Dr.Drang tells the story of a Mac clone that was in service from 1995 until 2012 (if you haven’t had your coffee yet, that’s 17 years). Who says that knock-offs have to be cheap?
Hardware
19
Jan 12
Freud’s Chair
I love the look of Freud’s chair from this BoingBoing article. But I have to wonder what future generations would think of the Verte chair I am sitting in right now.
17
Jan 12
Das Keyboard for Mac
I have a Das Keyboard. It’s one of the best feeling keyboards I’ve ever used. But I had to stop using it because it was so loud. Be aware. It is very loud. Unless you work in an isolated environment a co-worker will attempt to bludgeon you with your Das Keyboard. They do make a silent version of the PC keyboard. I didn’t see a listing for a silent Mac version
By way of the internet
14
Jan 12
Going Mute
There’s a good round of discussion about the appropriate way to implement a mute switch. Gruber favors the current design. Andy doesn’t.
I agree with Gruber on this one. According to Andy’s design, I would have to go in and manually disable all audible alerts in the settings every time I wanted to use an alarm. Otherwise, the damn phone would be dinging every few minutes from incoming email. Yes, I have audible email alerts. It’s handy since I’m responsible for some important systems staying online and there’s no way in hell I want a pager.
UPDATE: Dr.Drang has the same exact argument. I’d also like a mute function that was time specific. For example, always mute the phone from 10pm to 6am.
9
Jan 12
Thunderbolt and SSD? Yes, Please
OCZ has announced a Thunderbolt connected 1TB SSD. I think this is the first viable portable OS in your pocket.1 I’d love to have a dumb CPU box with a Thunderbolt connector waiting for an SSD with an OS installed. It’s like portable Slax, but actually usable by ordinary people.
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The iOS is a portable computing device but it is not a portable computer in my opinion. ↩
29
Nov 11
Griffin PowerDock Dual [Review]
I purchased the PowerDock Dual from Amazon[1] to help cleanup the family charging stations. 2 iPhones, 2 iPads and 2 laptops all charging in one creates an overwhelming tangle of little white cables. Unfortunately the PowerDock Dual is poorly designed and just creates more problems than it solves
The concept is great. The PowerDock holds one iPad and one iPhone with small coin dish between them. It looked like a smart solution. In practice, the iPad holder is awkward and the entire thing is out of balance.
How does it fit?
The iPhone is held in place tightly and fits well. The problem is with the iPad slot. It simply does not fit the iPad 2 with a smart cover on. The railing that sits in front of the lower front edge is too close to the dock connector. In order to get the iPad onto the stand, I am forced to remove the cover. So instead of cleaning up our charging station I now have to set the iPad cover next to the charger.
In addition to the poor design of the iPad holder, the base of the device is not weighted. If I attempt to just charge my iPad, then there is a very real possibility that the entire arrangement can flip over backwards. So basically, Griffin added the coin dish so that a customer can weigh it down with miscellaneous ballast from their pockets.
How is it as a charger?
Good. That was actually a selling point. The charger delivers 5W for the modern power hungry iOS devices to charge fast. It can charge an iPhone 4S and iPad 2 just as quickly as the Apple charger.
How does it look?
Ugly. It looks and feels like plastic. It’s a combination of black plastic and shiny clear polycarbonate adapters. It’s not something I would keep out for its aesthetic value. However, it is a utilitarian object and not intended to be decorative. Griffin lives up to the expectation.
Conclusion
I have a bit of buyers remorse. It’s not very good. It will most likely end up on my nightstand for the occasional overnight charging needs. I’m still looking for something to use daily on an end table. I probably will not try any other Griffin chargers.
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Associate link ↩
17
Nov 11
SoundSticks III [Review]
While the built-in speaker on my iMac is quite nice it’s not sufficient for listening to music or podcasts, especially if I want to listen from another room. Over the years I’ve heard nice things about the SoundSticks but never had a reason to “upgrade”. Well, I finally needed to reclaim my SoundWorks radio from my office and decided to give the SoundSticks III a go. I’m glad I did.
