Energizers Duo really stood by its products name. Should you have been one of the lucky purchasers of the Energizer Duo battery charger you may have inadvertently downloaded a virus along with the software that allows you to watch your batteries charge. It basically Duo’d as a charger and virus spreader.

It seems that the download-able software program will infect windows PC’s with malware that opens up the 7777 port to telnet and the like. This can potentially allow hacker types access to the users computer to list, download, upload and execute files. None of which you generally want to allow them to do.

It uses UsbCharger.dll to run Arucer.dll and also ensures that the Arucer.dll runs every time the computer starts up. If you uninstall the Energizer charger software it will remove the UsbCharger.dll which stops the Arucer.dll form being called, though it remains on the hard drive. You can go and delete the Arucer.dll file after uninstalling and when you restart it’ll be gone for good.

For more information you can check out the Energizer Press Release.

Wagan Tech inc has come out with a range of very conveniently sized (pocket-able) solar chargers for consumer electronics. They will charge batteries, iPods, digital cameras etc, all from the sun. The units themselves are very lightweight and come in two distinct types.

Wagan Solar e Power Charger

The Solar e Power unit will also charge 4 AA or AAA batteries, which could be handy as it can also use those same batteries to power or charge anything you plug into it.

There is a selector switch on the back that allows you to switch between three modes:

• Power from car (12V) or solar
• Power from battery (the 4 AA’s or AAA’s that you charged up)
• Charge Battery (Charge the aforementioned AA’s or AAA’s)

Also the charger will handle either NiCD or NiMH. Power from the device is delivered through either a 5V plug on the side (there are multiple connectors included) or via a USB outlet. Wagan Techs’ Solar e Power Charger sells for $49.95.

Wagan Solar e Power II Charger

The next model up is the creatively named Solar e Power II, which has a little more solar surface area (each solar panel measures about 7” across). The Solar e Power II also comes with its own 2000 mAh Li-ion internal battery. This allows you to charge the unit up in the sun and then close it up and use it as a normal external power source.

It comes with 5 adapters for your phones and devices, the standard USB sizes (micro, mini) as well as more specialized ones for iPods and the like. Also included in the pack is a car and AC power supply for non solar charging.

The unit itself has a couple of USB outputs and the 5v phone charging port. Also it has a small LED flashlight on one end.

As a whole the Solar e Power II seems to be fairly sturdily constructed and fairly functional, it pays to read the instructions as there are a few different indicators that you need to be familiar with.
The Solar e Power II from Wagan Tech sells for $89.95

Lenmar Battery has recently come out with a cover for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3Gs. The cover itself is a fairly standard hardened rubber sort of affair, with a couple of notable exceptions. For one it has a battery built into the case, which can be charged from an external USB source, it also addresses the lack of a flash on the iPhone.

The case has a super bright LED mounted into the back of it which is turned off and on with a small button on the back, the same button is used to switch the phone from using its internal battery to making use of the external one provided in the pack. While the LED isn’t anywhere near as good as the flash you’d find on an actual camera it does provide a passable amount of illumination for close up photos.

The battery pack itself is a 1300mAh Lithium Polymer battery which according to the documentation will provide you with an additional:

• 4 hours of 3G activity
• 4.5 more hours of Wi-Fi
• 17 hours of additional audio
• 5 hours of video
• Up to 240 hours of standby

The unit sets itself apart from the others in the category by being a fully enclosed case unit in two parts, once snapped into place on the phone it has a nice seamless look and adds very little (2 oz) heft to the iPhone, though it does bulk it up a little.

The battery case charges through a USB (micro) port and also has a handy three stage charge indicator light on the back of the case.

Congratulations to the winner. There are going to be more to come to so if your not a Fan now is the time to become one. Visit us at http://www.facebook.com/BatteriesInAFlash and become a Fan today.

The Address regarding Renewable Energy

Thoughts on the issue

After watching the Address on Wednesday 27, 2010 Streamed live on my iPhone via a handy official app called The White House I had better sense of where the country was heading. The majority of the issues had a positive overtone and reasonable solutions; all though, the company present at the Address seemed to have mixed emotions.

One particular issue struck a accord with BatteriesInAFlash. The comprehensive Energy and Climate Bill which would essentially reward people and companies for switching to alternative energies. Passed in 2009 by the House, The Energy and Climate Bill would give incentives that will make clean energy the profitable path of energy. It not only goes on to reward for the use of Renewable Energy but will also create jobs in America for the expansion and production of own resource at home.

This is the movement that we are long over due for The United States. Many countries are already ahead of us by creating, using and implementing clean and renewable energy in there everyday lives. To clarify my statement, yes The United States is ranked #1 for Renewable Energy; however, there are countries like Germany and Finland that are including solar, wind and geothermal into there buildings architecture to make a seamless integration of Renewable Energy. I hope, that although the speech was energetic and inspiring, that he holds true to his convictions.

