ArsTechnica has a fantastic overview of the current crop of high-end pigment-based inkjet photo printers: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/BAaf/~3/109372463/inkjets.ars
My Epson 1280 is still soldiering on, but when I end up replacing it, I think I'll get a Canon. I'm sick of Epson's policy of suing every single third-party ink manufacturer and Canon's ink tanks are larger and more efficient.
Roland has released a minor firmware update for its Edirol R-09 digital audio recorder: http://www.rolandus.com/ (click on "Downloads)
The new features are:
See my other notes on the Edirol.
I recently had to change out the hard drive on my partner's iBook G4. It's a tremendously difficult procedure with (what seemed like) over a hundred screws that need to get removed in the proper order. iFixit has a great guide series for disassembling and reassembling your Macs and iPods, including a very useful screw reminder sheet that I used to cellotape all the screws to in the order that I removed them: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/
I put the old drive in a portable USB enclosure and used SuperDuper! to clone the old drive to the new one. Everything worked spankingly and my partner now has a 100 gb drive to put her huge iPhoto database on! And an external 60 gb USB drive for backups.
You'll need an assortment of teeny Phillips screwdrivers (including a Torx, although I used a hex driver) and a "spudger" or a little lever tool that helps you crack the iBook case. iFixit will sell you one, I used one that I had from my camera repair toolkit. A small set of tweezers was also great for picking up small parts. My screwdrivers are magnetized, which also helps with the small screws.
p.s. I wish Apple made the iBook easier to maintain! You shouldn't have to take out 100+ screws just to change out the hard drive!
Samson now has a detailed page for their new Zoom H2 flash recorder: http://www.samsontech.com
It truly looks like a winner all around: SD card slot (4 gigabyte compatible), 3 capsule mics, date/time stamp function, works as a USB mic when connected to your computer, easy to use, small, light, cheap.
It even records 5.1 surround sound in 4 channels in real time! Perfect for recording wild sound. I can't wait to get my hands on one for this summer.
I bought the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 the other day. I'm quite fond of Microsoft input devices, I have their USB keyboard / mouse combination at work and at home. I bought the Presenter 8000 because I'm giving a lot of talks and I thought a little presenter mouse would be good. The 8000 operates normally as a 4 button scroll-tilt mouse, but then it also has presenter buttons on the underside.
It's a bluetooth mouse so I thought I would be able to just use my internal bluetooth drivers on my Mac PowerBook G4. Unfortunately while most of Microsoft's mice are totally Mac-compliant, the 8000 doesn't properly register itself as a Bluetooth mouse and you need to hack it somewhat to get the Mac to recognize it. I found the solution on Mac Rumors: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=249841&page=2 in a posting by viper0440 (scroll midway down).
