The Pipeline: Pogue on photo vaults, Mossberg on the road, Cringely on the roof

This is the Pipeline, Engadget's weekly check-in with the mainstream media. This week, Walt Mossberg looks at laptops, we hear from a plethora of pundits on WiFi security and ID theft, and David Pogue tests out some photo vaults.

With Apple's iPod Photo Connector now on the market, The New York Times' David Pogue takes a timely look at photo vaults for digital cameras, checking out the Epson P-2000 (pictured), Jobo GigaVu Pro, Archos AV420 and SmartDisk FlashTrax, along with Belkin and Apple's iPod connectors. Not surprisingly, he digs the Epson, thanks to its great screen and rapid transfer speed. He also gives the FlashTrax points for its ease of use, swappable battery and low price ($280 after rebate for the 20GB model), but raps it for what he calls the "homeliest, most washed-out screen of the lot." On the iPod front, he likes the combo of the iPod Photo/Connector, but hits it for speed as well (over 10 minutes to transfer the contents of a 256MB flash card – while draining the batteries of both the camera and the iPod). As for the Belkin connectors, seems like the less said the better – though if you already own a non-Photo iPod, it's a cheaper option than buying a dedicated photo vault, though you can't use it to preview your pics. We still prefer a lightweight laptop to just about all of these options. We just make sure to have at least 1GB of memory cards, and leave the laptop in the hotel or car to do a data dump at the end of the day. And with the right laptop, we can burn an extra backup to a CD, just in case both camera and computer decide to take a walk.

Vaults That Let You Store (and Show) Your Photos, and Keep Shooting

Last week, Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal issued his annual recommendations for desktop buyers; this week, he takes on portables. His picks are solid ones — he likes ThinkPads,
iBooks, PowerBooks and
Vaios — and like last week's list, this is a good one to share with that clueless cousin who's bugging you for buying tips. One curious suggestion from Mossberg is that you "make sure your computer has multiple USB 2.0 ports, and slots for the memory cards used in cameras." While the former is usually a done deal even in ultralights, the latter is something we've got on our wish list but have a hard time finding in most laptops, including Mossberg's picks. Vaios are Memory Stick only (of course), ThinkPads typically have either no slot or just an SD slot, and iBooks (along with some PowerBooks) don't even have a PC Card slot that you can use to insert a card reader. For many laptop customers, that card reader is going to be USB-based, not built-in.

Shopping for a Laptop? Expect Lots of Choices, And a Range of Prices

WiFi, ID theft and "borrowed"
access were on the minds of a number of pundits this week. David Kirkpatrick of Fortune admits to a host of blunders, including keeping his passwords in an unencrypted Microsoft Word file on his hard drive and borrowing a neighbor's WiFi without first making sure his own firewall was turned on. When he tried opening the password file and found that it was "in use by another user," he decided it was time to mend his ways, pointing out that "there seems little likelihood that most computer users are going to take the protective measures that experts routinely urge. Let's face it, if even a tech columnist is running unnecessary risks, that doesn't bode well for the general public."

David Kirkpatrick – Identity Thieves Spying on Your WiFi?

One thing Kirkpatrick also points out is that most of the major ID theft threats seem to be based not on casual incursions into home networks, but on missteps by major corporations, which are less-than-vigilant about keeping customer records secure. He writes: "LexisNexis, whose subsidiary, Seisint, sells personal data, said thieves might have accessed information on about 310,000 people by using stolen passwords. Data broker ChoicePoint earlier this year said a criminal ring stole personal information on about 145,000 Americans. And Bank of America has said it lost a backup tape containing data on more than 1 million customers." About now, you may be wondering whether these companies can be held liable for any losses you incur due to their negligence. David M. Ewalt of Forbes is wondering the same thing, and in his latest column, he speaks to several experts, including lawyer Peter A. Binkow, whose firm is suing ChoicePoint on behalf of consumers. As Ewalt points out: "Binkow says ChoicePoint needs to take responsibility for the consumers who ... will likely be confused about how to protect themselves. 'I'm an attorney, and I'm fairly confused by this stuff,' says Binkow. 'If I found out my identity had been stolen, I wouldn't know where to start.'" The bottom line: companies need to prove they've been diligent about protecting their customer data, or they may face the wrath of angry consumers. Attorneys, start your engines.

David M. Ewalt – Are Companies Liable For ID Data Theft?

Robert X. Cringely also weighs in on WiFi security this week, though in typical Cringely fashion, he takes a somewhat different approach. Deciding to see if he "could create an inherently reliable wireless Internet service through the use of multiple unreliable wireless Internet connections" provided unknowingly by his neighbors, Cringely climbs out his window and hooks up a homebrew high-gain antenna on his roof, outfits a Mac with four routers and software that can combine signals from multiple sources, and creates an access solution that provides
"bandwidth comparable to my current mix of DSL and cable modems, costs nothing to run, and was a lot of fun to do." And now that he's gone public, his neighbors, presumably will secure their networks and block his access. Or will they?

Robert X. Cringely – A Cup of Bandwidth

Also this week:

Walt Mossberg – The iPod Out Loud: Testing Speaker Attachments

Stephen Wildstrom – So Long To Clunky Web E-Mail

John Dvorak – The NCTA Show

Rob Pegoraro – WiFi Shifts Into a Faster Gear