The Materialists

About a year ago, shortly after the Kindle 2 came out, I bought one. I commute about an hour each way, and I figured the Kindle would be an easy way to have books to read with me as I sat on the train. A year later, I’ve found that I only use it occasionally, and almost never on the train. Instead, I find that my iPhone ends up being the reading device of choice on those long rides.

What’s wrong with the Kindle? Most of my reading on the train is newspapers and magazines, which are automatically downloaded wirelessly to the device every night. Unfortunately, the technical wizardry ends here. The content itself misses a huge opportunity to take advantage of some of the great social features work well for articles on the internet. Viewing the most popular articles, sharing, getting live article updates — all are unavailable on the Kindle. The New York Times application for the iPhone, on the other hand, can sort by categories, show the most emailed stories, and instantly post to Facebook, Twitter, email or a few other sources. If I want to email an article from my Kindle, I’m out of luck.

Hopefully the forthcoming Kindle app store will allow third-party developers to build better and more interactive applications. Until then, I’ll keep reading NYT and other news sites on my iPhone.

Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card, $50 (4GB)

Let me start by saying I’m super obsessive about keeping my photos organized, backed up and accessible anywhere (which is interesting because I’m not a very organized person in most other things). At any given point, all my photos are synced to about 5 computers, backed up online in 2-3 places, and viewable from a web photo gallery. I have many thousand pictures from about 10 years and they’re all organized and cataloged.

The premise of the Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card (Amazon link) is to make this whole process easier by wirelessly uploading your pictures to your computer and any online site you choose, just by turning the camera on. Since all the magic is in the card, it works with [pretty much] any digital camera that takes SD cards.

When I first got it, I’ll admit, I was skeptical. It did the uploading part fine, but I didn’t really see how this would actually save me any work — I still had to catalog the photos and upload them to various locations and computers. But as I set up the software, I quickly realized this was going to be a HUGE timesaver. With one quick setting, I could have the Eye-Fi send my pictures not only to my computer, but also to the online backup site I use (which happens to be Gallery2). The more I took pictures, the more I realized how much easier it was to just turn the camera on when I got home, and let the pictures flow automatically to several places at once.

So basically, this ended the days where my camera had hundreds of pictures sitting on it, waiting to be hooked up to the computer and moved to the right place. Now, the pictures go there immediately, and I just have to move them to the right folders. They’re backed up and available anywhere, effortlessly. In fact, I took some pictures the other day with an old SD card, and it’s frustrating having to find the cord, hook it up, and do all the transfers myself.

There only drawback I’ve found so far is that, while small, the Eye-Fi will drain the battery on your camera a bit faster since it is set to automatically seek out wireless networks and connect to them. So bring your charger just in case if you’re going on a long trip. I ended up missing the last few shots of a ski trip because my battery was dead. A friend had a camera too, so it wasn’t a big deal, but going forward, I’ll just make sure to charge every night or two when I’m taking a lot of pictures.

Overall, awesome product. If you’re looking for the best way to manage a huge set of pictures, I suggest using Google’s Picasa Web Albums, since they let you store online and it also works great with the Picasa desktop program. If you sign up for one of their $50/yr+ plans, they’ll even give you a free card. If you want a little bit more geeky of a solution, check out the post on my other blog, The Holy Grail of Photo Management. I wrote it before I had the Eye-Fi, so some of the steps there are even easier now.

Good luck!

Desktop Trebuchet Catapult, $38

I’m obsessed with projectiles. I’ve built potato cannons, slingshots, Bic pen BB shooters and too many other random launchers to count. A few weeks ago, I saw a show on the History Channel that demonstrated trebuchets, which are a medieval device used to fling stones, boulders and rotting corpses at and over cannon walls. After the show, I vowed to someday build a life-sized on in my backyard. But I had to start small.

As an engineer, the physics — levers, ropes and torques — behind a trebuchet are pretty interesting to me, so I wanted to find a kit that I could build in my small apartment. Amazon showed a few kits that seemed to fit the bill, so I put it on my Christmas list. The one I ended up getting was from ThinkGeek, but they are similar.