As a thank you to our Facebook fans we’re giving away a Sony NV-U44 GPS unit to one of our facebook fans on the 1st of March 2010. We’ll be posting a video of the drawing here on our blog on Monday the 1st of March at 4pm Pacific Standard Time.

As long as you’re a BIAF fan by February 28th you’ll be in the draw.

Just log into your Facebook account, go to our facebook page and click the “Become a Fan” button beside our name.

Features of the NV-U44 GPS unit:

• 3.5-inch anti-glare LCD touchscreen with 4:3 standard aspect ratio
• SiRF star III GPS receiver with POSITION plus
• TTS (Text to Speech): The device utilizes spoken commands ensuring you are able to follow the directions by street names.
• 3D Junction Guide: The device’s dual view capability displays dynamic route information, in addition to the conventional map view, to provide an even clearer view of what’s at the next turn or in a highway merge scenario, which junction to take.
• The new photo viewer feature turns the screen into a picture frame. You can view your digital images by inserting a Memory Stick into the Memory Stick Pro Duo slot.
• Battery life: Up to 2 hours
• Battery charging time: 3 hours when on, 1.5 hours in standby mode
• Dimensions: 3.7 x 2.1 x 4.3 inches
• Color: Silver

Read more about the NV-U44

Employees of Batteries In A Flash.com inc and their immediate family members are not eligible for entry into this draw.

Americans use around 2 Billion disposable batteries a year, one of those numbers that’s big enough for most of us to have no actual concept of it, but it’s a lot.  If you find yourself being a larger than normal part of this statistic the obvious solution would be to use a rechargeable battery.

Generally speaking a rechargeable battery will save you money over the long run, you can recharge most of them up to 1000 times before you have to replace them.  The cost-saving benefits of this are clear when you compare it to disposable batteries.  Though disposables can often have a higher mAh rating they just get tossed out when you’re done with them.

Good in theory but horridly inconvenient

One of the major disadvantages of the rechargeable batteries has been that they don’t come ready to use.  Typically you would need to fully charge your batteries before you used them so you wouldn’t be able to just go to a store and pick some up and carry on.  Often we just don’t have the time or forethought to have some spare charged batteries lying around.

Another issue with rechargeables is that they never really stay charged. After a year or so they’d be generally useless to you and need to be recharged, now however there is a new type of battery that has a much lower self discharge characteristic than previously.

Your standard NiMH rechargeable is below 60% capacity after about 2-3 months and essentially dead after a year.  The Graph above shows the discharge rate for the eneloop battery vs one of Sanyo’s other Nickel Metal rechargeables.

Ready to go rechargeables

Hybrid NiMh cells offer the best of both worlds, you can use them out of the pack but you also get to do the environmentally friendly thing and re-use them.  If polar bears had the capacity to vocalize their appreciation they no doubt would.

Three of the more popular types of these batteries are the Rayovac Hybrid, Ultralast Hybrio and the Sanyo Eneloop series.  Each has essentially the same characteristics, with Eneloop being the forerunner and probably the best marketed.

The hybrids are marketed as being a viable replacement for digital camera batteries, for instance the energizer ultimate lithium (a disposable) makes claims to somewhere around 640 photos worth of battery life.  The Rayovac Hybrid battery states that it will do 400 photos.  Your general use alkaline would struggle to do more than 100.

Also there are the cost savings to be considered. For 8 of the Rayovac Hybrids and a charger you’d pay $23.95.  Four Energizer photo lithium batteries would be around $17.95, and you can only use them for those 630 photos before throwing them away.

The bottom line being that while no rechargeable can hold the power of their high end disposable counterparts, the pre charged rechargeables at the least make going the greener route a more convenient prospect.

One of the more popular items for the holiday season this year will no doubt be the smartphone. Probably the most well known example of this is the iPhone 3G, the Motorola Droid is a fairly recent comer to the scene and has some very nice features.

The advertising campaign Verizon put out to compliment the launch of the Droid was fairly direct and made some less than flattering comparisons between its own 3G network and that of AT&T, the iPhone carrier network. I can attest to the AT&T network being less than stellar in a lot of respects, the dropped calls and spotty 3G coverage are widely known.

Appearance

The Droid of course can’t compare to the sleekness of the iPhone styling. With its sharp corners and slightly blocky appearance it doesn’t have the inherent grace that Apple imparts to its products. Though not hideous by any means, it does lack a certain something and occasionally the default screen image can seem a little ominous.

If the Droids’ design seems a little utilitarian and “boxy” the screen makes up for it. The Motorola Droid sports a brilliantly crisp 3.7” (the iPhone is 3.5”) WVGA display that does very well at delivering video and graphic content. Displaying up to 16 million hues at a resolution of 854×480 (16:9 widescreen) it displays those HD YouTube videos really well (though there’s still no Hulu support).

Keyboard / Usability

The keyboard on the droid takes a little getting used to. The keys are all mounted flush against each other and have very little actual tactile feedback. They’re slick and don’t go down very far when pressed which can make typing by touch a problem.

