Zazzle Your Stamps For The Holidays

With Christmas right on the horizon, I'm starting to do a little planning as to what I'll be buying for people, who I'll be shipping things to on the mainland and the Christmas cards I'll be sending out. This year I'll be sending out my cards and packages with my own customized stamps.

I found an online service called Zazzle, and it allows you to make your own useable postage stamps. You can use your own favorite photos or licensed images from Zazzle's collection to make your own stamps along with personalized text. This is the first time the U.S. Postal Service is allowing consumers to fully design their own stamps. This whole concept makes sending this year's Christmas cards and packages more interesting than just sending the usual stamps from the post office. It also may be a great gift idea.

To get started with ZazzleStamps you need to create a free account then upload your selected pictures, or use Zazzle's licensed images, which include Disney characters, Harvey Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox's Family Guy, Robots, Neopets, The Pemberton & Oaks Collection, Zodiac Girlz, Build-A-Bear workshop, The Library of Congress and more.

In addition, if you think your pictures are really good, you can become a contributor to Zazzle and make your images public. If your image(s) are selected by other Zazzle users, you earn royalties on each purchase. Zazzle is actually considered a home to individual artists, photographers, designers and creative consumers worldwide. The galleries are growing rapidly, and include over 500,000 unique user-created products available.

ZazzleStamps come in sheets of 20 and you can purchase them in denominations of $0.23 for postcards, $0.37 for First Class and all the way up to $3.85 for Priority Mail. That way, you won't have to worry about standing in a long line at the post office for those boxes you need to send out. The prices per sheet vary depending on how many you order. For example one sheet of 37-cent stamps costs $16.99 ($0.46/stamp), but if you order 2-9 sheets, it will cost you $14.99 ($0.41/stamp), and the prices are lowered with bulk orders. It's a small price to pay for your own real postage stamp!

Zazzle also allows you to create customized apparel, posters and cards. The company has been around since 1999 when it began pioneering new printing technologies, then in 2003 created the website to grow its online community.

Create your own stamps at Zazzle, log onto www.zazzle.com.

Turn Your PSP Into a Portable Television

You may remember my recent story about the Slingbox, the device that allows you to watch your television from your computer anywhere. Now Sony has a toy you can use to watch television from your PSP (PlayStation Portable) in addition to your PC (as long as you have an Internet connection).

Sony's LocationFree was showcased at the recent local Sony Expo, and it allows you to stream television or movies from home to your PSP anywhere in the world. All you need to do is connect your home A/V components (television, DVD Player, digital recorder) and Internet high-speed connection to your LocationFree Base Station and you're all set from the home front. For the road, you just need to make sure your PSP has the correct software update (2.5 or later – downloadable at www.us.playstation.com/psp/) and connect it to the nearest hotspot and click on the LocationFree icon on your PSP to start streaming your favorite television programs. However, you have to make sure your connection is at least 300 kilobits per second to work properly.

From the convenience of your PSP, you can completely control your LocationFree from the road, including changing channels and pausing and recording with the onscreen universal remote. This is also excellent for use around the house if you're too lazy to move, and you just want to watch television or your DVR's recorded programs from the comfort of your bed with your PSP.

If you have an older LocationFree Base Station, you need to make sure it has a software version of 2.000 or later to work with your PSP. The Base Station is included with the purchase of a LocationFree TV or LocationFree Player Pak. Also make sure you have a good-sized Memory Stick Pro Duo for your PSP to store the required codes to allow you to use your PSP as a remote control.

If you want the stability and larger size of a monitor to look at when you’re controlling your LocationFree at home, you can use the 12-inch LF-X11 LocationFree TV monitor. It allows you access to the Base Station directly. The monitor and the LocationFree Player Pak (includes Base Station and software) are sold separately.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on a LocationFree for myself. It opens up a whole new world for what I can do with my PSP. What will be next?

To try it for yourself, the Player Pak runs about $350 and the 12-inch monitor around $1,500 from Shirokiya, Pure Digital or online at www.sony.com.

