Click here to return to home page

Home of the
world-famous
Newstips Bulletin

< Click logo to return to home page

2009-05D

Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin             Issue # 2009-05d

           Austerity is good for the figure & other news

New on BlackBerry: Gwabbit snags signatures
  It's one of the newest offerings on the BlackBerry App World:
  Gwabbit (Todd Miller todd@technicopia.com 831-659-2672) can pluck
  contact info from the signature block on an incoming e-mail
  message & use it to populate a new Contacts record. The new
  Gwabbit on BlackBerry ($9.99/year) is a companion to the only
  slightly less new Gwabbit for Outlook ($20). If you don't yet
  have a BlackBerry to run these great App World apps, then you're
  late, you're late, for a very important date with Ms. Berry.
  Contact: Victoria Berry, Research in Motion (Waterloo, ON)
  519-888-7465x73663 vberry@rim.com http://rim.com

Dads/grads: get what's needed, not fads
  If somebody in the family is giving a grad or a Dad a new camera,
  handset or computer, think how thoughtful it would be for
  somebody else to give a new PNY memory card or USB drive. Even if
  one of those main gifts is not for-sure happening, these are
  affordable gifts that are always welcome. PNY is a brand you'll
  find at most major retailers, so fif your coverage needs photos
  or samples, ask Sue to help you. Contact: Susan Bartolucci, PNY
  (Parsippany, NJ) 973-560-5592 sbartolucci@pny.com
  http://PNY.com

Dads & grads: get a car tech makeover
  You'll have to hurry to make arrangements, but it's a unique spin
  on your usual dads or grads coverage: Point To Point can arrange
  for one of their installers to redo a car with a factory-look
  (otherwise invisible) antenna, booster, cradle & speakerphone,
  complete with a tie-in to the existing car sound system.
  Depending on where the dad or the grad is going to work, it may
  help avoid those cell-in-hand tickets; no matter where they work,
  it will improve their safety & convenience. Get it all set with
  Brett. Contact: Brett Haysom, Point To Point Technology USA, Inc.
  (Viola, DE) 302-284-4721 brett@ptp-usa.net
  http://www.ptp-usa.net

Dads & grads: Tiffen goodies galore, even in the App Store
  Lots of things with lenses, from cameras to camcorders to
  iPhones, get given as gifts right about now. Tiffen has lots of
  complements, from tripods to bags to lights to filters & more.
  Even better, Tiffen has Cool fx & Photo fx (each $2.99 in the App
  Store) to add effects or drama to pictures taken by (or stored
  on) an iPhone - meaning that even if it isn't in hand for the
  event, you can add it right after & still make the magic happen.
  If you have an iPhone, ask Hilary to get you Cool fx & Photo fx
  for review; if you don't, ask if he has a spare iPod Touch (it
  runs on that, too) to loan out for that. Contact: Hilary Araujo,
  Tiffen Company (Hauppauge, NY) 631-273-2500x1216
  haraujo@tiffen.com http:/.tiffen.com

This bug may grow a tooth
  In discussion now & possibly in release by the end of the year: a
  Bluetooth version of TuneBug will work wirelessly to make any
  variety of surfaces into sound boards for this clever cone-less
  adaptation of NXT technology. It will also sport a mike, so
  hands-free handset usage can happen without sticking something
  into your ear. Will it be a battle between the buds & the bugs?
  Ask Dick. Contact: Dick Brown, Silicon Valley Global (San Jose
  CA) 408-497-6403 dbrown@sv-global.com http://tunebug.com

