Ultra-Minimalist Wallet - the Money-Band

I didn't think you could get more minimalist than an All-Ett, but the Money Band is as minimalist as you can go. It's a specially "sized" elastic band that will hold your wad and and a stack of cards, and it costs as much as a Venti Latte at Starbucks.



Myself, I'm not so much looking for a "holder" than a "holder" + a "protector", so I'll stick to All-Ett, thank you. My 1st generation health-card is so beaten up that it would die an ugly and instant death in one of these elastic band thingies.

7 Things I Don't Miss About My Windows Mobile Phone

1. The Task Manager - It's ridiculous how the battery will mysteriously drain on a WM phone. Usually it's the apps that don't close themselves when you switch applications. And to think, iPhone developers were in an uproar when Apple declared a rule that all apps had to quit when losing focus. Crazy!
   
2. The Mid-Call Crashes - No need to explain.
   
3. No Notes - The iPhone's Notes may not sync to the desktop, but at least the app is there, and it's free.
   
4. The Beachball of Doom - Not very different from the BeachBall of Doom on the Mac.
   
5. The Start Menu - Sorry, Microsoft - a phone is not a computer.
   
6. The Browsers - You really don't appreciate the iPhone until you spend about 5 minutes with the Browser.
   
7. The Home Screen - whoever at Microsoft thought that the My Outlook for Today page would make a great home screen for a phone should have been fired for even suggesting it.
   

Stephen Hawking Coming to Canada?

One thing is for sure, it would be awesome.

Ferarri Going Hybrid!

You know there really is a gas crisis when the maker of one of the world's finest gas-guzzling supercars announces that they are going hybrid.

Boy Genius: Blackberry Bold vs. iPhone

The Boy Genius's Verdict:

It really comes down to what you need more in a phone. While the Bold certainly has improved media and other consumer features, it really is a business device at the end of the day. The iPhone 3G is a consumer device that happens to play nice with a lot of corporations, and we honestly think you won’t find many people dropping their BlackBerrys for an iPhone. They’ll carry both as long as they can afford it.

iPhone... Finally!

Well, I managed to get my lily-white iPhone last night, and while I haven't had that much time to play with it, I am quite impressed with it already.

In terms of the iPhone's shortcomings...

• I don't use voice dial. I've had 3 other voice dial phones, and on each phone, I've had issues with recognition.
  
• Cut and paste isn't a priority for me
  
• Expandable memory is overrated. My Windows smartphone has expandable memory, and I expanded to only 1/8th of my iPhone's memory
  
• Built-in battery. I don't normally carry an extra battery on my Windows phone, which is dumber about power management than the iPhone
  
• No Stereo bluetooth support. If you care about your music, you probably wouldn't want bluetooth headphones anyways.
  
• No video camera. I rarely used the video camera on my last two phones. No major loss.
  

The best thing for me about the iPhone is one handed surfing of Google Reader. I can actually go through the stories faster than I can on a laptop! The usability and effective use of screen real estate kick my Eee's @ss to the curb.

Data and wifi access have been snappy. There are some "lulls" in application execution, but nothing worse than I've encountered in Windows mobile. I'm about 100 times more productive on my iPhone than I was on my Windows phone.

The only thing I wish the iPhone had was a hard keyboard. I'm learning to cope with the dodgy on-screen keyboard, but because I'm not an e-mail or texting freak, it's not a deal-killer for me.

I think that many of the iPhone's major shortcomings will eventually be addressed in a firmware/os update, but the one thing it has going for it today is the App store. There are a lot of quality apps selling for reasonable prices. While there is a lot of crap (i.e., ports from the Windows Mobile world), hopefully the insistence of Mac/iPod users for quality GUIs will force the "clue"-challenged devs into putting more consideration into user interfaces and interaction.

With respect to Windows Mobile: Windows Mobile fans have spent the last year mocking the iPhone about app support. Having been a Windows Mobile user for the past 3+ years, I have to call these guys out as idiots. There may be thousands of apps available for WM phones, but 90% of those apps are pure and utter garbage. The overall operating system usability of WM phones is weak at best, and if you ask me, people who are into WM-types of phones would be better served getting a Blackberry or waiting for an Android phone.

Oxford English Dictionary... in Limerick Form

Hoefler & Frere-Jones, an awesome type vendor (Obama's campaign artwork uses their Gotham font), has a nice article on the Oxford English Dictionary in Limerick form.

Think Twice about Parking at the Local GO Station

The Toronto Star has an interesting article on break-ins and thefts in the GO parking lots. Even more interesting (and amusing) are the comments on the article. The signal-to-noise ratio on these comments is surprisingly high. It definitely makes you think that there are more than 350 reported incidents per year.