Spilling The Beans With Sony

When thinking of a bean, the first thing that comes to my mind is a vegetable and the kidney beans I’d see in a nice hot bowl of Zippy’s chili. But it’s actually Sony that’s making beans nowadays. . .the new Walkman Bean that is.

The Bean was one of the items featured at the recent Sony Expo held at the Ala Moana Hotel. (Also shown at the expo was the BRAVIA television series I recently wrote about.) Sony is working on expanding its line of Walkman digital music players, probably to compete with Apple’s stronghold on the digital music player market with their iPods. However, Sony’s new series of flash-based devices are a feast for the ears as well as the eyes.

The bright, colorful and compact Bean comes in coconut white and tropical ice blue for the 512 MB EW-E305 model, and the 1 GB NW-307 version comes in black licorice and cotton candy pink especially for the girls. To completely match with the fun colors, all the Beans come with appropriate color-coordinated earbuds. The Bean includes a bright one-line organic electroluminescence (OEL) display, a five-way D pad controller with three buttons. The OEL’s bright display makes it easy to view track and title information and you can also view the time and date with the time/calendar function.

A key advantage the Bean has over any iPod is the fact that it has an FM tuner, so you can listen to the radio as well. Unfortunately you cannot record any radio, but you can manually or automatically program up to 30 presets total. It plays MP3 and ATRAC3/3plus (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding - Sony’s proprietary music coding) music files, and also supports WMA and WAV formats. It is compatible with Sony’s Connect online music store and includes SonicStage software for music management.

Hence its name, the Bean is literally shaped like a bean, mostly resembling a kidney bean with its rounded edges with a slight bend in the middle. Although a neat little shape, I understand it’s a small challenge to operate and handle. A convenient pop-up USB jack is built-into the Bean to allow you to plug right into your computer. A full battery charge provides up to 50 hours of continuous playback, and a quick 45-minute charge gives you an 80% charge. If you’re really in a rush, a quick three-minute charge, gives you three hours of listening time.

To get your own Walkman Bean, the 512 MB NW-E305 model costs about $130 and the 1GB NW-E307 model is about $180 at www.sony.com or at Shirokiya.

Fighting For America’s Army

When the U.S. Army released its game, America's Army, back in July 2002, I made it my top priority to get it for myself. I have been playing that and the second release, America's Army: Special Forces, ever since. I'm proud to say that the very first time I went through the scenarios, I scored an expert marksmanship on the weapons qualification portion.

The best thing about America's Army is that it's free for your PC! It's been an excellent game over the past years, and now America's Army will be expanding into the console market. The U.S. Army, Ubisoft and Secret Level worked together to create America’s Army: Rise of A Soldier for the Xbox and PlayStation 2. The game allows you to create a soldier and take him through the adventures of an Army career from the first day of training. The intense single-player missions and high adrenaline multiplayer mode builds the skills of your soldier and advances him through is career from recruit all the way to Special Forces team leader. Unfortunately the skills you build up in your single player soldier will not apply to the soldier you use for online mode. You can play up to 15 other players at a time (16 total) online. In addition to that, you can do split-screen cooperative play with your buddy.

I had the opportunity to briefly play Rise of A Soldier while I was at the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in May, and from what I could tell, it is as good as the PC version. I just had to get used to playing the game with console controls instead of a mouse and keyboard. If you appreciate strategy over the mindless running and gunning action, you will definitely enjoy the gameplay. You use the strategy to build your experience and your skill level ranking.

America’s Army was initially designed and developed to use online gameplay as a virtual portal to allow civilians to explore and learn about soldiering in the U.S. Army. Authentic weapons, equipment and combat situations come directly from U.S. Army subject matter experts. To create the realism in the game, the developers worked with various Green Berets and Stryker Brigade units to model their missions and equipment.

A free CD of the PC version of America’s Army is available at any Army recruiting office or can be downloaded from www.americasarmy.com.
America’s Army: Rise of A Soldier for the Xbox, was released earlier this week on November 15, and the PlayStation 2 version will come out on December 13 just in time for Christmas. It is rated T for Teen and is available for about $50 at GameStop or Toys n’ Joys.

