Previously, the power user’s mobile email choices were limited to:

• Attempting to read emails on a plain (circa 1999) cellphone’s small screen
• Blackberry with a $40 a month data plan, plus monthly phone plan
• Or carrying a laptop or UMPC and searching for a wifi hotspot, or a $40 airtime plan

However, while perusing through the local Target store’s electronics department, I spotted the PEEK display.

The Peek, unlimited email $19.95mo

The Peek is a $99 device, which may currently be purchased online at www.GetPeek.com or your local Target store.  Service is currently on a month-to-month basis, at $19.95.  This includes up to 3 email accounts, and is currently set for use with the popular mail providers (such as GMail, AOL, Hotmail or Yahoo) and all POP3 email servers.

Discussions on the webforums suggest that many advances in the Peek service are forthcoming.  These features may possibly include text messaging and Exchange server compatibility.

Peek is a new company that was founded by several previous Virgin Mobile executives, a previous product manager with Kyocera, and a product development and sourcing expert who had worked for Limited Brands (Bath & Body Works, Victoria’s Secret, etc..)

Certainly, the large cellphone companies are watching to see if the prepaid mobile email concept will take off.  If this would also work as an internet browser, I would immediatley get rid of my large, heavy, failing-keyboard AT&T Tilt phone.

This may also be the perfect choice for small businesses wanting to provide their employees with mobile email, without the expense of Blackberry hardware and service.

I am just now starting to catch up on the product releases from Photokina in Cologne, Germany.

I’d heard a lot about the new Canon 5D MkII, and it’s ability to record 12 minutes of HD-quality video.

Somehow, I had missed the announcement that Leica had introduced a new SLR sized camera.
The Leica S2 has a 37.5-megapixel, 30 x 45 mm sensor that is 56% larger than a full frame sensor.

From the official press release:
In designing this brilliant new camera, Leica’s engineers took a close look at the best existing DSLR designs and then synergized them into a radical but practical new camera that combines the performance parameters of a medium-format digital camera with the ergonomics, form factor, and handling ease of a 35mm SLR. The result is the new Leica S2, an entirely new, finely crafted, professional tool developed in-house by Leica with hands-on input from some of the most renowned professional photographers in the world.

Also, Leica has supposedly added a tilt-shift mechanism or adapter into this new lens system.  According to reports, this will allow any of the lenses to be used as a tilt-shift lens.  Also, the camera body is able to attach the angle of tilt to the picture data.  This will allow Photoshop to easily and quickly deal with tilt-shifted artifacts.

Pricing has not yet been released.  However, most unofficial guesses place the pricing at about $45,000 USD.

Until a few years ago, Huntsville was blessed with real radio entertainment.  Of course, this had to be imported.  A group of private citizens had funded a translator to provide real rock& roll music to Huntsville.  At first, they were re-broadcasting the legendary Nashville rock station, WKDF.  Then, corporate owners decided that Nashville needed another country music station.

Luckily, the translator owners were fortunate to be able to begin retransmitting WBUZ “102.9-The Buzz.”  This allowed North Alabama to experience a “real” radio morning show, with the Buzz broadcasting the nationally syndicated Bob & Tom Show….  True adult intelligent comedy in the morning  was an experience the valley had not experienced since the early 90’s, when the Power 93’s morning zoo ruled the airwaves.
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Pansy Kidd Middle School, Poteau, Oklahoma

In February, I realized the contract was up on my Sprint Wireless Data Card.  I was hardly using the card.  Therefore, the modem was just sitting in the laptop bag, collecting dust.  All the while, I was being billed by Sprint on my monthly contract.  I finally had a Dave Ramsey moment, and had the service cancelled.

I, and many others, had hoped that someone would come up with a way to have an affordable, temporary data plan.  This would allow me to have internet service when I travel, without relying on questionable accesspoints.

Jenn at www.pocketables.net to my rescue, once again.  She has listed the steps to get an AT&T pay-as-you-go data plan.  This allows you to have a sim with contract-free 3G data service for just $19.99 per month.

Simply purchase an AT&T Go Phone
Activate the phone
Call Customer service and add the Media Net, Unlimited plan
Remove the sim, and place it in your data device

This works great for laptops or mobile pcs that have data modems built in.  It will also work with any 3G enabled AT&T data card.

Also, many users are reporting good luck with simply tethering their laptops to a tetherable phone, with the prepaid sim installed.

Complete information is listed at Pocketables.

While sitting in the waiting room, this morning, I was checking a few of the internet photography forums on my AT&T Tilt.  That’s when spotted one of the neatest merging of incompatible products technology I’ve seen in a very long time….

The super-amazing PanoCamera DSLR Control:

Nintendo DS controlling a Canon DSLR Camera

This amazing blending of technology is simply a high-tech version of a remote shutter release….  Oh, it’s not just any shutter release, it’s the probably the most adjustable shutter release that a photography hobbiest can afford.

The PanoCamera DSLR Control, hereafter referred to as PC-DSLR, will allow the photographer to do a virtually unlimited number of  bracketed shots (series of equally spaced over- and under-exposed shots.)

Also, the PC-DSLR will work as a fully adjustable, digital interociter Intervalometer.  Plus, as an added bonus, the user bracketed intervalometer shots.  But only if you act in the next 10 minutes…

The PC-DSLR creator has not forgotten about the microphone in the Nintendo DS, either…  The creator/programmer has included an audio-based trigger function.

Pricing is suggested to be around $100.  The software and hardware are still in beta test.  Hopefully, they will be available soon…..

The author’s website is HERE.

SC Magazine is reporting the BusinessWeek magazine’s website has been infected with code that could redirect visitors to malicious servers.

The site’s infection seems to be a classic SQL injection attack — code injected into servers feeding the site link to a Russian domain that could download malware onto the computers of the website’s users.

The infection seems to have been in place for some time. According to Google Safe Browsing, “Of the 2,157 pages tested on the site over the past 90 days, 214 pages resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent.”

The Google summary reports that some 11 domains appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of the site.

BusinessWeek has responded in a release that said, ”Online security is a top priority and, while we continue to investigate the matter, we are confident that our readers’ personal information has not been compromised.”

According to Fox News:

Audit: ATF Has ‘Serious’ Weaknesses’ in Controls

The ATF is accused by the Inspector General’s office having trouble keeping up with government laptops… And, some of their firearms…

The article fails to mention whether the missing firearms are duty weapons issued to agents, or if the missing firearms are seized/evidence firearms.

Also, the missing computers are described as off-lease laptops.  Apparently, ATF leases a laptop for 3 years, then the leasing company gives the laptop to the agency.  The missing computers may have been destroyed/disposed of; and the paperwork confirming their demise would then be destroyed due to the government’s paper reduction act.