...and it's totally awesome.

 Is it just me, or are new LEGO sets a lot simpler and less challenging than old ones? 

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Naturally, many of us here at GeekaChicas appreciate online purveyors of Geek  accoutrements such as ThinkGeek. They have all kinds of cool stuff, and I love ogling their catalog (when I can pry it out of the hands of my offspring and Beloved).

Even so, every now and then something comes along that surpasses the usual level of Geek interest, and here's one them:

That's right! This was done entirely with cool, Geeky objects and apparel available at Think Geek.

Now if only I could find a cool excuse to buy Cthluhlu in Love perfume.

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Well, it's been a while since I began my Butt-Toning Sneakers Experiment, so I figured I'd give an update.

I've been wearing the sneakers pretty much....anywhere that is sneaker-appropriate.  Thanks to my lifestyle, sneakers are appropriate about 90% of the time.  The arch support is amazing, and they actually helped me improve my balance.  I'm a natural klutz, and Reebok Easytone forces your body, even when standing still, to make small adjustments to balance on the soles of the shoes.

They look great.  The only people who've noticed that I'm wearing butt-toning sneakers are women, and they only notice when I kick off the sneakers or something and they see the soles of the shoes.  At which point, they generally ask how they work, where I got them, and mention surprise at the lack of Titanic Boat Appearance.  These things work undercover.  They are the butt-toning 007's of the sneaker world. 

It's hard for me to give a good analysis of the actual toning, since I don't really have an objective source for that.  I will say that personally, I feel better about my posterior.  I've also had several comments on improvements of the contours of my legs, which means muscle tone is probably becoming more obvious...and quite frankly, I received frequent compliments on my legs before I started the experiment (sort of a given due to my height), so an addition to that is notable in my eyes.

They make jogging a bit tougher.  Expect to get a little more winded at first just because you're adjusting to them.  As I said, I can't really say anything about the booty region, but so far, it seems like I've had good results.  And it's not like they cost much more than any other athletic shoe worth its salt.  I deem Reebok Easytone sneakers a good investment. 

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If you knew me in Real Life, you'd probably already know that I'm dangerously addicted to TED Talks. If you are reading this and have no idea what TED is, here's an explanation from the TED website:

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

The TED Talks are video recordings of  people giving talks at these TED conferences. The smartest, most accomplished people in the world, telling me about their work, their ideas, their cutting edge gadgets. Right there on the web, for free.

I could lose DAYS on this stuff. I'm not the only one. Last year, my husband and brother-in-law (with total family involvement from our excited children)  hacked their Wii remote to create a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer after watching this TED Talk by Johnny Lee:

I ask you, where else could you find information that would make a whole family excited about disassembling  part of an expensive video game system instead of just, you know, using it to play games. (Of course, later that summer we created a low-tech air conditioner with a a box fan, a length of copper tubing and a bucket of ice water,  so maybe we're not the best examples.)

Still there is a lot of information to be had there. I can trace the fact that my sons are now home schooled back to this talk by Sir Ken Robinson, about how schools kill creativity (fair warning- it's 20 minutes long, but quite amusing):

 

 Now, for the tech-lovers among us, take a look at this jaw-droppingly awesome augmented reality mapping technology from Microsoft:

They have now added a "Best of the Web" feature which allows them to share extraordinary and inspiring talks that were not recorded at TED conferences. Like the Harvard commencement speech given by J.K. Rowling that has so recently moved and inspired me, The Fringe Benefits of Failure.

Many of the shorter, more entertaining videos have made their way onto YouTube. The best of these give us insight into our world and ourselves, or else give detailed instructions on how to turn household appliances into doomsday devices.

Well, okay. Not really. But TED Talks are like the best bits of the best lectures you might ever have heard in college, and they are totally free. What's not to love about that?

I am going to leave you with one I found to be quite fun, though perhaps not earth-shatteringly revolutionary. Micheal Shermer: Why People Believe Strange Things.

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Let me show you something that is really, really awesome. "Adspecs" have been in the planning stages for a couple of years, but the word is now getting out about them, and they're such a cool idea that it makes me proud to be human. Here's a quick video that explains what they are:

Adspecs from Joel on Vimeo.

