Technologies That Work &
Technologies That Don't Work

I no longer have access to the server where the images of the products described in these posts were stored so the images will not appear in the posts.

Digital Voice Recorder
Manufacturer: Olympus
Model: DS-330
Price: $140.00 ($133.00 @ Office Depot)
http://www.olympusamerica.com

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In the first picture of the little recorder you can see my business card behind it for scale. So we are talking about something about the size of a fat thumb. In the second picture you see the recorder sitting in its docking station. The docking station doesn't do anything other than provide a little bit more of an elegant way of having the unit sitting on your desk than to have the cord plugged right into the bottom of it.

The sound quality is ok for voice but nowhere near good enough for music. It seems like the sampling rate is very low, 12kHz in standard play and 8 kHz in long play. Standard, wired telephones transmit voice at 4 kHz/second. I haven't found a web utility to translate 128 MB/s sampling from a CD into kHz to see how they compare.

The recorder has a sensitive microphone so it picks up a lot of background noise. I have seen it knocked in reviews because of this. I think it is in how people are using it. If you are going to set it on a conference table where people are tapping pencils, drumming their fingers, and shuffling papers during the meeting it is naturally going to pick up all of those vibrations. Likewise, if you let it dangle from your clothing or hold onto it while making recordings it will record all the bumps and movements it receives. I can put it in my pocket when I am observing and it will record comments we make about something in a telescope. But when it jet came over it keyed in on the jet even though it wasn't loud enough that we had to raise our voices to be heard over it. Olympus includes in the desktop software a noise filter that can be applied after the fact when the DSS file is played on the computer. Sometimes this causes the voice to become garbled. But basically if you want sensitivity you have to deal with some level of background noise. Setting the unit to dictation mode desensitizing the microphone but then it is only good for use when you can hold it in front of the speaker's mouth. There are also noise canceling microphones available.

Sound files are saved in DSS (Digital Speech Standard) format, a proprietary file format used by Olympus, Grundig and Phillips. You are supposed to be able to convert the files to WAV files during the download process or can do it after the fact. The DSS player doesn't show the WAV files or confirm that the conversion was successful. A 181 KB DSS file converted to a 4.1 MB WAV file so you probably only want to do that if you want to convert the WAV to an MP3. I did find a shareware converter that can go directly from DSS to MP3 and Olympus has a free downloadable program (DSSLite.exe) that will allow users without DSS Player or DSS Player Pro to hear your files. My download of DSSLite was corrupted so I can't report on how it works.

The AA batteries are supposed to last through 12 hours of recording or 8 hours of playback. When you plug it into the USB port it is supposed to be powered from the USB cradle. I recorded about an hour of audio and downloaded it then left my unit plugged into the USB port and the batteries went dead. I think it eats batteries faster than they claim. The manual tells you to replace the batteries as soon as the power meter drops to one segment. Saved files are written to nonvolatile Flash memory so won't be lost, but any files that are being recorded when the batteies go dead will be lost. Olympus recommends disposable alkaline batteries and says that the power meter is not accurate when researchable batteries are installed but it doesn't say if the meter reads high or low.

I was looking for a digital recorder that would accept an external microphone which this one does. I already have a couple of RadioShack lapel microphones so I tried them immediately and do not get any sound from then although I have confirmed that the batteries are god. The manual says Olympus sells their own microphone, the ME-10, that is supposed to work with this recorder. I can't find a price for it anywhere on the web and it is not listed on the Olympus web site. They have several other microphones but there is no way of finding out if they are compatible with this recorder.

The recorder came with sound file management software. Knowing that the software that is packaged with devices is often a couple of versions old I went to the web and found software that is supposed to correct incompatibilities with Windows XP. It is version 1.5.1, but the software that shipped with the unit is release 3.4. So what do you install. I emailed tech support and they recommended that I use the 1.5.1 software. When I tried to install it I found that it was a patch and would not install until I had installed the software that came with the unit. Everything seems to be working fine on my Windows XP Professional Tablet Edition laptop.

It would be real nice if the recorder were expandable with SD or SM media cards but you are stuck with the 16 MB of factory installed memory. That is enough for recording 2:35 hours of sound at normal compression and about 5 hours in the extended play mode. A more expensive digital recorder has this feature and is also high enough quality for music files and will play MP3s.

The unit comes with software, a USB cable that can be used either directly connected to the recorder or with the included USB docking cradle, a line in cable, and an imitation leather case. The instruction manual points out a place to attach a wrist strap but none is included.

I think this will be a good recorder for my intended purpose. But it will not replace my MP3 recorder or miniDisk recorder.

Digital Wind Gauge
Manufacturer: RadioShack
Model: 63-1119
Price: $19.99
http://www.radioshack.com

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I stumbled on this item while browsing the local RadioShack store.

I was attracted to this wind gauge because it is supposed to take readings from whatever direction the wind is coming from irrespective of what direction you are facing. Most of the other gauges you see have to be faced into or away from the wind to work, unless they are cup anemometers which are a whole 'nother story.

This gauge is only accurate in winds between 6 and 30 mph. And it is not waterproof. So when it is really bad out and you want to know just how bad it is, it won't work. It seems to be aimed at sports enthusiasts who need to know how fast the wind is blowing to figure windage in events like archery and golf.

The readout is only in mph. There is no way to set it to knots, meters per second or any other wind speed scale. The instructions say readings are "most accurate" when within the operating range mentioned above but it doesn't say anywhere just how accurate that is or how repeatable the readings are. So it can't be used for scientific or legal purposes.

