A month ago I blogged about extended batteries for the iPhone (see “Longer battery life, continued“) , and mentioned the Power Slider by Incase. It is similar to the Mophie Juice Pack for iPhone, except that it is a full case for the iPhone 3G as well as an external battery.

I’ve been using the Incase Power Slider with my iPhone for several weeks now, and I am quite impressed. In the evening after having the iPhone on all day, making one or two calls, checking email and browsing the internet (as much as I can do during my lunch break), the battery of my iPhone is still at 100 percent. The Incase Power Slider is usually down to about 60 percent, or if it has been a particularly heavy usage day (for me anyway), down to about 20 percent, at which point it stops charging the iPhone’s battery.

The remaining battery charge of the Power slider is determined by a button at the lower back, which when pressed, lights up a line of 5 small LED lights which indicate the battery’s charge; 1 light means about 20 percent, 5 lights mean 100 percent, etc.

The iPhone can be synchronized with iTunes while still in the case, but the supplied USB cable (which is rather short) has to be used, and the button on the back of the case pressed for 3 seconds for “sync mode” prior to syncing.

Normally I remove the Power Slider before syncing, and leave it ready for recharging it overnight. It definitely works better when started with a full charge.

Physically, the slider consists of two parts. The iPhone slides into the bottom piece, which contains the battery and a connector. Then the top piece slides over the iPhone, so it looks like it is in a case with an extended lower end. SlashGear.com’s review of the Incase Power Slider has some pictures of what it looks like.

The Power Slider does add some extra weight to the iPhone, and my only gripe is that it leaves the screen unprotected, but then the majority of iPhone cases don’t protect the screen either.

The Kensington Mini Battery Pack and Charger mentioned in my previous blog posting is just one of many iPhone battery extender solutions.

Also from Kensington is the Kensington Battery Pack and Charger for iPhone and iPod. This battery pack can charge the iPhone and iPhone 3G, iPod Classics from 4th to 6th generation, and the iPod Nano 3rd generation. It also comes with a mini USB cable to charge other devices too.

Another charger that clips into the bottom of the iPhone is the “Cygnett GroovePower Now Battery Pack for iPods and iPhone“.

There are a number of variations of these chargers. The main advantage with them is that they can be used with an existing case. The disadvantage is that while is use they make the iPhone a bit unwieldy.

Then there is the Mophie Juice Pack for iPhone. When the iPhone is connected to the Juice Pack, the iPhone sits slightly elevated, allowing the microphone and speaker ports to be used. The only problem is the iPhone sheathed in the Juice Pack  will not fit into any of the existing iPhone cases.

That is where the Power Slider by Incase comes in. The Power Slider is both a battery extender and a case from Incase. It does increase the size and weight of the iPhone, but is one complete unit. Here is a review with pictures from Engadget.

Last week I found myself having to store over 30GB of computer files offline. They weren’t anything nefarious, mainly freeware and shareware computer programs, including Linux distributions. Writing the files to DVDs was out of the question, as I needed to be able to add or remove files. I could have used 4 cheap 8GB USB thumb drives, but it would make it difficult to keep the files organized. Then I thought of a portable external hard drive.

Less than 5 months ago I mentioned a portable hard drive in a blog entry about backups. Then I was  more interested in a cheaper, non-portable external hard drive, although the Western Digital Passport Portable Hard Drive intrigued me. Since then numerous other hard drive manufacturers have entered this market, so there are a number of portable external hard drives available.

After doing some research, I settled on a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini 250GB portable hard drive. It has a number of good user reviews, as well as a 5 year warranty. While it is nowhere near as small as a portable thumb drive, it is small enough to fit into a pocket. It also cost less than 4 cheap 8GB USB thumb drives!

Today I saw a print ad for the Livescribe 1GB Pulse smart pen. It is not available on Pricegrabber.com yet, but is similar to the LeapFrog FLY Fusion Pentop Computer.

The FLY Fusion Digital Pen is targeted at children ages 8 to 16, to help with homework as well as play games and double as an MP3 player. A number of adults find it useful too, both in business settings as well as for general writing. I must admit that when I first saw it advertised I thought it was pretty cool.

Basically, the FLY Fusion Digital Pen makes use of a tiny camera to record handwriting on special paper (called “FLY Paper“). This is then stored in the pen’s memory, and when the pen is connected to a computer the digitized handwriting can be converted into various formats. Additional software can be purchased to add functionality to the FLY Fusion.

The Livescribe Pulse “smart pen” adds sound recording, so it can record sounds while you are writing. This seems ideal for college and also business meetings. It also uses special notepaper and ink refills.

This technology is still developing, but is already a viable (and cheaper) alternative to tablet PCs.

This weekend I upgraded, or rather, replaced my current wireless-G (802.11b/g) router. The old router was acting up, the wireless would suddenly drop even though the status light showed that it was supposed to be on. To get it working again I had to turn it off and then on again. Also, one of the wired Ethernet ports was giving intermittent trouble, sometimes just not working. I’d had the router for a little over two years, and had bought it to replace an old (802.11b) router. The router was asking to be replaced or at least trashed.

Since networking really isn’t my specialty, I spoke to an acquaintance at work to find out more about hubs and printer servers. I had to start with a solid wireless router though, and he recommended that I get a Linksys router (no model was mentioned). He probably meant the predecessor to the Linksys WRT54G2 Wireless Router that was on special at a local retail chain. After reading up about it - several user and expert reviews, mainly positive, I purchased the router. It was easy to setup, with a step-by-step installation. It is also faster than my previous wireless-G router, this through a wired Ethernet connection. My next challenge - which would have to wait until another weekend, is to add a print server.

