Ultimate Swiss Army Knife! 73 Tools!

Well, just when you think you've seen it all.  The KnifeCenter has 20% off of the ultimate Swiss Army knife.  It has 73 functions!  It seems expensive, but tell your wife you are saving $79!  And shipping is free! 😀

Comes in a black leather box, so you can show it off like a fine watch.  Or maybe so your fiancé can open it like a diamond ring and propose to you?  😂

Order it here!

QR Codes

Anyone using QR Codes? I guess they started in Japan as a Quick Response, allowing cell phones to decode at high speed embedding information.

You can embed your phone number, blog website, email address, even GPS coordinates. And magazines sometimes have the QR Codes next to an article, so you can take your smart phone and quickly jump to a webpage related to the article.

Anyone using these for fun? Or for business? I'd be curious to know.

FlyThru Laptop bag from Belkin review

The Transportation Security Administration (you know, the TSA folks at the airport that ask you to throw out your shaving cream, take off your shoes and take your laptop out of your carry-on bag) has come up with Checkpoint Friendly Laptop bag rules.

One that I've seen reviewed is Belkin's FlyThru bag.  It looks like a nice design.  The laptop section unzips (not completely) so that it can 'butterfly' flat on the scanning belt.  The laptop section has a clear screen so that the TSA folks won't have any question about what's inside.  And I've read that the metal zippers won't interfere with the x-ray scan.  

The price doesn't sound too bad ($59.99 list price, or $42.80 at the PC Connection website).  I'm not sure when it will be available.  PC Connection's site says to call for availability, and Circuit City says it's to be released December 8, 2008.  (Anyone else nervous about buying anything from Circuit City?  I believe their days as a retailer are numbered!)

Anyway, if I end up getting one, I'll update this post with an actual hands-on review of the product.  If anyone else has got their hands on one, let us know what you think!

TinyURL.com

Ever wanted to share a website address with someone, but the address is some huge string of characters no one would ever be able to remember?  Like my URL for my photography blog: http://windycitycameraphile.blogspot.com.  Now that's a lot to remember.

Well, you can go to TinyURL.com and assign a shorter, easier to remember name for your site.  When you type in the TinyURL address, it directs you to the site!  I did this and gave my photo blog site the address http://TinyURL.com/chicagomike.  Try this with sites you go to all the time that have long, hard to remember URLs.

G1 phones are now here! The T-Mobile G1

Went to 'google' something today and noticed that the G1 phones are now on sale. Is this the iPhone killer? The Gadget lab crew from Wired magazine has a review on YouTube here. Anyone out there have one? Tell us what you think! Is it as good or better than the iPhone?

The interesting thing to me is that Google developed the Android software, but it seems that they are not in the business to sell phones, but instead to provide a portal to the internet (and to their advertising) on the cell phone network. So although they are competing with Apple's iPhone, it seems that they have a different motivation. Not sure what that all means...

New MacBooks to come out today!

I can't wait to see what the Geniuses at Cupertino have up their sleeve for us. I've been looking at the MacBook Pro laptops for use with digital photography, but have delayed the purchase pending the new ones to come out today. Both Mac Rumors and AppleInsider are rampant with "leaked" photos of the aluminum laptop cases, and speculation as to what ports will be available on each model. There are also guesses as to the various price points. It's funny, with only a few hours before Apple's presentation, people are racing to guess what will be unveiled!

Apple has done a good job keeping the announcements mysterious, letting the fans whip themselves into a frenzy, waiting for the next big thing! Well, I hope Apple doesn't disappoint! Click here to follow along this morning!

Update: Post Announcement

Well, the improved graphics on the MacBook Pro looks impressive (2.3 X faster graphics processing when using discrete NVIDIA 9600M GT processor), but I'm wondering if the glossy display will work best for digital photography. Some feel that the colors are saturated, and are not a good representation of the photo. Others claim that the glossy display is the only way to go. Photographers, Graphic Artists... anyone have an opinion? Post a comment!

Update

The glossy screen scares me. I ordered the previous version MacBook Pro 15", 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 200GB HD on sale from MacMall for $1449 (after $150 mail in rebate) and upgraded the RAM to 4 GB with memory from Crucial. So far so good! My wife commented the other night on how beautiful the screen is! I know, the new version is supposed to have greatly improved graphics, and a unibody carved from a 5 lb block of aluminum... but I just can't get over the glossy screen! And saving $550 didn't hurt either!!

Anyone get the new one? What do you think of it so far?

Moving music from iPod back to iTunes: PodWorks Review

Well, I just had my Western Digital My Book Pro Edition 500GB external hard drive crash. I had loaded somewhere between 200 and 300 GB of music onto my iTunes library. The good news is the drive was under warranty, the bad news is the drive is in no condition to recover the data, without sending it to a third party service. The fee for some of these companies start at $500!

I did a Google search to see how I could at least send the approximately 40 GB of music (and luckily 95% of my purchased iTunes) from my old iPod back to my (replacement) hard drive. One site said to download the free TinkerTools so that you could open the hidden iPod_Control->Music folder on the iPod. This worked, but it was very confusing what to do once I got to this point. I clumsily moved the entire Music folder onto the hard drive, and followed the next few steps to clean up the mess of music, but didn't have much luck.

Today I read about a few software packages (some free, others at a small fee for the full version) that would assist me moving my music back where it belongs. Senuti (itunes backwards) moves your music back to your computer, and it's free. The next one I read about was PodWorks, which got good reviews, and was supposed to prevent duplicating songs in your iTunes library. They allow you to use it free for 30 days and up to 250 song transfers. I figured for $8 I would splurge (especially since I want to move around 2,700 songs) and buy the full version. It was very simple to pay for and download online.

So far it couldn't be simpler! I clicked on my iPod name, and then clicked on Send All to iTunes and let it do it's thing. The version I downloaded was 2.9.3. I was going to see if folks compared Senuti to PodWorks, but didn't want to spend too much time agonizing over an $8 piece of software that got generally positive feedback. I would be interested to hear other folk's experience with moving their music back onto their computer, since Apple kind of planned for this to be a one-way flow of data (mostly to prevent folks from sharing their library with all of their friends for free).