Netbooks are definitely here to stay.  The market for them has exploded, and they are even beating notebooks in sales.  Its easy to see the reason why:  lightweight and small, can run programs like Word and Excel, great for surfing the web and checking e-mail.  However, it’s the small part that is a plus and a minus.  As I was getting ready to travel with my MSI Wind U123, I realized it was ‘too small’ for my normal messenger bag or backpack.  It just gets lost in the space meant for something about 7 inches bigger.  No more worries about that.  Skooba Design is here to the rescue with their Netbook Messenger.  I had an opportunity to check it out and see if it could make this self-admitted bag nut happy.

Skooba Design Netbook Messenger

Style & Design

The Netbook Messenger is definitely not short on style.  First, you have your choice of four different color combinations.  Charcoal is mixed with either blue, red, white, or black.  I chose to go with the blue to match my MSI Wind U123.  We geeks need to have a coordinating sense of style.  The overall look of the bag is one of a traditional messenger bag.  It is made out of a water-proof nylon material.  There is the shoulder strap, which is easy to adjust, but doesn’t have as much padding as I would like.  I am spoiled with Skooba’s other bags that come with the added shoulder pad.  I realize a netbag should not be as heavy as a regular notebook bag, but I like to carry lots of stuff.  Running around the airport with a bag over your shoulder, you need all the protection you can get.  The handle on the top of the bag is strong, and makes it easy to pick up the bag for a quick getaway.

Inside Look at Netbook Messenger

Now, the most important design element of any good bag, pockets and storage.  The Netbook Messenger delivers big time.  There are twelve plus pockets with all sorts of different uses and features.  The main compartment is covered by a two-tone flap, that itself has a zip pocket in the front and is secured either with just velcro or you can use the plastic clip for added security.  The netbook is placed on its side, and fits snugly in the padded slot.  There is a small velcro strap that holds the netbook in place.  Little things like that are important features that should not be overlooked.  It makes the big ticket item more secure.  Next to the netbook pocket is a mesh pocket that runs the whole height of the bag.  I had no problem fitting my power cord and my wireless mouse in that pocket.  Great design!!!  The rest of the compartment has plenty of room for a paperback or 2, music player, magazine, a snack, or your Kindle.  I don’t believe War & Peace would fit, but really, you should get that in ebook form and give your shoulder a break.

Netbook Escape Hatch

Now to the most exciting part of the main pocket:  the secret entrance.  If you examine the flap closely, you will notice a zipper running across the top of the bag.  That zipper opens to give you quick access to your netbook.  Now, where might that come in handy?  Well, the airport of course!  No need to scramble around trying to get your netbook out while avoiding pulling out cables or dropping other items.  Just a quick unzip, and you have it.  In honor of the Christmas Story, I give Skooba an A+++++ for this idea.

Messenger Paper Pocket

 In front of the main pouch is another pocket that is perfect for holding papers.  I like to print out all my reservations for hotels, flights, and cars.  I know everything is electronic, but the paper is just comforting.  There is a similar thin pocket in the very back of the bag.  I have found that this pocket is a must for me for air travel.  Its the boarding pass holding pocket.

Netbook Messenger Storage

Another key to any good bag is the organizational pocket.  This is usually a smaller compartment in the front of the bag that holds all your small miscellaneous items.  The Netbook Messenger does not disappoint.  It even has a storage pocket for flash drives, which are known to wind-up at the bottom of any bag.  There are stretchy elastic pockets, mesh pockets with zippers, and nylon zip pocket as well.  I had absolutely no problem fitting all of my gear in there.  Plus, it does have a clip to hook keys on.  Those are also bottom of the bag offenders.

Netbook Messenger Water Bottle Pocket

When I first received this bag, I took it out of the box, and gave it a quick once over.  I saw that it had small pockets on the outside of the bag that could fit a cell phone or iPod.  However, where was I going to put my bottle of Coke or water that is usually always with me.  I couldn’t seriously have to hold it in my hand.  Luckily, the answer is no.  There is a secret little mesh holder that pops out the side of the bag to hold your drink.  I was really worried when I didn’t see a space for it right away.  Skooba did not let me down.

