So if you haven’t heard, RadioShack will be changing its name to simply, "The Shack". This change will either increase brand awareness and breathe new life into the company, or go over like a lead zeppelin and do nothing for the company whatsoever.

When a company makes the huge decision to change its name, the public either accepts it or vehemently rejects it.

Two examples of this are Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Yes, different type of business entirely, but both these companies tried to change their names and ultimately fell back. Burger King was briefly shortened to BK; Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC.

The only thing either of the name changes did was make for good domain name acquisitions. However KFC.com still says "Kentucky" right on the home page; they were never able to shake the original full name. BK.com, same deal.

Both companies must have lost a bundle and then some trying to convince people to call them by their shorter "cutesy" names. But it was all for nothing, particularly with Burger King. Nobody calls that place "BK". Ever. And nobody ever will. That’s what we call a complete marketing failure, because the market refused to accept it.

RadioShack in its decision to change the name to The Shack doesn’t exactly warm me over with confidence in the brand.

If I ask you, the PCMech audience, why do you go to RadioShack in the first place, what would your answer be?

Go ahead and comment with your answer, but I’m going to take a guess as to what you’d say:

• "Best place to buy and set up a cell phone."
• "I go there when I need a specialized battery for my watch/motherboard/hearing aid/etc."
• "I only go there whenever Wal-Mart didn’t have the electronic whatever-it-is I needed."

Am I right? Let me know. Post a comment on that.

Now let me ask you a second question. Does a name like The Shack sound like somewhere you’d go for electronics merchandise?

This name change may do more harm than good.

Over the years, RadioShack tried diligently to convince the public that it is not a electronics hobbyist’s store (which it was originally). That took years to do. And for all intents and purposes, RadioShack did it. They shifted the merchandise around, changed the store format a bunch of times until they found one that worked and more or less established themselves as an "upper" electronics store.

Here’s the problem with The Shack:

It denotes that old-time electronic hobbyist store feel. But isn’t this exactly what RadioShack has been trying to avoid with all these years of rebranding? Anybody who has been in a RadioShack recently knows this, especially if you know how they used to be.

The Shack doesn’t say, "quality electronics" whatsoever. In fact, it screams one word: Cheap. RadioShack, you’re not Wal-Mart and your patrons don’t want you to be.

RadioShack should have gone with simply RS. While KFC and BK didn’t work, RS as a shortened name for RadioShack would have. In fact it would have worked wonders. This is a brand that absolutely, totally would have worked as a replacement for RadioShack. And if RS wasn’t available, RS Outlet would have worked just as well. It’s not "radio" that RadioShack needs to drop, it’s "shack".

What do you think?

Will you be shopping at "The Shack"? Or will you always call it RadioShack like it’s always been?

I call it, "that place that charges $36 for a f***ing FireWire cable." That’s not a joke, by the way.

Yesterday evening I picked up an item arrived via an internet order, that being a very plain battery-powered digitally-tuned AM/FM radio with built-in speaker. The one pictured in this article is the one I purchased (listed here if you want to buy one yourself). The cost is under 10 bucks.

This is a very small radio and is only slightly larger than the size of a box of Bicycle Rider Back playing cards.

Bear in mind I had to custom order this thing. It was not available on any store shelf anywhere. Custom ordering it via internet was my only option to get one.

What’s the big deal about a battery-powered radio?

Ask yourself: When you lose power, how do you stay informed?

Sure, some of you may have a battery backup in your cablemodem (as I do), but that doesn’t do much good since the router requires power (you know, that thing that gives you wireless internet?) And yes, I know there is such a thing as a battery-powered router, but it’s not cheap by any means.

Basically put, you’re up the creek without a paddle when the power goes out. All your normal sources of live information  for weather reports, school cancellations, etc. are gone. The television is out as is the internet. Anything that requires power from the wall is not an option.

Radio to the rescue. Now you have a source of live info and a darn good one at that.

Trust me when I say everybody needs a battery-powered radio. Sure, it’s old-tech but it works well.

Where to find local stations?

