[jcgavula]

My nomination is the Apple iPhone. I know everyone says, "Well, of course, iPhone, it's so cool," but I nominate it not b/c it's Apple's phone, or b/c it's a wide-screen iPod, or b/c it's an interweb communications thingie. It's b/c the iPhone is not a phone at all - it's a full fledged computer. Most people primarily email, surf the web, play with pictures, listen to music, and keep their list of contacts and appointments. The iPhone does all of that, just like a Mac, in the palm of your hand. It's the Newton Message Pad reborn (a hand-heald computer), except it's much. much better. Sure, you can't edit movies or crunch data, but that's what a workstation is for. This is an EveryMan computer in your hand. That's why it's one of the best products of the year.

[dmbream]

The newly released 8-core Apple Mac Pro with dual quad-core Intel Xeon ("Clovertown") processors running at 3.0 GHz.As the guys over at MacDailyNews.com put it, "For when you absolutely, positively have to sequence the entire human genome before lunch."This is some serious hardware.What makes it even more drool-worthy:It uses a "special version" (read: exclusive to Apple for now) of the "Clovertown" Xeon running at 3.0 GHz. The fastest "official" chip runs at 2.66 GHz. (See http://www.electroni...al.xeon/)Second, not only is this the only commercial box you can buy today with this chip, they even beat Dell on price, with a "comparable" (admittedly, pretty top notch) configuration.Have a look:From Dell:2 X Quad Core Intel Xeon Processor X5355 2.66GHz, 2 X 4MB L2,1333Genuine Windows XP Professional, SP2 with Media512MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro FX 4500, Dual DVI or Dual VGA or DVI VGA4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC in Riser (4 DIMMS)48XCDRW AND 16XDVD/-RW, w/Cyberlink PowerDVD and Roxio CreatorC3 All SATA drives, Non-RAID, 4 drive total configuration500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst CacheSATA/SAS Integrated Card - For Connecting Internal Hard Drives500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst CacheFREE! Dell 19 inch UltraSharp 1907FP Flat PanelUSB Entry Quietkey, No Hot KeysDell USB 2-Button Mechanical Mouse with ScrollNo Floppy DriveNo Speaker option3 Year On-site Economy Service PlanPrice:$8,969From Apple:Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon4GB DDR2 SDRAM (4 x 1GB)500GB HD 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s500GB HD 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s500GB HD 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s500GB HD 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/sNVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI)Apple Cinema HD Display (23" flat panel)Two 16x SuperDrivesBoth Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort ExtremeApple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. EnglishMac OS X - U.S. EnglishiLifeAppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro/Power Mac (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enrollPrice: $8,789I'm sure you could tweak the specs here and there, but keep in mind, only Macs can run MacOS X, Linux, and Windows software - the world's largest software library - natively and simultaneously. Essentially, the new Mac Pro is the most POWERFUL AND COMPATIBLE PC on the market.

[BerrAttack]

{size:18px}Guild Wars Night Fall.This is the best game ever and a MMO thats free, gotta love it!!! :lol:[/size]

[MilwGonzo]

A very cool new web site is Worldmapper.http://www.worldmapper.org/index.html"Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.There are 366 maps, also available as PDF posters. Use the menu above or click on a thumbnail image below to view a map."Jeff

[mutatio]

Firefox 2.0 - This browser has become much more viable across platforms. Previously it was fine on my Windows machine and slow on my Mac. Now it's like butter on both systems.Adblock Plus - Great tool to have as an add on to FF. I can block exactly what I want to and view ads that I actually am interested in instead of having 15+ flash animated ads blaring at me on a tech site.OS X 10.4 - I can't wait to upgrade to an intel Mac. My windows machine will be nearly obsolete aside from games, assuming I get a mid range Mac. I agree with other comments regarding OS X. I do the vast majority of my computing on my 12" iBook as opposed to my desktop, simply because I don't run into all the headaches that pop up on my Windows desktop system (still getting random crashes on a fresh install and updated BIOS, drivers, etc).iLife - Quite the kickass software suite, and free on new Mac systems. I've used this to make my wedding website, wedding DVD, DVDs for friends and family, create movies, and to manage my tunes and photos. Nothing really compares in the windows world just yet.

[DaChipsta1]

Nintendo's Wii...An early and easy candidate for overall product of the year. It's everything a good tech product should be... innovative, disruptive, cool and equally respected by geeks and non-geeks alike. And you know what, unlike most modern tech masterpieces it does two things: 1) It works and 2) It's fun to use.You've just got to admire a product like this that is turning a multi-billion dollar industry on its head. The "graphics don't matter, gameplay does" course that Nintendo has taken will go down as one of the biggest high-risk/high-reward gambles in tech history. And boy, did this one pay off. Every time I walk into my local Target store, I see PS3s piled high, begging to be given away. When I look over in the Wii case, all I see is the glorious footprint of empty retail space only a white-hot tech product can leave.Thanks,Chip

[alancookie]

This is going to be the next step of convergence among hand held devices. My Treo brought together the phone/email/web surfing/small apps...but the iPhone goes one step further by combining the successful music player, a web surfing experience that is not painful and no fuss synchronization between the phone and the user's main computer. I've had my Treo for nearly 2.5 years and every time I sync I end up with a mess...I'm often afraid to even go through the process. Apple will bring it's simplicity and elegance to having a mobile computing device/phone.

[TaigaStar]

ESC Electronic Stability Control crash prevention technology. here is a link to an article about it. here's a quote from the article that sums it up pretty well."ESC uses automatic computer controlled braking to keep drivers from losing control on slippery roads or in emergency maneuvers, in many cases preventing deadly rollovers from occurring."

