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Travis Butler

Travis Butler

Travis Butler is currently between full-time jobs, working as a freelance FileMaker database designer after spending the last 14 years as the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Mac guy for a small Kansas City company. In between fighting FileMaker, pandering to PageMaker, illuminating Illustrator and getting excited by Excel, he's written fifteen articles for TidBITS over the last twelve years.

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Nokia N800 Internet Tablet: iPhone without the Phone?

Many people claim they want the iPhone without the phone part, but the iPod touch seems to have a few too many limitations. What about Nokia's N800 Internet Tablet, which provides a full-featured Web browser on a Linux-based platform? Travis Butler looks deep into the N800 to see how it stacks up.

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Increasing Your Cartographic iQue

With all the driving I do, the out-of-town consulting I've been doing, and Adam's reviews of GPS (Global Positioning System) devices, I've been tempted by GPS navigation units for a year or two - but they've always been too expensive for me to consider

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More on AC Adapters

After last week's article on PowerBook AC adapters was published (see "Comparing Three AC Adapters" in TidBITS-803), I've received several messages from people about the MadsonLine MicroAdapter and the MacAlly adapter - specifically, about the amount of power they provide. I wrote that the MicroAdapter wasn't recommended for use with newer PowerBooks (the 1 GHz PowerBook G4 Titanium, and all of the 15-inch and 17-inch PowerBooks) because it provides only 45 watts of power, compared with the 65 watts provided by the adapter Apple ships

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Comparing Three AC Adapters

A laptop road warrior's best friend - or most bitter enemy - is his AC adapter. It's the second most vital thing you must carry; no adapter, and you start crying a few hours into the trip when your laptop goes down for the last time

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Getting Better AirPlay

FM transmitters aren't the perfect way to listen to an iPod in a car, but sometimes they're the best option. Cassette adapters give better and more reliable sound, but work only when the car actually has a cassette deck (an option that's hard to find these days on new cars)

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Two Portable Speakers for the iPod

An iPod is a wonderful way to carry your music library around with you... but sometimes, you just don't want to mess around with using headphones. I travel a lot, and want an external sound option I can carry with me

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Taking an iTrip: Three FM Transmitters

I've put 110,000 miles on my car in the last four years, and that doesn't count the untold miles I've driven in company vehicles. In other words, I spend time on the road

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Archos Jukebox 6000 Challenges Nomad Jukebox

Portable MP3 players have now been around for a couple of years. The first and second generation of players were based on flash RAM, which is tiny, battery-thrifty, and convenient, but extremely limited in terms of play time

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Portable MP3: The Nomad Jukebox

The MP3 format is revolutionizing our music-listening lives. Unfortunately, for those of us on the go, carrying the revolution along has been a problem - practical portable MP3 solutions have been some time in coming. If you already lug a laptop, it's an option - but a heavy one with limited battery life, and your MP3s must compete with your work for limited disk space

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Which Handheld Belongs in Your Palm?

Folks interested in buying a Palm OS-based handheld have many more options now than they did a year ago. In addition to the eight models Palm, Inc. has introduced since the original Palm III, handhelds that license the Palm OS - most notably the Handspring Visor - have begun to appear

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A Handheld Surprise: The Handspring Visor

I admit it - I'm a handheld computing junkie. I've had an original Newton MessagePad 100, a Newton 120, an original PalmPilot 1000 upgraded to a Palm Professional, and a Palm III with which I've been happy. So why did I walk out of Macworld Expo in January carrying a Handspring Visor Deluxe? The Visor is a Palm OS-based handheld developed by Handspring, a company founded by the designer of the original PalmPilot and a group of former Palm Computing engineers

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Meet Me at the Virtual Game Station

I was a child of the Atari generation, growing up when the Atari 2600 and 5200, Intellivision, and ColecoVision ruled the gaming life of the nation's TV sets

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Macintosh PPP Overview (Part 2)

[This week we finish Travis's overview of PPP software for the Macintosh begun in TidBITS-306, highlighting ongoing PPP projects as well as commercial PPP implementations

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Macintosh PPP Overview (Part 1)

As an increasing number of people access the Internet via a Mac and a modem, the software they use to connect becomes increasingly important. The connection software combination of MacTCP and either a SLIP or PPP program has become popular, because it gives people full TCP-based Internet connections that enable them to run programs like Anarchie, Netscape, NewsWatcher, and Eudora

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Commercial FTP: AOL and CIS

For people without access to a direct Internet connection, both the CompuServe Information Service (CIS) and America Online (AOL) have added graphical FTP capabilities through their client software