The Gadgets Page

If you’re interested in Apple TV, here is a video walkthrough of the interface from MacDailyNews.com. It looks like it is really easy to use, but they didn’t cover how they got the stuff on the Apple TV. Is it connected to your home computer? Is it downloading these things from the Internet. I would have liked a little more explanation, but this walkthrough shows you how easy it is to find and play movies, television shows, podcasts and music.

One note, the pictures in the slideshow are Apple pictures, so take this walkthrough with a grain of salt. A walkthrough from someone a little less connected with Apple is here:

• Video: Apple TV menu and interface walkthrough – Engadget

I wonder if Apple TV will change television the way the iPod changed music or if it will just be a strange blip on televisions historical radar.

I just wrote a review on Starling Fitness for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 for the Wii. Mike and I have been playing it for about a week.

• Starling Fitness » Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 for the Wii

Is it exergaming? No. Did it get me off the couch and interacting with my family? Yes! Most importantly, it introduced me to a sport that I might want to try in real life. It taught me the rules and got me interested in something that I never considered before. If sport video games pique the interest in a real live sport, then I’m all for them. My verdict on Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 for the Wii? Go for it! It is a lot of fun and it might even get you interested in real-life golfing!

Most importantly, the game is VERY inclusive as far as being able to modify your avatar. You can make your golfer on the screen match your skin color, hair color, facial structure and even body type. So many programs insist that you choose between five males or one over-sexed female. This game is different. I can make myself look however I want, even fat, which is something that video games rarely program for:

In the end, I chose an avatar thinner than this one, but she doesn’t have huge boobs, she isn’t blond and I was able to completely customize her. It was a great way to feel included in this game. So many games force me to play the character of a male or pigeon-hole me into a sexy babe’s body, but this one let me choose exactly how I wanted to be.

Kudos to Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07! Good form, EA, good form!

If you have wanted to put your videos on the Internet, you probably thought that the only way to do it was with YouTube. YouTube does make it extremely easy to broadcast your videos, but what if you want something more personal? What if you don’t want Google to own your video? What if you already have a blog and you just want to add your latest video?

Freevlog has the answers to all those questions and more. They have just updated their videos, so you have the most current way to learn how to put your videos on the web.

• Freevlog

A little over a year ago, I was faced with these problems. I had filmed lots of little videos that I enjoyed and I wanted to share them on my personal weblog, but I didn’t know how to do anything. I had no idea how to put titles on the videos. I didn’t even know how to upload them. Mike Verdi and Ryanne Hodson were pivitol in getting past my fear and just putting my videos up on the Internet.

They have broken the process of starting a video-blog, or vlog, into these easy steps:

• Setup a Video Blog
• Update your PC or Mac
• Compress video for the web (so the video will look good AND load up quickly)
• Take a screenshot of your video
• Get a blog
• Upload and post your video
• Get an RSS Feed

There are step-by-step videos for each of these parts of the process on their Freevlog Tutorial page.

Almost every digital camera made today and a lot of the cell phones, have a movie mode. No matter where you are, you can record the wonderful bits of your life as they are happening and then share them with your friends and family all across the globe. That’s the beauty of starting your own vlog or adding video to your personal weblog. Now, you can do that and more.

This house holds a family of five, but its footprint is a mere 320 square feet. Ever since Mike and I moved from a 3500 square-foot house in the suburbs to a 820 square-foot house in a different suburb, I have been obsessed with making things work in a small space. Here is an article about how it is done in Japan:

• Japan: Micro-Homes in the Big City

Sadly, the article concentrates on how much the homes cost to build instead of how you can cram five people into such a small space and still make it work. Is it enforced simplicity? Is it ultra-efficiency? How do they do it? That’s what I want to know. I wanted to see floor plans and pictures of their storage areas, not their staircases.

This article is more helpful:

• Living in a Small Space by Maria Palma: The Sideroad

I still would like to see pictures and specific storage ideas.

Via: random($foo)

I have been playing Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS since October of 2006. I haven’t caught all the fish or insects, but I’m getting really close to having a complete catalog. Somehow, in my mind, I decided that to “win” this game, I needed a complete catalog. Checking my catalog with Nook is a real pain, so I have created an Animal Crossing complete catalog checklist for myself. I thought I would share it with you:

• Download the Animal Crossing Complete Catalog

This is an Excel spreadsheet listing all the items that are possible to own in Animal Crossing. I gathered this information from all over the web and I suspect that there are errors in it, but so far it has worked well for me. I use it during play every day to check the new items at Nooks, The Abel Sisters and Redd’s Tent.

This book also has helpful information about visitors to the town, how to get your hair cut by Harriet and what all the paintings look like. I find it extremely helpful and I thought you might like it as well.