Readings are continuous until the sense button is pressed to lock the reading. They appear in a liquid crystal readout panel that has half inch high numbers. If the wind is too light or too strong the display shows L or H respectively. Around the numerals is a ring if 12 diamonds which show where the wind is coming from relative to the direction the unit is facing. There is no way to attach the unit to a computer to log readings and no memory to save readings.

There is an attachment for a neck or wrist strap but no strap is supplied with the unit. It also has a handy red LED flashlight in the base. The flashlight runs of the same four AAA batteries as the wind gauge. No information is provided on battery life. The power save feature automatically turns the unit off two minutes after the sense button is pressed but there is no way for you to turn it off once you decide you are done with it.

It is about the size of a small screwdriver handle and weighs 3.5 ounces (Is that with the batteries or without? Probably without.).

Since I have no means of determining the accuracy of the unit I will have to take it at face value and say it works. Since I am not planning to do science with it, it will probably cover most of the situations where I am likely to want to use it. And it is a lot cheaper than the other more capable units I have been looking at.

Foldable Charger for AA/AAA Ni-MH or Ni-Cd Batteries
Manufacturer: RadioShack
Model: 23-345
Cost: $13.49
http://www.radioshack.com

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This is a great little charger for travel applications. Everything is built in so there is nothing extra to carry and nothing to loose. And in the travel configuration it is well protected.

It will charge Ni-Cd or Ni-MH batteries and either AA- or AAA-size batteries. On the face of the charger is a switch to select either battery chemistry so you can't charge both types of batteries at once. In the left picture above you will notice a small tab beneath the charge indicator light and the battery cavity beneath the battery type switch is not as tall. The tab is used to rotate a block of plastic into place to size the unit for the shorter AAA batteries. Other chargers I have had have required an insert that goes into the charger with the batteries to accomplish this and that is something to get lost. This is a much more elegant solution.

The transformer and plug are included in the body of the charger. The whole unit only weighs 3 ounces, less than the weight of the wall warts supplied with some other chargers. This probably means that the charge times are slower (more on charge times shortly) but it is real handy not having to pack and keep track of the charger and separate transformer and not lugging around a heavy transformer unit. Also, as you can see in the center picture, the power plug folds into the shell of the charger for transport so there is no danger of the prongs becoming bent or damaging the insides of my spare shoes which is where I normally pack transformers to protect them.

One of the best features is that this unit is really small. The bottom of the battery compartment fords up over the transformer housing which offers protection to both components of the charger and cuts the total size of the unit you are going to pack. When collapsed the unit is about 2.5 x 2.5 x 1 inches.

On the back of the blister pack it says that the charger "recharges standard Ni-Cd batteries within two hours and standard Ni-MH batteries within five hours." It isn't until you buy the unit and cut the blister pack open that you get the real story in the instruction manual. The numbers on the outside of the package are for the wimpiest rechargeable batteries RadioShack sells. If you use high capacity batteries your recharge times could double.

Typical Recharge Times

	Ni-Cd		Ni-MH
mAh	AA	AAA	AA	AAA
300		2.0
450				3.8
600	2.0
700				6.0
800	2.7
1000	3.3
1300			4.3
1500			5.0
1600			5.3
1800			6.0
2000			?
> 2000			?
	time in hours

This charger does not have electronics in it to exercise the batteries before they are charged so it is recommended that batteries be completely discharged before they are recharged to keep them from getting a memory. (If batteries, particularly Ni-Cds -- are recharged before they are fully drained the develop a memory at that charge level and can not subsequently be discharged beyond that point. Better -- more expensive -- chargers include circuitry to discharge the battery before it is recharged which allows you to use the entire battery's capacity and prolongs the battery's useful life.)

USB 2.0 Bus Powered Hub
Manufacturer: Targus
http://URL

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This is a great idea. Many USB devices, even USB 1.1 devices, require too much power to work on an unpowered hub. And the last thing you need when you are traveling is another wall wart to take up space in your bag, weigh you down, and have to be plugged into too few hotel outlets.

The concept here is that there are two USB plugs that plug into your computer. One plug is sufficient for connectivity but usually can not supply sufficient power to the hub. That is where the other plug comes in. When you plug it into the computer it is supposed to supply another 5 volts of power to the hub and allow you to run devices that need the extra juice. So you get a powered hub at the cost of giving up an additional USB slot on the computer and carrying a slightly bulkier cable.

I have sometimes had problems synchronizing my PDA when it is plugged into an unpowered hub. When I plug it into the Targus Bus Powered Hub I am able to synchronize. But the PDA senses that it is plugged in and doesn't power off, but the hub does not supply enough power to charge the PDA.

So far I have only tested the hub on one computer and with only one device so don't want to say that it doesn't work. But it does not work in my application as well as the advertisements indicate that it should. So I am giving it my so-so rating.

USB Flash Drive
Manufacturer: Innogear
http://westwindmp3.com

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This is basically a memory chip attached to a USB plug. Windows XP automatically recognizes it when you plug it in and sees it as a removable drive assigning the next available drive letter. It is great for quickly moving large files between machines when the files are too big to fit onto a floppy and not big enough to warrant burning a CD. You plug the drive into the machine with the files and copy them to it. Unplug it from that machine and plug it into the machine where you need the files and you can copy them there just as easily.