Getting It
Harmon Kardon lists the SoundSticks III at $169. I purchased mine from Amazon 1 using my prime account and received them within the anticipated 2 days.
The speakers arrived in a well protected cocoon of cardboard. It wasn’t as elegant as Apple packaging but it was still well thought out and was not frustrating to separate from the prize inside.
Sound Quality
They simply sound great. The audio spectrum is full enough for my needs and with the bass on my large 1950′s wooden desk, I get deep rich lows. The tech specs list the response range as 44Hz-20kHz, which is pretty standard for bookshelf speakers. Even with the volume turned up, they sound good and project into the adjacent rooms. Since the bass is a reflective speaker it works best when sitting on a solid uniform surface. I would not place this unit on a carpeted floor or on any other strongly sound absorbing material.
Appearance
They look like the classic SoundSticks, which is to says, they look futuristic. They at made of clear polycarbonate that are meant to showcase the elegant design of the system. It does that. The bass speaker is dome shaped and is intended to be a center piece. This philosophy is made evident by the constant bright white light that radiates from the interior of the bass speaker. It shows well, but honestly, I think it’s a bit too bright and a bit too cheesy.
The satellite speakers also look a little alien but their diminutive size belays a large sound. While I hide the bass speaker away behind my iMac, I have the satellite speakers out in the open. This is not only to provide better stereo separation, but because they compliment the iMac.
These are meant to be seen and heard. They are awkwardly shaped and have limited speaker wiring to separate the satellites from the bass unit. If you want these on a bookshelf, they will stand out and take up a lot of space. They are really designed to fit in with your computer and compliment the design.
Features
When I first connected the speakers I was very disappointed with the maximum volume. I’ve never been the kind of person to read a manual and in this case, it was to my chagrin. The SoundSticks ship with the volume low. The volume controls are small touch sensitive pads on the right speaker. It was obvious after reading the manual but the controls are somewhat hidden in plain sight. That said, they look attractive and are convenient to use. Most of the time I use the keyboard volume controls on my Mac, but if I just want to walk in and turn down the volume, they are easy to access.
In addition to the touch controls, there’s a separate volume control for the base speaker. This provides a bit of custom control over the audio quality. I don’t like a lot of bass in my music and would be frustrated by anything that did not allow me to change it.
Complaints
I don’t have any serious complaints. These are great for the price. I did try plugging in my iPhone 4S directly and was met by some strange alien artifacts in the audio channel. I did not pursue using a dock connector.
The only other warning I can give is that the satellite speakers use a custom connector. If you are thinking about wiring these up to span across a room, forget it. It’s not worth it to buy this setup and Frankenstein it into something it was not intended to be. These are desktop speakers. They are attractive and sound good at close range.
That’s about it for features. These are not meant to be feature rich but rather sound rich.
Conclusion
- They sound good
- They’re awkwardly shaped
- They are just speakers
- They look good
- They’re reasonably priced
- I like them
- I’m using my Amazon associate account. If you buy it from that link then I’ll get a small kick-back ↩
26
Oct 11
iPhone Cases [Review]
The iPhone is a beautiful yet fragile piece of technology. I love the feel of it. It has a satisfying heft and the glass allows it to slide easily from my fingers into my pocket. Unfortunately there’s a cost to the sleek design. The iPhone 4(S) appears to have a much greater affinity for the ground than for my hand. The obvious solution is to put it into a protective case.
Hard Cases
I’ve used several cases for my various iPhones. My first case was the Vaja case for my first generation iPhone. It was a luxurious case with a leather outer skin and a clamshell design as well as a steep price tag. The biggest flaw was that I chose the optional belt clip connector. That meant that the case had a protruding pin on the back of the case. That also meant that it was a risky endeavor to put the case in my pocket.
The next hard case was a generic polycarbonate case for my wife’s iPhone. Her phones appear to have a much greater coefficient of gravity so she needed a case that could actually protect the phone from a reasonable impact. She liked the case, but eventually decided she did not like the added bulk. I think if someone has a case on an iPhone, the worst thing to do is to take the case off. Once the case is removed, it is quite noticeable how sleek a naked iPhone is. There’s no going back.
