Taking your photos to the next level
Cameras
If you have the itch to take frame-worthy pictures of the Blue Hills' bare trees or of piles of seaweed along Cape Cod's shorelines, you'll need more than that 5-megapixel PowerShot knocking around in your pocketbook.
Panasonic hopes your "next level" camera might be its alternative to the super-sophisticated but bulkier DSLR cameras, the $800 Lumix G1.
Panasonic sees the G1 as a step-up model, because it retains the point-and-shoot settings in your candy-colored Nikon, Canon, or Fujifilm camera. It includes the usual portrait and landscape modes and red-eye correction.
The G1 can also detect and track faces and subjects, compensate for shaking, and automatically adjust your exposure levels.
The camera has already given me the appearance of being a better photographer. I found one of my G1 photos, of a cluster of birch bowed over Pine Tree Brook in Milton (with its "nature" preset engaged), favorited by someone on Flickr last week.
The G1 also works much like a DSLR camera, with its rapid auto-focus and manual controls, as well as interchangeable lenses.
However, it's built to the new Micro Four Thirds standard, for which manufacturers can make cameras and interchangeable lenses that are smaller and lighter than most DSLR models, according to Panasonic.
Lenses for the G1 and other Micro Four Thirds cameras can easily cost hundreds of dollars more than the camera's original $800 price tag.
Accessories
Wool bag keeps a laptop warm and dry
When you think of materials for protecting your electronics, rubber, plastic and aluminum probably top your list.But what about a "natural" cover for your laptop, made from tough, elegant wool that repels wet and cold as well as a Donegal sweater?
The Blackstone Wool Laptop Bag, from Boston-based Etcetera Media (www.etceteramedia.com), is a wool felt shoulder bag with a bike messenger-style flap, a Velcro closure, and a black lining made from recycled materials.
The Blackstone's simple cover and the gleaming buckles on its adjustable shoulder strap remind me of the Danish school bag that my father, a prototypical metrosexual, carried around midtown Manhattan in the 1970s.
But the Blackstone is made for laptops and Blackberries, not books. Its large interior can accommodate laptops up to 15 inches wide, and there are padded pockets for mobile phones, iPods, and CDs.
You can purchase the bag from a company called Elegant Roots (visit www.elegantroots.com), which sells products you can feel good about wearing or using, because their designers care about the environment and people.
The Blackstone, in charcoal gray or a lighter gray, is priced at about $210.
Etcetera also sells all manner of felt and felt-lined handbags, bowls, and holders at www.Etceteramedia.com.
home theater
Affordable system makes you feel rich
I expect that many people will be hunkering down in front of their TV sets in the coming months - in search of good news as well as distractions from their economic woes.Swampscott-based Zvox, which makes excellent home theater sound systems (you may have read here about the Zvox Mini and other Zvox models), has a new, reasonably priced, all-in-one unit to make you feel like a Rothschild with your own in-home movie theater.
You should be able to cobble together a superior entertainment center for less than $1,200: The Z-Base 550 costs about $500, and the deeply discounted flat panel you have your heart set on (Microcenter is advertising 32-inch models for less than $500) will bring you in under the $1,000 mark.
The 60-watt Z-Base 550 has a cabinet sturdy enough to support flat-panel TVs of up to 47 inches. The box measures 28 by 14.5 by 3.5 inches. Its dimensions and black cabinet and speaker cover give the Z-Base 550 a very low profile, to match your LCD screen, which, most likely, is also slender and framed in black.
The Z-Base 550 has five two-inch speakers and a 5.25-inch subwoofer, plus two analog audio inputs. The unit comes with a remote control. 