Now I am travelling a bit more again I am taking a bit more interest in devices that are designed more for the mobile users than the guy that sits behind his Mac all day user i.e. me!
As you know I do some work with Miglia on their blog, so no surprise that I have the opportunity to use their products, so here are three that I have used recently that I figure are pretty good. Two are designed for communicating and one is a great way of getting FreeTV on your MacBook Pro:
Dialog is a wire free phone that offers perfect Skype and iChat AV integration, letting you chat for as long as you want to anyone in the world.
Gone are the days of watching the clock when making a long distance call.
Now you can call your family and friends every day and chat for hours, because every minute spent on the phone is completely free.
Also, Miglia’s Dialog software application for Mac OS X offers a 3-in-1 phone book that lists your Skype, Skype OUT and iChat AV contacts.
Finding and selecting your contacts is easier than ever before. PC users benefit from full integration with Skype, MSN, Yahoo Messenger and AIM.
This stylish and elegant phone is so easy to use that you will be wondering how you ever managed to live without it.
Designed from the ground up as a phone for your computer, Dialog does away with traditional and redundant gimmicks, such as unnecessary LCD screens and number buttons.
The beauty of Dialog is that it leverages all the advantages of your computer to take phone communication to the next level.
Dialog features a call button and a volume control key, which can also be used to scroll through your list of contacts.
Dialog software lets you merge your Skype and iChat contact lists, making it simple to scroll through all your buddies and contacts in one single window.
Dialog works perfectly with Skype Out, which lets you call landlines and cell phones at incredibly low rates.
Dialog is compact and discreet, fitting in with your office or home environment.
There are no wires to clutter up your desk space and you can use your phone within a 20 feet perimeter of your computer.
After all a phone should be used as a phone. Simply plug the wire free adapter into a USB port of your computer and start talking!
Mac users can enjoy Miglia’s unique Dialog software application, which offers deep integration with Mac OS X and its applications.
PC users can also enjoy the Dialog Phone to its full extent by installing Dialog for PC, which offers full Skype integration and is compatible with almost any Instant Messaging application with voice support, such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and many more.
Dialog+ has excellent range, great battery life and most importantly you can access your Skype contacts either from the phone itself or your computer. Dialog+ allows you to enjoy outstanding two-way communication in high quality audio.
Dialog+ does a superb job of bringing the Skype experience to the cordless world.
Using the arrows on your phone, you simply select your iChat buddy (or even Skype budy) and you’re ready to call.
Record all your Skype conversations to your hard drive for playback at a later time, if needed (This is a Mac only feature). Take advantage of a flawless quality ensuring you can easily keep track of your call history.
Now I am not a big fan of handset or headphones for Skype etc. At home I go hands free with the iSight microphone and external speakers, but that isn’t always an option (or desirable) in the office so both of these are good options for those circumstances. Sands grabbed the Dialog+ for the MacBook as she prefers the form factor of the more traditional handset.
TVBook Pro Express is a TV card specifically designed for Apple’s MacBook Pro. Enjoy live digital terrestrial TV (Freeview/TNT) on your MacBook Pro, record to your hard drive, edit your favourite shows and burn them onto DVDs.
TVBook Pro Express comes is a ExpressCard/34 integrating a fully featured digital te TV tuner. Bundled with The Tube software from Equinux, TVBook Pro Express lets you watch, pause, rewind, skip forward and record digital terrestrial TV on your MacBook Pro.
The perfect way to utilise an empty slot, ships with an amplified antenna that will provide the best reception when you are on the go.
View in a single window your TV show and what is currently showing at the same time on other channels. You can immediately view all your programme information at the blink of an eye.
It avoids you having to flick between channels unnecessarily as you can immediately see whats showing on all channels in the easy to use channel overview.
With TVBook Pro Express, you can choose to place the TV window ‘always on top’. Combined with the smart resize option that automatically adapts window resizing to the position on the screen, you can now have TV as part of your everyday Mac use.
Check the news while you work, get the latest sports results while typing your e-mails, TVBook Pro Express will adapt your TV window according to your workflow.
For any iPod usershare any content onto your iPod or iPhone, a fantastic opportunity to watch your favourite show on the go. With such great picture clarity and choice of all your recordings those long commutes will be more bearable.
Of the three this is the device that I used the most, as believe it or not many hotels in the UK that us cash wary business users stay in don’t offer Sarellite TV (or free/cheap Internet) so something like this is a bit of a godsend. You do need to have a strong signal to use the shipped antenna, but the other option is to hook up to the hotel antenna, which worked a treat. A great way to pick up free over the air TV.
Hmmm. I think I’ve seen the Dialog+ done by Keyspan. Looks very much alike. I hope that the software they have done for the Dialog+ is a bit better than the Keyspan version.
[quote comment=””]Hmmm. I think I’ve seen the Dialog+ done by Keyspan. Looks very much alike. I hope that the software they have done for the Dialog+ is a bit better than the Keyspan version.[/quote]
It does look the same I agree ….. the software seems pretty robust so far when Sands has been using it.
The TVBook Express looks amazing and im very tempted by it! I have a MacBook Pro and im off to uni soon, where the TV reception is not great… Would you recommend this? Thanks for any help you can give me!
It works well when you get a good signal? All depends on the signal at the University, which you say isn’t good. If you get a good over the air signal and they broadcast the free over the air them you are fine. What do you mean by the signal is bad in the University? If it is their equipment and the way they distribute the signal you may have a chance.
Also, Miglia sold out to Logic3 a while back, so you will need to check with them that they still offer the product, or maybe take a look on eBay.
Let me know how it goes and if you require more information.
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