Stuff Geeks Want

You might have seen Seagate’s FreeAgent Go portable hard drives. Sleek and ultra-thin, they really are no different than any other hard drive. But with the DockStar Network Adapter, you’re hard drive can stay at home but be with you remotely as long as you’ve got an Internet connection.

You’re saying to yourself, “This sounds like a similar thing from Pogoplug,” and you’d be right. Seagate is using the same technology licensed from Cloud Engine and uses an Web-based interface to access the data on the drive. What your buying is the dock shown above on the left. The hard drive is optional but obviously necessary.

Users of the dock can also place linked pictures and video onto MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter from the DockStar. The adapter comes with the first year of the Pogoplug service included. After that, the service costs $29.99 a year for unlimited storage and access.

Buy the Seagate FreeAgent DockStar Network Adapter for $80 from Amazon

Buy Seagate FreeAgent Go 500GB hard drive for $107 from Amazon

John, Paul, George and Ringo are back together. Well, sort of. Today they debuted
The Beatles Remasters digital music collections and The Beatles: Rock Band video game.

First there’s The Beatles Remasters Mono Box Set. It’s probably the most prized of the two sets. It contains 10 albums – from Please Please Me to Let It Be – as well as the original 1965 stereo mixes of Help! and Rubber Soul, previously unreleased until now.

The Beatles Remasters Stereo Box Set comprises 14 discs that have been cleaned up with more clarity and sharpness. Early reviews say the stereo separation is clean and not artificial. The whole package comes in a beautifully crafted box (see above) with each one in a digipack reproducing the original artwork.

Then there’s ‘The Beatles: Rock Band’ video game. Available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii, it includes 45 different songs, historic Beatles performance venues, and 3D representations of the band members, along with the standard ‘Rock Band’ gameplay. The object is to match the on-screen notes: If you see a green guitar note, you have to hold down the green fret and hit the strum bar. Drummers need to pound colored drumheads, while singers need to match pitch and phrasing. The premium bundle ($250) includes all the gear you need, but you can use instruments from previous ‘Rock Band’ or ‘Guitar Hero’ games.

Buy The Beatles Mono Box Set for $230 from Amazon

Buy The Beatles Stereo Box Set for $180 from Amazon

Buy The Beatles: Rock Band for Xbox 360 for $54 from Amazon

Buy The Beatles: Rock Band for Nintendo Wii for $54 from Amazon

Buy The Beatles: Rock Band for Playstation 3 for $54 from Amazon

The wait for Snow Leopard is over. Apple has announced its latest version of its Mac OS X operating system will be available on Friday, August 28th. Some online retailers – including Amazon – are taking pre-orders now at prices just slightly cheaper than you’ll find from Apple. Apple originally said it would ship in September, but this is one company that always likes to surprise. Snow Leopard is no exception.

Among Snow Leopard’s most prominent new features include a transition to 64-bit applications, Grand Central Dispatch, which lets multicore machines take better advantage of those capabilities, and OpenGL that improves overall graphic performance. There are other tweaks and enhancements including faster installation, faster waking, sleeping and shutdown.

Snow Leopard runs $25 for those upgrading from Leopard. A family pack of five licenses is available for $44. Users upgrading from earlier versions can buy the Mac Box Set which includes iLife ’09 and iWork ’09 for $150 or the five-user family pack for $200.

Buy the single-user upgrade for $25 from Amazon

Buy the 5-user Family Pack upgrade for $44 from Amazon

Buy the single-user Box Set for $150 from Amazon

Buy the 5-user Family Pack Box Set for $200 from Amazon

Proving that it’s never too early to start thinking of the upcoming football season, Madden NFL 10 rolls out tomorrow, August 14th. (I’m daring anyone to lineup outside WalMart to buy this at midnight, although we all know there will be takers.)

So what’s different from previous iterations? The addition of Pro-Tak animation technology is probably the biggest. You’ll notice players move more naturally, footballs float in the air after a wayward pass and running backs stumble to gain additional yards. You’ll also see more fights for fumbles and better television-like shots such as coaches screaming on the sidelines after a botched play. Reality has been greatly improved.

As for multiplayer, this version adds Online Co-op so two players can team up at any position to tackle computer opponents and Online Franchise that allows up to 32 players to join a league through Xbox Live or PlayStation Network and run a team over a 10-season span.

