Over the Labor Day Holiday Weekend, I had the chance to visit the county fair. And allow me the opportunity to set a mental landscape before entering this review full steam. Imagine the smells of cotton candy filling the air, funnel cakes, the unfortunate waft of an elephant (ew!) and popcorn by the ton. Visualize the brightly painted and extremely lit signs announcing oddball tests of strength and dexterity that you will probably never encounter in real life.

That is, not unless you get the 2K Games Carnival for your Apple iPhone or Apple iPod Touch. Best part, there’s no elephant smell either.

Carnival Games has the typical odd assortment of games from a test of strength, bumper boats, shooting galleries (shoot out the center of a star, shoot the ducks with the targets on their sides and a Wild West shooting game) and even a milk bottle game that you can actually win – much unlike in the real life cheating gosh darn game.

The graphics are great, simple, extremely clean and bright and in good looking 3D. Upon your first start up, you will create a character, I decided to make mine look like me… sorta. You can unlock many items and add them to the look of your character. In fact, my little cherub like avatar is now sporting a pair of x-ray glasses that I won by ringing the bell in the test of strength three times. And speaking of which, 2K Games actually worked it out where if you have to slide your finger up and down in order to build your strength for the test of strength, you actually have to rub your finger up and down – staying in one place won’t suffice. I found that actually cool that they used the iPhone’s touch screen in that manner.

You move around the screen using an virtual joystick and while it’s easy to get around, you cannot control the camera at all. The way the game is laid out, you have to walk around from place to place to where the carnival games are located. While I don’t mind the controls in that aspect, you can find yourself walking into corners or behind the game stands. Just walk around them and you’ll be fine.

I was one of the few that did encounter some random crashes; however since the 1.01 update in the last few days, I can easily state that I’ve been crash-free and enjoying this game to the point of having to charge my battery multiple times in a day. Easy to pick up, totally fun to play with, 100% addictive. I’ll have to give the Nintendo Wii version a spin later on too.

A definite must-buy in my book: 5 out of 5 (Highly Addictive)

[ Link: Carnival Games on iTunes, Carnival Games ]

There’s something about me and printers. Same thing with fax machines. I need them, I use them… they just don’t like me. They run out of ink at the wrong time, they don’t work like I think they should, sometimes I think they steal the change from my pocket. Don’t quote me on that last part, but let’s just say that a printer has to be very special for me to use it, let alone like it.

The last printer that won me over was the Epson WorkForce 600, which now has been replaced by the Epson WorkForce 610. And in that review, I took my time, installed the drivers, saw how much ink I’d use over a couple of months… and found myself actually depending on the WorkForce 600 to the point that I considered it a part of the family and not furniture. But despite the impressive quality of the WorkForce 600, I found myself needing the ability to sometimes print bigger than 8.5 inches by 11 inches.

Enter the Epson WorkForce 1100.

Thanks to the kind folks at Epson, they sent along a WorkForce 1100 and granted me a long amount of time to test their printer.

For the WorkForce 1100 review, I upped the ante and even updated my machines from Windows Vista Business to Windows 7 as well as tested on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to 10.6 Snow Leopard and went through over 300 pages of prints, tested different types of papers and really put the printer through its paces. And guess what? Epson has produced another printer that I actually like. From the drivers that actually tell you exact percentages of how much ink is left in the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black inkjet cartridges – which oddly enough, requires two black ink cartridges at all times, but the rest are single cartridges and tend to last very long. How long? I’m 3 months deep into this long-term review process and I’ve yet to replace my cartridges – they’re cruising at 62% full. Yep… I can tell you the exact percentage via the Epson drivers.

Note: Mac owners using 10.6.x, it’s best to download the newest drivers from Epson.com instead of using the CD-ROM that’s packaged alongside the Epson WorkForce 1100.

Since the WorkForce 1100 does not utilize ethernet or wi-fi connections, but via Windows Vista and Windows 7, it’s about three clicks worth of time to set up printer sharing within a workgroup or domain and using the attached computer as the print server. I attached the Epson WorkForce 1100 to a Windows Vista Business edition machine that’s connected to my network workgroup via wi-fi only, and proceeded to add the printer to a Windows 7 Ultimate edition machine in another room without incident. I then went to my Mac OS X 10.6.2 machine and found the printer via the machine that acted like a print server IP address. Again, about three mouseclicks worth of time. A total cinch to set up.

Now, with setup aside, what about the print quality? Epson boasts some impressive numbers on the widescreen format Epson WorkForce 1100:

Laser quality up to 2x faster
Large prints up to 13″ x 19″
Maximum 30 ppm black/17 ppm color
Laser quality 13 ppm/5.5 ppm

Yep, you read that right… 13 inches by 19 inches of bad boy printing ability up to 5760 by 1440 dpi. Let’s just say that my son will have some awesome new posters on his wall that I actually either have designed or approve at a moments notice – the larger prints also print quite fast too. Enough to satisfy an impatient 8 year old waiting on a print to come out. That’s fast enough for me.

