LD Approved – Page 3 – LIVEdigitally

(mini) Canon SD850is review

Posted on June 12, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Just finished replacing my stolen hardware with the brand-spankin new Canon SD850is. I had actually purchased the SD800is last week, but just before breaking the 15-day-return seal from Best Buy, I did a little homework to discover the 850 was showing up “mid-June”. And with my typical “must-have-it-now” obsessive nature, I started calling CompUSA, Best Buy, Circuit City, and the local Wolf Camera every day until last night.

It’s a 8-megapixel point-and-shoot camera with 4x optical zoom, facial recognition, and image stabilization technologies. In other words, it’s pretty much the top point-and-shoot camera on the market right now, and while I’m rarely one to get “the best”, I love the Canon SD line (ever since the SD100 I had, which was, also, stolen), and I figured I might as well pick up the latest & greatest since insurance is covering it anyway. Not to mention the fact that it is the technical replacement for the SD700is I used to have (the SD800is is technically a separate line, as it features a wideangle lens instead).

So far, the picture quality looks great, and like my old 700, it’s a very fast, very easy to use camera. The speed in this case matters, as the total time from pushing power until taking a picture is under 2 seconds, and in continuous mode it seems to get up to about 4-5 shots per second. Not like my first-gen Kodak digital camera, with 3+ seconds bootup plus a good second or two just to click and shoot.

Eight megapixels is a grand amount for me, I can do all sorts of wonderful cropping and whatnot and still have printable photos. Like the 700is, this unit also has 4x zoom, and again, I’m very impressed with the quality. This is probably the point in the review where die-hard digital camera aficionados are rolling their eyes, so if that’s you, head on over to DPreview.com for a much more technical, in-depth overview.

Also new to the 850 is a lot more options in the menus. First up, the vestigial “Send-to-printer” button is now programmable – I set it to go straight into movie mode. Next, there’s a lot of categorization, basic editing, and red-eye features built-into the unit – I haven’t tried them all out yet, but it seems like it’s fairly powerful, yet in Canon-style, not too complicated to use.

Last but not least is the continued inclusion of a viewfinder, which is really handy on very bright days. I don’t mind sacrificing a little screen real estate for it. I do really like the facial recognition technology. If you haven’t seen it in action, it puts little white boxes around every face it “sees” and uses them for autofocus. Very cool. More of my pix are on flickr. So, to summarize:

Pros

Lots of features AND…
Easy to use
8 megapixels
4x optical zoom
Fast shutter speed

Cons

Pricey
One of the larger point-and-shoot cameras

If you have $399 to shell out, I definitely recommend the SD850is. If you want to save a little, pick up a 700 or 800 (although I’d avoid the 750, 900 or 1000 – terrible naming system) – you can still find them in plenty of spots (all links are to Amazon product pages).

Ruckus Laptop Backpack review: Simply Awesome

Posted on April 10, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

I try not to just gush about products I like, because just about everything has a fault somewhere. Sometimes however, I use something that I find is leaps and bounds better designed than others in its class. Some of my absolute favorite gadgets in recent memory include Sonos, TiVo series 1 (because 1 was ahead of its time and 2 and 3 are both good, but not awe-inspiring), Slingbox (ok, not fair, I’m biased, I admit it completely), my first generation Toshiba Tecra laptop, and now, the Pacific Design Ruckus Laptop Backpack. I like it so much that I made a video showing off its capabilities (running time 2:53):

Some highlights of why I think this bag’s so great:

It’s a comfortable backpack with enough room to fit all the stuff I carry around frequently.
The laptop area is sectioned off from the rest of the bag, which simplifies removing my computer when I need it (really nice touch for going through airport security).
Lots of sectioned pockets for things like: iPod, cell phone, sunglasses, business cards, pens, extra cables, etc.
Special pouch just for the laptop’s AC adapter.
Stylish enough (for me) that I can carry it casually, yet still walk into a business setting and not feel like a goofball (other than for obvious reasons).

