From the "really strange looking iPhone accessories" department, we present for your inspection the mobile.brando.com.hk Apple iPhone 3G Mobile Phone Telescope. Dave mentioned this in passing a few days ago, but since Engadget noted it today we went back and took a closer look. This product definitely wins the TUAW award for the longest name for an iPhone add-on. In case you're wondering what the function of this device is, the website says it all -- "Overcome the short coming of camera cellphone that can only near-sighted, it also makes distant view for you at the moment."
The idea is to take this plastic "crystal" case, put it on your iPhone 3G, and then put the telescope onto the case. This gives your iPhone a 6X telephoto lens. But it does more! Once again, from the website -- "The new design to run of rays can effectively avoid the contortion of image, and makes the super wide angle, the larger luminous flux, the higher visual acuteness, good for color reduction, which makes the high quality of photography."
Huh?
If you really need a telephoto lens for your iPhone 3G and don't mind the abuse from friends, you can order one for the bargain price of US$19 plus shipping. For more mind-boggling details or to order the telescope, click the Read link below.
The Eye-Fi card is an SD card with a difference -- it has Wi-Fi built into it for easy camera-to-internet transfer of photos. It comes in three different flavors; Eye-Fi Home, Eye-Fi Share, and Eye-Fi Explore. The latter card (US$129) includes free Wi-Fi access at Wayport hotspots, unlimited geotagging using Skyhook Wireless (the same service Apple and Google use for location data on pre-3G iPhones and iPod touch handhelds), and an unlimited WebShare service for sharing photos.
Eye-Fi and SmugMug (an online photo sharing site) announced a partnership providing a year of geotagging and hotspot access for SmugMug members using an original Eye-Fi Card or the $US99.99 Eye-Fi Share. SmugMug provides standard (US$39.95 annually), power user (US$59.95 annually) and professional ($149.95 annually) accounts, all of which provide ad-free, backed-up, and secure hosting of your photos.
Do you use an Eye-Fi card with your digital camera? If you do, what service do you upload your photos to, and do you use the geotagging capability? Leave us a comment.
If there's anything I've learned about the iPhone 3G since July 11th, it's that the battery life is horrible. If I'm just texting and making the occasional call, I can survive for a day, but if I try to play games or use 3G I know it's going to go to the dreaded red battery icon quickly.
That's why there are a growing number of manufacturers who have extended battery packs for the iPhone on the market. For example, I looked at the Kensington Mini Battery Pack and Charger (US$49.99), but the website doesn't show that it works with the iPhone 3G.
My next choice was the Richard | Solo Smart Backup Battery. This US$49.95 lithium-ion battery pack has saved me from running out of juice prematurely more than once!
Aliph, makers of the ultra-cool noise-reducing Jawbone Bluetooth headset, have come up with a great marketing scheme. If you live in California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, or Washington -- all states with laws requiring hands-free use of mobile phones -- and receive a ticket for yapping with your iPhone plastered to your ear, Jawbone will deduct $20 off the purchase price of one of their headsets.
You can't get a discount on the Silver Tongue model, but the prices for the Goldy Lips and Blah Blah Black versions end up at $129.99 and $109.99 respectively. All you need to do is go to the Jawbone website, look for the Hands Free Ticket Processor, and enter your state and ticket number. $20 is taken off the original purchase price, and you're ready to go.
This is one case where I wish I did live in a nanny state that was forcing me to use a hands-free kit!
Fellow propeller-head and all-around nice guy Joel Evans over at Geek.com let me know that they had published a short post about a couple of iPhone 3G extended battery options. Since the 3G has a tendency to suck battery power like a vacuum powered by a Pratt & Whitney PW-4000 jet engine, several vendors have come out with plug-in battery extenders to make sure your App Store browsing isn't cut short by a lack of juice.
I've got one more to add to the list -- the RichardSolo Backup Battery for iPhone / iPod (pictured at right). If you are using your iPhone 3G as much as I am, you either need one of these extended batteries or have a really long extension cord.
For those of you who were waiting to buy a Data Robotics Drobo, wait no longer!
Data Robotics announced the release of the second iteration of their 4-bay expandable storage solution, Drobo. Many potential buyers were aghast at the original version's lack of FireWire, so the company added FireWire 800 (FireWire 400 compatible) ports to the original USB 2.0 connection. Transfer speeds with FireWire 800 are expected to be about double those of the USB connection.
The new Drobo also has improved software. The old model would see a drop in performance after the array reached about 50% of capacity. With the new software, performance remains steady regardless of how much data you've packed into your Drobo. Data Robotics says Mac users can expect a performance increase of 10 - 200%.
