The Cult of the Cool Mac: Made with 100% USDA real meat!

We try to highlight those products that other sites may have missed, but were nevertheless impressive and unique. Here's a list of cool products in no particular order.

PC PhoneHome has been around for awhile -- or at least, I saw it at a previous show -- but I've been thinking about getting a laptop, and this software seems to answer a common problem with laptops... keeping them. The free version is a system extension (or OS X application) that sits quietly keeping track of your internet connection. Suppose that your computer has been stolen and is used by the thief. If the computer is ever online again, the PC PhoneHome software will send you an e-mail with enough information that law-enforcement should be able to find the machine. The pro version adds an interesting twist: it patches your hard drive, mimicking a damaged sector, so that erasing the drive won't keep the application from executing. The pro-version has a one-time $29.95 fee for life.

M-Audio demoed their Sonica device, a Dolby Digital 5.1, Pro Logic and DTS decoder that connects to the USB port on a Mac. It allows a computer to output the sound from (for example) a DVD to a pro-audio system, using a special optical cable. Fear not if you do not have a home-theater system to hook up to. The Sonica will also output simulated surround sound with enhanced bass to ordinary stereo speakers or a headset. Their demo station was an iBook with tiny cube speakers. The sound quality was spectacular. Street price for this hot box is $79.95.

Wiebetech has a number of products that are designed for attaching IDE drives to FireWire ports. These aren't drive cases, but are instead small boxes that attach to the back of the bare hard drive. Each box contains a high-speed Oxford911 FireWire bridge that allows you to connect the drive to your computer via FireWire without having to mount the drive in a special drive-case. If you are one of those professionals or hobbyists who needs to make "master" or "build" hard drives, or if you have to remove hard drives and connect them to other machines in order to perform diagnostics, these products are ideal. Solutions are offered for standard 3.5" hard drives and 2.5" notebook drives. Prices range from $100 to $150 dollars.

The odds are that all of the other Mac news sites mentioned this one: Alsoft announced DiskWarrior 3 at the show. It's important enough that I want to mention it here as well. DiskWarrior is an almost indespensible tool for diagnosing and repairing directory damage on your disks. My official move to OS X has been waiting for a number of developments, including this DiskWarrior update. From what I understand, the folks at Alsoft had to re-write 90% of their code for OS X, for which they have my profound thanks. DiskWarrior 3 works in exactly the same way as the previous incarnations of the utility, but it runs under OS X and comes with an OS X-based emergency-repair CD. Version 2.1 of DiskWarrior will still be available for those running Mac OS 9.x and earlier. DiskWarrior 3 will ship in September and will retail for $80.

HPaq demoed their line of photo-direct printers, including the Photosmart 100, which outputs 4x6 photo-like prints. Photosmart printers can print digital images directly from a digital camera or from most kinds of memory cards. The Photosmart 100 was impressive because its output from a 4.1 megapixel camera was very close to continuous-tone in appearance. On the other hand, the printed output also had the same washed-out look that most HP printers demonstrate. Epson supposedly had their own similar printers on display, but I somehow missed them. I would very much like to see Epson's 4x6 photo-printers because of Epson's tradition of excellent digital printing. These printers demontrate that true desktop photo-quality printing will be here soon. The Photosmart printers sell from $180-$400 dollars.

Iomega showed off their NAS P400 network-storage device. The P400 is just a just rack-mountable IDE RAID enclosure with hot-swappable hard drive bays. It is meant to be a professional solution for shared data storage for small businesses, but seriously, would any professional trust an Iomega product with vital data?