Appletell

Product: Griffin Technology ClearBoost and Wave case
Price and Availability: Both currently available, the ClearBoost is $29.99 and the Wave case is $24.99
Rating: ClearBoost 5/10 and Wave case 9/10
Pros: Both cases offered solid protection for the iPhone along with the display.
Cons: A personal issue, but they both make using the Apple dock difficult.
Overall: If you are looking for a solid case or a signal booster, then either of these from Griffin would make an ideal option to consider.

Both the ClearBoost and the Wave case ship with a clear film style protector for the display and also a cleaning cloth.

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Product: Photoshop Elements 6.0
Link: Photoshop Elements 6.0
Price: $89 USD
Rating: 8/10

In February, I reviewed a beta version of Photoshop Elements 6.0. I focused on interface, speed and features. As a whole, my review hasn’t changed too much.

In February, I wrote that “launching Photoshop Elements is a painful process. Startup took about 17 seconds: six bounces of the icon on the dock, then about 11 seconds on the splash screen. This is about the same as Photoshop Elements 4.0, which was running through emulation.” The final version of Photoshop has most definitely improved in this area, beating CS3 for start time, taking about 10 seconds on a cold start, which is very acceptable. 

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Adobe Systems Incorporated announced yesterday that Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 6 for Macintosh® is available immediately. “Since its January launch at the 2008 Macworld Expo, Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac was named “Best of Show,” and given the 2008 Editors’ Choice Awards by The Mac Observer and the 2008 Macworld Award by Macsimum News,” the Adobe Press Release reads.

The biggest new features to Photoshop Elements 6.0 are the fact that it is now a Universal Binary, the new Photomerge technology, and a new interface and different levels of the program depending on the user’s expertise.

According to Adobe, “Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macintosh runs on Leopard, (Mac OS X v 10.5.2), as well as previous versions of Mac OS X starting with 10.4.8. [...] Photoshop Elements 6 is immediately available in the United States and Canada for an estimated street price of US$89.99. Owners of previous versions of Photoshop Elements can upgrade to Photoshop Elements 6 for US$69.99 with an in-box, mail-in rebate or through http://www.adobe.com.”

Photoshop Elements 6.0 can be purchased at Apple Stores, Apple.com, Amazon.com, Best Buy Stores, BestBuy.com, Costco.com, J&R, Microcenter, NewEgg.com, Staples Stores and Staples.com.

You can read my first look reviews, on speed and features and the interface, and also keep an eye out for a final review of the final copy, coming in a few days.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, due out mid-March, is touted as a large advancement over the previous version, Photoshop Elements 4. There are many new features, and the program as a whole has been further targeted at consumers, but overall, it doesn’t seem like enough has changed to call it an important release. This section of the Photoshop Elements 6 review will focus on speed and new features.

Keep in mind that the review copy of Photoshop Elements is in beta, and therefore may include some glitches or performance issues not found in the final retail copy.

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I bought an iPod Touch mainly because it brought a decent-sized widescreen display to the iPod - something that my old iPod 5G was missing. But what if you could extend your iPod’s viewing potential to 60 inches in front of your eyes? Well, that’s probably what Vuzix was thinking when they came up with the iWear AV920 glasses.

The AV920 glasses look like something from the future, hardly matching anything any portable media player I know. The metallic black plastic covers both of your eyes from the front, and at the back, your eyes look into two high-resolution displays that both create a virtual 60-inch display 2.5 inches away from you. It took a while for me to adjust the glasses, but fortunately adjustability is very easy on the AV920. The included earbuds that hang off the side of the glasses produce nice quality sound, too - but they didn’t suit my ears. Luckily again, the earbuds easily slide out, so that you can insert your own headphones. The glasses are lightweight and ergonomic, and things like the nosepiece are adjustable for maximum comfort.

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Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, due out mid-March, is touted as a large advancement over the previous version, Photoshop Elements 4. There are many new features, and the program as a whole has been further targeted at consumers, but overall, it doesn’t seem like enough has changed to call it an important release. This section of the Photoshop Elements 6 review will focus on the redesigned interface.

Looking at the demo videos on Adobe’s Photoshop Elements site, I was rather dismayed by what I saw. The color scheme seemed to be all grey, and it overall looked very oppressive. At the time, I was looking forward to Photoshop Elements 6 and hoped for the best, based upon rumors that the actual interface was different.

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More and more HDMI-equipped devices are appearing - and you’ll probably find that your brand new HDTV runs out of free HDMI ports quickly. Devices like Apple TVs, games consoles, satellite receivers and more are all becoming HDMI compliant because it provides the best quality in both audio and video; supporting Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, and 1080p.

