On Saturday, I was going through some files from when I first got my MacBook, and realized that I have had my MacBook exactly two years last Saturday, the 22nd. While my wants, needs, and life, for that matter, have changed so much, I’m going to take a quick reflection on my purchase.

Ever since I was 12, I had wanted a Mac. Of course, money was the object Four years later, I was able to purchase my first mac. Two years after that, I am still a happy customer. READ MORE »

Good Morning. It’s beginning to look like Thanksgiving, and you know what that means- Black Friday. As per tradition (four years and counting), I have dedicated today’s Manic Monday to Black Friday Deals. Let’s get started:

Best Buy:
• AT&T LG VU With Touch Screen – $49.99 w/New 2-Year Contract
• LG Internal Blu-ray DVD+/-RW Drive – $99.99
• eMachines AMC Athlon 2650E Desktop w/18.5 LCD Monitor & Canon Printer – $299.96
• Toshiba AMD Turion 64 Dual-Core Laptop, 3GB RAM, 160GB HD – $379.99 (Doorbuster)
• Acer 19″ LCD Widescreen Monitor – $99.99
• More can be found here >>.

OfficeMax
• HP Pavilion 15.4″ Notebook G50-102NR With AMD Processor – $429.99
• SanDisk 4 GB SD Memory Card – $9.99
• Maxtor 250 GB Portable Hard Drive – $69.99
• SanDisk 8 GB USB Drive – $17.99
• HP Photosmart C4480 3 In 1 Printer – $49.99
• More can be found here >>

Office Depot
• Acer Aspire Desktop Computer With AMD Athlon X2 4400 Dual Core Processor – $229.99
• HP 15.4″ 3GB Memory 160GB Hard Drive Notebook Model G50-112NR – $349.99
• Kodak EasyShare CD93 Digital Camera – $79.99
• Acer 22″ LCD Monitor – $129.99
• More can be found here >>

RadioShack
• Gigaware 1.3MP Webcam – $14.99
• Logitech Cordless Mouse & Keyboard – $39.99
• SanDisk 16GB Cruzer USB Flash Drive – $39.99
• Netgear Super-G 802.11G Wireless Router – $29.99
• Casio EX-Z9 8.1MP Digital Camera – $99.99
• More deals can be found here >>

And those are my picks for Black Friday deals. I’ve noticed that they aren’t as great as they have been in the past, most likely due to the failing world economy. But enough about that. If you are looking for more Black Friday Deals, check out BlackFriday.info, which has Black Friday listings for over 50 retail stores. Enjoy!

I generally don’t use Wired For Gadgets to plug other projects, but I’m going to make an exception to the rule.

Last year, the youth of Fargo,ND and Moorhead,MN made history by creating the largest youth led food drive in Fargo’s history, Fill The Dome. Last year’s project raised 80,498 pounds of food for local food pantries by filling the FargoDome floor with food. Food Pantries in Fargo-Moorhead, as well as the surrounding area are running low. Some in rural North Dakota are even having to close due to the lack of food. This year, Fill The Dome 2008 is aiming to raise 50 tons of food and $50,000 of funds to help these food pantries.

And to make things interesting, we are competing with Athens, Alabama, who is also trying to raise canned goods for their community.

As webmaster and an organizer for the project, I can honestly say this has been bigger than we ever had imagined. What started as a small idea two years ago has turned into something beyond belief.

If you are in the Fargo, ND area, please donate food. If you are not in the area, but still want to help, please donate. Info for doing both of these things, as well as more about the project, can be found on the Fill The Dome website (run by me), http://www.fillthedome.org

Thank you so much!

I’ll be honest here, I uses Gmail email addresses, but I don’t ever login to Gmail. After hearing about their new feature yesterday, I did.

We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we’re launching today, there’s a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company… We’ve also done a minor facelift to Gmail’s default look to make it crisper and cleaner — you might notice a few colors and pixels shifted around here and there.

This is actually some really cool stuff here. There’s even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which was the result of a bet between two engineers. Hey, no one said it had to practical!