Putting it together was 30% the fun, shooting it at my fiancee while she studied was definitely the other 70%. It shoots surprisingly far for such a small contraption, and works really well.

If you’re even a little bit technical, a web hosting account is essential. Great features like blogs, email address lists, photo galleries, online backup, personalized email addresses, personal websites and more are all quick and easy with a basic hosting package from many hosting companies on the internet.

I signed up for Dreamhost about 3 years ago with Mike (the other Materialist) and couldn’t be happier with the features and service. Rather than rattling off a list of features (which you can find here if you’re curious), I’ll just give a quick rundown of what I use:

• Image hosting — every picture I take gets uploaded to my online photo gallery. DH has unlimited space, so I don’t have to worry about resizing pictures. I use Gallery2, but ZenPhoto is also available and looks nicer/is a little more user friendly. Both of these can be installed in 30 seconds and 1-click.
• Backup — although it’s not designed as a backup (and they’ll potentially yell at you if it looks like you’re just dumping a bunch of files on the site), you can use DH to store another copy of your important stuff
• Email — I don’t like typing out a bunch of addresses when I want to email groups of family or friends. Dreamhost lets me easily create mailing lists, so to send a message to my family, I just send it to family@my_site_here.com and it goes to everyone. I also have a few domains, so mail sent to aj@[whatever site], for example, just gets forwarded so that I don’t have to check multiple inboxes
• Personal site — if you want to create a basic personal site (resume, contact info, etc), very easy to do with DH
• Wiki — I have a personal, private wiki set up that I use to manage all sorts of random life information that I don’t want to forget or lose. Things like Christmas card lists, frequent flier numbers and other info are great to just dump in a wiki and always have it handy. Wiki’s are also 30-second, 1-click installs.

There are also *many* really great nerdy features that I won’t get into (SVN, DNS, shell account, mysql, unlimited domain hosting, etc) that you’ll definitely want to read about on the features page if you’re into.

Overall I highly recommend Dreamhost for all sorts of random web needs. It’s not the fastest or best performance service out there, so I might not host a mission critical business on there, but for something around $8/month for unlimited storage, it’s hard to go wrong. Shared with another person, it’s even less.

There really isn’t too much to say about these, other than the fact that they are colorful, simple, and work way

Rabbit Wine Bottle Stoppers, $5

better than jamming the cork back into a half-drunk bottle of wine. They make a great gift or stocking stuffer, and look a lot better than a stained cork sticking out of the bottle. I got a set for my girlfriend, and she gets compliments from guests (who want one!) every time she uses them.

Made by the same people who make the Rabbit corkscrew.

Logitech Harmony 670 Univeral Remote

I just [finally] got my TV/stereo/AV system set up, and I ended up with 5 remote controls. The TV, Blu-Ray player, receiver, cable box, and computer all had their own handheld. The cable box remote could control the volume on the TV, and the TV remote could control the Blu-Ray player, but that was about it as far as overlap was concerned. Watching a movie literally took 3 different remotes and 3 different button sequences. It was annoying, and worst of all, didn’t really fit the high-tech setup I was going for with my electronics.

I had been looking for a Logitech Harmony for a while, since I had heard they were the best when it came to controlling everything. I saw the really expensive ($350!) Harmony 1100 but didn’t really want to spend that much for a fancy touchscreen. When I saw the Harmony 670, I decided to give it a shot and see if it would be better than the other weak remotes I had tried in the past.

Out of the box, you run a setup wizard on your PC or Mac which asks you about your devices and what needs to go on or be set up for activities like watching a movie or listening to the radio. I set up 5 modes in the software — Watch TV, Listen to iPod, Listen to Radio, Watch Movie and Watch Computer — and then updated the remote over USB.

I was absolutely amazed at how well it worked. Coming from “universal” remotes that only have the most basic functionality, I was astounded that the Logitech had *every single* feature that my old remotes had. They really spent some time getting the devices working. Even my old Keyspan Digital Media remote, which I bought 10 years ago to control my computer, worked perfectly out of the box with the Harmony 670.

