It’s getting hot out there.  By this time Monday, it’s going to be pushing 90 degrees here at the home base, and that means it’s time to get out and get to the pools.  Unfortunately for me, I have the pastiest Irish complection you’ve ever seen, so even looking out the window gives me a low grade sunburn.  Perhaps, however, there is a way to use the sun’s power for charging our gadgets rather than simply crisping us.  Why not try a SKYBrella, the solar-powered, gadget-charging pool umbrella?

I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not true.  Not only are SKYBrellas actual products, they’ve been tested in Florida and are going to be relased sometime THIS summer.  So if you want to keep your cell phone charged while by the pool, you’ve got a way to do that.  I’m not sure if it can generate enough power to run a blender, but if it could?  Then it’d be the perfect pool accessory!

It’s that time of year again.  Every May, Apple starts their Back to School promotion.  Not only do students, faculty, and staff get a discount on every appropriate Mac sold from their list of eligible computers, they also get a free (after rebates) iPod or iPod Touch!  There’s also no interest for 12 months when purchased on an Apple credit card, and a printer rebate worth $100.

Among the eligible computers?  The MacBook, iMac, MacBook Pro, and even the MacBook Air netbook.  Basically, any kind of computer you might want to use is applicable for this sale.  Apple really wants to sell you a new computer.  I don’t think it’s worth buying one just for a free iPod Touch, but if I was in the market for a new Apple laptop, it’d definitely persuade me to pick one up before September 8.

Image:  Gear Diary

Using an iPhone app called Brushes, artist Jorge Colombo turned his phone into an easel.  He used finger strokes and taps to create the cover of this week’s edition of The New Yorker.  Check out the cover story to see how he did it.

That’s pretty impressive, no?  Every week, Colombo is going to post a new Brushes/iPhone picture to The New Yorker’s website.  Like the PC World writer, I’m not sure how much you can get out of the program, but I’m definitely interested in seeing what next week’s image is like (and if the Brushes app folks will beef up their application to add more choices for budding iPhone artists everywhere).

What can’t you do with cellphones these days?  They do math, play music, surf the Internet, keep appointments, allow you to play games, provide you with an outlet for your art, and even store your favorite recipes.  About the only thing the iPhone can’t do is make a decent phone call (so I hear).

Happy Memorial Day from Shaktronics!  Hope you’ve all had a great day of barbeque and fun in the sun!  See you back here tomorrow for more gadget goodness!

Image: HowStuffWorks

So you want to give a gift to Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain.  What do you get the woman who, literally, has everything she could ever want?  She lives in a castle and has a hat made out of gold and jewels!  She hangs out with Presidents and other powerful people!  What could you possibly give her?

Well, there’s one thing that you could do if you’re game designer THQ.  Take a Nintendo Wii and have it gold plated.  Then give that to the Queen, along with a copy of your new game Big Family Games.  Not only did you pay your respects to a beloved monarch, you also got yourself a little positive publicity to go along with it!

Some people might think that video games are inappropriate, but the Wii is the one game that anyone can play, from young children to pensioners.  If anyone could get a kick out if it, it’s Queen Elizabeth and her grandkids!

One of the worst things about laptops is that they’re so prone to heat problems.  Apple’s new unibody MacBook Pro is no exception.  However, another problem some laptops have is the cords, which usually get folded up and crammed somewhere while traveling, tend to wear out.  Apple’s vaunted MagSafe cords are especially bad about this, as Ken Brinkman found out one morning when he woke up to find his laptop on fire.

Fortunately for Ken, he woke up when he smelled burning plastic and he didn’t end up with his whole place in flames.  Electrical fires are nothing to be messed with, and if this cord melts down as often as it seems to (TUAW’s comment section is full of other people who have experienced this or know someone who has) then Apple needs to pull the plug on the MagSafe cord now, before someone gets hurt.

There’s no excuse for a seven-month-old laptop… or any laptop, for that matter, to randomly catch fire.  The cord looks to be otherwise well cared for (aside from the burned spots), so this doesn’t look like user-generated calamity.  This is manufacturing and design.  If you have a MacBook, you might want to contact Apple and request a normal power cord instead of the MagSafe.

Once upon a time, Napster was the biggest name in music.  It was the first service that most people used to download music off the Internet, and was the linchpin of the RIAA’s war on the Internet.  It has changed hands several times, and tried several different ways to turn legal, and thanks to Best Buy and a monthly subscription model, they’ve survived.  However, in these lean times, a business has to grow.  Entertainment outlets, especially subscription services, need to prove they’re worth the investment.

There are two ways a company can do this.  They can add new features or lower prices.  Napster has decided to do both.  Not only do you get access to their streaming music for only $5 a month on their lowest-cost access tier, you also get 5 free MP3 downloads per month.  That means for the cost of five downloads on iTunes or Amazon, you also get unlimited streaming music!

One of the problems I have with downloading music and not listening to/having any good radio stations is that I’ve gotten into a serious musical rut.  I need some sort of targeted way to get new music into my brain and MP3 player, but I don’t know of any really good, free sampling services.  Anyone have any recommendations?

If you’re like me, and as usual I’m going to say that you are because I don’t want to be singled out, you noticed Google was acting particularly mangled yesterday.  No searches, no Google Reader, no Google Analytics, no Adsense, no Google Maps, no Google anything.  The whole system was basically down.  It was nothing malicious, just an accidental traffic snafu, but it hurt a lot of people’s productivity, mine included.

I realized I depend on Google’s various applications way too much.  I use Reader to track blogs, Trends to watch what’s hot, Analytics and Adsense to manage my website, Gmail for, uh, email, and Google’s search engine is my first and only stop these days when I need to look something up.  PC World says Google’s outage was good, because it will teach me a lesson.

I know I need to not depend so much on one company, but it’s so easy to use and easy to access!  I know I should vary things up, but varying is hard, and requires me to remember a ton of passwords and user names.  Simple is much easier to handle when you have my limited attention span.  Still, if Google goes out for longer than a few hours, I’m pretty much up a creek without a paddle.

Image:  PC World

I think everyone I know has fallen asleep at their desk while working (or playing) late into the night.  I know I’ve done it several times, more often when I was in college.  Still, this fluffy laptop pillow, which is the centerpiece of a marketing campaign for Pepsi Kick (It’s apparently Pepsi with coffee or coffee flavor in it) in Mexico, looks awfully inviting.  If I had one nearby, I’d probably have already fallen asleep by now.

If I could sew or do things handy, it’d make a great project.

Netbooks are the latest new toy for electronics lovers.  They’re kind of like a laptop, except they lack all the features that a normal laptop would have.  They’re kind of like a step between a laptop and a simple PDA or smart phone.  They have hard drives and processors and run programs, but they don’t have a CD ROM drive or traditional hard drives and use a lot less electricity than their bigger brothers laptops.

That’s what makes netbooks so popular:  they’re small, light, and highly portable. That’s also their biggest drawback, as there isn’t a lot of hard drive space, sometimes you need a CD or DVD drive, and they get very hot because of their thin size and lack of internal space (something they have in common with traditional laptops.  That’s where NU’s universal docking station comes in.  It includes a built-in DVD drive, two USB ports, a fan that you can turn on and off, and a 2.5-inch hard drive enclosure (but no hard drive, sorry).

While it’s not yet available for sale in the US, it will be shortly.  Just keep checking NU’s website (and drooling over the possibilities provided by those specs) for further detail.  It’s a great way to turn a netbook into a desktop replacement for only a few bucks more while reducing the clutter a bunch of separate components would produce.