Racquetball & Squash

The economic crisis gives IT managers a chance to take advantage of what might be a once-in-a-career buyer's market. Here's how to make sure you don't miss out.

Amazon.com is offering a so-called Black Friday special on Eye-Fi Share:
The 2 GB Wi-Fi-enabled Secure Digital card normally runs $90; it's $65 while the sale lasts.

Given that Eye-Fi introduced a limited-time-only 4 GB "Anniversary" model that replaced the 2 GB Share version in its current line-up, and that the Anniversary model was $130 list but $100 for Costco members, it's pretty clear that the 2 GB won't re-appear, the 4 GB model will drop in price, and Amazon's acting as a clearance center.

The Eye-Fi Share lets you upload pictures over a local network to a designated computer, or upload via a Wi-Fi network for which the Eye-Fi is configured to connect over the Internet to Eye-Fi's servers, and from there to a specified photo-sharing, social-network, or photo-printing service.

I'm a fan of the Eye-Fi, although I favor the currently $130 Explore model (see my review), which comes with geotagging (via Skyhook Wireless) and adds a year of included uploading via Wayport locations (now part of AT&T).

With energy conservation and easy eco-friendliness on just about everybody's agenda these days, one of the most popular concepts is the “Smart Home,” a living environment that knows just how much power you actually need to be comfortable and gives you not a drop more. Nokia's hopping on that wagon with its new Nokia Home Control Center, a Linux-based platform that will control your house's resources via your mobile phone.

According to Nokia, the NHCC will allow third-party developers to create services that are added onto the accessibility platform. That way, you'll rarely come across an incident where some new smart home tech you bought doesn't actually work with your main controller. NHCC works with Z-Wave, ZigBee and KNX, three of the most common command languages for home networks. It will be launched some time in 2009. [Nokia via Treehugger]

Eclipse3.1M3 comes out later today..