At first glance, a home phone seems like a somewhat quaint, old-fashioned thing to have these days. With mobile phones everywhere, it seems unnecessary and perhaps a little wasteful. Call me nostalgic, then, but I really like to have one. … [read more]
Three weeks ago, I bought a Jawbone UP. It’s a movement-tracking bracelet that can be plugged into your iPhone (or Android device) once or twice a day to transmit your activity to a mobile app. (You can also download your … [read more]
I had read about the i-20 iPod dock a few months ago. It seemed like a very exciting proposition: a dock that could extract the digital signal of the music stored on an iPod without relying on the iPod’s own … [read more]
In Part 2 of this post, I discuss my mobile tech (smartphones, tablets and such) as well as my music reproduction hardware. Part 1 (Hardware and Software) is here. On the mobile front, I’m a happy iPhone 3GS user and … [read more]
“One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop.” — G. Weilacher “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it … [read more]
Nerds get a bad rap. We are being made fun of for our love of, and intimate ways with, our gear. When I say ‘gear,’ I mean computers, musical instruments, stereo equipment, cameras… anything that only reveals its depth … [read more]
I like some of Don Norman‘s (now slightly older) theses about complexity and emotion in design. In an online essay entitled Emotional Design: People and Things he writes, Products differ in their appeal on the three design dimensions, but … [read more]
Sometimes, the prevailing discourse on the Internet makes one want to despair. Blog post after blog post of the same drivel. It often feels as though the ‘blogosphere’ is a little like The Island, a 2005 movie where Ewan McGregor … [read more]