If you’re coming to the event, I certainly hope you’ll consider attending my session. Camping geeks are as enthusiastic about their gadgets as technology geeks, and the two fields are converging in some pretty interesting ways, mostly thanks to the portability and versatility of the iPhone and iPad. Here’s a taste of what I mean.

Let’s start with navigation. Sure, the iPhone has a built-in compass, but I’m not here to try to sell you on using it — let’s face it; it’s pretty flaky. I’ll opt for a “real” compass any day, liquid filled, mind you, and if I’m expressing a preference, I’ll take a mirror compass; they allow you to see your bearing and line up your target at the same time. The mirrored top also acts as a lid to protect your compass and it’s compact enough that there’s no real advantage to leaving it behind in favor of the app on your iPhone.

If we’re talking GPS receiver, though, I’ll choose the iPhone over a dedicated unit — at least for casual camping. Sure, a dedicated GPSr’s battery will probably last longer, but the some of the offerings on the app store so good I actually prefer them to a standalone device. My favorite, hands down, is MotionX GPS. It was one of the early arrivals on the app store and it’s been improving ever since. In addition to the usual features like being able to set waypoints and record tracks, it lets you choose from a variety of maps, track your altitude, add photos, share waypoints on your favorite social media network and more. And while a decent GPSr will set you back $300 or more, MotionX GPS is sale-priced at a ridiculously low $1.99 — and it’s a universal app.

The SPOT Connect device can be a life saver — literally. It allows you to use your iPhone to communicate to rescue teams or the folks back home using satellites when there’s no cell coverage. It’s pricey, but for serious outdoor adventurers who frequent remote locations, it could be the best investment they ever made.

There are dozens — maybe hundreds of apps that can be tremendously useful in the great outdoors — everything from apps that help you identify birds to apps that help you identify poisonous plants. There are even apps that will help you with first aid in case you didn’t do so well identifying the poisonous plants. And if you’re a star gazer, you already know how many more stars shine on a dark backcountry night; and you can name every one of them if you have an app for that. (I like Star Walk; $2.99 on the App Store.)

So what’s a gadget-loving camper to do when your iPhone battery barely lasts through the day, let alone a busy weekend of star charting and bird watching? A good solar panel and an external battery can ensure your iDevice has enough juice to do it all. My favorite combination is from a company called GoalZero: their monocrystalline solar panels are much more efficient than panels of old, and their Guide10 battery pack uses rechargeable AA batteries, meaning you can bring multiple sets of batteries to power your device even if there’s not enough sun.

Finally, on the non-Apple front, here’s one of the coolest ways I’ve seen to purify water yet. Traditionally, there have been three ways to ensure water is safe to drink: boil it, treat it chemically or filter it. All have their downsides: boiling water takes a long time and leaves you with hot, often flat-tasting water; iodine pills and other chemical treatments leave a bad taste; and pumping can be slow, labor-intensive and subject to clogging.

A company called SteriPEN added a fourth method: purifying by ultraviolet light. It looks like something straight out of Star Trek: a small device about the size of a travel tube of toothpaste, with a glass rod on the end. Immerse the rod in water and it lights up. Less than a minute later, you have water that’s safe to drink, with over 99.9% of bacteria, viruses and protozoa eliminated, seemingly by magic. (Depending on the condition of the water, you might want to remove sediment or other particles by filtering them through a bandana or coffee filter first.) What’s even cooler is that SteriPEN’s newest model features a USB-rechargeable battery, so you can use your solar panel to charge it too.

I’ll be talking about a lot more at my seminar, so I hope lots of TMO readers will be able to join me. It’s a session that probably wouldn’t have been possible without the new direction of Macworld | iWorld, so I’m very eager to see how it’s received.

Oh, and one more thing: Go to this article on The Mac Observer and you can get $15 off an iFan pass.

I hope to see you there!

“The Great (Geek) Outdoors: Using your high-tech gear to get more out of your high adventure outings”
Friday, January 27th
10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.

Read the article on The MacObserver website.

If only I’d had IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube iRig – a tube-shaped dongle that plugs into the headphone jack of your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, turning it into, for all intents and purposes, a guitar amp. And not just a guitar amp, but your choice of several, thanks to its accompanying app, called AmpliTube—at version 3 as of this writing.