As far as laptop backpacks go, the Ruckus Laptop Backpack is my #1 pick, and I don’t see anything taking it’s place anytime soon. I do have a new messenger bag to try out, but that’s a whole ‘nother category in my opinion. So for $69.95, you can pick one up here, because it’s most definitely LD Approved!

Brilliant Image review: Analog Art from Digital Pictures

Posted on February 8, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

If you’ve owned a digital camera for a few years, you are probably like the rest of us, accumulating a ton of digital pictures (after editing, I still had over 200 from my week in Mexico), maybe emailing/sharing them online, occasionally printing a few, or making a coffee mug or a t-shirt once in a while. If you’re a little ahead of the curve, you’re probably starting to consider purchasing a digital picture frame this or next year. But at the end of the day, most of them are sitting on a hard drive, and if you’re smart about it, backed up in more than one location. I found one interesting new service that’ll let you take those pictures a little further than you’ve probably considered in the past, Brilliant Image. They take your digital pictures and turn them into pieces of art.

I was able to try out placing a sample order, and I’ll start by saying I’m quite happy with the results. As you’ll see by their online order form, there are quite a few different options, so you can have your own creative expression of what you want to make. While the form looks complex, it’s pretty straightforward. Step one – select a photo. I picked one of my wedding pictures – since our photographer was all-digital (which I can’t recommend highly enough), everything he took was extremely high quality, so I wanted to see what “the best” would look like. You can either upload the photo or mail it to them separately (you can even mail a printed picture if you want).

Step two – pick your style. I went with the “gallery wrap”. There are tons of options, depending on the size of what you want, including square, rectangular, or rounded options. Also, you can pick from a variety of different frames, all with different prices.

Step three – choose effects. For a small additional fee, they can retouch your photos, create collages or add effects. You can also go black&white or sepia for no extra charge.

Step four – place your order. The total fee for the option I selected would normally be about $75 plus shipping, although some options are much more expensive. For example, the 30″x40″ Mahogany Black with a High Res proof is over $450. But hey, it’s art, right?

Mine showed up about 10 days later, well-packaged (see the photo above). When I opened it, I was stunned by the effect. It really looked like someone had painted the picture! Maybe I am impressed too easily, maybe other folks are used to this, but it was extremely compelling in my opinion. Take a look at some of these pictures and the zoomed-in details I took. There’s the canvas, and there’s no pixelization whatsoever.

It’s definitely more expensive “photo printing” service than anything out there (although SmugMug most certainly comes close for reasons I still cannot fathom), but then again, these aren’t just glossy photos. This looks, feels and possibly tastes (didn’t really try that one) like art.

If you want to add a little class or a touch of art to your home, and you want to use your own photos to do it, I highly recommend Brilliant Image’s services. They were professional and easy to work with, and provided a product that was better than I was expecting. I did ask their recommendation for megapixels to make a photo “paintable” and they recommend 4MP for “most reasonably sized paintings” (more details here).

Whether for you or as a gift, they are most assuredly “LD Approved” and my painting is hanging on the wall as you walk into my apartment (you can see a few more pictures here). It consistently gets a “that’s cool” when friends visit.

UPDATE: They’re offering a little promo to LIVEdigitally readers, simply enter the code “LIVDIG” for 10% off your order!

Make a $10 Donation to try to win a TiVo Toaster!

Posted on January 25, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Dave Zatz has a wonderful idea, he’s created a memorial fund to benefit James Kim’s family. The reason the idea is wonderful is because it’s so spot-on.

It’s cheap ($10).

It’s easy to sign up (PayPal).

It’s got a simple prize (a fun TiVo Toaster).

It’s meaningful.

And if you like the idea so much, I’ll provide the “entry conditions” right here so you can get your $10 into this good cause right away:

So, if you were waiting for an excuse to make sure the Kim girls have a paid ticket to college, here’s your incentive. For every $10 you send via PayPal (davezatz@yahoo.com) through 1/31/07, you will get one entry in the raffle for the unique TiVo Toaster.

Got more to give? How about this: for every time a CNet review helped you make a buying decision on a product, give $10. Oooh, good one, eh?

