* News of the Week:
On December 27th, Fast Company put out their Top 10 "Gadgets of the Decade".
Here's the list -
2000 - USB Flash drive (When these first came out the limit was 256MB. Ten years later, the largest that I've seen is by Kingston. One can enjoy 256GB of storage...just don't lose it or your out $900.)
2001 - iPod. (The iPod touch is my personal favorite. Wireless Web access and video storage are just two of the benefits.)
2002 - Dyson vacuum cleaner (I have one - thanks to my wife. I didn't even know how to use the accessories when we first got it. Three years later I'm a pro...not sure if that's a good or bad thing.)
2003 - DVR (Couch potatoes might argue it's the greatest invention of all time)
2004 - Motorola's RAZR cell phone (It made you want to buy a new cell phone just so you could look cool. Who cares whether you could hear the person on the other end or not. However, the evolution of new smartphones quickly diminished the RAZR's popularity.)
2005 - GPS Devices (I now have all the local and regional DQ's plotted. Blizzard anyone?)
2006 - Intel Powered Macbooks - (Nice move Apple, nice move...err, I mean Steve Jobs. More history)
2007 - iPhone, Wii, and Flip camera - (Okay, so I've been wanting the iPhone for a while now, but can't get buy-in from the boss/wife. The Wii was addicting for about three weeks until I got tennis elbow and I just picked up the Flip as a Christmas present for my wife. I've uploaded around half a GB of videos to the Web and she hasn't used it yet...hmmm.
2008 - Netbooks (Personally, I think these are great but are very target market specific. It all comes down to what you are going to use them for.)
2009 - e-readers (I think e-readers, along with the use of Audio books will continue to grow in popularity)
Here's the article:
Gadgets of the Decade
The following items are not in the article, but here's what I think will be hot in 2010:
2010 - Tablet/touch screen laptops, USB 3.0 devices, Solid state hard drives (SSD) will continue to replace spinning drives, 4G phones with the potential to transfer data up to 100 Mbps, and of course, something new from Google. (I would say Google Wave, but that's more of a Web app than a gadget).
* Tool of the Week
DNS Benchmark from Steve Gibson
In a nutshell the DNS Benchmark tool will tell you which DNS (domain name system) currently transfers data the fastest to your machine.
Quick overview of DNS - In it's most basic form this is the process that translates Web site names to IP addresses, (i.e. www.pcworld.com to 70.42.185.10) thus allowing a Web server to connect you to the requested site.
If you are primarily concerned about internet connection speed - then try out this tool before opting to change to OpenDNS, Google Public DNS, UltraDNS, or some other service. I've used DNS Benchmark and the results were interesting. My current ISP, Insight, was actually the fastest to return DNS queries. However, I'm still going to move to OpenDNS very soon as their response times were a close second. The other side of this decision is security (which is another topic altogether), and OpenDNS allows for tighter filtering, site blocking, white/blacklisting, etc.
However, I'd still recommend trying out Steve Gibson's DNS Benchmark. It's a very lightweight utility that you download, but do not need to "install" in order for it to function.
A note about Steve Gibson - In my opinion Steve is one of the brightest minds in the technology industry. In terms of internet security, there is no one better in the world. Many years ago, he put Bill Gates in his place in front of a very large audience. Bill was actually speechless. I'll share that story or audio version later.
Steve runs the very popular Security Now podcasts, is the creater of the Spinrite disk recovery software and has built various other unique programs including ShieldsUp - which tests your ports for vulnerabilities. Visit his site when you get a chance: GRC
If your interested here's a random article I just picked up on Steve. Steve Gibson article
Final Note: In the spirit of competition, namebench will perform a similar evaluation of DNS benchmarking across multiple providers. However, my recommendation would be to use Steve Gibson's DNS Benchmark utility.
* Web site of the Week (WoW)
The WoW is more of a movie recommendation. You probably guessed it already... it's AVATAR. This film takes the technology used from Lord of the Rings and pushes it to a whole new level. Avatar has set the bar for future 3-D film making. Also check out the AVATAR Trailer.
Later.
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