I’m not a fan of consumer laptops from Dell or HP, but I do like their business lines. They are heavy duty laptops which can take a beating while performing flawlessly. Now they have came out with the Latitude 13, which is part of the business line but had some of the design cues from the Dell Adamo which looked good but wasn’t successful. In this case this machine is thin and perfect size but packs a punch.

Specs:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 1.3 GHz
• Windows 7 Pro 32 Bit or XP Professional Downgrade
• 13.3″ Widescreen HD LCD with anti-glare (1366×768)
• Camera 1.3MP
• 4GB DDR3 1066
• SSD or HD
• External Optical Drive
• Intel WiFi Link 5100 a/g/n
• Blue Tooth

Link: Dell

There are a lot of access points out on the market, and I have tried quite a few, been through 2 Netgear, 2 Linksys, 1 Belkin, and 3 D-Link. Out of all them I would avoid Belkin, probably the worst out of all the products, was horrible out of the box, worse support and I would avoid all their products period. Linksys are good but not what it used to be, I still prefer the older models then the new consumer models. Netgear is nice when its working but after a while it would hang, I would have to plug it and unplug it, and one of them just stopped working. Overall the best solid products with little nonsense and high features are D-Link products.

Models

• D-Link DAP 1160
• D-Link 2100 AP
• D-Link 7100 AP

What I like out of them is full security features, MAC Filter, DHCP control, simple setup, and reasonably priced.

I have been waiting years before purchasing this lens, its the peak of all the Canon lenses. This lens is what gives the Canon L Series Lenses that name of quality and amazing pictures. The Canon 70-200mm F/2.8 IS L is second to none in sharpness, contrast, and speed.

I have taken several shots, its fantastic for high speed shots, loved it for group photos and photos on the fly. You really capture a person’s details and concentrate on the subject in front of you.

The F4 is more expensive then the F2.8 but really worth it since nothing can increase the speed of lens then the F-stop. Then there is the normal model the IS model, I went for the IS model as I am shooting freehand consistently and it did a great job with a lot of my shots.

At the time I got the lens for $1600 which is a very good price, and I don’t regret a penny that I spent on it. Its an amazing lens which produces fantastic photos. This is the lens which takes it to the next level. (Sample Pictures Below)

Canon EF 70 200 f2.8L IS USM Sample Pictures

I am a happy user of the Sonos Multiroom music system, and the best part is the consistent quality of music. I bought it when I had the larger CR100 remote which had a click wheel and wasn’t touch screen but extremely durable. Now with the CR200 Sonos has really made advancements in the remote technology and user interface is so much better then before and smoother to work with.

The best part of the new user interface is the new search functionality which makes it very easy to go through large collections of music. You can type in what your looking for and it does a smart filter of possible matches as you are typing. Sirius and other music services are fantastic to work with on this unit, better then even the desktop software. Its smooth and seamless and I get to access all my Sirius music without a hitch and changing between them is easy enough.

I have the Sonos application running on my iPod touch but the difference is that the Sonos CR200 runs on the Sonos mesh rather then the wifi, so if wifi doesn’t reach its working on the mesh network of the music units. The feel and quality of the unit is unsurpassed, very good feel with a solid build and high quality screen. This unit is worth every penny for something of this quality and experience.

Link: Amazon
Price: $349
Rating:

I’m an admirer of quality products and Jamo makes quality speakers, the sound quality of their speakers are amazing, their designs are unique. Now the Jamo A 804 is something different, from the review on Yanko design they have described what I would want from front mounting speakers. You can use these as a set on their own with the subwoofer, of course powered through an A/V receiver. And you can later add it for a 5.1 or 7.1 system. This speaker has great quality sounds from low to high frequency, trebles and base conveyed perfectly, covering from movies to music, high paced action or intense conversations and scenes. This speaker excels at all forms of sound while looking good, and that isn’t the best part. Most of the times when you have a setup such as this you always have to sit in a specific spot to get the best sound, with these speakers you can sit in any location and get the perfect amount of sound with the 2.1 setup.