If you have a lot of AV components, this really will be one of the best purchases you can make. It’s simple to set up (even has an on-remote ‘Help’ menu for when the guests can’t figure out how to turn on the TV), extremely powerful, and very customizable. Most importantly, it has that ‘cool’ factor that will really tie your system together and impress people that come over and see it.

I purchased this unit on Amazon after reading many positive reviews from the product page, as well as another that I found through Google that showcased the accuracy of the AlcoHawk Slim by pitting it against a police breathalyzer and hitting it right on the mark every time.

AlcoHawk Slim Breathalizer, $55

It’s a simple product to use; simply push the only button on the device, wait for the countdown to complete, and then take a deep breath and blow until the unit beeps. At this point it will show your BAC on a monochrome, easy to read LED display. That’s literally all there is to it until the unit requires recalibration (I think every year or two, I haven’t gone through the process yet).

As far as the negative reviews that I have seen: yes, it takes a little while to warm up (40-120 seconds, usually on the lower end of that), and you certainly have to take a deep breath out to make sure you have enough air to blow to get a reading (it will warn you if it was not a big enough breath), but the product works great and the price can’t be beat.

Around $50 for a reliable breathalyzer is a small price to pay in my book. It provides a lot of entertainment at parties (everyone will want to try it), and can save you (or someone you might hit) from a DUI by letting you verify that you’re as sober as you think you are before getting behind the wheel.

Supposedly the AlcoHawk Pro ($140) has a quicker startup time, and also carries with it a DOT certification for alcohol level screening. Personally, I worry about the life of my unit if I leave it in the car in the Texas sun, so I think a more readily replaceable $50 unit is a better fit, and it has always worked great for me!

Holux M-241 GPS Logger, $65

File this one under “cool toys you didn’t know you wanted” — the Holux M-241 GPS data logger. What is it and why do you want one? Basically, this baby clips to your belt and takes a GPS reading every 5 seconds or so (you can configure how frequent it saves, so if for some reason you want a longer interval, that’s fine too).This is amazing for vacations, runs, hikes or any other time where you want to later to pull up a map and see where you’ve been. Even cooler, you can link up your path with photos you take: for example, just set the time on your digital camera to the same time as the logger, and then run the included program. It will add the latitude/longitude data to all of your pictures, and there are a ton of photo apps now that can take advantage of this data. The newest iPhoto has a “browse by map” feature where it will show you a map overlayed with the points that all of your pictures were taken. It has Bluetooth too, but I don’t know exactly what that adds — at the very least it can sync wirelessly with Bluetooth computers. Some people online have reported success making it work with smartphones like the Treo, but your mileage may vary.

I put this on the Wish List recently when I was in Rome — I took about 500 pictures all over the city, and we wandered around hundreds of small streets, and it would have been amazing if I had a GPS Logger so that I could see exactly where we wandered and where all the miscellaneous pictures were taken.

The Holux logger can store up to 130,000 points, so by my count that just over 7 complete days of logging, if you decide to have it on 24 hours/day. It has the ability to figure out speed from the points (using software) and takes AA batteries so you don’t have to worry about running out of juice and not being able to recharge.

The photo world is quickly moving to geotagging everything, and this is definitely a step in the right direction. Soon, every digital camera that you buy will have the ability to save the location data along with each picture. Until then, check this out to add a whole new dimension to your travel mementos.

Citi mtvU Visa Card

If you’re a student, there is only one credit card to get — the mtvU card from Citi. Although the card itself looks kinda stupid (who really wants to put down a card that says MTV on it at a nice restaurant), the ridiculous points system more than makes up for what the card lacks in plop-down panache. Check out these insane features:

• Up to 2000 ThankYou Points per semester for maintaining a good GPA
• 25 ThankYou Points per month for paying your bill on time and not exceeding your credit limit
• 5 ThankYou Points for every $1 spent at restaurants–including fast food–bookstores, music stores, video rental stores and movie theatres
• 1 ThankYou Point for every $1 spent on all other purchases

There are some more cool features, like automatic extended warranty (which I’ve used with success on American Express cards but not Citi cards), but you’ll have to click on the image above to see them all at Citi’s site. For me, the only thing that really matters is perk #3 — FIVE points for every $1 at restaurants. If you’re like most college students, a huge chunk of your expenses comes from eating out, so getting quintuple rewards is a pretty huge benefit.