Skins
So a hard case adds too much bulk. Apple has yet to add a portable force-field generator to the iPhone. I’m sure we will hear about that in the next round of iPhone rumors. Until that day, one option for mitigating the fragility of our iPhones is to reduce the chance that they might slip out of our hands.
While the glass makes for a great scratch resistant surface, it also makes it very slippery. The obvious solution is to make it a little less slippery. A 3M skin accomplishes this very well. The only variations in these skins are in the art work. The material is consistently high quality and bubble free when applied. They reduce the slickness of the phone just enough to increase my grip on the phone, but not so much that it does not easily slide in and out of my pocket.
I’ve purchased skins from Gelaskins and Etsy.com but I much prefer the skins from Infectious.com for their art style. This David Lanham skin is one of my favorites. I also love this Gummi Anatome skin from Gelaskins (also available as a Magic Trackpad and Apple TV skin).
Bumpers
I’ve never been much of a fan for iPhone bumpers. They always felt awkward and seemed to provide little protection. However, I recently purchased the Apple bumper for my iPhone 4S and I am quite happy with what it has to offer. The bumper provides it’s own buttons that interact with the iPhone buttons underneath. This solves one issue that bothered me with other bumpers and hard cases: The solid and high quality buttons of the iPhone were covered with a generally inferior bumper or skin.
The Apple bumper buttons (say that five times real fast) feel like the iPhone buttons. The volume buttons and power button are both covered with a chrome button provided by the bumper. The buttons feel solid.
The bumper itself is very thin and still makes the iPhone easy to slip in a pocket. There is very subtle rubberization to the front and back edge of the bumper but the sides are made of glossy polycarbonate. I can set my iPhone on my slanted surface without it sliding off and crashing to the floor.
The only downside to the bumper is that the headphone jack is slightly more recessed (remember the first generation iPhone). This means that studio headphones will not work while the bumper is on the phone.
Wood
You read that correctly. I now have wood covering my iPhone 4S. It’s somewhere between a skin and a case. Slightly thicker than a skin but much thinner than a case. The wood skin is made by Trunket from real reclaimed wood. I purchased mine through Amazon and received it in just a few days for $38 (I purchased the Black Rosewood model and combined it with a black Apple bumper).
The Good
The Trunket is very thin for being made of wood. In fact, it’s somewhat fragile until it is installed on the phone. Once installed it adds perhaps 1mm to each face of the device.
Because the Apple bumper fits over the plastic bezel on the phone, it can be used in conjunction with the Trunket. The combination of the Trunket and Apple bumper look completely natural. It looks like it could have been an actual iPhone design.
The Bad
The phone feels slightly larger. Not much, but noticeable. I’ve been using the iPhone with just a 3M skin since it arrived and I have grown accustomed to it’s svelte feel in my hand.
The home button on the front feels slightly more recessed. It’s noticeable and somewhat distracting. I imagine I’ll get used to in a few days.
The Conclusion
I don’t like cases but I also don’t like a fragile piece of wet expensive soap in my hand. It’s all about trade offs and a slight increase in size for a much more durable and manageable iPhone that still easily fits in my pocket is well worth it.
25
Oct 11
ScanSnap to iOS
I’m a huge fan of my ScanSnap scanner from Fujitsu. I’ve had mine for about 4 years and it’s still working great. Fujitsu just announced an update to the ScanSnap line that allows it to scan documents to their new cloud service. There is also support for SugarSync now too. Pretty nice for a 4 year old scanner.
11
Oct 11
iPhone 4S Shipping
I received the notification yesterday. Two things strike me. The product is named “World Ease” on the tracking page and Apple and UPS have some amazing coordination. 1M units are, in theory, traveling by a similar route all over the country and due to arrive on the exact same day.
