Personal tech
iPhone accessories
Congratulations: Santa has rewarded your good behavior with an iPhone. Now it's up to you to keep it clean and pristine, through icy, salty, and sandy New England winters.
My favorite products for ruggedizing Apple's delicate devices come from OtterBox, which makes travel cases for smartphone and PDA users.
Its new Defender and Armor series iPhone cases add a certain machismo to the Apple's sleek, black wonder, which has always struck me as something of a lightweight. (The iPhone reminds me of one of those too-slick gadgets you'd find in a 1990s Sharper Image catalogue.)
OtterBox (otterbox.com) calls its snap-on cases "skins on steroids" (yuck!) for their extra layers of protection. But you can still get access to your gadget's controls with the cases on.
The Armor case (about $70) has a plastic shell lined with shock-absorbing rubber. A thin membrane covers your iPhone's screen, and you can plug any standard headphones into the case's external jack.
If you don't expect to take your iPhone skiing and want to save a few dollars, the OtterBox Defender (about $50) should suffice. It has a snap-together, hard plastic shell covered by silicone. You can get access to most iPhone control buttons, except the Silence switch, through the case.
OtterBox also makes Defender and Armor cases for Apple's iPod nano, classic, and touch phones.
image editing
One resolution for 2008 is to change my image, at least online. No more avatars or Simpsonized versions of myself. I am shooting for authenticity. Not that I shouldn't try to look my best, mind you. I was thinking along the lines of something like Image Doctor 2 (about $200), which quickly touches up and restores old photos, and beefs up those choppy low-res mobile phone snapshots.
Image Doctor (alienskin.com) is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and other image-editing applications that virtually automates the cleanup and cloning jobs the experts typically do pixel by pixel.
The Image Doctor filters - Dust and Scratch Remover, JPEG Repair, Blemish Concealer, Skin Softener, and Smart Fill - are easy to learn. You can quickly pluck a grain silo out of a landscape, for example, or (with a little more effort) an ex out of a group shot.
Version 2's filters are a bit easier to use than those in the original Image Doctor. The company says users will see smoother coverups of tattoos and moles.
Zapping scratches and scars is one thing - you are masking minor flaws with a lot of relatively uniform, adjoining pixels. But "resurfacing" an oily complexion, or a fuzzy JPEG will yield limited results.
It's always best to start with a well-lighted, sharply focused image. That's something I learned when I was cleaning up cover images for PC Magazine.
GPS
There's nothing quite as terrifying as seeing an open gate in your yard, and realizing your puppy has taken off.
Worse, the RFID chip your vet sold you will help only if the dog is found, delivered to a shelter, and scanned by a hand-held reader.
For about $200 for the device, plus $10 per month for the service, Zoombak (zoombak.com) will track your wayward pooch using a combination of GPS and cell tower proximity readings.
Zoombak alerts you when its water-resistant gadget, hanging from your dog's collar, crosses over the boundaries you designate around your home. The service signals you via text message or e-mail of the escape.
You can track your dog's location online, via a Zoombak website.
Zoombak also offers a slightly more expensive car locator kit for tracking teens and the other high-risk drivers in your family.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