Use Radio-Locator. Type in your ZIP (or town/state) and you’ll get all the AM and FM stations there.

Other uses of small battery-powered radios

If you work in a cubicle, you’re probably under the watchful eye of management where anything wi-fi is "banned", so your options for entertainment are seriously limited. Little radios like the one above are the only kind that can be operated at a volume low enough where you can hear it and not bother anyone else. Furthermore it has a small enough footprint where you can put it just about anywhere.

For anywhere you work at your home where televisions or computers can’t go (under the car, in the garden, in the shed, etc.), radios can.

Yes, it’s true, there are other portable music players that have AM/FM capability, but most don’t have a built-in speaker. And you’ll probably pay at least double the price for one.

Remember, electricity is obviously not infallible. It can and does go out due to storms and other weather phenomena from time to time. Do yourself a favor and flip out ten bucks for one of these. You’ll be glad you did.

Most everyone probably has a favorite radio station, FM or AM (unless you only listen to CD’s or satelite radio), they like to listen to while driving in the car, running, or whatever. Well, if you are ever at your computer and want to tune in, look no farther than the Internet.

Virtually all radio stations have a web page and, typically, offer an online stream of their broadcast. This is a great way to listen to shows or music anytime. The best thing is you are not limited to only what your radio picks up, you can tune in to any radio station in any city by just visiting their page. The quality, while it is not crystal clear, is usually good, but this depends a lot on the stream offered by the station.

Unfortunately one thing you cannot listen to on the online stream are any sporting events they may carry (baseball, football, etc.) due to blackout rules. Believe me, I have tried many times on many different online stations.

For our readers that are audiophiles, you’re probably already aware that arguably the best radio (as in AM/FM with CD player) is the Bose Wave Music System, formerly known as the Wave Radio. Yes, it’s wickedly expensive however there is absolutely nothing that sounds better in such a small package. Those who have heard it know exactly what I’m talking about.

But maybe the Bose’s modern styling isn’t your thing and you’d like something "vintagey" that still has superior quality to it.

In this case you want table radios made by Tivoli. This is undoubtedly the best example I’ve ever seen of retro styling with modern "guts". And yeah you’ll pay a pretty penny for it. Pictured right is a clock radio called the Model Three.

Tivoli makes several different types of radios including ones that do satellite. All of them perform just as good as they look. You can check out all the stuff they make here. Retro never looked so good and functioned so well.

But is the audio quality better than that of a Bose Wave system? Unknown. But at the prices Tivoli is selling radios for, it’d better match it or be darn close.

For anybody not aware, PCMech is based out of Tampa Bay, Florida. While PCMech is and always will be geographically independent, the fact that we’re based out of the Tampa area means that anything that I’m involved with locally happens in Tampa. Duh.

Well, my new gig is on the radio. PCMech is now bringing the weekly tech news to the S.O.S. Computer Technology Talk show here in the Tampa area. The show is played at 1 PM on Saturdays on 1040AM WWBA. You’ll hear my news segment right at the beginning of the show. And the host, Sean O., says that he wants to make the topics for the show based on my news. So, I guess that means PCMech is playing a pretty big role in this radio show now.

If you’re not located in the Tampa area, you can easily listen to the show stream online.

Starting this week, I am going to publish the news that I do on the radio here on PCMech. Realize that by the time I post these, it may be old news. For example, in this segment, I talk about the pending Iphone release and that happened yesterday.

Enjoy the segment and I welcome your feedback.

Pandora.com is quite a nice web application. If you’re not familiar with Internet Radio, it’s a way to stream music to your computer according to may want to listen to, without having to create mixes of music on your own. Most of the time, there’s no audio advertising, which was one upside to mixing your own music.

Pandora is different from other Internet Radio stations in that you’re not locked into what the stream owners play (much like how FM radio runs), but you can actually rate which songs you like or don’t like.

You start out creating a station by selecting a specific song or artist you like, and Pandora branches out and tries to find music similar to that. Only, a lot of the time, it branches out too far and ends up playing music that you don’t really want to hear. It’s at this point that most people wander away with the idea that “Pandora sucks”. Continued