Warm up time on the WorkForce 1100 is a bit long, but once it’s ready, you’ll be printing 8.5 inch by 11 inch print up to 30 pages per minute, or a page per two seconds. I was able to maintain that speed on paragraph and normal designed pages, but heavy art and/or layouts in Adobe InDesign that use clipping paths around photo objects and I was printing about 20 pages or so per minute. Not bad, but not spitting them out like a normal Microsoft Word document.

Now, the best part of Epson WorkForce 1100 has to be how fast it slips into “sleep mode”. Once you finish printing, it’s back to its slumber, saving you precious money from your energy bill per month. It’s already 70% less energy hungry than a laser printer, but it goes to standby which uses considerably less energy than while in use.

Sounding like I found another printer I like yet?

As a person that made the transition from a full-blown office worker to a small office/home office (SOHO) worker in the last year or so for the most part – I still have to travel for some clients – I found myself able to print large format prints, labels, impressive looking color images that would look just as good as a print as it does in Adobe Photoshop. I can print quickly, from any machine – I’ve walked in, powered up my laptop, joined my network and started printing in under 5 minutes – and in 3 months I’ve not had one paper jam. I do like how the WorkForce 600/610 do have ethernet and wi-fi capabilities, the large format printing capability and overall size of the WorkForce 1100 means that you will invariably find a place for it that’s not in the way and it’s going to stay there. So with that, I can overlook the lack of ethernet/wi-fi connectivity because it’s mated with a computer that I’ll be using and nearby usually for designs and prints. And if not, I can do as I’ve stated above and set up printer sharing in just a few moments.

Ok, ok… I really like the Epson WorkForce 1100. There, I said it.

The bad? Printers follow the modern day razor and razor blades analogy. For under $200 you can get the Epson WorkForce 1100, but within a year, you will have to purchase the black cartridges – which requires two of them – and the cyan, magenta and yellow cartridges. But Epson has made that part quite friendly since their printer drivers are real efficient. And to be honest, I truly recommend buying only Epson Durabrite brand cartridges if you want to keep up with accurate amounts of prints per cycle, how much ink is left in each cartridge, et al. That’s a nitpick that’s a necessary evil though. The printer cartridges do last quite a while though.

I’d recommend the Epson WorkForce 1100 to those folks that have found themselves needing large print formats. I’ve also print 4 x 5 photos, I’ve print many legal (8.5 inch by 14 inch) documents and switched up to the larger 13 inch by 19 inch and the WorkForce 1100 didn’t have a problem keeping up. By the way, the print in the picture is from Michel Keck’s awesome artwork [ view here ] – go buy some of his art. She’s awesome.

I know, I know. Two printers in two years that I’ve somehow began to like. Who knows… maybe my dislike for printers might be going away thanks to Epson – they’re helping forget my prior HP printer that was pure demonic. Due to the impressive print speed, quality and honestly, the drivers, the WorkForce 1100 is another quality Epson product, easily a 5 out of 5 (Highly Recommended for SOHO)

Update: Office Depot has a coupon that reduces the Epson WorkForce 1100 down from $200 to $130 via this coupon or $149 via the Epson website. Thought I’d pass along the savings!

[ Links: Epson, Epson 1100 Product Page, Epson 600 RTL Recommendation, Epson 310 AIO Announcement ]

This review was a long time coming. I usually take my time to get to know exactly what I’m reviewing, and each and every review at RTL is a product that I stand behind. TuneUp has become that one app that simply became something that I didn’t know I needed until I got my hands on it.

Even before I bought my first portable mp3 player – I broke down and got the first generation, Firewire charging and syncing, shiny metal back with the actual moving click wheel, monochromatic screen 5gb Apple iPod – I was already converting all 900+ CD’s that I had in my possession and throw it onto a portable 40gb hard drive. Lugging around 900+ CD’s and buying more each month was beginning to become a nuisance.

Sometimes the software I was using, I wasn’t always using iTunes in the beginning, didn’t get all of the information or ID3 tags right. And with my current level of OCD, that annoyed me but having some almost 10,000+ songs to go through and correct… hell, I was just happy that I knew what the title was sometimes. Fast forward almost 9 years later, a quick stint using Napster, a full-blown switch to the Apple iTunes Music Store and a growing appetite for music I found myself having a music playlist with a lot of “Track 1″ and “Unknown Album” all over the place.

Not to mention with the cover flow interface, I was greeted with a ton of blacked out images where colorful covers should go. What will a music lover do with such an ugly mess?

Get TuneUp [ site here ]. That’s what.

TuneUp is an add-on that sits on the side of the Apple iTunes application like some useful digital remora fish filled with ever-changing information that includes what concerts are going on around you, the ability to share what you’re listening to with others on Twitter, YouTube integration… and that’s all on the all-important Tuniverse tab. The real magic happens on the Clean tab.

On the Clean tab, you will drag and drop music from your iTunes library onto the TuneUp application and it will start to crunch through, grab covers, correct or add the album name. That’s on the songs with partial information. The cool part is that on some songs that were titled wrong – for instance my entire King Tubby dub collection has endured the years that I didn’t know which album they belonged to – I was too lazy to add the album name when I ripped the CD to MP3 and have since traded the CD for more CD’s.

