Gadget Wisdom

We troll the tech websites looking for things we find interesting or potentially useful. Here are a few selections…

• Crunchgear turned us on to this car cigarette lighter with 4 USB connections.Most things can charge via USB nowadays…Cell phones, music players, etc. If you have four devices you want to charge and still have your cigarette lighter free for other things, this is certainly useful. The cost is $22.99 as of this post from USBFever.com with 2.99 per order S&H.



• This tiny keyboard with a retractable USB cable was also revealed to us on Crunchgear. Cost is $25 from Brando.com.hk. It would certainly work better as a wireless keyboard, but something like this is useful to have in one’s arsenal of tools. We keep a toolbox with a spare mouse, screwdrivers, misc. little computer and data cables, etc for when we are off repairing something.
• Ion, the company known for cheap analog to digital converters including Record Players, is releasing a $100 slide and negative scanner called Slides 2 PC. for those of us wanting to get rid of boxes of analog media, items like this that make it simple are worth the investment. Scan your media, archive it, and dispose of the slides. You can even make a DVD. If you don’t want to do it yourself, there are plenty of organizations that will do it for you, even your local Costco.
• This tiny USB powered LCD monitor is useful, although we’ll wait till it is much much cheaper.

For more looks at the stuff we find interesting to consider as part of your hardware arsenal, keep reading…

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ThWhen you go to the airport with your laptop, you are forced to go through the annoyance of removing your laptop from its bag and placing it in a bin. However, the TSA last month announced the results of its initiative to encourage manufacturers to design checkpoint-friendly laptop bags. Below is an image of the friendliest styles of laptop bags.

Now, the problem is the most popular styles are these unapproved ones. Purchasing one of the approved bags will not guarantee that you can leave your laptop in your bag for screening. If the bag does not present a clear and distinct image of the laptop separate from the rest of the bag, you’ll still have to remove it.

The guidelines for these bags are as follows:

• Your laptop bag has a designated laptop-only section that you can lay flat on the X-ray belt
• There are no metal snaps, zippers or buckles inside, underneath or on-top of the laptop-only section
• There are no pockets on the inside or outside of the laptop-only section
• There is nothing in the laptop compartment other than the laptop
• You have completely unfolded your bag so that there is nothing above or below the laptop-only section, allowing the bag to lie flat on the X-ray belt

The TSA does not endorse any specific bag. And these new bags that have been reviewed according to their guidelines will take time to flood the market, and will likely initially be more expensive than other bags.

Related Articles

• Official TSA Press Release
• TSA outlines new procedures for ‘checkpoint-friendly’ laptop bags
• TSA’s Ideal Laptop Bag
• TSA to Allow Laptops in Approved Bags
• TSA declares some laptop bags ‘checkpoint friendly.’
• TSA approves some new laptop bag designs [Transportation]
• TSA relaxes laptop screening rules this month
• Airports Offer Checkpoint-Friendly Laptop Cases
• What exactly is a TSA-friendly laptop bag?
• TSA-Friendly Laptop Bag Aims To Speed Up Airport Security Lines

Image via Wikipedia

SanDisk has announced(see Press Release) the launch of a new music option. microSD cards will soon be made available with pre-loaded high-quality DRM-free MP3 music of top artists from EMI Music, SONY BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group.

slotMusic cards enable consumers to instantly and easily enjoy music from their favorite artists without being dependent on a PC or internet connection. Users simply insert the slotMusic card into their microSD-enabled mobile phone or MP3 player to hear the music – without passwords, downloading or digital-rights-management interfering with their personal use.

The cards will be packaged with a USB sleeve to allow them to be interfaced with a computer. They will be encoded at 320kbps and…

Musicians will find slotMusic cards offer a compelling new way to express themselves to their fans. With 1GB1 (gigabyte) of capacity, slotMusic cards can hold songs, as well as liner notes, album art, videos, and other creative content that an artist may choose. Consumers can also add their own content to a slotMusic card, creating a personal plug-and-play media library.

We tried to be enthusiastic about this idea. We realize that the RIAA and SanDisk are trying. We reviewed the comments on a CrunchGear post about this very development. Many people feel they can just make their own, that a 1GB card was small.

