The Reynolds Center has announced its 2008 fall workshop schedule.
Select a workshop and register from the drop-down menu below.
The Reynolds Center has opened registration for select 2008 free online seminars.
Topics include:
*Intermediate Business Journalism
*Covering Private Companies
*Business Journalism Boot Camp
Get out your wish lists. Two business magazines have reviewed and ranked the tech toys every adult must have this coming holiday season. Not surprisingly, with the immense popularity of the iPod, digital music gear dominates the cover stories.
Now that you've forked over a few hundred for an iPod, you can't settle for the headphones that come with it. Not when, for another $550, you can get Ultimate Ears. " Now the irreplaceable complement to my iPod and computers at home and work, the headphones for my life's soundtrack," says one of the authors of "Gadgets We Love: 10 Toys Grown-ups Can't Live Without," in the Nov. 15 issue of Forbes.
After you order a set, an audiologist will personally visit you to create impressions of each ear and send you custom-fitted headphones in a week's time. "In a blast of sonic brilliance, the two speakers inside each of the headphones separated the high and low frequencies, delivering sharp, rich tones straight into my ear canals. It was as if I were in the room with the band. Ultimate Ears are perfect for aspiring audiophiles bent on hearing every layer of a song, or just the average listener looking for peak performance, consistently."
For those who want to flood their homes, as well as their ears, with tunes from iPods, there's the Bose SoundDock, a 5-pound docking port with one big speaker. "The SoundDock comes with a remote that can control volume and forward or reverse songs from as far away as 60 feet, and the cradle keeps your iPod charged while docked."
Or you can play your entire iTunes library on your computer via your old stereo with Apple Computer's Airport Express. "This sleek, palm-size doodad lets you set up a Wi-Fi network in your home simply by plugging it into a wall outlet and inserting a cable or two into its sockets. You then can chuck the co-ax and use the airwaves." Link your laptop to a cable modem or DSL line for Internet access, transmit documents to a printer or send songs to other speakers.
If you like music devices more retro than modern, Tivoli Model One is the one for you. The bare-bones radio has a wooden enclosure with no digital readouts and no remote control. You turn it on and spin the oversized dial. It doesn't have stereo sound because there is only one speaker.
"In an age of seven-channel surround-sound home-theater madness, amid all the computerized, digitized hype, the Model One is a sanctuary of analog bliss," Daniel Lyons writes. " The beauty is that the Model One contains a high-tech interior, including a special semiconductor that provides astonishing reception."
The iPod may have reached cultural-icon status, but after some disappointing attempts, rivals are finally starting to challenge its rule. BusinessWeek reviews iPod wannabes in its Nov. 8 cover story, "Cool Tools."
"It turns out Apple's toughest competition is targeting the iPod mini. A bevy of pint-sized hard-drive music players are hitting the market. They all boast 5-gigabyte capacity, and one gets pretty close to the mini in coolness. That's Creative's $249 Zen Micro," writes author Jay Greene. "The Micro trumps the mini with an FM radio and a removable battery, so you don't have to toss the entire device or pay a fortune to have Apple replace the battery when it eventually gives out. And 5 gigabytes means 25 percent more hard drive space than the iPod mini. It may not look quite as elegant, but, feature for feature, the Micro stacks up very well."
Both magazines give a thumbs up to Motorola's new mobile phone, the RAZR V3, "a smack-me-gorgeous sliver of technolust that you want to keep up to your ear all the time and show it off, telegraphing how indescribably hip-by-association you are to own it," writes Forbes reporter Bruce Upbin. A half-inch thin and weighing three ounces, the phone costs $799. Both magazines also like PalmOne's mobile messaging device, Treo, and give their take on the best lightweight laptops.
In addition, Forbes endorses thumb-sized memory-loaded hard drives that can attach to a keychain and the Dyson vacuum cleaner. BusinessWeek takes a look at digital cameras, high-definition televisions and DVD recorders.Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism
