Apr 14

Quantum physics has nothing to do with this reviewMost laptops these days are used as a person’s single computer as opposed to a companion system to their desktop. Along with that portable power comes heat generation and a lack of ergonomic orientation. Laptop stands in various forms have come to the market to fill this need. Some are very large and bulky. Others are very thin and flimsy. They range from very artful to very functional to clumsy to utile. I’ve been using one for over a month now which delivers on all of those aspects, but mostly the good ones.

I’m speaking, of course, of the LapWorks Attaché Laptop Stand, a new product in their extensive line of mobility products for laptop users. The stand ships in a standard FedEx packing box, so its not very large, but its certainly not designed to be a portable stand. Unlike its lower priced brother, the Attaché is topped with an aluminum face, which is supposed to draw heat away from the bottom of the laptop. This process is assisted by two ultra-quiet fans located in the center of the panel. Continue reading »

written by Tyler Regas

Apr 07

Nice web tool!Despite the fact that MoboDojo is a website which thrives on the discovery and exploitation of tools and gadgets, the Dojo doesn’t generally run reviews on utility software. Why? Because most utility software just isn’t all that interesting. Yes, we do review software like games and productivity packages, but those are interesting. So, why are we reviewing ImageWell, a Mac-only application? Simply put, its almost literally the only tool we use other than FireFox and our sharp minds to create the Dojo for you. Besides, they just went commercial with the product and I personally wanted to give the developer a shout-out.

Now, with the preamble out of the way, what is ImageWell? To keep a long story short, ImageWell allows you to take images from any source, crop,  edit, and resize them, and send them (via FTP and a wide range of other services) to your web server. It then thoughtfully places the URL to that image in your clipboard so you can quickly add an image to a story, much in the way I did for the image of ImageWell you see above. I found it interesting that, despite ImageWell’s integrated screen capture utility, I was required to use Grab.app to capture ImageWell. It can’t capture itself, which is really a feature and not a bug. Really. Continue reading »

written by Tyler Regas

Apr 07

the Logitech Pure-Fi AnywhereBeing a reviewer of mobility products means that you are necessarily an iPod and iPod accessory products reviewer. Its inescapable, not that its a bad thing. However, there are loads of really crappy iPod accessories out there and I really, really don’t want to have to crawl through all of them. Of course, its always been the goal of The Dojo to provide details on only the best of breed products we can collect for our readers, and the Logitech’s new Pure-Fi Anywhere iPod portable speaker system is one of those. Continue reading »

written by Tyler Regas

Mar 28

Crap! I left my 640x480 display in my 211 Professional!!PDAs aren’t dead really, they’ve just withdrawn from the scene. The reality is that the concept of a PDA has become so ingrained in our daily lives we don’t even notice them any more. Some devices take the form of one of the abilities of PDAs and refine them, like the Apple iPod or Archos’ line of PMPs. It was, however, the convergence of the mobile phone with the PDA which really struck a cord. The Handspring Treo and the early RIM Blackberry devices started the inexorable move to the smartphone. There are, however, a few standard PDAs remaining.

The HP iPAQ 110 Classic is one of those devices. Its not a phone, but it might as well be. In fact, it runs Windows Mobile 6, which behaves just like the Professional versions of the same OS for mobile phones. The only things lacking are the phone-specific functions. On the other hand, it does feature both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and 802.11b\g wireless capabilities, both of which can work at the same time. I, however, digress. I should be performing a formal review, so let that begin. Continue reading »

written by Tyler Regas

Mar 10

Excellent video playback and a very nice screen make this a nice little PMPApple commands 75% of the portable media device market. It makes one wonder why others even try. Of course, the remaining 25% of the market is still quite large, and several companies make a great deal of money filling the gaps which Apple doesn’t. Insignia, a brandname of the Best Buy big box chain of consumer electronics stores, is one of those who fill the gap. They recently shipped me the Pilot, which I’m reviewing here, and a Bluetooth stereo headset which I reviewed earlier. I didn’t like the headset all that much, but the Pilot is a different beast altogether. While I’m an iPod-head, I rather like the Pilot and I’m quite impressed with a number of its capabilities. Continue reading »

written by Tyler Regas

Feb 07

Oooh. Insignia! ...Who?I seek the holy grail, I do. I seek a time when there are no more wires. How is it that the people in Star Trek do it? You don’t see any cables connected to anything, even in the original series (though the massive Tricorders do have shoulder straps). What we appear to be missing from today is the concept of wireless power. We either need to foster these induction-type recharging stations or force our scientists to come up with power supplies which last for years instead of weeks.