However, they’ve overlooked an untapped market. The impulse buyer. They intend to distribute this at brick-and-mortar and online stores. Online is the worst distribution method for this. slotMusic will have a market in people who are in a hurry. They should sell it at convenience stores, airports, and train stations. It will do well with people who suddenly decide to buy some music. Best Buy and Walmart will do well with the impulse buy as well.

Wherever there are people who cannot be bothered to do otherwise, there will be a market. We also predict that this is merely the first step. Imagine this system linked into an online system where you go into a store, select your album or albums from a machine, and it is delivered to you on a card. But this has to start somewhere.

Related articles

• Press Release(sandisk.com)
• Official slotMusic website
• Sandisk’s slotMusic: microSD cards preloaded with music
• SanDisk Launching MicroSD Memory Cards With DRM Free Music; All Four Majors On Board
• Labels launch slotMusic format, miss point of digital music
• Sandisk’s SlotMusic MicroSD Cards to Have Big-Name MP3 Albums Aboard

Image via Wikipedia

Lifehacker alerted us this week to the release of Rockbox 3.0. Rockbox is a product we already use on our MP3 player. It is an alternative open-source firmware which includes not only expanded music support, but album art, games, video playback, and more.

For those of you wishing to try it, but not willing to give up the manufacturer’s firmware, it installs a dual-boot firmware loader, allowing you to press a hotkey to boot into the old firmware.

We have switched from MP3 to playing files encoded using open-source format OGG and this software allows us to do so. It runs on a variety of players produced by Apple, Archos, Cowon, iriver, Olympus, SanDisk, and Toshiba. More will come, as people work to port it.

So, check Rockbox out. If you don’t like it, you can uninstall it.

Related Articles

• Rockbox Web Site(Rockbox.Org)
• Rockbox Replacement MP3 Player Firmware Gets Updated [Mp3 Players]
• Rockbox 3.0 Supercharges Your MP3 Player [Featured Download]
• Rockbox open-source MP3 player firmware hits 3.0
• Rockbox 3.0 Released. Quietly.
• Rockbox 3.0: turn your old iPod into new h4wtness with free/open software
• Rockbox 3.0 firmware breathes the life back into your MP3 player
• The case for FLAC, the case for Rockbox

Two years ago, in one of our earliest posts, we blogged about a new kind of rechargeable battery available from a company in the United Kingdom.

We still love this product in theory. After two years, we finally saw it being sold at the counter at our local Microcenter. We’re still charging them, which takes 5-7 hours, as we speak, and the product is everything we expected. It is small, easy to recharge, and is perfect as emergency batteries for the peripherals we carry in our bag with our laptop.

However, despite our high hopes, their website two years later has not changed much. The AAA, C/D, 9V and various other batteries have not yet been released for sale. Maybe thre are problems with the longevity of the products.

We checked out what people were saying about these batteries..Here’s a review from one blog. It notes that the shipping process should you buy direct from the manufacturer is efficient, and that the batteries have half the charge of a standard rechargeable battery. They have 1300mAh, but bear in mind the charger is built in so that likely takes space in the form factor.

For all of us wondering why text messages have doubled in price in the last year, rest assured, the Federal Government is on the case.

Senator Herb Kohl, Chairman of the Anti-Trust Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter this month to the four major wireless carriers, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile asking them to explain the increase.

Carriers limit the number of characters in a text message to 160. Assuming a maximum of 140bytes stored per message, that means that if you were charged the same per-byte rate to download a 4MB song, you would pay about $6000. Nothing has changed particularly in the cost of providing the service, however, companies have the right to charge whatever they can get away with.

The odd thing is that math. We have a phone where text messages are 20 cents each, yet megabytes of downloaded data are 1.99 each. If we want to use Instant Messenging applications provided on our phone, they use text messages as opposed to using data time so they can charge more(We’re Verizon customers, in the interest of disclosure).

Kohl has asked for a response by October 6th. Some experts feel the increases may be a reflection of the decrease in competition as the four major players absorb smaller regional providers.

We look forward to hearing the response from the providers and hope it sparks some sort of change. The current system is ridiculous.

Ikea Laptop Workstation

We just love the look of this thing the Unclutterer turned us onto. It is available in white or red and is perfect for places like a guest room or a kitchen. Current list price at IKEA is $59.99. Link to Product Page.