Eventually though you do get used to it, also there’s a sometimes useful directional pad on the keyboard. My fervent hope is that there will be some games that make decent use of this at some point.

Applications

The Apple Store has well over 100,000 apps for the iPhone, that’s a staggering number of applications and definitely gives credence to the “There’s an app for that” saying that Apple has been using to help market the iPhone.

The Android app store is up to around 10,000 entries. This is bound to increase as Google has taken pains to promote the “open” nature of their platform which allows developers more freedom when creating their applications. This may possibly be to the detriment of the app store as it’s definitely possible that a flood of low quality apps will surface. Time will tell. But at the moment it’s a safe bet that there’s probably an Android app for that too!

Also you may have heard about the GPS service that Google has launched. It’s FREE and works in with Google Maps to provide you with turn by turn directions. It’s just an app so while for the moment it’s only for Android it is definitely coming to iPhones in the not too distant future. This free service is going to play havoc with subscription based GPS (and it’s cool to get turn by turn on streetview).

Though of course you can only run one of those 70,000 apps at a time on the iPhone, so no checking Yelp while you’re streaming Pandora and emailing a friend about dinner plans. That’s a bigger deal than you might realize until you’ve gotten used to doing it I have to say. Background applications are a fabulous thing!

The Droid you’re looking for?

Overall the differences between the two phones aren’t that huge. They’re close enough that some of the deciding factors may be more to do with the service than the phones. The better call quality and somewhat negative public perception of AT&T’s service (possibly helped along by Verizon’s ad campaigns) might be a deciding factor in some people’s choice.

One hint though, if you’re looking to do some more research, avoid forums like the plague, fanboys are rabid and abundant on both sides!

This is a fairly ingenious device that will let you charge a whole lot of different batteries in the one unit. It’ll do most all of your camera, cell phone, AA, AAA, AAAA and N sized batteries. The trick is in the way it clamps your batteries in place onto the moveable contact points, you have to adjust these yourself but it’s a fairly simple task.

It’s a great item for anyone that has a lot of different odd little batteries lying about for various phones, cameras, clocks or whatever else. The Lenmar BCUNI Universal Battery Charger is a great gift idea for the gadget happy person in the family and it’s only $26.95

Pretty much everything you want will be on sale at some point between Thanksgiving and Christmas so why not take advantage of it! But what to buy, there are so many things to choose from, all shiny and new. How are we to know the best price, the best product and which are the ones that will leave us with the bitter aftertaste of Buyers Remorse.

We’ve taken a stab here at compiling some of the more popular items that you might be looking at while out and about, drawn across from various sources across the web for your convenience. Of course a lot of these actual rankings are purely subjective (for instance if you have tiny square fingertips you might like the iPhone keyboard more than I do) but they do at least provide some means of comparison.

Top 10 Smart Phones / PDAs

(As according to Rumor Gadget)

The good folks over at Rumor Gadget have compiled a list of the top 10 smartphones on the market at the moment. Though obviously what you can get will depend a lot on your current carrier and how trapped you are in your current plan (ironically enough the follow up call from AT&T on my complaint got dropped). But it seems the overwhelming favorite this year is the iPhone 3GS, the sleek design, slick marketing and simple UI have combined to make Apples iPhone a standout hit.

Top 5 Basic Phones

(As According to CNet.com)

Not everyone wants or needs the often bewildering array of functions that a smartphone is capable of. Thankfully they still actually make phones that are mainly used to make calls (and send texts of course) but smaller and simpler is often better !

CNET.com has put together a nice listing of what they consider the best of the basic cell phone options. They put the Motorola i335 at the top of their list, citing its benefits as a low cost, easy to use and rugged platform with good audio quality.

Top 10 NetBooks

(As According to PCWorld.com)

Netbooks are light, small, portable and not exactly dripping with processing or graphics power. But if all you want is basic computing on the fly then they are an outstanding option. A Netbook is also great value, the top rated Toshiba NB205-N310 (by PCWorld) Netbook we feature here is currently retailing at around $380 or so.

A common problem with netbooks is a keyboard so cramped you feel it could only be used properly by a small woodland creature. But the NB205-N310 has a fairly roomy keyboard for a netbook, almost the same as a standard laptop keyboard.

Top 5 Digital cameras under $100

(As according to About.com)

Cameras are brilliant, but on the odd occasion you’re either giving one as a gift or you’re trying to take a photo somewhere you don’t want to take an expensive one. Thanks to the ever reliable onward march of technology you can now get a fairly serviceable digital camera for under a hundred dollars. The good people from About.com have come up with a list of cameras they consider to be the best of this ultra low price range.

The camera that they put at the top of the list for this product was the PowerShot A470 by Canon. For the price it’s fairly sturdy and takes a passable photo, and if you drop it over the edge of the Grand Canyon you won’t be too far out of pocket.