Category: Review

These are the best shoes I own

After spending 10 hour days on my feet last week in Orlando, I can say that the Ecco Austin Oxfords are my favorite shoes. The leather is very soft and feels worn in the first time you slip them on. The back of the shoe is nicely padded and the heel is the right height. The only change I made to the shoe was replacing the laces with a more rigid pair making it harder for them to come untied.

As much as I like Cole Haan they are not nearly as comfortable as these which are on sale now at Nordstrom. I think I need a pair in black now.

Ecco Austin Oxford in Espresso ecco

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Bad bed at the Rosen Centre

I was in Orlando last week to attend to help support a conference. I stayed at the Rosen Centre Hotel located right next to the convention center where the conference was held.

On the last night of my stay, I jumped into bed to watch some television. As I rolled over on my bed something caught my shorts and snagged them. I looked down to find a metal spring sticking up through the mattress! I removed the sheets from the bed and noticed two large holes in the mattress.

I had two Queen beds in my room so I slept on the other bed that night. The next morning I returned to the lobby to check-out of the hotel. I mentioned to the women at the front desk that I got poked in the butt by one of their mattresses. She didn’t even look up from her computer screen.

She kept typing and finally said, “Oh that’s too bad. Sorry about that” as she handed me a bill for nearly $1200 for a 5-night stay.

If you need a place to stay in Orlando, I can’t recommend the Rosen Centre. Not only are their beds dangerous but they don’t seem to care about their guests.

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Kettler Pedal Car

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Our Kettler pedal car arrived today and our kids love it. Our neighbors have one that we had a hard time getting our kids off so we decided they might like their own. We got the Classic Flyer model from Amazon.

This pedal car is very well made, was easy to assemble and I like that the kids get exercise while driving it around our cul-de-sac unlike the battery operated cars that cost a lot more money. Kettler is a German company known for making high quality kids toys, fitness equipment and game tables among other things.

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My favorite music options at work

I like to listen to music for good portions of my workday. Some companies I’ve worked for don’t allow their employees to store mp3 music files on company owned equipment. But not all is lost due to some new options on the web. Here are three options I use at work:

Seeqpod calls itself the “playable search”. In other words it scours  the net for songs and makes them playable via the Seeqpod website. You can create and share playlists. Type in the name of your favorite artist and Seeqpod quickly searches for available songs. I searched for Pink Floyd and was presented with nearly 600 songs for my listening pleasure. This is a great service for those looking for a specific group or song and those who want control of their playlist.

seeqpod

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Slacker is great for discovering new music and for those that want to set a station genre and just let it play. This works well for those who don’t want to spend much time managing their music selections. Slacker has many stations to choose from and you can skip up to 6 songs per hour. I keep this on at work more than any others. The sound quality is quite good.

slacker

The Hype Machine is really cool which means it can’t be long before the RIAA tries to sue it into oblivion. This site goes out and searches for music blogs that review and  post mp3s file which it then adds to its library for you to search and stream. For example, I searched for Van Halen and was presented with a list of songs available for listening as well as links to iTunes and Amazon if I’m interested in purchasing.

hypemachine

Pandora was one of the first internet radio stations I heard of and has become one of the most popular. I still use it occasionally but not as much since I discovered Slacker. But you’ll be rewarded with excellent music once you take a few minutes to configure it with your favorite artists.

pandora 

These three are my favorite options for adding music to my work day but many others exist such at Last.fm and AOL Radio which offers over 200 free stations via XM. Give them all a try and see which works best for you. I think all of them have something to offer.

Note: iTunes also includes free radio stations but I didn’t include it here because it requires installing software and not all employers allow that.

Ducane Grill

ducaneUp until we bought a Ducane grill nearly two years ago, we didn’t grill very often. I’ve bought a couple of off-brand grills at Target and they worked well for a while but deteriorated after a couple of years. The steel outer cover and grill would rust and it would become very difficult to keep clean.

So I decided to spend a little more and get a Ducane stainless steel model. Both the outer cover and grills don’t rust now and it’s much easier to keep clean. There’s no porcelain to crack or paint to chip. I also like the grill itself is a bit wider than most but the entire unit is quite compact. We’ve only used the included rotisserie once as we usually grill burgers and steak.

We grill a lot more often since we bought the Ducane and I’m certain it will last us many more years.

The model shown above the 24-inch Three Burner Gas Grill available only at Home Depot for $719.

Pros:

  • Stainless make for easy cleanup and no rust
  • Wide grilling area
  • Temperature gauge on cover
  • Exquisite construction
  • Electronic igniters for every burner
  • Drip pan is easy to remove

Cons:

  • Expensive for size
  • Not much surface area
  • No place to hang grilling accessories
  • Cover not included

Summary: A top quality grill for those who demand 100% stainless construction.

