photo management

DLO Jam Jacket with Cord Management for iPod touch 2G, 3G (Clear)
$19.99
i love this case and its for the right price it shipes just on time/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001JQLJ5Y/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_title

The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers
$49.99
This terrific book explains the present state of evolution of Peter Krough's seminal work in digital asset management. If you own and use the first edition, you will want this one for the many changes and refinements he has implemented. If you are new to the topic, you can start here. Combine reading this book with visiting his terrific website, and you should have all the knowledge you need to implement and maintain a long-term DAM strategy to suit your particular needs. If you don't see your questions already answered on his excellent online forum, you can post them yourself. They are often addressed by the author himself. Since this is essentially the only game in town, we are fortunate that it is well written, well organized, and most of all and on a continuing basis, well thought out. As far as DAM goes, Krough play the long game, and we all benefit.

ACDSee Photo Manager 2009
$49.99
I'm really torn on ACDSee. I've been using it since Windows 3, pre ACDSee 32. With each release it gets more bloated and slow and stupid, but still I download the trial to see if I can give up using ACDSee 5. I file bug reports and get back dumb responses. But I'm still using version 5 because it's better than the rest.

The upside is that unless you shell out for Adobe's Lightroom this is probably the best photo or picture manager. I've tried xnView, Irfan, etc, and none of them even come close to ACDSee's management capabilities.

On the downside, with each release ACDSee gets more bloated and slower and introduces more bugs, or at least different ones - the amount of crashing seems fairly constant. I've just been playing with ACDSee Photo Manager 2009, and it's literally more than an order of magnitude (10x) slower than ACDSee 5 when going into a new directory. It's crashed several times on me already. Probably due to the mandatory database stuff, which they've never been able to implement properly. Are they outsourcing this?

So to summarize: if you want to manage your photos or pictures on Windows and can't afford Adobe Lightroom (or Photoshop CS and its database) and you can deal with a large number of bugs and outright crashing, this is probably the best program.

Or you could just try xnView if you don't need the file management capabilities, or find a copy of ACDSee 5.

It's really a shame, I desperately want this program to get better after so many versions, but it just doesn't.

Think Tank Cable Management 50, Clear Organizer Pouch with Internal Dividers for AC Adapters, USB Cables & other Photography Essentials.
$29.50
Good product, but I wish the plastic cover was clear instead of frosted. I get this opened at TSA all the time and they have to open each of the three compartments and then remove items. You SHOULD be able to clearly see the contents but the frosted plastic makes it just obscured enough so that the TSA person has to open it up and feel around inside. Having said that, it still gets four stars because it's very handy, does a good job and Think Tank stuff is just superb.