Fellow gadget enthusiast and former MS Mobile Devices MVP, Jenneth Orantia has a cool new site, Gadget Monkeys!  In one of her latest set of articles, Jenneth chases after mobile e-mail.  Says Sister Orantia in the kick-off of this totally awesome series -

A couple of days ago, I posted about how much I prefer the experience of accessing my email on a BlackBerry compared to any other smartphone platform. I thought I’d take that train of thought a step further today by going through the email delivery system on four smartphone operating systems. I’ve gone with the main ones: BlackBerry, Windows Mobiles, Series 60 and iPhone, using the BlackBerry Curve 8900, Palm Treo Pro, Nokia E63 and iPhone 3G as test devices.

Jenneth breaks the series up into 3 cool parts:

• Part 1: Mobile email smackdown: Pt 1 - Setting it all up
• Part 2: Mobile email smackdown: Pt 2 - You’ve got mail!
• Part 3: Mobile email smackdown: Pt 3 - Working with email

The Series is definitely worth a read.  Check out it out and see if mail on your mobile device is something that you want to chase after!

If there's one thing that ANYONE at Gear Diary can attest to, its the need for some kind of backup solution.The site has had at least 1 catastrophic failure, where a great deal of data was lost.  I personally have had my PC's go south at least twice in 13 years where a backup either wasn't available or was corrupted. 

Now, I've got multiple backups on my MyBook World Edition NAS as well as on a USB 2.0 2.5" hard drive...but neither of these are always the best solution. Sometimes, you need a bit more.

OWC recently announced a desktop RAID solution that holds anywhere from 2.0 to 8.0TB (yes, that's EIGHT terabytes) of data in either RAID 0,1,5 or 10 arrays.  The nice thing about this particular solution is that it appears to be pretty much plug and play, allowing you to connect your PC to it with either FireWire 400/800, USB 2.0 or eSATA cables.

I'm in the process of arranging for a review unit to be sent, and we'll be taking a closer look at this device to see if its something that anyone and everyone can use to help make their data more secure.  The complete press release can be found after the break.

OWC ANNOUNCES MERCURY ELITE-AL PRO Qx2 “QUAD INTERFACE” PLUG & PLAY DESKTOP HARDWARE RAID SOLUTION

ULTIMATE IN FLEXIBILITY & CONVENIENCE

• 4 Interfaces: FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, & eSATA
• 4 Drive Bays: up to 8TB Storage
• 4 Hardware RAID Settings: 0, 1, 5, 10

April 14, 2009, Woodstock, IL -- Other World Computing (OWC^®) http://www.macsales.com, a leading PC and Mac technology company, announced today the new Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 for the ultimate in flexibility and convenience in a Plug and Play desktop hardware RAID storage solution. Featuring a “Quad Interface” of FireWire^® 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and eSATA ports; 4 Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive bays; and 4 user selectable hardware RAID settings, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 offers up to 8TB of total storage capacity and data transfer speeds up to 300MB/s for the ultimate professional grade RAID storage solution.

Professional Performance With User Conveniences

Built for performance-intensive applications, such as A/V, HD-video, digital photography, professional music, graphics, and redundant backup, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 is beautifully designed for both Mac and PC with a shock resistant, heat dissipating aircraft-grade brushed aluminum housing preconfigured with up to 8TB of storage capacity. Its front panel LEDs gives quick, at-a-glance system status, while the removable key lock ensures the installed hard drives remain secure.

Selectable Hardware RAID Flexibility

An easy to access front panel selector switch provides simple configuration of the 4 Hardware RAID settings: 0, 1, 5, 10, as well as a Span (NRAID) setting, for the best level of speed, capacity, or redundancy; or any desired combination of the three operations.

OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 is Available in 7 Configurations:

• · 2TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (500GB x 4 w/64MB cache) & 3 year warranty - $679.99
• · 3TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (750GB x 4 w/128MB cache) & 3 year warranty - $849.99
• · 4TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (1TB x 4 w/128MB cache) & 3 year warranty - $979.99
• · 6TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (1.5TB x 4 w/128MB cache) & 3 year warranty - $1149.99
• · 8TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (2TB x 4 w/128MB cache) & 3 year warranty - $1899.99
• · Enterprise Class 2TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (500GB x 4 w/64MB cache) & 5 year warranty - $799.99
• · Enterprise Class 4TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (1TB x 4 w/128MB cache) & 5 year warranty - $1149.99

The Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 is now shipping in capacities from 2TB to 8TB, priced starting at $699.99 MSRP from Other World Computing at www.macsales.com. The Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 is compatible with Apple OS 8.6 to 9.2.2, OS X 10.0.x, and 10.2.8 or later, and Windows 98SE or later operating systems. It comes ready for Plug and Play ease of use with all interface connecting cables, a $200 retail value disk utility software bundle, and up to an industry leading 5 year warranty.

If you're like me, you've got GOBS of eBooks, likely in more than one format, all over the place.  I've got tons of books in MS Reader format (now THERE'S a blast from the past that most of us would like to forget), eReader format, MobiPocket format, etc.  Some of the books that I have are ones that I'd really like the read again and again; but now that I've got a Kindle, I'm kindle screwed when it comes to my library of well over 300 titles.

What's a Kindle guy to do?  There are a couple different options.

1.  Go without – You can simply bid your library a fond farewell and

2.  Begin to build it again – bit by bit on your Kindle with native books bought on Amazon.  This is the option that Amazon would prefer you choose, by the way.

3. You can convert your library – There are a couple of cool apps out there that will allow you to convert your existing library to Kindle compatible files.  There are converters availble for PDB files and for LIT files.

4.  Have your eBook vendor convert them for you – Fictionwise now includes "Kindle Compatible – (.MOBI)" as a choice for some eBooks.

This last option was of particular interest for me.  I have quite an extensive Book Shelf over at Fictionwise...well over 150 titles.  My biggest problem is that at least 1/3 of those titles are DRM encrypted.

If your files are DRM protected, neither option 3 or option 4 are going to be available to you.  Unless there's some crack out there that will break PRC/PDB or LIT encryption, you're going to go without your existing DRM protected eBooks on your Kindle. I searched high and low for a converter tool that wouldn't strip out all of the formatting, maps, graphics, etc., in my eBooks, and the linked converters did the best job (though they were not format perfect, they were pretty darn close).

One of the things that I noticed, however, is that once those files were out in the open, and I was able to have either Whispernet send them directly to my Kindle (via e-mail), they showed up as personal documents, and not as books.  When I copied them to the device, after getting them directly in .MOBI format from Fictionwise (via bulk download), I noticed to very cool things:

1. When copied to the documents folder on my Kindle, the books showed up as "Books" and not as "Personal Documents" on the device.

2. My Kindle read the .MOBI file directly, and it didn't need any converting.

Fictionwise can be found here, and you should give your bookshelf a long, hard look to see if any or all of your titles can be downloaded in Kindle compatible format.