In late 2008 I wrote about my experience using the first generation 80GB Intel X25-M SSD — my first SSD. I had to pay the early adopter tax for that SSD, so it cost me around $700. The speed boost alone justified the price to me. Fast-forward about a year and that SSD stopped working. I’m not quite sure what died — the controller or something else — but I RMA’d it with Intel and they sent me a new, second generation X25-M that week. The second generation (G2) X25-M is based on 34nm fabrication compared to the 50nm first generation. The G2 is also substantially cheaper at roughly $299 and noticeably faster due to a new controller and firmware. Intel still claims the same “up to 250MB/s” sequential read speed and “up to 70MB/s” sequential write speed but the G2 brings improved (2x for 80GB, 2.5x for 160GB version) random 4KB writes. [click to continue…]
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Knowing how to keep your web traffic data safe while browsing the web on unknown networks is a vital skill that not enough savvy Internet surfers take part in. I have previously discussed a few ways of solving this issue through the use of SSH tunnels (manually-created and application managed). I have also discussed things like “anonymous” web browsing through the Janus Privacy Adapter as well as with public Tor nodes. (Side note: Anonymous in quotes because truly anon browsing requires encrypted, signed traffic over private Tor networks — not public, published ones everyone knows about — but I digress). While VPN is nothing new and has been used by businesses and their employees for over a decade, it has not generally been something aimed at the typical Internet user. [click to continue…]
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Blippy is my pick for startup to watch this year (with Square being close by). Blippy enables people to automatically share their purchases done through a variety of services, such as Amazon, iTunes, Netflix and better yet their credit/debit cards, with their followers. At first glance many will be shocked and wonder why they would ever want to use such a service but that only brings up memories of people saying the same thing about Twitter just a few years ago. The concept behind Blippy is crazy enough that I believe it will take off rather quickly. In fact, they recently announced they are already tracking over $1M in transactions.
My Blippy Profile – Some aesthetic elements of Blippy are noticeably inspired from Facebook and Twitter, but that’s because they work well. [click to continue…]
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Blippy,
Editorials,
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Reviews
I was recently in the market for an affordable, HD-capable pocket video camera. I knew Pure Digital’s Flip line of pocket camcorders like the Mino HD and Ultra HD were very popular in this space and as such I was just about ready to buy one. However, I decided to look around first and that’s when I discovered the $180 Kodak Zi8 HD pocket video camera. After having the Zi8 on hand for a few weeks, I believe it to be the best high-definition pocket video camera near the ~$200 price point on the market now. I’ll attempt to explain why in this review but if you’re looking for a quick answer, it’s because the Zi8 has an external microphone input, SDHC support and some interesting things I’ll get into soon.
Photo taken with D90 and my favorite lens: 50mm f/1.8 [click to continue…]
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MinoHD,
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Zi8
I always found it a bit ironic that I had less time to blog here as I started working full-time on a blogging startup. Well, my time spent on Skribit is starting to pay off. Today, Skribit finally goes out of what we’ve internally been considering our public beta — so it’s our official launch day. We have been laying low on the marketing and press front, except for my ramblings here, and now we are ready to tell more people about it. That being said, TechCrunch just wrote about Skribit (thanks Daniel!). This is the first step on our so-called “Customer Acquisition Plan”, as MBA as that sounds.
[click to continue…]
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For those of you that have been reading for a while (thanks!), it’s no surprise that I am a music fan. I wouldn’t quite say audiophile as I don’t find the need to spend sizable amounts of money on audio equipment, but I always have some music playing and enjoy a high quality audio setup. About two years ago I reviewed the excellent Sonos Digital Music System. The only problem with that setup was the price — just over $1,000 for all of the components. Since then I haven’t been able to get back into Sonos’ product line as everything was still rather expensive. Sonos hopes to change that with their new ZonePlayer S5, running at $399 USD.
What? Your kitchen doesn’t look like this?? Neither does mine. This is a press photo. Pretty sure they used fake ice for that wine.. since when do chilled wine bottles lack condensation? [click to continue…]
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Hardware,
Music,
Radio,
Reviews,
S5,
Sonos,
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On April 25th, 2009, I picked up a 2011 Ford Fiesta for what would be the next 7 months as 1 of 100 hand-picked Ford Fiesta Movement “Agents.” Okay, well technically it is a European-spec 2009 Ford Fiesta, but it is a close representation of what will be making its way state-side come June 2010. For a little background information, Ford ran a contest many months ago. They wanted to find 100 so-called influencers to help promote the new Ford Fiesta through their audiences; largely through social media means. (Original press release here.)
The Fiesta in Tech Square in Midtown Atlanta, GA. Photo by Tim Dorr with a Canon 5D Mk II [click to continue…]
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Sync,
Technology
The third year of Atlanta Startup Weekend is less than a week away and begins Friday November 13th and goes through Sunday night. I am definitely biased as I have attended the last two Startup Weekends, but I strongly suggest attending if you are within the Atlanta area. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Startup Weekend is a 54 hour event where people with a variety of backgrounds — from legal to backend development — gather, pitch ideas and then take the selected ideas from whiteboard to working web application or whatever it may be. [click to continue…]
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November 4, 2009
The saga continues as I go to all lengths to find 5 bars of cell phone reception at home. It first started when I moved into my new apartment. I didn’t think to check my cell reception when first touring the property so I was in shock after I moved in and noticed I had [...]
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AT&T,
Cellular,
GPS,
Hardware,
Internet,
iPhone,
MicroCell,
Mobile,
Reviews,
Technology
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November 2, 2009
Last week I had the pleasure of attending NoSQL East 2009, a new conference based around the non-relational data stores that I briefly covered in this post. In short, it was a rather intimate and highly technical conference on the grand scheme of things. There were roughly 120 people in attendance for the two-day event [...]
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