If it weren’t for syncing, most people would never back up anything. It’s only because synchronization is so easy that we wind up with backups of our most important data: our address books and calendars. But syncing doesn’t always back up everything (particularly files you’ve stored on your handheld

You wouldn’t put Wal-Mart tires on your Ferrari, so why are you using substandard software on your high-end PDA? Yet that’s just what many people are doing by using the default e-mail client that comes bundled with their PDA. Corsoft offers a simple and elegant solution with Aileron, a sleek e-mail

Sci-fi humorist Douglas Adams envisioned the ultimate interpreter: the Babel fish, a bright yellow, leechlike creature that, once inserted into your ear, would provide you with instant translations from any tongue. Franklin’s Audio Translator, copublished in SD-card format by MDM, is less unpleasant

True information addicts will never be satisfied with the puny screens on most smart phones. Even at high resolution, a 2-inch display just won’t cut it for reading news, checking stock charts, or powering through an overflowing inbox. If you’re a data maven, PalmOne’s Tungsten W is an attractive op

For all their advantages over film, digital cameras still can’t match 35mm SLRs in one key area: speed. Nearly every digital camera has some degree of shutter lag, the annoying and often excruciating pause after you press the shutter button and before the camera actually snaps the picture. In some c

My Taijiquan teacher, Mark Chen, has written a book: Old Frame Chen Family Taijiquan. It’s a terrific introduction to the principles, techniques, philosophy, and history of Taijiquan (aka Tai Chi Chuan). It is also the best-written martial arts book I’ve ever read. Mark’s approach is very concrete,

Spotted just outside Santa Rosa, a hand-lettered cardboard sign tacked to a telephone pole: Martha Stuart for President!

There’s this guy on my block who is always walking around, grumbling and growling and laughing to himself. He’s tall, his hair is wild, and he walks around with his eyes cast down, mostly, sometimes pulling on a cigarette as he grumbles along. He’s such a permanent fixture of the neighborhood that I

Amazing photos of Chernobyl today, by a Ukrainian woman who likes to bike through the area on her 147hp Kawasaki Ninja.

Note to Google: Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to launch Gmail on April 1. Note to Slashdot, BoingBoing, Engadget, and nearly every other tech blog: Running fake stories for April Fool’s Day might seem funny to you, but none of these stories were actually all that funny. Worse, they had the unfort

NPR : Study: Pricing Less Competitive Online A study by MIT finds that the Internet, where customers can easily comparison shop, is actually less price competitive than traditional store retailers.

Sorta: NPR guides us to the budding Appalachian phenomenon of hick-hop. Holler 2 the hood, y’all! Somewhat more successful: this collaboration between Dirk Powell and DJ DanjaMowf.