I have been looking for a laptop mouse for a while now, but I run into a few issues. Either they are of cheap quality or they are too small to be really that functional. Then Logitech comes along and makes the perfect portable mouse, the VX Nano

Pros:

• Very comfortable fit in your hand
• Scrolling and scroll lock very well designed
• Going back between pages is well designed with buttons next to your left finger
• Wireless mouse connected by 2.4Ghz receiver
• Receiver is so small it is stored inside the mouse
• The mouse automatically switches off when the receiver is re-inserted inside of it
• The wireless receiver plugs into the USB to connect the mouse, and can work out of the box. It is so small it can be left in the laptop if you see fit since it doesn’t protrude out of the laptop.
• Triple AAA batteries are long lasting
• Reasonable price for a quality product

Cons:

• Can’t seem to find any.

Comfortable, Feature-rich, and Well Designed. There is much more you can ask from this mouse, Logitech has come out with another quality product.

Price: $49.99

Link: Amazon

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I have been backing up a lot of files and moving things around, I am still trying to figure out what is the best way to go about it. The result of all this is all the duplicate files so I have needed a program to find all the duplicate files and DoubleKiller has done a great job finding and getting rid of them. It is doing wonders for my music collection, and stream lining all the files I have and making it more organized. Its a simple light windows utility that you can customize the parameters when searching for files.

Link: LifeHacker

This is the spy’s version of a thumb drive, made most probably for Bond and friends. The Ironkey ranges in price from $79 to $149 depending on the sizes you want to choose from 1 GB, 2 GB, and 4 GB. Made to withstand software and hardware attacks, and to self-destruct after 10 incorrect password attempts rendering the device unreadable.

Link: UnCrate

This question has always been going around and I always look at what people purchase. Recently a lot of the laptops have become more powerful so they use their laptops as desktop replacements. Personally I prefer a desktop for home and laptop for mobility so I have both, but some people have one and stick to it.

The good part about these new laptops is that you can pretty much do anything on them without any issues, and they can handle what you throw at them. The advantage of a desktop is that you can upgrade parts cheaply and it will become powerful with just a few different parts. Also prices for both types of machines have dropped a lot recently and you can get a powerful machine for a low price.

Sony has packed a lot of features into this Media Center, its a 200 disc Blu-ray/DVD/CD changer with a 500 GB hard drive. A very unique glossy black media tower with 1080p capability and able to stream to any tv with an XMB menu. It can burn Blu-ray dics, and can stream music to devices such as Vaio computers and PS3. It has power video and audio capabilities such as HDMI, component video, optical, coaxial, and analog outputs, touch-sensitive controls, Ethernet and backlit. It is supposed to be priced around $3500 and to be released on Oct 07.

Link: UnCrate

Towards the end of my trip I was getting all the requests for things that people wanted. I was more then happy to get what people wanted but I got a sudden flood of Apple Products and I didn’t even know some of them.

Some people asked me for the iPod Touch, and some asked me for the iPod Nano. I told them whats the touch, and I told the other person you can get the Nano in Kuwait whats so special about the one in the states. And in both replies I felt like I insulted them by not keeping up with the latest products released by Appl, and when I looked at it I was surprised how many new products Apple came up with and the Apple iPod Touch does look really really cool. The Nano has been redesigned and looks great.

I was riding and driving in Palo Alto a lot since it was close to one of my friend’s work. I decided to pass by that Apple Store, its turns out the iPod Touch won’t come out until October from what the sales person told me but the new Nano was there and it looks great.

After I was done this is the list of Gifts/Items I picked up:

• 1 MacBook 2.16 Ghz
• 3 iPod Nanos (Red, Black, and White)

I tried getting the iPhone but the Sales person told me I have to have an AT&T contract but it turns out the sales person was wrong or he misunderstood my question so I didn’t pick any up. One thing is for sure the new iPhones are really the new “IT” thing for everyone.

Apple has done a great job making buying an Apple a unique experience, all the details were taken care of where we were standing from a hand held device. There was no register and we didn’t have to go to a counter. He brought the items out and slid my card, and then brought me the receipt and thats it. I was out the door, one day I shall buy an Apple for myself, I just don’t know when.

Microsoft have put a lot aesthetic touches to Windows to make Vista look a lot better then XP and to be smoother. That is really the case, but it is a bit graphics intensive but you do get used to it and like it. Some people aren’t ready to change to the Vista operating system yet, they still want to keep what they are used to in XP. Now you can have the both of both worlds from the links below. They can give you the look and feel of Vista, almost a full feeling of it, but then it would still be XP.

Link: Vista Wallpaper Pack – LifeHacker
Link: Vista Taskbar Window Previews – LifeHacker
Link: Vista Star Menu for XP – LifeHacker
Link: Vista Cursors for XP – LifeHacker

vConverts.net is a website that grabs YouTube videos and converts them to compatible formats for your PSP, mobile phone, iPod, iPhone, and a few other things. Another great feature is that you can serparate the audio from the video and get the audio from a YouTube video in MP3 format. Whats great is that this is online and you don’t need to install anything which is great. Its simple and does a good job with it.

Once you choose your link give it two or three minutes to start converting then it will pop up a download link for the video or audio.

Link: LifeHacker
Link: vConvert

My Purpose: A medium sized PC to handle medium multimedia use in a very compact and simple design, a bare bones kit that I can modify to my needs and keeping it relatively simple.

Positives:

• Very clean solid design
• Good build quality
• Decent space inside the case
• Very quiet
• Comes with Motherboard and Power supply
• Price

Negatives

• Power supply only 250 volts
• Cooling is an issue if you put something too powerful
• Motherboard Bios had to be upgraded to work with 2 GB ram.

Link: Amazon

Price: $99

Rating:

Apple hasn’t axed the Mac Mini as the rumors have been going around instead they have upgraded it and I think thats a smart move. I am looking at the Mac Mini as a viable option since it is just plug and play with all my current hardware.

The new models get Core 2 Duos; a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo T5600 chip in the $599 model and a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 on the $799 unit. Another addition to the Mac Mini is iLife ’08. Even with the faster clock speeds, adding Core 2 Duo also means 4MB of L2 cache on the $799 Mac Mini, an upgrade over the 2MB on the new $599 system and both older Core Duo-based units. That extra cache should translate to better performance on the $799 model, beyond its faster CPU clock speed. Apple also added iLife ’08 to both new Mac Minis, as well.

The one note is to wait for OS X Leopard which might cost an extra $150 on top of the $799. You would be better off waiting for the new OS.

Link: Apple