XtremeMac, well-known for making iPod and Mac accessories, have introduced an HDMI switcher that is designed to fit with the Apple TV. The device sits nicely underneath or on top of an Apple TV, as it has the same white plastic and aluminium trim that the Apple TV has, as well as exactly the same footprint. It’s also incredibly thin for an HDMI switcher of this type, and looks great wherever it’s placed.

Included in the box is the HDMI switcher itself, and a 5-button remote control - which is used for switching between the four different sources. It’s a shame that you can’t have the box automatically switch between sources when a signal is detected, but systems that have this feature often don’t work too well. The bundled remote control is tiny, and also about the same size as the Apple remote - although this has a different design.

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Product: CandyBar
Price: $29
Rating: 9/10.0 (Excellent)
Pros: Very easy to use, Pixadex built in, 512x512 icons and docks, new interface.
Cons: Somewhat cluttered interface.
Overall: CandyBar 3 combines Pixadex to store and apply your icons and docks.

Candybar 3 is Panic’s latest release of their icon applying application, new in version 3 is a New Interface, Quick Look, Support for Docks, Smart Collections and much more. They have also built Pixadex, an application for storing icons right into CandyBar, this allows you to store 512x512 pixel high resolution icons and apply them with in the application.  Using CandyBar 3 it is easy to orgainize and change your icons, even those in the hard to find areas such as hard drives, application icons and even badges.

Interface - 10/10 - The interface is a steady upgrade over version 2, it makes use of many of Leopard’s new features, and even has a lookalike Quick Look. All the parts of the main window are very smooth when opening and closing, and allow you to browse a large collection very quickly, easily and fluidly, with short load times.

Features - 8/10 - The feature set in this new release is very good. Now that you can store, organize, change and view all of your icons and docks easily, it makes an icon collectors job very easy.

From the CandyBar Website;

New Features

Brand New Interface
Store and browse icons (and iContainers) with ease

Quick Look
Totally integrated: view iContainers in the Finder itself

512×512 Icons
Mega sized, hyper detailed, good to go

Better iContainers
Save and load icons, and docks, all bundled up

Super Speed
Load and browse icons in a flash, thanks to Leopard

Quick Drop
Easily apply icons to individual folders

Organize Docks, Too
Got an iContainer with a Dock? We’ll hold onto it

Smart Collections
Search and build dynamic icon collections

Product: Xslimmer
Price: $11.95
Rating: 7.0/10.0 (Good)
Pros: Very easy to use, great backlist.
Cons: Few amount of features.
Overall: A very easy way to save disk space, but for the price, it could use some more features.

Xslimmer is a revolutionary application for recovering disk space by removing parts of an application that you do not need. I was able to save over 4 GB on my hard drive by running Xslimmer, and everything works great now. It works by removing two simple parts, unneeded languages and unnecessary code from Universal Binaries for applications that run both on PowerPC and Intel Macs. Xslimmer determines if you are on a PowerPC or Intel Mac and removes the binary that you do not need. It also removes languages that are unneeded, ones that you do not speak or commonly use.

Interface - 8/10 - The interface is very simple yet effective, with a basic toolbar, a search, and some more controls a long the bottom, it allows you to quickly learn how to use the application, and accomplish the task of removing unneeded parts of the applications very easily. I think that the interface could be better for a more focused view when there is only one application dragged into the window.

Features - 6/10 - The feature set is quite limited in my opinion, it does only what it is said to do, and nothing more. There are a few useful features such as backing up, allowing you to slim the application, make sure it works normally and then delete the backup, but in my opinion, this should be more greatly presented to the user rather than needed to dig through the menus and preferences to find it.

Here are some examples of the savings by using Xslimmer, from the Xslimmer Website:

BBEdit 8.5, from 33.6Mb to 23.5Mb (30%)

GarageBand 3.0.4, from 103Mb to 30.4Mb (70%)

Google Earth 4, from 101Mb to 52.8Mb (47%)

Photoshop CS3 Beta, from 246Mb to 144Mb (41%)

Xslimmer sells for $11.95, check it out.

Product Page [Xslimmer]

Product: Aliph Jawbone
Price: $119.99
Rating: 9.0/10.0 (Excellent)
Pros: Noise cancellation, spring-loaded
Cons: A little bulky, earbud takes some getting used to.
Overall: A great choice for business travelers, and folks that live in a busy city due to the excellent noise cancellation technology.

With the recent news that the Jawbone will be sold alongside the Apple iPhone on June 29, what better time to post our review of the headset from Aliph?  Read on for our full review and post comments with any questions.  We’ll do our best to answer you.

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