reviews

Canon’s EOS 7D is a radical departure for the company’s popular EOS family of cameras. It slots in between the prosumer 50D and the full-frame, pro-level 5D Mark II--but a lot of tantalizing functionality lurks within its magnesium-alloy bodywork. Just don’t make the assumption that the 7D is a low-cost alternative to the 5D Mark II--it’s really an entirely different kind of camera. One caveat is that the APS-C–sized sensor is smaller (like in the 50D), so there’s a 1.6x field-of-view adjustment needed for any focal length you use, unlike the full-frame 5D Mark II. But it’s the 7D’s advanced features and affordable price that make it a compelling shooter.

Pentax Optio P80

Posted 01/28/2010 at 12:46am | by jamor

DSLRs are nice, but sometimes--okay, a lot of the time--we just can’t be bothered to schlep around a giant camera. Enter the compact camera. At 4.2 ounces and 3.8 x 2.1 x 0.8 inches, the Pentax Optio P80 is a solid choice for nights on the town or other casual situations where it’s more important to capture the moment than the most technically perfect frame.

iBlink

Posted 01/27/2010 at 1:05am | by Susie Ochs

Headphone choice is very personal. Some people opt for sophisticated, audiophile-approved $300 earbuds, while others pick up the cheapest pair possible so it doesn’t hurt so much when they’re lost or broken. And some want their earbuds to have little blinking lights. Of course they do.

MacHighway Easy

Posted 01/25/2010 at 6:56pm | by Zack Stern

3

There’s nothing like a bold statement to get our attention, and Chris Graves, president of Mac-centric Internet host MacHighway, makes this one: His company is “presenting [its] services as an alternative to MobileMe, as opposed to a replacement.” We take his nuanced wording to mean that MacHighway Easy lacks the full features of Apple’s option, but could still serve the same purpose for some customers by providing email accounts, website hosting, and file-server storage. The service even includes a domain name and other features beyond MobileMe’s scope. But since MacHighway is inviting the comparison, we’ll have to ding it for the areas where it can’t match MobileMe: ease of use, and iCal and Address Book syncing.

Verbatim Store 'n' Go USB Drive

Posted 01/22/2010 at 3:01am | by Adam Berenstain

Flash drives are easy to use and lose, potentially making your personal files anybody’s business. Verbatim tackles this problem with the Store ’n’ Go, a USB flash drive with password protection. But the drive’s security may be too inflexible for some users, and its software has annoying hiccups.

Bose Quiet Comfort 15

Posted 01/21/2010 at 2:01am | by Ray Aguilera

The worst part about airplane travel is, well, the plane. Besides being cramped, crowded, and short on any decent snack foods, they’re also noisy. So noisy that it’s difficult to make the hours zip by more quickly by revisiting your favorite albums on an iPod or watching a movie on your MacBook. Bose’s new Quiet Comfort 15 headphones are made for just these moments. The active noise cancellation helps block out background noise, and Bose’s considerable audio experience brings you a clean-sounding set of cans--with a couple of drawbacks, however.

Hyperbolic Software iTunes Dupes Barrier

Posted 01/20/2010 at 3:00am | by Florence Ion

3

Queen’s ubiquitous “We Will Rock You” is a tune that will always rock the sixth-inning rally, but when it’s on repeat for 25 minutes because of duplicate copies in your iTunes library, it’s time to do some spring cleaning. iTunes Dupes Barrier helps you quickly seek out and destroy duplicate tracks, and it’s a bit more flexible than iTunes’ built-in functionality.

PacSafe InfoSafe

Posted 01/18/2010 at 2:55am | by Susie Ochs

If you’ve never experienced the sinking feeling in your stomach when you realize your laptop has been snatched, we hope you never have to. The best defense is still to never leave your ’Book unattended, but if you absolutely have to, a theft-resistant bag like PacSafe’s InfoSafe can help keep it out of the clutches of evil.

The Movies Superstar Edition

Posted 01/15/2010 at 11:05am | by Susie Ochs

2

If you don’t mind a game that uses chest size as an indicator of success and happiness (we certainly don’t), The Movies packs a ridiculous amount of depth and replayability that’ll reel in gamers, creative types, and machinima fans. (Ma-shin-a-wha? It’s animation created by a 3D graphics engine, usually one from a videogame.)

BusyMac BusyCal

Posted 01/13/2010 at 11:02am | by Ray Aguilera

5

Every day, we wish iCal could do something that our Palm IIIx did in 1997. There’s a Palm calendar app called DateBk, and it has a feature called Floating Events. The idea is that incomplete to-do items would “float” to the next day, so if you forgot to do something, it wouldn’t get left behind on your calendar as the days marched on. The fact that BusyMac’s BusyCal brings that crucial feature to our calendar makes us do a little happy dance, and that’s only scratching the surface of this terrific app.