Like other reviewers, I've been charmed by the idea of silicone baking products, which seem futuristic, practical, and in more ways than one flexible. But even apart from all the things you need to do to prep a silicone bakepan for first use, it seems like an awful lot of adjustments need to be made to make this particular petite loaf pan really useful. I'll note how many reviewers aren't even using this to make cakes or loaves of bread, but rather are making soap. For the more casual baker who doesn't want to deal with the ambiguities of working with individual "cavities" this small, I'd recommend using a more traditional pan instead.

We already had a similar in-car charger from another retailer in use in our car, but this Belkin unit beats it hands-down and immediately became something we got into the habit of using almost every time we get into the car. As other reviewers have mentioned, both plugs in this Belkin charger work to charge iPhones or iPads, whereas on our other unit, only one does. Also, the other unit came with a charging cord that's something like 12 feet long, which is a little ridiculous for in-car use. The much shorter Belkin cord seems much better suited for this use, long enough not to be constricting, but not so long as to become a nuisance. Because of where the charger is plugged in, I don't get to enjoy the cool blue light that much, but even that is helpful when I do need to unplug a cable or just reach into the storage area where the plug is located. Until USB ports replace cigarette lighters as standard equipment in cars, an item like this will be useful and even necessary. Belkin, not surprisingly, has got it right.

I set this air cleaner up in a badroom that's probably larger than intended for it (the description says "ideal for small rooms"), and in which the primary pollutant is a superabundance of pug fur. But even there, a quick check of the filter shows that this little machine has been cleaning the air and, thus, making breathing a little easier for person and pug alike. We don't smoke or have a problem with pollen in the house, so you can't always tell what difference something like this is making. But even when unclean air isn't a big issue, a handy filter system like this does seem to make a difference.

This isn't a comprehensive history of Texas baseball, or even of the Texas League. As the "greatest hits" phrase in the subtitle and mention of "episodic chapters" in the description might suggest, this is instead a collection of short, readable chapters about some of the milestone events and memorable characters in the history of the league. It makes for fun dipping-into for bedside reading or, maybe, during commercials or between innings. It gets a little bewildering trying to keep track of team names and league arrangements (the "Complete list of Texas League teams [1902-]" list on Wikipedia is impressively long, and this book goes back well before 1902), but as a print equivalent of just sitting around and telling baseball stories, this book definitely has something to offer the Texas baseball fan, or the fan of Texas baseball.

Two comparisons. probably pretentious, come to mind for how to describe "Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere." One is to Elgar's "Enigma Variations," the orchestral piece in which variations are developed on a theme "not played." In the case of "Class A," what's not played is baseball. Author Lucas Mann describes minor-league baseball as an institution in Clinton, Iowa, and charts its impact on players, fans, and the community, but there is almost no description of actual baseball games. Now, I don't have a problem with that per se: I think it's an interesting way for Mann to have framed his work, and also saved him the problem of trying to describe -- and us the tedium of having to read about -- a whole season of Class-A baseball. Still, anyone expecting this to be a book "about" baseball and baseball games is likely to be disappointed.

The other comparison is to the work of George Plimpton, in that Lucas Mann makes himself very much part of the story he's telling. In this case, he isn't a ball player, though he has personal experience as a high school player and lifelong fan. Instead of reportorial objectivity and distance, Mann makes himself part of the Clinton fan community (especially the serious fans known as the "Baseball Family"), and -- though he never quite succeeds -- also tries to be buddies with the players, managers, and coaches. This leads to a lot more personal reflection, personal insights, and recounting of personal history than you're likely to find on, say, the sports page. It also made it difficult for me to get beyond about page 200 of the book.

Clinton, dwarfed by the local ADM plant that evidently fills the air with pollutants, struck me as a depressing sort of place, the town a shadow of its former self. Minor-league baseball has some of that air about it too, with the arrogance and self-assurance of players on their way up contrasted with the desperation or resigned inevitability of those on their way down or, maybe worse, not on their way anywhere. Even the team name, "LumberKings," derives from a long-gone era in the town's history. The managers are once-promising players who years after their own brushes with stardom, as Mann memorably puts it, still wear pants with elastic waistbands to work every day. Even the play-by-play announcer dreams of getting out of town the way the better players get to. Baseball brings some life into the community, but also seems to add to the cloud of desperation. Its an interesting balance, and even though I never entirely connected with Lucas Mann or the people or place he was describing, I do admire his attempt at describing it.