You can also use these things if you don't want to have information on your hard drive. Like if you need to do some personal stuff at work and don't want it on the office machine. There is an email client included with the drive that can be installed on the drive and run from there so you can do your email on any public machine without leaving copies of it there (I haven't tested this out yet). There is also encryption software that you can install on your desktop so that if you loose the flash drive nobody will be able to read the data on it (I haven't tried that software yet either).

I am working on three Tablet PCs that don't have floppy drives so this little piece of technology is a great way to move files between them as well as share them with others or to serve as a temporary backup.

I see mixed reviews about these things. It seems like they work better under XP than they do under 98SE. But that is the way with most attached devices. So far I have not had a problem using it on either my XP Tablet PC or on my ME desktop machine.

It comes with the neck lanyard. I attached the top to the rest of the unit with a piece of thread after I put the top in a safe place where I wouldn't loose it while using the drive and promptly forgot where the safe place was.

Different manufacturers make these things in different shapes. The newest thing is the captive cover which is somehow permanently attached to the drive. I like that idea but those units still carry a premium price. The cost of the drive is around $0.50 per MB of storage. Drive sizes range from 32 MB up to 512 MB with promises of 1 and 2 GB drives in the not too distant future. The 512 MB drive I bought has 1/4 of the storage space of the first desktop computer I got at work back in the late 80s. I have seen a couple of units advertised with docking stations that can be plugged into a USB port in the back of the machine and routed to a convenient place on the desktop to keep you off your knees under the desk. Innogear supplies a male/female USB extension cable that is about 6' long. This unit seems to be chunkier than many others. It is all plastic which is a good thing since it gets kind of hot when it is being accessed and a metal housing would likely burn users.

It is designed to work at USB 2.0 speed but drops back to the speed of a USB 1.1 port if that is what it is plugged into.

As with most consuer electronics, the instruction manual seems to have been written by someone for whom English is a second language. Fortunately this product doesn't need a lot of instructions, particularly if you are using Windows XP.

10-LED Aluminum Hand Torch
Manufacturer: Essential Gear Ltd.
http://www.essentialgear.com

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I have been looking for a small bright flashlight for a while. I have a couple of LED flashlights that have single LEDs in white and red and they are useful at close range to what you are trying to see, but they aren’t powerful enough for walking around in the dark. Then I saw this light in a catalog and thought I would give it a try.

I ordered mine from Herrington (www.herringtoncatalog.com) for $49.95 + shipping. You can also order it direct from the manufacturer (www.essentialgear.com) with either white, red, green or blue LEDs for $55.00 + shipping.

It comes with the four AA batteries needed to power it. There are ten LEDs in the reflector. The first push of the power switch turns on three of them. Press the switch again and all ten of them light up. One more press and they are turned off. I don’t think I will ever be able to evaluate the battery life claim. In power conservation mode with only three LEDs burning they are supposed to last for 80 hours and with all ten LED lit the batteries are supposed to be good for 25 hours. And the burn time on the LEDs is supposed to be 100,000 yours (11.4 years of continuous use). Since LEDs are digital devices that have only two states, on and off, I don’t think there will be any dimming to warn of a low battery condition. The LEDs will probably burn at full brightness then just go out abruptly when the battery level drops below their required voltage.

I found that the light is powerful enough to throw a beam from one end of the apartment to the other at low power and at high power I can distinguish shapes and colors. Close up there would be no problem hiking with it in the woods over uneven terrain. The beam spreads out a bit so even if you had the brightest part right at your feet you would know what was coming ahead.

I can set the light on its end pointing at my ceiling and on low power there is enough light to move around the room easily. At high power I can easily read large print and can read normal book print if I work at it but wouldn’t want to do it for long. I think it would be a great light for a power outage since you would only have to burn it four to six hours a day and it would last several days on one set of batteries. There would be enough light using it this way to prepare meals and do pretty much whatever you need to do after dark. And when you need to do detail work you can always turn the power up and point it directly where you need the light.

The Herrington catalog says you can’t crush it even with a tank. Maybe if the tank ran over it on soft ground that would be the case. But it is undoubtedly tough with its aluminum construction. And because there is no filament to break in a LED it can roll around in the trunk or glove box of the car or lazaret of the boat for years without suffering damage. I think that it is more likely that a flashlight relegated to emergency duty of this type will be incapacitated due to battery leakage than from any other cause.

The quality of the light is a little strange. Because there are multiple light sources in one reflector the beam is not as focused as you are used to. The light is diffuse and things close to it throw multiple shadows. When viewed on a white wall the central part of the beam is a little bit bluish. Coverage at eight feet is probably about eight feet.

The instructions on the box admonish you to observe proper battery polarization when loading the flashlight. But after the box is gone there are no markings on the battery holder so you have to use your prior experience with other devices to remember that the flat (bottom) end of the battery usually goes against the spring. The battery cartridge has a key built into it so that it can only be inserted in the proper orientation.. The LEDs don’t get very hot like the bulbs used in Mini-Mag Lites and similar flashlights but they do get warm after prolonged limitation.

The flashlight has a good feel in your hand. Its circumference is great enough that it fits nicely in your curled fingers, probably about as big around as a D cell battery. It is about eight inches long and most of the weight is in the back four inches where the batteries are and where you hold it so it has good balance.

It is a little pricey for a flashlight, but given its durability, apparent longevity, and brightness, I think it is worth it.

Optical Mineature Mouse
Manufacturer: Targus
http://www.targus.com/accessories_mice.asp

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The Targus Ultra Mini Optical Mouse is a little thing, but they say good things often come in small packages. And this is one of them.

