Reviews

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor for iPhone/Touch Review

The iPhone has continually proven it’s worth as a game platform. Many games ported from other platforms have done well while the iPhone interface has given a rise to totally new ideas. Some of these ideas are so inventive, putting the game down becomes next to impossible! Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor is imaginative, beautiful and addictive!!


Palm Pre App Catalog. 30 Apps in 30 Days. Day 23: The New York Times

Ever since I graduated from college with a degree in Journalism, I have tried to keep track of which newspapers have the best writing.  Consistently near the top of that list has been The New York Times (for the record, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, CNN, and the AP Newswire round out my personal top five).  So, I was pretty excited to find the New York Times app on my Palm Pre.


Spyderco Native Pocket Knife Review

Every year my family takes a week long vacation to visit my mother at her cabin in Maine.  We make it a habit of passing through Freeport, Maine on the way up to her house each year.  Freeport is not only is the home of L.L. Bean but it’s also the home to one of my favorite knife shops, the Freeport Knife Co. I am a collector of pocket knives and I carry one almost all the time either in my pants pocket or my turnout gear.  It’s a tool I end up using several times a day be it…


Palm Pre App Catalog. 30 Apps in 30 Days. Day 22: Shabbat Shalom

Tonight is Friday, which means it is the start of the Jewish holiday Shabbat, which is the Sabbath.  It begins at sundown on Friday and runs through sundown on Saturday.  Shabbat can be a very ritualistic holiday, with certain prayers and other activities which occur at specified times.  Of course, since nothing can ever be too easy, these times change based upon when sundown occurs.


Jolicloud OS Review

Netbooks are all the rage, and while Linux did start out on netbooks, it seems Microsoft has been getting the lion share of the shipments.  Well, if you have a netbook and are tired of Windows XP, but your hardware is too anemic Windows Vista or you don’t think you are geek enough for Linux, maybe you should try Jolicloud. Jolicloud is based on Ubuntu Linux, the Linux OS that is considered the easiest Linux distribution to use. It has been getting a lot of love from such sites as Lifehacker, PC Magazine and Cranky Geeks. How good is it?…


Palm Pre App Catalog. 30 apps in 30 Days. Day 20: FlightView

It is like a shared ritual.  We have all been there.  Your friend, mother, mother-in-law, or another random visitor is coming into town for a visit.  Your job is to meet them at the airport.  Unless you live across the street from the airport, this requires an incredible feat of timing and coordination.  Otherwise, your friend ends up standing outside baggage claim for half an hour…or you are driving around the terminal in endless circles (don’t even think about pulling over to catch your breath).  What you need is some app which will give you the status of any flight. …


Gorillatorch: Coming to a Dark Room Near You

I am a huge fan of the Joby Gorillapod, a fantastically flexible mini tripod.  It is one of my favorite gadgets for my camera.  Well, now the good folks at Joby have brought the latest in the Gorilla line, the Gorillatorch.  This is an ultra-bright light, mounted atop the same three flexible legs as the Gorillapod.  At the end of those legs are magnetic feet, which allow you to position the light wherever you need it most.  This would be the perfect solution for workshops, autoshops, and even camping.  Hit the jump for the full press release.


Olympus E-P1 Digital Pen Review (Part 1)

This is the Olympus E-P1 , the digital camera that set a million tongues wagging when it was announced. The first Olympus camera to be based on the Micro Four-Thirds standard co-developed with Panasonic, the E-P1 is supposed to be able to capture close to professional DSLR (digital SLR) quality photographs, in a form-factor barely larger than a compact point and shoot camera. The E-P1 is also one of the smallest digital cameras with interchangeable lenses. I’m not a professional photographer, and my experience with digital cameras has thus far been limited to point and shoots, so bear in mind…


Speck’s Updated CandyShell iPhone Case Review

Speck Products has been making cases and protective products for a wide range of laptops, mp3 players, and smartphones since 2001.  Earlier this spring we took a look at one of Speck’s newest cases, the CandyShell for the iPhone 3G and 3GS.  The CandyShell is an interesting concept with a hard plastic outer shell that slides nicely into and out of pockets and a softer interior that is intended to provide cushioning in the event of a drop or hard bump. Speck recently updated the CandyShell line with five new color combinations: BubbleMaker Pink, BatWing Black, AquaBerry Blue, WaxStick White,…


PhotoFunia for iPhone

I discovered PhotoFunia on my morning AppMiner hunt the day it was released.  Being a big fan of photo apps, it was easy to choose to download since it was free.  I usually shy away from web-based apps, but this one looked interesting enough to try out.  PhotoFunia is an iPhone port of an online photo editing application that can be found at photofunia.com. This app is simple and straight forward.  There is a list of photo templates to choose from.  Any new templates are at the top and labeled as new.  The number of styles and options is quite…


