Syba SD-U1IRDA-NM USB Fast Infra-Red Adapter Decide Now

I bought this unit because it had the MOSCHIP 7780 IrDA hardware in it and according to some tech site reviews is the top shelf chip for IrDA these days and has the most complete and up to date driver set.

Well, I'm glad I did. I ordered this little guy at about 30 minutes after midnight on Thursday and by Friday at 9:30 am it was on my doorstep in a smiley box using the Prime 2-day free shipping. (Prime is a pay membership that includes free 2-day).

I plugged it into the side of my laptop running Vista 32 Home Premium, which recognized it right away and installed the correct drivers without having to use the included minidisk.

Within 5 minutes (or less) I was downloading all the saved up exercise files from my Polar HRM...now I'm back in the game! Not bad for less than $15 and WAY less than the >$50 that Polar wants for their huge proprietary IrDA dongle.

Tiny, fast, and cheap! I'm happy.Get more detail about Syba SD-U1IRDA-NM USB Fast Infra-Red Adapter.

ViewSonic VX2262wm 22-Inch Widescreen LCD monitor (Black/Silver) Right now

I purchased this monitor as a 2nd display for my Mac Pro. My primary display is a 2 year old 20" Apple LCD (not one of their new LED monitors).

At first glance, it looks great next to the Apple monitor, however after a few days I noticed some oddities:

1) Color reproduction is not as good as the Apple monitor, although still excellent for something in this price range
2) Response is a little slow, but not off-putting
3) Using it in a darkened room is not recommended. The monitor is bright enough, but you can clearly see at the edges of the screen a lot of light "Bleed through" that affects the picture. Daylight or when lights are on this is not an issue.

The upsides are that text is exceptionally clear and crisp so reading email and browsing the web is great and that the monitor appears to be HDCP compliant so if you do happen to watch something in Hi-def, you shouldn't have a problem.

I have still given this a 4 star rating as it really is excellent for the price. Get more detail about ViewSonic VX2262wm 22-Inch Widescreen LCD monitor (Black/Silver).

Lowest Price Panasonic RP SDW08GU1K - Flash memory card - 8 GB - Class 10 - SDHC

I've had a few Panasonic SD cards and have always enjoyed their performance and exceptional reliability.
I tend to shoot with 8 GB cards mostly because they allow a lot of shooting without the risk of putting all your pictures on one card.

I purchased this card and a SanDisk Extreme Class 10 8GB SDHC card and I will give a quick comparison of the two.

Panasonic Pros:
- Looks great. The bright face and case make the card easier to find when it's buried in your camera bag.
- Has a Memo section on the front and back of the card for labeling purposes. (Although the back part is black)
- Includes a nice-looking sliding case. (Although it is bulkier than the standard cases other SD cards have)
- Priced substantially lower than the equivalent SanDisk.
- Made in Japan (The SanDisk is made in China)
- Very fast read/write speeds.

Cons:
- Not as fast as the SanDisk, although it doesn't claim to be.

The Panasonic states up to 22 MB/s, whereas the SanDisk claims up to 30 MB/s.

The warranty on the Panasonic is 10 years while the SanDisk has a lifetime warranty. But that is pretty much irrelevant since these cards are only usable for a few years before they are too small or too slow.

My comparison test was shooting with my Pentax K-7 which does 5.2 frames per second. I shot JPG 1/100 of a second and the average file size was 9MB. I was able to shoot 53 shots over a 25 second period with about 12 seconds of writing following. This is quite a bit faster than my previous Panasonic Class 6 cards.

With the SanDisk I was able to shoot 67 shots over 25 seconds with 9 seconds of writing afterward. The SanDisk was clearly faster but unless you are doing constant HD movie recording or using burst mode all the time, you would never notice the difference. The Panasonic is more than fast enough for all normal shooting.

I can't say the difference in cost is worth the extra speed of the SanDisk. At the time of this review the Panasonic ($42) is $15-$20 cheaper than the SanDisk.
Overall I highly recommend this card. Like other Panasonic cards I've owned, I expect it will be extremely reliable.Get more detail about Panasonic RP SDW08GU1K - Flash memory card - 8 GB - Class 10 - SDHC.