SnagFilms is a great idea for getting documentary films in front of more people, writes Walt Mossberg. It’s a new service that allows anyone with a blog, a Web site, or even a page on a social-networking site, to open a virtual movie theater and show these documentaries, free.
Walt reviews the hotly anticipated BlackBerry Storm, the first BlackBerry model without a physical keyboard. Typing and navigation require tapping on glass, just as users do on the iPhone. Verizon will be selling the Storm for $250 with a two-year contract, though a $50 mail-in rebate can bring the price down close to the $199 that Apple charges for the base model of the iPhone.
Digital-picture frames have started to take off as a way for people to show off their stashes of digital photos in rotating slide shows. A growing number of frames even connect to wireless home networks so they can easily be refreshed with photos stored online and on PCs.
Walt reviews Foxmarks, a tool for synchronizing your bookmarks automatically among all your computers, Windows or Mac, and across all the main brands of Web browsers.
Walt takes a close look at a a new, free Web guide to colleges–and mostly likes what he sees. The information isn’t just words and numbers, but includes lots of photos, videos and student input for most schools.
Apple’s latest version of MobileMe, a service that synchronizes email, contacts and calendars among Mac and Windows computers, is faster and more reliable.
The companies behind Linux netbooks have made great strides in improving user interfaces, but until they can achieve similar breakthroughs in how the machines work with other devices, Windows netbooks are still a better deal.
Edited by Walt and written by Katie Boehret, this is a guide to gadgets, web services and other consumer technologies.
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