We all find ourselves in situations that throw our normal day-to-day device habits into chaos. One of those surrounds power to our devices. My Motorola Droid consistently gives me the ability to do a 14-hour day without having to recharge, but it will also take me right down below the 10% battery level. To stretch my battery 14 hrs on a single charge I avoid using WiFi and GPS or that can greatly impact the battery life. In the past bluetooth use to be a source of poor battery performance but today its impact is marginal. Even with constant use bluetooth will only shave 1-2 hrs off my normal battery performance. [click to continue…]
MovieWedge
We have posted a couple of times over the last few month about a remarkable little product called the MovieWedge. This product was so popular that stock was quickly exhausted and what with the downturn in the economy and supplier problem, there were a couple of months where we were not sure that the product would even be available again. As we understand it, all the back-orders have now been caught up and this product is for sale now. The MovieWedge is a small 2.5 oz square bag (filled with foam pellets) with the corners sewn diagonal to each other and with a small lip to hold your device. I always keep one in a pocket of my carry-on backpack to prop my Droid or my iPod Touch if I am watching something that requires the right angle. Especially nice on a tray table as it doesn’t slide. The MovieWedge will support just about any device from an iPod Nano to perhaps a PSP. Any bigger than that, and it can get dicey. Definitely too small for an iPad. You can purchase the MovieWedge directly from Amazon. [click to continue…]
One of the more interesting uses that have come from mobile devices that have built-in GPS are Golf Apps. The one question you’re always trying to figure out when playing golf is “how far am I from the greens”. Knowing this helps with club selection and how hard you want to swing the club. Most high-end golf courses have carts with built-in GPS but if you and your golfing partner like to play from different sides of the course or the roughs, then having a personal GPS for the course is amazing.
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Talk about a sexy looking app. I personally like to read my news but this is and interesting model. I have only played with the app for 30 minutes but I swiping through articles and clicking to watch the video vs reading is nice. The volume of content is not enough for my liking but I like the concept. The app did crash on my at least 3 times. Check it out and let me know your thoughts [click to continue…]
I am never sold on new things without doing a bit of research. When I think about digital magazines, books, and newspaper delivery I think about cost savings. One would believe the publishers are able to realize cost savings with a digital distribution model. There are not mailing costs, trucks, ink, printing presses, paper, glue, or physical delivery costs. At the very least, I want to see the cost of a digital magazine equal to the cost of the print version. The hope for the consumer is to realize a cost savings going digital or paperless. The hope for the publisher is to realize huge profit margin increases if they can maintain the sale price and reduce the cost to produce and deliver the product. [click to continue…]
Rod and I have had a fairly large difference of opinion on how to get the best call quality. Quite frankly, I have tried EVERYTHING, no matter the cost. I have had every single Jawbone that has been released and ended up tossing them. Too hard to keep on. I have tried every brand and style that had any kind of good press. I even tried Rod’s favorite wired V-Moda headset and while the quality of sound was really good, it was torture to use them. I tried everything to try and get the fit, but my ears don’t respond well to stuffing something in them. But, last December, on a whim, I purchased a goof-ball looking headset that had really good reviews: The Plantronics Voyager Pro. It might help you look like a dork, but I have never used a headset that has performed so well under ALL conditions and while it is sort of odd to put something that big behind your ear, it is so comfortable that I hardly remember I have it on. It delivers great sound to my ear, but nothing is stuffed INTO my ear. It’s very easy to get on and off. Rod has me so conditioned, that within 10 seconds of ending a call, boom, off it comes! [click to continue…]
Ironically as I got my friend Jeff to buy an iPad so he could essentially have a digital magazine device he suckered me into me into a purchase of my own. As we passed the bluetooth headsets, he remarked about the MOTOROKR S9-HD that he had and how he liked them. Without thinking I picked up the box with the intention to buy and asked some basic questions. [click to continue…]
I stopped using bluetooth headsets about 5 years ago for several reasons. I was recently talking to Robb Dunewood about needing a new headset and he asked what I disliked about BT headsets. I went on my normal rant and he called me out. His point was valid considering I had not really used a BT headset in the last 5 years. I purchased the jawbone Icon Hero. Robb gave me the best endorsement of this product, this winter he was actively snow blowing while talking to me on his headset, and I could not hear the snow blower. [click to continue…]
I was chatting with Rod over the weekend and mentioned to him that I am again considering the iPad. He asked what I would use it for, and I told him that I had two main and one minor use in mind. First, I am still looking for the perfect platform for my Zinio digital magazine subscriptions. I have the Zinio client on my iPod Touch, and it does OK, but it is really hard to say what I would look like on a bigger screen. I thought that my Lenovo S10-3t convertible tablet would do it, but the 1024×600 screen just doesn’t work. At church on Sunday, a friend showed me the “prize” he had won at work in a raffle to raise money for a sick colleague: A 16MB iPad. We didn’t have a lot of time and the venue was totally inappropriate for anything further, but I was repulsed by the look of his apps. So, on Monday, after another appointment, I scooted to the nearest Apple Store, with the intent to spend an hour or so with the iPad and see if it was as bad as I had believed the day before. [click to continue…]
