The ToyBox

April 3rd, 2008

Firefox 3 Beta 5 released. Thoughts?

Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 8:18 am

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Mozilla Firefox, Memory, Microsoft Windows Vista, Beta, Web Browser, Web Browsers, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Internet, Operating Systems, Microsoft Windows

In what may be the most important “gadget” on your desktop, Firefox 3 Beta 5 was released yesterday, promising performance-boosting improved connection parallelism and a fixed memory leak that means the browser now uses less memory than other browsers, according to Mozilla developers, CyberNet, The Browser World and Slashdot. The new release also adds one-click site info, Vista parental controls (not that you’re using Vista!), a revamped download manager and a boat-load of security tweaks.

I haven’t downloaded Beta 5 yet, since I only have one machine at my disposal at the moment (and, as a mechanically-inclined member of my family once said, “never work on the car you drive to work.”). On the other hand, ZDNet colleague Adrian Kingsley-Hughes writes that it’s the fastest browser out there.

Have you? What do you think? Let us know in TalkBack.

April 2nd, 2008

All-in-one printers: efficient and useful, often unnecessary.

Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 8:50 am

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: All-in-One, Mushroom, Printers, Hardware, Peripherals, Andrew Nusca

Katherine Boehret at WSJ.com has a breakdown of three all-in-one printers that starts off with a promising, “All-in-one machines that print, copy and scan are becoming much more compact and affordable, and most important, easier to use.”

And that may be true, indeed — but are they any more worth it?

In her column, Boehret tested the performance of three all-in-ones that cost around $100: Eastman Kodak’s new $130 ESP 3 All-in-One Printer, Canon’s $100 PIXMA MP470 and Hewlett-Packard’s $100 HP Photosmart C4280. All are “geared toward home users so they don’t include the ability to fax, and they print great quality photos.”

Yet every time I find myself using one of these machines, I feel left wanting more. It’s kind of like Olive Garden’s Sampler Italiano — sometimes I’d like calamari, stuffed mushrooms and fried mozzarella all at once. But other times, I really just want a couple more stuffed mushrooms.

Eating references aside, I think all-in-ones are a great introductory product. But considering the price of ink these days, I feel my money is better spent buying just what I need — which, in an office like mine, means a fast laser printer and a great scanner.

Sure, once in a blue moon I’d love to print out a photo at my own convenience — but I’d rather not take the hit on pricey ink every day for that isolated need. And the fact that the three machines Boehret reviewed are all under $100 means that there’s only so many resources to go around for the price.

On the other hand, I have plenty of friends that love their multifunction machines.

Tell me, readers: what do you think: are all-in-ones “all that” or “all crap”? Tell us in TalkBack. (In the meantime, here are some of ZDNet’s most recently reviewed multipurpose printers — including the Canon and HP listed above.)

April 2nd, 2008

Is anyone home for the text message revolution?

Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 7:08 am

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Amazon.com Inc., E-mail, Channel Management, Telecom & Utilities, Online Communications, Marketing, Andrew Nusca

During this morning’s scanning tech news, I stumbled across a strange AP News story on Wired’s site announcing “a new service that lets shoppers compare prices and buy things with a few quick taps on their cell phones.” In other words: text.

And I couldn’t help but think: does anyone really use this kind of technology?

The service is called Amazon TextBuyIt, and it lets people text the name of a product, its description or its UPC or ISBN to 262966 (”Amazon” on the keypad) from basically anywhere. But with the growing popularity of phones that can access the Web — Blackberrys and iPhones and almost all of them these days — is this kind of technology a moot point?

According to the AP wire story:

New TextBuyIt customers will be prompted to enter the e-mail address associated with their existing Amazon account plus a shipping zip code. The service then calls them and walks through the checkout process using an automated voice system. Shoppers get confirmation by text message and e-mail.

From there, the customers can check on order status on Amazon’s Web site.

So, even with this text message ability, there’s still a reliance on Amazon’s traditional Web interface. To boot, the whole thing seems kind of involved — and from what I understand from the above, you can’t check your status via a text — which is probably the most important service of all. Who wouldn’t love to subtly text Amazon in the middle of a meeting to see what state that I Am Legend DVD is in?

April 1st, 2008

CTIA ‘08: Can Apple’s competition bring sexy back?

Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 2:07 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Phone, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., LG Electronics Inc., Apple Inc., Fusion, Toshiba Corp., CTIA, Telecom & Utilities, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics

Toshiba, LG and Samsung sure think so.

While the tech world is alive today at CTIA 2008, news of products seemingly designed to compete with Apple offerings — Toshiba’s “Fusion” Satellite laptops, LG’s Vu phone for AT&T, Samsung’s Instinct phone for Sprint — has emerged, and I’m getting the same kind of emotional rumblings that I had when companies first replaced matte black with silver on consumer products. Remember that?

It’s interesting to see such a renewed focus on the looks of a product, rather than how much software bloat can be forced into a package. In the case of the Toshiba, it’s a new design named “Fusion” (or is it “Horizon“?), a sort of pinstriped, smoothed-edge affair and the inclusion of “Sleep-and-Charge” USB ports, which will charge accessories even when the laptop is asleep or powered down (provided it’s plugged in).

For the LG, it’s a hip name attached to a 3-inch display that supports AT&T’s Mobile TV service. Color? Black on black.

In the case of the Samsung, it’s an iPhone-inspired design that isn’t quite up to speed yet, at least according to reports from the field. Here at CNET, we’ve got an editor’s take on the phone’s features, which include a 3.1-inch color touchscreen and “Visual Voicemail” — as well as a neat slideshow.

While many of these design updates are long overdue and highly welcome, I think these products have a little way to go to approach the Apple products they seem to be chasing. What do you think?

April 1st, 2008

320GB for less than $70. Am I dreaming?

Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 1:15 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Andrew Nusca

Resident cheapskate Rick Broida uncovered this gem on the Crave blog, and I have to say, it’s tempting: eCost.com is selling a 320GB FreeAgent External USB Seagate Recertified Hard Drive (7200 RPM) …for $69.

That’s right: six-nine. As far as I can tell, April Fools’ has nothing to do with it.

In a world of increasing megabytes in media, finding a place to store it all continues to be a problem. Having just come back from a trip abroad, all I can say is that my digital SLR camera is packed with nearly 1,000 photos at 5MB a pop — in all, a package that my tiny little laptop hard drive can’t handle repeat doses of.

With 750 shiny, happy gigabytes at my disposal, maybe I’ll be able to keep the pressure off my CPU…and my wallet.

March 31st, 2008

Can the Apple logo make you more creative?

Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 7:26 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Logo, Brand, Apple Inc., Branding, Marketing, Andrew Nusca

Apparently so, according to yesterday’s Science Daily. In a recent study by Duke University and the University of Waterloo, Canada, researchers found that even brief exposure to established brands can cause people to inherit the behaviors championed by those brands.

Or in other words, exposure to the ubiquitous Apple might just turn you into Justin Long.

In the study, the researchers pitted two distinct brands against each other — “nonconformist, innovative and creative” Apple versus “traditional, smart and responsible” IBM:

The team conducted an experiment in which 341 university students completed what they believed was a visual acuity task, during which either the Apple or IBM logo was flashed so quickly that they were unaware they had been exposed to the brand logo. The participants then completed a task designed to evaluate how creative they were, listing all of the uses for a brick that they could imagine beyond building a wall.

People who were exposed to the Apple logo generated significantly more unusual uses for the brick compared with those who were primed with the IBM logo, the researchers said. In addition, the unusual uses the Apple-primed participants generated were rated as more creative by independent judges.

Similar results were found with the Disney and E! Channel logos, with those primed with the Disney logo found to act more honest than their E! counterparts.

A fascinating bit of science, isn’t it? With findings like these, maybe I should retool my office desk a little bit — with logos from Google (thinking outside the box), Nike (speed) and Lexus (luxury). Or at the very least, ask IT to junk my crusty, less-than-inspiring Dell Inspiron.

With consideration to these findings, what logos would you surround yourself with? (Hint: there’s a great example at the top-left corner of this page.)

March 31st, 2008

How to predict the weather of your cubicle via USB

Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 6:40 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Temperature, USB, Andrew Nusca

Are you slightly obsessive-compulsive about your machine? Maybe worried that humidity or temperature might wreak havoc on its CPU? Is Weather.com your home page?

