Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 for Mac
Logitech
$50 US
This new solar-powered wireless keyboard is almost perfect. It works great, but it has some perfectly annoying “features.”
There is no printed manual or full set of Internet instructions. Its web site is incomplete. No built-in indent on the keyboard is provided for storage and travel with its USB dongle. There is no way to know when the caps lock key is activated.
Aside from those four minuses, Logitech has done a stellar job with engineering and design of its new Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 for Mac. Solar and ambient light battery charging are effortless. So is power management using a free software download. Battery efficiency is exceptional.
Two small, versatile, high-value computer accesssories:
Presenter Pro Remote with Green Laser
Kensington
$80
XtremKey
LaCie
$50 to $230, depending on capacity
In commando, stealth mode, I strolled casually into a retail store featuring computers by a well-known company from Cupertino. I unscrewed the base cap from LaCie’s XtremKey deluxe all-terrain USB flash storage drive, exposing its USB plug tip. I discretely inserted XtremKey into a rear USB port on a new iMac, and its icon mounted instantly on the computer’s Desktop.
Two Unusual iPad Case/Stands Reviewed by Jackie Richards, Guest Writer
PowerBack Battery Case with Kickstand and Dock
Kensington
$90 to $130 online
PowerBack is a combo iPad case, stand, and battery pack. A metal kick stand supports PowerBack in four different easel positions: two each portrait and landscape. The hard plastic shell case of robust construction has precise grid edges for aligning and sliding your iPad in and out.
A Micro-USB port on the bottom rear connects PowerBack to a computer or other USB charging source via an included cable. You may need an inexpensive Kensington or third party USB wall or car charger if you discharge all iPad and PowerBack juice while away from a computer. Blue lights flash to indicate incremental charging capacity: 20 – 40 – 60 – 80 battery fuel gauge, as Kensington calls it. The company claims up to five extra hours of power and our tests confirm that approximate range, depending on iPad activity.
MiCorder
Company: Olens Technology
$60 to $80 online
If you are an iPhone or iPod touch snob, stop reading now and get back to your favorite time-wasting toy. If you want to learn about a promising new audio recording device, keep reading.
MiCorder does only two things, and does them well. It records ambient sound, live music, and voice easily and efficiently with a built-in microphone in non-audiophile MP3 compression. And it records from any line audio source with an included cable, also as a 128mbps MP3. Stop yawning. The latter is MiCorder’s greatest asset.
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
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By guest reviewer Devon Gilbert and John “Nemo” Nemerovski
Devon and Nemo spent hours listening, evaluating, and comparing these three innovative, affordable headphones with microphones, or headsets, if you prefer the term. We will first describe them one at a time before we rate or rank them.
Crossfade LP
Company: v-moda
Price: $200
Web site
Pelican i1015
Company: Pelican
Price: $27 on Amazon
iPods and iPhones fit snugly in this hard plastic protective case from Pelican. The inside of the case is padded with rubber bumpers and also contains an input for your earphones. Put your iPod in the case, connect the provided cable to it, lock the case with the snug and secure latches on the side and then connect your earphones to the external jack and you’re ready to go. The Pelican case feels secure and comes with a lifetime guarantee. I keep mine on the front seat of my car with my iPod in it and it’s hit the floor a few times on sudden stops. Both the case and my iPod still look like new. The case comes with a carabiner (or D-clip). You can start your music, lock the case and hang it on your belt or backpack. Another handy feature: The rubber rectangle inside the case that serves as a cushion for the iPone or iPod has a space under it where you can easily store your headphones . Everything rides in the same box and all of it is practically indestructible. Nice.
One caveat: The company says the case is not designed to be submerged in water. Don’t use it for swimming.
Arctic Sound S111 Portable USB-powered Speakers
Company: Arctic Cooling
Price: $15.45 US
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=81_90&mID=581
USB powered speaker are lousy, right? Wrong! The chilled-out company Arctic Cooling just released a hot pair of stereo speakers that can play anywhere, and they mean anywhere. No sound panel preference settings or software drivers are necessary. Plug the audio cable for this high-performance pair of stylish gray speakers into your audio device, then provide a USB power source and blast off. Stereo separation is terrific.
DataTale TQ-M12H
Company: Oyen Digital
Price: $90
http://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/TQM12H.html
Get a handle on this unusual drive dock! I mean, you affix a brushed aluminum handle to an internal SATA full size 3.5 inch hard drive. This handle is a guide as you insert your drive into a custom powered bay that connects to your Macintosh via FireWire 800/400/USB/eSATA. All necessary cables are provided, colored white.
