Earlier this week at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2008) in Las Vegas, SanDisk announced a 12GB microSDHC (High Capacity) card, which will be available later this year.

Sandisk also announced a 32GB version of its Sansa View Media Player. However, another 32Gb flash based media player, the Creative Zen 32GB had already been announced in November last year. This brings the capacity of flash-based Media Players in line with the previous generation of hard drive based players, which started at 30GB.

Now with the 12GB microSDHC card, you can increase the capacity of your 32GB Sansa View to 44GB, for a yet to be announced price. As for the 32GB Creative Zen, it has a SDHC (Secure Digital high Capacity) expansion slot, and the largest SDHC Card currently available is 16GB, with a 32GB prototype SDHC already being shown by Panasonic at CES this year. So the 32GB Creative Zen could be increased to a total of 48GB of storage, and in several months that would be 64GB of flash memory total. All this in a flash player the size of a credit card. In comparison, the Sansa View is large for a flash-based MP3 Player, rather like an oversized rounded version of SanDisk’s popular e200 series of MP3 Players.

Of course microSD cards are not only used in MP3 Players, but also in cellphones and cameras.

Don’t you marvel at engineers who come up with better designs for the stuff we use every day? I mean, whoever created Glide floss should be knighted as far as I’m concerned. That goes for office supplies too. In particular, I’m talking about the Staples One-Touch 3-hole punch.

This is my story…

While I hesitate to admit this to you (because we hardly know each other), I am an incompetent at punching holes. Inevitably, what happens is this: I become overly ambitious with my dreams of workplace organization. That means I sit down with a stack of papers that all need to go into a newly labeled 3-ring binder. Thus begins the chore of punching holes in all of those documents. But I usually grab too many sheets and the puncher has dull blades, so some of the sheets go sideways in the puncher in my struggle to punch them, and the holes sometimes end up halfway off the sheet, which means they’re not really holes so much as crescent moons. So I grab my single-hole puncher to remedy the situation, but I can never line up the missing hole with the other holes on the sheet and, therefore, many sheets end up not really suitable to fit uniformly in my 3-ring binder. So goes another effort at personal improvement.

Apparently, the designers at Staples have experienced similar office gaffes, and they have come up with a puncher that takes — according to their calculations — 50% less effort than the standard puncher. (If they had measured it against my puncher, the ratio would have been much higher, but I digress.) This monster can handle up to 20 sheets at a time. And the compartment where the detritus accumulates isn’t a funky piece of plastic that, when you peel it back, sprays your office floor with confetti.

What next? Self-cleaning microwave ovens? Now is truly a majestic time to be alive.

The Dell XPS One, the Gateway One, the HP TouchSmart IQ775 Desktop and the Sony VAIO LS series. All-in-one Desktop PCs which have the CPU cleverly integrated with the monitor. Usually the keyboard is attached as well. One unit. These “One” Desktop PCs seemed like something new at first, but something jogged my memory.

What about the Apple iMac? Apple has been making iMacs since 1998. The first iMac, the G3, had a 233 MHz PowerPC 750 processor, a 4 GB hard drive and 32 MB RAM with 2 MB video RAM. It combined the monitor and the CPU into one unit.

A decade later, the fourth generation Apple iMac now has an Intel processor. The top of the range model features a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme processor, 2 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO graphics card with 256MB memory, a 24 inch TFT active matrix flat panel display and a 7200 rpm 500GB hard drive. The computer’s components, including the CPU, are in an anodized aluminum frame behind the widescreen 1920 by 1200 pixel LCD display. A wireless keyboard and mouse is available as an option instead of the standard wired keyboard and mouse.

This is one elegant machine.

I’ve always marveled at ultra-lite travelers — those people who take off on weeks-long international jaunts with seemingly nothing more than a change of shirt, underwear, socks, comb and passport. Their necessities could be sherpaed by a shih tzu. I, however, am the kind of traveler that gauges appropriate packing by zipper strength. If I can zip the bag shut and it doesn’t burst before it’s handed over to the TSA folks at the airport, then I have just the right amount of clothing and gear for a good time.

That doesn’t necessarily hold when it comes to what I’m hauling in my carry-on. In that department I’m the essence of minimalist. One carefully chosen book or magazine, a miniature tube of toothpaste, a single energy bar, a thin sweater, an empty water bottle to refill past security, and, of course, my notebook computer, without which life has no meaning (or at least no paycheck). I pack no computer accessories, however. Those get shunted into the suitcase.

That’s why I’m most curious about the Cruzer Contour U3 USB drives put out by SanDisk. SanDisk isn’t the only company selling U3 drives, but it is the one that created the spec. What U3 allows you to do is run applications directly from a USB flash drive.

For example, a 4-gigabyte model can hold your wallpaper, preferences, profiles and favorites and comes pre-installed with applications such as Skype, an email program, a Microsoft Word viewer and editor and a synching utility. You can download other apps, such as Firefox, or buy them. Then you simply plug it into that internet café computer next door to your B&B and up comes the environment you know so well. (Mind you, that environment has to be Windows; U3 doesn’t work with Linux or Mac, as of this writing.)

Interestingly, the reviews for the drives on PriceGrabber.com focus on their performance (yes, USBs do vary in how fast they work in read-write jobs) and the cool design, in which the connector retracts into the body of the drive (so you don’t have to worry about misplacing those goofy little caps you always get). Many of the reviewers uninstall the U3 functionality, because they’re not using the built-in apps — they just want a fast backup device — and it annoys them to have to shut it down each time they use the drive.

But me — I’m just looking for an excuse to leave that computer of mine at home. The meaning of life doesn’t have to be so heavy, does it?

