Panel, a new iPhone app, founded by Darius Fong, is aiming to bring back the record store experience of yesteryear, when music industry professionals and music buffs were present at your point of purchase to give you insight on what you might like or look forward to for the next addition to your record collection.

Panel is different than other music applications or online players. While many online music sites can match a playlist to your liking very well, like the engine at Last.fm, nothing is strictly personal, like press releases or ads. It’s by music lovers, for music lovers. Each Panelist can explain their choice and their influences to help users find out more about the album.

The Panel App streams two full albums each week in various categories, including rock, pop, indie, jazz and more. Curators of the Panel App will be featured panelists that are composers, radio DJs, record storeowners, producers, musicians, and others with a musical background, every month to feature music that they love.

The iPhone application will also feature interviews with the Panelists, album descriptions, and a one-touch process will be made available to users in order to purchase albums they like. In addition, these users may then comment on selections and invite friends to join, listen, and create a fan-supported community.

To find out more, go to WearePANEL.com for images of panelists and photo journals of each week’s content, interviews, “Panel Blog”, videos, podcasts, and links from featured albums to iTunes and Amazon.

How much does size matter?

One of the best parts about a netbook is also one of its drawbacks.

They’re small.

The keyboards are undersized. The displays are tiny. But the battery life is huge, and that’s why netbooks are the hottest thing going right now.

The Lenovo S12 attempts to bridge the gap by tossing up a 12.1-inch screen and slightly larger keyboard than the usual netbook. But it is still a netbook with out the bells, whistles and optical drives of traditional computers. This model doesn’t yet have the much rumored and hotly anticipated Nvidia Ion chipset, which will let us run 1080p video and modern PC games on a low power netbook. Therefore, we’re still dealing with a regular old netbook that’s a little bigger.

That’s not a bad thing, mind you. The S12 gets more than five hours of battery life during normal use. You can squeeze out more juice if you’re really careful. The glossy screen is surprising light on the eyes. It’s back-lit running at 1280×800, which is much higher than other netbooks we’ve encountered out there.

The S12 has three USB 2.0 ports, an ethernet port, a 4-in-1 card reader, a 1.3-megapixel Webcam, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, an ExpressCard slot and a standard six-cell battery, which is very, very necessary. Some earlier models came with the three-cell battery. Don’t bother.

The interface is comfortable, and the touchpad is smooth and easy to navigate with. The keyboard is really comfortable to type on, but Lenovo switched the FN and CTRL keys on the left side of the keyboard. It’s a huge pain, because when you think you’re hitting CTRL-C, you’re actually hitting FN-C and not copying that text you wanted.

The 160GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM are both sufficient for the needs of a netbook user. You can even sneak a few video files on there.

The Intel ATOM N270 processor is also sufficient, especially because the S12 runs Windows XP.

Lenovo also throws in a hard drive backup utility that operates independent of the operating system and a facial recognition security utility that uses the on-board webcam.

If you’re looking for a slightly larger than normal netbook that’s comfortable, with decent battery life, look no further. At $449, it’s pricier than what you might find at the store, but the computer is stable, fairly speedy and still cheaper than a “real” laptop.

Smith Micro’s Anime Studio Pro 6 ($199) is a vast update over the previous versions and adds many great new features. Enhancements to version 6 include motion tracking, integrated lip-syncing, a scatter brush, auto shading, morph targets, a new sequencer, HD video support along with the ability to export to more video formats and better scripting. This edition also adds speedier production times, improved drawing and design enhancements, the ability to directly upload content to YouTube right from the application and a large collection of predesigned graphics, sounds and templates.

I decided to put Mac version of the product to the test and the results stacked up well. One thing to note is this is a very large piece of software. The installation took about 578 megabytes of disk space, so I would recommend you have plenty of space before you go ahead and decide install this product. Other than that, the installation was smooth and took only about two minutes.

Anime Pro sports a sleek, clean interface, reminiscent of Photoshop or Flash. Performance-wise, everything seemed to run smoothly and I never ran up on any errors. Because this product is designed for professional use, there’s a bit of a learning curve and training may be necessary to fully utilize the capabilities of the software, but those who have used this product before will be satisfied with the interface, commands, tools and navigation of the application.

The applications preloaded content is especially useful for people who are just starting off. Within fifteen minutes I had my own animation going (AnimeStudioPro sample). It’s simple, but it just shows that in less then fifteen minutes, someone who has never used this product can get right to work with the simple, yet familiar interface.

The product retails for $199 new or $129 to upgrade from a previous version. If you currently use previous versions of this software, the new features are definitely worth the upgrade cost.

You can purchase this product online from Smith Micro’s online store.

The Dell Inspiron Mini 10 is great if you get the optional 6-cell battery

Here’s an old reviewers’ question for you. Is it fair to judge a product by its default configuration?

I recently called the Dell Inspiron Mini 10’s 3-cell 24WHr battery a deal breaker, and it’s absolutely true. Dell’s netbook gets just over three hours of battery life, which is poor by both small laptop and netbook standards.

But when you’re buying the Mini 10, you can upgrade to a 6-cell battery with more than six hours of life for just $30.

A lot of people, I’d imagine, just buy the default configuration, not wanting to deal with the specs, like the difference between the hard drive and optional SSD drive.

Even with its 10″ x 7″ x 1″ dimensions, weighing only 2.63 pounds in my test, I’d never recommend someone buy the Mini in its default form.

It’s principle. The Mini 10 is an otherwise stellar computer. It’s fast, light, comes in a variety of colors, has an on-board TV tuner with HD antenna and cable adapter, comes with an HDMI port, SD/MS/MMC card reader, 3 USB ports, ethernet and built-in a/g/n WiFi. Even the display puts it over the top. The Mini 10 standard (as opposed to the V edition) comes with a 720p HD display. The keyboard is small, like on all netbooks, but it’s more comfortable than the Asus Eee PC that won the day in my Globe story.

At $349, the Inspiron 10 is a good value with this anchor called a 3-cell battery holding it down.

Dell should drop the 3-cell battery, make the 6-cell the default and only battery option, and charge $379 for the product. That would still make it cheaper than most of the Asus, HP and Lenovo competitors, and other reviews back up the fact that the Dell is right behind these laptops.

Dell’s idea with the Mini appears to have been to give users more regular “computer” features. The HDMI port is a great touch, and even the digital TV was appreciated. It’s pre-configured, and the software actually works. the Dell TV software fires up, scans the signal for channels, and works quickly and easily — and that’s from Dell. Years ago, if you bought a Dell, you could easily spend an hour or two deleting all their bloated support and utility software.

So let’s do this:

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with a 3-cell battery.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with a 6-cell battery.

If Dell throws in the 6-cell battery and throws out the 3-cell without jacking the price too much, then I believe it’s a winner. Good screen, good keyboard, Atom processor, television, HD video — all great features, but something has to power it all.

Obviously though, wading through all those apps can be rather daunting. While a new App Store earlier this month certainly helped, Yappler wants to take it one step further and has launched Yappler Sync, a discovery tool for Windows and OS X that allows iPhone users to share a list of their favorite apps with their friends. The tool scans a users App Store library, and sends that list to the Yappler website, where a user can share it anonymously or post it for others.

Yappler.com Sync also creates a list of the apps used by all of its users and updates the list when new apps are downloaded or old ones are deleted, generating their own Top Apps list. Users can share their own list of apps on Twitter and Facebook, or even embed the list as a widget on personal blogs and webpages, like below. We noticed that Yappler doesn’t not which apps you personally don’t sync to your phone though. We don’t actually keep multiple fart apps on our phone. Honest.

Check Yappler out, and share your app lists in the comments.

You see, by 2012, Seagate and other research firms estimate the average household will store more than a terabyte of data, including videos, family photos, music, programs, vital documents and even homework. Currently, less than half of consumers back up their data.

People think they don’t need to back up their files, and others think it takes too much time. Still more people don’t know how to preserve their files.

That’s where the “appliance” comes in.

Seagate wants you to consider a backup drive int he same light that you look at your refrigerator or oven — an appliance with a single, vital use. And the company has finally made it easy.

We tested the Seagate Replica 500GB Multiple PC backup drive, and we were impressed. As soon as you plug in the drive, the device is ready to start backing up your files. We’re used to installing software and going through a little (a lot) of configuration, but Seagate’s just saying “screw it — let’s just back up the damn drive.”

It’s effortless. Every time you back up a drive, the on-board software overwrites the oldest versions of each file, so you can avoid clutter and a quickly filled drive.