Word of caution though. The Clean tab recommends dragging 500 songs at a time. Listen to the tab… I dragged 6000 songs over and had enough time to go make and eat a sandwich. But by dragging 500 songs, it was done before I had the time to reach over, grab a soda and open the top. Now, it’s not perfect. This is software that we’re talking about. But the good part… if TuneUp isn’t’ sure about a song, it’ll make a suggestion that you can either “aye or nay” and keep going. Same for covers too. You can sometimes be presented with multiple covers via the Cover Art tab.

Now… onto the Concert tab. I’ve not been to a concert in ages, but when The Who came to town, I knew about it regardless and was somewhat successful in avoiding some of that traffic. I’ve also been made aware neighboring cities and their happenings too… which since I’m in a very small venue is a good thing to know as well.

The cons are very few, but do not automatically let the Clean tab automatically clean and add covers to all of possible suggestions. I ended up having some odd MP3′s sent to me by friends or stuff I’ve actually gotten directly from the artist – such at L.E.G.A.C.Y. “Legclusives” – and they were renamed to something very odd… very German. In that case, you can make the Comments view within iTunes visible and look for “Cleaned Up by TuneUp” and see and go back to it and revert it by hand. Which is not as bad as having to redo some 6000 songs by hand. And sometimes, TuneUp can glitch a bit when you’re moving iTunes around… and I swear it will start on my second monitor and switch to the first monitor almost always. Slightly annoying…

With that said… the pros outweigh the cons. If you have a lot of music, if you love music, you simply need TuneUp in your life. You can download TuneUp and check it out for 100 cleanings as well as 50 covers. But who has a limited amount of music like that now!? Go buy it. It’s the best $19.95 (yearly) or $29.95 (lifetime) that you will spend. After a couple of months with TuneUp, I do not want to go back to life without it… you’ll see just how crappy your music playlist looked without it.

Rated: 5 out of 5 (A Must Buy)

[ TuneUp ] [ TuneUp Blog ] [ Releated: RTL Reviews ]

I’m notorious for being late for meetings and events. It’s not on purpose or that I’m unorganized. I’m just apparently not organized enough. In fact, for meetings, I almost always tend to say “-ish” after the time we will be meeting. They know that I’ll be late. So reviewing something like Bento 3 for the Mac and Apple iPhone comes across as either a blessing or a stop being so gosh darn late hint.

Bento 3 is made by the same people that make FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Server. Heavy duty products that I’ve used in enterprise level deployments and projects in the past. Of course, that might mean this product for the average desktop user will be boring, staid and ultimately deemed too complex for daily usage. Wrong. The desktop application is a joy to use.

It’s quite refreshing that the desktop application isn’t impossibly hard to use at all. It really puts you in the mind of the other Apple provided apps like iCal, iTunes and iPhoto and just as easy to approach. Mentioning iPhoto and iCal, within moments Bento will synchronize with your iPhoto photos, Address Book contacts and iCal events.

Setting up a meeting in Bento is as easy as setting one up in iCal. For instance, I have a 5pm meeting with a company tomorrow… one I actually intend on being on time for as well.

Within moments, set up, synchronized with my iCal – which my Apple iPhone connects to as well, and I’m done. And Bento does support synchronization with an Apple iPhone via wifi as well as synchronization when connected to the computer via USB. And the Apple iPhone application is also as easy to use, I’ve created and added items to my existing libraries that quickly keep me organized in all details of my digital life.

And it’s not all about meetings either. You can set up: To-Do Items, Recipes, Projects (important for me), Inventory, Time Billing, Digital Media (for collections of CD’s, eBooks, et al), TV & Movie collections, among many other options. Seriously, you can set up and organize just about every aspect of your life.

Good part? You can also set up everything as it exists on the desktop also in the Apple iPhone application as well. Yes… you can organize yourself on the go if you have to or if you happen to be on a PC. But having both the Mac desktop and Apple iPhone applications – I sorta dislike typing on the iPhone for large amounts of text – it just works well.

And yes… in the last couple of weeks, I know what movies I have at home as well as my what projects I have going on, the level of completion for each project deliverable and even have set up a couple of meetings that I have been on time for.

Shocking… I know.

I can truly state that Bento by FileMaker is an application that you need to add to your must buy list. It retails for $4.99 for the Apple iPhone via the iTunes Music Store and $49.99 for the Apple Mac desktop.

The only con(s) I have for this application is that while it is deceptively simple, it can get very complex in the creation of a blank library to suit your needs that are not covered by the library templates is somewhat time consuming. There are downloadable, update-able templates that FileMaker and the users of Bento make available but it would almost be a patience killer to create a full functional template solely on the Apple iPhone. The desktop application makes somewhat short work of that.

It is Mac only, so there is a slight detractor for being limited to OS X. Buy it. If it can make a habitual late person as myself on-time and actually help organize the bits of my life that I sorely need to add more organization to and do that easily… you just need to buy this.

Rated: 4.5 out of 5 (Must Buy)

[ FileMaker ] [ Bento 3 ] [ Related: RTL Reviews ]