Ok… forget for a moment that the name of this product needs a little work. It is a very cool piece of uberGeek office furniture that allows you to move your workstation from place to place, and easily switch from sitting to standing when you get there. It’s worth a watch if you have ever wished that your multiple-monitor setup was more mobile.

I just finished a two-month review of the MiFi 2200 from Novatel Wireless and Verizon 3G and there were a few surprising advantages to having a dedicated Internet device. I have to admit that my first impression, once I got over the coolness factor of the ‘Mobile Hotspot’ concept, was “why do I need this if I already have a 3G-enabled phone?” However, I quickly found several not-so-small advantages to having a non-tethered 3G link.

More after the Jump »

recently went window shopping for a netbook at Fry’s Electronics in Fremont, California and I was impressed by how much they have advanced even within a single generation of machines. They’ve gone from early models that looked like Fischer-Price rejects to sleek, powerful and cost-efficient machines that can go where notebook fear to tread. Still, I’ve been reluctant to pull-the-trigger and spend my meager resources (do you know how long it takes to save for a new computer when you’ve budgeted $25 a month for toys?) on a Netbook that might ultimately end up as an afterthought…

Well… it could be time to pull out my wallet, because Acer’s changed the game again with a longer-lasting, storage-adept, 11.6″ screen pocket-rocket! Say Hello to the 2nd Generation Acer Aspire One

With its abundance of ports, reported reliability, low-price and snappy performance, the Acer Aspire One has been on my short list of Netbooks since I started shopping for a digital travel companion. The only thing that has stopped me has been the somewhat cramped keyboard (for my fat fingers) and a LCD screen size that didn’t thrill me. (It’s still larger than most of its competitors, but hey… old eyes need more real estate.) — With their 2nd Generation Aspire One, Acer has taken away through roadblocks. They’ve added more than an inch to the size of their screen, bumped up the resolution to 1364×768, added a larger battery, and included an “almost-full-size” keyboard in a package that is just the smallest bit wider than the original.

More after the Jump »

If you’re a frequent traveler, you know how much of a pain it can be to properly pack your baggage. A typical packing experience consists of finding the right balance of clothes, electronics and fragile accessories before cramming it into a case and balancing everything on a scale that was most likely NOT designed to give an accurate weight for something as bulky as a wide-body rolling bag. With airlines now more anxious to charge extra or overweight luggage, it’s become even more frustrating to “cram it all in” without risking a hefty fee.

For many of us that means making sure that there is enough “buffer weight” to account for any scale discrepancies, or packing our luggage in such a way as to make it easier to redistribute items at the ticket counter. However, chances are that even the careful traveler will eventually be caught in the embarrassing situation of having to crack open luggage on an airport floor. I’ve done that… and trust me… I would prefer that the good people behind me at the Hawaiian Air counter never again have to see my particular mix of underwear, power adapters and laptops. That’s why I was tickled to hear that Balanzza was making a new digital luggage scale that promises to eliminate the guess work, accidental overweights, and embarrassing floor-shows. Shaped like a dogbone, the Ergo is a hand-sized travel scale that weights only 8 ounces and yet can count up to 100 lbs of luggage. It has a large LCD readout, buttons for power, weight reset and units, and is very travel-friendly. To use the Ergo you simply use the included click-strap to attach the Ergo to the bag you want to weight, turn the unit on, then lift the bag with the Ergo’s. After a few seconds the Ergo will beep, giving you the exact weight of the bag.

The best part of the Ergo is that it’s inexpensive. At ~$25 that means that the Ergo would more than pay for itself in avoiding even a single overage charge.

Here’s a cool little gadget that we just received from our friends at Kensington. This is the LiquidAUX — at first it may look just like another “car audio transmitter thingy” that duplicates the functions found on dozens of other car-lighter/fm-transmitter adapters, but Kensington went a few steps further with their gear by adding iPhone and iPod bluetooth support.

More after the Jump »

While I realize that a blog entry title like the one I have chosen, “Fastest Small-to-Medium Business Network-Attached-Storage Ever!”, does not age well, I DO believe that it will be quite a bit of time before another manufacturer can make a NAS box at this price point that performs as well or better than the ReadyNAS Pro.

Do you need a gaming fix? Is your state-of-the art gaming desktop feeling a little sluggish? — The unfortunate fact of “gaming rigs” is that their extremely expensive video cards age faster than the hard drives, memory, motherboards or even their CPU. $500 is not all that uncommon for top-of-the-line cards that can handle today’s most demanding games, and two or three-way SLI means that you need to buy several of those monsters to get the most out of your rig’s potential.

Do you need a gaming fix? Is your state-of-the art gaming desktop feeling a little sluggish? — The unfortunate fact of “gaming rigs” is that their extremely expensive video cards age faster than the hard drives, memory, motherboards or even their CPU. $500 is not all that uncommon for top-of-the-line cards that can handle today’s most demanding games, and two or three-way SLI means that you need to buy several of those monsters to get the most out of your rig’s potential.

More after the Jump »

Happy Monday y’all! We’ve got a new episode of Gadget up called “Hooked on iPhonics”. If you’re not exactly an Apple fanboy, you’ll still want to see this episode as the Gadget crew gets goofy. Also, there is an extra bonus in the credits, promise…it’s worth it! You can check out the episode here under the gadget tab or here. Let us know what you think!

Office In A Box…

The concept of an all-in-one device that can handle all your businesses IT needs has been around for a quite some time. We like the idea of having a single piece of gear that can give us all the IT support that we have come to expect in the modern workplace, but unfortunately most efforts to create that one golden piece of technology have fallen far short. All the “Office in a Box” offerings that we have seen have either been too expensive, too complicated, too limited, or too unreliable to be seriously considered THE solution for the small to medium business.

So we were a bit skeptical when we heart about the Sutus Business Central 200. After all, what could this upstart company possibly bring to the table that hasn’t already been done by the likes of Cisco, Microsoft, HP or any of the other big names in the industry?

As it turns out…. plenty!

More after the Jump »

TheTechStop.net clan is now on twitter. Well, maybe not all of us, but a few of us that don’t mind being in voyeuristic environments. It’s a great way to reach us and tell us what you want reviewed, what you thought of our reviews, and take an in-depth look at our boring lives! Come tweet with us…we just might follow you, too!

Melanie:  www.twitter.com/kewlgirl

Dan: www.twitter.com/dballecer

Back in January I wrote a post about Sansa’s TakeTV, a neat little device that allow you to drag and drop video onto a USB device and then plug it into your TV for living-room viewership. — The unit worked really well for a 1st-gen device with good video quality, easy setup and, most importantly, the “non-techie” factor in its favor.

In the ‘gadget’ episode featuring the TakeTV we showed the strengths and weaknesses of the TakeTV and our view was that it could be a good platform assuming that it became easier to download copyrighted material.

More after the Jump »

The gadget crew has been slacking off lately, but we’re getting back into the swing… at least until we go on vacation in June!

We’ve got a treat for you on this episode of ‘gadget’ — rather than exploring the upper stratosphere of costly gadgets, we’re listening to a fan who wants a desktop speakers setup that doesn’t break the bank. To that end, we’re bringing you a review of the Logitech X-240, a low-cost subwoofer/satellite combo that may cost less than a cheap lunch, but will leave you reeling from the feeling! (Was that over the top?)