Hasta La Gadget!

On a school trip, somebody would always come back from the museum shop with one of these lenticular cards. Back in the 1970s and 1980s they were hot stuff, as high-tech as the iPhone of today, and seeing a dinosaur shift from one action pose to another, simply by turning the card, was magic.

Today, the world is a more cynical place, but at least you can now use the power of the internet to make your own shape-shifting greetings cards which can scarily morph from one person to another or simulate a 3D effect. And as the site, Snapily, abides by the Hallmarkian Laws, there is plenty of schmaltz on offer, too, from heart-shaped frames around your loved ones to, erm, more heart shapes. It’s all done online: You upload your photos, add text and then the site generates a preview. Or at least I think it does. After this message I switched to Firefox:

Sorry we don’t fully support your browser- SafariChrome, on MacIntosh – at the moment.

Then I tried to add some old baby photos but they were apparently in “CMYK format”. I checked in Photoshop. They were RGB. Then the site crashed Firefox. Still, the idea is a good one, and cheap, too, compared to what a real print shop would have charged just to tool up for the job some years ago (hint: many thousands). Cards are $4 and up, and business cards are $8 for a pack of 20. Snapily is also claiming eco-friendliness, on the grounds that these are so neat that they won’t get thrown away. This is wrong-headed. A regular greetings card is the ultimate biodegradable gift.

Product page [Snapily]

The big Computex show in Taipei is just a few weeks away and that means laptops, tons and tons of laptops. Specifically, CULV thin-and-light laptops that Intel’s hoard of dutiful manufacturers have positioned between netbooks and super-expensive, ultra-portables like the MacBook Air or ThinkPad X301. Engadget Chinese is at the unveiling of MSI’s full range of X-Slim laptops. We’ve already seen the X320/X340 up close, but this is the first time we’ve received official specs on the 14-inch (1366 x 768) X400 and 15.6-inch (1366 x 768) X600. Both feature Core 2 Solo CULV processors, an HDMI jack, hard disks up to 500GB in capacity, up to 4GB of DDR2 memory, and a 2-in-1 card memory reader. The X600 adds eSATA, options for 6 or 9-cell batteries (compared to the X400’s 4 or 8-cells), and bumps the graphics from integrated GMA 4500MHD to ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330. Now we’re just waiting for the ship dates and prices which should start at $699 to about $1,100.

Update: Official press release says to expect these before June is through.

Filed under: Laptops

MSI’s X-Slim X340 vs. X400 vs. X600 CULV laptops… Fight! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 May 2009 03:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

If you haven’t been backing up your data because the economy is bad and you can’t afford a decent backup software, I am about to open a can of no-more-excuses on you.

GFI Software launched on Thursday a free backup and recovery software for home users. Unlike other free software, which tends to be the stripped-down of the commercial version, GFI Backup Home Edition is a full-featured application.

The app gives PC users a few ways to safeguard data, including backing it up and syncing it with another location. I tried out this wizard-driven application and the feature I liked best is the ability to back up and sync a computer’s folder with an FTP location. Very few other backup solutions offer this and none are free. Of course, GFI Backup also supports backing files to local folders, network locations, and other removable media.

Most backup software, including my favorite, Acronis True Image, uses a proprietary compression standard, meaning you will need the same software to do a recovery. GFI Backup Home Edition, on the other hand, uses the popular ZIP format to store backups.

…

725.35 meters. A whoppumental 2,379.75 feet. That’s how big the new super-sized Enterprise is. Here you can see it compared against the Galactica, the good old Enterprise, the Blockade Runner, and the ISS. UPDATED

Click on this image to see the full picture.

When JJ Abrams said that he wanted to put some Star Wars into Star Trek, apparently it also applied to the scale of spaceships (and matching viewscreens.) And while the new Enterprise doesn’t even reach half of the 1,600 meters—that’s a mile long—of an Imperial Star Destroyer, it’s still amazingly big compared to the 288 meters of the old Enterprise. Maybe now you would be able to take down an Star Destroyer with a couple of these.

The battle I would really want to see now, however, is not the old Star Trek vs Star Wars (we already know who would win that one.) No, you know what I want to see.

Yes, Starbuck vs Uhura. In a chocolate pudding pit.

Maybe Galactica vs Enterprise too, but that’s a distant second. [Thanks to David B. from Bad Robot Productions]

UPDATE: Since we did the original ISS comparison, the specifications for the new Battlestar Galactica have changed. After the end of the series, one of the visual effects guy shared information about the actual size of Adama’s new ship. It measures 1,438.64 meters. Almost a mile, so it’s bigger than the new Enterprise and less than 200 meters shy of an Imperial Star Destroyer. I changed the graphic to display the old Galactica, which has the correct size. [Thanks to the readers who pointed this out]

Turns out the rumors were true. Verizon’s getting into the netbook business starting May 17th with the release of the HP Mini 1151 NR. Specs for this 10.1-inch, 3G-capable portable are exactly what we heard via leaked documents, but for those just joining us: 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, 1GB RAM, 80GB HDD, two USB 2.0 ports, 802.11b/g, SD slot, and Windows XP Home with Service Pack 3. As for the pricing, it’s not quite as bad as previously suggested — $200 after $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year commitment. Frankly, we’d prefer paying a little more upfront on Verizon’s MiFi 2200 EV-DO router and a netbook / laptop of our choosing, with the same Mobile Broadband data plans, but hey, we can’t disagree with having more options.

Filed under: Laptops

Verizon’s HP Mini 1151NR netbook hits stores May 17th originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 22:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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