[Product Review] I THINK WE NEED A BIGGER BOAT...

When it was first explained to me that we were going to be carrying a brand new accessory item, I was surprised, as we normally don’t carry a wide variety of accessories here at YourMacStore. However, I was more surprised when shown the Radio Shark 2 package. We all listened to radio at one time or another…heck, growing up in the 1980s and before, everyone listened to radio. Nowadays, the airwaves in major cities are filled with talk shows, sports shows, shock jocks , and every type of music from A-Z….and radio is unfortunately being left behind a little bit with the advancing computer age. With all the internet radio stations out there, it’s got to be hard to keep up…but the Radio Shark 2 helps to bring broadcast radio right into the digital age, cheaply and efficiently. This item is a great piece of work from top to bottom, so let me go over what it can do for you.

First, for Mac OS X 10.4.9 users (like me) you’ll need to download the software update from the Griffin website, as there are some compatibility issues with Tiger….but it takes seconds and is necessary for the software to fully function. (Otherwise you’ll have to change stations by closing the program and reopening it.) The unit itself is small and the weight is negligible…and since it’s designed to look like a shark fin, it looks pretty cool sitting on top of your computer/monitor/desk/windowsill/catbox/whatever. It plugs into any USB port and is powered by that connection. The package comes with a USB extender cord as well, and a radio antenna extender too. After the software is installed, the interface is easily used. You can type in station numbers (1-0-0-.-3 for example), use your scroll wheel to scan up and down the stations, or even set & select favorites. After playing with just listening to the radio broadcasts from my favorite local stations here in Los Angeles (95.5, 93.1, 98.7, and 106.7 to name a few), I then discovered the “Time-Shift” feature. For you TIVO fans out there, you’ll like this. It allows you to pause a live radio transmission for up to 10 minutes, and it will record the broadcast while you step away. Alternatively, you can just drag the slider back and listen to that same song again! That 10 minute auto-record is always on for your convenience of use…no more will you say “what was that word in that song?” You can just “Time-Shift” back and hear it again…and again…and again til you get it right!

Now the “Time-Shift” recordings can be saved right to your hard drive for later listening, or you can actually schedule the Radio Shark 2 to record radio shows during a specific time slot and for a set time…for months in advance! Missing a talk show because of a meeting or special event? Not a problem for the Radio Shark 2…it’ll record it for you later. Now these recordings are automatically saved to your Mac as an AAC or AIFF file, which leads into one of the other cool things about this device, its interaction with iTunes. The setup can be placed to where it automatically creates a playlist in your iTunes with everything that it saves, and those playlists can…you guessed it…be exported right to your iPod. So, are you missing Jim Ladd’s show on KLOS every night because you have to be up early? No problem. Schedule it to be recorded, and then downloaded to your iPod and you can listen while on your way to work in the morning. It’s as simple as that. Lastly, the software update from Griffin comes with a widget for you to use with the OS X dashboard…just in case you wanted to listen to the radio without having the Radio Shark software open.

All in all, I'm personally jazzed with this product, and look forward to taking it home this weekend and seeing what I can do with it. Oh yes, and stay tuned for our next review…the iKareoke. ;)

-Mike Leader

[Product Review] CHARGE!

One of the great things we’re doing here at YourMacStore is importing very cool and new items from Japan. These are things that you can’t get anywhere else, and those clever Japanese manufacturers are putting together some very interesting stuff these days. We all know that they’re about space saving and about versatility, so let me show you a couple of the things that we’ve got from them recently.

First up, the AKIBA Front Attack DDT drive case…ah yes, everyone loves the cool drive cases. Well, not only is it a sleek looking drive case that holds TWO external drives…notice the Firewire port on the front of it? How about the Firewire port on the back right next to the 2 USB 2.0 ports? Pretty nifty indeed! But, who are we at YourMacStore to try and sell you on this double external drive case…without throwing some cases into it? That’s right…how about a 600GB External Drive? How about a 1 Terabyte External Drive? Oooooh…bootable external drives rule! Especially ones that can store up to 1000GB of information!