Did you see that? Adspecs are glasses with oil-filled lenses that can be adjusted to a variety of prescriptions, on the fly. For a lot of people with ordinary bad eyesight and little or no money, these could be a game-changer. Farsighted, nearsighted -- heck, they can even be bifocal if you don't mind a little dialing between looking near and far.

Now, I know that there are organizations of eye care professionals who go into countries where the population is under-served and  help people get glasses through donations, but I'm sure there time could be better spent focusing on the cases that really require their expertise -- vision problems that can't be easily corrected by a simple prescription. Plus, these things are a LOT cheaper to get in the hands of people who need them.

I first heard about them on Gizmodo (OMG, LOVE Gizmodo - so much concentrated cool gadgetry), and found it a revolutionary, cool idea. As someone whose life has been much the better for access to first-world eye care, I speak from experience when I say that being able to see clearly can make the difference between a productive life and life-long dependence.

This Gizmodo article quotes the Centre for Vision in the Developing World's Owen Reading:

"They require very little training to dispense, can be dispensed by an organisation's volunteers in the field, they only need to be delivered once and can make a difference for years afterwards, and are inherently safer (and less valuable on the black market) than items such as prescription medications."

The current design costs about $20.00  a pair which is a tremendous bargain, but still well above what their goal cost-per-unit. This is a work in progress, but one I can certainly get behind. 

I know most of us here at GC love to read. I can't even imagine what my life would have been like without books. So the idea that a $20.00 donation might give someone the chance to read -- or get a job, or heck, just a chance to see the world around a little clearer -- really excites me.

What a truly great idea.

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The iPad seems, on the face of it, like it would be ideal for someone like me - someone who is less than super tech savvy. It is a sexy piece of technology. It's beautiful, functional and it has hipster cachet.

But it's also horribly, deliberately crippled.

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Space shuttles are for sale, people.  And as sad as I am that the shuttle program is ending, I'm also curious to see where NASA is going to go with their next program.

Unfortunately, I'm a little short of the $28.8 million price tag as far as my personal funds are concerned.  Wanna split one?

We can keep it in the field behind my house, and the engines are free!  All we need is a few mechanical engineers, and we can start our very own commercial spaceflight business.  Let's give Richard Branson a run for his money. 

Even better, let's actually go through with the plans I gave my university for my degree:  let's equip it with phasers and torpedoes and go build a base on the moon.  

From there, who knows?  I think the grand majority of Cool Space Stuff is going to come from the market at this point instead of from NASA. 

Vulcan, here we come! 

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There have been various shoes out on the market that claim to help tone one's legs and whatnot.  However, I like sneakers better than clogs or flip flops, and most of the toning sneakers on the market have massive, massive soles.  Perfectly fine if you have average feet and are of average height.  Very awkward if you're tall and have big feet.  You kind of look like you're wading around on lifeboats from the Titanic.

So I wasn't about to spring for a pair of Lifeboat Shoes, but I wanted toning sneakers.  Enter Reebok's EasyTone line.  They come in about fifty colors and styles, and they don't have three inch thick soles.  I can actually feel like I'm not broadcasting the fact that "HI THESE ARE TONING SNEAKERS BECAUSE I WISH TO IMPROVE MY ASS."  I bought a pair.  They look good; a little nicer than the average sneaker, and so far, they feel great.  We'll have to see how my legs and butt feel (and look) in a few weeks to see if they actually live up to their claim, but I'm optimistic.  FitFlops did work; I just had style issues with them.  These Reeboks have fantastic arch support, if nothing else.  What do you think....two week State of the Butt addresses to find out if they live up to the hype?  Either way, they seem like great sneakers that I would've seriously considered purchasing even if I was looking for an average athletic shoe.

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We’ve used this space to review the Kindle, and even the proponents’ position barely edged above ‘meh.’ Let’s face it, many book lovers are simply not down with the whole ebook thing. Some of us, bless our hearts, love paper in all its forms.

