I stopped into my local Best Buy this afternoon and was amazed at the great selection  of prepaid cellular phones. As recently as a year ago the prepaid phone aisle was limited to cheap plastic throwaways. Fast forward to now, and the shelves are lined with current model BlackBerry and Motorola phones available on no contract prepaid plans.   Boost Mobile has been one of the leaders in selling affordable prepaid phones that don’t make you ashamed to use them in public.  Last week we looked at the i465 (great texting device and solid call quality). This week we’re looking at the Boost Mobile i9. It’s essentially a Motorola Razr fitted with the walkie talkie feature that Boost is known for. What’s amazing about this phone is that it’s one of the thinnest flip phones that Boost has ever offered. Continue Reading

I love the Wii I received for my birthday last year. I never cease to be amazing by its motion-sensing controls and the remarkable flexibility of the system.

I’m not a golfer in real life but on the Wii… love it.

I’m not a tennis player in real life… but in my den I sure am, thanks to the Wii.

Yes, with the Wii I can fight dragons, play tennis and then, minutes later start a workout routine. Until now, however, I used the Wii Remote and imagined it was a golf club, a tennis racket or a sword. Thanks to Thrustmaster’s Sports Pack however I no longer need to use such a degree of imagination.

For all the sport fanatics out there, the Sports Pack+ NW, compatible with Wii MotionPlus™*, is just for you. This multi-accessory pack is designed for use with the majority of sports games available for Wii™… Continue Reading

To watch the commercials for the Verizon Droid, being released tomorrow morning, one might get the impression that this is the very first android handset to be released. It certainly has garnered more attention and excitement and previous devices, but there are already a number of android handsets on the market that are actually quite good. I recently had a chance to spend a week with Sprint’s version of the HTC hero, and I found myself more than a bit impressed. So with that in mind, I thought we might take a good look at a fantastic Android device that’s been on the market for a number of months already.

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I’m a big fan of getting outside and walking. I find that listening to music or podcasts helps to pass the time, so like most people with MP3 players I always take my iPhone or Zune HD with me. I have recently started carrying my Zune HD because I love Zune Pass, which provides for nearly unlimited music downloads and automatically creates artist mixes – even from music I don’t own. WaterField’s new suede jacket is the perfect fit for my Zune HD. It’s thin enough to act as a shield and fits inside other WaterField cases. Continue Reading

I have often wanted to buy one of those Ambient Devices Judie blogged about a few weeks ago.  I’ve also wanted a Nabaztag as well, since they are cute and can do some really cool stuff like play mp3 files or provide e-mail alerts.  I don’t want either anymore, thanks to kysoh.com who sent me a Tuxdroid that is not only very cute, but is also based on open source software. Continue Reading

One of the things that I love about the Kindle – its eInk screen – is also one of the things that makes using the Kindle a bit difficult when lighting is poor. It seems silly in a way to complain about not being able to read a book in the dark, because it certainly isn’t something anyone could do with the dead tree version, but there are a couple of reasons I think it chafes more than expected when people read from non-backlit devices.

I think many who use eReaders have also experienced reading on other mobile devices, which generally use color-capable LCD screens and are easy to read from in even the worst light. It seems only natural then, that when we pick up an electronic device meant to read books from – that it should also be in color, or at the very least backlit. But of course, they aren’t.

I’ve just received a brand new Case-Mate Kindle2 cover which not only wraps the eReader in a fine leather hardback cover, it also has an amazing integrated lighting system. The Case-Mate Enlighten won’t be available until mid-December, but I wanted to go ahead and give my impressions on this most remarkable wrap.

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We are all feeling the financial pinch!    Blue Plate Special is a weekly review of bargain apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Nothing over $.99.

I recently took my oldest son and a few of his buddies to Incredible Pizza in San Antonio for his 5th birthday.  We started with the pizza of course, but the boys could hardly contain themselves just staring into the game room.  Once I let them hit the games, we headed straight for the skee-ball.  They decided tickets were what they were after so they could get some wax lips and parachute men, you know the good stuff.  I can think of no better way to earn tickets in a game room than play skee-ball.  The game has been one of my favorites since I was my son’s age.

Now Skee-Ball is available for the iPhone and you will see after the break, it is just as addictive!!

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Sunstorm Games developed the very first deer hunting game back in 1997.  I can remember playing the game on one of my Motorola flip phones, using the phone’s center navigation pad to move and the OK button to fire.

Times have certainly changed.  The iPhone has brought cell phone games to a whole new level.  Real Deer Hunting, Sunstorm’s latest title, is described as a game that “boasts realistic deer behavior, outstanding graphics and the most immersive hunting experience.”

Does the game’s revival live up to the iPhone experience?  Read on to find out.

