Type of Article: MacTech Reviews

By David Foster

The US$39.99 Opena Case (http://www.Openacase.com) is the world’s first iPhone 4/4S case and bottle opener in one. It has a hard shell made of polycarbonate.

It is very strong and slick to the touch. The case protects all the edges, but does not cover the screen. The sides of the case rise above the screen slightly offering the screen protection. The case has a very small profile overall.

Along the journey of my early gaming life, I owned an Atari 2600, an Atari 5600 and the “we-barely-knew-you” Atari 7800. I miss those game systems, but I can get a retro gaming hit with the US$59.99 Atari Arcade from Atari Discovery Bay Games (http://www.discoverybaygames.com/). Compatible with the iPad and iPad 2, it’s available at Target, Apple retail stores and Apple’s online store (http://www.apple.com) and Toys R Us.

Uniea makes approximately eight zillion iPhone cases. The best may be the U-Suite Premium — Executive Director (http://macte.ch/6Woit), an US$34.95 case I’m using with my iPhone 4S.

I favor the U-Suite Premium because it offers decent protection, while still allowing the elegant design of the Apple smartphone to show through. Constructed of polycarbonate plastic, the case — which is only 0.8mm thick — adds only a little extra heft to the iPhone 4S. It comes in a variety of colors; I chose the white, so the U-Suite Premium looks as if it’s part of my white phone.

Tom Bihn’s Cadet (http://www.tombihn.com/page/001/PROD/700/TB0740) is small, but you can pack a lot of “stuff” into it. How much stuff? How about an 11-inch MacBook Air, an iPad 2, iPhone 4S, power cords for both, a few small accessories, earphones and a couple of magazines.

I admit that I was pushing it. My Cadet (the 11-inch model) was bulging by the time I had all my tech gadgets and goodies crammed in. You may not want to have your case bursting at the seam, but this item — another topnotch offering from Tom Bihn — is like Santa’s bag: it’s a lot more spacious than it looks.

If you have multiple Macs — as many of us do — you should certainly look into ChronoSync. The US$40 utility offers a way to synchronize or backup files and folders. You can synchronize between folders on your Mac, other Macs, PCs, external drives or anything you can mount on your Mac.

Let me admit that I mainly use ChronoSync for synching, as I have Time Machine and a Time Capsule that I use for my back-ups. What I really like about the software is its “intelligent” synchronization. It identifies and copies only the files that have changed since you last synchronized.