Conclusions:

Pros:  Plenty of storage, hidden easy access netbook zipper, strong construction, fashionable design

Cons:  Shoulder strap needs more padding

The Netbook Messenger by Skooba Designs is a great bag.  If you are looking for a gift for the netbook user in your life, you absolutely cannot go wrong with this bag.  You can order it from Skooba for $49.95. 

I would like to thank Skooba Designs for sending me a bag to review and keep.  I have been waiting for a netbook bag, and now that wait is over.

Confession time.  I am a sucker for headphones.  I absolutely love testing new headphones, and discovering the subtle and innovative techniques the manufacturers use to set each pair of headphones apart from the others.  Discovering the unique voice hidden inside each model is part of the reason I enjoy reviewing them so much.  In the time I have been testing and reviewing headphones, I have pretty much seen them coming from all angles” in the ear, over the ear, around the ear, even near the ear.  I have reviewed headphones that are heavy on bass and those which accent treble.  Heck I have even reviewed headphones without wires…though many of them have featured significantly inferior sound quality.  In fact, you cold say this is my personal Holy Grail of headphones: a pair of wireless headphones with sound quality which is equivalent to or better than their wired counterparts.  If there is one quality which has consistently eluded me, however, it has been stereo wireless headphones.  I can already hear many of you smirking, giggling, and shaking your heads.  Wireless headphones that sound like wired headphones, you are probably thinking, are vaporware, a fairy tale.  That can never happen.

Well, over the years here at JAMM, I have had the opportunity to following an alternate wireless technology, called Kleer Wireless technology.  Like Bluetooth, Kleer can be used to connect your stereo headphones to a phone, media player, or other device, without the encumbrance of wires.  Although Kleer Wireless claims a more secure wireless connection than Bluetooth, it has not found the same kind of universal adoption.  In fact, you will be pretty hard pressed to find a lot of devices or accessories which incorporate Kleer technology.  Still, when I learned that Sleek Audio would be incorporating Kleer Wireless technology into their high end wireless headphones….well, I was obviously compelled to learn more. 

Form and Design: One of the things I have always hated about higher end headphones is that no one has found a cure for headphone cord tangles.  There is nothing worse than leaving for my walk to the train, grabbing my headphones, and then spending the next five minutes untangling the knot of cable before I can listen to my music.  Sleek Audio avoids this whole problem with its wireless design.

So, how does it do this?  The key is in the wireless unit, which will rest on the back of your neck.   A plastic sleeve on either end of this unit give way to the headphone cables, which are just long enough to reach your ears.  I love this around the head approach, though I have found it to be ineffective in some models I have tested.  The cables end up being either too short to reach my ears, or far too long.  Unlike many of these companies, Sleek Audio recognizes that we all have a different sized head and neck.  As such, the cables coming out of either side of the unit are completely adjustable.  I will admit that it can be a bit tricky to perform these adjustments.  But once you get it started, it is a really nice feature.  Hopefully, Sleek Audio can continue to improve this adjustment mechanism by adding some kind of external control.

Which brings us to the wearability of these headphones.  One of the real values of these hands on reviews, I think, is that they give you an opportunity to hear first hand how these headphones fit and feel while in actual use,  For the most part, they were fantastic.  The speakers were skinny enough that they slipped easily into my ears, allowing the buds to create a great seal and block external noise.  The only real flaw I found was with the wireless unit in the back.  Although Sleek Audio has made this as…sleek…as possible, there is really no good way to hide the wireless controls.  They chose to place he wireless controls on the back of your neck, which does keep them well hidden and out of the way.  This unit was not particularly heavy, however, it was heavy enough that it just hung on the back of your neck, causing it to slide from one side to the other, or snag on the collar of my shirt and jacket.  No matter how much time I spent adjusting the length of the cables, this problem persisted.  I think an easy fix would have been to add a clip to the back so the unit could be attached to my shirt collar to better hold it in place.

