Geeky Gifts you can't go Wrong With

With the holidays coming up one of the hardest parts of the season is choosing the right gift for someone. Have no worries, with this set of gifts it will be hard to disappoint those you care about. At the bottom of this posting you'll find pictures and links to all my recommendations on Amazon.com.

KingMax 8GB Super Stick - Is a flash drive meant to survive one of the classic errors people make with small gadgets, leaving it in a clothing pocket that then goes through the laundry. Great for saving the forget from losing important files.

Xbox 360 Wired Controller - This is one of the best conventional controllers available and the wired version has two advantages over its wireless counter part. It doesn't need to recharged so lack of power doesn't stop the fun and you can use it on on computer without the need for a dongle thanks to its USB connector.

World of Goo - This is a simple puzzle game that involves making structures in order to accomplish a task. People of all ages will find this enjoyable and challenging as it is one of the best puzzle games to come out this year. It is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and the Nintendo Wii. If you want to try it for yourself you can download a free demo for your computer here.

Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5 - As many photographers know you never the opportunity for a great shot can come anytime and anywhere and you'll regret if you miss the chance to get it. Sure you could carry your camera with you at all times but that can be cumbersome. The other alternative is to use your cell phone's camera but most take crappy photos with none of the options found on regular cameras. The exception to this is the Motozine ZN5. A joint development between Motorola and Koday, this is part phone part camera, not a phone with some camera added on. It has the quality and many of the features features you would find on a point and shoot. It has some nice phone features as well. While it is not as versatile as the iPhone it is advanced enough to feel state of the art. You can buy it unlocked for the price below, allowing you to chose a compatible carrier or you can get it much cheaper with a T-Mobile contract.

Joby Gorillapod - This basically a miniature tripod. What makes it useful are its three legs can bend in any direction allowing you to wrap them around other objects. So if you want a take a picture or film from a tree branch a railing or some other place you can't rest your camera the Gorillapod lets you attach it. Just make sure you get the right type for the camera its going to be used with.

Eye-Fi - Is a 2 GB SD memory card with wi-fi. With this the card can take your photos and sync them to your computer, upload them to photo sites like Flickr and even geotag them. All of this is done wirelessly and without taking the card out. How many of the features a card has depends on what model you get.

Archos 5 - This media player features a larger screen and larger capacities than the iPod Touch. Plus its built in browser can do flash. With a cradle accessory you can turn it into a DVR that can hook up to your TV so you can watch your favorite show on the road or at home without having to buy episodes or download them illegally.

Logitech Squeezebox Boom - This is the ultimate home music player. The Boom plays internet radio or your computer music collection through your wi-fi or Ethernet network. Services like Pandora, Last.fm and slacker all work with it so as long as your can connect to the internet you can play some great music to your taste. The boom has a very customisible alarm clock and other features like the the ability pull the local temperature from the internet.

MacBook Pro 17 in. - As my own computer I can recommend this to anyone look for a powerful laptop. While the 17 in. model didn't receive a recent redesign lie the 15 in., this may be a good thing for some. The 17 has a conventional keyboard and track pad which some will prefer. The biggest draw may be that you can get one with a matte screen so reflections won't be issue for those who want to create media on their computer.

Adobe Creative Suite CS4 - While very few people will have use for all the apps in the Master Collection many will value the smaller specialized collections or just one of the programs included like Photoshop, Illustrator or Flash. What is especially good about CS4 versions is that this time Adobe could focus on refining and adding feature to its programs unlike the CS3 versions where had worry about making them compatible with Intel Mac and Vista and integrating the apps from its Macromedia acquisition.

Amazon.com Gift Card - For a gift that's good for anyone that can use the internet, go with this. Amazon sells such huge variety of items so whoever you give it too is bound find something they really want. Just be sure to make it for $30 dollars or more so they can qualify for free shipping on their order, therefore spending all of the card on the actual item(s) they want.

