Over the years, Macs have innovated in many ways. The aging PowerPC standard has been replaced with Intel. The iMac, once made of white plastic, now has a sleek aluminum exterior. And finally, new products like the MacBook Air have kept Apple ahead of the curve. Shipped with each of these innovations is what is essentially a slender plastic brick, the Apple remote. Though reliable and durable, the remote has yet to undergo any major revisions since its launch in 2005. Cupertino needs to get with the program and update the remote. Are you listening, Steve?

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Just about every major site on the web has posted its own technology gift guide for the holiday season. Comprised mainly of mainstream gadgets like iPhones, camcorders, and netbooks, it’s almost as though every tech writer has been using copy and paste a bit too much lately. Not only that, but any real geek will already own the most popular gizmos.With that in mind, here’s a real holiday gift guide with the products your special geek really wants

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PC Fastlane wishes to extend a happy Thanksgiving to all its readers. While iPhones, computers, and other gadgets are all great, in the end it’s family and friends who make the holiday season most special. So drive carefully, be safe, and eat a lot of turkey! Expect some great new features next week.

In the meantime, there are a few links you might want to check out. As usual, GottaDeal has its site full of Black Friday Deals. LifeHacker has a good bit on what to do with your leftover Thanksgiving food, and Gizmodo has a guide on how to safely microwave a turkey. Finally, those residing in colder latitudes might want to check out our review of the Toro 1800 electric snow thrower.

At approximately 8:30 this morning, an error occurred during a routine software upgrade and PC Fastlane was taken offline for about two hours and twenty minutes. The issue has now been resolved, and the site is fully operational. Sorry for the trouble!

Black Friday isn’t for another four days, but retailers are already handing out huge discounts. Chief among them is Dell, which seems to really be pushing hard this holiday season for good sales. With the poor economy and Dell’s need to break even comes the consumer’s benefit.
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Over the years, I have used a variety of analytics programs to keep track of website traffic. From Google Analytics to Microsoft adCenter Analytics to OneStat, they’re all the same. Since last week, however, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to test drive a new sort of web statistics software, Woopra. Though still in closed beta, it offers a number of revolutionary features that promise to shake up what is currently an uninnovative market.

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Lately it has been all the rage to talk about the advent of USB 3.0, the first update to the USB specification in eight years, and one that promises tenfold transfer speed improvement.  And certainly that’s something worth talking about.  But what many authors are failing to mention is that the Apple to USB’s Microsoft, which is FireWire, is also working fervently on a specification update of their own called FireWire 3200.  Although USB 3.0 products are expected to be quicker off the production line, both standards have already been ratified, and we could see both USB 3.0 and FireWire 3200 merchandise in production sooner rather than later.  This naturally begs the question: So which is better?
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