Most of us are familiar with optical mice so I won't go into a long description. Their big advantages are that there is no ball to pick up dust and lint and get stuck, and you can use just about any surface as a mouse pad.

What makes the Ultra Mini unique is its diminuative size. It is only about an inch wide by about three inches long. And it has left and right buttons and a scroll wheel in that little form factor. In the picture above you see it next to a US Quarter Dollar.

It comes with a very thin wire that is roughly three feet long and adequate to get the mouse plugged into the USB port on the back left of my laptop and the mouse on the table to the right of the keyboard. There is a coiling mechanism at its center so the cord can be retracted into a self contained holder for travel. It works like a window blind. You grab the mouse and the USB plug and pull them in oposite directions to extend the wire and when it has reached the desired length you ease off on the pulling until the retractor's clutch engages. To recoil the wire you grab the same two components and gently pull them apart extending the wire slightly then move your hands together quickly letting the wire coil onto the takeup spool. It is easier to do it than it is to explain it but it works well.

Curiously, the mouse is shaped like a conventional mouse even though it isn't big enough fit under the palm of your hand the way a full-sized mouse does. I am wondering if there might be a more unconventional mouse shape which that be even easier to hold, something wider than it is long.

Blogger WeBlogging Software
Manufacturer: Google
http://www.blogger.com/

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I am really liking the new Blogger editing tool. That is the software I use to create these blogs and post occasional entries to them. It is more reliable than their old software and has a better interface. But I think the thing I like best about it is that it has a built in HTML validator that checks my code before it posts it to the Blog. Unfortunately it can only find one problem at a time, but at least it finds my coding mistakes before they get to you. Now if it only had an inline spelling checker.

25Jul04 Update Blogger continues to be "improved" Mostly it is changes to the user interface although there have been some programming additions like comments. Somewhere along the line a spell check feature was added. Unfortunately it appears to be a bargain basement model. It can identify words that it thinks are misspelled and offers to correct them, but the provided suggestions rarely contain the obvious typographical errors to the word I intended. There is a button there to have the dictionary learn words it thinks are misspelled but I know are correctly spelled -- things like my own name -- but it doesn't work. Sometimes when I do correct a word using the spell checker it replaces part of the previous word and part of the word that is spelled wrong making a bigger mess than I started with. The spell checker is useful primarily for identifying words that might be spelled wrong, but you still need to check the changes it has made after you use it.

Image Stabilized Binoculars
Manufacturer: Canon U.S.A.
http://www.canonbinocular.com/

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The Canon image stabilized binoculars are nothing short of amazing. When I focus on a star and then press the image stabilization button it is like I just focused. More stars appear to be visible in the field than before image stabilization. I am sure that these additional stars were there all along but were just not visible while the binoculars were moving around.

Image Stabilization is enabled by depressing a button conveniently located under the right index finger. A complaint about early models of these binoculars was that you had to hold the switch down as long as you wanted stabilization. This inconvenience has been eliminated on current models and now if you depress the switch momentarily stabilization will be active for five minutes. If you press and hold the switch the image stabilization circuit will shut off when the switch is released.

Power for the image stabilization mechanism is supplied by two AA batteries. They are supposed to last for around ten hours but mine have been failing more quickly. I think that is because there is no way to lock the power switch in the off position so the mechanism gets turned on accidentally in my backpack. The case supplied by Canon is a lightly padded nylon bag with a fold-over flap at the top. The neck strap for the binoculars pass around the flap and are used to support the binoculars in the case which does not have a neck strap or carry handle.

The battery compartment for the binoculars is in the bottom center of the unit between the body tubes. Unlike conventional binoculars on which the tubes rotate on a central shaft to adjust for the difference in the distance between different people's eyes, the tubes of the Canon IS binoculars are fixed in position with all of the electronics/mechanics mounted between them. Just forward of the battery compartment is the tripod mounting socket. I like this location better than using an L bracket attached to the central post of conventional binoculars because it is a much more solid and vibration free attachment. But it means that I have to take the camera off the tripod and remove the tripod quick release bracket to change the batteries.

I am sure you are asking why I use a tripod with image stabilized binoculars. There are several reasons for doing this.

The IS mechanism can't compensate for the bob and weave that we all do as our bodies adjust out muscle tone to keep us upright, but that isn't what makes using binoculars so difficult. What drives you crazy are the little tremors your hands and head make that aren't perceptible to the naked eye. But magnify the object you are observing and they can drive you mad. Stars zip here and there across your field of view and your brain just can't deal with it. But the electronics in the image stabilization mechanism can and they do it superbly. The tripod takes care of the bob and weave. And the IS takes care of the vibration of the tripod caused by wind, passing traffic, or touching the tripod or binoculars.

Also, these binoculars are not the light ones you may be used to using. They weigh a couple of pounds so you don't hold them to your eyes for long before your arms get tired and the shaking gets worse.

Because the distance between the lenses can't be changed you can't get solar filters for the binoculars. I checked with Thousand Oaks Optical and they say the lenses are too close together for the filters to fit. Normally filters slip over the outside of the lens and stay there by friction. But since the lenses are a fixed distance apart and close together there isn't enough space for two cells. So I bought Baader film and made my own cell.

Since the binoculars don't flex the way normal ones do how do you adjust them for the distance between your eyes? Canon provides this adjustment by allowing you to pivot the eyepieces. And the right eyepiece has the conventional adjustment to compensate for differences in eyesight between eyes.

15 mm of eye relief is provided so the binoculars can be used with eyeglasses by folding the eye cups down. It is, however, easier to use them without the glasses if you can do it.