With an open play game like Animal Crossing, you get to choose which objectives you want to achieve. Do you want to fill your museum? Do you want to design clothing? Do you want to own EVERYTHING? Do you want to be friends with everyone and proudly display their pictures in your home? Do you want to own the biggest home in town? You get to choose and there are as many ways to play as there are people.

What if I told you that this car can get 230 mpg, drive at freeway speeds AND only costs about $20K? I can’t believe it myself, actually, but those are the exact claims about this car from Aptera Motors:

* Aptera Motors

Everyone loves the story of the guy who tinkers in his garage and creates a prototype that will change the world. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak did it with their Apple Computers. What about Steve Fambro? Can his car that looks like it belongs in a sci-fi movie change the way we think about cars? I hope so because he is promising me a lot:

* 0 to 60 in under 10 seconds
* Choice of hybrid or all electric (150 miles on a single charge)
* 230 mpg at the speed of 55 mph

It’s a two-seater, with not much room for anything but two people. The car itself only weighs 850 pounds, which helps improve the gas mileage substantially. By using a carbon composite frame, he reduced the weight of the car without compromising the safety. He based his models of design and safety on airplanes. Are you willing to sacrifice a backseat for that kind of fuel efficiency? I sure am. Where do I sign up?

For more information:

* Car creator has grand designs | The San Diego Union-Tribune

* Business Week

* The Race to 100 MPG – Popular Science

Via: Prototype Aptera Becomes Working Model | Gear Live

This is the perfect doormat to welcome or scare away your guests. It changes with your mood!

• SUCK UK – “Come in” / “Go away” Doormat

• SUCK UK – Do Not Disturb… with a twist.

It’s not available yet, but as soon as it is, bipolar sufferers every where will snatch them up!

Via: Popgadget: Come in, or is that Go Away?

A touching and endearing story detailing why you should have a backup of the music on your iPod.

• Shiny Shiny: The day the iPod music died

Just the other day, Mike and I were talking about this issue. I didn’t believe that anyone would have a bunch of music on their iPod that wasn’t backed up to their computer somehow, and then I found out that the Nike+ Drive soundtrack I downloaded from iTunes only existed on my Nano and nowhere else.

Somehow it had slipped through the cracks.

My copy of Nike+ Drive is safe now. Unfortunately, Susi is not so lucky. After leaving her iPod on the plane, she has lost over half of her collection. She has to painstakingly recreate her collection, but you can save yours right now. The best situation to be in is to never have to retrieve music off your iPod, but if you are in that situation right now, there is some software that can do that for you:

• CopyTrans backup iPod Music from iPod to computer, playlists
• Senuti – Download
• iPod Access for Windows
• Tune Transfer for iPod
• xTremSoft.com : xPort : Backup your iPod, copy, recover and transfer all iPod music on Mac or PC.

Be forewarned that Apple could break this software at any time and make it unable to backup the music on your iPod. I haven’t had to use any of these programs, so I can’t recommend any of them. I just thought you might want to know they exist. If you have had experience with any of them, please leave a comment on this entry telling us if they suck or not.

The best thing to do is to make a double copy of your music: one on your computer’s hard drive and one on a backup drive such as a different hard drive or even an online backup system. That will ensure that you will never have to try to get music off your iPod onto a new computer after a drive crash. Sync your iPod regularly and take extra precautions when you get a new computer so that all your music is transferred correctly.

This is an old entry from back in November, but it’s still very useful. More and more, I see people using their cameraphones in situations where my mom would have used the 110 camera when I was a child. Just the other day, I saw a mother at a restaurant snap photos of her children at the table. The cameraphone is creating photo albums of the lives of many families. Here’s how to make those memories better using that dime-sized lens:

• Geek to Live: Take better cameraphone photos – Lifehacker

Here is the quick and dirty list of their ways to make your cameraphone photos better:

• Get close and personal.
• Keep it steady.
• It’s all about the light.
• Use night mode.
• Turn off the fake shutter sound.
• Keep your lens clean.

Of all of these, the clean lens has been the biggest issue for me. Since my phone is bobbing around in my purse with its lens unprotected, mine is usually covered with lint. If you are going to snap a photo, take a moment to wipe off the lens first.

Via: Meriblog: Meri Williams’ Weblog » links for 2006-11-21

Sony has opened up Home, which is a 3D world with avatars. You can wander around the world, talk to people and spend money on imaginary furniture. It looks like a pretty version of Second Life, but seems so crippled that I wonder how fun it would be to spend time there.

I have no intention of buying a PS3 until they bring down the price. Sony told me that if I wasn’t willing to buy a PS3 at 600 bucks, then I wasn’t a serious gamer. I found that pretty offensive. No matter how “cool” their little virtual world is, I’m not willing to shell out that much money to a company that hates me.

Via: mutednoise » Sony Launches Virtual World