Living On The EDGE

When I’m on the road, it’s sweet to have Internet access almost anytime I need it. With my cell phone, I’ve been using General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) over Bluetooth, which is equivalent to a speed of approximately 56K. It’s great when there’s absolutely no hotspot and nothing to connect to, but the slow speed definitely takes me back to the ghetto days of dial-up Internet access. Cingular and T-Mobile both recently introduced their EDGE technology for mobile access that I’ll have to try. Faster is always better!

EDGE stands for Enhanced Data for Global Evolution and is a global standard for wide-area data communication. It is a technology that delivers broadband-like data speeds to mobile devices, and is spreading rapidly across the globe. It is three times faster than the current GPRS technology I’m using now with my phone. It reaches burst speeds of up to 200 kilobits per second (Kbps) with an average download speed of 70-135 Kbps. That basically means that you can load a webpage (especially the ones with lots of pictures) much faster, or send bigger e-mail attachments without having to take a nap while you’re waiting. In comparison, high speed with Oceanic’s Road Runner has a download speed of 5,000 kbps and an upload speed of 384 kbps. Quite a difference, but the EDGE still much, much faster than plain old GPRS.

You can use EDGE with a various devices: enhanced data phones, Windows mobile smartphones, integrated PDAs or PC card modems. I personally will probably try the black RAZR V3 (with Bluetooth for the wireless freedom) for this purpose. I have the silver RAZR, but I’m so sad that it doesn’t support EDGE!

Cingular offers its EDGE service in over 13,000 U.S. cities and towns and over 39,000 miles on highways. Through its GPRS roaming partners, Cingular’s network coverage includes an area of nearly 268 million users. Basically if you can a signal, it will work. International EDGE and GPRS roaming is also available in more than 80 countries. If you already have a data plan with Cingular and an EDGE capable phone, it should already work for you.

As of September, T-Mobile’s EDGE services are available across 90 percent of its GPRS-enabled network. If you have an EDGE-enabled device you can already use it with your T-Mobile data plan. If you don’t have a phone or device yet, they are not yet selling the EDGE-enabled phones, so you’ll have to wait a little while or find something on e-Bay.

EDGE is definitely not for everyone, but is excellent for mobile people like me who are traveling all the time or out on the road. Check out www.cingular.com or www.tmobile.com for more information.

Experiencing A World of Wireless At Home

With all the work I do from home, I am on the phone quite a bit. If I had landline in addition to my cell phone, I think it would be great to have them both integrated into one device. This is actually possible with Uniden's latest ELBT595 phone.

I would classify the ELBT595 as an extremely flexible home or home/office phone. It's nothing like I've ever seen before since it integrates your land line phone and cellular phone together into a single handset using Bluetooth technology. You don't have to worry about listening for two different phones ringing with this.

All you need to do to make it work properly is pair the ELBT595 phone via Bluetooth with your cell phone. It works with most Bluetooth capable phones, but unfortunately does not work with all. The clarity of your connection will depend on whether or not you have a strong Bluetooth link with your base station.

The ELBT595 allows you to receive and make phone calls up to 150 feet away from the base station. You can wander around the house or possibly outside in the yard without having to worry about a cord. If you want to become a true wireless king/queen you can even pair a Bluetooth headset to the phone. If you do this, you'll have to keep the handset a maximum of 15 feet away from you because of the Bluetooth range. If you want to, you can even use the phone as a baby monitor or intercom.

It comes with a speakerphone and answering machine base station that plugs into your analog line and it has a 5.8 GhZ cordless flip-style handset. If you want to get really serious, you can purchase and connect up to ten handsets to a single base station. The flip-style handset looks like a cell phone and has many of the same features that a typical cell phone would have such as the ability to load your contact information from Microsoft Outlook. You can plug the phone right into your PC with an included USB cable and program the options on your phone with a easy-to-use windowed interface.