Oddly, at least to my thinking, Canon only supplies lens caps for the eyepieces. The only protection for the objectives is the travel case. I tried buying screw-in lens cape (the lenses have 57 mm threads) but with the rubber weather resistant coating over everything the lens threads are too deeply recessed for the lens cap threads to grab them. The eyepiece covers sit on the flimsy rubber eye cups and pop off easily. Most people loose theirs as I have done one of mine.

I have noticed some chromatic aberration when I observe the sun through Baader solar filter film (ever look at the sun through binoculars or a telescope if you ever plan on looking at anything else again, you will fry your eye before you can blink or turn away). I can't say whether the problem is with the binoculars themselves, the Baader film, or the combination of the two. I see a green-yellow fringe around the sun from 1:00 back to 7:00 and a light blue fringe from 1:00 down to 7:00. I haven't noticed it when looking at stars or planets and since discovering it there hasn't been a clear sky on a full moon night to see if it is observable there.

The binoculars come in four different models.

• 8x25
• 10x30
• 12x36
• 15x50 All Weather
• 18x50 All Weather

Only the two largest (and, not surprisingly, the most expensive) models have the all weather coating. It will protect the insides of the optical system and the electronics if you get caught in the rain, but these devices are not intended for immersion.

RipFlash Portable MP3 Recordable Player
Manufacturer: PoGo Products
http://www.pogoproducts.com/

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Everyone is running around with an MP3 player playing tunes they downloaded from the Internet. Some of them have gotten ripper software to convert their CDs to MP3 format so they can upload them to their player.

One of the main things I like about the PoGo Products RipFlash (model PRM-200F) is that it does the conversion on the fly using an internal ripper. You can plug any source into its line in jack and convert the analog signal to a digital MP3 file. You can also record directly through the Rip Flash?s built in microphone. You can set the sampling rate to maximize quality or storage space.

That is why I bought the RipFlash to begin with. I wanted to discretely record a class that I was taking. Most places don?t let you do that but this one didn?t prohibit it. Since then I have used it to record a meeting and a weekly concert that I go to where recording is permitted.

There is a button you can press to place a marker anywhere in a recording. The next time you press the button it sets an end marker and goes into in infinite loop between the two markers. I use this when I am trying to learn a new song on my tin whistle and want to repeat a passage until I know it.

You can get the RipFlash with various amounts of internal memory. There is also a slot where you can add SmartMedia cards. My unit has 128 MB of internal storage, which is enough to record about 2 CDs of music or a week worth of evening classes and two hours of concert. I also have added a 128 MB Smart Media card and have a spare 64 MB card.

The RipFlash comes with file management software (MP3 Manager) that you have to use to upload and download files to the internal and external memory. Both memories must be formatted either by the RipFlash unit or MP3 Manager. This format is proprietary so I can?t take a card with audio files and use it in my iPAQ. (I can reformat the cards with Windows and convert them back with the RipFlash.)

The RipFlash is made in Korea and the manual must have been written there also. There are places where it doesn?t read easily. And other places where it names features but doesn?t explains what they do. The manual is probably the weakest part of the system. On a couple of occasions I have made adjustments to the auto on settings that seemed like they would be right only to have the unit stop and start throught a class every time the instructor took a breath and I ended up not hearing anything. Finally I returned all settings to their default and left them that way and things are fine.

There is a switch that is supposed to lock out all the buttons so you can put the player in your pocked and nothing will happen if a button is inadvertently pressed. I am finding that when I use that feature something ? possibly static electricity ? is causing the player to jump to the beginning of the last track in internal memory.

You can have the recorder make one long recording or create a new track when it senses the end of a track. For recording from the microphone making one long recording is the way to go. For most recorded audio you are OK having the RipFlash sense the end of a track and create a new one. This sometimes causes the loss of part of the opening sound. And sometimes the recording gets so quiet, especially at the end of a verse of a capela singing, that the song is turned into many tracks.

There is no provision for naming tracks and even if you have a name on a file on your hard drive the RipFlash will assign it a track number when you upload it. (File names are still visible with MP3 Manager.) If you have tracks in internal memory and external memory they will have consecutive numbers. If you add another track to internal memory it will get the next number after the last track already there. This is the number of the first track on the external memory. So adding tracks to the internal memory bumps the numbers of tracks in external memory up. That makes it hard to go directly to a particular track since it may not have the same number as the last time you played it. There is a new version of the RipFlash that had just come out when I got mine that, I believe, permits displaying file names.

The RipFlash has the usual settings for introduction, repeat play and random play, and equalizer settings for jazz, rock, pop and classical.

Two AAA batteries supply power. I use rechargeable 600 mAh Ni-MH batteries and can usually record three hour-long lectures and practice my tin whistle during the week without killing them. I recharge them before the 2-2.5-hour Irish concert on Friday. And I always carry a set of alkaline batteries with me in case the rechargeables start to run low before a recording session.

Portable Minidisc Recorder
Manufacturer: Sony
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start;sid=QY1YSOZdKT1Yadj2hAxSQ6lM_fT4qIwZYMk=?CategoryName=pa_Walkman%2e

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I purchased my Sony portable Minidisc recorder back in the early days of this technology. It is therefore a much clunkier device than the machines which you can purchase today. Mine is the MZ-R50 and I think I paid around $300.00 for it at the Sony Style store in New York City.

