AAUG Reviews

by Simone Lange ,AAUG Member

Most of us have at least a digital camera, a mouse, maybe an external keyboard, a printer and at least one or two external hard drives and we have all ran into the frustration of having to unplug a USB device to get another one to do its job. I actually have another USB hub that has 7 slots and those are all full. I still have to unplug a device because I always like to keep one on my Mac Book Pro open for the traveling thumb drive. The USB device that I usually unplug is my card reader since my Mac Book Pro no longer has that slot to slide it into.

The Kensington pocket media comes with 3 high speed USB 2.0 ports and does the job of two devices thereby leaving you with more open ports. The port is optionally powered and it is pretty compact and doesn’t leave a large foot print. Plus you don’t have an extra device taking up space. It also comes with a little carrying bag for you to put it and its power supply when you head out on the road.

I do have the port powered with its power supply and accessing my photos from the card reader has gone off without a hitch. I have noticed that sometimes my compact flash doesn’t like to slide in without some exact lining up of the edges. I do also have my drawing tablet connected to it and it functions beautifully. I can now have three extra devices connected to my computer (more…)

by Elaine Robinson ,AAUG Member

With so many earbud products out there, what makes the Earglove Sport Stereo Headset stand out? How about a lot of great features! The Body Glove Sport Stereo gives you a mobile phone and music player headset in one! It also has ultra comfortable earloops for a secure fit plus high fidelity speakers for superb sound quality. You don’t have to use the earloops, although I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to. You really don’t feel them and they make the earbud connection to your ear more secure. The earloops that are attached are black as is the tangle-resistant cord. Also included are two more sets of earloops in colors silver and black. I think it would make more sense to market these earloop separately with the same color cords. Personally, I think the extras seem a waste.

Other features include an answer/end button that automatically mutes music for incoming calls and resumes playing once call has ended (phone dependent). There’s an an attached clip to take up any excess cord. The connector plugs directly into stereo mobile phones with 2.5mm jack and also included is a 3.5mm adapter for your music player.

I normally listen to music while on my computer using USB Soundsticks with a bass speaker. I love my MacBookPro but the internal speakers are tinny sounding. (more…)

by Gary Miller ,AAUG Member

The new Belkin TuneBase FM charges your iPod and allows it to play over your car’s stereo system. Best is that with a stronger receiver, it brings in weak channels.

Here’s how it works. One end plugs into your cigarette lighter or power plug in. Then you find the perfect fitting cradle that holds your iPod in place, I used a full sized iPod Video, but had to take it out of it’s case, I would appreciate a larger cradle so i could use my case on the iPod. Anyway, when the iPod meets the power source, the FM station light comes on. With a quick click, it finds the best station, and you can search for 2 stations for it’s memory or you can manually do it. Then you tune your FM car radio to the same station - I use the FM2 area, to set my car’s radio on these stations, so i can just toggle between them, and you begin hearing what’s playing on your iPod. When I was in some areas of town, the signal was weak, so I again hit the button to seek stations, and it again found new ones that brought in the signal perfectly.

Another way it helps, is using mono frequency in weak areas, so it doesn’t have to work as hard as it does with Stereo stations. (more…)

by Elaine Robinson ,AAUG Member

If you just made a big investment for a new camera, I suggest you also spend a mere $19.99 for this book. You will not be sorry. True, the guide that came with my Nikon Cool Pix L5 camera covers the basics of operating the camera but the icons are so small that they are difficult to see. Not only does the Nikon COOLPIX Digital Field Guide have icons I can distinguish, it is also a guide to help you take better photos. I like that the guide has full color throughout and shows Macintosh screen shots. There are many example photos to show how to shoot better photographs.

The Nikon COOLPIX Digital Field Guide covers the Cool Pix P, S, and L Series of Nikon cameras. It is a 217 page paperback, though not pocket-sized, is not too big to carry with you. It displayed my camera in large pictures from all angles and pin pointed what all the buttons do. I really appreciated the chapter about navigating the different menus. You see different menus dependent on the mode selection and all are explained easily along with very readable screen shots. The modes are Auto, Scene and Movie and all menus are different.

You can learn about using your camera controls and get practical advice about choosing settings, exposure, composition and more. You can read about blur detection, in-camera editing, downloading and printing photos. While there is a wide range of subject matter for the three series of the Nikon camera, (more…)

by Elaine Robinson ,AAUG Member

Kensington says: Turn it on. Turn it up. Take it with you! What do you do when you don’t want to listen to your iPod with earbuds and don’t have a splitter for dual earbuds? The Kensington FX300 Speaker To Go may just suit your needs. With it you can share your favorite tunes anywhere, anytime.

The FX300 is a zippered black durable case that is impact and water resistant. When open, you will find the battery compartment ringed in a turquoise color and “on” indicator light on the right. On the left is a mesh storage space to keep your iPod secure and keep it protected from everyday wear and tear. There’s also room to store keys, cash or credit cards. On the exterior front is the on/off knob that also controls the volume. The sound is good and there is no distortion even at the top volume. A turquoise loop holds an aluminum D-clip so you can securely attach to your belt or backpack etc. I also like the rubberized zipper tab for an easy grip.

This case and speaker would be great for kids who tend not to protect iPods, hikers walking through brush, or for any outdoor activity. The price is right and it protects your iPod. Great! (more…)

by Steve Nigl ,AAUG Member

“This is the second book of Wiley Publishing’s Photo Workshop series that I’ve read. My first was on Composition, and I loved it! Their installment on portrait and candid photography was a close second. I’ve learned that these workshop books truly do stand on their own. Much like the ‘Dummies’ series, each book is individually authored, and as such each has a unique feel. Again like ‘Dummies’ books, the Photo Workshop series adheres to standards for layout and tips.

