I recently purchased and tested out the Sanyo Xacti VPC-E1 (I love Amazon’s Free Shipping!) waterproof camcorder to determine if it was going to be a workable solution for snorkeling around a coral reef on an upcoming trip to Hawaii.

In playing with the camera at home I determined that the video quality was much better than I expected, and photos were decent quality for a 6.37 MP camera. I guess I had been expecting to give up some quality in order to gain a waterproof form factor, but apparently Sanyo didn’t think that was necessary!
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Over the years I’ve collected a huge stack of business cards. This is primarily the case because I just don’t have the energy to either type them all in by hand or scan them into one of those card readers - which incidentally cost a couple hundred bucks.

So, imagine my delight when I discovered a free service which allows you to take a digital photo of a business card, e-mail or upload it and then have the contacts information automatically e-mailed back in Vcard format ready to import straight into Outlook!
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People routinely ask about my favorite software so, I’ve decided to gather all my top picks in one place to make every one’s life a little easier.

All of the software listed here is free for personal use, meaning:

1. Any of this software can be installed and used at absolutely no charge, forever. There is no nagging, spyware, or anything else nasty.
2. Because it’s totally free, sometimes there is very little support. You either figure out how to use it, or just get rid of it.

So, without further ado, here is the list categorized by type of application:
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Unfortunately I won’t be able to post this review until after the holidays as we purchased a couple of these digital photo frames to give as gifts.

However, for those of you contemplating one of these, read on to find out if it’s right for your situation.
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If there weren’t enough things to be paranoid about already, manufacturers continue to release more and more “ethically challenged” pieces of surveillance equipment.

The latest is a Shower Mirror Radio wireless camera. It uses a two-way mirror and broadcasts wirelessly in full color to the pervert next door.
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I received the following request from a reader:

Since you’re The Man… Kindly grace us with your Top 5 Consumer Electronic “Must Haves” in the $600 to $1,000 range?

I’ll do you one better! Here are a bunch of my top “must haves” in a variety of price ranges. Not all of these are totally “electronic”, but all of them would definitely fit the description of gadgets. Anyway, here we go:
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Have you ever been at the bookstore browsing through a magazine and thought “I need to remember this article, but I don’t want to buy the magazine”? Well, in that case whip out your cell phone and snap a photo of the page.

scanR is a new service which allows you to e-mail in photos of documents and receive the back converted to PDF format.
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I’m often asked what kind of camera I use / recommend. So, here are the full details.

Personally I have two digital cameras. One for portability, one for high quality. Don’t get me wrong, my portable still takes great shots, but they aren’t up to the level of my “big” camera.
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