The drive will quickly fill, however, if you have all your eggs in one basket. If you have all your videos and music and photos on your C: drive, the software is going to have you do a little work. That’s the one bad thing we found with this drive. A “mere” 500GB just doesn’t do it in the iTunes age, where every time you download a video, you’re getting a 500MB standard version and a huge high-definition version.

When this product is available in a 2TB setting — or more — then we can safely say we’re in the backup appliance age.

But assuming for a second that 500GB is enough for you, the Replica functions better as a single PC backup solution than a multi-PC solution. The included dock insinuates that you can put the drive on a desk and back up all your computers from there, but that’s useless if you have a desktop in your bedroom and another in the basement.

For a single PC, or a PC and a laptop, the automation of the Replica makes it easy to back up your system files, documents, and some of your multimedia files. As ease of use goes, the Replica is as good as it currently gets.

While the size does matter, the Replica is a great solution. The included recovery CD allows you to restore your computer to its original state, even if your internal hard drive fails. This function combines with the practical ability to drag and drop backed up files if you delete them accidentally from your PC. The Replica is a functional, useful tool, if not totally an appliance yet.

The 500GB Multi-PC version is available for $129. A 250GB single-PC model sells for $88.

No, we’re not plotting the reasons for the demise of American health. These are current applications for you iPhone that allow you to place an order without ever speaking to another human! Considering that we’ll spend twenty minutes scouring websites in order to make a doctor’s appointment to avoid actually having to place a phone call, this clearly represents a marked improvement in our lives.

The application features what you would expect it to—location awareness selects the correct store for your delivery—to the unexpected—shake your iPhone to make your hotwings spicy! The application is actually very svelte, and supports the entire range of iPhone input gestures. You can pinch and pull the pizza to make it go from a personal pan size to an extra-large. You can rotate the phone between landscape and portrait, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, and you can swipe forward to move steps.

The pizza builder is our favorite part. You can drag and drop individual topping to your custom pizza, or click and drag the phrases like “ranch chicken” for predefined sets of toppings.

While we haven’t technically placed an order with the application (iTunes) yet, you can check out the official YouTube video below.

Of course, this wouldn’t be the future if there weren’t some sort of convergence, and sure enough, the app integrates with Facebook and Twitter (What, no MySpace? Twilight fans always struck us at the MySpace type) to allow users to post to their other social networks about Twilight. The app also allows users to select an avatar of their favorite Twilight character. (We wanted Bella’s dad, but that’s not a choice.)

As the release of “New Moon” approaches, the app will continue to be updated with showtimes, movie news, tickets, and and products from the Twilight series. The Twilight Tracker app is available for $2.99.

The charging system comes in two parts. The first, the WildCharger Pad, plugs into a wall like any other charging base station. The pad is a simple, flat surface that you lay your device on. There are no sliding parts, no grooves to line up, no orientation to match — you just toss your device onto the pad and it automatically starts charging. I tried placing my iPhone in many different directions and playing around with it, but I was unable to find a orientation separate from being of the pad where the WildCharger failed to charge.

The trick, which the engineers took no effort to hide, is the twelve strips of metal in the pad that generate a potential. The second component to the system is the case you attach to your device. The iPhone case I tested has metal contacts on the back of the case in a “T”-shape. They were spaced out in just the right proportions that at least one of them would connect to a different strip of metal on the pad, completing a circuit, and generating the charge for the device. Because the pad is larger than your devide, you can also cram as many devices on the pad as you want.

So while the WildCharger Pad is technically wireless, it still requires metal contacts to transmit the power. This means that you couldn’t put something over the pad and expect it to charge. Also, should the contacts on the case ever become oxidized, it will become unable to charge.

WildCharger's universal adaptor can let you charge just about any device.

Even with these possible limitations, the technology is promising.  The company is currently developing laptop chargers. Looking even further into the future, the company hopes to put all of these devices in cafes, restaurants, and bars, eliminating the need to fight over outlets. We’ll just hope no one spills something on them. That would probably be bad.

While I used the iPhone case, the company sells cases for the iPod Touch and Blackberrys, as well as generic adapter to most phones or other devices. The case is rubber which covers the phone while also preventing scratches and other damage to the phone. The case isn’t too difficult to remove, which is a good thing since in order to charge your iPhone or iPod Touch, the WildCharger has to be plugged into the dock port on the phone, preventing you from syncing with your computer while the skin is on the case. Though many other skins cover or otherwise obscure the port, it’s still is a hassle to have to take it off anytime you want to sync your device.

Overall, I think the WildCharge is a great product, and if the WildCharger pads start to show up at my local Starbucks, we certainly wouldn’t complain. At this point, you just have to ask yourself how much the convenience of not having to charge your device with a wire is worth to you.

That said, the brand new Kensington Washable Keyboard looks and feels indescribably retro. The white 104-key device with full size and full depth keys feels like typing in a bygone era in computing. I even fired up Doom 2 for a little spin around the arrow keys.

The keyboard is no relic, however. That old Dell keyboard still types, but it also still sticks from the milky punishment.

You can immerse this baby in soap and water and scrub it down like a dinner dish and come out with a new, clean keyboard.

The board also has antimicrobial coating to prevent the growth of molds, mildews and fungi that can get you sick.

Let’s face it, the keyboard is one of the dirtiest surfaces you touch all day. In the newsroom, we often share old keyboards, and they’re just grungy. I read a study once that claimed that the average keyboard holds more bacteria that a toilet seat!

Try trying to rinse out your illuminated keyboard when it gets dirty. (You could try Cyber Clean though.)

I soaked the Kensington and put it through scrubbing and rinsing and then let it dry. Let me tell you, putting a computer keyboard under the sink is NOT a natural task. The whole time I felt like I was breaking some major commandment of computing. But lo and behold, once the keyboard sat for a few and dried, it worked perfectly.

My only complaint about the keyboard is that the folding legs at the top are a little cheap. I broke one of the little legs by accident, which is enough to prevent the keyboard from being a perfect “10.”

The keyboard is comfortable to type on. A lot of newer keyboards have taken a page out of the laptop world with shallow keys, but this is a regular keyboard that feels very traditional.

With that take on things, the Kensington Washable Keyboard is a winner. It’s a regular keyboard. It’s wired — no batteries to replace. It has all the standard, regular keys that a keyboard should have. It’s the perfect solution for an office or a computer user that just wants to clean up a bit.

Home screen of the EASEUS Todo Backup software.

The interface is fantastic with large buttons for the most common tasks such as backing up your entire disk or just a few partitions, as well as an option to restore your backed up content. There’s even a clone disk option where everything on your drive is duplicated to another hard drive. On the right hand side of the interface, there is a long, easy to read menu, marked with icons for more advanced options like mounting and unmounting a disk image. EASEUS did an excellent job with navigation and presenting an easy to use application, while maintaining a clutter free workspace.

Performance was great as well. In our tests, we were able to successfully backup up our drive and then later restore it. Todo Backup works by making a disk image of your entire drive, essentially duplicating it elsewhere. If a file ever gets deleted or Windows encounters a problem, it’s simple to just restore the files you need off your backup and be up and running again. The program also has a few nice features like the ability to set a priority to a backup, compress your backup to save space, and split your backup among disks. The splitting feature alone is a great because it enables you spread your backup among drives or discs; if you had a large backup that wouldn’t fit onto just one DVD, the spitting feature allows you to place your backup between as many DVDs or CDs as you need. The application also gives you the option to create a bootable disk, meaning if you’re main hard drive were to fail — woe the day that happens — you can plug your bootable drive in and run your computer from it.

Advanced configuration options in the EASEUS Todo Backup software.

There are, however, a few things we felt Todo Backup was missing. The ability to back up on to network volumes would have been nice. Also, the the program only allows you to backup the entire disk and doesn’t give you the option to select certain files and folders to backup. It also has limited security; we didn’t see any encryption or security support at all, but clearly this free piece of software is meant for home use and not designed for enterprise users.

For all the features, ease of use, and the fact that it’s completely free, EASEUS Todo Backup is a must download for Windows users looking for an easy to use backup solution. The interface, setup, and feature list are excellent and the program does everything EASEUS advertises. While it may have room to develop, for most users looking for a quick backup, these shortfalls probably won’t be an issue. Definitely give this product a try and test it out for yourself. You can download this free product from the EASEUS website.