9
Oct 11
Stuff-It Cloth [Review]
The future is smudged. Multi-touch is rapidly becoming the dominant form of UI interaction and an unfortunate side effect is the ever present finger smudge. A low-tech solution is to carry around a microfiber cloth. However, sometimes they can be hard to keep track of or get buried at the bottom of a messenger bag. That’s where the Carson Stuff-It microfiber cloth comes in handy. It can be had for about $4 on Amazon and is much better than carrying around a stray cloth. There are three different colors available if that is something that is important to you.
The high quality lens cloth tucks inside of a neoprene bell. The bell has a drawstring that secures the cloth, as well as a clasp for attaching the package to a a bag. For example, I use the Breve from Tom Bihn for my iPad and the Stuff-It attaches easily to the strap. The cloth is rather small, but sufficient for it’s intended purpose. I also have another one for my laptop bag. For only $4 these are a great accessory to our new multi-touch lifestyle.
7
Oct 11
Looking Forward To 64GB
My current 32GB iPhone 4:
This is after moving photos and video off of the phone. Earlier in the week Instacast could not download anymore podcasts since I had run out of available space. Many of those 160 apps are single use tools, like IMDb, Hipmunk and AroundMe. I don’t use them everyday, but then again, when I need them, I’m glad I have them on my phone.
7
Oct 11
Encoding Is Hard Work
This is on a 2011 iMac 2.93 GHz Intel i7 with 8GB of memory. Encoding one disk. While the MacBook Air is very nice, I think I’ll still keep a desktop machine around for times like this.
5
Oct 11
The Best Camera Is The One You Have
There’s plenty of coverage for the latest Apple iPhone announcement so my round-up is not needed. However, there seems to be very little excitement about the new camera. Most of the press seems to be disappointed. I look at it differently. If Nikon announced a new point and shoot camera with f2.4 and 8 megapixels that could remotely post to any photo service and generate greeting cards, the media would probably go nuts.
I use my iPhone 4 as a music player, camera and GPS unit. I rarely use it as a phone. I plan to get the 4S just because it’s a better camera and a faster GPS device (A5 dual core). I don’t think I could ask for much more than that out of a new iPhone.
The Camera
I have a DSLR and an iPhone 4. 90% of my photos and videos are taken with the iPhone. It’s the device I carry everywhere. It’s not bulky and awkward to carry. I can edit and send photos directly from the iPhone. It’s the best camera I have. I only use the DSLR for special occasions and when I want to use my f1.8 lens. The iPhone 4s camera will give me more options and probably take over even more of my photography work. An f2.4 lens in a phone is just amazing. If a future iPhone gets an f1.8 lens then I doubt I will ever use my DSLR.
Photo Quality
I recently digitized a large number of my childhood photos. One thing that stuck me was how bad photo quality was in the 70′s. Many of the photos were Polaroids and either did not age well or were never very good. Here’s the thing: they’re still great memories. What makes great family photos are the memories not not the camera. Of course blurry and out of focus photos are still bad, but grainy and washed out photos of my 4th birthday are still nice to show my daughter. My iPhone camera has enabled me to capture a lot more of those memories for my daughter.
29
Sep 11
Jambox Update
I really do love my Jambox speaker from Jawbone. It sounds good for its diminutive size. Jawbone just updated the firmware (how many speakers have a firmware?) and added a new audio mode. The only real pain int he update process is that I am required to download and install a menubar application. I then need to connect the Jambox and launch a Web site. I then must login to the mytalk.jawbone.com Web site and update the firmware. That’s a lot of steps to update a speaker.
On the bright side, there are actually some nice options for the Jambox. The new audio mode, called LiveAudio, adds a bit more separation to the sound. It does sound a bit better, but this is still a small speaker. Additionally the Jambox has another option for increasing the sound quality but at a reduction to the maximum volume. I have not noticed a difference with this mode.
Most of the other “Extras” are just pumping third party apps and services that are not specific to the Jambox. The Web site feels cluttered and awkward. I would have preferred a standalone application rather than a bunch of ads for cheap junk. Honestly, this is not an inexpensive piece of kit and the up-sell feels a little unseemly.