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Griot’s Microfiber Drying Towel

Until today I’ve used a stand chamois to dry off my cars. The chamois works better than a regular towel, but I found a product that I like a lot better: Griot’s Microfiber Drying Towel.

dryingtowelIt’s just the right size at 25″x35″ and just sucks up water like a wet vac. It’s easily twice as fast and just as absorbent as my old chamois. It just glides along the paint picking up every drop of water in its path.

I won’t be going back to the chamois anytime soon.

The Prestige

 I finally got around to watching the Prestige on DVD tonight. The movie stars Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson. I enjoyed all the performances but especially those from Bale and Caine.

I’ll have to watch the movie again as there were many twists and nuances that are more completely uncovered during a second viewing. But the show was fantastic and highly entertaining.

ThePrestige

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How to cure Vista sidebar envy

googlesidebarSo you’ve decided to stick with Windows XP, but you’ve a little envious of the sidebar you’re friend is running on his copy of Vista? Well, you can get a sidebar of your own on XP that takes up far less memory than the one on Vista.

Up until last year I ran Desktop Sidebar. It’s a good product with a huge number of skins and plugins available. It also has a number of pre-installed plugins giving you a lot of functionality out of the box. If you want access to the largest number of plugins, this is the sidebar for you.

But my preferred sidebar application is called Google Sidebar. It also has a good number of plugins (Google calls them widgets) for nearly anything you’re after. It uses very little memory and is quite stable. I also like it’s simple design and stability.

My favorite plugins are the analog clock, desktop photos, Outlook calendar, desktop stocks, desktop to do, desktop system monitor, and desktop weather.

Vaja Case for Motorola Q Review

I’m a big fan of cases from Vaja. I purchased one for my iPod Video nearly two years ago and it’s held up very well while protecting my iPod. I recently purchased a Motorola Q and decided I needed a similar case to protect its handsome black exterior and screen.

I decided to see what cases were available for the Q and turned to Vaja first. You won’t find these cases at Target, Best Buy or the Verizon store. Vaja makes all their cases in Argentina from the best leather available. The downside is that all cases are custom built and can take several weeks to make and ship to you. The upside is you’ll have one of the very best cases available for your phone. If you’re looking for a cheap ten buck case, this isn’t going to be your cup of tea.

The Vaja website uses Flash for the case customization (see picture below). You are able to chose the leather type and colors as well as extras such as belt clips and personalization (name, initials, notes). I have no idea why anyone would want to add a note to the back of their case.

vaja

I decided on the basic black leather case for the Q called the classic. I selected the “Plain Aniline” leather option, black color scheme and passed on the belt clip and personalization. Total cost: $60. I then waited just over two weeks for the case to arrive via Fed Ex. It ships in a box that only Apple fans could appreciate. The box, instructions and enclosure are elegant.

I’ve been using the case now for about a week and I like it a lot. It fits the Q like a glove. In fact, it fits it almost too well because it’s very difficult to put on. This isn’t a big deal since I won’t be taking the case off very much if at all.

The Good:

  1. Top quality materials
  2. Tight fit, doesn’t slip
  3. Good screen protector
  4. Stitching is impeccable
  5. Looks fantastic

The Not So Good:

  1. Dust gets under screen cover
  2. Difficult to remove case
  3. Expensive

Conclusion:  A top quality case for those who are looking for stylish, well-designed case. A worth-while investment for those who tend to keep a phone for a couple of years. If you churn through new phones every six month it’s hard to justify the cost. But I highly recommend this case for the Q. From my experience with Vaja, you can’t go wrong with any of their products. They even has cases for the fancy new iPhone.

More Reviews of the Vaja case for the Q

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Windows Live Writer Review

Do you spend as much time formatting your blog posts as you actually writing them? WordPress is a fantastic blogging platform, but the included editor can be frustrating for those who would rather spend their time writing than mucking with formatting tags.

Over the past week I’ve spent a lot more time writing than mucking. This is due to the discovery of Windows Live Writer. Here are a few of the things I like the most:

  1. Setup – Getting up and running was a cinch. All I had to do was install the program, give it my blog address along with my username and password and I was off and running. Painless.
  2. Web Layout View – This pulls in the theme from your blog so that when you write, it looks just like your post will look. This lets me get the formatting down exactly how I want.
  3. Image Handling – I used to spend a lot of time trying to format my images. So much so that I’d usually give up or just post a standard, inline picture and call it good. Now I can create posts like this one utilizing multiple imagines that take no time at all. The on-the-fly image resizing is just plain slick.
  4. Performance – I don’t know how they did, but this is the first 3rd party editor that doesn’t upload as a snail’s pace. It posts content very quickly, even those with images.

There is a lot more to like in addition to the above such as the ability to insert tags, video, and maps from Windows Search Maps. The best compliment I can give any software is that it just works the way I work. And that’s how it is with Live Writer. It’s easy to use yet includes the advanced features more experienced bloggers have to expect. It’s actually fun to use.

screen1Here is the main area of Live Writer. Basic formatting tools can be found from the top while more advanced formatting and content tools are positioned off to the right. Microsoft has raised the bar on what we should expect from an editor.