8 Great Dashboard Widgets

Dashboard Widgets were the popular small apps that Apple Community talked about before the iPhone showed up. They still great for grabbing information quickly and these widgets will save you from a lot of navigatioting of your mac. Here are eight I found very useful.


iStat Pro - This widget is great for geeks who want to keep tabs on what going on with their computer easily. This lets you track things like your CPU temp, hard drive space and net connection speed. Additionally this widget let you customize the color and notifies you when their is an update for it.


Delivery Status - With this you'll be able to track your online orders and other packages going through the mail.

TV Forecast - Always know when a new episode of your favorite shows will be on with this. This widget will give you the day and time of the next 5-20 new episodes of your shows.


Sports Fan - The ESPN widgets that come with OS X would be great for getting scores if only they constantly updated and gave more than then the actual score and period. For the true sports fan their is Sports fan which not only has constantly updated scores with more in depth info but also standings. This widget cover Baseball, Basketball, Football and Hockey at all different levels.


Scoreboard - For the baseball fans that wants a widget that gives more info, this has what bases have runners and the ball, strike and out counts in a game in addition to the score.


This Day in History - History buffs should enjoy this widget that tells you both major and minor events that happened on the current date in years past.

Widget Update - Most widgets don't tell you when an update for it is available. This will check all your widgets to see if they are up to date and give you links to download the newest version for old ones.

Application Update - If you want to keep the non-Apple programs on your Mac up to date then use this which works just like Widget Update.

Got your own great widgets you would like to share, leave the name in the comments.

Its Time to Break Up iTunes

According to PC World, iTunes is the new AOL, and they are mostly right. It is a bloated piece of software that does too much for one program. It used to just be a program for managing music on a Mac. By the time it came Windows it was used for manage then audio only iPods and buy songs, which made sense to add to the existing functions. The problem happened when iPods and iTunes started do video. They now doing more then music and rather then making a new program iTunes was made bigger to handle the new file type and making it less fitting of its name, but is still media that worked similar to audio files.
When buyable iPod games came out, iTunes was now being used for content that could even be used on a computer but since their were so few of them it didn’t make sense to create another program for the iPod. The iPhone has since taken this to whole new level with apps. Now iTunes has gone from a music organizer and player to an iDevice manager. With all the things it does it’s impossible for it not to be big and slow making users hate and turn to other music programs.
This needs be fixed and the only way to do its to separate all of iTunes functions into two or three programs. It may seem absurd but there is a reason why when photos came to the iPod Apple deiced not to combine iTunes and iPhoto, they were both great on their own and the sync can be handled by having the apps work together. The first program should be iTunes core, it goes back to the old days and handles audio (music, podcasts, audiobooks, internet radio). Depending on how you look at things it may make sense to keep video it or give that its own program, the latter keeps the similar media, which makes sense especially when you take into account music video and video podcasts, while the latter would allow for smaller more specialized programs. The final programs would handle syncing between Apple devices (iPods, Apple TV, iPhones) and the programs they get files from (iTunes, iPhoto, Safari, Mail, Address Book, iCal and the Windows equivalents). This could also help manage the device settings and how they interact with Mobile Me. While they at it they should break up the iTunes store, it is already separated on the iPhone so why not let iTunes do the music (or media) store and the manager handle the app store. With the divided programs they will see more use and less complains about iTunes.

How to fix Digg

Digg does a lot things right that bigger sites wouldn't do or just take a long time to figure out. That said Digg has some flaws that need to be fixed to stop people from abusing the system it has set in place (as shown in this article) so that every story has an equal chance to get on the front page. Some of these are my ideas while the rest I got from others.

1. Limit friends to 10 - This is to stop the practice where users just randomly friend others so that they can create groups where people just Digg each others stories, regardless of whether they are interested or not. Its called "friends" for a reason and honestly most people do not actually know more than 10 people on Digg.
2. Fan diggs count less than those of non fans - This will put the stories submited by popular users like MrBabyMan, on more even ground with those submited by other users.
   