When new, higher-capacity drives become available, you'll be able to expand the capacity of your Drobo to up to 16 TB. That should be enough to handle all of my TUAW comment email! The second-generation Drobo becomes available in about three weeks, and the original $499 price tag is still in effect for an unpopulated box (no drives included).
Updated to note that no FireWire 400 ports are included. Thanks to Neg and See3Pio for the heads-up!
The Mac OS X 10.5.4 update might have made you restart your Mac, but it also added "RAW image support for several cameras." While Apple didn't tell us what these cameras were in Software Update, they did later update the RAW support page for Mac OS X Leopard.
According to the page, Apple's update added the ability to use the RAW format on these cameras:
Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi / Kiss Digital x2 / EOS 450D
Epson R-D1 / R-D1s
Leaf AFi 7
Leaf AFi 6
Leaf AFi 5
Pentax K200D
Pentax K20D
Those of you waiting for your SLR camera to be supported under Leopard might have received a surprise in your Mac OS X update.
Is it time to finally put your HD mountain biking documentary on Blu-ray? Apple upgrade vendor MCE Technologies announced availability of a totally Mac-compatible Blu-ray recordable drive for Mac Pro and Power Mac.
The $499 (internal) drive is compatible with Mac OS X 10.5.2 and later, requiring no special drivers for burning -- just install it in your Mac Pro or Power Mac bay, pop in blank Blu-ray media, and you're ready to roll. The drive does both single-layer (6X BD-R or 2X BD-RE) and dual-layer (4X BD-R, 2X BD-RE) burning for capacities of 25GB or 50GB respectively. That's up to 50,000 photos, 12,500 music tracks, or 4 hours of HD video.
There's a $599 version bundled with Roxio Toast 9 and the Toast BD//HD Plugin, as well as an external drive with FireWire and USB 2.0 ports for $749.
To write professional Blu-ray discs that can play on set-top Blu-ray players or Sony PS3, you'll need Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 Encore along with Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 or Final Cut Pro. Basic Blu-ray movies can be burned with Roxio Toast 9 and the BD/HD Plugin.
Reviewer Rating: 3 out of 5 possible Should you buy one? If you need to do a lot of CD/DVD labeling and money isn't an object, yes. However, if you need a new printer anyway, the HP Photosmart C5280 all-in-one gives you a disc and paper printer, copier, scanner, and more, all in one box that costs less than half the price of the DiscPainter. You can also buy HP LightScribe external drives for much less, but the media is quite expensive.
If you DO buy one, remember to include the cost of BeLight Disc Cover to replace the Discus for Dymo software.
Pros
Fast high-resolution printing
Very quiet
Does the job it is designed for, despite software shortcomings
Does excellent job of printing directly on CD/DVD media
Cons
Software isn't very Mac-like
Printer footprint larger than it needs to be
No power switch, can't turn it fully off without unplugging
Very Expensive ($279.95 MSRP, about $250 online)
Be sure to check out the Gallery below for more pictures of the Dymo DiscPainter.
Likewise, trying to pick the "TUAW Green" for the text on the label, I thoroughly expected to see the standard Apple color picker so I could use the little magnifier tool to go for the green. No such luck. I finally figured out that I could option-click one of the custom colors to make the color picker appear (see below).
Fortunately, other CD/DVD labeling packages support the DiscPainter. I highly recommend trashing Discus for Dymo and purchasing BeLight's Disc Cover ($34.95). If you can get Avery's free Design Pro software to work with the DiscPainter, please leave a comment and let the rest of us know how to do it.
Hardware and Printing
Clicking the Print button in Discus brought up the standard Mac OS X print dialog with the DiscPainter pre-selected. I used all of the defaults and then watched as the blank CD was pulled into the tall part of the printer and slowly started inching out. It's cool to watch the printing, which occurs from the hub of the CD outwards. The colors matched those chosen in the software very closely, and the resolution was very nice (600 dpi). It took about two minutes for the printing to complete.
A DiscPainter with a slot-loader would make the footprint of the printer half the size of the current DiscPainter. One other gripe -- there's no power button to turn the printer off. You need to unplug it to totally power down.
The DiscPainter comes with a Mac OS X / Windows installation CD that installs drivers and Discus for Dymo, an application that helps you to the design the disc image. After plugging in the USB cable and restarting your Mac, the instructions take you through making your first disc.
Software
I was underwhelmed by the Discus for Dymo software, which despite a 2007 copyright date appears to have been written while Mac OS X 10.2 was still all the rage. It has a cheesy, Aqua-like interface (see below) that looks very unprofessional and is obviously a port done by Windows programmers. My first thought was that I needed to update the software. No, version 1.1.1 IS the latest version.