Video(s) from Pussycat Dolls party with Microsoft at CES2007

Posted on January 17, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

For some reason it really seemed like this year’s CES has a lot more overlapping events than I remember from previous years, and my evening calendar often appeared more full than the day! Now Microsoft has a pretty decent track record for throwing CES parties, so I knew it was a must-visit (even though HP’s party was also at Pure the previous night, and even though the Best Buy party in 2006 featured the Pussycat Dolls).

At the beginning (well, I guess middle, but we didn’t get there right away) the Pussycat Dolls were on stage doing a whole dance routine. Now I wasn’t previously aware of this, but there are actually two different groups called the Pussycat Dolls – one is the group out of LA, the other are the dancers in Vegas. We had the Vegas crew, and while they weren’t the same ladies from the videos, they certainly weren’t a disappointment. And since I am a giving person, I recorded some video of the event (scroll down if you are losing patience with my prose). The funny moment for me was when a bouncer came up to me, asked if I was videoing, and I said “no, just taking pictures.” It was even funnier because there were at least two dozen phones and cameras all within sight, all recording as well!

I’ve said before that I’m a big fan of Muvee’s AutoProducer software, so as I was thinking about the best way to share the videos I took. I decided to make FIVE (5) different videos and upload them all. The cool part is – I only spent about 10 minutes generating all five videos, thanks to Muvee’s excellent software. And half of the time was just me picking out which themes to try! Now, on to the Muvees…

Version 1: Pro-Very Fast theme, no editing

Version 2: Pro-Very Fast theme, minor editing

Version 3: “Dance Floor” theme

notice the cool pulsing effects? all automatic!
Version 4: “Over the Top” theme

Version 5: basic Pro-Fast theme featuring U2’s “Beautiful Day”

just to show the difference between using different types of music with otherwise the same content
I’ve got a full Muvee review coming soon (and an interview at CES), but make sure you try watching at least a couple of different ones to see the power of the software. Again, I spent less than 10 minutes to create all 5 videos. Not too shabby.

Back to the topic at hand – the party. The DJ was DJ-AM, which wowed Dave, while had me say “him?” All I can say about his spinning was: best music ever. I’ve never seen a room react so positively to a DJ for so long (hours and hours) before. I don’t do as much clubbing as in my younger days (when I did almost no clubbing whatsoever), but this was a seriously impressive night. Click here for more party pix.

I might be incorrect, however, when I point out the irony of the DJ using a Mac to play the music at the Vista-related party…

Jeremy's Favorite Things of 2006

Posted on December 30, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

Well, here we are at the end of 2006 and I thought I’d put together a little summary of my favorite technology of the year. Now some of this stuff launched commercially prior to 2006, but this is the year I used it the most. So check out the video, and if you want to read more about the products, the links are below (disclaimer: most links are to Amazon affiliate product listings).

Note: I did forget two things in the video, so I’m adding them here first:

Best smartphones: T-Mobile Dash and HTC MTeoR
Brilliant Image: I’ve got a whole review forthcoming, but in a nutshell, you upload a digital photo, they mail you a painting made from the photo. It might sound odd, but it’s extremely impressive. Check out the picture on the right for an idea of it.

Now for the video itself (or click here to view it on YouTube):

The items in the video:

The laptop: Vaio SZ series (you can read my review of the SZ160 here)
The wireless mouse: Gyration
The book: hackoff.com
The remote: Harmony 880 (my review here)
The camera: Canon sd800is (honorable mention for really impressive low-light pictures: Fuji F30)
The backpack: Pacific Design Ruckus
The best in convergence: Sonos (review) & Slingbox
The video games: Godfather and Battle of Middle Earth II
The inflight power adapter: Teleadapt
The GPS unit: Nuvi 350
The fabric (shmatta): Microfiber Electronics Cleaning Cloth
The phone/PDA: PPC 6700
The headphones: Shure e4c (review) and e500PTH (review)

Looking forward to the technology of 2007. I’m curious as to how many of these products I’ll be using one year from today…

Wii + Turkey

Posted on November 26, 2006 by Guest Contributor

This Thanksgiving was a little different from usual, not only because I wasn’t at home, but because it included some Wii action!! The boy and I headed over to his friend’s house to do the turkey thing, and what sweet diversion should he provide us with while the bird finished cooking, but a pair of Wiimotes and his system all ready to go.