Thermaltake ups the ante on external drive cases
  The new Thermaltake Max 4 external USB/eSATA 3.5" drive case
  ($60) combines enough cool, useful & important extra features
  that alternatives will need a while in order to catch up. BYO
  hard drive & it can relax in the breeze of a uniquely positioned
  airflow created by a silent-running 80mm case-side intake fan
  that vents out both the front & rear of the case (both featuring
  a handsome black perforated metal motif); the switching power
  supply is also external, keeping that source of heat outside the
  case. Between the blue front pilot light & the cool blue glow
  that comes from the fan, you can see at a glance that power is
  present. This case is aluminum, not plastic, so it's more rugged,
  more durable & better able to radiate heat. It includes an inline
  power supply (not a wall wart, so it won't hog extra outlets), a
  foot-stand, a USB cable, an eSATA cable & even an eSATA bracket
  (with a cord to plug into a spare SATA connection, for systems
  without a spare eSATA port). There are lots of reasons to review
  this: as a way to ready a newer & bigger hard drive for your
  system, as a place for backups, as a way to free up main drive
  space by externally storing music or photos, as a way to help
  Windows Easy Transfer move files & settings to a new PC, etc.
  (OK, because it looks cool & you'd love to have one; we won't
  argue). Ramsom can get you a Max 4; if your review also needs a
  SATA hard drive for it, Marty may be able to help get you one.
  Contact: Ramsom Koay, Thermaltake Technology USA (City of
  Industry, CA) 626-968-9189x127 ramsom.koay@thermaltakeusa.com
  http://ThermaltakeUSA.com

Special Report: CE economy past the bottom
  How often in the past has the restoration of economic health in
  consumer electronics segment been driven by the purchasing of TV
  sets? They're doing it again, entrenching with additional sales.
  Some of these are because HD sets are seeing some very low price
  points (some under $200); it is an incentive, not a handicap,
  that many of the least expensive ones are at smaller (ergo, more
  room-friendly) screen sizes. The NTSC-ATSC transition is helping
  more families think about replacing older sets, but perhaps the
  lead factor in all of this is that it's happening without a lot
  of hype. Word of "really good prices" seems to be spreading more
  virally (with friends & families in touch with each other) than
  by design. That's to be expected, since these reduced prices
  don't leave much allowance for advertising. The good news is that
  anything that gets customers back into these stores also results
  in purchases of other products, both in those stores & from other
  resources. It's not a boom yet, just a reversal of decline into a
  slow rise with some hope of accelerating. We anticipate some of
  that during the summer, some at back-to-school & a lot for the
  holidays. Next year's CES may be worth attending again.

I7 project: Readying the transition to production
  The first of our two Core-i7 systems is ready for the transition
  into our daily production environment. All of our major
  applications (Office, Acrobat, Photoshop SE, Vegas Pro,
  NetObjects Fusion, etc.) are now installed, all our drivers up to
  date. The next step is the major challenge of transitioning. We
  will be using Windows Easy Transfer (comes with Vista; transfers
  accounts, settings & selected directories) which also covers the
  deeds that the Office Files & Settings Transfer Wizard used to
  do. NetObjects Fusion involves a different process, in which we
  have to export our Web sites as templates on the old PC then
  import those templates on the new one. We are working through
  strategies on our music & photo files because if we ever need to
  reinstall Windows, the new installation tends to overwrite files
  in the default "My-Whatever" locations (where we also try to
  never keep our documents). Our current fingerprint scanner
  login/password data isn't transferable to the new reader's
  software; we've been building a spreadsheet to help get us
  through that. We expect to find some gaps (especially in the move
  from 32-bit to 64-bit operations) that will send us up the
  download trail; we are deliberately not (for now) installing many
  of the not-much-used applications or utilities. Once the software
  transfers are complete, we'll need to reconfigure the graphics
  (from the single build-bench monitor to the dual desktop
  displays) & audio (from headphones in a jack to feeding an
  external 7.1 sound system), tweak the desktop icons, rake through
  the application default & option settings, confirm that all the
  scanners & printers are working & make sure our digital
  certificates can all be authenticated. If there are no major
  glitches, with luck, we'll be able to send next week's issue from
  our new platform as we work on our final reports, involving
  whether or not this new system lives up to its promise of
  "pants-that-fit" comfort when multitasking among several
  resource-hungry applications.