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Kanex Mini DisplayPort Adapter To HDMI 1080p Video w/ Digital Audio
Company: Kanex, Inc.
Price: $69.99
http://kanexlive.com
Apple’s incorporation of the Mini DisplayPort in its newer computers has produced big changes for people who wish to send video and audio-out signals from the Macs to drive their HD televisions with an HDMI signal. Currently, the Unibody MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and iMac all use Mini DisplayPort.
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Clickfree Transformer Special Edition
Company: Storage Appliance Corporation
Price: $89.99
http://clickfree.com/transformerse
The Clickfree Transformer SE is a Fig Newton-sized USB “dongle” that turns your iPhone, iPod Touch, or USB drive into a backup device, no software required (backup software is built right in to the Transformer). And before you sci-fi movie buffs start asking, the answer is no, it does not morph from a Chevy Volt into the Autobot known as “Jolt” -it’s not that kind of Transformer.
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Super WriteMaster Slim External DVD Writer
Company: Samsung
Price: $74.99
www.samsung.com
The popularity of netbooks seem to be exploding over on the PC side of the computer world, but for Mac users, every laptop Apple ships comes with a DVD Superdrive, which both reads and writes to the optical discs. All, that is, save the MacBook Air. And while I don’t have an Air for use in this review, I believe performance will be the same on that machine.
The first question you have to ask yourself is, if you already own a DVD burner in your Mac (and chances are you do) do you need an external USB model? If so, then the Super WriteMaster Slim External DVD Writer from Samsung is a good choice. It is, as the name implies, very slim. It is also very light-weight, attractive to look at, and works well. It handled both expensive blank DVDs and the el-cheapo media equally well.
It does not sport it’s own power supply, but draws power via the USB plug. So if you are running your laptop via the battery, this external DVD burner will kill your battery life in no time flat.
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Arc Mouse
Company: Microsoft
Price: $59.99
http://www.microsoft.com
It takes a lot to innovate in the world of computer mice these days. After all, seen one mouse seen them all, right? Wrong. Microsoft has figured out a way to innovate the mouse with their Arc Mouse.
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RAIDBank4
Company: Micronet
Price: $999 (US) for 2 terabyte configuration
http://www.micronet.com
A lovely big package appeared on my front doorstep last week, and in it was an even lovelier 2 terabyte RAID 5 disk array from our friends at Micronet/Fantom.
Briefly described, the RAIDBank4 is a 4.85 x 6.5 x 9.1 inch box which holds four SATA hard drives (in this case, there were four decent quality Western Digital 500 GB drives). Micronet bills this unit as the “world’s smallest RAID”. While I don’t know this to be true, I don’t think it could get much smaller.
A perusal of the Wikipedia entry for FireWire reveals it to be Apple’s brand name for the IEEE 1394 interface, initiated by Apple themselves as a serial bus interface standard for isochronous real-time data transfer, intended to replace SCSI for connecting data devices while also supporting audio and video applications.
However, in certain sectors of the tech enthusiast community, particularly those driven by either love or loathing of Apple and its mercurial leader, FireWire is used as a call to arms, a rallying cry to petition the world against the perceived injustices of a cruel and fickle master towards his loyal followers. Ever since the new laptop line shipped, there has been an ongoing mournful wail of protest at the cheaper, consumer-orientated Aluminum MacBooks with their twin USB ports but the traditional FireWire port deleted. How will we connect fast hard drives? How will we access Target Disk Mode for recovery purposes? How will we offload video from our DV Cameras? How will we survive with the sky falling in on us?????
Well, I am not going to rationalize why Apple visited this apparently appalling curse on us all. Limited case space? Shortage of interface chips? Mafia protection racket? A Federal conspiracy by the USB alliance? Frankly, I don’t give a fig why, how or wherefore, I just don’t care. And the fact is that most buyers of MacBooks don’t care either.
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Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro
Company: Logitech
Price $129.99
www.logitech.com
This past spring I made it a mission of mine to find as many Mac compatible webcams as possible. It hasn’t been easy. They seem to be few and far between. Recently, Logitech released the QuickCam Vision Pro, a Mac only camera, that is one of the best webcams I have tried.
The QuickCam Vision Pro is not cheap. It retails for $129.99, but you get what you pay for. The unit is a nice solid camera that has an easel like clip for mounting on a monitor, laptop, is resting on a counter surface. It has a camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and a built in microphone.
When I say you get what you pay for, I mean it. The picture quality on this unit is fantastic! It is capable of up to 720p images up to 1600×1200 resolution. I was blown away by the crispness and clarity of the image. Of course, when talking over the internet the image quality will also depend on the connection speed on both ends. In addition to the great quality, the camera has autofocus, which quickly adjusts as you move the camera around.