A Talented Duet
The iRig cleverly includes its own headphone jack, so you can still plug your headphones (or speakers or line out to a sound system.) This not only lets you hear yourself with a richness your i-device’s speakers could never deliver on their own, it lets you practice without disturbing the rest of the household — something my father would have certainly appreciated during my high school rock band phase. But perhaps even more importantly, it allows you to hear yourself with no latency (the lag between the time you hit the strings and the time you hear the resulting sound.) Your bass (or guitar, for you six-string aficionados) plugs in via a 1/4-inch jack. The unit is light, unobtrusive and simplicity itself —all adjustments are done within its software partner, the AmpliTube app. And that’s perhaps the real beauty of the iRig; like Apple, IK Multimedia controls the hard ware and software—the whole widget—and can therefore make sure the duo works seamlessly together.

Similar set-ups have been around before for use with a Mac: Griffin’s iMic, for instance. And more recently, I’ve used an M-Audio USB interface for the same purpose. None of these, however, is nearly as elegant and portable as the iRig. And none of those older solutions provides such easy access to an array of virtual amplifiers as AmpliTube. The free version, available for both the iPhone/iPod rouch and iPad, comes with 24 gear models with more available through in-app purchases. The US$20 version boasts 160 pieces of gear including vintage and classic rigs. The company says there are 51 individual stompboxes and effects, 31 amplifier preamp & power sections, 46 speaker cabinet models, 15 high end stage and studio mics, and 17 post amp rack effects. A free Fender amplifier is also available as a separate app. Unfortunately, the apps are not Universal; pay $20 for the iPad version and you’ll still need to pony up an additional $20 for your iPhone. It’s a trend that seems to be waning, but is still all-too prevalent with iOS apps in general.

You can read the rest of the review on The Mac Observer: http://tmo.to/egRo

If you knew the end of the world was coming, what would you do? Maybe you’d spend a few final romantic minutes with your loved one; perhaps you’d gather with others in your local place of worship. Given TMO’s readership, it’s a fair bet at least some of you would be pounding back pints of beer and stuffing peanuts into your face while those around you covered their heads in paper bags and found a comfortable spot on the floor to lie on.

But what if we were only going to come within 8,000 miles of it being the end of the world? Well, you’d want to download Sky Safari to your iPad or iPhone to track the fifth-closest asteroid flyby of all time, and the first ever to occur in the iOS era.

More info — including instructions on how to track 2011 MD — is in the full article on TMO.

I won’t spoil it by posting it here—you’ll have to read it yourself.

I spend a fair amount of time in hotel rooms these days, and lately, I’ve noticed a couple of trends in in-room entertainment. No, not that kind of entertainment — I’m talking about the increasing frequency of HDTVs and the decreasing quality of the programming available for them. I mean, how many different ways can you mash up reality TV concepts? What’s left — “The Real Housewives of the Jersey Shore Apprentice for Survivor Runway Designers?”

No, between Hulu and burning my own DVDs onto my MacBook Pro I rarely want for something good to watch. But viewing all that content on a 15” laptop when there’s a perfectly good 42” LCD screen blankly staring at me from the wall is not my idea of an efficient use of technology.

Since I usually have a projector cable and a Mini DisplayPort adapter with me, I can get a pretty good picture, but I’m stuck with laptop sound, since I’ve never been able to get the audio in on those sets to work with the video from the projector cable. Besides, when it comes to video-input acronyms, I’d rather go with HDMI than SVGA any day. On a more business-related note, I’ve come to love running through my presentations on a big screen. I find it a much more natural way to practice the delivery and pacing of a talk.

Suffice it to say that when I learned about Newer Technology’s Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter, my interest was piqued — especially when I learned it carried stereo audio to the HDMI port as well as video.

Like most of Newer Technology’s products I’ve tried, it’s a clever and thoughtful concept, well executed. The male Mini DisplayPort jack ends in a female HDMI port, which has pluses and minuses. On the downside, it means you’ll have to supply your own HDMI cable — which means cannibalizing one from another source whenever you need it, or buying a dedicated cable — which adds to the total cost of your solution. On the plus side, it means you can choose whatever length of cable suits your needs; it also presumably keeps the adapter’s overall cost down. I suppose it’s a pay-one-way-or-another situation, and with a little online digging, you might even find a separate cable for less than what an integrated adds to the price of the adapter.