The Uniden ELBT595 is a neat device to have for the home, but fairly pricey. If you're completely adamant about converging your two phones together, this could be a good purchase for you. It is available for $250 at CompUSA or www.uniden.com.

Blizz Con/World of Warcraft Phenomena

If you play computer games or video games, you know what it's like to have sleepless nights glued in front of the computer or television curled up with your favorite game. That has happened to me with countless computer and video games, only now I have too many games in my life to add any more. I never did get too much into World of Warcraft, but if you're a gamer, or have just touched a computer, you most likely know what it is.

I have to say that my husband is thoroughly obsessed with World of Warcraft, and spends countless nights, especially on weekends, playing this game without a blink of sleep sometimes. He even got a couple people at work hooked onto this thing. The madness doesn't stop there. This game released nearly a year ago in November 2004, and it has made ripples across the globe, yet it's probably still one of the most popular games out there.

For those of you who haven't heard of it, World of Warcraft from Blizzard Entertainment, is a multiplayer online role-playing game that lets you battle against other people around the globe. It's a good wholesome, user-friendly game for just about anyone. The game is a fantasy-type game, and there are eight races and nine classes of characters that you can pick from. You can choose to join the Horde or the Alliance, which determines what you can and cannot accomplish in the world. If you bring together a bunch of friends, you can also create your own guilds to do quests with so you don't have to do them by yourself. Not to mention the game has good 3D graphics and will work on either a PC or Mac.

Blizzard is coming out with a new expansion for World of Warcraft, which will be debuted at BlizzCon. The sold-out $120 per person event will be held on October 28-29 in California. It's just amazing what a dent one game has made across the world. All the hardcore fans will be attending to receive an exclusive pet for their World of Warcraft character and a bunch of other cool schwag.

BlizzCon was created to celebrate Blizzard's Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo franchises and the communities that surround them. It's a two-day event and features the developers of World of Warcraft and StarCraft: Ghost. This will offer an opportunity for developers and game fans to meet each other and experience hands-on gameplay with Blizzard's games.

If you already have a ticket to BlizzCon, you're lucky. If not, you can follow the conference online at www.blizzcon.com. The popular World of Warcraft can be found at CompUSA or GameStop for about $50.

Apple's iTunes 6

I hope I'm not iTuning or iPodding you out, but Apple's latest release of iTunes is just too good not to mention. As a diehard Apple fan, I couldn't go on without telling you about the new iTunes 6.

iTunes 6 was recently released just a short 35 days after iTunes 5 became available. iTunes in general has always been an excellent one-stop music shop, but now this latest release comes with some dramatic new features, including downloadable television shows and music videos, in addition to music.

Television shows such as Desperate Housewives, Night Stalker, or Hawaii’s own Lost are available for purchase from the iTunes Music Store. It’s perfect if you miss an episode of your favorite show so you don’t have to wait for all the re-runs to air. In addition, there are about 2,000 music videos available to download. The television shows and music videos are both $1.99 each. There are also over two million songs, 20,000 podcasts and 11,000 audiobooks available. Another new feature is the ability to purchase digital box sets that include about 500 songs, bonus videos and a full-color digital booklet in each set.

This is the first time that hit primetime shows can be purchased the day after they are aired. iTunes 6 includes expanded online gift options which allows you to send specific songs, albums, music videos or your iTunes playlists to your friends. You can send these to anyone with an e-mail address, and an iTunes account is not required for receipt.

The new iTunes 6 release came hand-in-hand with Apple's newest 30GB or 60GB iPod, with the ability to hold up to 150 hours of video. The new iPod allows you to enjoy all your music with your television shows, music videos, home movies, video podcasts, photos and audiobooks. I know it doesn't make much sense to watch videos with a small device of that size, but with a battery life of 20 hours, it sure can provide for hours and hours of entertainment if you're on the road going from airport to airport, in the car or just sitting at Starbucks.

You can download the free iTunes 6 for yourself at www.apple.com, and it's available for both Mac and Windows. On Apple's website, if you hit the iPod link, you can also check out the latest iPod to go with your new iTunes.