SD cards are probably the most popular format of memory cards right now, you can get them in varying sizes and speeds and prices. When you take a lot of pictures you need a good, reliable and fast card, and we all know that not all are created equal as some are much better than others. ATP is a company that makes memory cards that are some of the best out there in both performance and build quality, their cards can withstand extreme temperatures and they’re built to last.

Today for review I’ve got the ATP ProMax II 4gb SD/SDHC memory Card, it’s one of the fastest on the market today with a class rating of 6, with a claim of 22.8MB/s transfer rate. Is it that fast? Well that’s what we aim to find out.

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This just popped into my inbox….

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been "robbing" me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

Have you ever wanted to transfer your videos from one device to another only to find that it seems to be a rather complicated process that involves time and usually spending more money. The most common way to do this is to buy a capture card to put inside of your PC and then convert to the format you need, and it’s done in real time so in can be a time consuming and processor intensive process, if the movie it two hours then it will take at least those two hours to complete. Then you’ve got to convert the movie which might involve resizing it for your portable devices or encoding it to a different format to be compatible with those devices.

Pinnacle has sent me over their Video Transfer product for review, it allows the user to simply and easily transfer videos from numerous sources and store them on a portable hard drive, flash drive, iPod or even a PSP. It encodes in MPEG-4 format so the end results will be playable on most devices, and you can even select from three different quality settings as well. The great thing about this device is that it does not use your PC, it’s a stand alone unit, you plug your source video into on end, your storage device into the other, hit record and walk away, no fuss, very simple and easy to do.

So read on…

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There are a lot of iPod/iPhone accessories on the market. Some are quite useful and utilitarian, while others are just wasting everyone’s time. Today’s product would seem to fall into the latter category, but after some further investigation, it is actually a useful product.

Scosche Industries is an award-winning innovator of mobile electronics automotive aftermarket accessories. Recently they have started making iPod compatible accessories. For review, they sent Test Freaks: the reviveLITE. This is a iPod/iPhone home charger with a built in night light. Now you can recharge your iPod or iPhone at bed time and keep from tripping over the dog. This concept sounds a bit unusual, but it actually works pretty well.

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We all have power strips, or surge protectors and the biggest problem with them is that when you’ve got the big wall wart adapters they tend to cover one of more of the other plugs, you buy a six outlet strip and sometimes can end up with only four of them that are usable. I’ve got several squid style surge protectors in my home that alleviate this problem effectively, I got my first real PowerSquid at CES 2006 and it’s been protecting my computer and DSL lines ever since, it’s been though several storms, brown-outs and black outs and I’ve not had one problem with it yet so I can attest to their ability to protect your electronics.

Our friends at CableOrganizer.com sent me over the PowerSquid Home Theater Surge Protector for review, yes it’s the real thing, from Flexity, the original makers of the Squid surge protectors. There are many other imitations out there, I’ve got a few myself actually, but only the real PowerSquid from Flexity is the original that offers great features over the imitations like swiveling plug, illuminated outlets, lifetime warranty and warranty protection of up to $500,000 for connected equipment.

The PowerSquid is one of those products that is kind of hard to test really, I can’t make it thunderstorm, or create a power surge safely, but as I mentioned I’ve had one for almost three years now that has survived everything that nature has thrown at it thus far and my equipment is perfectly safe and unharmed.

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Found this in my inbox… couldn’t resist posting it…

TAVARES, Fla., Jan. 2 /PRNewswire/ — "The Stupidest Statements Awards" have been bestowed again upon the famous by Mega Genius(R), "The Man with the Perfect IQ(TM)." His sixth annual prizes of recognition for "crash-and-burn lapses in intelligence" are just for fun.

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Last week I took a look at a case from Speck Products for the Microsoft Zune, this week I’ve got one for the Apple iPod nano 4th generation.The case is called the PixelSkin, and it’s made out of silicone with a pixel pattern on it that not only makes it look rather cool but it ensures a good grip on your nano. So read on to learn more…

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A little bit ago I took a look at the iGo EveryWhere Max universal charger, while it was a device that worked, I found that with purchasing multiple tips for all of the gadgets you own it could get very expensive very quickly. I’ve got another type of universal charger today for review, while it’s sort of in the same position where you’ve got to buy tips, not quite as expensive though, and it does offer you a dual power solution which includes the sun as a power source, yes this is a solar charger, but it’s hybrid so you can use the USB port on your computer to charge it as well.

It’s a New year and we’re staring it off Green! On the review block today we’ve got the Solio Hybrid 1000 Solar Charger that allows you to charge all of your gadgets with the sun. The Solio H1000 comes with common tips for many devices, and you can buy more as well if needed for you other devices. The H1000 is well made, and very easy to use, it includes a carabineer style clip so you can attach it to your bag or wherever and let it charge while you’re on the go.