3. Make entering the story title optional in Step 1 - This way people can save time from submitting a story that's already on Digg from a different source. This will save people the time of typing a description and entering the captcha (that thing that tests if you are human or not). More importantly it consolidates diggs into one story from one source.
4. Burying should be transparent - You should be able see who burried a story, that way everyone can know who is responsible for a story disapearing. Burys should also not count more than diggs, if there is somthing wrong with a story the comuity as a whole should be trusted to stop it.
   
5. Political Stories can not be buried - No topic on Digg is more divisive than politics (ok, maybe Apple vs. MS). Many (not all) Conservatives and Liberals hate to see any story that go against what they believe or cast a bad light on who they like no matter how valid or true it is. They will unjustly bury such stories just to suppress them. That's why political stories should have their own system to be removed, where if enough users have a problem with a story it is impeached and an unbiased person from Digg decides whether the acusations made agaisnt it are vaild and should be removed.
6. Let users subjest changes to a submison - If a user can think of a better tittle or picture to use let them subjest it and have it voted on by other users. The submiter should have veto power to stop abuse of such a feature. I know this would hard to implament but would be great to have.
   

2 Great Firefox Extensions I Discovered because of FF3

Before Firefox 3 went gold a lot of my extension did not work leaving me to seek out new one to fill the void. Here are 3 you might find useful yourself.

Autofill Forms - With Google toolbar out of commission I had nothing to do autofill in FF3. When searching for a replacement I came upon this. I tried this years ago and its was crap at the time, now after a lot improvement and changes, it is one of my favorite extensions. The best part is that it can be activated by a icon in the status bar or keyboard shortcut, so you don't have to add another toolbar button.

BlueOrganizer - This extension does a ton including submit page to Digg. Lets say your looking a DVD to buy on Amazon. This extension will provide you not only with link to other retail sites' pages for that same DVD but it will also provide connection page for reviews of the movie and a Netflix page in case you want to rent it instead. It does thing for almost any product and something similar for people. Lets say your looking at someone's Facebook profile, it provide you link to their pages on other sites like Flickr. This is only the begging of what it can do check it out yourself if your interested.

Eddie Murphy and The Secret World of White People

"White Like Me" is a classic Eddie Murphy skit from his time on SNL. This has the type of boldness that only Dave Chappelle shows today.

Why Opera should buy and rename itself Netscape

Netscape was once a great browser but like many who took on Microsoft it ultimately failed. Part of the reason was that AOL bought it and never used it right, like many of the ISP's purchases. Netscape became bloated with features that didn't really make it a better browser. The ultimate insult was that AOL used MS's browser, Internet Explorer, in its own service software long after acquiring Netscape.
Today after years of being hardly being used by anyone, AOL no longer supports it. The Netscape brand had been used for a variety of assets but none have had great success. Netscape.com is just a clone of aol.com with some small differences. It's clear that the parent company of AOL, Time Warner, is struggling with what to do with the once strong internet company, never mind Netscape.
While Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Opera have taken up Netscape's fight against IE for market share they still have a ways to go before reaching the coveted 50% mark. While Firefox has a great growth rate and Safari has the Mac and the iPhone / iPod Touch supporting it Opera lags behind them despite being around longer then both. What's more is that Opera is one of the first to use new browser innovations, like tabs.
Part of the reason for Opera's struggles may be its name. If someone heard of it for the first time they may think its some kind of singing recorder software. Also considering that the art form of opera is not the most popular of its kind in today's world additionally makes the name not the best. While the company could just choose a completely new name its previous efforts to promote its brand would have gone to waste. If Opera could were to buy the name like Netscape it would be different. Netscape is well known as a browser and its name evokes something you would use to navigate the net. Plus the Netscape name would finally be attached to a great browser again which would make nostalgic geeks give the it another look.
Considering that Time Warner has in the past put AOL up for sale and Netscape's current status, the brand should come cheap. You may think why shouldn't Mozilla or Apple consider renaming their browsers to Netscape and the simple answer is they already have great names, it would be like renaming Cingular as AT&T (which was a dumb move).
I personally am a fan of Firefox but also like to see strong completion in markets because it usually brings out the best in the companies involved, so here's to better browser software.