Yes, friends and neighbors, I am a paper-lover.  Many a time, my significant other has had to drag me out of stationery stores, art supply stores, even places like Staples or Office Max. Blank books, art pads, bulk packages of yellow legal pads—I don’t care. It all pushes my buttons. I even have my own paper-making kit, and made use of it frequently until we stopped getting a newspaper (and frankly, my blender is the happier for it).

I like paper.

I like holding a book in my hands, turning the pages. The one possible exception to this is the huge, unwieldy book, which is difficult to read in bed without wrist strain, or the occasional black eye. I do, however, truly enjoy the tactile experience of reading a book.

That said, I can also see the appeal of an ebook reader. You have this one little thing you can carry with you, and it can have hundreds of books that you want to read, right there in your pocket, purse or briefcase. That is really cool.

The Kindle is supposed to be the easiest on the eyes of available ebook readers, but I still don’t want one and I will tell you why.

First of all, you don’t really own your ebooks on the Kindle. They say you do, but you’re really just renting them. They say that if you take a book you’ve bought off your Kindle to make room for new stuff, you can download it again later, free of charge. They want you to think of the Kindle store as a box of paperbacks in your attic – they’re yours, and you can get one out and slap it on your Kindle anytime.

That simply isn’t so. Every book you ‘buy’ through the Kindle store has a limit set on the number of downloads, established by the publisher. So if your Kindle breaks, or you upgrade to the newest version, or need to download a particular book to your Kindle application on your iPhone, well, you might exceed the magic limit, and have to ‘buy’ the book again.

Plus, we’ve all heard about 1984 by George Orwell being snatched off people’s Kindles in the dead of night (and, OMG, the lovely poetical resonance of the book thus snatched). Of course the Kindle owners were given refunds, but that is hardly the point. Poor Amazon, the big, fun company with all the people skills of a badger with Asperger’s.

That’s pretty much it, for me. It’s not buying something if the seller can take it away from you whenever they want. Sorry, it’s just not.

Also, I need an ebook reader that will allow me to upload my own files. The ebook reader on my phone does that, and I’ve enjoyed it (aside from the fact that my screen is tiny and the formatting gets wonky when I embiggen* the type).

But why, you ask, would a person want to upload non-copyrighted files to an ebook reader? Surely, that is a sign I must be up to no good, thieving the works of hard-working authors. That is another strike against ebooks in general – authors get somewhat shafted on their ebook royalties, even the ones sold legitimately – but I am not a book thief. (Pervert, maybe. Thief, no.)

No, I simply like to be able to take books and stories – ones I have legitimate access to – with me when I travel. See, I sometimes work as a copyeditor, and also like to read fanfiction. (Ha! There, I said it. I won’t elaborate – feel free to imagine me in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, devouring Jar-Jar Binks/Ewok slash. )

 Last year, I was pre-reading a novel written by one of our regulars here at GC. This was not a copyediting job, for which I would need either a paper copy or a computer, but a pre-read/whole novel feedback sort of thing. I was able to load it on my phone and go camping with my family, which worked out great. I was able to enjoy reading in the good old outdoors without risking damage to a manuscript, or having pages get blown away. The best part was that I didn’t have to use a light to read, so I didn’t keep anyone up at night or attract bugs with a lantern.

Add to that the unabashed pleasure of reading some fun fanfiction without being chained to a computer, and it becomes obvious that the Kindle is not for me.

Sorry, Amazon dudes.

 *just doing my part to mutate the English language

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I still remember the day when my dear sister unveiled her Shuttlecraft Galileo ornament, complete with the little button that, when pressed, played a recording of Leonard Nimoy's voice saying,"Shuttlecraft to Enterprise, Shuttlecraft to Enterprise. Spock here. Happy Holidays. Live Long and Prosper." We had a proper little Geek-out, complete with Spock-love squee.  Soon it had become a regular part of her holiday  shopping -- buying the next geektastic Keepsake Ornament from Hallmark.

I gradually distanced myself from this practice, smiling and squeeing politely over her latest acquisition, but not truly coveting them. I even giggled when people made jokes about those geek tree ornaments, never mentioning that my sister owned the lot of them.