Sound Quality: The most important part of any headphone is how they sound, and I have to say the Sleek Audio headphones sounded fantastic.  I was really impressed by the crystal clear sound quality.  But what impressed me even more than that was the fully customizable equalizer system.  Like I said, every pair of headphones I have reviewed offers something new, and this was a pretty big something.  Each earbud features a removable treble and bass module.  In the package, you will find two replacement modules for each, one to increase the treble or bass and one to decrease.  This means you can highlight either the treble or the bass depending upon your listening preferences.  For me, I prefer an even sound, so I ended up returning it to the mid-range module which shipped in the unit.

In addition to customizing the sound quality, you can also fully customize the earbuds to make them fit the exact shape of your ear.  There are several different bud sizes included, and the speaker is skinny enough to ensure that it will not interfere with the fit.  This is one of my big pet peeves with many headphones.  Often, the speaker is so large that it cannot possibly fit in any ear canal.  Sleek Audio has ensured the speakers are skinny enough to fit in your ear, allowing the bud to fill the remaining space and isolate environmental noises.  This noise isolation works much better than noise cancellation, which uses an inaudible tone to block outside noise.  Such a tone can distort the sound quality of your music.  Thus, noise isolation, like that which is featured in the Sleek Audio headphones, results in a far truer sound.

I was really impressed by the sound quality of the Sleek  Audio headphones.  The unique customization system of both fit and equalizer makes this about as close to custom headphones as you can get without taking an ear mold.

Wireless: I have had some pretty harsh words for wireless headphones in the past.  The truth is, in my experience, while Bluetooth is fantastic for mono headsets and phone calls, it just does not stand up to stereo music.  Virtually every stereo Bluetooth headphone I have tested has failed miserably with skips, poor audio quality, or even completely dropping the connection.

As a result of my experience with Bluetooth, I have been anxious to find an alternative wireless technology; and to date, that alternative has been Kleer Wireless.  Although I have spent quite a bit of time talking about Kleer Wireless, I have not had many opportunities to test it out live, and I have to say I was quite impressed by what I found.  Not only did it maintain a flawless connection, but there were also no skips or any of the other problems I had with Bluetooth.  In fact, the music piping in through the Kleer Wireless connection sounded virtually identical to wired headphones.  No extra skips or other problems.  Simply put, this was a wireless alternative unlike any I have found before. 

Now, the downside to Kleer Wireless is that it does not exist natively on any devices.  So, you will need an adapter, which is included in the package.  This adapter worked fine for me, it plugs right into the headphone jack on your device, and is small enough to remain relatively unobtrusive.  I really hope to see Kleer Wireless incorporated natively in more devices soon.

Of course, if you want to share your music with another Kleer enabled headphone or speaker, pairing the adapter with a second set of Kleer enabled speakers or headphones is also no problem.  In fact, the process is identical to Bluetooth pairing, so it should be pretty familiar to anyone who has used a Bluetooth headset or other wireless accessory.  You can connect up to four Kleer enabled accessories at a time.

Battery: Before we look at how the battery performed, I want to point out one of my favorite features in these headphones.  Obviously, the folks at Sleek Audio have encountered this scenario: you are heading home after a long day at work.  You reach into your bag or pocket to slip on your headphones and zone out.  You push play on your music and…nothing…silence.  It only takes a second to realize that while your mp3 player is working just fine, the battery in your wireless headphones has died.  Hope you have a backup pair available.  Well, in a minor fit of genius, Sleek Audio has provided that alternate pair of headphones for you by including a wire.  No big deal, just a headphone wire, but it allows you to bypass that dead battery and continue using the Sleek Audio headphones, even if the battery goes dead.  Just pop the earbuds off of the wireless unit and snap them on the wire, and you are ready to rock.  Fantastic!

So, what about the battery in this one, though?  How much are you likely to need that extra wire?  I thought the battery was great.  It easily made it through an entire week of regular use (I should say five day work week).  The real problem for me, however, was the fact that you are really dealing with two batteries, one in the adaptor and one in the headphones.  This can easily result in uneven draining, where the adaptor gives out before the headphones or vice versa.  It would be nice if the adaptor could be powered off of the battery in your media player.

Nonetheless, Sleek Audio addresses this problem by including a dual charger.  Just plug the dual charger into the USB port on your computer (or AC with an appropriate adaptor) and you can connect it to both the headphones and adaptor at once.  It is not as good as only requiring a single battery, but it does do a fantastic job of minimizing the problems associated with multiple parts with multiple batteries.

Conclusion:  I am sure that Sleek Audio will not mind when I say I have found the Holy Grail in these headphones – wireless headphones which offer the same connection and sound quality as wired headphones. I could tell almost no difference in the quality of the sound whether I connected wirelessly or used the included wire.  Amazing!   Add to that the level of customization with the interchangeable earbuds, treble, and bass filters; and you end up with headphones which are as close to a custom fit as you will find without making a mold of your ear.  Frankly, I have never heard anything like this before.

What I Liked:

• Kleer Wireless
• wireless audio which sounds just as good as wired
• noise isolation
• customization with interchangeable easrbuds, treble, and bass filters
• extra wire if you choose not to listen wirelessly
• fantastic sound quality

What Needs Improvement:

• two batteries means double the opportunity for failure
• wireless unit snags on collars and slips around the back of my neck

Where To Buy: Sleek Audio

Price: $320

If you like ZAGG items don’t waste your time, and go the their site for a 50% off everything.

Today ZAGG is running a “One Day Sale” which will allow you a 50% off everything at checkout.

ZAGG has many cool items to buy, e.g. the freshly released ZAGGsparq, as well as several screen shields, skins and earbuds. I suggest you to visit ZAGG site and choose, because I am sure you will find something damn useful and damn cheap!

Via: Palm Discovery

It seems it took not so much to root the nook. Now the hacking can start.

Image courtesy of Nook Devs

The guys at Nook Devs have opened the freshly released Barnes & Noble Nook and they found that the Android OS powering the eReader is installed on a removable MicroSD card.

Image courtesy of Nook Devs

Thus it was as simple as to pop the card out and insert it into a Linux box to gain root access (i.e. unlimited power!!) to the OS itself: thanks to rooting web browsing, tethering, and many other cool hacks could be realized on the Nook and expand the usage scenario of this eReader as well as the consumer interest for the device.

This could be a blessing, given the not so warm welcome given by some early adopters, like Judie at Gear Diary, whose first impressions are mostly on the negative side:

What I Like: Ability to expand memory by 16GB, making it up to 18GB — wow!; beautiful and solid hardware; the touchscreen is a neat feature; uses GSM, not CDMA — which means great reception in my part of the country; page turning buttons on both sides of the device; front is not cluttered with buttons; removable battery, beautiful hardware — I like it better than the Kindle 2; you can read eReader format books on the nook

What Needs Improvement: Packaging is a pain to open; eReader books must be read from documents, and their titles are garbled and there is no cover art; battery only lasts about two days; slow eInk refresh rate; multiple crashes, screen lags, false button presses, swiping doesn’t always work, slow, slow … and did I mention S – L – O – W? Urgh.

While waiting anxiously the cool stuff that will (hopefully) come soon, you can visit Nook Devs to look at how to root the Nook.

Via: Boy Genius Report

Every once in a while, we all get bogged down with the day to day details of life.  During the holiday season, this sometimes is more so the case than others.  For this reason, I wanted to take a moment to let you know that while things seem a bit slow at the moment, some great reviews are in the works.  They should start rolling out this week, as students are finishing up for the semester and I finally have some time for myself again!

Please note that the order I mention the items here doesn’t necessarily indicate the order they will appear

With iLium Software’s recent eWallet 7 release, I decided it was time to revisit how my confidential information was stored (in my head).  We’re going to take a look at eWallet on the Windows Mobile, Windows Vista, Mac OS X and iPhone operating systems, looking to see how each platform addresses the task.

Next, we’re going to take a look at Resco’s recently released SMS Widget for Windows 7 and Vista.

We’re then going to take a look at another new Resco release, Photo Manager 7 for Windows Mobile.  The new update is completely optimized for a finger friendly experience, which I’m sure will please some of you.

Finally, we are going to take a look at several of the different clock softwares for Windows Mobile, including the recently released SPB Time 3 and ageye’s G-Alarm.

Hope you find something in the list to look forward to.  Stay tuned and an early Happy Holidays.