Special Report Bonus Review: D-Link & 2 of the Bee Gees
  While we were building all of those recent systems (two Core-i7,
  two Atom), it was hard enough finding enough power outlets let
  alone network connections, so we decided to cheat a little &
  called on our old pal Les Goldberg (anybody else old enough to
  remember the Toshibar?) for a little D-Link help. He sent a pair
  of PCI-slot cards that now have a permanent home on our build
  bench. The WDA-1320 Wireless G Desktop Adapter covers 802.11b/g
  (the "Bee Gees" of WiFi) without any frills while the WDA-2320
  Rangebooster G Desktop Adapter does the same with a little more
  range (letting us also use our alternate build bench, at least
  between meals there). So much of what we do depends on being able
  to go online for downloads, updates, authentication or
  instructions that we can't build without connections; these days,
  we're building so much that we can't afford to be stringing ad
  hoc cables across the floor or swapping sockets at our already
  full switch & WiFi spares us that. Bottom line: The D-Link
  WDA-1320 Wireless G Desktop Adapter & WDA-2320 Rangebooster G
  Desktop Adapter are reliable alternatives for letting WiFi do the
  work where wires can't, won't or ought not go.

Special Report Bonus Review 2: Driver Agent
  A lot of you will remember the utilities from Touchstone
  Software; these days, they're under the Phoenix Technologies
  umbrella & are now evolved into a more scrubbed face, shiny smile
  existence. Our attention accidentally landed on DriverAgent.com
  (because our Gigabyte mobo support Web site included an
  invitation to get a free driver scan there). We were aggressive
  about getting the latest driver downloads when building our new
  Core-i7 systems, so when the scan showed 6 of the drivers on the
  better system (haven't checked the other yet) had aged, we
  immediately went to the vendor Web sites to find something newer;
  no such thing was there. So, curiosity aroused, we asked them to
  let us do a review of the full product; they granted us a 3-day
  free trial for the review while explaining that their very
  aggressive "driver spiders" often found the newest drivers in
  unexpected places before vendor Web sites offered them. In the
  case of several Intel chipset drivers, for example, they located
  newer & compatible drivers on the Asus (another X58 mobo brand)
  site. The worst of the adventure was enduring very long download
  times, not because of the download size but because their
  transfer speeds tended to be under 25KB/sec. Intel drivers that
  said they installed didn't (it did fetch updated drivers, but we
  had to manually force a driver update from the unzipped file's
  Vista folder one at a time); they tell me there's a detailed FAQ
  about that, but you can't find it without searching for it (it
  doesn't volunteer itself when an Intel chipset driver is on the
  needs-updating list). Three attempts at fetching a Logitech
  driver update failed, possibly because it was trying to update to
  a version 4.60 when a more current 4.72 was available (it's what
  we already had installed but they didn't yet seem to know was
  available). We rate Driver Agent as a handy resource for
  identifying when newer drivers may be available, as inconvenient
  & sometimes misdirected for fetching them & as not necessarily
  reliable for getting them installed. In balance, their $30 annual
  subscription lets you run it on up to 10 PCs, so two bits a month
  per PC may still warrant it a decent value. Bottom line: the
  facility for scanning & identifying which drivers have updates
  available (which is free) makes DriverAgent.com a good candidate
  for routine upkeep practices, but the balance of its convenience
  versus its inconveniences makes its ultimate worth a personal
  call.

Special Report Bonus Review 3: MXL pop filter
  Imagine somebody saying, here, I just spent hours spitting on
  this, as did the guy before me, so now we'd like you to spend
  hours with your lips just inches away from it. As unlikely as
  that may sound, it happens all the time with studio microphones.
  How unsanitary! The swine! The swine flu! Many pros put a little
  something between their lips and the mike: a circular disc of
  fabric or metal. Hygiene was never the motivation; that thing is
  a pop filter, which will take us on a little tangent into
  physics. Consider pronouncing the word "pea" as a model for those
  sounds known as plosives; in uttering those, the mouth projects a
  sudden high-pressure burst of air. A pop filter weakens that
  impact just enough to keep the pop from overwhelming the mike
  element while still allowing clear enunciation to pass through.
  While most pop filters are fabric, those can be tough to sanitize
  with wipes or sprays without missing internal surfaces. We got
  our hands on an MXL-PF-002 Black Metal Pop Filter, a perforated
  disc on a flexible metal arm that clamps onto whatever holds the
  mike so you can position it midway between your lips & the
  cartridge. Bottom line: the MXL-PF-002 Black Metal Pop Filter is
  effective at calming both those persistently pesky plosives & any
  fears we might have of not being able to counter any creepy
  cooties that might be breeding in such intimate proximity to our
  lips.

