Think Tank Photo My 2nd Brain Review

Recently I had to make a trip to see a relative who was hospitalized in serious condition. Since this was going to be a fairly short trip, only four days, and one that did not have the potential for much photography, I planned to travel light. Light is, of course, a relative term. My concept of light is: a travel laptop, a 7” class tablet, a smartphone and a flip-phone. No digital cameras (the smartphone camera will do) and no large, connected tablets.

The perfect carrying case for this trip turned out to be the ThinkTank MY 2nd BRAIN MacBook Air/Pro 13” Laptop Slim Case. The case has plenty of pockets including inside pockets for power adapters and cords, accessories, and connectivity/adapters. It also has zipper accessible pockets for all of my devices.

The outside dimensions are 10.2” wide x 14” high x 0.8” deep. Weight is only 1.4 lbs. The case is made of  water-resistant nylon with high-quality zippers and plenty of foam and padding. I felt totally confident that my expensive electronics were well protected.

The case is actually specifically designed for several iFruit products like MacBooks, iPhones and iPads. However we found it was absolutely perfect for our preferred combination:

Instead of overpriced and underperforming iStuff we use these products:

· MacBook Air/Pro 13 replaced by an ASUS S200e

· iPad mini replaced by a 7” Kobo Arc (it also worked perfectly with other 8* and smaller tablets)

· iPhone replaced by Samsung Galaxy SII (we also used several other Android phones)

The design of the case allowed us to carry our electronics inside and still have an outside pocket that was large enough to hold a magazine to read on the flights and a document holder with all of our tickets and confirmation printouts in it. We were able to access what we needed without having to open the case up, a very nice feature.

We slipped the ASUS laptop into the rear-most pocket so we would have easy access if TSA (Thousands Standing Around) needed to see the laptop before we boarded our flights. This turned out to be unnecessary because somehow USAirways gave me TSA Pre-approved status and I just waltzed through security.

The large middle pocket held chargers, adapters, a mouse, cables and everything else we needed in the numerous built-in pouches.

The front pocket held the Kobo tablet with the Smartphone in a Golla Genmob travel case slipping perfectly into the dedicated pocket on the front at the top.

All-in-all it was a wonderful experience that shows just how good well planned engineering can be. I can’t say enough about the positive experience of using this case, it is excellent un every way.

The 13” version of the MY 2nd BRAIN is a available in Black, Harbor Blue and Mist Green. It is also available in other sizes from Tablet-only up to 15” laptop size.

MSRP for the 13” version is $94.75

www.thintankphoto.com

Pentax Q Camera Firmware Update

Pentax Japan has just released new firmware updates for the Pentax Q, Q10, and Q7 ultra-compact mirrorless cameras.

Firmware updates 1.14 and 1.03 for the Q and Q10 add support for the new 08 Wide Zoom and offer the usual minor bugfixes.

Firmware update 1.01 for the Q7 includes the same two changes in addition to:

• Improved green button metering in manual mode
• A new setup menu option to display the firmware version of the attached lens

All three updates can be downloaded directly from Pentax using the links below:

• Pentax Q v1.14
• Pentax Q10 v1.03
• Pentax Q7 v1.01

                        

Canon EOS M2

Canon's first kick at the mirrorless market was without question a disappointing debut: The EOS M first launched in 2012, and was a let-down mostly because of its incredibly sluggish autofocus, as well as other quirks like a screen blackout that happened immediately after taking a picture.

Canon seems to have addressed both issues with the new design, added Wi-Fi, and left most of the rest untouched.

The M2 has been officially announced via Canon China and Canon Japan so far, with English-language countries likely due for releases later today. The details of the camera are known, however, and include a body design that resembles the original, but that's actually slightly smaller and packs new Wi-Fi connectivity for sharing and image transfer.

The big selling point however remains the improved autofocus, which was by far the biggest area requiring improvement on the original. Canon promises more than double the AF speed with its new Hybrid CMOS AF II system, which double checks the window for focus information that the original did for that improvement. Canon has kept the same APS-C 18 megapixel sensor

in the M2, but the sensor wasn't the issue, so this could be a very good entrant in the MILC field, so long as the AF actually does provide significant improvements over the original.

