Tech Yourself Fool: The Flip vs The Kodak Zi6
The new Tech Yourself Fool episode is out and its up on Hell Yeah Bitch! .com before it goes on ToastedRav.com because I love you.
Tech Yourself Fool: The Flip vs The Kodak Zi6 from Mike Flynn on Vimeo.
Review: Loving My New Flip Camera
Two weeks ago I ordered The Flip video camera off of Amazon when it was on sale for $141 (they’re up to $149 now.). Last week it finally arrived (damn you Amazon “Super Saver” shipping!). This week I’m reviewing it…you know, because I don’t think anyone else has.
So what are my thoughts? I love it! If you look at my Vimeo page you could have probably figured that out though since I’ve doubled the amount of video I’ve shot and posted in the last week. For specifics on why I love it, lets toss out one of my patented unordered lists:
- Its fast. We’re talking roughly 3 seconds from off to recording. Nothing beats that, and because of that I find myself recording more “Why isn’t someone taping this!” moments.
- Super easy. No cables. Just record, plug it in, and get the video.
- Its small. It has been officially added to the crap that I carry with me everyday in my laptop bag.
- It churns out nice video. Sure, there are the videophiles out there that will tell you its grainy and the sound isn’t great, but frankly if you look at where the video is coming from and toss in the trade-off of being able to take this thing anywhere, the video is fantastic. Below is a some video I just shot in my “outdoor office”:
Test of The Flip Camera outdoor video quality from Mike Flynn on Vimeo.
- No lens cap mechanism. No, I’m not asking for a lens cap that I’m bound too lose the first time I take it out of my pocket, but it would be nice to have something protecting that lens other than the little bag it comes with.
- It has a TV out port, which I’ll never use (who doesn’t just put this video on their computer?), so I would love for it to be replaced with a mic port. If you could use this thing with a better mic, this would be the ultimate “guerilla reporter” tool.
- As much as I love the little flip out usb dongle, its hard to connect to the side of my MacBook Pro…it works, but I feel like I’m putting undue stress on the usb arm.
- The last thing: Mac support. Don’t get me wrong, it works fine with my mac, but you have to open it up and pull the AVI videos off of the thing “Memory Stick” style, which is something I can do just fine, but my Mother (who would love this camera) might not pick up as fast. There is an OS X version of the software on the camera, but it sucks and his limited functionality as compared to its Windows version. Plus, to get the videos off the Flip to work in iMovie 08 (they work fine in iMovie 06) you need to get software like Visual Hub and convert them to H.264.
Mike Gets A New Phone
After much discussion, soul searching and online research i have finally decided on and purchased a new cell phone. I stuck with T-Mobile and went with the T-Mobile MDA. So why did I go with this phone? Well I was looking at the Sidekick III, until I heard that you can’t use it as a bluetooth modem for my iBook. So much for that. Then I started looking in to Blackberrys, but they were too “business-y”, I wanted a camera and stuff like that. Plus, only one Blackberry had EDGE (T-Mobile’s faster internet service) and I wasn’t sure I wanted a phone that big. I was already leaning towards the MDA, but I had my doubts because its a Windows Mobile device. I looked at other phone companies, but none had better plans than T-Mobile. After all that the push came when I ran across this post on flickr by Phil Torrone (one of the make magazine guys, and at one of my top 5 geeks I look up to) If you are too lazy to click Phil states that he just got this phone and for the most part, he seems to like it…mainly because of its hackability. Hell, you can upclock the damn thing. Sold.
I’ve had said phone for 2 full days now and I’m liking it. That being said, you know I can find something to bitch about.
Problems: I keep getting worried about the screen. I hear people have broken theirs and it scratches. I got some of those sticky-flim screen guards, so I can use my fingers on the touch screen without worry, and I’m using a Dell Axim case for when its in my pocket or bag…I’m still a bit worried though. Also, I’m a Mac guy. This is a Windows Mobile phone. For the most part, the Missing Sync gets the job done (after $40) and allowed me to get my calendars and address book over to the phone. For installing programs however, I’m having a harder time. Some of the CAB file apps are installing, but the ones that are EXE, I have to find a Windows machine because I couldn’t even get Virtual PC to USB sync with my phone (anyone know what I could be doing wrong?). Other than that, its been great
Good Things: Loving the “internet anywhere” life, either on the phone, or with my laptop. Came in very handy today while waiting for my car to be serviced. The hardware itself is very nice, both screen and slide out keyboard. The software’s ok, but this is in the plus category because you can change the software. It has wifi. I’ll probably use it twice in my life, but its cool that it has it. Did I mention that you can upclock it?
