Some Gift Ideas for Twenty Aught Seven

Published by M2J under Friendly Advice on November 27, 2007

Well it would appear that just like every year, Christmas is creeping up on us again. Since my opinion about technology is always going to be better than most of yours, I figured I should help some people out and show you some stuff that is pretty cool. Some of this stuff you may know, some of it you maybe seeing for the first time. With that, here’s a small list of some picks I have personally made. Perhaps some of you dudes can’t figure out a romantic gift, or you chicks just don’t know tech from a hole in the ground.

This is merely one example of the digital photo frames out there. I went with this one (the Kodak Easyshare SV-710 7-Inch Digital Picture Frame) because it has a very basic, classic look. It will accept basically any memory card that is out there these days (which is not true for all of them, another reason I went with this one). I have a feeling this should fall under the category of “he gives to her.” I’m sure by now most of you have an impressive collection of pictures on your phone, online, stashed on the computer… remember having a picture of something on your desk? Well this is certainly a nice middle ground for throwing up somewhere outside of the computer realm. It plays MP3s if for some reason you want to play music or a slide-show. I’d have say that this is most definitely a winner to anyone you give it to. You should be able to find this out there for about $100.

Here we have a creative little gadget. Did you ever drop your hand under a faucet only to discover that the water isn’t exactly the temperature you were expecting? Developed by Sector Labs, this nifty little doo-hickey (called the H2Glow) affixes to your faucet and will change color depending on the water temperature, red for hot and blue for cold (duh). Is this greatest invention of the 21st Century? No, far from it, but hey for $25 you can’t really go wrong and its pretty nifty. Probably likely to brighten up someone’s day a little and reign as one of the more unique gifts of the season.

I know what you must be saying. I’m serious! The Zune in my eyes has turned over a new leaf completely. The software is excellent, the firmware is great. This is easily the first device that ever displayed any real competition for the iPod. There are a lot of advantages to the Zune now as well. It can sync wirelessly to your library. This means you don’t need to use another USB port up. You can manually set the Zune to sync mode, or while being charged, it will automatically go into sync mode, allowing you to add/remove without any (here comes a bad pun) strings attached. I think this works as a nice alternative to the new iPod Nano, which clearly people aren’t thrilled with thanks to it’s “fat” form-factor. Of course the pink colors is the sell to the females, since as we all know, girls inherently like pink. It’s important to note that the screen size you’re giving up versus the Nano is only 0.2 inches. I think it’s a worthwhile sacrifice to walk away with a sleeker product. As for the Urge music store, not only is it receiving raves as well, but the music is also being offered up DRM free. You can track down the 4GB and 8GB at $150 and $200 respectively.

A product that is somewhat in the family of the digital photo frames, simply put, this little thing is pretty cool. The Coby DP-151 a cute little 1.5 inch picture frame on a key-chain. I know what some of you are probably thinking, “Coby?” Truth be told, Coby is typically known as a budget brand, however they have banged out some merchandise in the last few years that frankly were unanswered by the competition, such as the first portable DVD players that also had a TV tuner. Moving right along, this neat little thing connects to the computer via USB and allows you to load on something like 60 pictures. It is Windows and Mac compatible and can read the majority of popular file formats out there. It runs on a rechargeable battery which is powered by the USB cable. It’s advertised to have 4 hours of viewing time, probably more than enough for 60 pictures on a 1.5 inch screen. I think this is a great little stocking stuffer to get just about anyone, of all ages.

Time for a heavy hitter. I know I know, a TV? Isn’t that a little heavy for a gift? Well some of you maybe looking for a decent TV to make the HDTV leap, some of you maybe really excited about getting a TV for a family member because you know they’ll be into it once it is in front of them. The Sharp LC-32D43U is a extremely high quality LCD flat panel TV at a very nice price. Although this is a 720p TV, at 32 inches it barely matters, 1080p is hardly noticeable at this size. Paying the higher price-tag for the 1080p version is really unnecessary. You should be able to find this just about anywhere nowadays for under $800. Sure there are other TVs 32 inches and cheaper, but the quality of this unit is almost unsurpassed. The only LCD I would rank above this one would be (other than the higher resolution Sharps of the same size) would be the Sony. Frankly, at a price almost two hundred dollars more, I wouldn’t bother. I don’t feel the quality increase is worth that amount. This TV is stylish, has a nice array of connectivity and most importantly an extremely nice picture.

Okay, you may think this is a really tacky looking camcorder at a glance (and hopefully are aware there are two in this picture). This is in fact a still camera with some better video recording capabilities than most still cameras. The Canon TX1 is a 7 Megapixel camera with a 10x optical zoom. I’ll tell you what, I’m sold on the optical zoom by itself, with the normal 3x or 4x you get with most these days it’s a breath of fresh air. Like most of the point and shoot cameras Canon makes these days, it has some nice features including Face Detection, MyColors, and Macro mode. Now, here’s the big hook… the video camera portion is capable of recording at a resolution of 1280 x 720 at 30 frames per second. What does this mean? It records video at HD resolution! That’s amazing for a camera this small, which doubles as a still camera! Obviously this is going to be taxing on a memory card (the camera’s only method of storage) so stock up on your SD cards. A 4GB card will allow you to record 14 minutes of the highest quality HD video. You should be able to track this baby down for about $450.