It is less than a month ago that I wrote about a USB thumb drive. I mentioned that I use one almost every day. They are becoming almost as commonplace as floppy disks.

Occasionally though, I come across one that is quite unique. This time it is the Corsair 16GB Flash Survivor USB Flash Drive. This flash drive is water resistant up to depths of 200 metres (almost 219 yards) and has shock protection. Housed in a cylindrical aluminum casing, it comes with Corsair dog tag (to wear along with the Flash drive). Also, the flash drive has a generous 10 year limited parts and labor warranty, and will be replaced if you somehow manage to destroy it (as long as you have the broken pieces). From what I’ve read it has withstood being run over by a car, boiled in water, hit with a hammer several times and thrown off a building. If you want to keep your data safe this is definitely an option.

Another Corsair USB thumb drive, the Corsair 16GB Flash Voyager USB Flash Drive, apparently does even better at being thrown off buildings, as it is entirely encased in rubber (and tends to bounce a lot!). However it will not survive being driven over by a car.

Listen to the voice. Not the voice(s) in your head, but the commanding, navigating voice.

I didn’t listen to the voice at first, “Turn left in 200 yards and then bear right“. I knew the way home from work, and wanted to drive my normal route. Eventually the voice was giving the directions I was driving.

It was a totally different matter when we went away for a long weekend to Cape Cod. Then I had no choice but to listen the computerized voice of the GPS, especially after getting lost following a map and some printed directions.

No GPS device is perfect, and it takes a bit of time to get used to the workings and limitations of a device, even one as highly rated as the HP iPaq rx5915 Travel Companion. The HP iPaq rx5915 does not have a text to speech option, which means it does not announce street names. As long as you are paying attention to the screen, you can see the name of the street anyway.

There were a few times when I could have done with a “Where am I?” option to tell me where I was, and not just where I was going.
The Tomtom GO 720 GPS actually has this feature, along with voice-guided turn-by-turn directions and a map-sharing function for the most up-to-date maps.
It doesn’t function as a handheld computer or have Wi-Fi though…

The capacities of Flash Thumb Drives is increasing. Back in April 2006 Kanguru Solutions announced a 64GB Flash Drive. At $2,800 it was a bit pricey, as you could get a good notebook computer for that price. The Kanguru Solutions 32GB FlashBlu USB 2.0 Flash Drive is available on Pricegrabber.com, and has dropped considerably from it’s initial price of $1499 to a more reasonable one. Considering that a 160GB portable external hard drive costs less than this, unless you really need a 32GB Flash drive right now, it is worth waiting as the price will most likely drop a lot more.

How much space do you really need in a flash drive though? Right now 4GB and 8GB drives seem to be the best buys for capacity versus price. It all depends on the number and specifically the size of the files you are storing. If they are just a few documents then a 1 or 2 GB USB drive may be enough. Any type of graphics, audio or video files may need far more. Personally I’m trying to limit myself to a relatively fast 4GB USB drive for data files and a number of programs I like to carry around with me.

There are other factors to consider, like security. USB flash drives are relatively small and easy to lose. Again it boils down to the type of data you are storing. If it is some sort of confidential data, then using a drive with built-in security like the Lexar 4GB JumpDrive Secure II Plus USB 2.0 Flash Drive may be advisable.

Currently my USB Thumb Drive of choice is the SanDisk 4GB Cruzer U3 Micro USB Flash Drive. It has a decent capacity, relatively small physical size and the retractable USB connector saves having to worry about losing the cap.

So what is U3? I was hoping you would ask. Without going into technical details the flash drive is formatted in such a way that it can run applications which have been modified for the U3 “platform”. There are a number of applications, including virus scanners, security programs (password managers and encryption) and even the Firefox browser, which have been modified to run from a U3 USB drive.

I noticed quite a number of complaints in the user reviews about the U3 functionality. Fortunately it can be removed – SanDisk has a “U3 Launchpad Removal Tool”.

Here I must confess that I have removed U3 from my SanDisk Flash drive, and replaced it with the free PortableApps suite, which includes a selection of free applications. PortableApps applications are written in such a way that they run from the USB drive and do not write anything to the host PC.

There are also several applications which offer “portable USB stick” versions, and can be installed to a USB thumb drive without U3 or Portable Apps having to be present.

My previous blog about Memory Cards got me thinking, so here is more about Memory Cards:

Physically the largest memory card available is the CompactFlash Card. This format has been around since 1994, and is still popular in high end digital cameras. The largest capacity currently available is 32GB, with Samsung having announced a prototype of a 64GB CompactFlash card in 2006.

On the other end of the scale, the tiny, fingernail-sized microSD Card is physically the smallest. I always get a bit nervous when handling a microSD card as I’m concerned I may drop it and never find it again. Fortunately microSD cards are almost always packaged with SD Card adapters, so they can be read in SD Card readers. MicroSD cards are mainly used in cellphones, portable media players and handheld GPS devices. The largest capacity microSD (actually microSDHC – High Capacity) card currently available is 8GB.

Somewhere in between the microSD and the SD card format is the miniSD card format. It was originally intended for use in cell phones, digital cameras and MP3 players. It seems to be slowly being supplanted by the microSD card.

Some card manufacturers have a neat product which can be used as a microSD, miniSD or SD Card – like the SanDisk 2GB microSD Card with miniSD and SD Adapters.