The author, Erin Manning, is a full-time pro photographer in L.A. who teaches and stars in a photo how-to television series. Erin covers all the nuts and bolts of portrait shooting. What equipment is needed, and how to get by with what you have. But the best information I came away with was how to ‘read’ light in everyday situations. To understand how light is falling on your subject and the effect it will have. Erin says that If you get your lighting worked out early-on in a session, you’re free to pay attention to your subject. I like Erin’s philosophy of identifying the key attributes of a person and bringing those qualities out in their photos.

Portrait and Candid Photography is another great ‘course-in-a-book from Wiley. It might be a bit basic for the intermediate to advanced user. I give it four out of five.

by Steve Nigl ,AAUG Member

“Photos that Inspire” is the sixth and (for now) final book in the series, and the third that I’ve reviewed. Unlike the others I’ve read, this volume is more of a desert-after-the-meal book. Instead of being organized as a tutorial on one facet of photography, such as composition or exposure, that takes the reader from begging to end; this book provides a couple hundred examples of good photos in many different genres. Each entry is one page in length and includes a high resolution image taken by a different photographer; an entry by the author about what the photo has to teach the reader; a comment paragraph by the artist discussing the thought process when the image was made; and technical data such as ISO, film speed, aperture, etc.

“Photos that Inspire” is one part coffee-table book and one part how-to. The author, Lynne Eodice, is the online editor for Double Exposure, the web-based newsletter for Photo Workshop. Before the Wiley series was introduced, the only way to access these photo classes was to enroll in a membership with Photo Workshop.

This book will entertain, but more importantly, it gives you the ’secrets of the trade’ from the perspective of hundreds of photographers. I loved it! It is not, however an indexed reference or a course unto itself.

by Margritt A. Engel, AAUG Member

There are dummies, and then there are dummies: This dummie would need many more months to fully appreciate, let alone properly evaluate this book. Even so, following Mark’s pretty precise instructions I have already learned a lot and gained enough confidence to believe that I will one day in the not-too-distant future approach my Leopard-equipped MacBook Pro without fear and trepidation. His folksy tone, sense of humor and easy-to-read conversational style are just right for people like me who are naturally intimidated by any and all technological devices. Because of my own insecurity, I am inclined to consider what shortcomings I might detect in a guide like this my own rather than the author’s. But I also suspect that occasional discrepancies between what Mark says will happen (e.g. on p. 171 about removing an icon from the Dock) and what actually happened when I did it may be due to some differences between the laptop and the ‘big” Mac Pro. Or that, between the time the book was written and published and last December when I purchased my MacBook, Leopard already evolved and added a few new wrinkles.
I was downright touched by Mark Chambers’ enthusiasm for his subject. “Elegant” is the first word in his Introduction, reflecting his initial reaction to Mac OS X and apparently his ultimate judgment. That elegance was certainly lost on me even though I have been a Mac user for 20 years and have never even tried to use a PC. At first, his extolling the virtues of this OS over Windows and other references to Windows rather annoyed me, but ultimately (more…)

by Chris Tofteberg ,AAUG Member

iWork is quickly becoming a full-fledged challenger to Microsoft Office. The addition of Numbers, a spreadsheet application, demonstrates this. And for the average user, there’s every reason to make iWork your default office suite.

iWork ‘06 included Pages, a word processor, and Keynote, a presentation application. iWork ‘08 also included Pages and Keynote but adds Numbers, a spreadsheet application. For Microsoft Office users, think of these as Word, PowerPoint and Excel, respectively. Only on steroids.

We’ll start with Pages. Previous to iWork ‘08, Pages felt like an application with an identity crisis. It was kind of like a word processor but also kind of like a page layout editor. Pages ‘08 keeps both of these functions but splits them into two functions. At launch, Pages prompts for either word processing tasks or page layout tasks. In addition to splitting these functions, Apple made the word processor look and act like a word processor and made the page layout editor look like a page layout editor. That’s not to say that one lacks the features of the other; Apple has just made it easier to start as one or the other. Now it looks and feels like an honest-to-goodness competitor to Word. And Publisher. Depends which one you want it to be. (more…)

by Robert King ,AAUG Member

This full-color, 380-page book provides great information for shooting, sharing, and editing digital photos. Like other “Dummies” books, it is very well written in clear English for beginners and intermediate users of digital photography. Its tips and well-organized information also make it a good reference book for advanced users who will certainly discover things they didn’t know. As a book especially for the beginner, it is structured to cover a great variety of subjects, including providing an introduction to the subject of digital photography that places it in historical context with film-based photography.

The book is conveniently organized into five parts. Part 1 is “Peering through the digital viewfinder” and is an overview that also introduces topics that are explored in greater detail later in the book. These include what digital photography is and how it works, type of cameras and how to operate them, saving and displaying digital information, plus what you can do with them on your computer.

Part 2, entitled “Ready, Set, Shoot!,” builds on information in the first part by explaining how to achieve the right camera settings, how to control exposure and focus, and in general, how to get optimal pictures.

Part 3 takes your digital photographs from your camera to your computer and beyond into ways to display, share, and print them.

Part 4, called “Tricks of the Digital Trade,” provides a great overview of how you can use your computer and various programs to manipulate your digital image to achieve things virtually impossible with older film-based photography. Here you learn important skills like how to sharpen focus, cover flaws, create “new” (more…)