Special Report Bonus Review 4: La Cubanita
  Like most of you, we have never been to Cuba & the occasional
  Cuban-inspired menu offerings we encounter at various restaurants
  seldom seem to be beyond a domestic approximation of some ideal
  at which we can only guess. We think we've been much closer to
  the source since having visited La Cubanita (on McKinney in
  Dallas); it was an accidental discovery, across the street from
  the car rental office we used when there for son Ian's
  graduation. Our party of 6 got to sample a variety of their
  offerings, including the best Cubano sandwich we've tasted to
  date. Bottom line: La Cubanita is on our must-stop list for any
  future forays into any of the Southern markets where this small
  chain has a presence.

Special Report Bonus Review 5: Gwabbit for Outlook
  The RIM item in this issue is about the new Gwabbit
  signature-snagging App World offering for BlackBerry; in learning
  about that, we learned that they also have Gwabbit for Outlook &
  we ran that through its paces. We set up its options for minimal
  dialog, so we click a toolbar button when we want it to create or
  update a Contacts record from the signature block in an incoming
  message. The parsing is fully automatic with overall good
  results, though like most automated results, you may want to keep
  the sandpaper handy. The results of its work appear as an open
  Contacts record for you to save as-is or edit to taste. As a
  rule, the cleaner the signature block, the better the results,
  but as we all know, there's no real formatting standard for
  signature blocks. A couple of items irked us (to their credit,
  the company is addressing every one of these items in upcoming
  releases): the button bar can't be edited & phone numbers get
  inserted without +1 up front, which causes some wrinkles in
  Outlook 2007 field formatting & handling. One item they're not
  addressing (to be fair, they shouldn't try unless they're ready
  to deal with highlighted blocks instead of the whole message) is
  how to deal with multiple signature blocks within a message. On
  balance, we don't want to make it seem like a flawed or "needy"
  product because most of what it does most of the time is good
  work & a major convenience. Bottom line: Gwabbit for Outlook is a
  must-have convenience for anybody who counts on Outlook for both
  e-mail messages & contacts, taking the tedium out of keeping
  those records up to date based on signatures within incoming
  messages.

Slow return to wealth
  As we note in this week's Special Report, economically priced
  HDTV sets are pulling CE sales out of their decline & taking the
  segment past its bottom & slowly into recovery. These final
  commentary items in each of our issues tend to be either about
  you or about us; in this case, it's a bit of both. We know that
  in this era, a lot of product coverage gets nixed because gear
  just seems like an extravagant indulgence when only 90-some
  percent of the workforce is employed. While that's inevitably the
  case for a lot of items, there are other ways to think about
  things that keep them relevant. (We also believe that the public
  perception will see any return to covering such items as a return
  to normalcy, ease some fears, reignite some spending & in so
  doing, accelerate the recovery). For example, with factories
  closing, many outplaced workers may be looking to tech schools as
  a bridge to a new career path & you might expect related book
  sales to pick up. Cell phones are now more mainstream than land
  lines, but the map is filling in rapidly with places that (either
  already or have proposals to) forbid in-hand use when driving; if
  the incoming call relates to the welfare of a child, what's a
  driver to do? We applaud conscience in the press & we hope that
  extends to an appreciation of how net coverage shapes the
  perceptions of the public & can be an agent of change. We'd like
  to help. Let's start by brainstorming a few ideas; if that proves
  fruitful, we're always eager to help major media outlets score
  just about any product (by name or category) from just about any
  company. Between your resources & ours, we can accomplish a more
  rapid return to wealth for these industries, for your bosses &
  maybe (if those companies pay any attention to who got them any
  attention) for us, too. Contact: Martin Winston, Newstips
  (Novelty, OH) 440-338-8400; marty@Newstips.com
  http://Newstips.com

                               # # #

Newstips Bulletin [Novelty, OH] +1.440.338.8400 http://Newstips.com

(c) Copyright 2007 Martin Winston and TwandaCorp - all rights reserved.

[Home] [For Press] [For Vendors] [Bulletins] [Back Issues] [PD Profile] [Contact Us] [Privacy] [PSAs]