So read on to check it out…

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There’s a new little netbook or ultralite notebook floating around out there, a few sites have mentioned it already with mixed reactions, and a few of them made fun of it like a bully might to a child on the playground, and this without ever physically seeing the thing. Anyway, this new little netbook is linux based, it’s small, portable, inexpensive and lightweight, sure it’s not going to run Crysis, but if you’re looking for something to play around with then this just might fit the bill.

Our friends at Geeks.com have sent us one of their laptop computers for review, though this one might be considered ultralite or even a netbook and by now I’m sure you’ve heard a bit about it. It’s called the Alpha 400 MIPS 400MHz 128MB 1GB 7" Linux Ultralite Notebook and as you can see by the 400Mhz in the name, it’s not very powerful, so don’t expect to be gaming on it, but I’ve spent three weeks with it now and it’s really not that bad, especially if you consider the price. The Alpha 400 is nice little netbook that is actually fun to play with for basic surfing the internet and it can do productive things as well like word processing, charts, graphs, daily planning and even chatting and watching movies or listening to music.

For what it is it’s not a bad little product, though most people would likely prefer something with a bit more horsepower under the hood and more storage, but it works fine for what it’s supposed to do. It’s not meant as a full blown laptop, it’s meant to be a very basic device that let’s you stay connected and even get a bit of work done possibly.

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It’s been said that solid state drives are going to soon replace our ‘regular’ hard drives, well I call BS on that, mechanical hard drives have been around for along time and they will be around for much longer. Yes SSDs are coming down in price but their capacities are nowhere near that of normal HDDs, so until they reach the 1TB + level I don’t foresee them replacing anything but maybe notebook hard drives. Many laptops or notebooks now have the option of being purchased with SSDs, which is a good thing as laptops tend to be moved around a lot and the less moving parts the better really, but as for desktops, it’s not going to happen anytime soon really…

Today for review I’ve got my first SSD or Solid State Drive, I think by now you should know exactly what an SSD is, so their’s no need to go into that explanation. The SSD I have for review today is from our friends at Patriot Memory, it’s their new Warp Drive and it has a capacity of 128gb so it’s rather large in terms of SSD drives. Since it’s my first type of drive like this I don’t have anything to compare it to, so I’m comparing it to some standard HDDs that I’ve got on hand, two 2.5" drives and two 3.5" drives to see how it stacks up against them.

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All my friends and family can tell you how much I love my MacBook Pro. In fact, to their chagrin; it is always by my side. I try to take good care of it and keep the outside looking immaculate. Of course this is harder than it sounds. Recently I have kept the top of the machine protected from minor scratches by covering it with a GelaSkin. Unfortunately, this does not provide enough protection from more physical hazards.

Fortunately, Speck a company known for creating cases for various electronic products has sent Test Freaks a version of their SeeThru Hard Shell Case line. For today’s review, I will be looking at the Aqua version of the SeeThru for MacBook Pro (silver key version). This case comes in nine translucent colors. It is light weight so it will not increase the weight of the MacBook Pro and the colorful case accentuates the stylishness of the machine.

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Dead Space the game is one of the best games to come out this year, at least in my opinion it is, though I’m sure some people will disagree with me. I might be a bit biased though as I like horror and sc-fi genre games most of all. EA released a movie as well in accompaniment to the game called Dead Space Downfall, it basically tells the story of what happens before the events in the game, so it’s kind of something that you need to see to truly understand the game.

Dead Space Downfall is an anime movie that tells the story of all of the events that lead up to the game, it’s 74 minutes long and it’s got a few other features included on the disc. Is it a must have movie? Sort of, it does help to understand the game better, but the actual movie isn’t that great honestly. The animation reminds me of more of a child’s Saturday morning cartoon than the anime I’m accustomed too, I love anime and this isn’t quite it, it’s bastardized or Americanized anime at it’s worst really. They tried to copy the stylish Japanese animes of the past and present but failed rather miserably, they also mixed computer generated images in with it and it sort of looks a bit out of place. EA should have hired some real talent for this, the game deserved it really and they could have had a great movie on their hands that would have been something that the fans of the game would have grabbed up, but as it stands it looks to be something that was tossed together on a small budget, some of the stuff I see on Saturday morning cartoons is much better.

The animation Dead Space Downfall reminds me of stuff that I saw on TV when I was a kid made by the American companies, and I’m 36 now, so this animation isn’t that good honestly, the only way you can tell this isn’t an animation show from twenty years ago is the CGI that’s thrown in here and there . Sure there’s blood and gore, but it’s not really detailed as one would expect it to be, especially after playing the game and seeing the details in it, I truly expected the movie to be good, but I was sadly disappointed.

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