talks

This morning Web-SMS service Joopz is launching a new Outlook plug-in that turns your desktop e-mail client into a one-stop SMS hub. Once tied into your Joopz account, you can send and receive text messages like you would e-mail. The tool also syncs up with your Outlook contacts, to let you send notes to anybody with a phone number.

The service is flouting the new plug-in as a handy way to keep in touch with friends, but for business users who use SMS to communicate with their colleagues while out on the road, this could be a handy, finger-saving tool … Read more

Maybe we've seen too many bad sci-fi movies, but the thought of a gadget that talks to us is a little unnerving--especially if it involves our physical well-being. We suppose that the intentions are good, given that it's about exercise and all, but the last thing we need is some mechanical voice assessing our performance. Even if it is a "pleasant female" one, as GadgetGrid says.

Aside from that, the "Talking Digital Hand Grip" is just an updated version of the old squeeze strengtheners you can still find lying around gyms and hall closets … Read more

In case you hadn't noticed, today is "International Talk Like a Pirate Day," which means it's socially acceptable to start speaking in tongues to your friends, family, and coworkers without them being able to roll their eyes as much as they usually do. It's also a time to check out Flickr, who has managed to translate the entirety of the site to pirate-speak. To toggle this option, just go down to the bottom of the page and select "Arrr!" as the language. Flickr's logo changes, along with all the menus, greeting messages, … Read more

When I posted my review of Belkin's TuneTalk Stereo, a representative of APC commented on the story to suggest that I might want to use APC's Mobile Power Pack to extend the iPod's battery life when recording.

I started to reply to describe the gizmo I designed to power my iPod from a spare PowerBook battery-- a little clip that connects the battery terminals to an iPod dock cable. This is what I used to use to power up my old 4th-generation iPod while recording long conference sessions with the Belkin Voice Recorder for iPod.

But even as I was typing, I realized… Read more

I'd like to provide some additional information provided by Belkin as a followup to my review of the TuneTalk Stereo earlier in the week.

Belkin public relations coordinator Jacqueline Romulo wrote to me after the review appeared to confirm that the TuneTalk Stereo is not currently compatible with the iPod classic, and said it was listed as compatible on the Belkin Web site by mistake. (Indeed, it's no longer listed on Belkin's page for the iPod classic.)

In a subsequent e-mail, Romulo provided this… Read more

On Monday evening, I posted my first impressions of my new iPod classic 160GB. The first accessory I needed for my new iPod was a microphone so I can record conferences, meetings, and voice memos.

Right after receiving the iPod, I looked around online and found a comparative review of three iPod microphones by Mark Nelson on the O'Reilly Digital Media site. The review helped me settle on the Belkin TuneTalk Stereo for iPod.

I checked the Belkin Web site to make sure this model is compatible with the iPod classic. There's a page on the Belkin site just for that model, and the TuneTalk Stereo is on there--Belkin part number F8Z082-BLK.

I then went to the local Apple Store (at the Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara, Calif.) since I remembered seeing this gizmo for sale there a couple of months ago. Sure enough, they were still there. In fact, there were two different… Read more

As I said last week in my post about Apple's iPod announcements, I ordered a new 160GB iPod classic as soon as the Apple Store was back online.

It arrived today (Monday)--five days later, from Shanghai--with my custom engraving. I think that's pretty darn excellent.

The iPod packaging has gotten a lot smaller. A box the size of those that contained my first two iPods (a third-generation model, then a fourth-generation iPod when the third-gen model died) could probably hold about six of the new iPod classic packages. I saw the new iPod nano packaging at a local Apple Store this evening, and it's much smaller--and very cool, since it presents the iPod itself under… Read more

Amid the growing group of instant-messaging solutions for the IM-less iPhone, Mundu (a Webware 100 winner) has just released a new contender that handles four of the most popular chatting protocols with a fantastic interface. If you're an iPhone user, just navigate your Safari browser to http://iphone.mundu.com, which takes you to a log-in screen with access to your AIM, Yahoo, MSN, .Mac, and Google Talk accounts. You can log into all of them simultaneously, although there's no master password system like you get with Meebo.

Each client gets its own buddy list, and any additional … Read more

Who needs downloads? Not instant-messaging fans, apparently, according to Nielsen NetRatings. The online division of the legendary statistics-crunching company just released a study that tracks the fastest-growing instant-messaging software products from August 2006 to June 2007, and the results indicate that Web-based is the way to go.

The most rapidly growing IM client, according to the study, is Meebo, which launched just over a year ago. The fact that it's so new may be partially responsible for its rapid growth--354 percent from August 2006 to June 2007. But Meebo also packs a double punch: not only is it Web-based … Read more