Although this review features the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus model, Poetic makes similarly styled and constructed cases for a variety of other tablets and e-readers, including the iPad and iPad 2, Kindle Fire and e-readers, Nook Color and Nook Tablet and Nook e-readers, Acer Iconia, ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Toshiba Thrive, and Lenovo IdeaPad, to name a few.

Special thanks to Drew Davidson of drewmovie.com for shooting and editing this video review.

Amazon: Poetic(TM) Black Leather Case Cover With Stand For Samsung GALAXY Tab 7.0 Plus

Your mobile office | Get real work done on your smartphone.

By Joe Hutsko

If you’re a smartphone owner, you may already think of your ever-present gadget as your number one business partner. Besides sending and receiving email and text messages not to mention making and answering phone calls, of course, smartphones equipped with a video-conferencing feature such as FaceTime on iPhone, or Skype on both iPhone and Android let you meet virtually face-to-face with clients without spending money on travel by plane, train or automobile.

Read the full article: Your mobile office.

Getting Green With Gadgets

Some tips on minimizing your impact on the planet while maximizing the green that stays in your wallet in your wallet.

Turn to pages 104 & 105 in Gravy | volume 1, issue 2 | Summer 2011

or

View the two-page PDF here: Getting Green With Gadgets | Joe Hutsko | Gravy | Summer 2011.

Smart apps, smarter you

Smartphones are called “smart” because they do so much more than ordinary cellphones. Besides making and receiving calls and text messages, or snapping pictures and videos, smartphones let you do things you typically do on your computer—albeit on a Lilliputian scale. Pocketing either of the two most popular mainstream smartphone platforms—iPhone or Android—can often liberate you from having to haul a notebook computer to accomplish everyday tasks using your smartphone’s suite of built-in applications, or apps.

Continue reading: Smart apps, smarter you | August 2011.

Forceful Prediction: Apple Sunlight-Friendly Displays Would Scare The Daylights Out Of Competition

With nary a peep on the possibility of Apple baking a seeable-in-sunlight transflective display into the rumored 11.6” MacBook Air that’s expected to come floating up from the Pulpit of Jobs at Apple’s “Back to the Mac” next week, I’d like to make a pretty safe prediction (read: offer unasked-for advice): An Apple-anything with such a display would make mobile-warriors’ and tree-huggers’ hearts flutter, and competitors’ hearts shudder…

Read the full story: TechCrunch | Forceful Prediction: Apple Sunlight-Friendly Displays Would Scare The Daylights Out Of Competition

Drew this morning was saying how it would be cool if the Netflix app was available for the iPhone too so he could finish watching on the train, and low and behold, that feature (plus iPhone touch streaming) was added to the app today.

Key features of the Netflix app include:

• Watch as often as you want
• Resume watching where you left off on your TV, computer, iPad or wherever you last watched
• Browse movies and manage your Instant Queue right from your iPhone or iPod touch (or iPad)

Download the Netflix app from the iTunes App Store here: Netflix.

NYTimes.com | Green Inc.: Apple Expands Environmental Disclosures

By JOE HUTSKO

Apple last week updated its Apple and the Environment Web site to include a life cycle impact section that, the company says, accounts for its total carbon footprint of 10.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

The emissions, organized by category, include those arising from manufacturing (38 percent); transportation (5 percent); product use (53 percent); facilities (3 percent); and recycling (1 percent).

“Because 53 percent of Apple’s greenhouse gas emissions are a result of the power our products consume, we design those products to be as energy-efficient as possible,” the company stated on its new Web site, adding that “Mac OS X even regulates processor activity between keystrokes, saving milliwatts of energy.”

A recent BusinessWeek article reported that carbon emissions for Hewlett-Packard and Dell were 8.4 million tons and 471,000 tons respectively. However, both companies “exclude product use and at least some manufacturing,” the article noted, and those companies “have said that including those factors would boost their carbon totals several-fold.”