So I was going to take a bunch of photos, but frankly a quick search of flickr proved that I would be wasting my time. The one above is one of Phil Torrone’s pictures. My looks just like that. Only my hand is way sexier.
Very Helpfull Links:
upclocked on Flickr – Photo Sharing! (Phil’s list of hacks)
Justin Blanton | Mac OS X, Windows Mobile, Bluetooth modem
vB Easy Archive – T-Mobile MDA/SDA Forum
View Forum – Wizard
So thats all for my quick and dirty and sexy review. Anyone else have this phone? Anyone have this phone and is a Mac user? Anyone want to send me naked pictures of their girlfriend?
Mossberg Likes My Computer
Walt Mossberg, the big daddy of tech writers, wrote in a recent column that…
We’ve been testing this new iMac, and our verdict is that it’s the gold standard of desktop PCs. To put it simply: No desktop offered by Dell or Hewlett-Packard or Sony or Gateway can match the new iMac G5′s combination of power, elegance, simplicity, ease of use, built-in software, stability and security. From setup to performing the most intense tasks, it’s a pleasure to use.
Sounds like he’s pretty happy with it, which in turn makes me even happier than I was before with my new iMac. Why? I’m not sure. But any little added iMac happiness helps these days because my credit card bill just arrived.
One minor issue with Mossberg’s article though. Towards the end he wishes that the iMac’s remote had a power button. It does! Well, its a Sleep Button really, and its kind of hidden…but it is there. I wrote that it was one of my favorite features in my iMac review. (You just hold down the Play button for a few seconds.)
Review: iMac G5 (iSight)
As promised, after speeding a few days with my new computer, I am now ready to sling a little review your way. Lets just get right to it shall we?
How fast is it?
Coming from a G4 933 iBook, the G5 (1.9 Ghz) in this last revision of the iMac seems very quick. Though you really don’t notice the speed difference until that first Spolight search. All iLife apps that I have tried so far (I’ve yet to get to Garageband) preform well. iPhoto handled my smaller sized library with no problem what so ever, scrolling up and down with little issue. iDVD and iMovie both preformed well in the simple tests, and I even tried to see how a more professional level video editing software, but…well, I’ll get to that later.
The new “hot” website for the cool digirati (Yes, I’m including myself in that group. ) is coComment, which is currently in beta.* The premise of this site is a nice idea. With all the different places you can comment, this service will keep track of the comments you leave all over the internet and display your comments, and the conversations around them for you in a nice little one-page display. I’m not sure how they plan to make money from this idea, and it does seem, at first glance, and little “bubble-ish”. With the possible business issues, I have 2 problems with his idea / service.
1. It really doesn’t work too well yet. I pretty broad problem, I know, but today I stumbled on a big example of it not following my comments resulting conversation. I left a comment on Robert Scoble’s blog, basically echoing a recent article I posted, and I remembered the steps (more on that later) and my comment was successfully entered into Scoble’s blog and the coComment site. Later in the day I went back to Scoble’s site and found that he had directly replied to me (i.e., he started his following comment with “Mike:”) but that resulting follow up was nowhere to be found on my coComment page. I know it must be tough to figure out all the ways conversations can continue, and on a technical level, I feel their pain…but they promised this, and so far they aren’t delivering.
2. I can’t seem to remember to click the damn bookmarklet before I comment on a blog. I’m just not used to having to do something first and its more difficult for me to break my habit than I originally thought. Yes, this one is my problem, but its a problem others might have. Maybe there should be a firefox extension that figures out if its a comment page you are looking at and pre-activates the coComment javascript for you? There’s an idea! Too bad I use Camino on my Mac…that extension could be useful at work though.
Let me be clear. Overall, I like this idea, assuming they work out the bugs and I can manage to train myself to remember to click the bookmarklet BEFORE I comment.
* Some bloggers have been giving the impression that they are special that they have a beta account at the current cool kids
tablesite, but I’ve had my account for a week now, and I had no problem getting an account within the day I heard about it.** You can find my public coComment page at: http://www.cocomment.com/comments/mikehyb