I recently started using RescueTime after hearing about it countless times on Hacker News. Simply put, RescueTime is like Google Analytics for your time. It automatically tracks where you spend your time while computing and helps you become more productive by Continue Reading »

Summize, a company I am quite familiar with following my review of their review aggregator product, has substantially changed their company direction since I have last been in touch with them. They are now focusing on a Twitter search tool - so much so that it is their main product and the review aggregator has been moved to Continue Reading »

Last July I first laid my hands on the then-dubbed Dash GPS navigation beta unit while visiting friends in San Francisco. As I was with a friend that had just moved there and was not familiar with the roads, the Dash proved indispensable. Naturally, so would any GPS navigation device - not quite. The revamped unit, now called the Dash Express, Continue Reading »

I’ve had my MacBook Air for 15 days now. It has been serving as my primary computer and I have used it to do everything I usually do with my MacBook Pro. I’ll cover how it has stacked up to the MBP in this review in addition to how the MacBook Air’s smaller size has changed the way I do things. Continue Reading »

Viddyou, a video startup focused around vlogging, has been beta testing their premium services account over the last week. I’ve been in contact with Aaron Wadler, one of the guys behind Viddyou, ever since I wrote Make This Startup: HD Video Serving Service so I was interested in hearing Continue Reading »

Around the time that I started getting annoyed with AVCHD and my Panasonic HDC-SD5, Samsung and MWW approached me about testing out the Samsung SC-HMX10 camcorder. After finding out that the HMX10C didn’t use Continue Reading »

Last September Yahoo! announced they had acquired Zimbra, a leader in email and collaboration software focused towards businesses, ISPs and universities. It was with that same announcement that Yahoo! said Georgia Tech would be one of the first universities to adopt Zimbra’s webmail application. Georgia Tech’s Continue Reading »

I’m not one to downgrade too often but I am relieved to say that I ditched my 30-inch Dell LCD and went with the 24-inch 2407WFP-HC. You might be shaking your head in disapproval now but let me explain, 30-inches is too damn big for my needs. After the novelty of the 30-inch wore off, I found out it took up too much desk space Continue Reading »

As a product review connoisseur myself, I immediately became interested in Summize when it first took wind. Summize is a trend-tracking, review-aggregating, verdict-visualizing product review portal of sorts, with the focus being on their unique information visualization methods. Continue Reading »

Sony recently targeted the young YouTube/video-blogger crowd with their $149 (sans memory stick) GC1 Net-Sharing Cam. The GC1 does double-duty as a 5MP camera with flash and a video camcorder capable of capturing 640×480 30fps video in MPEG4 format, ready for uploading to any of your favorite video sharing sites. At the highest video setting, you can capture about 90 Continue Reading »

Don’t you hate it when you get lost in Alaskan outback at night, miles away from civilization, with nary a flame to guide you? I know, it sucks right? Well not for long. The next time you head out, pack an AE Light Xenide flashlight - actually, it’s a personal searchlight. The Xenide Continue Reading »

Hot on the heels of my review of Wicked Lasers’ Elite Series 150+ green laser comes the AE Xenide flashlight. The Xenide utilizes a High Intensity Discharge system similar to the HID/Xenon headlights found in newer cars. This is no pedestrian flashlight by any means. I’ll be writing a full review Continue Reading »

155mW. 532nm. $699. Green. All of those can be used to describe the newest addition to Wicked Lasers’ product lineup, the Elite Series. As you might imagine, Wicked Lasers specializes in powerful and expensive exotic lasers. I wouldn’t call them laser pointers as they are much more powerful than your typical Continue Reading »

I’m staying with a cousin in New York for a few days and have been able to experience Verizon’s FiOS internet service for the first time. FiOS is the first commercial offering of FTTH (Fiber To The Home), although availability is still very limited. Verizon has several different packages ranging from Continue Reading »

I’ve been using Mac OS X Leopard for a few weeks now and have started to form my thoughts about it. For the first few days, I really didn’t think Leopard was all that different than Tiger. Yeah, it had little things here and there, but none of them changed the way I interacted with the OS in general. That’s starting to change. Continue Reading »

It’s not often that an SD memory card comes out and creates a ton of fanfare. When that SD card has integrated Wi-Fi abilities to immediately upload your photos, then you start to understand why all the buzz is justified. I am of course referring to Eye-Fi’s long awaited wireless SD card. Amazingly, they were able to pack in 802.11 circuitry Continue Reading »

Remember when Apple first unleashed the MacBook Pros, the first Intel Macs, back in January of 2006? I do, and the one feature of the new MBPs that made me go “aww, that’s cool” had to be the MagSafe system. No more tripping on cords and Continue Reading »

Disqus, the 2-person, YCombinator-funded, San Francisco-based startup I’ve written about before, has just opened up it doors to everyone. Disqus adds spice to blog comments with innovative comment display techniques including threading and comment rating but goes further than that by mirroring Continue Reading »

While I was content with my BlackBerry Curve mainly for my ability to type rapidly on the keypad, recent events including the ability to easily change ringtones through iTunes and Google providing free IMAP access influenced me to pick up an iPhone along with Leopard this weekend. I was going to wait until January to see if any GPS and Continue Reading »

Sling Media, a company known for set-top boxes that stream video, recently unleashed a third Slingbox into their lineup, the Slingbox Solo. It is priced above the Slingbox AV I reviewed over the summer and below the Slingbox Pro. As the name implies, the Slingbox Solo only connects to one device Continue Reading »

The latest web craze seems to be centered around FriendFeed’s service that, well, lets you view your friends’ feeds from other social services and share your own. It seems a little abstract but if you’re familiar with the news feed on Facebook, you know where this is coming from. After you’ve setup a FriendFeed account, you don’t really do anything differently - Continue Reading »

Ever since I first wrote about Vudu, a Santa Clara, CA based hardware company that had been in stealth mode for 2 years, I have been wanting to get my hands on their innovative set-top box. The Vudu is a $399 set-top box that lets you browse through a massive library of movies (5,000 at the moment), watch previews and then rent or purchase movies. Continue Reading »

First it was video with Amazon Unbox, now the online retailer giant is venturing into digital music sales with Amazon MP3. Here’s the real kicker - all songs are DRM-free, encoded at 256 kilobits per second and priced from 89 cents to 99 cents each, with most albums costing $8.99. In comparison this is considerably better than Continue Reading »

After asking around for headphone suggestions and receiving some great responses, I decided to go with the Sony MDR-EX71SL earbuds. As I didn’t want to order anything online and wait too long, I went with these earbuds, which were easily found at a local Best Buy for around $50 (although they can be found for much cheaper online). They are what you would Continue Reading »

I know what you’re thinking. Paul writing about an AOL product is the equivalent of pigs flying or renting a studio in San Francisco for under $1000/month. There are a number of reasons you might not approve of AOL’s tactics but for now I’ll put that behind me and post my thoughts about AOL’s attempt to break their 1990’s stigma with cutting-edge personalized web services, collectively dubbed myAOL. Continue Reading »