The New York Times Crosswords for iPhone and iPod Touch Review

I’m originally from Detroit. Recently, the city’s main newspapers stopped most home delivery of the paper. My mother was devastated. Why? Because she loved doing the daily crossword puzzle and doing it on the computer just wasn’t as convenient as sitting in your most comfortable chair with the paper folded up and a pen in your hand. So I mentioned that I was considering buying the NY Times Crossword puzzle app for my iPhone (she has an iPhone too). I told her it might be a reasonable replacement for her lost daily puzzles. So we both decided to check it…


Using the HP dV6 Laptop and Mini 110 Netbook in Tandem: Moving Back to Windows from Mac

all pictures are thumbnails; click them to enlarge Right before I finished up the HP Pavilion dv2 laptop review, I was sent a couple of boxes containing an HP Pavilion dv6z-1299lx and an HP Mini 110-1036NR. Even though I knew the purpose of the experiment which was about to happen, I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone in the world would need two laptops? The answer to that question is actually quite simple…


My Love/Hate Relationship with the E71x

Since late May, my main phone has been a Nokia E71x. It is my first Symbian phone, but I owned Nokia feature phones before and had good memories of them, so I was quite excited to get to know a smarter, fancier Nokia. I’d read good things about Symbian as well as bad ones. Universally, the hardware was praised, but the software reception was a good more lukewarm. My E71x and I have good days and bad days; last week I was ready to sing its praises to the world, this week I’m a bit more annoyed and seem to…


Review: HP Mediasmart LX195

The single biggest problem my wife and other family members have is making sure that their data is backed up.  The HP Mediasmart LX195 will help you make sure that data is safe and a while lot more. This server is based on Microsoft’s Windows Home Server.  It’s not my normal operating system of choice, but I think that Microsoft and HP have done a good thing here.  They have done something that is difficult with Linux.  They have made it extremely easy to setup a media server and a backup server all in the same tidy package.  Try as…


Review: Cy-Fi Wireless Sports Speaker Bluetooth

I was searching for a Bluetooth speaker system to use with my T-Mobile G1 and lo and behold  I came across the Cy-Fi Wireless Sport Speaker.  This nifty little speaker can attach  to the handlebar of your bicycle or motorcycle allowing you to rock out as you ride. This spacey looking speaker weighs only 5 ounces and is very slim.  You can slip it one of your pockets and use it indoors as well as on the bike.  It comes with a dock, power supply and 2 different brackets.  Probably the most shocking thing is that it comes with a…


Look Ma, No Hands… Using Jott Instead Of Typing

Using The iPhone To Get And Stay Organized – Part 2- Jott In part one of “Using The iPhone To Get And Stay Organized” I did a full review of reQall. While I love its powerful features and low price… it is always good to have choices. And Jott, well let’s just say Jott has a few neat tricks of its own. Yesterday Larry and I were emailing back and forth a bit… but neither of us were doing much typing. No, instead we were using Jott. With Jott you can select someone as a “Favorite”, tap their name, speak for up…



Navigon MobileNavigator for iPhone Review

A few weeks back I got a chance to take a look at the “Lite” version of Navigon – a version without turn-by-turn routing.  Now I’m back to take a look at the full North American version of Navigon MobileNavigator. Navigon, as one of the world’s leading navigation software companies, has a leg-up that is perhaps only matched by a few competitors like iGo (especially in Europe) and Tom Tom (who have yet to relase their iPhone product).  In the past, I’ve worked with Navigon on Windows Mobile, so let’s take a closer look now at the iPhone version!


Resident Evil 4 for iPhone Review

Back in early 2005 Capcom released the latest iteration of the Resident Evil series. The franchise had lost much of its luster as ports of the beloved original PlayStation games seemed to be just milking the franchise for cash. Fortunately,Capcom not only remembered what the series great, they also kept up with the trend of making large changes in each new release. Subsequently, Resident Evil 4 is the highest rated game and the best selling since the original title. It was successfully ported to the PS2 and Wii consoles, and also got an atrociously lazy port to the PC. Now…


Palm Pre App Catalog. 30 Apps in 30 Days. Day 17: SplashID

We have taken a look at SplashID several times before.  This is one of the great apps coming out of SplashData, who seems to have now come full circle.  They started out developing for PalmOS, moved on to Windows Mobile, iPhone, Nokia, and even several desktop platforms.  Well, now they have come back to their roots with Palm and their WebOS.  This is SplashData’s second app on the Palm Pre, following Infopedia. Now, some of you may recall that last week I briefly mentioned how I had tested SplashID and found it to be terribly buggy.  Heck, it would not…


Color Claw For iPhone Review

From the Developer: Color Claw is an iPhone app that allows the user to adjust the color of a photo using another photo to provide the desired colors. Color Claw can be used to: Remove the effects of artificial lighting Add life and color to photos Give an exotic look to pictures There are 3 steps to using Color Claw. Step One: Select Your Photo Select the photo you want to process. Step Two: Select Coloring Photo The Coloring Photo provides the colors for your ColorClawed photo. Step Three: Color Claw It! Step 3 processes and displays the ColorClawed photo.