Well, there’s an app for that. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Air Sharing Pro (iTunes link), from Avatron Software, is an amazingly featured and tight package that essentially turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a wi-fi thumb drive and file explorer. As long as your computer and your iPhone are logged into the same wi-fi network, you can easily move files between the two devices without installing any extra software (well, with one minor caveat), unzip folders, print and email the files, all from within the app. The software handles a huge range of documents from .pdf, .txt, .doc, .xls, and all the usual image formats. You can also add any WebDAV enabled server, such as your MobileMe iDisk. Even better, you can do that over your iPhone’s data connection.

I tested Air Sharing Pro on my Mac and iPhone 3GS, but everything I say applies to all iPhones and the iPod Touch (substituting wi-fi for data connection where necessary). Like I mentioned earlier, no extra software is required if you’re running OS X or Windows Vista. Those running XP are highly encouraged to download the free NetDrive to fill in the gaps in XP’s networking protocols, which is a minor annoyance, but hardly a deal breaker, and especially not once you see what you can do with this app.

Setup was indeed ridiculously easy, and works exactly like the app’s help page tell you to. On OS X, all you have to do was “Add a server…” via Finder, and enter the IP address your phone tells you to. This mounts your iPhone as an external server, and from there, everything is a matter of moving files between folders, which I’m sure you learned to do around the third grade.

The main interface for the app is a list of the servers you can access (defaulting to your computer) followed by a list of the folders and files that you transferred to the phone. From here, you can open any of the files you want to, move them around, copy, paste, or delete them, all to your hearts content. The app flawlessly handled any file format I threw at it, which isn’t that much of a surprise considering that the iPhone is pretty good at handing most formats. Still, it was nice to see my .pdf with all of the images rendered correctly, and be able to skip around the many pages using the intuitive arrowed interface, as well as open up my .xls chart and graph. Folders of images can be viewed individually or as a slideshow.

Sharing is just as intuitive. Once you’ve selected the file or files you want to share, you have the choice to upload the file to a drop.io account so you can share them on the web, or just move the file over to the email app and send it as an attachment. You can also print any of the documents from inside the app, which is still something that blows my mind a little bit every time I do it. Accessing my iDisk was also just as easy, and the app updated itself on the fly, even as I changed and uploaded files while it was navigating them.

Although I don’t know anyone else using the software so I couldn’t test this, the app can detect other users on the same wi-fi network and allow you to connect to them and share files, which is certainly nifty and very iPhone 3.0. Security wise, the app allows you to lock access with a four digit PIN, and will transfer files on any encrypted wi-fi network. If you end up storing your iDisk credentials in the app, it’s likely a good idea to use a pin.

Air Sharing Pro is $9.99 in the app store, and while I have no problem spending $5 on a cup of coffee, I’m not easily convinced to spend as much on an app for my phone. That being said I feel is actually worth every penny considering how many features they managed to cram inside it.

Think about it: while you could always attach a file you want to an email, email it to yourself, open the email, and then download it again every time you need to view it. Or you could just move it to your iPhone once, and have permanent and quick access to it, with or without a data connection.

Should you still be unconvinced (which I find hard to believe), the basic features of the app like file moving, storing, and viewing are available in the Air Sharing App for $4.99. While you won’t have access to remote servers, be able to share the files, or print, all the other basic “thumb drive” and file-viewing features are still available. Overall, Air Sharing is one sterling app, and definitely one worth a space on your home screen.

Air Sharing Pro (iTunes link)
Air Sharing (iTunes link)

That’s when this Other World Computing Mercury On-The-Go crossed the desk of the Blast Newsroom. It’s a 500GB Seagate Momentus 7200RPM drive paired with a casing designed to displace heat.

Still don’t recommend throwing it against a brick wall.

The Mercury On-The-Go’s first characteristic is that it’s dead silent. It makes almost no noise whatsoever.

Read/write time is compartable to most USB 2.0 drives.

Second, there’s an aluminum heatsink running through the length of the drive with vents allowing hot air to pass through. There are no fans, but this passive cooling outfit does keep things running smoothly. Even after a half hour of benchmarking over and over, the heatsink was lukewarm and the hard drive was running steadily fast.

How steadily fast? About 32MB/s. in USB mode, which is comparable to other drives we’ve tested. It’s not even half as fast as a good internal desktop hard drive, but it’s fast enough for bulk storage, backup, music, non HD movies and all your photos.

The triple interface — FireWire 400/800 and USB 2.0 — is a nice touch. USB is still the easiest way to go for most people, however, so that’s what we benchmark at. FireWire can be much faster, however, and the manufacturer boasts about 150MB/s speeds that we don’t think you’ll ever see unless you strip down your computer and don’t run any other applications while accessing your hard drive.

The drive is also OSX Leopard Time Machine ready, so you have that bell or whistle.

Overall, the Mercury is an excellent drive that’s fast and durable. It’s an ideal storage upgrade situation.

The only x-factor is the cost, which will run you upwards of $200, when you can buy a 500GB drive for much less nowadays.

By the way: Because of incorrect information provided to Blast, we reported that an eSATA version was available, but that product has been canceled and is not available.

The set works great with a Mac or a PC. Within two minutes of plugging in the USB receiver into a MacBook we were up and running smoothly with both the keyboard and mouse.

I was a bit skeptical of the thin design, as it sits very low to the desk, but once I tilted it forward with the tabs in the back, it was very comfortable under my hands. The keys are quiet and easily navigated. Running on only two AA batteries (included) the keyboard is very light. An indicator light is also set off when these batteries are at 10 percent remaining. Aside from a standard QWERTY setup there are several other features located above the keyboard and number pad. Eject CD, Internet search, email, web browser startup and media keys are all featured above the F1-F6 keys. A more involved set of media shortcut buttons is located above the number pad. These include the standard previous track, next track, play/pause and volume controls.

When the keyboard is not in use, a sliding plastic cover at the top center of the keyboard can be moved over the keys, which reveals a holster for the mouse. Placing the mouse in this holster powers the mouse off in order to save battery life. With the mouse in the holster, the keyboard and mouse configuration can be rotated 45 degrees away from the user to make it a standing picture frame. A clear sleeve in the center of the back of the keyboard allows for a 4 X 6 photo to be displayed when not computing — a nice touch.

The only way I could see improving the keyboard portion of this wireless set would be to offer back-lit keys, or a glow in the dark keyboard for easier nighttime use.

The mouse wasn’t a letdown either. I was concerned that it may be heavy, since it is battery operated, but the weight is very comfortable. It moved just fine on my desk, even without a mousepad, and it felt even more comfortable than my Microsoft wireless mouse (which cost about as much as this whole set). I had no problem with the response time of the mouse using it about 2 feet from the USB receiver. There is an USB extension cable included which will allow for greater distance if needed.

This mouse is nothing fancy but it’s everything a mouse should be: a lightweight, comfortable, two buttoned mouse with scroll wheel. As with the keyboard, there is a low battery indicator located between the left and right buttons on the top of the mouse. Not visible unless turned on, the light is housed beneath the two buttons and will come on once 10 percent of the battery life is left.Your browser may not support display of this image.

All in all, this set is a great value for the money. It can currently be had for about $70 through Amazon. We have used several inexpensive wireless sets in the past, but the Kensington Ci70 actually blows them away. With the Ci70’s comfortable design and unique features it’s an easy choice for anyone in the market for a wireless keyboard and mouse set.

Netbooks — those little tiny computers with a dozen hours of battery life — are growing hugely in popularity lately. Kensington recently came out with an equally tiny wireless mouse, a reversible sleeve, a security lock, a multi-device power adapter and a good, old-fashioned, wired USB mouse.

After toying around on some of the netbooks we’re reviewing for various purposes, we’re impressed, particularly with the Wireless Mouse for Netbooks and its nano receiver. It’s a small but comfortable mouse and a great alternative to the frustrating touchpads. Just keep a supply of batteries or rechargeables handy.

The Security Lock for Netbooks works with any laptop with that security slot, which is nearly every laptop. It features a coil of wire around a four digit combination lock. The wire is thin, but you can’t beat the portability. It won’t stop a pair of bolt cutters, but it will prevent someone from walking off with it at the library.

I’m not a huge fan of sleeves, but the Reversible Sleeve for Netbooks is a great choice for those of you that are. It fits up to a 10-inch netbook and stretches for some accessories. Forget about a full power cable, though. That’s why we tend to use bigger laptop cases. Maybe we’re old fashioned.

