Search Results for Ultimate ea

Twelve South Introduces the MagicWand for Magic Trackpad and Wireless Keyboard

Twelve South makes some great Mac products. They make the Compass iPad stand and the BookBook iPad case, along with a host of other Mac accessories. Well today they are rolling out a new product that seamlessly connects Apple’s Magic Trackpad to the Apple Wireless Keyboard to create one, easy to use, accessory. Judie recently reviewed a somewhat similar item, the BulletTrain Express (she loves it!), but while that created an arrangement similar to what you will find on an Apple notebook, the MagicWand creates on long keyboard/trackpad combination. As the company explains, What is MagicWand? It’s a cool little…


A Lifesaver in Barcelona, the Tru Enabled BlackBerry Bold 9700

I wanted to put in a quick mention for Tru, the service that offered to send me an international BlackBerry Bold 9700 to use for Mobile Congress Week along with their Tru SIM. The ultimate goal is that we’ll compare what I would have spent on the same amount of Tru usage versus AT&T’s best international rate (since they are my regular carrier) after Mobile World Congress is done. Here’s where it gets even better, though. DHL came through and got the BB Bold to me before I left. Because Tru was worried that it wouldn’t arrive in time, they…


Swingline Introduces the Stack-and-Shred, So You Can Keep Your Secrets Hidden

Are you one of those people who sticks your insurance finalization forms in the trash? The kind who tosses bank receipts, deposit slips, paid utility and credit card bills in the bin? Do you make jokes about filing important documents away in “drawer #13”, but you really mean the overflowing bucket under your desk? If so, then you are also the type of person who is simply begging for their identity to be stolen. Yes, really. The solution is to shred those documents as they leave your hand, before they make their way into the garbage. Don’t even let them…


Star Wars: Frames for the True Fans

Possibly just in time for Valentine’s day, but definitely in time for graduation or late spring and summer birthdays, comes the ultimate gift for any Star Wars aficionado: Star Wars: Frames. Imagine if you will, George Lucas sitting in his office with every Star Wars movie at his disposal. Imagine him sorting through millions of individual frames as he picks and chooses his favorites; every battle, every character’s emotion, every iconic scene laid out in front of him. The result of his selection process would ultimately become Star Wars: Frames, an 1,138 copies limited edition. Each set comes in an…


Music Diary Notes: For the Love of Drumming – Bill Bruford Autobiography

I have been reading drummer Bill Bruford’s autobiography lately after reading an article announcing it at AllAboutJazz. I had thought about doing an actual review, but the WAY in which I read the book told me I should do it differently. This is a true autobiography – not like one of those unattributed, ghost-written Sarah Palin books. The style varies between academic, allegorical, conversational, formal and casual. The writing won’t have you shelving your James Joyce (I had actually just finished re-reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man … so there was a bit of a difference). But…


Music Diary Reviews: Trey Gunn and Nik Bartsch Produce Two of My Favorite 2010 Recordings

Welcome to another edition of Music Diary Reviews! Since I started doing these reviews I have simply collected up stuff from a time period and reviewed it all. For the last few I have separated Jazz, Pop and Re-issues. But still it is just whatever comes along reviewed as it comes along. Don’t get me wrong, there are some awesome releases in there like Mary Halverson’s Saturn Sings. But there were also a couple of recent releases that struck me so much for one reason or other that I simply needed to look at them apart from everything else. So,…


Tough Call: Is Apple Being Draconian & Greedy … or Is Sony Trying to Pull a Fast One?

If you track technology, you have likely seen the NYTimes article or one of the echo-articles declaring a shift in how Apple operates the app store, citing the rejection of the Sony Reader app and a vague quote from a Sony Rep as evidence. There is a lot of speculation there, but it ultimately comes down to the interpretation of two sections of a single sentence: The company has told some applications developers, including Sony, that they can no longer sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have made outside the App…


The Wilson Electronics SignalBoost DB Pro Cell Phone Signal Amplifier Review

I live in a rural area which is fantastic for wide open spaces and natural beauty … yet not so great for timely FedEx deliveries or wireless service. We  have much better GSM (AT&T & T-Mobile) coverage than CDMA (Sprint & Verizon); 3G is not here yet, so we must be content with EDGE. The nearest tower is several miles away from our home, and our area is hilly, so although we do get a cellular signal, it can be weak.



2011 Scion xB: Which Way Funkytown?

When Toyota first launched its Scion division of vehicles aimed at younger, hipper consumers the buying public threw them for a loop. The funky new box on wheels (dubbed “xB”) was actually being snatched up by boomers hand over fist.



iPad App Review: SPQR

Way back in high school I took four years of Latin. I know, I know – the common wisdom now is ‘why learn a dead language’ unless you are going into medicine? Yet Latin taught me more than a single language – it is the basis of many of the modern languages, and has helped me learn other languages more quickly through the years. So when I saw a full-featured Latin app, I simply HAD to check it out! The Hype: SPQR is the ultimate app for Latin lovers, Latin teachers and Latin students who want to immerse themselves in…


Another Way to Help Haiti In Addition to Supporting Our No Baggage Challenge for Charity

As you, hopefully, know by now, Larry and I have embarked upon a week-long No Baggage Challenge for Charity. We left the East Coast yesterday morning with just the clothes on our backs and arrived in Las Vegas for CES a few hours later. We are already getting into a routine of determining what we’re going to wear one day while washing the clothes we wore the previous one. It’s a great way to demonstrate how little we actually need while traveling- especially when using SCOTTEVEST clothing, but there is an additional reason why we are doing this. It was…


iPad Game Review: Puzzle Quest 2

Last August I reviewed the DS and PC versions of Puzzle Quest 2. The quick summary of my review is that “the game made good as a true sequel to the “Casual Meets Hardcore and Loves It!” surprise hit from 2007″. In early December Puzzle Quest 2 arrived on the iTunes App Store in the form of a Universal app with Game Center support. So how did it do in the translation? The Hype: Puzzle Quest 2 marks the return of the world’s leading puzzle adventure series and its trademark blend of match 3 gem-based gameplay and fantasy role-playing. Rewarding…


iPad Accessory Review: Revena’s ELEMENTS AXIS Mounting System and iPad Accessories

When I first caught wind of Revena’s ELEMENTS AXIS system for the iPad I was intrigued. Rather than having a case, a stand, a wall-mount and a car mount the system gives you all of them in a totally integrated package. You get one shell/case and then can use the iPad on a desk, on a wall or in the car. It looked neat and I was thrilled when the company sent one out for review. You can buy each piece separately or buy a packaged system; so let’s take a look at each piece of the system and the…


Remember: Starting Tomorrow, No iTunes App Store Additions or Updates for a Week

I have mentioned that the flurry of activity this past week on the iTunes is related to the ‘freeze’ that will be in place from the 23rd through the 28th. Well, iTunes Connect sent out a reminder message, so I figured I’d do the same! Basically it comes down to this: the state of the App Store today will remain identical until the 29th, when whatever new additions or price changes or updates have been pending will go into effect. One interesting side-effect is that if a publisher mistakenly scheduled a price change for during this time, it will make…


I Always Feel Like … My Apps Are Watching Me!

A few weeks back I ordered two things from different online vendors, one for my brother and the other for my parents. I used an email address I rarely use, an account on which I only get a few spam messages a week. Naturally within hours I had received a months’ worth of junk email! One vendor was sending me messages directly advertising their own stuff … but aside from them I was getting tons of other sales messages. Some of those messages were related to the purchase I made from the other vendor and others were classic ‘wide-casting’ spam…


PC Game Review: Order of War

Quick – what pops into your head when you hear ‘Order of War’? Probably that it is a war game, and perhaps that it is a World War II game based on similarity to other game names. But beyond that? With Medal of Honor you got the image of individual heroics that was fitting to the scope of the game. Call of Duty implied a broader action of which you were just a part. Company of Heroes implied an even larger scope with loads of valuable individuals contributing. Order of War for me feels thin and generic. So perhaps that…


Hewlett Packard Mini 5103 NetBook PC Review

I recently reviewed the Hewlett Packard (HP) Elitebook 8440w and loved it, so when I had the chance to look at the recently released HP Mini 5103 my thought was: ‘take the 8440w and shrink it to netbook dimensions and you have the PERFECT business netbook’! At first glance that seems to be exactly what they did, but of course, I needed to put it through the day-to-day paces of my work life to see how it did. And since I have an unhealthy obsession with trying to shoehorn ‘big PC’ games onto netbooks, naturally I had to see how…


PC Game Review: Red Faction Guerrilla

GamersGate offered a sweet deal where you got copies of both Red Faction and Red Faction II for free with a Red Faction Guerrilla pre-order. Red Faction was a 2001 game that gained tons of attention during previews for its destructible environments, and Red Faction II was the critically pummeled 2004 follow-up. So by the time I received my review copy of the game I had replayed both of the original games on my netbook, which allowed me to put those games into proper perspective as I played the new addition to the series. The Hype: Set 50 years after…


2011 BMW 335i Convertible

The calendar says we haven’t hit the first official day of winter yet and your mind may be displaying visions of sugarplums in preparation for the quickly approaching holiday season. But should there be an interest in a convertible in your near future – especially a convertible with a German accent – you might want to start thinking about cheaping-out on gift giving this season so you can save your pennies in time to enjoy topless cruising weather when the northern hemisphere welcomes the return of the sun’s warmth. BMW makes a very nice little hardtop convertible on the 3-series…