I'm here to tell you, friends and neighbors, the joke is on me. These collectibles have proved to be a smarter investment than most retirement funds. Not just the ornaments, either. She has painted plates and toys and a replica of Indiana Jones' hat. She has an honest-to-goodness bat'leth on display over the head of her bed.  (I admit to having a soft spot in my heart for bladed weapons, a feeling which my dear sister appears to share.)

Her investment strategy has worked out well. Basically, she buys only what genuinely pushes her buttons. Some have increased in value considerably, and some have not, but she loves them all. Thing is, being her sister and knowing the placement of her buttons as I do, this makes finding the perfect either very simple, or extremely difficult.

The difficulty arises when  I find the perfect thing for her, but have to devise ways to prevent her from buying it for herself without giving away that I'm getting it for her. Hence to my current dilemma.  A Deadly Duel, or Han Solo dressed as a stormtrooper?

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Normally, I'd choose a different title, but this one is short and to the point.  Geek ladies, myself included, are often very, very bad at keeping things organized or have an organizational system that causes their living areas to look similar to the way they will appear after the zombie apocalypse.  Living in a house with six computers, a blowtorch, five billion books, multiple gaming systems, stacks upon stacks of comic books...it can be a lot to handle!  I'm particularly lazy when it comes to trying to organize my stuff.  Here are a few things I've found helpful.

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It's starting.  Spouses, siblings, friends and parents are starting to eye you up.  Not for anything nefarious, or at least nothing more than the usual nefarious things they eye you up for, but because they're trying to figure out how to get you away from that computer and into a plane/train/automobile for some "vacation."  Now I don't know about you, but a week off of work with nothing but some good tunes, my cats and a brand new operating system to play with *is* vacation.  Ok, well, if I could manage not to have to deal with their litterbox it would be.  Unfortunately, the n00bs in my family just don't understand that the sun is trying to kill me!!  Or they're in on teh evil plot!

I'm not afraid to say that I'm an occasional reader of Cosmo, Vogue and very rarely Martha Stewart.  What?  I'm making sure I know what the other girls are thinking and yes, this is so that I don't completely make an ass of myself when out with non-geeks.  The one thing I notice, is that their penultimate travel guide never EVER has a single thing that I would bring with me.  Seriously, they don't even mention computers, cameras, and mp3 players.  Do they really expect me to leave all my tech at home?  You're kidding right?

So without any further ado, the geek girl's guide to travelling!!

I'm not really going to talk about clothing, because really I can barely dress myself let alone anyone else.  Besides, Cosmo, Vogue and all the rest have all that stuff already covered.  But!  If you're in need of new geeky shirts, my favorite place is Jinx and FBod Studios as they're just awesome and have something for the geek in all of us.  Seriously, though, clothing is usually not optional and you do want to remember some.

If you're like me and you have to have your computer pried away from your cold dead hands, this is just the thing.  Netbooks are all the rage right now, and with the introduction of HP and Dell into the market you can tell they're more than a fad.  These are perfect for travel as they're small, light and can easily fit into a purse or carry on bag.  They've got a 3 hour battery and with a price tag of $180 dollars for a brand new low end model, you really can't beat it.  Especially if you just need to indulge in your Facebook obsession and chat about the latest Star Trek Movie.

Now if you're like me, you'd love to have tunes at the beach but don't like sharing.  It's the way to block out the world, pretend that you're in your den of geek and forget all about that evil sun that's trying to do you harm.  These sunglasses are a great way to look cool and still have your tunes.  They're bluetooth enabled headphones, so totally wirefree and awesome looking, as long as your ipod or cell phone has bluetooth.  If you're strapped for cash , and who isn't right now, or don't have bluetooth enabled music there's also these cool looking sunglasses as well, though they have the mp3 player built into the glasses instead of bluetooth.  Still, a 1g mp3 player might be a better choice than of potential damage to the ipod.