If you’re all like “man, I hate battery-powered wireless mice,” boy, do we have a solution for you. The Wired Mouse for Netbooks was actually our favorite device. We didn’t mind the little bit of wire for the security of an “always working” mouse. It beats carrying around an old Dell mouse in our little netbook sleeve. It’s a plug-and-play mouse that tracks really well on these small screens.

The last item up for bid is the Power Adapter for Netbooks. But they didn’t give us one, so we don’t have much to say about it. From the pics, it appears to come with a variety of charging heads, and it charges both the laptop and your USB-compatible phone. That’s handy. Wish we had one.

Yes, that is indeed a Dunkin’ Donuts iPhone app (iTunes). We know, we know, it’s almost too good to be true. But wait, it gets better. You don’t even need an iPhone to take advantage of it. Here’s how it works.

You’ve been elected by the office to make the run to DD—you are the runner. You send out an invite. Everyone submits their order to you via iPhone or the web interface at www.DunkinRun.com. Everyone’s order shows up on your phone. You place the order at DD. You deliver the goods. Everyone loves you.

The online menu and app are both very slick and really easy to use. The app will even use those newfangled push notifications to remind you that you signed up to go on the run (heaven forbid that it’s your fault no one has their morning coffee) or to notify everyone else when you return from the run—maybe not what the execs at Apple had in mind when they developed push notifications, but a creative use nonetheless.

We can’t wait to try this one out in the office this week. If we weren’t the Alpha Geek of the office before, we certainly will be now.

Now let’s talk about that for a second.

At $1,000, these speakers cost more than the vast majority of desktop PCs on the market today.

Honestly, the speakers sound fantastic. You probably can’t buy something off the shelf that’s going to sound as good as the BeoLab 4.

Each speaker is powered and amplified (and as such, each speaker requires its own electrical outlet) and these pyramid-shaped speakers really crank. There are some small speakers that claim to reproduce full loudspeaker sound, and there are few that do. These do.

One issue I have with these speakers is that the BeoLab 4 is just a speaker. It’s designed to be plugged into stereos and amps and all kinds of cool products, but not necessarily computers. The BeoLab 4 PC is the same thing, but it’s designed with the right connectors to plug it into a computer sound card’s headphone jack. That does the job for the most part, but there’s no on and off switch, and there’s no volume control, so you’re relying totally on the computer’s volume control.

Each speaker is built on a 4-inch driver with a 3/4-inch fabric dome tweeter with 35 watts provided by the amp. Requiring two power outlets is a pain, but it’s mostly just an inconvenience because they only consume 7 watts of power. Don’t worry about the electrical bill. Frequency range is 50-20,000Hz.

There’s a lot of technical things I can say about these speakers, or you can read them here. The bottom line is, do you need these speakers?

Do you own a stock Dell? Yes? Then no, you don’t.

Are you an iTunes whore who’s always listening to your downloaded music? Yes? Then no, you don’t.

Watch the occasional DVD on your computer? Nah, still don’t need these.

Are you a music producer using expensive software and high end hardware? Yes? Oh. Well then yeah, these would be good.

Do you edit high definition video with multi-channel audio tracks? Yeah, these would do nicely.

Are you getting the picture?

These are awesome monitors. They sound great. They look good. They’re powered. You can even customize the colors.

The fact is, unless you need high-end speakers (and are equipped for them) you’re not going to notice the difference between these for $1,000 and a $100 set from Best Buy.

The BeoLab 4 is much more practical as a home theater speaker than it is as a desktop computer solution. They’re expensive toys for people who have a G-note to spare in this economy.

One of those is Newstex for syndication.

While we can’t discuss how much we make (hint: we’re not buying boats with shorties and T-Pain and SNL cast members) Newstex is a piece of our puzzle, and some kind of syndication should be in yours too. They even get us on Amazon Kindle.

They recently released an ebook about syndication. Here it is. Enjoy.

Available June 19, the iPhone 3GS is Apple’s new iPhone hardware. Apple claims that everything on the phone is “twice as fast” at loading apps, sites, and everything else. The device will also feature a faster 3G antenna (7.2Mbps HSDPA, for those who like details), the rumored 3MP auto-focus camera, complete with an API for developers, and a 30 FPS video camera with an associated app to allow for video and photo editing. Another rumor to come true is an internal compass that will orient the maps app depending on which direction you’re facing.

The iPhone also features a new voice control UI, allowing users to make vocal commands such as “Call Mom” or “What song is playing?” all in a live transcripted interface. Snazzy? Sure. Necessary? Probably not.  The phone also features hardware encryption and an improved battery life which should come as a relief to iPhone users everywhere.

The form factor for the iPhone 3GS is staying exactly the same, available in black and white (sorry, no flaming orange iPhones). Storage will also increase–$299 for the 32GB model or $199 for the 16GB model. Still too pricey for you? Pick up the older iPhone 3G for just $99 (yay recessionomics!).

The iPhone OS 3.0, which will ship June 17 to other iPhone users contains many new improvements, most of which have been announced before, but we’ll summarize them anyway: the iPhone is finally getting copy/paste, MMS messaging, system-wide Spotlight that will index your email, contacts, and apps, and a landscape oriented keyboard.

A cool new feature will allow users with MobileMe to locate their phones should they go missing and you’re not in enough hysterics from losing your iPhone to be able to use a computer. Apple announced support for data tethering, but AT&T was notably missing from the list, most likely indicating that iPhone users in the US will be SOL. Safari will be updated to run faster and will auto-fill contact and stored login info.

Push notifications (including text, sound, and “badge”) will finally go live in this release, after much delay. Apps will also be able to access the dock connector, allowing you to use you iPhone with external gadgets, such as TomTom’s new GPS driving device. Peer-to-peer interfacing will allow you to connect to other users to play games or send information such as contacts.

Overall, only Apple could drum up so much publicity for something that is ostensibly just an evolutionary change rather than a revolutionary change. Nevertheless, these developments are still exciting, even if they’re overdue. We’ll let you know what we think when we get our hands on a new iPhone 3GS in just a couple weeks.

The MacBook Pro line is being expanded with a new 13-inch model. All sizes will have the new unibody built-in, non-removable battery which Apple claims will last for 7 hours. All models will get a speed bump and come with a standard 4GB of DDR3 memory, expandable to 8GB. The MacBook Pro also now comes with a Secure SD slot, replacing the PCI slot that got (basically) zero use before.  The MacBooks are getting a Firewire 800 port (I guess all that moaning when Apple got rid of it last time actually had an effect) and their brethren’s Secure SD slot.

The prices across all laptops have been slashed; both the 17-inch and the 15-inch Macbook Pro models as well as the Macbook Air will drop $300 to $2499, $1699, and $1499 respectively , while the Macbooks will drop $100 to start at $1199. Yay for the recession and new toys!

OtterBox somehow found a way to get as close as you can.

While you still can’t throw it in the ocean and make calls from the deep end of the pool, the OtterBox Defender. The tough plastic shell we’re used to with an OtterBox combines with an optional clear membrane to protect the screen and keyboard.

The case is surprisingly comfortable. It’s still easy to use the keyboard, but the trackball is a little more awkward. How awkward? It’s harder to play BrickBreaker and make those quick saves when the ball suddenly accelerates or jumps because you got a text message.

The OtterBox is comfortable, but practicality is a slight concern. It’s not waterproof. It protects against a few accidental drops of water, but that’s it. So you can’t really count on it when you’re in the canoe or something. I did find that it keeps a lot of the sand out at the beach, though.

OtterBox is a popular brand with outdoorsmen. I’m not sure how many hunters and fishermen carry a BlackBerry, but the OtterBox is as good as it gets. If you drop your phone a lot or work with your hands and are always banging your phone against something, the Defender is great.

Spot news photographers are famous for their scanners. I once rode along with a photog who had five scanners going in his car at once. Personally, whether I’m on the road or in the office, the scanner is usually clacking and beeping away with potential news from around Boston or the surrounding towns.

The antennas that come with scanners aren’t exactly professional grade, but they get the job done … mostly.

But there exists a whole, eager, dedicated group of hobbyists in the field of scanning. Some of them build their own antennas, and others buy any of a variety of commercially available ones.

Lately, there’s been buzz about a so-called “Snoop” antenna, which is essentially wire inside a PVC pipe. It’s popular on eBay and some other online retailers especially.

So I bought one.

Here is some technical jargon:

The antenna claims to be tuned to 30 – 1200 MHz, but the lower bands, 30-200 MHz come in very poorly compared to the higher end of the spectrum, 450-900 MHz.