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Shape Services released an iPhone and iPod Touch application over the weekend that they claim will help convert the mountain of business cards you’ve collected into names in your iPhone address book. The description of the application says it will “import contact information right from business card to your iPhone contacts! Just take a photo of a business card and a New Contact is added!”. So how well does this $5.99 program work in real life? Continue Reading

Apparently, funky is going mainstream in the auto industry.

What began as a unique phenomena over at a little startup division of Toyota has now spread across other Asian automaker model lines. Nissan challenged the squared Scion with a Cube and now Kia has put their heart and “Soul” into the mix.

(Sorry, had to work the pun in somewhere.)

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Every once and a while a product comes along that really catches my eye.  Such was the case when I spotted an advertisement for the HyperMac external battery in a tech. magazine last month.  The HyperMac is currently the only external battery available for use with Apple’s line of Mac Book computers.  And with the new unibody Mac Book Pro and its built in battery the HyperMac might just be a must have for the true road warrior.

Hyper Shop, the company behind the HyperMac, was kind enough to send me a HyperMac 150Wh battery for review.  I’ve put it to the test and am ready to share my thoughts.

Does the HyperMac live up to my expectations?  Read on to find out.

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One of Boost’s unique features, in addition to traditional voice and text messaging, is the ability to connect subscribers using a walkie talkie type connection (formerly known as Direct Connect) accessed by pushing a button on the side of the Boost phone.

When the phone’s button is pushed you  connect almost instantly to another walkie talkie capable phone without any need to dial (other than the  unique walkie talkie number of the person you’re calling which is different than their phone number). These phones can also connect to Sprint/Nextel phones, participate in group chats and  work locally as well as nationwide.  Continue Reading

Here’s the dilemma: you’re listening to your favorite music, and outside noises are not only bleeding in, they are making your music less clear. Most people would turn up the volume to block the unwanted noise and amplify their audio. The only problem is that in the process, they might also be causing irreparable hearing loss. Then there’s the matter of bass and treble – sometimes your left ear needs more bass and your right more treble, and that’s not exactly something you can set on an equalizer. How do you handle that?

Sleek Audio, a two year old company that was started by the father and son audiologist team Mark and Jason Krywko, may have the answer; but first a bit of background. Sleek Audio “began when Mark found himself dissatisfied with the sound signature of the dozens of different earphones he had tried over the years, so as a 30 year veteran of the audio and custom hearing aid industries, he decided to build his own.”

It took Mark and Jason three years to develop exactly what they wanted, and then they introduced the SA6 acoustically customizable earphone. What set the SA6 apart from other earphones was that it was the world’s first to be acoustically customizable (more on that in a bit), and it could “go from wired, to wireless and back again.” The SA6 introduced another feature that I hadn’t seen before – a detachable and interchangeable cable… and they also came with a price tag that might intimidate the average user – $249.99. Granted, a die-hard audiophile probably wouldn’t blink when hearing that price, but it might be a lot to swallow for the listener who just wants something that blows away what came with his digital music player.

So how can the budget minded audioholic get great sound along with at least some of the features that made the SA6 such a revolutionary earphone? Say hello to the relatively budget-priced Sleek Audio SA1 earphone, not that you would ever be able to tell just by looking or listening.

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When I saw the press release announcing that HAVA was coming to the iTunes App Store and that it was an application which allowed for live streaming of your home television, I was intrigued.  I like to think I’m pretty knowledgeable when it comes to the live TV options available for the iPhone but I have to admit I’d never heard of HAVA.

I’m currently running both a Slingbox Solo and an EyeTV Hybrid in my home office.  The Slingbox allows me to view live TV on my Mac as well as my iPhone and doesn’t require the connected computer to be on.  The EyeTV also allows me to view live TV on my Mac and my iPhone and it also allows me to record shows on my Mac just like a DVR.  The recordings are then available for viewing on either the computer or the iPhone.  But the big drawback to EyeTV is that you must have the connected computer on with the application running to view streams remotely.

Both of these setups combined meet my live and recorded TV needs.  But do I really need two systems running independently to satisfy myself?  Turns out I might not.

I might just only need one system and that system might just be HAVA.

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Recently I was preparing to take a business trip over a weekend for a conference, and figured it would be a nice opportunity to watch a couple of DVD’s that the rest of the family didn’t have any interest in seeing yet again – Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Ran’ and The Marx Brothers’ ‘Night at the Opera’. My assumption was that I would use the Mac program Handbrake, which has done very nicely getting video from our DVDs to our kids’ iPods for long trips.

At the same time I had the opportunity to look at WinX DVD Ripper Free Edition, and I figured: what better way than to test the two free utilities side by side. I will comment on that comparison in a bit, but wanted to focus on a more recent opportunity to try out WinX DVD Ripper Platinum, based on a version supplied to me for free by the publisher. Continue Reading