I requested this item pretty much solely for one reason: to use as a wifi repeater here in my office, where my iPhone and iPad often lose their connection with the wireless router on the other side of the house. I can't comment on the other functions this device can perform, but I can note that as a repeater, it works pretty well. Setup was complicated a bit for the reasons other reviewers have explained, most notably a heavy use of IT jargon in the installation and troubleshooting documents. But once I navigated through that (and a minor security-settings issue that was my fault, not the device's), I did get a strong signal that my iPhone and iPad latched onto immediately.

The problem then became that my laptop, which is also in the office and on the wifi network, began to generate "self-assigned IP address" errors and dropping its connection. None of the several solutions offered on the Internet fixed this for long. I will note that the TP-LINK's box says the product "is designed for use with tablets, smartphones and handheld game consoles," so maybe the laptop put too heavy a load on the device? I don't know about that. But I've since hit on the substitute idea of using this as a wifi repeater for when I'm in the backyard with one of my devices -- no laptop there. I plugged this into one of my house's exterior outlets and again, it worked great with my phone. I do not leave it plugged in outside all the time, obviously. Only when I'm outside myself and need it. But that's a use case where this fits the bill just fine. Maybe I'll bring this along next time I travel someplace and see how it works as a router.

As the product page here notes, Photoshop Elements has gone up to 11 now (har har), so this specific title may not be as useful as it was five years ago if you want to keep up with the latest iterations of the software. At the time, though, I found it useful to dip into from time to time to figure out how to do one thing or another. The problem was, as neither a photographer nor an artist, I didn't really have the motivation -- or the need -- to become a Photoshop ace, and so wasn't interested in putting in the time it would take to get the most out of this book. Instead of a basic tips-'n'-tricks list, the tutorials contained here really do allow you to get under the hood of the program and really start doing some interesting stuff. It wasn't what I needed, exactly, but I could certainly see powerusers-to-be getting a lot out of it, and that seems like enough of an endorsement to me.

I had always feared that separating an egg required both advanced physics knowledge and a good bit of ruthlessness, not to mention specialized centrifuge equipment. I, alas, have none of that. Turns out all you need is a simple, yet beautifully functional, object like this one. Our house is full of OXO Good Grips objects, from mixing bowls to garlic presses to shower squeegees (we used to use the latter to clear snow and slush from the windows of our cars), and many's the hour we've lost intently browsing the Good Grips wall at the local homewares store. As the name says, this is a three-in-one device, even, so the value is all the greater. Frankly, I don't have many occasions when I need to separate an egg from itself. But now I have the tool to do so, and am maintaining my streak of making it through life without the high school physics class I never took. Huzzah.

I seem to recall using the phrase "'techno-' without the '-thriller'" in another Amazon.com review once, but I can't remember where. Regardless, it's a phrase that applies to "Seduced by Secrets" too. That's not necessarily a criticism -- if watching The Sandbaggers, The Complete Collection taught me anything, it's that James Bond and his world are far from the one really occupied by secret intelligence services. The contrast may have been especially great during the Cold War. I could easily imagine this book being fascinating reading for the technician or historian with a particular interest in the subject. It's not as much a book for the general reader, or even the more specialized espionage buff. Author Kristie Macrakis asks some important and still-relevant questions (about what happens when the volume of information being taken in exceeds the bureaucracy's ability to process or interpret it, for instance -- a question that has had relevance to US intelligence since before Pearl Harbor at least), but in a world in which East Germany itself already seems to have receded into the dimmer parts of memory, this is a resource for researchers and specialists, God bless them, and less rewarding for the general reader.

A black knit tie and a blue or even pink oxford-cloth button-down shirt is a cornerstone of the "Ivy" look, and appropriate for almost any situation that would once have been described as "casual" and is now -- when it seems almost nobody wears ties anymore -- relatively dressy. Many classic menswear dealers sell ties very much like this one for lots and lots more money, and that made me wonder if maybe there was something wrong with this one. So far as I can tell, there isn't -- not as long as you don't care what name is on the little tag on the back of the tie. It's not a "skinny" tie, as some other reviewers have noted, but it's an excellent width for most people and most situations. This might be a four-star item, but the very reasonable price adds the fifth star easily.