The EyeTV 250 Plus specializes not only in bringing live HDTV and analog television to my desktop, but also allows me to convert VHS tapes and other analog recordings for iTunes and DVD burning. In my view, that's much more useful than simply having the ability to watch and record cable TV. Although there are now many options for converting analog tapes to digital files on your computer, having that functionality bundled with cable TV input is very handy.

The weird thing about the era of modern computing is that it's giving rise to a speakeasy mentality where everybody knows what the laws are, and it's remarkably easy to break the laws, but everybody is very careful to pretend that they're obeying the laws in public. Take, for example, Roxio's Popcorn 3, which is a program for copying DVDs and converting them so they can be used on iPods, PSPs, and AppleTV. It does not, however, copy DVDs that are encrypted.

You may have done this: you've see something that you wanted to take a photo of but couldn't move far enough back to get the whole image in your camera. So you stand there, take a photo, rotate a bit and take another photo, and repeat as often as necessary to get the whole image. After all, when you get back home you can "stitch" the images back together to get the whole thing in one photo. Alas, when you try to assemble the images, parts of the image align just great, but someone is cut in half and the bottom left of the photo is aligned while the top left is in different time zone. Oh, what to do? Well, it's too late for that image, but when you want to do panoramas like a professional, you need the right equipment. That starts with the proper support for your camera, and that means you could use a Nodal Ninja 3.

I do like Stitcher. If you want to create multi-shot panoramas (e.g., more than eight images), the speed efficiency is reason enough to consider using Stitcher over Photoshop. If you only hand-hold your camera for panoramas, then you have to use Photoshop, as Stitcher was not made for hand-held panoramas. If you want to create QTVR or Pure Player movies, you need Stitcher, as Photoshop just can't do that.

Classic situation: You are in a church with a beautiful stain-glass window. You want to take a photo but you realize you have to make a choice: you either take a slow exposure shot of the window, meaning that the rest of the image will be way underexposed, or you try to take a photo of the whole thing, leaving the window very overexposed, meaning you will not see any of the beauty of the window. What do you do? Well, normally you have to make a choice, because the sad reality of either film or digital cameras is that they have a very limited dynamic range. That's where Photomatix comes in and opens up a whole new world of photography for many of us who've tried in vein to get what is not possible otherwise.

If you've read any of my iPod related reviews, you know how I feel about the earbuds Apple includes with every iPod model. They're better than nothing, sure, and they're actually quite a bit better than the headphones most MP3 player manufacturers include with their models. Still, the sound is never any better than good, and no matter how I place them, I can't get the things to stay in my ears. Finding a better pair of headphones is a fairly easy task, but I prefer to not spend too much money, I want a pair that's still somewhat portable, and I'd prefer to find a unit that works for movies and games as well as it does for music. This time around, I settled on two models from Koss: the P16 Stereophone and the PortaPro Stereophone.

So, what exactly is the point of the Myvu Made for iPod? If you're asking that question, you've never had to sit in an airplane, bus or the back seat of a car and hold up your iPod for a two hour movie. By letting you go hands-free, the Myvu allows you relax, lean back, and maybe even fall asleep if you want to. It also provides the illusion of a larger screen, and—more importantly—provides privacy. If, for some reason, you want to watch High School Musical, you can do so without fear of those around you pointing at you and laughing.

Notion bills itself as music composition and performance software, but that straightforward statement is a bit of an underselling. Notion can afford to be understated because they deliver so much. They applied the "take it with you" mentality to the least portable of all music types: the symphony orchestra. And they have done it masterfully. In the box, you get The London Symphony Orchestra. And Abbey Road Studios. Already a bargain.

When Adobe announced they'd be acquiring Macromedia, Flash is the one program about which I had no consternation. Adobe had to keep Flash on the market, and they had to get it right. Flash has become so valuable to media creators, so important to the web and other platforms, that to imagine content development without it is to imagine...well, there's no accurate analogy. It just has to be there. With no doubt Adobe would do the right thing, I'm still pleased to report they did...pretty much straight across the board. It's the kind of update we all wanted from Macromedia, but were beginning to doubt we'd ever get.

Unfortunately, neither iMovie nor iPhoto are all that great for creating slideshows. iMovie is too clunky with its odd presets and inability to just be simple, and iPhoto doesn't offer enough features. This is where FotoMagico 2 steps in, and Apple agrees. They awarded FotoMagico an Apple Design Award for Best Mac OS X User Experience 2006 Runner-Up. You only need to open FotoMagico once to understand why; because Boinx gets it.

Those just now jumping into video compression for output to multiple formats will be pleased with how easy the Squeeze PowerPack can be while allowing room for you to grow in your comfort with micromanaging the settings. The update to the PowerPack v4.5 may not be worth the hefty price tag, however, for those not running Intel machines or who don't need extensive Flash video support.

The sound from the ety8 earphones is excellent. However, the dynamics of Bluetooth do add one extra consideration: do you want the features and benefits of Bluetooth at the cost of needing to charge your earphones (at all) and needing to charge your iPod more often?