Organized Chaos

Laptops are meant to be portable, but their wires and additions are less than simple, convenient, and ready to go. Cabledrop wants to make desk organization, and laptop

travel just a little more convenient.

The idea is simple. The Cabledrop is a little clip that sticks to the surface of your desk and clenches a wire (presumably from your laptop) in its grip. In this way not only are wires a bit more controlled and less hazardous in the general area it also means that when you grab your laptop on the run all the wires your detach will not slip straight to the floor as you run out the door, but rather wait patiently in place until you get home to plug them in again.

At $10 for six it doesn’t seem like a bad investment.

Speaking Small

Lets be honest, some portable speakers aren’t all that portable.  Well, the X mini has a new design, and new features, and remains pretty mini, and pretty portable.

The X mini II is slightly larger than the original X mini, but with features to match.  It can be charged through a USB connector cable, can boost volume of laptops, MP3 players, and phones, and (if you get your hands on more than one you can chain them together to get especially pumped sound.

With a small globe esque design the X mini II is backpack friendly, which is exactly what a portable speaker should be.

Mac Attack

The evolution of Mac continues.  This time it’s another upgrade to the MacBook line.

There are a few new and obvious design changes.  No longer encased in black or white plastic the MacBook follows in the footsteps of its brother the MacBook Pro (also with it’s own upgrade) with a new aluminum body.  The trackpad on the new Mac is now click sensitive, no more buttons.  With new features like LED backlighting , a crumb resistant keyboard (just like the MacBook Air)  and new integrated graphics for supposed more responsive game play and realistic environments.

The new line comes in both a 13 inch Macbook and 15 inch Pro models (priced at $1299 and $1999 respectively).  Is it the greatest leap we’ve ever seen? Probably not, but Mac continues to be pleasing to the eye and as dependable on the inside as it was before.

My View of Vista (or Why I May Need a Mac)

You may recall when I took Windows to task for treating me like an idiot. Welll, I just bought a new laptop that came pre-loaded with Vista and suddenly Windows XP seems like a lean. efficient OS that treats me like I’m a PhD.

I could rant about how Vista now asks you a third time before allowing you to do any task more complex than opening an application, but it’s a minor annoyance compared to some of the lovely new quirks to discovered.

I still use Microsoft Office for XP. It continues to serve me well and they haven’t added anything significant enough to justify me spending a thousand dollars on an upgrade. (One of the few things I miss about working for a big company - they paid to upgrade your software!). Part of that Office suite is Outlook 2002. I successfully installed Office on the new Vista machine and cloned my email account info, of course telling it to save my passwords. And it all worked fine until I closed Outlook. When I started it up again, it had purged my passwords and thus failed to retrieve my email until I used the account management tool to re-enter the passwords. A Google search on the problem confirmed that it was common to Outlook 2002 and that Microsoft had no intention of fixing it. “Please send us $1000 for newer versions of software you didn’t want to replace”.

But wait! It gets worse. I had no trouble detecting and logging into my home wireless network - except that it came up “Local Only”, meaning no Internet connectivity. After frustrating attempts to figure out all the new “user friendly” nomenclature for networking I gave up and decided to use good old DOS brute force. Finding out how to open a command line window was a chore and when I finally did and tried the old faithful “ipconfig /release” command, it told me that it required “elevation”. Huh? I live at sea level in a one story home. Did I need to hit the roof? My account was set as “Administrator” but apparently that wasn’t good enough.

In a classic Catch-22, I wanted to check the web for updated drivers, but that required web access that Vista wasn’t giving me. I tried plugging in a cable direct to the router and all of a sudden all the connections worked! Sweet! Or not…

I go to a client’s office where I’ve always successfully connected to their wireless network, but I get the dreaded “Local Only”. After seeking help (and I HATE to do that) from their network admins, I was ready to give up and plug into a network jack. Presto! Once I did that, wireless kicked in. See a pattern emerging?

I was on the road last weekend. Tried to connect in the airport. Yep - Local Only. When I got to my destination, I used someone else’s computer to research the issue. It’s common. I tried to follow some of the proposed solutions. But the only one that ever worked was “plug it into a router”. That’s kind of hard in an airport.

Microsoft is mum on the issue. The net community hasn’t been able to overcome it. And my smug, welf-satisfied Mac friends are all saying “I told you so…”

If You Can’t Take the Heat …

Macbooks, Macbook Pros, the Macbook Air, they all share the title of “Macbook” under the umbrella of the Apple brand.  Macbook is basically the Apple vernacular for notebook.  Now, what exactly is the difference between a notebook (or Macbook) computer and a laptop?  Well, it depends on who you talk to.

By some definitions there are differences, like hardware, but in the world of Apple it’s really just a difference of temperature.  Actually, all portable computers in the Apple line today (Macbooks) are really notebook computers, at least that’s what I have been told. 

On a recent trip to my local Apple Store (due to what ended up being a power problem concerning a faulty battery) I was informed that no portable computers with the Apple logo are referred to as “laptop” computers any more.  The fact is, the battery in many Macbooks gets too warm for comfort when it comes to leaving a computer on one’s lap.  So, the in store vernacular is “notebook computer” or “Macbook”, never laptop.

I won’t complain, I’m all for more power and better battery life (though I’ve heard heat can damage battery life, which is a bit of a paradox, but that’s another issue)  I can live with using a desk or floor, or surface besides my own skin.  I just find it amusing how much stock the store, the brand in general, puts in names (but why should the Apple brand be any different than other labels in pop culture).  At least in this case no one gets burned.

“Iron Man” gadgets

I saw Iron Man recently and was completely enthralled.  I’ve now developed a miniature Iron Man obsession that will last at least until I’ve seen the movie two more times (or until Indiana Jones or The Dark Knight takes over).  Iron Man (as a movie) applies to this blog a bit more than either of my other hotly anticipated summer films does.  

Since Iron Man’s first appearance in comics in the 1960’s our digital dependency has grown with the availability of technology.  The internet, the cell phone, the laptop; Tony Stark (the man behind the metal mask) remains a hero in 2008 but in many ways a much more relatable one.  Perhaps JARVIS (the AI persona controlling Tony’s technologically insane mansion) is not a reality for most of us, but computerized personalities and programmable tasks (universal remotes, etc.) in smaller less expensive doses do exist.

While the idea of super armor and the power of personal flight are still not realistic for the average cinematic consumer the hands free telephone call Tony is able to take while in mid flight is a definite real life connection to an audience.  So maybe I can’t take a call while saving the world from terrorism and breaking the sound barrier, but the idea that I too can do two things at once is at least a start.