[Liang]

My first choice will be Nintendo Wii because it changes the way how you play games. It is really cool gaming system, and I recommend that everyone should buy a wii at home.Second, I choice the Vaja leather products that you can get any custom leather case designs for your favorite products, such as iPod, Motorola Razor phones, MacBook, PSP, and more. You can pick any color you want and put your special words on the back. This is really great products I never seen before.

[xeroply]

I would like to nominate NeoOffice 2.1 for Mac OS X, which provides a version of OpenOffice that runs within the Mac's native UI (the "official" OpenOffice.org version for Mac requires X11).NeoOffice is a great free alternative to Microsoft Office for Mac users who need casual access to Office documents (certainly better than paying $400 just so you can open those Word and Excel email attachments people send from time to time). It has improved a LOT over the past couple years to the current version. This version also incorporates features that, as I understand it, are not yet available in the main OpenOffice release, such as ability to open Word 2007 files and run Excel VBA macros.http://www.neooffice.org

[joeldm]

Fotomagico for the Mac is the best semi-pro slideshow presenter I've seen. It's functions are like iPhoto's sildeshow tool which is great and the similar in layout to iMovie, but Fotomagico goes them both one better with finer control over the pans and zooms, more effects and better management of music and titles. It's a must-have product for anyone who takes pride in creating great slideshows or who needs to for a professional presentation when speed and a powerful set of tools is the requirement and it's only $49. What's not to like about that?http://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/overview/JoeL

[jmoore1]

Jott.com, in beta now, lets you dictate a 30 second message over your cell phone, which is delivered by email as text. In other words you can send yourself, or anyone else you've setup to be a recipient, email that you dictate. The service transcribes your voice into text and sends it as email. You can also click to hear the message if any words are garbled in the transcribing process, but I've had remarkably good results. No voice training is required, you just talk and it works. No logging in either - the service identifies you by caller-id of your cellphone. So, bottom line: you dictate a message, Jott transcribes it and delivers it as email to anyone. Turnaround time is generally less than an hour. A wonderful tool when you think of something and can't write it down-- just say it and send the note to yourself. Or to anyone else. A great product.

[marcom]

I teach Software Development at High School. My kids swear by World of Warcraft. Has this made it to any best PC World products? Ever?

[AuroraDizon]

[quote name='marcom']I teach Software Development at High School. My kids swear by World of Warcraft. Has this made it to any best PC World products? Ever?Apparently WoW was release sometime in 04, but the Burning Crusades expansion just came out not too long ago.(lol I was thinking about nominating them too)

[MikeK]

Having to maintain a Windows PC in my house for years because of just a few applications that I required was a royal pain. The constant threat of viruses, the ever-slowing performance as patch-upon-patch was applied to the Windows O/S, etc. did not endear these machines to me.Then along came the Intel-based Macs, and I was one of the first to hop on the bandwagon. And when I discovered how slick and fast they were, I rapidly replaced most of my Macs with new Intel-based machines,Of course VirtualPC woudn't run on my Intel-based Macs. Heck, it barely ever ran on earlier Macs!Enter Parallels Desktop. Not only does it run, it runs well (flawlessly most of the time); and it even ran rings around my 3 GHz Pentium PC with Windows XP right out of the box.And bargain...did I mention bargain? Where else an you get a "complete PC" for $79!So I truly believe that Parallels Desktop deserves a very high slot in your list of 100 products.

[DEHos]

I nominate any video display product that uses LEDs as a light or back light source. :P

[asifhaque]

Okay readers here's why i think adobe cs2 and cs3 is the greatest set of software's ever to be released! first of all creative suite 2 was amazing but creative suite 3 is absolutely a step into the future of websites, web design, photo manipulation, 3D, etc. 1. Phtoshop=everything! most people already know photoshop and they know how important it is. whether you need it to create professional art work or to touch up a family pic. it just about lets u do it all! and its collaboration with illustrator, flash, and dreamweaver gives it an edge above other softwares! i can go on for pages about photoshop, premiere, aftereffects, flash, dreamweaver photoshop extended, etc. but ill cut it short.the two things i really like about photoshop are:1. It's user friendly interface and ease of use!2. The endless possibilities (e.g. auto adjustments, filters, tools,etc.).So I nominate Adobe CS2 to be one of the best softwares out there! Well thats it! let me know if you agree with me or not! REPLY!

[seddy83]

Firefox 2.0 - I loved Firefox 1.0. I think what really exceeds my expectations is the Internet Explorer extension which allows me to view websites that I can only view in IE. (I'm sure you all know about this already.) This is extremely convenient cause I hated having to open IE just to view certain websites.

[ChilledEuphoria]

Hello all, I would like to nominate a Web 2.0 (IMO) site that stands head and shoulders above most others in its category. www.workshoplive.com is a music lesson site that is absolutely superb. Offering online guitar, bass, keyboard and drum lessons, workshoplive delivers the highest quality instruction available on the net. Professional musicians sit down and deliver what you want to learn when you want to learn it. My favorite aspect of the site is the highly structured approach. You can start at Absolute Beginner and work your way up to Advanced. It is also broken down into genre such as Jazz, Acoustic, Rock, Blues, Theory and a number of other categories depending on intrument. A year subscription costs about 200 bucks, which would really buy you about 4 actual in person lessons at most music shops. In addition to the year subscription Workshoplive sends you a free practice amp, guitar tuner, guitar strap, and other goodies. My playing has improved substantially by working my way through the lessons. I have taken many in person lessons, and find that this method of delivery is just as effective if not more so. Being able to repeat lessons with difficult concepts is priceless. For all you aspiring musicians out there I would definitly recommend checking this site out. You won't be disappointed. www.workshoplive.com

[Shuzuluza]

Zillow.com - great, nice shots of your house or your neighbor's from 4 different angles, very useful too to see tax and sales data.