Downloadable reports for all of Apple’s existing and recently retired products provide detailed breakdowns of each product’s environmental virtues (or shortcomings) — including whether it uses mercury-free LED displays or arsenic-free display glass. Also covered are the use of toxic substances like brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chlorides, which are noxious when burned.

Apple says that all of its handheld products — iPhones and iPods — are now “PVC-free,” and that the majority of circuit boards and internal cables in its plastic-housed MacBooks are free of BFRs and PVCs. It also describes its remaining desktop, notebook, display and server products as being “BFR-free” and having “PVC-free internal cables.”

Asked whether any other electronics manufacturers are reporting the CO2 life-cycle impact for entire product lines, Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International’s toxics campaigner, said, “Not the way Apple is.”

“Others are doing some interesting reporting of their supply-chain emissions,” he added, “and HP is doing a lot of work there.”

via Apple Expands Environmental Disclosures – Green Inc. Blog – NYTimes.com.

via gGadget » Blog Archive » Apple Expands Environmental Disclosures – Green Inc. Blog – NYTimes.com .

While everyone’s following the blogs covering Apple’s announcements today, I checked iTunes to see if there might be an iPhone update available before the show’s over.

Low and behold, I’m downloading the iPhone OS 3.1 Software Update and installing it on my iPhone 3G as I write this.

Here is what appears in the dialog  after you click Download, or Download and Install:

iPhone OS 3.1 Software Update

This update contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

• Genius recommendations for Applications
• iTunes 9 support
  • Genius Mixes
  • Organize your apps directly in iTunes
  • Improved syncing options for music, movies, TV shows, podcasts and photos
  • iTunes U content organization
• Redeem iTunes Gift cards, codes and certificates in the App Store
• Display available iTunes account credits in the App Store and iTunes Store
• Browse and download ringtones wirelessly from the iTunes Store*
• Save video from Mail and MMS into Camera Roll
• Option to “Save as new clip” when trimming a video on iPhone 3GS
• Better iPhone 3G Wi-Fi performance when Bluetooth is turned on
• Remotely lock iPhone with a passcode via MobileMe
• Use Voice Control with iPhone 3GS with Bluetooth headsets
• Paste phone numbers into Keypad
• Option to use Home button to turn on Accessibility features on iPhone 3GS
• Warn when visiting fraudulent websites in Safari (anti-phishing)
• Improved Exchange calendar synching and invitation handling
• Fixes issue that caused some app icons to display incorrectly
• Products compatible with this software update:

iPhone
iPhone 3G
iPhone 3GS

The update completed just as I finished writing this post, and now when I check Settings > General > About I see Version 3.1 7C144) and Carrier AT&T 5.0. Stay tuned for more details.

Keep the Home button held down, then touch and hold on the screen for two seconds then let go of the Home button. You stay in the app rather than go home.

Although I initially went with InCase’s leather-wrapped Slider Elan, I later chose the InCase black Slider (pictured on the left) as my iPhone 3G’s protective partner. The case’s tight fit adds minimal thickness to the 3G, and its lightly rubberized finish provides just enough grip to prevent accidental sleights of the hand, so to speak. I’ve also used Griffin’s Clarifi for iPhone 3G, but only on the couple of occasions when I needed to take a close up snapshot, thanks to the Clarifi’s built in lens, which corrects the iPhone camera’s farsightedness.

InCase recently sent me their new Bamboo Slider for iPhone 3G, and having just finished Green Gadgets For Dummies, I welcomed the new model’s reduced carbon footprint, thanks to the case’s composition of 40 percent recycled bamboo, 60 percent polycarbonate construction.

InCase says the bamboo pulp used to create the case comes from “reclaimed bamboo shards of materials such as construction scaffolding and chopsticks.”

In hand, the Bamboo Slider feels like plastic, though a deep whiff of the case’s backside betrays plywoody hints that evoke memories of under-construction new homes and lumberyards.

Bottom line: The inclusion of bamboo is an interesting novelty, but the case’s less grippy finish was reason enough for me to stick with the lightly rubberized Slider that’s served me well since acquiring my iPhone 3G.