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For those who are sick of Microsoft Office for Mac, which is extremely bulky and slow, iWork is a great alternatives for Mac users. The current version of iWork, iWork 09 only costs $79 for one license and $99 for a family pack that you can install on five computers, which in my opinion is totally worth while if you only have more than one Mac. While Microsoft Office has Word, Excel and Powerpoint, iWork has: Pages, Numbers and Keynote which are the respective alternatives to their MS Office counterparts. Pages is a very well designed and well made Word Processor and does everything that I would need a word processor to do, including opening Microsoft Word documents. Numbers, the newest addition to iWork is a great spreadsheet tool and although it may not have many of the advanced features of Excel, for most people it is more than you need! Finally, is Keynote which I and many others believe is the killer app for iWork it is an amazing presentation tool that surpasses the standard Powerpoint. All three applications have a stunning  template gallery with many templates which helps make documents much easier.

For the price, which is a lot less than what you would pay for MS Office, I highly recommend iWork over Office for the Mac. That said there are a few disadvantages to iWork. First, and probably the most important disadvantage is that you can not automatically save to Office formats making it a little annoying to use Office formats because they are standards many people would like to continue using them. There is however, a modification that you can do to make pages save to .Doc automatically and makes at least one application easier to use. The other disadvantage is that unlike Office, iWork does not have a full email client, like Entourage. However, OSX’s built-in mail client is extremly good and could fill in.

All-in-all, iWork is a great, easy to use office suite for the Mac and is definitely a great replacement for the slow Office for the Mac. I have made the switch out of frustration with Office and I recommend making the switch to this great suite.

Picture from My Flickr Page

As you might of heard on The Weekly Spin or on my Twitter feed, my old Logitech headset that I used to record The Weekly Spin and used for general Skype use broken and I had to return it to Newegg! Luckily it was under warranty and because of that after I returned it I was able to get another microphone with the same value which was $20! There were not many USB microphones or headsets for $20 except this one so, I knew it was really my only option. The Logitech USB Microhphone was my choice and I am so grateful that I made that choice. After I plugged it in for the first time and tested out recording I found out that this microphone is extraordinary! The voice quality is great and even when I put it  directly in front of my old Dell Laptop that makes a lot of noise all it picks up is my voice. This is because of the noise cancellation built into the microphone which makes this great for podcasters as well as anyone who needs to do voice-over work!  The only compalint that I have is because I have gotten used to having a headset with the microphone directly in front of my face, having a standing mic takes some getting used to and requires some pre-recording testing to asure good audio levels.

Overall, I recommend anyone just starting doing professional recording it is completely worth the money and will not disappoint! I am excited to begin using this for The Weekly Spin and other projects because of it’s superior quality, it makes me almost glad my old microphone broke because this microphone has much higher quality!

For those who have multiple computer and want to access files between them, usually requires the user to use either an external hard drive or thumb drive and manually move the file from one computer to another! However, that is now a thing of the past with Dropbox. With Dropbox, all you need to do is sign up for an account and install the program on all the computers you want to use, the program works on both Mac as well as Windows. With the free account you get 2 GB of storage but, if you need more you could pay for up to 5o GB of storage. With Dropbox, you have a cloud drive that you can use like a thumb drive, but once you save files to the Dropbox, they are automatically uploaded to the web and then are synced to the other computers. This makes thumb drives a thing of the past and let you just save files to Dropbox and you can access it anywhere, even online in your browser!

Personally, I use my Dropbox to sync files between my Macbook Pro which is on my desk most of the time with my netbook that I take to class so, my school work is availible and up-to-date one whatever computer I choose to use! If you think 2 GB is not enough for you, which if you are just doing documents it should, since I have all my school files on there and some other stuff and I am only use 2%! However, if you need more you can get another .25 GB for going through the Dropbox tutorials and even more if you invite your friends! Dropbox is a great solution if there a a few crucial files you want to have backed up, Dropbox is a awesome way to do it! If you want to not worry about copying files and remembering a thumb drive give Dropbox a try, you will not be disappointed!

I figured that since I was going to be majoring in video production in college, that it would be a good idea to get a video camera. I had already looked around with Michael Plasmeier for a new camera for Tecker 911 and decided on the Canon Vixia HF100, so it was a no brainer after using it for one shoot, that it was the camera for me. It is extremly well designed and has a lot of semi-pro features for the inspiring videographer.

It has a microphone in jack for people producing more professional video, headphones out to monitor audio levels, as well as audio monitors on the LCD screen. It uses SD cards and AVCHD formatting which works amazingly well with Final Cut! SD cards are very inexpensive and you can get a 32 GB card for like $30 which can record hours of video! Speaking of video it is very high-quality and only has problems when you are shooting in low-lighting! It has many pre-set white balances to get the best video quality and even a manual White Balances for the pros! One of the other really cool features is that you can take still pictures while you are recording video which can be very useful. Battery life is pretty good and it is always best torun the camera off wall power when availible. The camera also comes with a remote control so the camera operator doesn’t have to stand directly behind the camera for the whole shoot and, as we found out at Tecker 911, if you have multiples of this camera, one remote can control them all!

I only have two complaints, one is low light quality and the other is lack of zoom, I would love some more zoom control.

However, all-in-all this camera is awesome and I cannot wait to make more awesome videos with this. Canon really makes great equipmement and I hope they keep it up!

http://www.vimeo.com/5986579

Mike Gdovin gives a review of his new HP Mini 1000 netbook!

Image Hosted Courtesy of Flickr

While I was in New York City, Plaz and I visited a Sprint Store and had the chance to try out the new Palm Pre. At first I thought the Pre was the first phone that could challenge the iPhone but after using the device it seems the Pre still needs to be developed signifigantly to be a true iPhone competitor.

The device itself is significantly smaller the iPhone also leading to a smaller screen which makes the device harder to use. The other major issue is the keyboard, while the iPhone has a generous touch screen keyboard, the Pre has a minuscule plastic hardware keyboard and makes it difficult to do long writing on while on my iPod Touch I can easily write full blog post and data entry to me is very important in choosing a mobile device.

The Palm WebOS is nice but has a steep learning curve. The gestures to operate the phone are quite confusing and makes getting started using the phone complicated. The multi-tasking is the one feature that makes iPhone user jellous and it is well done in a Mac OSX  expose style. However at first using this powerful feature is hard to use. The other major flaw is the lack of and app store and it’s over dependance on web apps. This enraged early iPhone users and I had hoped that Palm had learned from Apple’s earlier mistake.

Overall, I think that the Palm Pre was a good first try to challenge the iPhone but still needs a lot of improvements before becoming a real iphone challenger. It has potential but if they fix the problems I pointed out, then it could be a rival to the iPhone. But for now and with iPhone 3.0 Software and the new iPhone 3Gs on the horizon, they are still the best smartphones on the market.

http://www.vimeo.com/5986482

Mike Gdovin gives a review and tour of the great Cloud software, Evernote

When my old phone was on the verge of breaking, and I was already at the shopping center, I decided to buy a new cell phone to replace my old Motorola C70 and I chose it’s big brother, the W76g which although is very similar to my old phone, has a few features that are very conveient for me.The Motorola C76g is a prepaid flip phone that costs $30 from Tracfone, which is my favorite prepaid cell phone provider.

The W76g is a basic flip cell phone that does everything a regular phone does. The phone itself, is slimmer than my own phone but, besides that it looks almost identical to the old phone.  The keyboard is great, it is a very nice, rubberized keyboard that makes typing very enjoyable as well as easy. Another feature that I probably will never use is the built-in Fm Radio Tuner, but as I have said, I am not very interested in radio. The camera on the phone is very nice, it has various shooting modes and options that are very advanced for a camera phone like exposure control, that usually only appear in higher-end digital cameras. This is my first camera phone and I think I will make good use of it in the near future. The only complaint is that the camera is at the base of the lid and sometimes my fingers get in the way when I am holding the phone. The other big feature is Bluetooth, which is great for using hands-free headsets and headphones.

Overall, the W76g, is a very good basic phone that does everything I need for only $30, I reccommend you buy it because if you use your  phone infrequently and just need a no-frills phone this is the phone for you. It also comes with a built-in freee minutes for life subscription so everytime you buy a airtime card you get double the value for as long as you continue to use Tracfone.

Yesterday, Apple unveiled their newest version of the iPod Shuffle  and just to preface this review, I have never been a major fan of the iPod Shuffle and am a very satisfied iPod Touch user and do not think the shuffle is what I would need. Despite all this, I will give a fair  review of the new product top help my readers get a fair  picture. 

The new  iPod Shuffle has a new capacity of 4 Gigabytes, which holds about 1,000 songs. The price has also gone up to $80, a  $30 difference  over the old price. The design has been reverted back to the original “Stick of gum” design and has moved the controls onto the headphones which I do not understand why they did that. The only new feature they added was Voice-over, which allows your  ipod shuffle to read the name and the artist of the songs before they play so that you  know  what song  is coming up, this also works on playlists which is great. The shuffle also allows you to use multiple playlists and with voice-over, you can choose the playlist  you want. 

All-in-all, I guess the  iPod Shuffle is a good entry level iPod  although I would recommend getting a Nano, Classic  or Shuffle that has a larger capacity and a screen.  However, on the  other hand the voice-over feature has replaced  many of the functions of a screen but, I like more features. I was surprised  at the price jump they made because Apple usually  updates features and keeps prices the same but they practically doubled the price this time. All-in-all the iPod  Shuffle is a great basic  music player although I doubt it will continue in the current fashion much longer. 

The ipod touch has been the best experience I have had with any Mp3 player and is even better that my two PDAs. It is slim, yet powerful, and is more than just a MP3 player. The ipod touch plays music, videos, and podcasts, that is all standard features that most MP3 players have.  The ipod touch took it one step forward with a web browser, email app, weather app and an application store that allows the users to choose additional applications to install on their device over WiFi. This allows the device to operate  as a gaming device as well as a productivity tool because the applications let you choose what you want to use the device for.

The iPod Touch starts at $229 for the 8 GB model, I recommend getting the mid-level model which is 16 GB for $300 and for those  who have a lot of content, you might want to look at the 32 GB model that is $400. The device is sleek and there are times that I forget that I have it in my pocket. The media playing features are easy to use and navigate and makes consuming media extremly enjoyable. The web browser is very powrful and the multitouch zoom is great to get a closer look on websites. Email is also very powerful and I love how Gmail Contacts and messages sync with much ease. Finally, the app store makes it easy to get more apps and expand the functionality of your device and I think it is great for the device.

The only downsides that  I can come up with, is the lack of copy and paste and I would like it if it had a built-in Microphone and camera. However, all-in-all the iPod Touch is probably the best MP3 player on the market.