Discus for Dymo does its job, but is uses many Mac OS X features incorrectly. For example, I wanted to use a picture from my iPhoto Library as a backdrop on a CD so I clicked on the Photo button expecting the standard Apple media browser to appear immediately. Instead, I had to navigate to my Photos folder before the media browser appeared.
I have a mountain of CDs and DVDs in my office. Some of them are in sleeves, others are stacked on spindles. For the most part, my disc labeling consists of grabbing a Sharpie ultra-fine-point marker and scrawling something right on the top of the disc. I've tried sticky labels before, but stopped after I had a few CDs that wouldn't come out of my iMac's SuperDrive slot.
Dymo, the labeling company, is now shipping the DiscPainter. It's a single-duty printer designed for one thing; printing directly onto inkjet-printable CD and DVD media.
Size, Installation, and Setup
The first thing that hit me when I opened the DiscPainter box was how big it is. Given that it is a single-tasker, it takes up a lot of room on a desktop (roughly 5.75" x 10"). For those with limited space available, this may be a reason not to buy the DiscPainter.
Following the included Quick Start Guide (yes, I RTFM), I removed the usual tape and plastic cruft encasing the DiscPainter, popped in the single ink cartridge, and connected the power cable. The initial user experience is excellent.
Linksys is offering their Linksys EasyLink Advisor (LELA) Setup Wizard as a native Mac application for managing some of their more recent router models. Similar to the Airport Setup Utility the EasyLink Advisor allows users to setup and manage their Linksys router based networks without going through the web page based setup that Mac users have traditionally had to suffer.
The LELA Mac Wizard is compatible with the Linksys WRT54G2, WRT111, WRT160N, and WRT310N routers and will be on on the setup CD included in the retail packaging. It is also supposed to be available for download on Linksys' Mac page, but I cannot yet find the download link.
Update: Thanks to a reader, found a download link (select version 1.0 from the dropdown menu to reveal it).
If you've got a MacBook Air SuperDrive and you've been hankering to use it with other computers (Mac or PC), tnkgrl over at tnkgrl Mobile has a solution. With a $9 part and some intestinal fortitude, you too can make your MBA Superdrive universally compatible.
Using the drive with other computers has been a desire from its inception. After some experimentation, tnkgrl found that simply replacing the IDE to USB bridge within the drive did the trick. Of course, that means removing the daughter-board and relocating the 12 MHz crystal. For an experienced hardware hacker, no sweat. For the average Joe, well, it's quite obviously an at-your-own-risk situation.
I occasionally work with clients who need to have Macs set up as kiosks. That means that anyone can walk up and use the Mac to watch a video or access information, but they usually can't update anything on the Mac. Kiosks are especially useful when the user interface consists of a finger touching the screen. In my experience, touch screens are generally expensive and require that you send a Mac off to a vendor for installation.
Troll Touch now has user-installable touch screens for the 20" and 24" aluminum iMacs called SlipCOVERs. Priced at $699 (20") and $899 (24"), the SlipCOVERs come with touch screen drivers and calibration software. The video above shows a touch-enabled iMac in action -- I especially liked watching the demo dude playing Bejeweled using his finger instead of a mouse. Pull off the aluminum stand, lay that SlipCOVER iMac down on its back, and you've got a 24" iPod touch!
From the "really strange looking iPhone accessories" department, we present for your inspection the mobile.brando.com.hk Apple iPhone 3G Mobile Phone Telescope. Dave mentioned this in passing a few days ago, but since Engadget noted it today we went back and took a closer look. This product definitely wins the TUAW award for the longest name for an iPhone add-on. In case you're wondering what the function of this device is, the website says it all -- "Overcome the short coming of camera cellphone that can only near-sighted, it also makes distant view for you at the moment."
The 
Who says crime doesn't pay?
Fellow propeller-head and all-around nice guy Joel Evans over at 
For those of you who were waiting to buy a 
The 
Is it time to finally put your HD mountain biking documentary on Blu-ray? Apple upgrade vendor MCE Technologies 
I have a mountain of CDs and DVDs in my office. Some of them are in sleeves, others are stacked on spindles. For the most part, my disc labeling consists of grabbing a Sharpie ultra-fine-point marker and scrawling something right on the top of the disc. I've tried sticky labels before, but stopped after I had a few CDs that wouldn't come out of my iMac's SuperDrive slot.
Linksys is offering their 
If you've got a MacBook Air SuperDrive and you've been hankering to use it with other computers (Mac or PC), tnkgrl over at 
