintosh computer? How about portable storage? Can you move your storage around if you need to?
I have a solution for all of these and it it is called the NewerTech Guardian MAXimus mini (Abbriviated here as GMM) from NewerTechnology.
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Perfect Harmony
Folding Keyboard - $99.95 USD
iRizer for iPad – $39.95 USD
Company: Matias
I’ve done several reviews of late that revolve around keyboards. I reviewed the excellent Matias Tactile Pro 3, and using an iPad, took a look at the very handy Kensington Keyfolio. What if someone could create a great full functioned keyboard that you could use with an iPad, and then offered something to hold the iPad while you were typing? Both would need to be compact and light for carrying, but rugged enough to hold up to a lot of use.
Continue reading »
BookBook for iPad
Company: Twelve South
Price: $69.99 USD
Twelve South
The iPad is such a unique device that manufacturers are only starting to catch up with accessories and cases that match its style. Twelve South, a manufacturer of creative MacBook cases, has released their first iPad product, the BookBook for iPad. Continue reading »
The BookBook for iPad is a handmade, hardback leather case that resembles a vintage tome. Not only does it provide physical protection for your iPad, but adds a level of security because of its uncommon design.
Matias Tactilepro 3
Company: Matias
Price: $149.99 USD
Keyboards are very personal computer peripherals. The criteria you use to choose your keyboard can be very different than the criteria I use to choose mine. There are plenty of keyboards but most people use the Apple keyboard that came with their Mac. While the current Apple keyboards are fine, other keyboard manufacturers offer different functions, keys and options.
Its all about the keys
Continue reading »
Kensington KeyFolio
Company: Kensington
Price: $99.99 USD
kensington.com
A new breed of iPad cover is about to hit the stores. These covers have integrated keyboards and make the combination of iPad and keyboard look and act a bit like a netbook. I was lucky enough to get a pre-release version of the Kensington KeyFolio Bluetooth and case for the iPad.
Continue reading »
iSkin Cases – The Touch Duo and The Vibe
Company: iSkin
Price: $34.99 USD Touch Duo, $29.99 USD Vibe
Website Links – Vibe – Touch Duo
If you are like me and can’t afford the latest iPod Touch, or there is nothing wrong with your 2nd/3rd generation iPod Touch, you can help make that iPod last longer with a great case from iSkin. Today we’ll be looking at the iSkin Vibe and the Touch Duo cases.
These cases offer remarkable everyday protection for your iPod Touch, a level of protection you usually don’t find in other products.
The iSkin Vibe:
SportShell Convertible
Company: Marware
Price: $59.99 USD
There will soon be a bazillion (is that a real number?) cases for the iPad. Choosing the “best” one can become something of an exercise in futility as they all offer some feature twist the other ones don’t. The case, or cases, you ultimately select will be based on your own need, or how and where you intend to use your iPad.
Crystal Film
Company: Power Support
Price: $24.95 USD
When I got my new iPad, my first thought was, “How can I protect this large beautiful screen?”
I began looking at all of the various screen protectors out there from Zagg and others. I’ve used Zagg protectors on my iPod Touch and they worked fine, except you really have to wet the protector down to install it. Using that much liquid was troublesome to me and I didn’t want to do that with my iPad.
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Lightsoft Weather Center
Company: Lightsoft
Price: $79US/£44 GBP – Upgrade from Version One – Free
Lightsoft Weather Center
The good folks at Lightsoft have released Lightsoft Weather Center Version 2 (LWC2).
I reviewed version number one last year (Link: Lightsoft Weather Center Review) and I was quite impressed with the program.
Logitech Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote
Company: Logitech
Price: $249 USD
How many remotes do you have in your living room? I have one for the satellite/DVR, one for the TV, one for DVD player, one for Apple TV, and that makes five in all. If my stereo was in the family room, I’d have six. Turning on the TV requires you pick up at least two different remotes and while watching TV it is not unusual for me to have two or three remotes lined up in front of me. If the portable phone rings, I’m all messed up!
Wouldn’t it be nice to consolidate all of these remotes into one? I thought so, and I went to Logitech to see what this well known maker of universal remotes had to offer. I found six models ranging in price from $49.99 to $399.99. The pricing gets higher as the feature set goes up. I decided to take the Logitech Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote (Hereto referred to as the “H1”) for a spin.
Continue reading »
Kensington Portable Notebook Locks Review
Company: Kensington
Kensington MicroSaver DS Keyed Ultra Thin Notebook Lock – $49.99 at Kensington
Kensington ComboSaver Combination Portable Notebook Lock – $18.15 at Amazon.Com
My oldest son will be taking his brand new $1,000+ MacBook Pro High School, graduation gift to college this fall, and frankly, I can’t afford to replace it. He will need to take measures to be sure no one steals it. A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds in the USA and I really don’t want him to become a statistic.