 

 

Of course, if you're a bit old school like me and enjoy headphones with wires, or you're just anti-batteries, there's much love for skullcandy headphones.  These are the most comfortable headphones I've ever owned and I've owned plenty.  They have high fidelity headphones for every person, plus they come in awesome colors.  Hot pink?  Rastafarian stripes?  They have them, no doubt.  Plus?  My low end ink'd earbuds work a helluva lot better on an airplane than my 70 dollar noise reduction Sony headphones.  And starting at 19.95 for the ink'd they're a fantastic steal. (Actually, Amazon has several varieties of skullcandy earbuds (like those shown to the right) for $12.95 on sale. ~ the Manegement)

 

Cameras are another great thing for vacations.  If you're low on storage or going on that vacation of epic proportions you'll probably want to buy a new camera card, and if you have kids or really annoying family that just can't wait for you to upload your pictures an EYE-FI card is a great little gadget.  Retailing at $49.99 for the very basic 2G card, this little card allows your camera to upload it's photos on it's own.  The way it works, is that the Eye-Fi card has a small wireless device in the card, and if it can connect to the internet it'll upload your pictures.  If your home computer is on?  Well, then it'll go ahead and download your pictures from the Eye-FI servers, meaning that you have your pictures safely on your drive at home, away from accidental sunscreen damage.

Now that we've got our tunes, our camera, and our computer the question is, where the heck are we gonna put it all?  This is gonna sound a little controversial but bear with me here.  I have found the coolest thing ever for taking all the goodies on the plane.  You know those boxes that our sisters and moms carry?  You know the ones, that they swear by that have all their cosmetics and such?  They go by the usual name of vanity case.  They're usually hard cases and come with a nifty shoulder strap.  Well, the one thing that our moms and sisters failed to mention is that they've got a bunch of pockets and elastic straps to keep all their little bottles upright.  Well, we've got a bunch of wires and cords and small techy items that will fit perfectly in all those little things.  Plus my netbook fits perfectly into it and so all my geektastic fun is in one place and actually organized.

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Excuse me while I geek out for a moment. *EEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeEEEEEeeep*

Okay, I'm back now. *whew*  The above picture is of a new toy called The Force Trainer. It's an EEG/neurofeedback controlled toy. You wear the headset and concentrate on making a little ball float up in the tube, powered by fans beneath the base that are activated when the headset picks up beta waves.

How freaking cool is that? It was recently unveiled by Uncle Milton Industries, and is slated to go on sale in the fall. Oh, do I know what I want for Christmas, or what? It's a bit pricey at $113.00, but it seems quite worth it.

Here is a video of a man from the company demonstrating it:

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Kindle 2's been out for a while.  Others have had plenty of time to review it, but I honestly threw it on my birthday gift list without waiting to hear from anyone.  So mid-March, I cheerfully unpacked my own.

I actually waited until after I'd used it for a couple of books to read what anyone else has to say.  I was also fairly uninformed about the first version of Kindle - it had been too pricey for what it offered, as far as I was concerned.  I offer the following comparison reviews for your own reading:  Engadget, CNET,  and Gearlive.

Having never touched the original Kindle, my own observations can't address the differences.  I will say that Kindle 2 is a very fun gizmo.  Its lack of a carrying case is a pretty large failing point, since it's so tiny for it to easily slide behind other things or easily escape notice, resulting in many a panic attack when you realize you can't find your super expensive, shiny gizmo ON TOP of the flash drive that got away.  Along the same lines, the size is a double-edged sword.  It is completely awesome when you're trying to conceal the fact that you're reading at work in class at inappropriate times.  Most of the reactions I got from people who did take enough notice to comment on it were strongly leaning toward the curious.  A few people thought it was a game, though I'm not sure why, since off the top of my head I can't come up with any game worth its salt that can be played simply by off-hand taps of the thumb.

At any rate, by this point the "Oooh!  Shiny gadget!" factor has had time to wear off, so I can give a perspective without being blinded by the novelty.  As I said, the size is really cool from a gadget standpoint...but without a carrying case, it could easily get lost among other things - especially if, like me, you carry enough in your purse to survive a week in the wilderness.

The biggest issue I had (and have continued to have) arose because the Kindle 2 was a gift.  My mother purchased it with her own Amazon account, which made life very confusing when I tried to use it to purchase books.  I know they say that you can just log in to your own account and put some number in or something, but it was a little more complicated than that for me.  I still haven't quite gotten to the point that I can purchase directly from the Kindle 2 - but I can certainly send it books I purchase while on my laptop.

The screen is amazing.  I get headaches from certain light bulbs.  I get headaches from staring at the computer screen - in fact, I feel one coming on right now.  It's fair to say I was extremely doubtful about the Kindle 2's ability to actually eliminate that factor from my reading words on a screen.  My fears were completely unfounded.  Entirely.  The screen is fantastic.  It reads like paper.  It reads better than other e-book gadgets I've glanced at, so good job, Amazon!  The ability to make notes and highlight passages is also very cool.  I probably would have given an arm and a leg to have had one of these in college....loaded up with my textbooks.  My back would have thanked me, and it would have added an extra entertainment factor to the reading I was assigned.  Also, I could have avoided the hassle of carrying non-academic books to and from various dorm rooms, many being lost in the process.

I would have been equally thankful to have one during the "Katrina semester," when I was relocated to Chicago to continue school thanks to certain unpleasant conditions in New Orleans.  Riding the El is often either boring or uncomfortable, and I had to keep borrowing other people's books or re-reading my own.  It would've been great to have a much less bulky alternative.

For the sake of college students everywhere, all textbooks should be available through Kindle.

The controls can be a little confusing at first, but that may also be because I'm more of a "play with it ‘til it does stuff" person as opposed to a "read the manual first" sort of gadget-lover.  It didn't take long to figure out, and in all honesty, the only control complaint I can make is that the page-turning keys take a little too much pressure...but only a tad.

I'm not saying everyone should go out and buy one.  The thing costs a fortune.  At the same time, if you have some gift-worthy event approaching (graduation, birthday, Flag Day, Tuesday), it's worth trading out several smaller gifts for this pricier one.  The same goes for those of you who may have to give gifts for graduations, birthdays, Flag Days, or Tuesdays - think Kindle 2 before you go on a scavenger hunt, especially if you know the recipient has a book collection too large for his or her book storage furniture to handle.

(if you're not paying for it)

(if it's coming out of your own pocket)

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Pardon me while I try to contain my inner 8 year old.  Think back to the dawn of Star Wars, the original trilogy. Do you remember how unbelievably freaking scary Darth Vader was, before we found out he was really a whiny emo bitch massively compensating for something? Yeah, I know it's hard, but try.

Yesterday, one of my devoted minions emailed me a link to a  Gizmodo article about this:

 It's not on the market yet, but rumor has it that it will soon be released from Sakar. I'm going to keep an eye out, because if anything wakes you up good and solid, it's opening your eyes to a Lord of the Sith with talk radio blaring out of his head.

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Due to a very sad set of circumstances, I've gone through not one, but three digital audio players in the last two years. Two were Creative and one was an Apple. The latest, when my Creative Zen ran away from home on the night of the Inauguration, gave me the opportunity to buy what I had been drooling and wanting for over a year. An iTouch.

First, I will say that unless you are willing to jailbreak your iTouch, if you have Linux this is not the device for you.

Due to the new encrypted database that the iTouch uses, it's now incompatible with Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox and all those other iTunes like programs out there for Linux. This gave me serious cause for reservation, as up until now I had been happily Windows-free, and loving it, for over 3 years. There was that blip where I got my new HP and was forced due to the less than optimal Libyan, we-will-cut-you-off-if-you-even-think-about-going over-your-allowed-bandwidth, Internet service to use Vista until some sweet soul could send me the newest Ubuntu install, but I don't like to talk about that. However, as my good friend Kim mentioned, I use a virtual machine for my banking as it was, so there should be no problem putting the iTunes on that. Yeah...that was a good thought anyway and got me over my reservations on not being able to use it at all.

After two weeks of having to listen to either staticy Arabic music on the radio or the one lone CD I had in my car, I received my iTouch. Oh it was just as glorious as I remember my brother's being. It was shiny and pretty and I couldn't wait to just look at all the games on it. Only to find, that in order to even turn it on, I had to plug it into iTunes. So I trudged through the rest of my day, staring at the clock and demanding that it hurry up and make it to five only to remember it was Sunday. Pilates class. D'oh, but then I discovered that Apple was joining with all the other manufacturers that apparently couldn't afford the 5 cents it cost to burn a CD. I was going to have to download iTunes, a 200M file on my less than optimal Libyan internet.

