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Release Date: August 05, 2009
Genre: Games
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iTunes New Music Releases

Release Date: September 29, 2009
Genre: Rock
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Genre: Rock
Release Date: August 25, 2009

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  • Gimme Fiction

    • 10 out of 10
    • Spoon
    • Gimme Fiction by Spoon is a terrific album by an Austin band that I was lucky enough to catch on an Austin radio station during a Christmas visit.

  • How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

    • 6 out of 10
    • U2
    • U2's latest entry is a mostly underwhelming collection of songs that does very little to sound any different from its equally pedestrian predecessor, 2000's "All That You Can't Leave Behind." While

  • Kind of Blue

    • 10 out of 10
    • Miles Davis
    • The jazz album to end all jazz albums. Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly and the list goes on. The who's who of who's who in jazz have assembled for this monumental record. Get this
  • With Teeth

    • 4 out of 10
    • Nine Inch Nails
    • In the sprawling post-A&R rock and roll world, there are two camps: the Beatles and the Stones. The Beatles are the artists that like to explore, evolve, and change styles. The Stones are the artis

  • Mystics Anonymous

    • 8 out of 10
    • Mystics Anonymous
    • Mystics Anonymous is the brainchild project of Jeff Steblea, a fantastic songwriter and good friend of mine, as well. In fact, I even played the drums on all but one of the tracks on this album. Jef

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Looking for an iPod Protector at Macworld

"2) Pull up the invisibleSHIELD and spray a very light mist of water onto the film. Take moist fingers and rub over iPod. Have a rag handy to keep water away from openings."

As soon as I read this, I froze in terror. Here was a small set of directions telling me to partially soak my new fourth generation iPod (the last one grew legs a few weeks ago) with water, then do my best to keep fluids from leaking into the circuitry. These were the official directions from the manual and as I passed them around the table in the press room, reactions were essentially the same. "It's not an interface designed for humans, maybe for dogs," said MacWorld and TMO columnist Ted Landau of the print in front of his bespectacled eyes.

And perhaps he was right, or at least the general consensus of the table seemed to agree. Still, I had been needing something to protect my new iPod's screen and while Speck Products' Skin Tight iPod protector had done a good job protecting my iPod's body against the scuffs and scratches it excels in picking up without protection, it provided almost no coverage for the screen. The end result was my placing my iPod against my wallet whenever it entered my pocket with the hope that it would pad the exposed surface.

Enter Protective Solutions, Inc. and their invisibleSHIELD product, which caught my eye on the show floor as I strolled through MacWorld Expo's exhibits today. Here it was, a product that seemed to fill a niche, literally and with a price under $10, the deal seemed too good to pass up. Claims of the product's being used to protect rotary blades of military helicopters didn't necessarily seal the deal, but added a little more credence to the idea of the product as a defensive layer. I'll beef up any tactical attack vehicles I have out back when I have a little more time.

Looking over the directions, which called for a spritzer, a rag and a credit card, it became apparent that I'd have to improvise in this location. There was no spritzer bottle on hand, rags were nowhere to be found and no one at the table even wanted to touch the product, especially with its warnings about one's hands needing to be spotless and fingerprints being absolutely irremovable once installed.

Wiping the excess water away again, I pinned the corners down, held them in place as best I could, spat a thin funnel of water agains the cover's top surface and placed the iPod in the center of the table for an hour to let the moisture fuse the cover to the screen.

So far, the cover's not only held, but reduced the glare from the screen. Hold the "Menu" button and the iPod lights up beautifully with clearer, crisper text. I'm not about to test it against any form of punishment in the meantime, and while it's ironic that something that serves an apparently simple purpose requires an intricate installation process, it's another layer and one less thing to worry about.

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