It's scary enough with the mad dash to drive home from the GO parking lots (watching near misses of pedestrians at Unionville station in the afternoon could be considered a spectator sport), but now we've got to worry about our cars even being in the parking lots when we get there.

Good thing my wife doesn't mind dropping me off at the GO station every morning, otherwise I'd be stressing over the well being of my car.

MSI Wind Debuts to Positive Reviews

Engadget sees no reason to go with an Eee 901. Flattering indeed.

Mark Wilson:

So this brings us to the inevitable question, "should I get the Asus Eee 901 instead?" In full disclosure, I have not used an Eee 901. But I do know that it costs $100 more than the Wind. And looking at the spec list (which includes a smaller screen), I'm dumbfounded as to where that extra cost may have been utilized—solid state storage, I guess.

Kodak Zi6 Could Challenge Flip

Kodak's got a new pocket camcorder that could take on the Flip in the cheap camcorder market. For a measly $180, you can get a camcorder that records in 720p at 60 frames per second. Considering that you can expand it to 32GB and that it can run on AA batteries, I think I'd be inclined to try one out, just for laughs. Expect to see this bad boy in stores this fall.

Zing! Get Your Own Laser Engraver

The Epilog Zing will set you back $8000, but your jealous friends will be lining up to have you etch their gadgets.

First Shots of the Blackberry Thunder's Touchscreen

Crackberry has some exclusive pics of the Blackberry Thunder's touchscreen.

Looks impressive. If it works as promised, it will be an impressive phone. My only criticisms are the esthetics. The phone is, dare I say, utilitarian. The GUI is, dare I say, utilitarian. And what's with that handwritten font? I do not want to see Comic Sans on any phone! In all fairness, Apple has a similar font available on the iPhone. The SureType keyboard seems to be a smart keyboard implementation for using the touchscreen in portrait mode, although I'd like to see something like Tengo offered as an option as well.

Motion Sensing Sentry Paintball Gun

I'm pro-gun-control, but even I have to admit that this is cool. Some guy created a paintball sentry that aims based on any motion it detects. I can think of a bunch of security uses for this device... If I were him, I'd patent it and sell it to a military contractor or even better, the government.

Outsource Your Tailor

There are a couple of online businesses for men (and women) looking for bespoke clothing.

Indochino is a Canadian online company offering reasonably priced, tailored suits. Their prices are in the low to mid range, but their service offering is definitely interesting. You measure yourself (they've got video instructions on how to do this), and then they ship a suit to you. They have a satisfaction guarantee, and they'll give you $25 in credits to have adjustments made by your own local tailor, post-delivery. They seem to be pretty responsive to e-mail questions, and you can order free fabric swatches, which appear in about 3-4 days. I've ordered some of the swatches (although I haven't pulled the trigger on a suit), and their fabric seems to be of decent quality. Indochino makes menswear only.

Another source of clothing, Maxwell's Clothiers, operates on a slightly different model. A well-known Hong Kong tailor, Maxwell's sends fitters to hotels in major cities to perform fittings for men and women. Once you're fitted, you can order your clothing on an ongoing basis. I haven't tried them yet, but they were highly recommended to me by a colleague. The best thing is that they have a fitting in Markham this September, which means suburbanites like me won't have to schlep downtown to check out the wares.

Wired: Why iPhone Games Will Rule

Wired has some linkbait on why the iPhone will kick @ss as a gaming platform. Here are my thoughts on Wired's bullet points.

The iPhone's processor thinks almost twice as fast as the Sony PSP's brain.

The PSP thinks way faster than a Nintendo DS, but the Nintendo DS has sold way more units than the PSP, and the quality of the games have something to do with it. C'mon, you can do better than that!

Its touchscreen is more responsive than the Nintendo DS's, recognizing subtle finger taps, pinches, and spreads.

Overrated. When you touch the screen, you obscure a part of it with your finger. In my opinion, that takes away from the gaming experience. There's a reason why the touchscreen DS has dual screens.

The three-axis accelerometer, like the one in the Wiimote, could replace the thumbstick — Sega has already exploited this ability for an iPhone port of Super Monkey Ball.

Tilting the phone also tilts the screen, sometimes making it hard to see what's happening on the screen.

Wi-Fi could make for mean multiplayer mayhem.

And how is this different from the PSP and Nintendo DS?

Cell-tower triangulation could be used for location-aware games.

This could be a neat point, but will it make the iPhone rule as a gaming platform? Dunno about that.

In any case, there will be some good games on the iPhone, no doubt. Will the games be a hyberbolic leap forward, I highly doubt it. The writer of the Wired article forgets an important thing - the iPhone is a phone first and foremost. Do you think people really want to be draining their potential talk time for cpu intensive games?

Interesting Walmart Infographic

Flowing Data has an interesting interactive graphic of Walmart's expansion in America.