Many years ago wireless music meant listening to music on a radio. Now it means something totally different, mainly referring to Digital Media Receivers like the Logitech Squeezebox Wireless Media Receiver which plays audio from your PC via a wireless connection and is also able to play content from internet radio stations and well as Rhapsody’s online music service.

A much more portable option is the SanDisk Sansa Connect, which is a relatively small MP3 Player with 4GB storage capacity and with built-in Wi-Fi. Wait a minute you might be saying, the iPod Touch has that plus more storage capacity. Granted, but unlike the Touch, the Sansa Connect can “tune into” one of the many Internet Radio Stations available from Yahoo! Music’s LAUNCHcast Radio.

Additionally, you can subscribe to the Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go plan for $14.99 per month. As with most Music “To Go” subscription plans, you can then download any of the music service’s catalog of songs to the portable player. The convenience of this is that with the Sansa Connect it is done wirelessly, no connection to a PC is required. The downloaded songs can then be played as long as your subscription is current. You can update your collection of songs as often as you like. If you really like a song and want to burn it to CD you can purchase it for a discounted price - usually 79 cents. In my experience music subscription services are a great way to discover new artists.

As a side-note, there have been reports that the Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go plan is now only available to owners of the SanDisk Sansa Connect. An alternative MP3 Player would be the Haier Ibiza Rhapsody which works with the Rhapsody Music service and also features wireless music.

My brother-in-law received the prized shirt at Christmas, titled the “Frustration Polo.” In case you have sight problems, I’ll tell you, the image shows a guy stomping on a computer. Since my brother-in-law is a Mac user and I always run Windows, I really believe he didn’t deserve to receive the shirt. But there you have it. Life is hardly ever just.

This shirt is put out by the same wacky company that sells Pi symbol ties, hula girl computer dusters and a Homer Simpson multi-port USB hub. Pondering the veritable wealth of their inventory makes me want to give up writing and get a job thinking up nerd accessories — like binary clocks to keep mere mortals confused — oh, wait, those already exist.

Well, this week I’ll be attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Since the demise of Comdex, I hear, CES has become the place to go to get the lowdown on geek fashion. Dilbert tie, anyone?

After the expensive Apple MacBook Pro I mentioned in One of The Best, I decided to look for a more budget-friendly notebook costing around $1000.

The problem was that the ideal HP Notebook which I spotted in the weekly ad of a retail store was not to be found anywhere else online. Ah! I had missed the “Exclusive to” catchphrase. So instead I searched for something with similar specifications.

The basic specifications I was looking at were a Dual Core processor, most likely an Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile, 2GB of RAM (just in case I actually wanted to try to run Windows Vista), a hard drive of at least 120GB- but the bigger the better, a DVD writer and built-in wireless (that’s pretty standard anyway). Also, the screen size needed to be around 14 to 15 inches, and the weight in the mid-size laptop range (6-7.5 lbs).

With these specifications I found quite a lot to chose from, a Gateway MT6916, Toshiba Satellite A205-S7458, HP Presario V6444US and even a Lenovo 3000 Y410.

With so many to chose from I settled on the HP Pavilion DX6650US Notebook, mainly because of it’s sizable hard drive, media card slots and upgradeable memory

I have another business trip coming up, and I’m fairly certain that I’ll forget one or another of my rechargers. So here’s an interesting device that could come in handy. The Datexx SuperBattery USB AC/Crank Generator provides a manual way to generate power to recharge cell phones, MP3 players, handheld games, PDAs or, no doubt, other USB-powered devices I’ve never even heard of.

Here are the particulars. It’s about a pound in weight and 2.5-inches x 1.5-inches x 4-inches in size. It has a crank on the side that you wind to convert kinetic energy (your wrist action) into electrical energy, which is stored in internal batteries. Or if your wrists are feeling particularly overworked, you can simply plug in the AC adapter and recharge the internal power supply that way.

The generator comes with four cell phone tips that you plug into the unit then into your cell phone. Sellers say the tips fit Motorola, Samsung, LG and Nokia phones. It generates USB output of 5 volts.

It includes a built-in LED flashlight too, in case your phone is so dead, you can’t find it in the dark.

Now, the product isn’t perfect. One reviewer on Amazon reports that it’s “very fickle about taking a charge, particularly from European plugs,” and that it has a “weak USB current; devices take forever to take a charge from it.”

Of course, the biggest obstacle to a device like this is that its form factor is so portable, it could be left behind as well when I travel — right next to the rechargers I meant to pack.

Wireless-N or 802.11n is the wireless technology for 2008 and beyond. This new wireless standard surpasses 802.11g. It is the next generation IEEE standard for wireless LANs.

Great, so do you need it? You may if your home or business has wireless “dead zones”, as 802.11n has a greater range than the previous 802.11g, up to twice the range (although some router manufacturers are no longer making these claims), and with better coverage and resistance to interference. Wireless-N routers feature a smart-antenna technology called MIMO, which stands for Multiple Input Multiple Output. It allows wireless devices to more efficiently transmit data in indoor environments.

MIMO has been around for a while on Wireless-G Plus Routers, which are also known as Pre-N Routers. This confusing terminology was caused by vendors implementing their own proprietary implementations of the MIMO technology before 802.11n draft specification was approved. So while a Pre-N or Wireless-G Plus Router would be faster than a Wireless-G router, it may not be compatible with future Wireless-N devices. This is something to be aware of, as a Pre-N router may be cheaper that a Wireless-N router, but could result in problems later on as more 802.11n devices become available.

That of course brings me to the downside – cost – generally 802.11n routers cost twice as much as 802.11g routers. However, if you are replacing wireless router, or putting in a new one, and your wireless clients are support 802.11g, then a 802.11n router makes sense.