Ladies and gentlemen, the draw of the Mii channel is inescapable. The urge to create a pile of horrific little monsters is irresistible. Making yourself, sure, just a minute, but making Martians? That is the true work of art. Then, after viewing Missing in Action en español, we were inspired to create the perfect Chuck Norris. Yes, celebrities are obviously common fodder for the Mii machine. I’ve seen several versions of Jesus already, as well as a couple Michael Jacksons. The version of Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV seen here was done with Joystiq’s mock-up Mii generator.

But wait, this is a video game system, right? There must be like, games or something, right? Right! Twilight Princess, you can almost take for granted, at least if you’re a Zelda fan. On this particular Wii outing we had on hand a copy of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. By this time we had been joined by a couple others, and proceeded to have a 4 way mini-game battle.

This is where my reservations start to come back out. I want a Wii, I really do, but I’m still a little shaky on the motion sensor controls. The more I see, the more at ease I become, and maybe there is just a bit of a learning curve. I’ve heard that Twilight Princess plays wonderfully and there is no reason to go back to a GameCube pad, but other games I’m not so sure about yet. For instance, here we were motoring around in hovercrafts, flying through the air, running, throwing darts, all with the sincerest of physical effort. Either that or we were hovering straight into the wall, falling out the air, slowing to a crawl, missing the board completely, and cursing the controls the whole time. Or if we weren’t cursing them we were wondering why we were doing it at all. Well, to look silly and laugh at each other, of course! Dying was frustrating, but at least everyone thought it was silly. I’m worried that more game will be less like Twilight Princess and more like this, games where the controls aren’t so great, but it’s still fun with friends and you can just laugh at how bad you are. As the console ages, people will get the hang of what works and what doesn’t , so things should turn out ok.

This isn’t to say that there is no precision involved right now. The dart game is a pretty good example. Obviously you have to be aiming at the TV (I.e. the motion sensing strip, which is somewhere around there) and to help you do that (so your dart appears on screen) they’ve engineered a box into the air so when you move too far out of range you’ll feel it and come back. That really does work for the most part. That said, just aiming inside the box won’t get you points. You still have to throw the thing, and I was really bad at that.

Funny thing: after all that, I think my favorite part of the gaming portion of the evening was spent on Bomberman 3 for the Turbografx-16 downloaded via the Virtual Console. We had all four remotes plus a GameCube controller plugged in for a five-player destruct-o-thon. Yay, retro! I think we played a three-to-win match on every map.

Ultimately, I think my advice would be to get a Wii, get Zelda, figure out which mini-game collection sounds the most fun to you, and grab that, as well. Have fun, and then while waiting for the next must-have game, settle into the Virtual Console and enjoy!

Smokin' Toe's Turkey (now with muvee videos on Stage6!)

Posted on November 25, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

The single best turkey I’ve ever made, eaten, smelled, eaten, and eaten. Wow. The only one I’ve made that looked better was the 25-pounder I cooked with my cousin a few years back, and while that was tasty, this year’s knocked it out of the park.

Now I’ve been posting a lot of recent stuff on non-techie topics, and I’m feeling a little guilty about that, so I’m going to amend for it all here. This post also contains vlogging, a quick intro to Muvee, and my first use of Stage6 from DivX (quick disclaimer: I am doing some consulting work for DivX, although it is wholly unrelated to turkey cooking).

First up: the vlogging. I used my trusty Canon SD700is (recently rendered obsolete with the SD800is) to do all the video work. Sure I could’ve used my DV camera, but I didn’t care that much about the final video quality, and didn’t want to spend all the time downloading the video from the miniDV tape. Also, my wife and I did all camera work, no tripods, microphones, or anything fancy was involved.

Next comes the editing. My first video project, I did all the editing myself. From the notes I took, I spent 13 minutes importing and editing clips, 20 minutes working with transitions, photos, and titles/credits, then 11 minutes to export the video, for a total of 44 minutes. You can see the video here (running time 4:50), I feel it’s the most informative, yet dullest of the batch.

