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Case-mate's enlightening Kindle cover

We've seen a few Kindle cases that offer built-in lights so you can read in dimly lit environments, but Case-mate's Enlighten is unusual in that it features a lighted acrylic panel that sits on top of your Kindle instead of an LED light with a flexible neck.

Due out in December, Case-mate's billing the $79.99 Enlighten as "the first case on the market equipped with a LED-powered light for nighttime reading as well as an interior side pocket for storage."

Here are its key features:

Clear acrylic panel with integrated LED light with two … Read more

Easy fax cover sheet maker

Star Fax Cover Sheet Creator helps you create a fax cover sheet for your business. It offers several built-in templates, and the ability to add your company's logo. Unfortunately, the e-mail feature failed to work for us.

The program's interface is fairly easy to use, though we did have to hunt for some features. We previewed the sample fax sheet that we had created and decided that we wanted to include our logo on the sheet. Figuring out how to do it required a visit to the Help file. The only file type that you can use to … Read more

Basic movie organizer

Movie Label 2010 is a multifeatured database program that allows users to organize their movie collections. Although we liked the program's many options and sleek interface, it didn't always run as well as it should have.

The program's interface will look familiar to users of Office 2007 products. Everything is fairly intuitive, although given the number of features, sometimes users will have to do a bit of poking around to find what they're looking for. There are several ways for people to enter movie titles; Movie Label can search for and download information from IMDb, gather … Read more

Report: Open-source quality growing as it goes primetime

Given the vast and growing number of open-source projects, one would assume its quality had gone down as quantity went up. In fact, the inverse is true, suggests a new report from Coverity, which spent the past three years analyzing more than 11 billion lines lines of code from 280 open-source projects. This is crucial given open source's increased importance to the software industry as a whole, and not merely self-styled "open-source companies."

Among other findings, Coverity's report reveals a 16-percent reduction in static analysis defect density. While Coverity's analysis doesn't cover all or … Read more

Avoiding the software 'fail whale'

The tech world is all too familiar with Twitter's "fail whale" and have become accustomed to Gmail failures (which are inevitably chronicled on Twitter.) And while sometimes it's infrastructure (such as routers and switches) rather than software that fails, it often seems as if we too readily accept that software will inevitably breakdown.

Mark Donsky, director of product management at Coverity, commented recently about a recent static analysis of open-source projects performed on the Scan site that showed a 71.9 percent correlation between the number of lines of code and number of defects found.

This is of course, not an open-source problem but a general issue that occurs as more code is integrated into products. I've been told that Windows is developed with two quality assurance people to every engineer as the product has grown over the years.

Coverity is focused on software integrity and advocates static analysis early in the development cycle. While testing of all kinds, including static analysis are obviously good ideas, the tools and methods vary dramatically by engineering organization. The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University and the Object Management Group (OMG) recently paired up to form a consortium to establish standards for software quality. … Read more

Cocktail part of Apple's September event

Peter Kafka at All Things Digital reported Thursday that Apple is planning to make a major announcement the week of September 7, and that was a big scoop.

But much of the substance of Apple's announcement--at least as it relates to music--is old news, according to multiple music industry sources. Last month, the Financial Times broke the story that Apple is working on the next-generation album cover, code named Cocktail.

Whatever else Apple intends to announce at the still not officially announced event, expect Cocktail to be part of it. An Apple spokesman declined to comment on Friday.

It … Read more

PhoneFace gives speed-dial the Cover Flow treatment

Like Cover Flow for contacts, PhoneFace lets you create a custom favorites list comprised entirely of photos (and/or avatars).

In other words, it's a visual alternative to the iPhone's own Favorites list. And a terrific one at that.

To get started, you tap the Plus icon, then choose an existing contact from your address book. If there's not already an associated photo, you'll have the option to snap one with the iPhone's camera, choose one from your photo library, pick an avatar from PhoneFace's collection, or even pull down his/her Twitter profile … Read more

The Pre's Strength and Build - Part 2

In answer to a question on my previous post, yes, two of the Pre's falls resulted in scuffs on the corners. Guess that's what happens when a smooth, shiny object collides with concrete... Sigh.

In keeping with a review of the Pre's hardware durability, I wanted to touch on the little USB port cover. This baby fits in there tight, almost too tight. There are days when I'm not sure I'll get it open... Once it is pulled out I feel like it's going to stay on, unlike other phones I've had where … Read more

Amazon will now replace Kindles damaged by cover

Here's quick update to the story we posted the other day on a couple filing a class-action lawsuit over a potential design flaw in Amazon's Kindle 2 involving the company's cover and cracks developing around the clasps where the cover attaches to the device.

Amazon has decided that it will now replace Kindles that have been cracked by the cover free of charge, reversing its earlier stance that the Kindle 2's warranty didn't cover such cracks and required a $200 fee to repair. As expected, Amazon wouldn't comment on the lawsuit itself, which will … Read more

Does the Kindle 2 have a design flaw? Lawsuit says yes

Amazon prides itself on customer service, but it now finds itself the target of a $5 million class action lawsuit because it failed to replace a Kindle 2 that a customer alleges was damaged by Amazon's own $30 protective case.

Matthew Geise, executive director of a Seattle property management firm, and his wife, Alisa Brodkowitz, are behind the suit (the $5 million sought represents damages for all Kindle owners who are affected by the problem, as well as legal costs).

The story goes like this. Brodkowitz's Kindle 2, which she received as a gift from her husband, developed cracks around around the points "where the cover attaches with metal clips," Geise told Seattle Times reporter Brier Dudley. On July 6, the screen froze and the device stopped working.

In user reviews of the e-reader, other Kindle owners have complained about cracks in the area around the clasps, so the issue is apparently not isolated.

Brodkowitz spoke with a customer rep, who said the screen freeze was covered under the Kindle 2's warranty, but not the cracks, which the rep allegedly said "were caused by improperly opening the cover backwards." A $200 repair fee was required to fix the maimed Kindle.

Instead of paying, Geise and his wife decided to file a class action lawsuit. According to the suit, what seems to have ticked the couple off was an Amazon customer service supervisor telling Brodkowitz that the cracks are a "common problem," but that the $200 repair fee still had to be paid. Brodkowitz says she never did any backward bending of the cover.

Here at CNET, we didn't have any issues with the cover causing damage to our initial review sample, but we only had it for three weeks.… Read more