Unixster

Ever forget your hotel room number? Then Steve Casimiro (adventure.nationalgeographic.com) wants to tell you about Room. It’s one of the iPhone travel apps Casimiro has come to rely on as he roams the world for National Geographic Adventure magazine. He’s also found apps that help him pack a better suitcase, phone home for less, find Wi-Fi hot spots, and lots more. Is your favorite travel app among his picks?

Its “fetching high-resolution screen and its portability make this an attractive notebook for professional designers,” reports Jonathan Rougeot (computershopper.com) of the new 17-inch MacBook Pro. In addition, Rougeot concludes, the new model’s “sleek design, impressive battery life, and reduced price will make this attractive even to less-demanding users who want a stylish laptop with a bit of muscle.”

How do the batteries in the new MacBook Pro laptops measure up? Walt Mossberg (ptech.allthingsd.com) wanted to know, so “using my own harsh battery test,” he assessed the performance of new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro models. “The results,” he reports, ”were excellent. These two new Apple laptops scored among the highest battery lives between charges of any laptop I have ever tested.”

Love Jazz? So does Don Wolff, who brings us the “I Love Jazz!” program on Higher Education Channel Television. HEC-TV, “the leading producer of education, arts, and cultural” TV programming in St. Louis, produces award-winning programming that “makes you think.” And, in the case of “I Love Jazz!” encourages a greater appreciation of a uniquely American art form.

You receive a Word document from a friend. And while you have Office for Mac on your MacBook, you’d rather open that document in Pages. Thanks to Mac OS X Leopard, you have a number of ways — right-clicking on the document, Get Info, and others — to temporarily change the application used to open it. But what if you always want Pages to open Word documents? Find out how in today’s tip.

The crime drama Public Enemies, which opens in theaters on July 3, pits the FBI’s Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) against the most notorious criminals of the Depression era: John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum), and Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham). Based on a book by Bryan Burrough, Public Enemies, was produced and directed by Michael Mann (The Aviator, Hancock). Enjoy.

“With its lower price, the return of FireWire (woo-hoo!), longer battery life, better looking display and a new built-in SD Card slot that you can boot from, the newest member of the MacBook Pro makes an impressive debut,” concludes James Galbraith (macworld.com) in his 4.5-mouse (out of 5) review of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro.

It was already a great app. And, now, it’s even better. Taking advantage of new features enabled by iPhone OS 3.0, At Bat 2009 now offers live streaming of up to two major league baseball games a day. That’s right, you can watch two live baseball games a day on your iPhone or iPod touch — at no extra cost. And that’s in addition to Gameday Audio, MLB.com Gameday, and other great features from MLB.com.

In his 4.5 (out of 5) mouse review, Jason Snell (macworld.com) points out that the iPhone 3GS offers “a major step forward in terms of the iPhone’s technological underpinnings,” one that results in “indisputably faster device, not just at some tasks, but at every task.” And in detailing the many new features it introduces, Snell concludes that iPhone 3GS “is still leading the pack, in most cases by a wide margin.”

“Video recording? Voice dialing? Better battery life? Zippier performance? Multimedia messaging? Check on all of them,” says Ryan Kim (sfgate.com) in his review of the new iPhone 3GS. From its built-in video editing to its digital compass, support for Voice Commands, increased RAM, and greatly increased speed, Kim explains how iPhone 3GS “cements Apple’s place at the top” of the smartphone market.