The majority of police and fire departments around Boston use 450-490ish MHz, but many still operate on the lower band, 150-162 MHz, and some towns even operate on the 25-50 MHz band.

Technical jargon over.

The Snoop antenna picks up the 400 MHz frequencies very well in my tests, pulling transmissions from Brighton to as far north as Andover, as far west as Framingham, and all the way south to Plymouth. Plymouth and Andover are well more than 20 miles away, but Framingham is much closer, and I believe the reason I’m not picking up many more is because more departments in MetroWest use the lower frequencies that the Snoop isn’t picking up.

I’m not an expert, and I don’t have sophisticated, expensive equipment to compare it to, but if you want one guy’s advice: The Snoop picks up frequencies from farther away and works well on higher frequencies. Overall, it does work better than a stock antenna, but don’t expect miracles.

That’s where an entire audio sub-industry has sprung up, catering entirely to iPod owners who want to “dock” their music box somewhere and jam to a room-filling sound that’s not mashed into their ears.

Blast and The Boston Globe recently tested five of these docks: the Altec Lansing inMotion Max at $199, the Logitech Pure-Fi Express Plus for $78, the compact iHome iH4B for $39.99, the Cambridge SoundWorks i765 for $299, and Wayland-based Sprout Creation’s all-wood Vers 2X at $199.

As a bonus, Blast also tested the Boston Acoustics Duo-I at $199 and the iHome iH51BR at $149.

For professional advice, we turned to Dariusz Dobrolinski, is co-owner of the tiny yet historic Q Audio store on Vassar Street in Cambridge, which claims to be the worlds smallest hi-fi store and one of the original distributors of CD players in the US in the early 80s. Dobrolinski said the Altec Lansing inMotion Max was the best item on the list, and we agreed.

“It sounded the richest,” Dobrolinski said. He warned us not to jump at the deepest bass or the highest treble, which some inexpensive systems tend to crank up to make up for their lower quality components.

“If you want to buy a docking system, don’t look for something that has bass and sizzles, it may impress you, but later on you will notice you don’t get the midrange and that’s where all the instruments and all the voices are,” Dobrolinski said. “Bass is not critical unless you want to fill a huge room, but none of those systems are designed for huge rooms.”

The Altec Lansing and Cambridge SoundWorks models were all very similar, though. They sounded great, look great, and come from brand names that are known for generally building their products to high quality specifications.

The iHome name has gained a lot of ground in the last three years. You often see these functional alarm clock iPod docks in both luxury hotels and college dorms. They generally sound good and have useful wakeup features like dual alarm clock times and, of course, the ability to wake up to your favorite songs blasting from your nightstand. The iH4b’s compact size and low price makes it a great value for dorm rooms and bedrooms. It has a good sound on a small footprint.

The Vers 2X is a great choice people who want something different. It doesn’t have a radio or really any other features except an iPod dock, but it’s an attractive, well-built speaker system.

Dobrolinski said that you should also focus on how the product looks. Style is important. He also said that you’ll want your dock to have a remote control so you’re not getting up all the time to tune it.

Individual products on Page 2

It is portable and can run off batteries or AC power, but that doesn’t mean you should drag it to the beach. The cloth grille and rotating knob don’t feel like they’d stack up too well against millions of miniature sand particles infiltrating their pores. (check this out for something different)

But for indoor or clean-outdoor use, you do get a compact sound machine with clear audio, decent if not great highs and the same thumping bass we’ve come to expect from every small form factor audio product on the market from a decent manufacturer.

The fact is, Logitech is turning into a strong player in the personal audio realm, putting out a variety of solutions. The Express Plus is remarkably similar in size, shape and sound as the Squeezebox Boom, which I just loved and has caused me to bookmark BBC Radio 1.

Older (by now, ancient) iPod models don’t fit as well in Pure-Fi Express Plus. At first, the remote control had no effect on my third generation iPod — it didn’t change the songs or play or pause, but I learned that was because the iPod wasn’t fully plugged in. Once I pushed down a bit, the remote worked, but that’s still a problem. The device doesn’t hold larger iPods in place very well. The Nano had no such problem, though.

The remote is a neat feature, though it doesn’t add a ton of value to the product. I tend to lose the mini-motes anyway.

I’m seeing these products for about $50 now. It’s worth it. You need something to dock your iPod, unless you just you to play your songs off iTunes. God help you.

This is one of a series of iPod-docking devices Blast is reviewing in April

Pzizz is basically a white noise generator. However, instead of making static noise or repetitive nature noises (you know, the squawking birds in nature sounds or the babbling brook), the program generates soundtracks filled with a varying combination of ambient sounds with soothing voice over giving you gentle instructions. Everything about the soundtracks is engineered to help you disconnect from your surroundings and maximally relax you. Sounds range from chimes and synthesized notes, string instrument harmonies, and even a few of those nature noises. None of the sounds are overtly displeasing or annoying, though you’ll probably grow to like some sounds more than others. One of the coolest effects I noticed was a string orchestra gradually crescendo-ing in the background as the voice over started to tell me to prepare to wake up from my nap.

The voice over is probably the weirdest part of the entire program, and the one the people are most likely to disagree with. The voice is a deep man’s voice who tells you to “Be as comfortable as possible, both physically and mentally,” and then that “For a few minutes, I’ll guide you while you begin to relax, but then just let my voice fade into the background.” I listened to the “Sleep” track for several nights.

I’m not going to lie, it was slightly strange having some random man talk to me as I was trying to fall asleep, but as I became accustomed to it, it stopped bothering me. While I didn’t notice a drastic increase in my energy levels in the morning, I snoozed fewer times than I normally do when I woke up, and falling asleep seemed to happen rather quickly, despite the fact that I typically fall sleep in silence.

The software comes with three modules: sleep, energize, and meditate. The sleep module is, aptly enough, for helping you to fall into a deep sleep. The energize module builds shorter programs meant to guide you through a power nap, complete with a beeping alarm at the end of the track should you not arouse and the end of the allotted time. The meditate module is silent, save for a single chime at minute intervals of your choosing. The volume of the music and voiceover are customizable depending on your tastes, which is nice for anyone who dislikes the voice over, as well as the length of the tracks.

Also useful is the program’s ability to export your tracks to iTunes in the AAC format via a single click to take with you on your iPod. While napping in public scares me and my boss tends to frown on me sleeping at my desk during the day, this is certainly useful for those who can get away with either.

The company makes many scientific claims (”induces theta sleep waves”), and though I couldn’t find anything to back them up, maybe it’s just the scientist in me complaining.  All in all, Pzizz is a simple, easy to use sound generator that will help you to focus on relaxing and restoring your energy.

I’ve always felt that some of the best software is free — take Mozilla Firefox for example.  SafeHouse Explorer is another great free product and in my use, I’ve found it to be a comprehensive data encryption solution for most Windows users.

One thing that I’ve noticed and enjoy about SafeHouse Explorer is its very clean look and simplicity of use. The application is designed to have the same appearance as the Windows Explorer and some of the most frequent tasks such as the “open volume” button are well placed and labeled, making the overall interface very functional, yet simple.

SafeHouse Explorer works to protect and encrypt your files by first letting your choose the size of its database or volume file. Then you create a password. I recommend that you choose a strong password (use the password strength indicator to help you), considering this will be your “master password” to all your files that are stored in that one volume. Once this is complete, you can simply drag and drop files into the window, and the program will then index and encrypt the files upon exiting the program.

One feature worth noting is the secure move-ability. This feature enables you easily move files to the SafeHouse application, and once imported, it destroys the files in the original location where they were dragged from.

Recovering your files is simple as well, and there are a variety of ways to regain access to your encrypted files. Users can create desktop shortcuts, double click on the volume file or simply launch the application and use the “open volume” button and navigate to the database or volume file. From there, users must enter their password- in which they assigned previously when they created the volume. SafeHouse Explorer then displays all of their files and the user can make changes. It then automatically creates a network drive when it recognizes you are logged into a particular volume. Once you close SafeHouse Explorer it deletes the network drive from Windows. This option makes it incredibly easy for users to easily gain access to their files using the familiar genuine Windows Explorer without having to use SafeHouse Explorer to access files. When volume is open in the application, users can make modifications directly to the file in SafeHouse Explorer. Many other clients require you to re-import files to make changes.

The company also offers a pro version of SafeHouse that offers additional functionality, but the free version is more than enough for most Windows users just looking to safeguard and encrypt files. There’s no Mac version, however.

You can download SafeHouse Explorer for free at: http://www.safehouseencryption.com/

The Expert Mouse has been around for about 10 years. The first time I tested one was for ReviewCenter.com, and the trackball was “90s computer case beige” in color. It depended on mechanical, dust-gathering wheels to position the cursor.

This is the seventh generation of the Expert Mouse. Now, it’s optical, has a “Scroll Ring” to replace the mouse’s scroll wheel, and has an attaching wrist pad for ergonomics. But it’s basically the same big-old trackball. Same size. Same shape.

A trackball takes some getting used to. The ball rolls smoothly and gets better as the oil from your hands transfers onto it.

There is evidence and argument that says a trackball is better for you than a mouse — and a mouse has been shown to be absolutely terrible for your wrist, so that’s not surprising.

The Scroll Ring is a nice touch. We’ve become hopelessly dependent on scrolling windows on the fly. The real difference here is that you’ll find yourself using all your fingers instead of just one or two. As you get better with the Expert Mouse, its four buttons and the Scroll Ring, you’ll find your fingers flying around it to perform tasks.

Installation is a breeze. Plug it in, and the mouse snaps to action.

I admittedly, still use a mouse for my input needs. The Expert Mouse is as close as I’ve come to converting. It’s a great trackball that’s comfortable, sturdy and functional.

Of course, now that it’s no longer a Mac-only browser, it’s share has grown as a few (admittedly brave) folks downloaded it for their PCs. Even still, the vast majority of Safari users were Mac users who used Safari by default because they were too lazy to actually choose another (better) browser.

On Tuesday, Apple announced the beta for Safari 4 for both Windows and Mac. Apple has pulled out all the stops to make Safari an attractive browser that people will actually want to use. Heavy on new technical features as well as eye candy, this is quite possibly the first time Safari has resembled a browser that has the brilliant minds behind Apple’s design. Granted, most of the features just appearing now have been in other browsers. This time, however, Apple has put its own spin on them to make them, well… just work.

The first difference greeting users (after a brief, yet fancy, intro movie) is that Safari now offers better visual integration with the Window’s OS, featuring a standard title bar with buttons. While the chrome of Apple’s applications remains on the rest of the window, it is less distracting than before. Also, instead of a tab bar, tabs show up in the title bar like in Google Chrome (a feature Apple calls “Tabs on Top”). While I’m not a personal fan of this style because it prevents tab rearranging, it does take up less screen real estate.

The address bar and search box now have “AwesomeBar” like features, suggesting visited sites and bookmarks. When typing in addresses. The new home screen for empty windows and tabs shows the users’ most visited sites, a feature that Opera users have had for a long time, and intrepid Firefox users can add via plug-in. The screen is constantly updated over time, but can be customized by pinning or hiding links. Clicking on one of the tabs animates it as it moves to fill the window, a small piece of eye candy that is utterly cool to watch. Actually, the browser is full of these small animations that the average user doesn’t notice consciously, but make for a better visual experience, something Apple has always incorporated into its products.

Users can now look through and search their histories and bookmarks using Coverflow. Each entry has a screen shot saved for it. I find this interface for viewing bookmarks and histories actually to be more intuitive for both the average user who is likely to be a bit daunted by the system file structure as well as for native OS X users.

Something I found interesting and rather unique is the built-in RSS viewer. The in-browser RSS reader allows users to scroll through the stories, adjust them for length, sort them by any number of descriptors, and even search them, all from the same window. And while most users who know what RSS is will likely keep using a separate reader, these features are still very useful for quick browsing.

On the technical side, Apple claims that the new Nitro Engine renders Javascript faster than every other browser, and includes benchmarks to support their claims. In a completely biased and unscientific survey, I thought surfing through AJAX heavy sites like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Facebook was indeed snappy, so I’m likely to believe Apple assertions.

Safari still lacks an add-on architecture, which is perhaps Firefox’s best attribute, and the largest thing to keep Safari from gaining significant browser share. Otherwise, Apple has picked the best features of the browsers on the market and wrapped them up in a slick package that certainly deserves a look.

The device allows computers with single-display video cards to add a second monitor using only an available USB port.

The adapter is just a box with a USB port and a digital video port and supports widescreen 1440 x 1050 and up to 1280 1040 standard.

The device works, but there are some troubles. Installation in Vista takes forever. I was not impressed with the DisplayLink driver that the adapter installs. The driver changed settings and modes on my primary display. That makes me nervous, especially as a gamer. I don’t want some unpluggable peripheral making changes. Uninstallation also takes forever.

When you do get it up and running, the Dual Monitor Adapter really is a versatile solution, especially for business users. Kensington allows you to stack up to six units if you want to keep going with your displays. I just think there are some question marks – Kensington says it’s plug and play, and that may be the case in XP, but not in Vista or Mac, which still relies on “beta” drivers from DisplayLink.

Take a good hard look before you buy. If you have a laptop, this might be a good solution. If you have a brand new desktop, there’s a good chance your video card already supports two monitors.

No doubt, bro. Mac’s got mad skillz. Word to your one button mouse.

Adobe Creative Suite runs just fine on my Dell, but for audio, and for the past, oh, 10 years, it’s been Acid Pro.

As I’ve said in a previous review, anyone can pick up Acid and make something happen with it. If you actually spend some time with the software, you can do absolutely wonderful things with the software. You can still get Acid Studio for about $40 if you just want to dabble, though.

In its most basic form, you can use Acid to mix together and cross-fade the perfect mix tape for your sweetheart. You can also compose a synchronized video soundtrack in Dolby Digital 5.1.

Acid Pro 7, released at the end of 2008, has all the features you’ve come to expect from the franchise — multi-track recording, loop-based production, MIDI sequencing, and lots of freebie effects. This iteration, however, has some features that are just plain delicious if you’re a musician.

Pro 7 features a dedicated sound and MIDI mixing console that has the ability to let you assign effects, working seamlessly with a good keyboard.

A look at the Acid Pro 7 interface

Sophisticated input busses allow the user to record from external sources and mix your audio and instruments. You can also plug external effects processors in and monitor them from the program. You can also direct that processed audio to other external hardware.

Basically, Acid Pro 7 is a modular recording, processing, and producing station.

The software also has native Flac support, which will make those people who record at concerts happy.

Best of all, the software loads up quickly, runs as fast as your computer will let it and puts out excellent sound.

Docking stations are nice if you use the laptop primarily at one location or have lots of things to plug into it that don’t move — input devices, webcam, monitor. This leaves the BookEndz with a good chance to market third party docking stations. This is a hard thing for the company to manufacture since the laptops don’t just have a docking port like most laptops that have first party docking stations. They are left with plugging into the external ports and then just moving them to the outside their device.

BookEndz still have some options that users can work with, though. With their MacBook docking station, they have a USB hub inside, so you can have 6 devices plugged in, while the MacBook only has two USB ports on the side.

The docking station has all the original laptop ports plus the mini DVI is converted to either a DVI or a VGA. You can only use one at a time. If you plug in both only the VGA is recognized.

The BookEndz also use a sliding switch on the side to plug in the speaker/headphone port. This is important since the MacBook enables the port based on a sensor that detects something plugged into the port. When the headphones or speakers are plugged in the laptops speakers are disabled.

The switch on the Bookendz unit I was given was a very sticky. It is hard to move from plugged in and unplugged. This will loosen over time with usage. The company said that the one I was sent may be an early model and the new ones are looser and easier to switch to plugged in, or unplugged. They do make it easy enough to just plug everything in at once.

I like that when I use a BookEndz I can go from standard laptop to having a big monitor, and normal keyboard. Using a USB video card, it’s possible for a Macbook to now have two large monitors plugged in, and then it’s easy take it away when you need to go.

One part that makes it hard with the newer Apple laptops is the much toted power plug. Apple does not appear to let any third party companies make Mag-Safe adapters. BookEndz have a space for the original power bricks to be used. This could have been done better. They seemed to have decided to make it easy for the user to unplug the power brick to take with the laptop, instead of leaving the power brick in the docking station. This means every time you go to unplug the docking station, not only do you unplug the docking station, but also the power adapter. This also requires sitting the docking station on top of the wire so it will all sit flat. I think they should have made the docking station hold the power adapters more snugly. That way you can just plug everything in at once.

The design of the plastic casing is fairly smooth and flowing like the MacBooks, but the devices have touches here and there that look more hobbyist.

Overall I think it’s a very good and useful product for what it does. I think it beats just plugging in each port separately every time I get to work. For what they had to work with I think they did a great job. I just wish Apple thought of this sooner.