What’s that? How does it stack up against the competition? Ok fair question, and rather than let y’all do your own research, Uncle Mike here has done some of it for you. Let’s compare the AKIBA Front Attack 1TB against…hmmm…how about one of the big boys on the block…G-Tech’s G-SATA 1000GB external drive. Over on their website is similar to the AKIBA Front Attack model…with two gigantic differences. The first difference is no firewire ports at all on the device (it’s got an eSATA PCIe adapter though – read: more work). The second, and by far the most important difference to price conscious users…it’s over $200 more than the AKIBA. Now who is giving you the best bang for your buck? Why YourMacStore of course! :D

Speaking of external drives, here’s another beauty from AKIBA. The . Similar in nature to the Front Attack dual external drive above (except no USB ports), if you want to have a 500GB external drive, this little guy delivers. It’s small, space-saving, and easy to set up. What? You’d like a smaller external drive? Why…err…sure! How about the 120GB Century SuperCombo 2.5, FireWire/USB 2.0 External Drive? Compact and portable, this external drive is even bus powered, so you wouldn’t even need a power cable in most circumstances.

Lastly I should mention our first AKIBA product to sell here in the US, the AKIBA ATA/133 PCI Host Adapter Card w/Cable. This little beauty is comparable with other PCI host adapter cards out there…only it’s far cheaper, and of the same quality!

Ok I’ve gone on a bit here about what cool items that AKIBA puts out…but all of you need to check them out yourselves. They’re worth your precious money and time. We wouldn’t bring them to your attention if we didn’t believe in how good they really are.

-Mike Leader

[Product Review] SILICON DISK BUILDER

I know that many of us who have digital cameras, digital photo frames, camcorders, GPS devices and even cell phones have SD cards just lying around. There’s two 2GB ones lying right over there on the other desk in my office…just sitting there unused because I’ve got an 8GB one now. Should I throw them out? Give one to a less fortunate buddy? Build a cool sculpture out of them? Nope…I can now put them to good use inside my PC. (Yes, I said PC…says the guy who deals in Mac hardware all day long.)

Well, we here at YourMacStore came across an awesome little piece of PC hardware that’s currently only made in Japan, and is pretty popular there with those folks who have 3-4 leftover SD cards that can be put to better use. Without further ado, let me present to all of you…the AKIBA Silicon Disk Builder!


Now, I know that you’re saying to yourself…I already have a 200 GB hard disk, why would I want something that’s going to give me an additional 8GB of memory? Well, let me tell you…no spinning drive on this thing for one. It is Ultra Quiet because of no moving parts, and it also produces a very low amount of heat. To top that all off, it’s “Super Anti-Shock” so static electricity isn’t its bane. But because of that Anti-Shock, it makes it quite capable as an exterior/portable “hard drive”. With a little bit of modification, you too can make this work for your PC as a simple, little portable “hard disk” that is so quiet, it makes mice seem like they’re moshing at a Pennywise concert.

The only real restrictions you’re looking at here are minor, but good to know about. You cannot combine different types of SD cards because it uses RAID-0. They also need to be installed in a group of 4 cards or in a pair of 2 cards. That’s relatively minor for those of you who have a couple of these cards lying around.

So PC users…what do you think?

[Product Review] DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK...

Hey there folks! We just got some great new stuff in from FastMac…their release of the G4 7455 1.4GHz/2MB Dual CPU upgrade. Now, just so you know, you can’t even get this at the FastMac online store…but you can get it from YourMacStore!

In many situations, thanks to the 2MB L3 Cache, the 7455 1.4GHz actually can beat the 1.8 GHz Dual. Roughly speaking, the performance is about the same between the two processors because of the L3 Cache on the 7455 1.4GHz model. (Want to know the difference between an L2 and L3 Cache? Check this link out…) While the 7455 is older and of a lower clock speed than the 7447, it seems to have been given another chance as of late. I say this because Sonnet pretty much discontinued the majority of the 7455 line of products, except for the 1GHz models. They have faith in their abilities to stack up against other processors and at a decent price too. Now if you look at the Giga 1.4GHz for Cube, FastMac 1.5GHz, and FastMac 1.4GHz Dual, they are all from the 7455 line as well. I’d say with how it’s going now for the 7455 model, you could call it a comeback…but, “Don’t call it a comeback, I been here for years.”


(ok lame reference to an LL Cool J song, I apologize…Just FYI so you know, things like this get stuck in my head all day and they have to pop out eventually. )

The primary reason that the 7455 is sticking around is that the chip itself has become quite a bit less expensive in the past year. Recent improvements on the 7455 have given it the ability to work with a lower voltage, so power consumption is quite a bit lower than previous 7455 models…which was the prior model’s weak-point in comparison to the 7447.

Well in the end, we feel that you can’t argue with a low price and great performance…right?


(Yes, thanks for your patience...I had to take a sick day on Friday the 13th and couldn't post...but I'm back in action...and we've got more posts for the rest of this week coming up daily!)