Muvee logo What’s this? Batch? Yes, that’s correct, I have created multiple videos. The next three were all done using Muvee AutoProducer, which is one of the most impressive pieces of software I’ve seen in years. I’ll do a full review shortly, and this is not the best demonstration of its power, but I wanted to do an easy “compare and contrast.” It took 6 minutes to import all content and create titles/credits and pick a style for the video. It took another 4 minutes to analyze the media files (a one-time only requirement), and I had my first video ready. Over the next 10 minutes I experimented with different styles until I had the one I liked, then waited 13 minutes while it exported the video, for a total time investment of 33 minutes.

The really impressive part was I then spent less than 10 minutes to preview a dozen more styles, and generated two additional videos in another 10 minutes. To see the fruits of my labor (and you should watch one of them in contrast to my manual editing work), watch style one, two, or three (I recommend #1). As you’ll see, all three are more entertaining and upbeat than the manually produced version. Muvee is awesome, and I’ll really prove it in the next few weeks with a detailed review.

Stage6 logo For my last tech experiment of the day, rather than go with YouTube, I decided to try out Stage6 for my video-sharing needs. Creating a profile was simple and took a few seconds (although I decided to actually flush it out with all the personal details too, but that was not a requirement), but uploading a video wasn’t as straightforward as I’d hoped.

First, I was required to download an uploader (although I think there was a plug-in version as well, but I may have accidentally missed that), then I realized my videos weren’t in DivX format already, a requirement of the site. I proceeded to download Dr. DivX, after which I was prompted to download a DivX codec update. Pain in the rear, however, Dr DivX worked really quickly and flawlessly, and coincidentally included a built-in uploader to Stage6.

Several minutes later, I began uploading videos, and am now officially a member of the long tail. And I didn’t even have to use clips from SNL or the Daily Show to participate! Ni-ice. As you noticed from the post, the only way to really share videos from Stage6 is via linking or email.

I’d like to see them step up the features for bloggers by including some HTML sharing code, embedding tools, and thumbnails. Also, while I know the codec is huge in Europe (just like David Hasselhoff), I am curious to hear back from readers if there were any issues playing the videos

Anyhow, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, full of turkey and techie, just like me!

CellPhoneShop.net LG replacement battery charges up

Posted on November 15, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

My trusty LG VX6100 (aka the HabsPhone) is dying. Well, the battery is dying, and the phone might be on its way out as well – tbd. I decided rather than buy a new phone, I’d just grab a new battery. Went to the Verizon store – $49.99 no joke! I googled “VX6100 battery” and intentionally clicked on one of the sponsored ads. Did a couple of price comparisons, and ended up getting two batteries with overnight shipping for $45 all-in.I then googled “cellphoneshop.net review” and most of the reviews were again positive (for the most part). I figured “what the heck” and bought it. I immediately sent off an email to their sales email address asking them to confirm it would arrive by today (I’m hopping on a plane tomorrow, and can’t deal with 20 minutes of talk time anymore).

The email bounced. Uh oh.

But then I noticed it was a typo, and sent off another one. This ~~one burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp~~ got through. To my huge surprise, I received a polite email which informed me the batteries would arrive not just on time, but a day early, and then 30 minutes later an email arrived with a tracking number. Wonderful.

Funny enough, I actually didn’t want the package to arrive early, since I knew I wouldn’t be around to receive it yesterday. That afternoon, I received another email from cellphoneshop with the fedex info and alerting me to the fact that the shipment wasn’t delivered properly. This is A+ customer service in my book.

The icing was on the cake today when I plugged the batteries in and they worked just fine. Good job cellphoneshop.net, thanks for your service. You might want to consider a new domain name, but that’s just me musing…

Best Movie Trailer Ever

Posted on November 11, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

This is a few years old, but makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. Watch and enjoy.

Shure E500PTH Review: Headphones + a Microphone!?

