As you may know, speakers inside of laptops are usually quite badly made. It is very hard to make speakers small while retaining sound quality. When travelling around speakers need to be small, rechargeable or battery powered, and have good sound. I am going to recommend 3 different speakers that I have used. They all have their own strong and weak points.
Quality Sound: Logitech V20
Logitech makes speakers with great sound. These speakers are certainly not beauties but they have quality sound. The V20’s connect via USB, defeating the need for a power cord or batteries. They only weigh 1.3 pounds and are compatible with OS X. The lack of cords is good for travelling, but the USB connection cannot provide much power for good bass. However, they can still get fairly loud. They are quite large for notebook speakers at 6″, but their sound quality is definitely a worthy trade-off. Logitech provides a carrying case as well, which contributes even more to their portability.
Price Tag: $59.99-$79.99
Easy On The Wallet: Nokia MD-4
The Nokia MD-4 have a stylish V-shaped design. They produce good quality sound for their size and are very easy to travel with. The speakers need 4 x AAA batteries, which give up to 30 hours. Out of all 3 speakers these are the most portable and can easily be slipped into a pocket. They also come with a 2.5mm to 3.5mm converter for use with a broader range of laptops and mp3 players.
Price Tag: $15.99
Mid Range: Philips SBA1500
These Philips could be some of the best laptop speakers I have ever used. They have a cheap price, sound as good as they look, and would match any Macbook. The speakers get quite loud, although as expected for the size and price the bass is not very good and can get slightly tinny at times. These speakers can be used with an MP3 player as they use a 3.5mm jack. One downside for these speakers is that they use 3 AAA batteries, and supply 16 to 20 hrs of playback.
Price Tag: $24.99
Conclusion
In the end the Nokia MD-4 are my favourite speakers for sound, price, and style. There are other speakers that are all-in-one and have better sound, but they are usually bigger and not as stylish.
For awhile now Apple has been trying to go green. They have started making more of their computers aluminum, so that they can be more easily recycled. If the rumors are correct, then the up and coming Macbook will be all aluminum, adding to the already aluminum Macbook Air and Macbook Pro.
Chemicals
The iPhone is known to contain a few harmful chemicals. Greenpeace has been after Apple to get the chemicals out of the iPhone for our own safety. Brominated compounds make up 10% of the weight of the circuit board, which when burned can create dioxin. Also found were chlorine and toxic phthalate. The toxic phthalate can interfere with sexual development in mammals. It is a banned chemical in most of Europe, although not in America. The headphones are covered with the hazardous chemical. Hopefully, Apple has taken care of this problem when addressing manufacturing of the iPhone 3G.
Of course, the iPhone is not alone when it comes to harmful chemicals. However, Apple has made it apparent that they are aware of these issues. In June of last year, Apple moved its 15″ Macbook Pro to LED back lit screens in an effort to eliminate the use of Mercury.
Patents
Macrumors constantly has information about Apple patenting new technologies which promise to make Apple more environmentally friendly. Two examples of such patents are the latest of Apple putting solar cells on their products, or having a chip that can convert heat from a device into electricity.
Steve Jobs has written a list of problems he is going to try to fix. At the moment I don’t think much about the chemicals in any device. I know that there are chemicals all around me and I have grown used to it. I would however be more comfortable if I knew there was nothing to worry about.
Recycling
Many of Apple’s products are made of aluminum. Aluminum, along with polycarbonate and glass (used for Macbook enclosures and iMac display covers) are valued for their highly recyclable qualities. Using these materials helps to encourage recycling, thus minimizing waste. As you can see, Apple is trying to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Or maybe Jonathan Ive likes aluminum…just kidding :)
Do you recycle your old computers? Why? Why not?
How many sites do you visit regularly? I bookmark sites constantly and add videos to my favorites on YouTube on a regular basis. All of these links tend to get very unorganized, and as as you can imagine I now have hundreds of links and videos to keep track of. In order to make this task as painless as possible, I now use an application called Shelved.
Whenever you have a link you want to keep, just drag and drop it into the shelved window. It then opens the site within the Shelved application. In the left pane of the application, you can easily add and create new “shelves”. This provides a simple way to organize links quickly. You can also go into Browse>Browse With, and select a browser to open a given link in. You can choose from any of the browsers you have on your mac, and they are automatically read in Shelved.
As you can see I only have 2 shelves of Technology and News. Although it is easy to create more by clicking on the + symbol in the bottom, left corner.
On the right side of the application there is a preview of the webpage. From the top right corner you can select the shelf you want to organize the webpage on, as seen below.
If you are a common user of Del.Icio.Us, then this is certainly for you. Not only can you keep all your links in the same application, but you can also export the links you want to share to Del.Icio.Us. All you have to do is log in to Del.Icio.Us from within Shelved, and from there you can then choose what to export.
The folks over at ExtraZeal worked hard and made this app one of the best link organizers for the mac. The application is currently in alpha stages, and is available as freeware. You can download it here.