By the way: Because of a reporting error, we removed the line “Apple hasn’t ever produced a docking station for their laptops.” It was incorrect.

With many of us trying to be more secure online by choosing better, less redundant and overall more secure passwords, the real question is “How do we remember them all?” Atek, a California based company, thinks they have a solution with their Logio Password Organizer Device.

It’s tiny –  only 1/8″ thick. The device reminds me of a cheap oven timer, and with that take on things, it’s very disappointing with flimsy thin plastic that almost breaks in half if you type with firm pressure.

The keyboard is somewhat acceptable yet very cheap-feeling again. I’ve found most of the other buttons take a few presses to get the unit to respond.

I found performance to be below average but manageable when you apply heavy pressure to the keyboard, which is really just a pain. I also found the interface to be very slow, and it often took a few seconds to respond to basic commands.

The simple menus are, well, simple. However, it is extremely tedious to keep pressing the down arrow to get to your listing at the end of the list when you store many items. The unit can store up to 200 records, but I couldn’t imagine pressing the down arrow 200 times to get to the last listing.

Two hundred is also a small number, considering several gigabytes of data fit into tiny secure digital cards these days.

The Logio stores all your passwords behind one AES-encrypted master password. Try not to forget that one.

I’ve always believed that as consumers, our pockets are filled with devices. We have our mobile phones, iPods, flash drives and more strapped onto our belt and stuffed into our pockets. Smartphones are beginning to get more and more advanced and with Apple, RIM, Palm and Windows Mobile taking new approaches we might finally be able to free our pockets.

With this in mind, the Atek Logio Password Organizer seems like a safe way to organize passwords and is defiantly more secure than your traditional pen and paper, but it contributes to the device clutter problem. I believe that the prototype would be far more successful if the company could develop mobile applications with this same functionality in mind for Smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s Backberry devices and Windows Mobile Smartphones.

The product retails for $29.95 and is available at http://www.atek.com/

The Blackberry Storm has implemented a new type of touchscreen. To beat the problems of a lack of accuracy that have faced other touchscreen phones, the Storm touchscreen is a two-step process. First, an item can be selected on the screen by placing a finger over it. The item will be highlighted to ensure that it is in fact the user meant to select. Then, the user presses down on the screen over the selected area and voila, item selected. While it works the majority of the time, but is a real pain and takes too much time and effort.

Blackberry phones are above all work phones, so the cross over to a fun, application based toy like the iPhone felt a bit awkward. Instead of being all work or all play, the Storm lost itself somewhere in the middle, making it a bit of a pain to access e-mails and the business functions, but equally as uninteresting to play games and use the other fun-based apps.

Typing on the Storm’s touch keypad is fairly simple, the implemented touch-and-tap system making accuracy all the easier. However, there are three types of messaging styles: the vertical QWERTY keyboard similar to the one used for the Blackberry Pearl can either be set to auto-text or normal and a horizontal full QWERTY keyboard. The problem with the three types of keypads is they are not universally implemented on the phone, and it is hard to be sure which type is being used.

The Storm is heavier than the other touchscreen phones out there, weighing in at 5.5 ounces. For someone used to the tiny Krazor, its 4.43″ by 2.45″ body was too awkward to hold comfortably.

The Storm’s 3.25 in. screen plays video and displays pictures beautifully, it’s auto-focus feature on its 3.2 mega pixel camera makes taking photos far easier than your standard camera phone fare and its music player booms sound out sufficiently. Verizon’s great VZ Navigator GPS feature tends to be a little laggy on the Storm, stating after a street is passed that it was the proper one to turn down. Blackberry’s venture into the touch screen is valiant and solid, it just doesn’t have anything unique to set it apart from the competition.

Close but no iPhone

Technically speaking, the Storm is a great phone. It doesn’t have any major flaws, and is sufficient for any phone users daily needs. However, that is as far as it goes. It does not have any stand-out features to set it above the rest of the touch screen phones out there. It certainly is not the best, though it weighs in about second in the race for the best touch phone on the market.

For Verizon customers, the Storm is better than the LG Dare, but no one has yet to come close to topping Apple and its iPhone.

That’s what Blast got to do for the last few months as we tested out the Paradigm Studio Esprit reference speakers.

The front of the system is essentially the three same speakers: the Esprit L/R and C for center. We paired the front speakers the Paradigm’s Studio ADP-590 surrounds bringing up the rear.

We also tested their Seismic 10 subwoofer.

Total price: $6,652.

The speakers have incredible range and sound great in all applications — including CD music, television, video games and DTS audio.

Installation is a worry. Unless you want to dish out $500 more for the left/right stands, you have to mount the speakers to the wall, which ends up being quite a construction feat.

Robert Stanton, co-owner of Connecticut’s Smarthome & Theater Systems and its “head geek” who’s helped me out on several Boston Globe stories, said all three of our systems were good for the mid-level audio market. The most important thing about an audio setup, Stanton said, is that all the speakers are the same brand.

“That’s very important,” he said. “When sound travels across the surround field, you want whatever is whipping by you to sound the same through every speaker.”

We were both most impressed by the Paradigm set.

Pros: It’s the best-sounding system on the list. The front, center, and rear speakers combine to create a realistic surround sound experience, and the subwoofer not only shakes a room but adds deep definition to the package.

Cons: Price is a worry. If you don’t want to drill a half dozen holes in your wall, the stands for the front speaker cost $500 more.

Overall: The Esprit sounds amazing and gets the job done, no matter what you’re using it for.

Specs on page 2.

They’re being called “nano-chromatic,” and they come in nine different colors, including silver, black, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red and pink. When you buy the red Nano, a portion of your money will go to the (Product)Red campaign, which works to fight AIDS.

Flashy colors aside, the new Nano has made some nice design changes. Though it is the same size as the second generation, it has more appealing lines. It narrows toward the sides, giving it a more elegant shape than the blunt third generation. More importantly, the new screen is two inches diagonally, compared to old one and a half inch screen.

They are flashy -- no doubt.

With this new screen, it is finally reasonable to watch a movie on the Nano. When you play a video, it automatically turns to fit the wide screen. Technically speaking, the screen is a liquid crystal display with blue-white LED backlight and 320-by-240-px. resolution at 204px. per inch. Plainly speaking, the picture is really pretty.

Another significant improvement the fourth generation has over its predecessors is its storage capacity. Apple has doubled the capacity to 8GB or 16GB. This means 2,000 or 4,000 songs, eight hours or 16 hours of video, and 7,000 to 14,000 iPod-viewable photos. With all of this entertainment to store, battery life is always important. Fully charged, the new Nano can play 24 hours of music or four hours of video.

The new Nano functions mostly like any other iPod. You can use the touch wheel to scroll through your music, movies, pictures and such. They’re organized the same way too, but now you can tilt it sideways to view a cover flow like the one on iTunes.

Apple went to great lengths to eliminate all the scrolling and backtracking it takes to move through menus. There is a search feature, just in case you’re simply at a loss to find something manually. You can also hold down the center button while listening to a song to browse the album or other songs by the artist. As usual, you can also do this to add the song to the On-The-Go playlist. The most quirky new shortcut lets you shuffle songs without moving all the way back to the main menu. Instead, you just shake the iPod. At first, this feature is fun — one flick and you can go into shuffle mode. You quickly realize that it is an awfully violent shake though. This is probably to prevent you from inadvertently shuffling you music, but superficially, it makes you look a little crazy.

This sensitivity to motion adds a new element to playing games on the Nano. For instance, you can play an electronic version of the old maze game — tilting the “box” around to navigate the ball around a hole-filled maze. Much like using the shuffle feature though, you might look a little odd playing on the train.

The coolest feature of the new Nano is called Genius — also a feature on the latest versions of iTunes. Genius creates playlists based on a single song. It chooses at least 10 similar songs and if you like what it’s created, you can save it. The manual, iTunes and the iPod itself explain this, but if you overlooked the manual, you might not realize that the Genius feature needs to be set up on your iTunes, then synced to you iPod for it to work.

Overall, the fourth generation iPod Nano is a lot of fun. It is yet another improvement in a long line of iPods. It’s always good to have a greater capacity and a bigger screen, but the Genius is definitely a blessing to music lovers. Not to mention it looks pretty hot too.

Blast got to, well, blast, some tiny little Orb Mod2 and Mod4 setups, done by combining two or four of these baseball-sized speakers and pairing them with their Super 8 subwoofer.

We were quite satisfied with the setup of two speakers each for front left, front right and center and a single Orb for the rear left and right.