Audio is supplied through your computer’s USB port, which the adapter integrates into its HDMI port. It’s a nice solution, which provides an uncompressed stereo signal through an integrated USB audio decoding chip.

In practice, the adapter couldn’t be simpler to use. Just plug the adapter’s two cables into your Mac (Mini DisplayPort and USB), plug one end of your own HDMI cable into the adapter on one end and the TV on the other. Make sure your TV is tuned to the right input and you should be all set. If your Mac doesn’t recognize the new display on its own (mine did every time), just fire up your System Preferences’ Displays pane and choose it. You can choose to use your TV as a second monitor or a mirror of your Mac’s screen. Audio volume is controlled the same way as your Mac’s speaker — either through software controls or the keyboard. Although the Newer Technology adapter is capable of displaying full 1020p high definition video, what you’ll actually get depends on the source. But in all resolutions I tried, the output was pristine, with no jittering or artifacts. Sound quality was equally good, although I tested it using the TV’s internal speakers and not a high quality sound system.

My only quibbles with the adapter are small ones. First, the plastic housing of the adapter felt slightly “soft” to me, which I at first attributed to a lower quality. After some fairly rough testing, though, the adapter was still in great shape, and I began to think that had the housing been more rigid, it would have been more likely to break. The softness, I suspect, provides more give to withstand the rigors of a travel bag.

Second, at $49.99, I thought it seemed expensive. Searching online, though, it seems in line with or less than similar adapters I found. The only significantly cheaper alternatives only work on a select few newer Macs, and Newer Technology offers those, too.)

So then, the real question is what value to you put on the ability to turn an HDTV into a big, beautiful monitor and speaker for your Mac? While the occasional traveler might be inclined to make do with that small screen, the seasoned road warrior is sure to want Newer’s HDMI adapter for his or her arsenal.

One thing’s for sure: you’ll never be happier to find an HDTV in your next hotel room than you will when you have the Newer HDMI adapter in your travel bag. And you’ll never have to settle for hotel programming again.

Meanwhile, over at the MacJury, I participated in a panel discussing AT&T’s new data plans, and give them them a lot (perhaps too much) credit for devising a way to expand their user base in a highly saturated universe while ensuring they don’t take a proportional hit on their infrastructure. Whew, that’s a lot of marketing jargon, even for me.

I also spoke at the Conference, delivering a session called on keyboard shortcuts called “Look Ma, No Mouse!” If you attended the conference, you already know where to find the slides. IDG, the show’s organizer, will be sending out more information on that soon as well.

On the show floor, I was lucky enough to be asked to participate in MacJury Live – a session of Chuck Joiner’s excellent podcast done in front of a live audience. It was great fun talking about the show with Chuck and fellow jurors Jeff Gamet, Tanya Engst and Ted Landau — some of the smartest people in the Mac community. As soon as the show is posted (in video, no less!) I’ll put a link to it here.

Between the Mac Observer article and the MacJury podcast, I’ve said pretty much all I have to say on the topic, other than to reiterate that it was a great show, ironically made perhaps even better by Apple’s absence.

Give it a read. There’s only a few hours to wait to see how prescient — or off-base — I really am.

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“One Thing’s for Sure: Apple Won’t Unveil a ‘Tablet Computer’ on Wednesday” on the Mac Observer

One of the best things I’ve found about the iPhone is that it’s not really a separate device at all – it acts as an extension of not just my Mac at home, but of the accumulated knowledge of the human race. OK, that’s a bit hyperbolic, but that’s the way it feels. Before the iPhone came out, I wrote about the need for a “convergence device” – one that could be used away from my home Mac, but allowed me to access its power and functionality. The iPhone has very much become that convergence device for me. And that convergence has, well, converged even more over time, thanks in large part to the over-the-air synching capabilities rolled out via MobileMe and the speed of 3G networking.

The full article is on The Mac Observer — Don’t forget to read parts 1 and 2 for some insights from more “regular” staffers like Dave Hamilton, Bryan Chaffin, Bob LeVitus, Jeff Gamet and others.