Until that time, we have Bluetooth. When Insignia, an internal brand of the Best Buy stores, offered me a pair of Bluetooth headphones and their new Bluetooth PMP, I said yes. Why not. I hadn’t tried Bluetooth stereo yet and I really like the idea of ditching as many cables as I can. Of course, the rechargeable headphones are recharged via cable, but that’s another matter. Overall, I like the headphones, but there are some aspects of it which are disappointing. Read on for more details. Continue reading »

written by Tyler Regas

Feb 05

Nokia's N95 8GB model coming Stateside soonThere have been only a handful of real technological innovations during our industrial and technological ages. Most of what we have created and devised for ourselves and our human comforts have been derivatives of something else. It is the core technology which was the real breakthrough, as is the case with the slick and cool Nokia N95 8GB. While it is a decidedly clean, powerful, and pretty converged device, it remains just that; a stepping stone. Many pundits and fanbois call the N95 8GB, Nokia’s iPhone. Personally, I don’t see it. What I do see is a phone, a media player, a personal media player, a PIM, a game machine, and a camera (actually two) all rolled into one device. Continue reading »

written by Tyler Regas

Jan 14

NTFS File System For Mac OS X. Neato!This will, in reality, be the shortest review I have ever written (as well as I can remember. I may have slammed something in a sentence or two some years ago, but blocked it out due to trauma). If you look to your left you will see a screenshot of a Get Info box on my Desktop. This is a picture of the info from my Boot Camp partition, Cacophony, which is what I named my Vista Ultimate partition. As you can see, I allocated 80GB to it, I have about 32GB free, and I have modified the default icon.

What, you say? You can’t modify the default icon because any partition larger than 32GBs needs to be NTFS, and Mac OS X doesn’t natively support NTFS, just FAT32. You will recently recall that I announced the release of NTFS for Mac OS X from Paragon. Well, this is it. In fact, this is all you will ever see of NTFS For Mac OS X. If you look to the very bottom of th Get Info dialog, you’ll see that, under Sharing & Permissions, it say “You can read and write”.

Yup, that’s all it does. It enables your NTFS partitions or drives of any size to be readable and writeable in Mac OS X. I’ll just tell you that its not possible to beat this with a stick or any other blunt object, for that matter. There are no options. You don’t need any. It just works, and for a mere US$29.95 for now (regular price will be US$39.95). See? Shortest review ever.

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written by Tyler Regas

Jan 14

The spicy little Palm CentroIf you’ve been reading The Dojo (or PDA Handyman) for any length of time, you’d know I’m a semi-unabashed Palm lover. Yes, on occasion I have questioned Palm’s decisions (i.e., my poor, dear Foleo) and on a few occasions wondered if they were about to plunge themselves into the fires of hell to disappear forever. Well, the reality is that Palm’s not been doing so well, mostly because they’ve been sitting on their thumbs. Its even possible that sitting on their thumbs for so long has caused them to create something equally frustrating as it is brilliant.

I speak, as indicated in the title of this review, the Palm Centro, which is currently an exclusive offering from Sprint. To see the Centro is to love it. Its small, sleek, nicely proportioned, and… well, that’s where it sort of ends. Maybe a few years ago in 2003 I would have been egged on to see the recent growth in the venerable Palm OS, but by this time the changed-in-name-only Access Powered “Garnet OS” has stagnated and festered. Sure, Sprint has managed to eek our some cool abilities, and the hardware certainly does run the beasty quite swiftly, but its just old. Continue reading »

written by Tyler Regas