Category: Gear
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Acrylic Software’s Wallet, great password manager for iPhone
(Updated 12/3) To keep track of all the various web site passwords, log-ins accounts, serial numbers and other top secret secrets in my life, I’ve been using the OS X version of Acrylic Software’s Wallet program (Acrylic was formerly known as Waterfall Software). It’s one of the best looking and best performing password managers I’ve…
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Extra megapixels in Canon 50D hamper performance
I’ve written before about the digital camera industry’s misguided megapixel race, leading to ever more pixels crammed onto the same size sensor in each next generation of camera. The problem is that increasing the density of pixels damages the camera’s ability to cleanly pick up detail. So I wanted to call attention to a recent…
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Netbooks look increasingly appealing but I’m not sold yet
The category of mini low-cost laptops, known as netbooks, seems to be growing rapidly and not just with copy-cat “me too” offerings but with innovative new features continually cropping up as well. Today I’m intrigued by the latest Hewlett Packard netbook, the HP Mini 1000. It has one of the best physical designs I’ve read…
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New Mac laptops: one step forward, two steps back
(Updated 10/21/08) Steve Jobs and Co. rolled out their new line of laptops today, making big changes to the existing Macbook, Macbook Air and Macbook Pro models. But with one exception, the new models are more of a step backwards, a lost opportunity, than an improvement. The one indisputable improvement is with the graphics chips.…
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Sony ereader seeking wide open wireless
Fascinating week in the land of electronic books and the devices to read them. We got a fresh rumor, complete with picture, about the next generation of the Amazon Kindle which we already know definitely isn’t arriving this year. But the much bigger, non-vaporish news was the announcement of Sony’s third-generation digital book reader, dubbed…
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Harvard Bookstore gets solid new ownership
Back in May, I fretted a bit about the future of the Harvard Bookstore (not affiliated with the university), one of the last great indie bookstores left in these parts. Today comes news that a retired tech executive and his wife have bought the store and intend to keep its operating philosophy intact. New owner…
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How to fix stuck keyboard backlight on Macbook Pro
Here’s an obscure piece of Mac voodoo that hopefully few people will ever need. I opened up my sleeping Macbook Pro this morning (the 15″ 2.2 GHz mid-2007 edition) and the keyboard backlighting was on full blast. Pressing the F8 key to turn it off did nothing. In fact, the backlight brightness display appeared with…
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Start saving my pennies: Canon updates 5D digital camera
Well, after all that waiting for Canon to update its cheapest digital single lens reflex camera with a “full frame” sensor, the new model was finally announced today. The EOS 5D Mark II, announced today, retains the full frame sensor of the 2005 model and gets a host of amazing, 2008-y upgrades like the ability…
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Review: iTunes 8 is nifty but in need of a few tweaks
Downloaded the latest, greatest version of Apple’s iTunes software this morning and I’m finding a lot of love from the new “genius” recommendations. There are a few annoyances that can easily be fixed in an 8.1 — or even 8.01 — version but on the whole it’s a worthy upgrade. By default, the genius is…