Minidisc players and recorders are based around the minidisc which was developed in the early 90s by Sony as a replacement for cassette tapes. With the introduction of digital audio in the form of the Compact Disc Sony wanted a small, high audio quality product for its Walkman line. Digital audio tape was there but it wasn't taking off. And it was still a linear format so you had to fast forward along the tape to the section you wanted. Compact Discs allow direct access to any track on the media, just like we had back in the days when we all used those big, black, 33 RPM vinyl discs. So Sony pushed the Minidisc format.

The Minidisc captured the new recordable CD technology and miniaturized it. Now a home user could record whatever audio they wanted with digital quality. So you could take all of your old black things and record all of the pops and hisses with digital clarity. But mostly they were used to make smaller copies of regular CDs. But most people continued to carry around their regular size CDs and a slightly larger portable CD player. After all, why do you need to buy a CD then spend hundreds of dollars on a compact unit to make a copy of it to carry on the subway. Why not save the hundreds of dollars on the equipment and the cost of the blank media and buy a slightly larger but much cheaper machine to play the original CD. Sony put some content onto prerecorded minidiscs but I haven't seen anyone stocking them in the past few years.

The disc itself is a 2-inch platter which is contained in a plastic housing about 2.75 inches square (they aren't really square but aren't far enough off it that that description is close enough for government work) and 1/8 inch thick. It is very much like an old 3.5-inch floppy disk with a shutter and a sliding write protect switch. They are really cute. There is one in the upper left corner of the picture above. You get about 72 minutes of digital stereo music. If you record in mono the time doubles.

I don't know the reasons, but the Minidisc was a very slow starter. Sony made some units and a few others tested the waters but Sony was the only company to really push the media. Recently there has been an upsurge in its popularity but I think that will be short lived as everyone is getting on the MP3 player bandwagon (I have one which I will review shortly).

The MZ-R50 was the state of the art when I bought it back around 1999. It is smaller than thin paperback book and is about the same weight as a thick paperback. Power is supplied by a rechargeable battery. The gray "sidecar" in the picture above houses two AA batteries to extend play time. You can remove the sidecar if you don't need the extended play time and don't want to carry the extra weight. When you are recording you really should be using the supplied power adapter.

The little silver thing above the unit is a remote control. The headphones are plugged into it. So you can put the player in a bag and still have complete control over it. The supplied headphones have a very short wire (about two feet I think) and must be plugged into the remote control or a cable extender from RadioShack.

It allows you to record digital or analog signals through a line in connection and analog from a microphone (not included). Playback is through headphones or line out to a home stereo. There is a fiberoptic cable included for digital recording from a CD. You can only record digitally from original source material, not from copies of CDs. When you are using the digital cable the recording starts automatically when the CD player starts which is real nice.

You can delete tracks and the recorder will reuse the space for the next recording but the recordings will still be played back in the order in which they were recorded. You can also rearrange the playback order. There are also repeat selection, repeat disc and shuffle playback modes.

Discs and racks can be named by using a wheel to select letters, numbers and punctuation.

I originally got the recorder to use in conjunction with my photography. My plan was to dictate notes about the pictures I was making and to record environmental sounds to use in presentations. That never happened. I have used it to record some meetings and classes. Mostly I have been using it to take music with me when I travel. I have a pair of powered mini speakers for in the hotel room and an adapter to inject music into a car stereo through the tape player.

The minidisc is great for taking music with you when you are doing something active. Tape players have a bit of roll when they are moved and earlier CD players skipped when the car bounced. Both of these technologies have improved over the years. But I can pick up my minidisc and shake it violently and it never misses a beat. (Don't try this at home buys and girls. I am not sure that won't damage the arm the laser that moves around inside the unit is mounted on.)

The only bad thing I have found about the minidisc recorder is that, like all Sony products, it has non industry standard connectors so you are tied to them for accessories. The only place this is a concern is in the digital cable which is only about three feet long and not long enough for me. I bought a replacement from RadioShack but it has an industry standard connector that is too big to fit in the Sony jack. So I had to buy a double female adapter to connect the two cables together. Headphones are not a problem. Sony wants you to buy theirs to use with your Panasonic or Aiwa equipment so that connector is industry standard as is the microphone.

You can also get minidisc changers for your home stereo. Like all home audio components they have more features but are bigger and are tied to an electric outlet and an amplifier and speakers.

Digital Organizer with E-mail
Manufacturer: Sharp
http:www.sharpusa.com

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Years ago I bought an Hewlett Packard HP95-LX palmtop computer. It was a full fledged computer that you could hold in the palm of your hand. It had little chickette keys that you pressed with your thumbs. I became quite adept at this way of typing and used the little machine to write some major documents. One day it stopped working.

After cogitating for a bit I settled on the PalmPilot II as a replacement. This machine was even smaller but not really a computer. It was an organizer that you could add some additional programs to. Some of those programs were very useful, but you were still dealing with an electronic calendar on steroids. The touch sensative screen was an interesting interface. One day that machine stopped working too.

These are traumatic experiences that punctuate your life. When you adopt these technologies they alter the way you organize your life. Everything goes into the machine -- even stuff you would never write down elsewhere -- and it is always available. Until the machine up and dies. Then you instantly have nothing. It is like loosing your pocket calendar/address book; only worse.

This time I cogitated longer before selecting a replacement. The industry was changing with the introduction of Windows CE based machines into the market. Now there was competition for Palm and a wider choice of products for the consumer. The advantage to the Win CE machines was that they were real computers that would run real Windows programs. If, that is, someone had ported their program over to the Win CE operating system. And in the early days there weren't that many of them and Win CE was rather limited in what it could do. (I think the advertising has been a bit deceptive in this regard as other than the fact that it bears the Windows moniker it is more of a Windows-like operating system although Win CE 3.0 for the Pocket PC 202 is getting there.) So it took me a long time to try to decide which camp I wanted to live in.