Gmail Themes is available to all users- all you have to do is login. Now, go spice up that inbox!

Spice up your inbox with colors and themes [The official Gmail Blog]

Time for a Windows Tip, and an interesting one, at that. If you love the Vista Sidebar, but hate everything else in Vista and want that sidebar in XP, not to worry. The Windows Sidebar Pack will help.

Installing the sidebar consists of installing three packages: Alky for Applications, Windows Sidebar Installer, and Gadget Extractor. Alky for Applications is where the magic happens allowing Vista-specific software to run under XP. An interesting side-effect of installing the Windows Sidebar Installer is that the Vista-specific fonts are added to your XP installation. Also, this is an XP version of the sidebar, not a hack from Vista, so all the Gadgets should work.

So now that you have the sidebar, who needs Vista? The Windows Sidebar pack is Windows XP only, and it 100% freel Enjoy!

Windows Sidebar, Real one,Pack [via Lifehacker]

Time for another iPhone App; Today I’ve got a cool one for you. As often as I need a real keypad for my MacBook (with is hardly ever), it’s nice to have one when needed. That’s where NumberKey comes in.

Enter numberkey, an iPhone app that turns it into an ad hoc wireless numberpad for your Mac using Wi-Fi. There’s a small desktop client that goes with it, but it’s all only $1.99. And it comes with four skins to cover every style of modern Mac keyboards.

How do you like ‘dem Apples? As mentioned, the app is $1.99, but worth the coolness involved.

Number Key [iTunes App Store via Gizmodo- LINK WILL OPEN ITUNES)

Good Morning once again. It’s monday, and you know what that means: Manic Monday.

• First, more Obama news: Barack is a Mac User.
• Also, our President Elect may have to say goodbye to his Blackberry.
• 25GB in 70 Seconds = USB 3.0.
• Interesting Fact: Spam gets 1 response per 12,500,000 emails.
• Moving on, Google launches video chat for Gmail.
• And in Piracy news, Record Labels to Sue Vuze, Limewire and SourceForge.
• Our Government at work: Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline.
• And the iPhone 3G overtakes the RAZR as best-selling domestic handset.
• Linux boot in 2.97 seconds? You betcha!
• And Windows 7 is truly Vista in disguise.

And that’s this week’s Manic Monday. As per tradition, next week’s Manic Monday will feature “leaked” Black Friday deals. I look foward to next week’s Manic Monday, and I hope you feel the same way. Enjoy your week!

Of the many Windows annoyances out there, most severe one the automatic restart when an update has been installed. It can be pretty darn annoying. Thankfully, ShutdownGuard is there to watch out for you.

ShutdownGuard prevents Windows to shutdown, reboot or log off. When it prevents a shutdown it will pop up in the tray and ask you if you want to continue. ShutdownGuard can even prevent the Windows Update prompt from rebooting your computer.

Now, the program has not been tested in Windows Vista, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t work. The program is Windows only. The best part, it’s free. Enjoy!

ShutdownGuard [via Lifehacker]

It’s almost the end of another week- you may as well relax with an iPhone app, this time, a game from Jake Marsh of CodeFlare called Triple Play Poker.

With Triple Play Poker™, you have the chance to play three poker hands at once with bets of up to five credits per hand. You can bet one credit per hand, one credit on all hands, or the max number of credits on all hands. You then tap Deal and the first hand is dealt to you face up. Based on what you were dealt, you tap which cards to hold and those cards are then held in all three hands. After holding the desired cards, you tap Draw and the rest of the cards are dealt. Since each hand is dealt from its own 52 card deck, you’re effectively playing three hands at once and you’ve got three chances to win big!

If you’re the type of person who loves iPhone games and loves poker, this is app is up your alley. The game does cost $1.99, but well worth the money. The app can of course be found on iTunes (link below)

Triple Play Poker [CodeFlare]
Triple Play Poker App [iTunes App Store- Link will open iTunes]