I think this maybe my personal favorite for the holiday picks. This is the VUDU. This device (simplified) is a video-on-demand box, minus any cable. It connects to the outside world via the internet and enables you to rent and watch movies on demand. Movies are streamed to you over the network and played on your TV. It is capable of playing full 1080p movies as well. Apparently the people at VUDU did good and made friends with many of the movie studios in Hollywood as they have a nice selection. It has a plethora of connections, such as HDMI and optical audio out. It also supports Dolby 5.1 surround sound. The VUDU also sports USB ports for adding storage capacity. The remote you get allows for motion and gesturing (if you have a Wii this will be an easy concept to master). You need at least a 1.5 Mbps to use this device, so check what kind of download speeds you get (check speedtest.net for that information). 1.5 Mbps will get you viewing after a few minute of downloading, or 3 Mbps will allow for instant viewing. There are no activation or subscription fees. Rentals will run you from 99¢ to $3.99. You can also purchase movies for between $4.99 and $19.99. The VUDU is currently $400, and can be found on the VUDU Website or scattered about the internet.

Fire Pro Returns!

Published by M2J under Raves on November 21, 2007

Finally!! A real console version of Fire Pro Wrestling here in the U.S.! This is huge to any Fire Pro fan. I think one thing that separates Fire Pro from most of the other games is simple, you have to be a well…smart wrestling fan in order to enjoy this game to the max, as well as a big gamer. The wrestling games that typically come out, whether they are fun to play, put together well, or just plain good at capturing that moment in time of what is going on with its real-life counterpart, it is not a game meant for a seasoned gamer who knows that game-play is key. Fire Pro is a game that is… well, just that, a game. There is a learning curve, those who learn how to play are rewarded by being the better players. There are no licenses being used in the game. All the wrestlers are cleverly presented to let you know, it may not say “AJ Styles,” but it’s AJ Styles. The description of the wrestler, his info, even his birthday and place of origin are clear indications of who indeed this is. The Fire Pro series has been around for years dating back to the early nineties. Imports crept over here and allowed American fans to get a taste of it. It wasn’t until I was placed in front of Fire Pro D that I got to experience this game. As chance would have it, the engine was ported to the Game Boy Advance. Although the port changed some key things in order for it to play nice with Game Boy, it did teach me a lot about the series and I was able to apply much of what I learned to the console version. Enough of the boring history.

Fire Pro kicks Ass! Okay, with the US version you need to do a little tweaking, that is, downloading some stuff off the interweb, but then you get to rename all the wrestlers instantly (instead of doing it all manually). Another tasty downloadable morsel are roster expansions. Since a lot of wrestlers are simply unrepresented, there’s guys who play this game (and gals I’m sure) that have extracted these characters, some from scratch, some from other games, and ported them to this game. A quick trip to gamefaqs allows you to download over 400 wrestlers. I’m speechless. When you have a roster of 30 guys or so such as a game like Smackdown… 400 is practically a quantum leap. Well Fire Pro Returns is available now, although good luck finding it. A lot of retailers didn’t take it seriously and when big box companies shipped in all of 12 copies, they flew off the shelves. I’m sure nuts like me didn’t help, buying three and all. I assure you people however, they aren’t all for me.

I am officially a Zune fan!

Published by M2J under Reviews on November 19, 2007

At some point recently, Microsoft realized that the brown-colored Zune wasn’t ever going to sell…at least not at the price they were asking. Wisely, someone decided to drop the price to $99. At 30 Gigabytes with the ability to play both video and music, compatible with tons of file formats, suddenly it wasn’t looking so bad. I grabbed one of these babies and fired it up. Nice screen, interface wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done. The Zune also has Wifi, in case anyone reading was recently living under a rock, and can send and receive songs to other Zunes. Oddly enough I found someone at work had a Zune, yet still have no idea who they are, just that they have a Zune. I sent them a song and they sent back one. Weird, just like the commercials. Anyway, the big draw of the Zune (to me) was that it would allow for upgrading the firmware to the newer version to be found on the 2007 Zunes. This was a good move. The navigation grew more sensible, the visual candy got a little sweeter as well. Podcasting support was implemented, which was also a really cool move (I know those of you who like will appreciate that). Best of all, is the wireless syncing. You can now put songs on the Zune simply over Wifi, without connecting it to the computer via USB. Once this is setup it’s pretty awesome, especially if you have limited USB real estate on your machine like I’m actually beginning to have. So if you can get passed the somewhat clunky and brown aspects of the Zune, I say buy one! 30 gigs, 100 dollars…Wifi syncing, if there’s one leap I can say I think the Zune has made passed the iPod world, it’s that one. If you really can’t get passed it, well, maybe look at the newer ones. They’re not so ugly anymore. You may find you like the iPod less after moving to another platform. You done good Microsoft, you done real good.