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2.1 Stereo Tower
Company: mStation
Price: $300 US (modest discounts are available online)
http://store.mstation.com/products/2-1-stereo-tower
When I asked a father-daughter guest listening panel to evaluate mStation’s impressive 2.1 Stereo Tower, Gordon, the dad, asked me “Is it as heavy as it looks, John.” Yes, I answered. Then Evee, the teenage daughter, asked me “Why does it look so weird?”
Gordon thought the Tower’s “nifty look” and “nice, tight footprint” were designed to make a strong statement in a living room or family media den. He predicted this one-piece jumbo speaker unit will sound best when positioned at a 45 degree angle to an uncrowded corner in a room, for optimum sound and projection.
Stereo separation is minimal with tweeters located only inches from one another. You can twist the tweeters and experiment. Treble high-end range is extensive, and the downward-blasting subwoofer provides potent bass. Gordon suggested mStation’s v.2 of this product should add extra tweeter speakers right and left, and/or include a high-quality midrange speaker in the black central cabinet column. I’m not sure about having more tweeters, but a midrange speaker will definitely help.
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If you are new to a Mac, for whatever reason, you might thing why write an article about ejecting media on a Mac? You only have to pull out a thumb drive or push the button on the CD tray to eject it, right? Wrong. Ejecting media on a Mac is a little more complicated than that, especially if you are used to using a PC.
First, by media I am referring to any external storage device or item you might connect to the computer. This would include thumb drives, CDs and DVDs (internal and external drives), external hards drives, iPods, and sometimes cameras.
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At MyMac.com, and other computer sites, terms like freeware, burn, jpeg, and more are being used all of the time. Sometimes we (the writers) take for granted that the audience understands what we are talking about. I figured I’d make a list of ten of the more common terms we might use in articles. You might look at a lot of the words below and think they are common sense. What might be common sense to you might be totally foreign to another person.
1. Download: When you view a website, or email, or anything on the internet, those files are being downloaded to your computer. In other words, they are coming from another computer, somewhere in the world, and being sent to your computer through your internet connection.
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SanDisk ImageMate USB
Flash/Smart Media Reader
Company: SanDisk
Estimated Price: $49.00
http://www.sandisk.com
Like Tim, I’ve suffered through very slow downloads when I’ve tried to move the images that are on my Smart Media card from my digital camera to my computer. I had also discovered that my USB capable system (6400/180 with G3 card and Keyspan PCI USB card) would not permit me to hook up my digital camera and download pictures through the USB ports. The camera manufacturer (Toshiba) attributed this to the fact that the camera works with iMac’s, G3s, G4s, etc. but not with a G3 equipped legacy Mac. So I was reduced to unplugging my printer after I had shut down the system, hooking up the serial cable, restarting my Mac and then slowly downloading the pictures through the software provided. Very, very frustrating to say the least, particularly when people want to see the pictures on the monitor right away.
After doing my research and hunting around for other options, I finally selected the SanDisk ImageMate USB SmartMedia reader as the best and least expensive option open to me. Initial installation of the unit was as easy as 1-2-3. Insert the Installation CD in the drive, double-click the Installer icon, follow the directions, then restart the system. Once the system had restarted, I just plugged the unit into the USB hub, inserted my SmartMedia card and then double-clicked on the SanDisk icon which appeared, opened the folder inside and found all my pictures waiting for me as JPEG images. After that it was just drag and drop the images inside to my desktop picture folder and I was done. Less then a minute to insert the card, double-click and then see what the pictures looked like, rather then spending what seemed like forever to download the pictures.
With the folder open on the desktop, viewing is easy, as is renaming each JPEG image. Trash what I don’t want, rename what I want, and then drag the images to the desktop picture folder. Definitely a major time saver as far as I’m concerned! The one thing I did discover is that you must have Apple’s File Exchange extension on if you want the unit to be seen by your Mac, so make sure you have it on when you go to use the reader. SanDisk has a very informative website and even carries the drivers and Mac FAQs on the site, so we’re not forgotten.
Now while the reader comes in the basic computer grey color with Navy Blue accents, it’s not that bad to look at when it sits there on your computer desk, kinda like it’s smiling at you. And while the unit has a suggested retail price of $49, I was able to get my unit for $29. I looked around for the best prices locally, went to the closest store that handled the product (Best Buy) showed them the flyer with one of their competitor’s pricing and they honored the price difference.
Requirements:
MacMice Rating: 5
Russ Walkowich
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