The system is completely modular, which is both a pro and a con. The good thing is that you can tear the system apart, pulling speakers to where you want them like a delicious 4-speaker center channel option. The bad thing is that it’s an utter pain in the ass to assemble the setup, and even harder to MacGyver the wiring, as you have to series-wire each speaker into the next.

There would have been a simple solution to this. The speakers use a simple, small binding post for plugging in speaker wire. Orb should have added a banana plug port at the top of the binding post or made the binding post longer with two holes so that you can completely fit the wires in the speaker. Wires popping out during use remained a concern for us, though it didn’t happen in our tests.

When you’re done pulling your hair out, the system sounds great. You really need to have the subwoofer for the whole experience, however. There is good bass definition with just the satellites, but there’s a clear improvement with the Super 8.

Under the hood, the Mod speaker has rare earth magnets paired with Santoprene, Nomex and CCAD voice coils that enable a good audio response.

The speakers also look great. They come in black gloss, pearl white gloss, polished steel, copper, and antique bronze. The subwoofer doesn’t match, however. It only comes in matte black with a gray grille.

You do get a big sound with these little speakers, and that’s always a positive. We’re seeing a ton of little speakers making a splash in home audio, but don’t confuse these with cheap bargain store specials. The setup we tested starts at about $1,000.

The speakers are only rated for about 110 watts, which is confusing and disappointing for such an expensive system.

If you’re really curious, you can get a starter package of two Mod speakers for $239, that are ready to plug into your home theater.

Technical specs on page 2.

The music coming out of your iPod doesn’t sound as good as it would coming from a CD. Period.

That doesn’t mean you have to spend $1,000 to squeeze the best possible audio out of your songs, does it?

Hence, we learn the plight of the audiophile. How good can music sound? How high can the quality get? How much should you spend?

The Marantz SA8003 was a treat. It puts out clear, rich bass notes, great midrange sound, and surprisingly clean treble with just a hint of imperfection at the highest tones. But we asked the company why anyone should pay $1,000 or more (the SA8003 is one of their midprice models) for a CD player.

After all, it’s a laser hitting a disc. What makes their lasers any better than Sony’s or even Coby for the matter.

Here’s the complete, unedited response from Kevin Zarow, vice president of marketing for Marantz — you decide:

“There is a noticeable difference between a $200 CD player and an “audiophile quality” $1,000 Super Audio CD (SACD) player like the Marantz SA8003 – and it’s something that even casual listeners will be able to hear immediately. The much higher fidelity SACD player actually enables you to hear subtle things in your favorite music that you’ve probably never heard before, like more realistic vocals, deeper, richer bass notes, as well as a wider, more three dimensional sound stage. Beyond that, the build quality between players is significant. A player such as the Marantz will weigh a lot more, due to a more robust chassis, designed to reduce vibration which by the way, improves sound. The power supplies, DACs and CD drive mechanism will all be much higher grade and great attention will be paid to the signal path to insure that you hear the music in its purest form and not the electronics.”

The SA8003 also has a USB port if you really get lonely for MP3s and music files. The optical output also

Pros: The SA8003 is an audiophile-quality CD player with crisp, clear sound, and rich bass. It also has a USB port for playing MP3s.

Cons: You really have to want it to spend $1,000 on a CD player, since your DVD player, video game console, and computer can all play CDs.

The final word: Speaking strictly from a quality perspective, the SA8003 is great. Remember though, this is just a CD player and it’s only going to sound as good as the speakers and amplifier you already have.

Don’t miss John Guilfoil’s “Five ways to listen to music without an iPod” story, in The Boston Globe.

The Logitech Squeezebox really tickled our fancy. This product will forever change the way we listen to music. We like it, in part, because the Internet provides tons of free choices from radio stations all over the world.

It would be fair to go into the ring not expecting much of a fight out of the plucky $300 Logitech — it’s based on fairly lossy streaming Internet audio after all and built on good if not basically mediocre drivers. But no. It sounds good. Not audiophile, but you’re not paying for audiophile either, are you?

One of the funnest things about the Logitech Squeezebox Boom is listening to Radio One London from an apartment in Boston.

That’s why Blast loves the Squeezebox: expanded horizons.

One of the funnest things about the Logitech Squeezebox Boom is listening to Radio One London from an apartment in Boston.

Tuning via a knob is much easier than tediously and repeatedly pressing buttons over and over, so that’s a big plus as well.

Download an audio design white paper on the Squeezebox Boom.

Pros: Internet radio provides a number of free choices from radio stations all over the world, giving you not only a wide range of music, but a little culture. A ton of the content is free, and you can also stream your existing music collection from your computer to the Squeezebox. It plugs into your network or downloads via Wi-Fi.

Cons: You have to download special software to send your MP3s and music files to the device. It doesn’t automatically find them on your network.

The final word: This is really more of a lifestyle choice than an impulse buy, meaning it will change your music listening life. We loved it.

Don’t miss John Guilfoil’s “Five ways to listen to music without an iPod” story, in The Boston Globe.

The Meridian F80 was pitched to us as a solution for a flashy executive as a great “secondary audio system” for bedrooms, kitchens, etc.

Of course, this British audio product partially designed by Ferrari costs $3,000.

The Boothroyd Stuart Meridian F80

It may not be cheap, but what the F80 is is a full on 2.1 (two speakers and a subwoofer) stereo system with two programmable antennae, input/output options and an excellent CD player built in/

You can also buy an iPod dock for the F80, but if you buy a $3,000 stereo, don’t sully it with your compressed musical crap, ok?

The rear mounted subwoofer adds amazing depth to the system, but the real surprise is that the two front speakers don’t sound like they’re inches apart. You get a spacial experience that feels like a room full of sound in a compact little red box.

Pros: The F80 sounds amazing. It is a complete 2.1 (two speakers and a subwoofer) setup inside one compact box. It plays CDs, AM/FM radio, and you can even plug it into your television/home theater to play DVDs. If you really miss your iPod, you can buy an external dock to plug it in.

Cons: Why doesn’t it have HD radio? We understand that not everyone is all about HD radio, but why not throw it in for three grand?

The final word: The F80 is basically a portable home theater with 80 watts of power. It doesn’t feel like the speakers are right next to each other. If you absolutely have to have the best stereo/radio/alarm clock, drop your chips here.

Don’t miss John Guilfoil’s “Five ways to listen to music without an iPod” story, in The Boston Globe.

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With everyone’s eyes directed to the flashy touch screen phones, like the iPhone, the LG Dare, Sprint’s Instinct and the Blackberry Storm, one little touch screen phone seemed to have slipped under the radar. The Motorola Krave ZN4, though, is by far one of the best touch screen phones that has been released so far.

The Krave is unpretentious in a way that that the Dare, Instinct and Storm are not. No, it does not come close to besting the iPhone as the best touch screen phone out there, but the Krave offers new and unique capabilities and has one of the better touch screens in the market.

What sets the Krave apart, and confuses some at first glance, is that it combines the flip phone with the touch screen. The Krave has a clear cover that, in order to text message, access the internet or e-mails or talk on the phone, flips open like a normal flip phone would. However, when closed, users can touch through the cover to access new text messages or music, V Cast TV, photos or VZ Navigator; a helpful and compact way to use the Krave’s four main amenities. There is a “lock” switch on the side of the phone as well so that the touch buttons do not accidentally get pressed when the phone is put in a purse or pocket.

Though using the phone’s inner touch pad when it is locked causes some issues with the accuracy of the touch pad, the Krave has one of the best touch screens in the market. While it is not as accurate as the iPhone, the touch screen on the Krave buzzes back at the user whenever they touch the screen so they can tell whether the tap was registered or not. This comes in especially handy when using the key pad, which is a regular keypad when held vertically or a QWERTY keypad when held horizontally.

Similarly, the browser is one of the easier to use because of its own unique quirk: instead of just tapping on the link that the user wants to access and hoping that the phone registers the right one (one of the major problems with the Dare), the Krave has a pointer that lines up with the proper link, and the user clicks on the pointer to guarantee accuracy. There is no need for zooming in to try to click the appropriate tiny link with this helpful addition.

The inner menu is easy to navigate. By contrast to when the Krave is closed, the four main icons when it is opened are for messages, the dial pad, the full menu, and contacts. After clicking either the “Menu” button or just the bottom half of the touch screen, a full menu opens up, offering a full array of options from Bluetooth and Media Center to Tools and Settings. All access points in the phone can be reached via this menu.