The Gadgets Page

Mike Moon is a prolific video-blogger who entertains me almost every day. The other day, he made me laugh talking about a do-it-yourself underwater camera case he made:

“A three dollar jar and you get to eat the salsa that’s in it.”

You can see the video explaining the case and the results here:

• Moon Echoes: Underwater

Before you spend a couple hundred dollars on an underwater case, try some of the bottles you have in your pantry. You just might have a case for your camera waiting for you to finish eating the salsa and take it on a journey!

I have been very happy with iTunes. As long as I don’t let it reorganize my music files, I’m pleased as punch with it. It takes some time to load, though, and I don’t feel comfortable just leaving it running in the background. If you aren’t quite as happy with iTunes as I am, you might be interested in some software to manage your iPod. That’s what Mike at iPod Managers did. You can see his full review here:

• iPod Managers: Manage my iPod without iTunes

Mike did an in-depth review of each of the programs, but here is a quick overview from his weblog:

vPod: Really cool and original but very limited: 8/10
Load Time: less than 1 second

PoddoX: Pretty limited at this stage, but certainly the tool that best corresponds to what I was looking for when I started this comparison test, 10/10.
Load Time: less than 1 second

CopyTrans Manager: Apparently released just some days ago, but extremely promissing according to its speed and look and feel, 5/10 for the moment but will definitely get 10 when more stable.
Load Time: 3.2 seconds

Winamp: Perfect for Winamp fans (like me). A bit old-fashioned for the others. Two thumbs up for me, but you would probably give 7-8/10.
Load Time: 6.5 seconds

Ephpod: Sucks, 4/10.
Load Time: 7.5 seconds

Floola: Excellent interface, really user-friendly, very pleasant way to add songs to the iPod. Unfortunately, much too unstable at this stage of development. To be watched carefully, as it would get 10/10 if working.
Load Time: 1.5 seconds

Yamipod: Impressive for a free tool, simple, light, smart, portable. Too many features for me but will rock for most users, 9/10.
Load Time: 4 seconds

iPod Copy Manager: The two panes interface is an excellent idea but this tool is so buggy at this point that it cannot be used to manage an iPod on a regular basis yet. 1/10 for the moment, would easily get 10/10 if more stable, (much) smaller and, most of all, when it will feature a decent iPod navigation.
Load Time: less than one second

Songbird: Except if you have a very small amount of songs (less than 100), the listing of iPod songs is so slow that this application cannot reasonably be called an iPod manager at this point. Let’s hope the Songbird team will improve this as soon as possible. In the meantime, 1/10.
Load Time: 4.4 seconds

I had no idea there were so many people trying to compete with a free program from Apple. Since they added Smart Playlists (which are very much like the AutoDJ that I loved so much on MusicMatch), I have been so happy with iTunes that I never even considered looking for different software, despite the long load time (9.2 seconds). I guess Adobe Photoshop has trained me to expect long load times over the years and iTunes isn’t enough to push me over the edge looking for buggy software.

Beloved British artist, David Hockney, has noticed a fallow period of painting and he has placed the blame on the iPod.

• iPods to blame for total eclipse of the art, says Hockney – Technology

Speaking on the eve of his 70th birthday, Britain’s best-loved living painter said the proliferation of iPods – Apple has sold more than 100 million worldwide – and other digital music players has combined with a decline in art education to create a “fallow period of painting”.

“We are not in a very visual age,” Hockney said. “I think it’s all about sound. People plug in their ears and don’t look much, whereas for me my eyes are the biggest pleasure.

“You notice that on buses. People don’t look out of the window; they are plugged in and listening to something.

“I think we are not in a very visual age and it’s producing badly dressed people. They have no interest in mass or line or things like that.”

I find it interesting that he blames a device whose design could be considered a work of visual art itself for the decline of art. Painting isn’t the only visual art there is and it seems myopic to blame an MP3 player on a medium that is messy, not portable, and could burn your house down.

What about what Pixar is doing? Thousands of paintings that move together and create a beautiful and witty story aren’t good enough for Hockney just because they aren’t in oil or acrylic?

It’s not the medium, it’s the message. Just because people are trading in their oils for pixels doesn’t mean it’s not art.

Bad form, Mr. Hockney, bad form.

Via: iPod blamed for stealing the thunder from contemporary art – Engadget

At WWDC last week, Steve Jobs announced that they are creating Safari for Windows. It is available as Beta here:

• Apple – Safari 3 Public Beta – Download

I have read comment after comment about this release questioning why?

I’ll tell you why.