BTW, don’t expect to see Michael Vick in this version until he signs with a team. He’s busy helping his local ASPCA.

Buy for $49 for Wii from Amazon

Buy for $55 for Xbox 3 from Amazon

Buy for $55 for PlayStation 3 from Amazon

Buy for $39 for PlayStation 2 from Amazon

Buy for $37 for Sony PSP from Amazon

The StuffGeeksWant team is a Mac team, no doubt.

So when I saw this “Mac Box Set” that includes iLife and iWork, I had to post it.

What a good deal!

So, what’s in the box? Check this out:

• Mac OS X v10.5.6 Leopard, the latest version of the world’s most powerful operating system
• iLife ‘09, featuring the new iPhoto ‘09, iMovie ‘09, GarageBand ‘09, iWeb ‘09, and iDVD
• iWork ‘09, Apple’s productivity suite for home and office including Pages ‘09, Numbers ‘09, and Keynote ‘09

It’s almost as good as getting a new Mac!

$135 from Amazon.com for the Mac OS X Box Set, and pick up the Mac OSX Box Set Family Pack (up to 5 computers) for $180.

Don’t need the whole thing?

Pick up a copy of iWork or iLife or Mac OS X on it’s own. Amazon always has it just a little cheaper than Amazon.

In the past, we’ve shown you a couple products that can digitize your old record collection.

The new TapeLink USB from Alesis will do the same, except for cassette tapes rather than vinyl.

The dual-cassette deck is equipped with a USB audio interface for connecting it directly into your Mac or PC. Features include normal and high-speed dubbing modes, noise-reduction circuitry, LED level meters, auto-stop, and software for cleaning up those recordings.

$199 with free shipping from the reliable folks at Abe’s of Maine

As Mac users, the only real news we’ve heard in recent months about Adobe’s newest flagship software is how Photoshop CS4 won’t be 64-bit like it is on Windows.

Nonetheless, we can’t resist a new version of Adobe Anything, possibly because they always come up with new features you wonder how you made due without, and almost definitely because bugs you previously encountered have a nasty tendency of never getting fixed until the next, paid-for upgrade emerges.

No matter, Adobe Creative Suite 4 is where the party will be when it ships in November, and with essentially no real competition around, we suggest you get your ticket early. Fortunately, Adobe continues to expanded the number of suites and upgrade paths available, meaning if you own any Adobe application from the last few years you can probably upgrade for a lot less coin.

Scope these prices out at Amazon and get your pre-orders in:

• CS4 Master Collection for $2,469
  
• CS4 Master Collection (Upgrade) for $1,489
  
• CS4 Design Premium for $1,779
  
• CS4 Design Premium (Upsell) for $1,389
  
• CS4 Design Premium (Upgrade) for $594
  
• CS4 Design Standard (Upsell) for $494
  
• CS4 Design Standard (Upgrade) for $494
  
• CS4 Production Premium for $1,689
  
• CS4 Production Premium (Upsell) for $1,089
  
• CS4 Production Premium (Upsell) for $594
  
• CS4 Web Premium (Upsell) for $594
  
• CS4 Web Premium (Upgrade) for $594
  
• CS4 Web Standard for $989
  
• CS4 Web Standard (Upsell) for $594
  
• CS4 Web Standard (Upgrade) for $394

Steeply discounted bundles of Mac applications have become a quarterly event recently, it seems, and Mac users couldn’t be happier about it. The latest offering on the block comes from Mac software tracking Web site MacUpdate, whose new Promo packs about $475 worth of software into a $65 package.

None of the 10 included applications are fluff, either. The flagship app in the bundle is Parallels, the virtualization software that lets you run instances of Windows or Linux on Intel-based Macs. Seeing as Parallels is both hugely popular and normally costs more than the entire bundle, we’d say that’s pretty sweet.

There’s also a handful of nifty utilities to help your organize your life and save time, as well as the surprisingly powerful Sound Studio audio editing package.

Like all bundles, a few of these applications—including Parallels—are “locked” until a certain number of bundles are sold. But if past performance is any indicator, it’s only a matter of time before that happens, as every previous Mac software bundle has sold tens of thousands of copies by the time all is said and done. And sometimes, those who jump on early are rewarded later…

The MacUpdate Promo bundle is available for purchase until April 30 for $64.99.