Once I managed to install iTunes, after accidentally downloading the 64 bit version and having to start over, I managed to get the iTouch running. I started loading music on it. I set up my mail to sync with the iTouch and my calendar and contacts to sync with Google calendar and contacts instead of the default Outlook.

Then I discovered the app store.

Oh yes, this is where my life took a startling change for the better. Now, don't get me wrong Libya is in the dark ages when it comes to wireless hotspots and whatnot. But, it was the possibility that intrigued me! The thought that maybe, just maybe, this slick pretty little device could finally be the all in one I had been dreaming of since I got my first PDA all those years ago.

I browsed; I talked; I listened. Now I'm from the dark ages of the internet, when freeware was really free and didn't have any sort of virii or spyware attached. Since that was my first introduction to software download, I have a big problem paying for tiny apps that I haven't had a chance to try out. Low and behold, apparently a lot app programs feel the same way. There are loads and loads of "lite" versions for most of the programs. They'll give you some of the functionality, or all the functionality but are ad-based.

Programs that I currently have installed almost all utilized the built in wifi in the iTouch. I installed the Facebook and Myspace programs that give me access to what's going on with those pages. Myspace, and my resistance and confusion by it, is a blog for another day. I installed the free version of Twitterific, a twitter client that allows me to send tweets anywhere I have wifi access.

I've also managed to find an ebook reader, ereader pro, that allows me to download books from fictionwise.com, ereader.com, and manybooks.net. Manybooks.net is a great substitute to Google Books, especially since a lot of their public domain books have all disappeared since their recent settlement with the Authors. eReader Pro downloads the books right to your device so you don't have to be dependent on Internet access, which is a must for me. Now if I could manage to figure out how to load my own content on the thing it'd be perfect.

Of course, all of that is good to go, but to be the go-to device in my own personal arsenal of tech it had to have one more thing. GAMES. Boy, howdy does it have games. There's just about every game you could think of to play on this thing. My favorites right now are Texas Hold'em and CroMag Rally. CroMag is fantastic but I have yet to figure out the pause button. Which makes it not the best for using whlie waiting for my officers to finish their paperwork so I can close the office up at night, as my officers tend to have questions and not understand that I've just got 2 more laps and then I can unlock a new level!

The best part of all, is that Apple has designed all of this without compromising the basic function of the device. Music! When you start music going it will continue to play in the background as you browse through your other apps. Double click the single button on the device and it will bring up the music menu no matter what you're also doing with the iTouch. So very cool and a great step up from PDAs that will stop if you close the program to go do something else.

There are a few things I'm quite annoyed with. The first being that they're no longer bundling the CD with the iTouch. Granted, their software updates on a regular basis and you don't want to be stuck with an old management system, but not everyone has high speed internet. There are still a bunch of people that have dial up and the 200 plus megabyte file is large enough that would it could take hours if not days to download. It really would be good they bundled the software, even if it was out of date, with the iTouch.

Another thing that peeved me was the fact that apparently all my fancy docks, I had an iPod before that died a horrible death in December of 2007, no longer charge the new iPods. This is simply total crap, in my not so humble opinion. It's not like the iTouch has a radically different plug. In fact, it looks like the same plug it always has been, just slightly smaller in width. I'm not about to spend hundreds of dollars on new speakers when I have perfectly good speakers that simply no longer charge my iTouch. For this Apple gets a big ol'Fail from me. The fact that the iTouch has to continually tell me that it won't charge on this device, like I didn't see that the first time, is also quite irritating. There doesn't seem to be a way to turn off those notifications and in fact they build up, like reminders on Outlook, that every time it turns on it felt the need to tell you that it can't charge on this device. Once would have been more than enough, kthxbye.

In conclusion, I still love my iTouch. It's a great little gadget even in the Great Jam where Internet is pretty much limited to houses. I can't wait to get back to the land of Internet Everywhere and see exactly what I can do with this little thing. Until then, I'll just be over here, jamming to my tunes.

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