The iPhone uses Safari. If Apple wants to drive sales of the iPhone, familiarity with Safari will help. If Apple wants to encourage people that the iPhone can handle the web, familiarity with Safari will help that as well. In fact, if you’re using an iPhone and you want the bookmarks to be the same as your computer at home, your only option will be to use Safari on your home PC as well as your Mac.

Who knew the iPhone was going to be a Firefox killer?

This photo is significant. It’s not significant because it’s a snapshot of a guy on CalTrain with an iPhone taken 16 days before the phone is available. It’s significant because it was taken with a Treo 755p. This moment in time is the last one for Palm. It is the brief calm before the storm where Palm has a slew of products on the market and are dominating.

In a mere 14 days, that will start to change. The suggested 3 million iPhones that are supposed to hit the market on June 29th won’t be a significant number compared to the Treos already out there, but that is the day when things will change for Palm. Sadly, this photo represents the last moment in time when Palm had the upper hand.

It has been two years since I reviewed my Toastmaster Snackster. It was four years old back then, so now it’s six years old and still going strong.

• Gadgets Page » Review: Toastmaster Snackster

I can’t believe that a $20 gadget can feed me for so many years without breaking. It gets dirty, of course, and I clean it up, but for the most part it has been a stress-free method for making grilled sandwiches for a long time. When I made my cheese sandwich for lunch yesterday, I was surprised at how easy it was to use and the fact that it worked.

I kind of feel like I should write a song about how much I love my Toastmaster Snackster, but that would just be silly.

A song about my grilled cheese sandwich, however, is a perfectly cromulent idea:

If you like to play puzzle games like Tetris, Bejeweled or Pop-It, then you MUST get Planet Puzzle League. Right now. If you don’t own a Nintendo DS yet, buy yourself one because Planet Puzzle League is the game that you’re going to carry around with you and play when you’re stuck in a line at the DMV or waiting for people to show up. You can play a game quickly or play many games if you have the time.

I already had Puzzle League on a GameBoy Advance game bundled with Dr. Mario. I bought Planet Puzzle League because I thought it would be fun and I wouldn’t have to use that huge GBA game that sticks out of the bottom of my DS. All I was expecting was the same game, but I got a whole lot more.

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If you were thinking of selling off your Playstation 2 because you’ve been playing with your Wii so much, hold on to it. Guitar Hero is releasing another episode in their series of games: Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80’s. This one is for all of you who were teenagers in the 80’s. Here’s the song lineup:

• “Hold On Loosely” (as made famous by .38 Special)
• “No One Like You” (as made famous by Scorpions)
• “Only a Lad” (as made famous by Oingo Boingo)
• “Radar Love” (as made famous by White Lion)
• “Ballroom Blitz” (as made famous by Krokus)
• “The Warrior” (by Scandal)
• “What I Like About You” (as made famous by The Romantics)
• “Wrath Child” (as made famous by Iron Maiden)
  
• “18 and Life” (as made famous by Skid Row)
• “Bathroom Wall” (as made famous by Faster Pussycat)
• “Lonely is the Night” (as made famous by Billy Squier)
• “Nothing But a Good Time” (as made famous by Poison)
• “Play With Me” (as made famous by Extreme)
• “Shaken” (as made famous by Eddie Money)
  
• “Synchronicity II” (as made famous by Police)
• “I Wanna Rock” (by Twisted Sister)
• “I Ran” (by Flock of Seagulls)
• “Round and Round” (as made famous by Ratt)
• “I Want Candy” (as made famous by Bow Wow Wow)
• “Metal Health” (as made famous by Quiet Riot)
• “Holy Diver” (as made famous by Dio)
• “Heat Of The Moment” (as made famous by Asia)

If you missed the 80’s the first time around, make sure you study these videos and stock up on lip gloss.

Via: Eight more tracks from Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s – Joystiq

At the WWDC07 keynote, they showed this video before Steve Jobs came out on stage. It seems to be the only thing that anyone was excited about at the keynote.

This isn’t the first time they have made this joke:

Or even the second:

Maybe Safari 3 for Windows IS the most exciting thing from the WWDC07 Keynote…

I wrote before about Watch 2.0, but it still wasn’t perfect.

• Gadgets Page » Watch 2.0 is out of Beta

Once I started working with beads, I was able to start on Watch 3.0. I have finally perfected it and I’m extremely happy with the outcome. The complete pattern is here for you to enjoy!

If you’re not crafty, but would like to buy a watch like this, please visit my store on Etsy:

• Etsy :: Pink Beaded Watch

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