Posted on November 7, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

Want a surefire way to make the best headphones on the market even better? Easy, add a mike. Confused? Well, Shure (the makers of my favorite E4c and runner-up E2c headphones) did just that, and believe it or not, it all makes perfect sense.It turns out you can divide people into one of two camps when it comes to headphones: innies and outies. Innies are the people who enjoy wearing in-ear headphones, the ones that go inside the ‘lobe and pump the sound right into your brain. Outies prefer on-ear headphones, such as the Bose QuietComforts, which sit on top of your ears. I’ve tried quite a few of both, in a variety of situations, and am quite certain of the fact that I’m an innie. I like being able to fall asleep with the buds in my ear, I find the Bose set makes my head get a little, sweaty, and I find they simply can’t block out the sounds of a wailing child three rows behind me.

Until a short time ago, the Shure E4c’s were my favorite headphones. I’d even tried the E5c’s, and while the sound quality was stunning, they just weren’t comfortable for a 13-hour flight to Hong Kong. The E4c’s were the king of the innies in my world, with only one major nag: the process of removing/inserting them is unpleasant to repeat on a frequent basis. Welcome to the Shure E500PTH’s.

Packaging
As with all Shure products, the headphones are nicely packaged inside a small box. The box has an inner metallic shell with a very nice finish, and inside that shell is a molded foam case to hold all the pieces. Nice, simple, luxurious, and not overly wasteful.

Contents
When you buy the E500PTH’s you receive:

The headphones
The microphone
A mini-extension cable
A 1/8″ to 1/4″ adapter
Oval carrying case
Lots of extra earbuds

Headphones
I’m going to stay a little light on discussing the headphones themselves this time. Others like Gary Krakow have already reviewed the overall sound quality of them (here’s Gary’s take on the E4c’s, and he’s about 100x a discerning listener compared to me) and CNet made them an Editor’s Choice. Suffice it to say – they sound as good, possibly better, than the rest of the Shure lineup. You’ll have nothing to complain about when it comes to the sound quality, be it at home, on a plane, or anywhere else you are using the E500PTH’s. They sound great.

Microphone
Now this is where the E500PTH’s get interesting. Their noise-cancelling capabilities are tremendous, but as I said above, taking out and shoving in little rubber buds in your ear every time the person next to you wants to share some little detail of their life and why they love their home town can get, well, annoying. And I have a hunch quite a few of Shure’s customers shared that sentiment with the company, since the E500’s specifically address that situation.

Through some quite clever ingenuity (in my opinion), Shure added a microphone and a little on/off switch to the headphones. When switched “on” (which does require a single AAA battery), the E500’s effectively mute the incoming audio source, and amplify the microphone. This translates to: when you turn them on, you can hear the outside world again. There’s actually a little volume control dial to adjust the level of amplification, and while it took me a little tweaking and a lot of getting used to, I finally got it right.

The next time the flight attendant walked by my seat (my original fiddling with them was on a plane), I was able to order my drink (and, of course, thank her for it), without whispering or screaming at the top of my lungs. Again – it takes some getting used to, but once you’ve tried it for a few minutes, you’ll find yourself hitting the switch and carrying on a conversation as if you weren’t wearing the headphones at all. Very very impressive!

Overall
I have only a single annoyance with the Shure E500PTH’s, which is the size of the carrying case. Granted, I was spoiled by the “fits in the palm of my hand” size of the E4c’s, and it’s still nothing compared to the mega-case which carries the Bose QuietComfort 2’s (forget the 3’s, they make ya puke). So chalk that up as the only negative thing I have to say, otherwise, the E500’s are a winner. Another nice touch is if the microphone battery dies, the headphones still work (unlike most over-the-ear noise reduction headphones).They are now, in fact, a permanent addition to my laptop case, and should be in yours as well. However, they do cost over $400 (Amazon link), so if you already have headphones you like, you can opt to purchase the “push-to-hear” component instead (Shure site).

I voted. Did you?

Posted on November 7, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

IMG_1312 jt finished voting Did all my research. Walked less than three blocks. Filled out the way-too-confusing ballot. Done.Your turn.

PS – don’t forget the Polling Place project (two pix) and if you have a video-enabled phone, Veek your Vote!

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