The M2 will ship in Japan in mid-December, but no word yet on when it'll come to the U.S. A pre-holiday ship date would definitely help Canon move a few of these via the under-the-tree crowd, however, so fingers crossed it arrives before the new year. I always like the look of the EOS M, but with the M2, it might have some substance behind all that style, too. Check out Canon Rumors for the full spec sheet if you're interested in the nitty-gritty.

Linux Mint 16

In recent years, the Linux Mint open-source operating system has emerged to become one of the most popular Linux distributions.

Linux Mint was founded by developer Clement Lefebvre in 2006, with the goal of being a user-friendly desktop version of Linux. Lefebvre officially released

Linux Mint 16, code-named Petra, Nov. 30 with the goal of improving the Linux desktop experience. Linux Mint 16 is based on the Ubuntu 13.10 Linux distribution at its core, with a number of key additions and improvements.

While Ubuntu has focused on the development of its own Unity desktop Linux environment, Linux Mint has its own desktop creation, known as Cinnamon. Among the highlights of the Linux Mint 16 release is the latest generation of the Cinnamon desktop.

Linux Mint is also available with other desktop environments, including MATE, which is a fork of the GNOME 2.x desktop.

The new desktop environments included in Linux Mint 16 aim to offer improved performance and usability to Linux users.

Among the new features that Linux Mint 16 provides are new USB formatting and imaging tools that enable users to easily create bootable USB sticks.

Falling PC Shipments

Global shipments of personal computers (PCs) are expected to see their "most severe yearly contraction on record" in 2013, according to research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).

The firm said sales of PCs would fall by 10.1% this year, worse than the previous estimate of 9.7%.

PC sales have fallen for the last six quarters, the longest historical drop.

Global shipments of PCs have been hurt by the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones.

"Perhaps the chief concern for future PC demand is a lack of reasons to replace an older system, " Jay Chou, a senior research analyst with IDC, said in a statement.

Worldwide shipments would continue to fall in 2014 but at a slower pace, said IDC.

CyberMonday sales

Today is CyberMonday and that means some great deals are available. Our email inboxes were full of offers today from eTailers of all kinds, but especially tech sites. The biggest palers, Amazon and Walmart, seemed to have the best deals but almost everyone is offering a big discount today.

Here’s one of our favorites:

www.oreilly.com: Monday, December 2, is our annual Cyber Monday sale. Although you enjoy the 50% off ebooks and videos year round with your User Group discount code DSUG50, you can take today and share this benefit with your friends who aren't in your community. Please share this information with all your community members and help us spread the word.

Will This Help Acer?

Acer announced the first Chromebook laptop with a touchscreen for US$299.99, which is about $100 more than the company's cheapest non-touch model.

The C720P Touchscreen Chromebook has an 11.6-inch touchscreen, which displays images at a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. The lightweight laptop offers roughly seven-and-a-half hours of battery life and runs on an Intel Celeron 2955U processor based on the Haswell microarchitecture.

Chromebooks are laptops for those who do most of their computing on the Web. Chrome OS is mostly adapted for keyboards, but the touchscreen could ease selection of options in menus and improve interaction in browsers and other applications.

A new wave of Chromebooks running the latest version of Chrome OS started shipping in October.

The laptop will be available in early December through Amazon.com, Best Buy and Acer's online store. The laptop will be available in the U.S., Switzerland, Germany, U.K., France, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden and Finland.

Other Chromebooks include Acer Chromebook C720-2848, which has an Intel processor and is priced at $199.99, and Hewlett-Packard and Google's Chromebook 11, which has an ARM processor and is priced at $279. HP's Chromebook 14 has a 14-inch screen, an Intel processor and is priced at $299 in Office Depot.

The C720P weighs 1.35 kilograms and boots in seven seconds. Other features include 32GB of solid-state storage, 2GB of DDR3 memory, USB 3.0 ports, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and an HDMI slot. Users will get 100GB of free Google Drive storage for two years with the laptop.