During those ruminations I became aware of the PocketMail service which ran on the Sharp TM-20 and a few other machines. I was intrigued and signed on. PocketMail delivers email to a palmtop organizer anywhere there is a phone. I was more connected than I had ever been while I used this device.

PocketMail is a service that provides you with an email address. You can set it up to copy email from another email account and put it in your mailbox too. Whenever you call the PocketMail number you download all of your email, sans attachments and graphics, to the PocketMail compatible device. PocketMail provides toll free numbers for the USA and Canada but you can call from anywhere in the world if you don't mind the toll charges. It will even work over analog cell phones. So anywhere you can get to a phone you can get to your email. I loved this feature.

The technology is a throwback to the first modems which were acoustic couplers. You didn't plug the computer into a phone jack like we do today but set the telephone handset in a cradle that had a microphone opposing the telephone's speaker and a speaker opposing the phone's microphone. Once you initiated the connection the two devices would squeal at each other until the data had been transferred. It wasn't elegant but it worked. And that is exactly how the PocketMail service works. The Sharp TM-20 has a microphone built onto a pop-out arm on one end of the bottom of the unit and a speaker that can be adjusted to accommodate various sizes of telephone handsets on the other. You dial the PocketMail number, hold the device against the phone handset and press the go button and a short while later you have all of your email.

If you get a lot of email you spend a long time downloading it all. My hand gets tired holding this thing up to the phone. But PocketMail thought of that and allows you to configure your account so that all you download is the message headers if it will take longer than a specified time to get the details. Once you have read the header you can decide if you want to get the entire message. If so you flag it and dial in again to download any new message headers and the messages you flagged for retrieval. You can forweard messages and reply to the sender or to everyone on the distribution just like in desktop email.

The device also has a calendar and an address book built in. There is a memo utility that can store fairly long notes and can be ued as a rudimentary database. But there is no calculator for some strange reason.

You can get third party software to back the unit up to your desktop and enter data from the desktop. But there is no way to run the software on the desktop and synchronize the information with the TM-20.

I used the unit to good advantage on two occasions. The first was during and after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. I couldn't be at my desk and knew that friends would be concerned about me so I immediately keyed in a brief message saying that something major had happened in lower Manhattan but that I was OK. I added contacts to the distribution from the address book and fited the message off before I even knew what had happened. A ew minutes later I saw the first plane crashing into the WTC being replayed on the news and then the second one in real time. I knew my life would be changing for a considerable period of time and keyed in another message which I was sending out as the first tower collapsed. That was whhile you could still get a phone line in manhattan. During the subsequent months I was able to key in messages while walking to and from work to let people know I was still around and email them wherever I could find a working pay phone, a major problem for a while.

More recently I spent a couple of months on Guam working on a typhoon relief operation. Internet service from there through AOL isn't cheap, and the hotel carges for every call too, so I didn't get online often. But I could go to the hotel lobby and use the pay phone there to collect my mail and write replies while sitting at the pool (Guam was rough) or at dinner. This allowed me to stay in touch with people without breaking the bank.

I have a couple of issues with the Sharp TM-20 but none with the PocketMail service itself. The TM-20 does not have a battery status light. The only way you know your batteries are going dead is you can send mail but can't receive any. It took me a while to figure this out. Fortunately the unit runs on two AA cells which you can buy almost anywhere. The other issue is that you can't expand memory. It has enough storage space for bunches of contact information, calendar events, memos, and emails for most people, but not as much as I need. I had to keep reassessing the value of some of the things stored there to make room for new mail. You can't add any programs to it either, but I knew that getting into it and felt that ubiquitous access to my email outweighed that disadvantage.

Unfortunately my unit is going the way of its predecessors. It looks like the cable tht connects the LCD screen in the cover to the memory in the base has broken from heavy use and there are several rows of crystals that don't light up now. This makes it hard to read letters and numbers that line up with those rows of cells. And the unit is no longer manufactured or serviced by Sharp. All of the devices associated with PocketMail now seem to be wireless which is a step backward in my opinion since no carrier can get me my mail anywhere over one of these devices the way I could get it with my TM-20. Now I am carrying a Compaq (HP) iPAQ and can't get to my email but that is another story for another time.

DigitalWallet
Manufacturer: Minds@Work
http://www.mindsatwork.net

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I am grieving. I really love my Digital Wallet and am proud to have been an early adopter of this technology. Since I bought it the company has come out with a revised product named the MindStore. In checking out their website for this post I found out that they have recently gone out of business. This is a real shame since the product has worked well for me and I am sure for others also. It almost makes it not worth writing this but it is a great product so I am going to do it anyway.

The DigitalWallet is essentially a battery operated, ruggedized, portable hard drive. It is smaller than a paperback book and probably weighs about the same. There is custom software onboard that downloads files from various formats of RAM chips. It can be hooked to a computer (Windows or Mac) for drag-and-drop file management.

Munit has a 6 GB hard drive in it. That is enough to store thousands of images from my digital camera which is what I bought it for. It has a rechargeable battery which will download more RAM chips worth of data that I can shoot in a day. But if you have it connected to a computer you want to run it on shore power or it will go dead very fast.