We’ll be installing some security software within the machine, but how should we physically protect it? Answer: Go to the #1 seller of laptop locks, Kensington.
Kensington produces a variety of locks for home and business solutions including desktops and laptop computers. We’ll take a look at two solutions for laptops.
Both locks attach to the security slot built into most laptops. Both employ super strong carbon steel cables, and both are fairly easy to use.
Popcorn 4
Company: Roxio
Price: $49.99 USD
http://www.roxio.com/
Today we’ll take a look at the latest iteration of Popcorn from Roxio, version 4. Popcorn is a movie compression and conversion utility program.
I plan to focus in on what is new in this version. Let’s discuss the weakest part of Popcorn, and get that off the table. Popcorn will NOT decrypt an encrypted DVD, nor will any of the features of Popcorn work with any commercial DVD. The program works fine with the DVDs you create. If you plan to use the software with commercial DVDs, you will have to use another program to “rip” them first.
The strongest feature of Popcorn is its ability to compress your extracted video to fit on a blank 4.7 GB single sided DVD or a 8.5 GB dual layer DVD. Popcorn gives you the option of removing extraneous files from your ripped commercial DVD file, like extra scenes, special features, and foreign language soundtracks. Trimming your video down allows Popcorn to use less compression when burning your new DVD, and less compression means a better looking video.
Popcorn allows you to convert to many different formats:
Popcorn 4 from Roxio does a bunch of wonderful things, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could speed up some of what it does. Well, you can. Popcorn 4 supports using the elgato turbo.264 or the newer turbo.264 HD devices which can speed up the Popcorn compression process.
Video encoding demands a sizable chunk of your system resources but the elgato turbo devices take that load off your system by performing most of the processing within the units themselves. Go to <http://www.elgato.com> for more information. The turbo.264 units are simple to use with Popcorn. In the lower right hand corner of the Popcorn burn screen you can see a “Got elgato turbo.264?” message.
After you plug your turbo device into a USB port, that message will change to “Powered by elgato turbo.264,” with a pulsating series of animated dots that show the device is being used.
When using Popcorn, the turbo device does not require the elgato software. Plug it into a USB port on your Mac and Popcorn will recognize it and use it.
How did it work?
I tried a simple conversion of a 588 MB QuickTime movie file to mpeg4 format. Without the turbo, the process took one hour and forty minutes. With the elgato turbo.264 HD device plugged in, the same conversion took one hour and thirty five minutes. Not much savings there. Just for fun, I launched the elgato turbo software and tried the same conversion. That process took ten minutes.
At this point, I thought perhaps Popcorn doesn’t just do simple conversions very efficiently.
I loaded a ripped video_ts movie file and asked Popcorn 4 to convert the movie to Apple TV format. Without the turbo device, the process took fifty two minutes. I converted the same file with the elgato device plugged in and it took thirty three minutes. A savings of nineteen minutes, or 36% faster.
This was a much better result. All of this is based on a variety of factors that include: the processor speed of your Mac (I have a 2009 Mac Pro), the length and complexity of the source video, the size of the file, and the amount of compression needed for the end result format. Your mileage may vary.
I believe using the elgato device is a plus, and while I didn’t get amazing results, you might get amazing results, based on your hardware and what video you are compressing.
New in this version of Popcorn is the ability to extract video or music and convert to any format including Flash. Not sure how many people want to convert to Flash nowadays, but Popcorn can do it. You can stream video from your Mac to your TiVo DVR. A shame Popcorn won’t stream to my Apple TV. You can now schedule video conversions to run when you’re away from your computer and you can publish converted video directly to YouTube.
Conclusions:
I have always enjoyed Popcorn’s ease of use. The program is fairly simple to use with many conversion options. I really dislike having to use another application to rip the DVDs I own for my use. I wish the good folks at Roxio would move beyond this restriction. There are applications out there that will rip and re-encode your DVD like DVD Remaster from MetaKine. If you have kids, you know how poorly they treat DVDs. To protect your investment in your DVDs, software like Popcorn is essential for making extra copies of the DVDs you own.
MyMac Review Rating: 7 out of 10
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If you are constantly running out of power when using your iPhone or iPod touch, these two chargers may help. Both Kensington and Dexim offer a clock app from the App Store so you can use these devices as a travel clock.
Travel Battery Pack and Charger for iPhone and iPod touch
Company: Kensington
Price: $69.99 US
http://us.kensington.com/html/17523.html
The Kensington Travel Battery Pack and Charger for iPhone and iPod touch (TBP) weighs in at only 0.5 lbs. and is small enough to fit easily in a small travel bag. There are no cables to pack and it even doubles as a kickstand for hands free landscape viewing of video.
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