But what do rewards give you? Check out www.thankyou.com for all the details, but what I typically look at are the $100 gift cards that you can get for 10,000 points. Basically, if you choose to do it this way (J&R Electronics is one place that has the cards available), you’re getting $.01 for each point, so that means a 5% rebate on restaurants. Imagine — if you’re out with friends and the bill is $200, by putting it on your card, you earn $10 worth of points!

The other awesome thing is that you can keep the card even after you graduate. I have mine (which I renewed even after college), and I’ve gotten nearly $2000 worth of points just by putting as many food purchases on the card as possible. Particularly helpful was when I ordered lunch for my office and put the entire thing on the card, and then got reimbursed in cash!

On a side note, I recently had a great experience with Citi’s customer service. I missed making a payment for some reason, and got hit with abou $70 in fees. After a painless phone call, the representatives waived the fees for me with no problems whatsoever (I haven’t missed any other payments, so I made the case that I was a good customer otherwise). Needless to say, I was very impressed.

Alright, so a home phone isn’t usually at the front of anyone’s mind. It’s usually one of those things that you run out and grab at Wal-Mart without doing any research; after all, it’s just a phone! The only thing the average, single-line household needs to decide is if they want corded or cordless. Luckily, I’ve done the research already, so hopefully you can learn from what I know.

Panasonic Three Handset DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone System, $80

The first thing to note is that I did not consider corded phones. In my house, there is only one working phone plug and it is in the kitchen.  Since that I’m used to the convenience of wandering around with a cell phone, I wanted to avoid being tied down with a corded phone. Coupled with the excellent battery life found on the latest models, the decision to go cordless was a no-brainer.

A bit of cordless background: older, relatively insecure and unreliable cordless phones use the 900MHz spectrum. 2.4GHz phones have been available for some time now, and used to be the standard. It’s important to note that the sound quality, range, and reliability of a wireless phone will be dependent on the amount of other wireless interference present at that frequency, and unfortunately the most common wireless networks in use today (802.11b, 802.11g, and most 802.11n draft 2) use 2.4GHz. This means that the phone interferes with your network, and you network more obviously interferes with your phone. The first solution the industry provided to sidestep this problem was 5.8GHz phones.  Although they do get less interference, most of the 5.8GHz phones have poor battery life, few special features, and can still have cross-interference with a less common type of wireless network (802.11a).

Enter DECT 6.0 (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications), the latest new frequency for home wireless phones, running at 1.9GHz. In this spectrum the phones are much less susceptible to wireless network interference and seem to receive less interference from other sources as well. The latest models will even use two wireless signal paths to carry the audio to and from the phone so that the call quality is good even if one of the paths has interference. Thrown in some great battery life, the ability to add up to 6 wireless phones with only one plugged in base station (using up to 3 at one time), and talking caller ID for the times that I’m too lazy to get off the couch, and now you have my interest. This is why I purchased the Panasonic KX-TG9333T.

The phones are great, with a laundry list of nifty features (intercom from one phone to a specific other handset, night mode to disable the ringer in certain rooms at certain times, optional headset) that I won’t go into explaining, but I would recommend checking out. This set met my needs, and incrementally costs something like $5-10 more than the set with two phones. At the time of my writing, this set is actually available for $2 less than the set with two phones. There is also a four phone set available, and another model that is identical except that it includes a speakerphone on the base. If you need even longer battery life, the older Panasonic model supports a whopping *17 hours* of talk time per charge, and reviews imply that that is a conservative estimate. With the older model only two phones can be used simultaneously and it lacks a couple other features, so I would only recommend it if that extra talk time is a must.