There is a trap door on the side of the unit that covers the slot where you plug in a PC Card (PCMCIA) RAM chip adapter so the unit supports any type of RAM although I have heard that it doesn't like the Sony Memory Stick. You power up the unit and see a very limited menu in the LCD display. You can

• copy files from a RAM chip
• manage the hard drive
• manage the RAM chip
• perform maintenance on the system.

The purpose of the unit is to copy content from storage cards (RAM chips) and store it so the chip can be used for something else. You can use it to copy content from or to the RAM chap. It will also erase everything on the chip if you would like. There is no keyboard so you can't change file names or anything fancy like that. Each new download goes into a new directory and you can't move things around on the hard drive without a computer.

The DigitalWallet connects to my computers through a USB port. Drivers are required to make it accessible. Once it is hooked to my computer Windows sees it like any other removeable media (Zip drive, RAM chip, etc) and accesses it just the same. It has a power adapter for use when it is hooked up to the computer.

There were several things I didn't like about the DigitalWalet even though I love the thing on the whole.

• There is a carry dock that has an edge connector on it that plugs into the bottom of the DigitalWallet. You plug the USB cable and the power adapter into the carry dock when you have the DigitalWallet plugged into the computer. I don't know what the thing does but I wish they had built that functionality into the DigitalWallet so I don't have to carry this other chunk of plastic with me. And mine is getting loose so sometimes i loose my connection in the middle of a file transfer,
• The slot where you plug the PC Card adapter into the DigitalWallet is covered with a plastic door that you press to close and pry open with a fingernail. It has plastic hinges and plastic bumps to hold it closed. It is a weak point in the unit. There is a similar door covering the battery compartment which is a lot harder to operate but once you install the battery you don't have to worry about it until the battery stops holding a charge (in my case about now). So far I have not had a problem with either of these doors but I would have preferred the little spring-loaded trapdoor that a lot of computers have over their PC Card slots.
• When you insert the PC Card adapter about a third of it sticks out of the side of the DigitalWalet. This is good and bad. It protects the trap door somewhat from damage so that is good. But It means that you can't store the PC Card in the unit when it is not in use.
• It would have been nice if the DigitalWallet had drawn its power from the USB port when attached to the computer and recharged the battery by that means also.

While I primarily use my unit to download images from my digital camera in the field so that I don't have to buy and carry a enough RAM chips to last a two week vacation, it has come in handy for other things too. I recently had to send my laptop in for servicing. Before I did I backed up all the data on the hard drive to the DigitalWalet. I was glad I had when the laptop arrived back with a new hard drive in it. I also used it on one vacation where I was taking digital topographic maps for an entire state with me for use with my GPS. I didn't have enough room on my laptop hard drive so I put the maps for the last half of the trip in the DigitalWallet and swapped them when necessary.

It is really a shame that this product is no longer available since it works so well.

Clik! Flash Memory Reader
Manufacturer: Iomega
http://www.iomega.com

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This is one of those things that looks like it will be the greatest thing since slice bread and ends up being a mistake.

I got this thing in 2001 shortly getting my digital calera. RAM chips to hold the images were expensive and this thing would download all the images I could get onto the RAM chip I could afford at the time. So that I could keep shooting all day with one chip. It was a great idea. You carry this thing about the size of a big (for today) cell phone and when you fill up the RAM chip you plop it into the machine and it copies the files to a 40 MB removeable Clik!disc. Fill the RAM chip up again and put a new Clik! disc in the machine and do it again.

I took it out on a field trip and copied some files to it. It worked great (but it requires a leap of faith because you can't verify anything, you just have to rely on the flashing display). So I go to take the Clik! disc out of the drive and it won't eject. Fortunately I hadn't deleted the files from the RAM chip.

At home I called Iomega tech support (who are a service company contracted to Iomega) who told me that they would be happy to replace the aparently defective Clik! disc if I mailed it to them. But they didn't want any parts of the hard drive in which the disc was stuck. They told me I could take it to any computer store (none had even heard of the thing) and have them take the drive apart (which would void the warranty) so I could mail the disc to them..

After many calls and unanswered emails I finally emailed their public relations people threatening to post a Clik! Sucks web site (kind of like this don't ya think). That got their attention and they sent me an RMA and a new Clik! drive which was shipped to the wrong address. They did ship another unit when I talked to them again about it, but didn't include a replacement disc so I was down $10 in the deal.

This time I didn't wait until I had pictures on my RAM chip. I tested a disc in it as soon as the unit arrived. And the disc got stuck in that one too. Well about this time the unit that was shipped to the wrong address arrived so I tried another disc in that unit. It is still stuck in that unit two years later. Iomega has two drives back which are holding two of my discs captive. So not only am I out the purchase price of the unit which I gave up on, but also the cost of four additional Clik! disks, two of which Iomega did not replace.

So I am don't think the Clik! Flash Memory Reader is a very good product. And my experience is that Iomega has terrible customer relations.

There were other things I didn't like about the unit too. You get the drive, and an attachment you put the RAM chip into, and a cradle, and a clunky port replicator that plugs into your parallel port, and a power supply. That is a lot of stuff to put on, behind next to and/or under your computer. And when I installed it it trashed the installation of my SyQuest removeable drive that used to live on the parallel port.

All of this is fairly moot now because a 40 MB RAM chip in today's digital cameras is absurd (if anyone is still making them) and since that is the maximum capacity of a Clik! disc you can't use it with a larger RAM chip. And, fortunately, Iomega no longer makes this product.

My feeling is that even if you can get one of these things given to you, you are still overpaying for it.