In another innovative use of a USB port, Brando has re-jiggered its USB Thermometer to add the ability to measure humidity, too. (Seems like just the thing to get IT excited.)

The eight gram USB Hygro-Thermometer has a temperature range from -40°C to 120°C and can measure humidity from 0 to 100%. For the truly compulsive, the temperature can be captured as quickly as every second (or as long as 12 hours). Once the numbers are captured, the data can be pasted to Microsoft Word or Excel.

All this for $24. And this little wonderstick won’t look nearly as bad as that clunky multifunction Casio watch you’ve been wearing all these years. Windows XP/Vista only. (Kudos to Geek Alerts for spotting this one).

March 26th, 2008

Want better tasting coffee? Just defy gravity.

Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 2:22 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Coffee, Pricing, Marketing Research, Marketing, Andrew Nusca

I don’t know about you, but for me, a workday without coffee is like a cross-country trip without an RV. It just isn’t the same. So when I spotted this cool coffee gadget on Gizmodo, I got excited.

The very neat Kahva coffee maker by Lina Fischer starts with the water on the bottom and ends with hot, brewed coffee…on the bottom. That’s right — this machine ditches the drip.

Taking its looks from the unlikely marriage of a Kenmore PRO Kitchen and a lava lamp, the Kahva works by heating the water in the bottom tank, using air pressure to force it to flow upward into the brewing unit on top. Once the coffee’s ready to go, taking it off the heat allows the new brew to filter down into the tank you started with. How’s that for physics?

Of course, there’s no guarantee that this brewing style will taste any better than standard, one-way coffee. But making a cup of coffee that looks this good is bound to go down easier. No details on pricing or availability, but here are more vacuum-style coffee makers that, um, suck.

March 25th, 2008

Turn your PC into the ultimate DVD changer

Posted by Josh Taylor @ 10:16 am

Categories: DVD

Tags: Media Center PC, PC, Media Center PCs, DVD, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Home Entertainment, Josh Taylor

The good folks over at Lifehacker have a nifty step-by-step tutorial on how to easily rip your [non-HD] DVDs to your PC. While the back-up files provide nice insurance in case anything ever happens to your original discs, more compellingingly, they make it even easier never to leave your couch. Rip all your DVDs to your PC, make a simple tweak to Windows Media Center, and voila, your entire DVD collection is available through your Xbox 360, or other Media Center extender (that last part requires some extra work, which you can learn about here).

March 20th, 2008

Sony PS3 getting BD-Live sooner rather than later

Posted by Josh Taylor @ 8:34 am

Categories: HD DVD, Blu-ray

Tags: Sony Corp., Sony PlayStation 3, Blu-ray, Hd Dvd, Personal Technology, DVD, Home Entertainment, Josh Taylor

When I referred to potential Blu-ray player shoppers having an easy choice to make last week - Sony PS3 or, ummm, a Sony PS3 - I mentioned it was the only Blu-ray player currently on the market that could be upgraded to the format’s Profile 2 functionality. Profile 2, or BD-Live, makes Blu-ray players capable of downloading content, which I should point out — with only a few sour grapes — means Blu-ray will now have the same ability that HD DVD players had from day one. And at $399, the PS3 is one of the least expensive Blu-ray players around.

Well, it turns out BD-Live is a lot closer than I had realized — Sony just announced that it will be go out with the next PS3 firmware update (v.2.20) in late March. It will take a while for BD-Live-enabled movies to hit the market in force, though Sony is not surprisingly touting two Sony Pictures Entertainment titles - The 6th Day (wow, if that’s not a reason to buy a Blu-ray player, I’m not sure what is!) and Walk Hard - due out April 8.

According to the Playstation blog, other features in v2.20 include:

• The ability to copy PS3 Music and Photo playlists to a PSP system. We introduced the ability to create Music and Photo playlists on the PS3 in firmware update v2.0. Now you can easily export your playlists to your PSP.
• You can now play DivX and WMV format files that are over 2 GB.
• Resume Play - begin playing a DVD or BD disc from the point where you previously stopped it, even if you eject the disc and insert a different movie or game.
• Use your PSP as a remote control to play back your music files on your PS3 without turning on your TV.
• The Internet browser now displays some web pages faster. In addition [Save Target] has been added as an option under file. This option lets you save a file that is linked to a web page to your PS3 hard drive or storage media.