Link: YankoDesign

Voice Coverage:

• Zain is good, except for those dropped calls at quite a few locations
• Wataniya has good coverage, a few problem areas but overall good
• Viva seems to go from bad to spotty coverage, pretty much the worst of the bunch

With the new Google Phone its a very Data oriented phone with lots of different services and integrated items that require constant data usage. You can manually configure the APN details so that you can access 3G/Edge of your network. The biggest adopter and advertiser of Google Android phones currently is Viva, the other operators haven’t adopted Android Phones yet. Now the surprising part is this, I have used my Google Phone with Zain and Wataniya, the settings work automatically and I’m on the 3G network right away downloading data and it transfers to a wireless network that it recognizes if it connected to it previously. It puts the priority on normal wireless if its available before using 3G/Edge. Now the surprising part is Viva, the settings don’t download right away, speaking to the technical staff they run you in circles and they don’t even know. I even tried explaining to them the exact details but I honestly couldn’t get a coherent answer from them. With Wataniya and Zain they knew exactly what I was talking about and they provided me the APN settings and the exact details, IPs, and ports. Overall for voice services in Kuwait you either go with Wataniya Telecom or Zain.

I have had the Nexus One for a while now and at the same time I have my Blackberry with so its interesting to have two data intensive phones. Usually I always had one dumb phone, just to make calls and data phone since getting the Blackberry two simple roles but since getting the Nexus One I have been enjoying surfing and the ease of accessing my emails and other Google applications. The Blackberry is a simple smooth operating system which has great data management, keeps everything lite.

Blackberry 8900

• Handles Data Usage Efficiently
• Great Battery Life
• Great Signal
• Applications
• Blackberry Messenger
• Good Sound Quality
• Excellent Speaker
• Durable, has taken some ridiculous falls

Nexus One Android

• Excellent Screen
• Lots of Applications
• Best browsing Capability, works with Flash
• Best Gmail Integration
• Works with Wifi Perfectly
• Touch Screen
• Amazing Sound Quality
• Google Contacts Integrations
• Crappy Batter Life
• Fragile
• Very Customizable Home Screen
• Youtube in Full Screen

I have suffered multiple crashes from my BBM 5.00.55 so I decided to upgrade but something was acting up and then half way thru the update the phone fell and restarted which resulted in BBM disappearing from my screen.

I had to remove the software through the desktop manager and then reinstalled BBM 5.00.57 from the phone. The best and only way to really restore all contacts and groups is through your email. Back Up to your email consistently to make sure that you have the latest contacts and groups.

One I asked to restore from email it took about 20 minutes to verify the email which freaked me out a bit, then it took about 10 minutes to restore all my contacts and several hours to restore the groups which some how came through successfully. So Blackberry has a clear and good working process for restoring the contacts and groups.

I received a message on my Google Nexus One for update, I wasn’t sure what it was but I was too sleepy to think about it and just accepted it. I installed and restarted, right after I didn’t think much about it, I was reading an article on BBC then I was trying to move to things and the screen zoomed in when I realized they updated the multi-touch capability which is a very important feature to have but I was too lazy to root it or install a program for it. The update came from Google which fixes 3G issues as well as the multi-touch feature, a quick roll out for this service. Overall I am enjoying the Nexus One and all its capabilities, its interesting comparing it with the Blackberry which I will at a later point.

The Great

• Android 2.1 is more refined, works smoothly
• Amazing 3.7inch OLED Screen
• Powerful CPU, the Nexus One is a fast phone
• Excellent quality sound
• Fantastic 5.1 Megapixel Camera
• Interaction with all Google Services (Gmail, Latitude, Google Voice, Google Reader, Picasa, and others) is fantastic, its smooth and updates right away.

The Good

• Android Market Applications have built up over the past year and a bit, even though some need some more refining before hitting the market
• Very Good Quality Build
• Smooth design, and relatively thin, fits nicely in your hands but I keep hearing that it doesn’t take kindly to drops
• Decent phone signal

The Crap:

• Battery doesn’t even last the whole day, it makes it 75% through the day I use the phone a lot
• No Multitouch
• No Arabic Support, expecting it soon
• Speaker is ridiculously low and the ringer speaker is on the low side too, but you can hear the ringer clearly, I still have to get used to the new ringer
• Slow charging Battery

Overall

I think they have made great progress with all the Google Phones and I am enjoying using it. So much you can do with the data and configure this phone, this phone is for people who really like customizing how their phone works and how it presents the data to you. The interaction between all the programs with data being downloaded to the phone is very fast and smooth, I have 3G switched off and its still very smooth. The best part is surfing online with Flash working perfectly, it presents websites very well and smooth. All this information can be customized, the home screen can be customized, I like how much you can tweak it and move things around, the different widgets, and how easy it is to get to the settings page and tweak it.

Zain APN Settings: