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| LG KF600 Mind-Reading Phone Introduced | |
| LG Electronics introduced the LG KF600, a stylish slider offering InteractPad, replacing physical navigation keys with context-specific virtual keys. The LG KF600's InteractPad and virtual menu keys show the exact keys users need to complete the task at hand eliminating distractions. More flexible than standard hardware keys, the KF600 eliminates the need to memorize which key performs what function. The virtual keys are also larger and better spaced than physical keys, improving accuracy. The I... | |
LG Electronics introduced the LG KF600, a stylish slider offering InteractPad, replacing physical navigation keys with context-specific virtual keys. The LG KF600's InteractPad and virtual menu keys show the exact keys users need to complete the task at hand eliminating distractions. More flexible than standard hardware keys, the KF600 eliminates the need to memorize which key performs what function. The virtual keys are also larger and better spaced than physical keys, improving accuracy. The InteractPad is an ideal interface for controlling multimedia features like the KF600's digital audio player, camera and video camera. Since its controls are not tied to physical buttons, each of these functions has a custom interface that makes it intuitive to use. The InteractPad is also equipped with multi-sensorial feedback that provides users with audio, visual and tactile cues. When a virtual button is pressed it becomes larger and the phone vibrates just slightly and makes a clicking sound. The feedback is not only designed to seem more like real buttons, it also improves comfort and accuracy. The KF600 includes eight dynamic graphic interface themes. Each gives the phone a different character that can act as an extension of its owner's personality. The themes affect all aspects of the KF600's interface including the InteractPad. When users choose a theme, all the layouts of each application will be reflected in menu, icons as well as wallpaper under the integrated theme. Dr. Skott Ahn, CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company said, "The LG KF600 and the InteractPad reflect LG's commitment to making its handsets easier to use through improved user interface technology. Usability is truly at the centre of this handset's design and it represents LG's latest achievement in making phones that connect with their users. This handset offers a mere glimpse into a newly emerging trend in the mobile market. LG is researching and developing new ways to improve usability and will continue focus on features that add practical benefits for users." The LG KF600's multimedia features include a 3.0-megapixel camera, MP3 player, video recording, FM radio, Bluetooth and more. Related News Articles
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| What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense |
| Expanded 2nd Edition, by Joel Comm, 97$ "A battle-tested AdSense Manual that picks up where Google left off, handing you the secret keys to multiplying your Google AdSense income with a series of lazy, 10-second tweaks!" http://www.adsense-secrets.comDiscover how to optimize your web site for high-paying clicks, using legitimate response-tracking techniques and software. Find out how to pull highly relevant ads on-demand, using Google Search Discover the secrets to getting more legitimate traffic to your web site Find out the scoop on Google's new AdLinks and other new Ad Formats Learn how to optimize your web pages so the search engines will LOVE your site Understand how to format your ads so your visitors will want to click them Discover which colors, sizes, text color and borders will generate the most clicks Find out how to position your ads for maximum response -- Explore which elements can draw instant attention to your ads, no matter where you place them Learn how to prune out low-paying ads that steal clicks from your high paying ads Find out how to build more pages for your web site quickly. Discover how to add FREE articles to your site - Web sites with over 12,000 articles you can use revealed! Learn about other pay-per-click programs. Know which ones you should keep your eyes open for. Discover where to find server-side scripts and software to track down the most "click-friendly" pages and search terms Learn how to read your server logs to find the hidden gold-mine Discover when and how to use the Google Search Box to maximize revenue from customers searching for something specific Learn how to read your visitors like a book, including: -- what drives them to your web site (search terms they used to find your web site) -- which ads they clicked and WHY -- which pages they're visiting most often and WHY -- how to diversify into new keywords without affecting the relevance of your existing pages Find out how to generate revenue on visitors when they leave your site Discover how to pinpoint which ads are making you the most money and which ads are producing the most clicks (and NO, those are not one and the same thing!) Find out how to zero in on top-paying ads and pages with AdSense Channels Learn how to employ fool-proof tests and strategies with AdSense Channels (Unless you know this, you're shooting arrows in the dark!) Discover how to make AdSense work for forums and Internet communities, an incredible source of keyword-rich content that you can have created for free! See my own secret list of successful websitesÂ…See how I do it with real-life examples! (And a whole lot more, including hands-on examples and actual screenshots of web pages that are raking in the cash with Google AdSense!) Examine case studies demonstrating real-life examples of how others are succeeding with AdSense. |
| Stingray kills Michigan woman - DetNews.com | ||
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| Leaping stingray kills woman on yacht |
| A holidaymaker was killed yesterday when a 75lb (34kg) stingray leapt from the water and struck her as she relaxed with her family on the deck of a private yacht off the Florida Keys. |
| Best Hotel On South Beach To Have A Party |
Technorati Tags: Florida, real estate, Miami condos Technorati Tags: Florida, Technorati Tags: real estate, Technorati Tags: Miami condos, |
| Tags: Florida, real estate, Miami condos, |
| Best Hotel On South Beach To Have A Party |
Technorati Tags: Florida, real estate, Miami condos Technorati Tags: Florida, Technorati Tags: real estate, Technorati Tags: Miami condos, |
| Tags: Florida, real estate, Miami condos, |
| Orkut for S60 gets an upgrade. Also, Orkut still exists. |
| I’ll admit it: I have a harder time remembering Orkut exists than I do remembering where I put my keys. Hell, I’ll probably forget about Orkut again as soon as I publish this post. That said, the fact that Google’s still fueling the project means some folks out there really love it; according to my [...] |
I’ll admit it: I have a harder time remembering Orkut exists than I do remembering where I put my keys. Hell, I’ll probably forget about Orkut again as soon as I publish this post. That said, the fact that Google’s still fueling the project means some folks out there really love it; according to my indisputable Fact Checker 4000, most of these folks hail from Brazil or India. Wherever you may be, Orkut fans, any of you running an S60 handset should hop on over to m.orkut.com. The Orkut S60 web interface has gotten a big ol’ revamp, adding photo uploads, picture galleries, click-to-call, and easier searching. It’s all done up in XHTML, so no client download is necessary. |
| Round 12 ShoeMoney Answers |
| Storm asks: Aside from great content, and if you had to pick one, what would you choose to concentrate more on in an effort to build traffic. Similar site backlinks Core SEO (page descriptions, tags etc) Social Networking (Digg, Stumble,Twitter) Cheers, Storm ShoeMoney: I would probably say the next priority would be getting people in front of the site. I [...] |
Aside from great content, and if you had to pick one, what would you choose to concentrate more on in an effort to build traffic.
Similar site backlinks Cheers, Storm ShoeMoney: I would probably say the next priority would be getting people in front of the site. I would say social media.
Dom asks: hey Jeremy,
If you bought a site from someone, would you think it more beneficial to: a) have a homepage with a high pagerank, and very low/0 for other pages b) have a homepage with a lower pagerank but other pages with a decent pagerank and why? Thanks ShoeMoney: Site links to all the pages, then I would hope the page rank would flow to those. If they aren’t doing interlinking, then I would hope the main page would have high pagerank.
Joe asks: What are some good verticals that have your attention right now?
ShoeMoney: UFC mixed martial arts, mobile, and international mobile. Dating, etc.
Bulbboy asks: How many pairs of shoes or footwear do you own?
I have about 10. ShoeMoney: 2
Allen asks: If you simultaneously became bankrupt and where then told by the doctor that you can only work for 2 hours per week or you will die, what would you do?
ShoeMoney: I would basically call up any company in the space and tell them I would do consulting for two hours a week. But if I went bankrupt, then what I’m doing isn’t really working, and I’m not worth anything. I would just do consulting or just blog.
My Awesome Blog asks: If you had to start an online business completely from scratch with a maximum $5,000 budget, do you think you could get the business up to $100 a day (I know, the magic number)?
If so, what would you recommend for others to do the same? ShoeMoney: Yea of course.
Jeff asks: Are you a Husker fan? I’ll assume you said yes…. Do you have a sky box or do you sit with the rest of us? I’ll assume you said yes again. Can I hang out in your sky box for the West Virginia game?
ShoeMoney: No. I have actually had tickets one time, but never made it. I like to tailgate, and that’s it. I used to be into sports in my early 20s, but not anymore.
Keyword Anchor and Do-Follow Blog asks: In your opinion, is it still possible to make a lot of money online?
Thanks Shoe! ShoeMoney: Yes.
Michael D asks: What methods do you engage to keep yourself and your crew focused on achieving goals and not getting burnt out on the dayd to day activities of your sites?
ShoeMoney: 1. We choose to do things we are excited about, and feel we would use ourselves. Like fighters.com site, we are huge fans of the sport. 2. We feel it’s a service that is badly needed. We are creating what we want, as fans. Basically we are building our own house, and selling it to everyone else. With shoemoney tools, we have used and are using now, and building it for other people.  You can avoid a lot of those pitfalls, by hiring people that aren’t in it for the money so much, but more in it because its what they want to do. Its what they are interested in.
Giles asks: - From starting an unknown site to one that pays for itself, how long would it take you (without publicising it on SM)
- What do you spend your money on? ShoeMoney: We do a lot of things with no budget, that I never talk about or wouldn’t talk about on shoemoney.com. From way back when I first started, it took me 3 years. Now with the experience, I think with in a couple months I would be able to create a pretty profitable site. There are many opportunities now, like with wordpress you get free hosting.
Greg asks: Shoemoney, you said in a previous post that one of the keys to your success was creating great content — and making it easy to share.
What are the best ways to make it easy to share, and how do you encourage people to share? ShoeMoney: Give them an easy way to refer it to friends. And also with news readers and twitters, stumble this, dig this. Create those buttons and make it easy for people to share.
JBagley asks: Hey Shoe,
Ever been to South Africa? Yes or No, what do you think of it? ShoeMoney: No
Nick Throlson asks: Hey shoe what is your opinion on Market Leverage where do your see them in 5 years?
ShoeMoney: As far as personalities go, they seem very aggressive. They seem to understand how to get their name out there. From talking to some of the people behind the scenes, they are working on some really revolutionary things in the space. They got their name out there which is key, now they just need to back up everything they have been talking about. Which they are doing a great job at. They seem to be dominating the buzz throughout the blogosphere.
JumboCasher.com asks: looks like… from the quality of posts comming around!
ShoeMoney: Pass
Joe asks: Which fighting discipline do you think is the best to take and why.
ShoeMoney: I’m a big fan of jujitsu or judo. They are kind of closed combat styles. Odds are most fights if somebody would attack you, it will end up on the ground. Some form of advanced wrestling would be the most helpful.
Paulo Faustino asks: Hello Shoe,
I would like to ask you what is your favorite sport of the Olympic Games, and if you think that China could beat the USA in the medals board, this year? Bye ShoeMoney: I don’t think China will place in the top 50%. I don’t know, but I love watching basketball. The USA team is the most incredible allstar team assembled. Watching Lebron and Kobe is like watching the Harlem Globetrotters playing around with their opponents.
Andrew asks: I was reading your post about the robot.txt file and I notice with your robot.txt you have User-Agent: Googlebot listed twice, along with several identical disallows like /page/ , /feed/ and /category/ listed twice, is that how it should be?
ShoeMoney: Probably just a mistake.
Ricker asks: I hope I can squeeze TWO easy/shorties in here:
1) What are your best methods you use to get a user to share your site with someone else ? 2) How many active websites (making money) do you own ? Thanks. ShoeMoney: I think you need to have something worthwhile to share in the first place. Great content to start with. And a method to share.
More than I can count. A lot of them don’t make much, and some don’t make anything. This is more of a question for a one person operation, which I used to be. But now I just look at monthly reports.
Dexter | Tech At Hand Dot Net asks: With reference with your experience as an Affiliate MArketer, What kind of product would you believe that there are lots of opportunity of earning online.. Ie, Computers, Camera, Service, E-bok etc..
ShoeMoney: I would say all of them. There is opportunity in all of those areas. The ebook thing is probably less than any of them, but its pretty saturated.
Paul U asks: I want to buy a website but I don’t know a thing about it.
What is a BIN? How does it works? ShoeMoney: BIN in an auction setting, is Buy It Now. You just stop the auction now for a set price.
zxj asks: I want to know more about how to make advertiment. I am a new learner here.
ShoeMoney: Pass
Ganesh asks: What is the biggest disadvantage of being a teen entrepreneur?
ShoeMoney: I was never a teen entrepreneur. I was busy sleeping in and playing video games. I would imagine most of them have trouble dealing with companies because they aren’t 18. If you are a teen, go play, don’t be an affiliate marketer.
netmeg asks: Pardon me if this has been asked before, but who created your avatar? I’ve admired it for some time.
ShoeMoney: Dave Naylor. He’s an artist and really good friend of mine.
JumboCasher.com asks: I would think it is more because of the content and the daily blog readership, rather than just the RSS count. BTW the RSS count can be jacked up anyways…
ShoeMoney: Pass
Ari asks: where do you go to fix bugs in your wordpress blog? sometimes I get SQL errors or plugins that I want are acting up and conflicting and I don’t want to remove them, I just want them fixed!!
ShoeMoney: Most of the plugins I have written myself, or hacked. We have modified all the plugins we run, to do what we want. Between us, we squash all the bugs.
Dave asks: GSP or Penn? And are you the webmaster for matt hughes? I read you guys were working with him, then Dellanave said he lost him as a fan, then hughes gives you two a shoutout on his blog.
ShoeMoney: GSP wins that fight.
We’re not his webmaster. He has a guy named Nathan Rosario. We just host his site, provide the bandwith. Matt Hughes is an interesting guy, and recently gave us a shoutout on his blog. Which was cool.
nkog asks: I’d like to know what was the fastest you ever gotten a page to #1 search position in google? and how much work did it take you to get there. whats the first thing you should do to market a new site.
ShoeMoney: Its probably happened a lot faster than I’ve noticed it. Especially since Google has their minty fresh indexing. I’ve written things on my blog that have ranked number 1 for a pretty competitive phrase. As far as a new site, with our McLovin ID generator, it was ranking top 1 to 3 for McLovin and still does.
Shanker Bakshi asks: Hi Shoe,
In his recent post John told his readers that how you surpass his RSS readers counts in a contest held in October 2007. Is that true, did you really use “that” evil way to cross his RSS mark by creating fake number of 4000 RSS subscribers in a single day. I guess you haven’t told anything about that yet. Would you like to answer it now? ShoeMoney: Even John doesn’t know exactly how it happened. I waited till the last day and exploited a small thing in feedburner. I did email feedburner, and told them what I was going to do, and got a reply from the vice president that said it was ok. It was a small hole in the way they verify emails. And they asked me not to talk about it, until they had fixed it. And last I checked, it still wasn’t fixed. There are quite a bit of holes in feedburner that are being exploited now.
ShoeMoney Suport Line. haha asks: Wanting to add a blog to my existing e-commerce site. A. is it better to put a blog on it’s own domain or does it matter. can I put it as a sub domain off my e-commerce site? which is better as we get a lot of traffic to our main domain, but not sure what is best for adding a blog. adding a navigation tab for the blog off the main site, or starting with a new domain that the main site points too.
ShoeMoney: I would yield to Matt Cutts on the subject. You should always do it as a subfolder of the website. Like http://www.mattcutts.com/blog. For an SEO purpose many people will link to your main url and your blog url. From a navigational perspective, you should only use sub domains, if its clearly a separate part of the site.
JC asks: Shoe, have you ever flipped a house to make money?
ShoeMoney: No
Jonathan Villiard asks: Mr. Showmaker,
for the very first time, I will meet a big client (a bank) for a SEO proposal. I am very excited and stressed about all this. Would you be so kind as to wish me good luck? Thanks Jonathan ShoeMoney: Good Luck.
Israel asks: How often to you workout, and what do you do specifically during those workouts…cardio, lift, etc.
Eating wise, are you a stickler for what you eat or do you eat anything (limited due to the surgery you had)? ShoeMoney: I haven’t worked out for over a month. But I am going to get back into the routine starting today. Partially due to my new kid being born. Mondays I do chest, benchpress, overhead press and a few other exercises. Wednesdays we do legs, mostly walking lunges, squats, and straight leg deadlifts. On Fridays we do back, which is pullups, and seated rows, etc. Cardio is kind of hit or miss, try to run twice a week.
I don’t really have a restrictive diet. But I try to keep away from the fat, because with the surgery I had my body doesn’t absorb fat.
wesley asks: Name a niche you are wanting to get into.
ShoeMoney: We pretty much do anything we want, so…
Jerry asks: Shoe,
How would you advise new bloggers on gaining back links? What are some of the techniques you would recommend? ShoeMoney: Write passionately. The more you can write honestly and from the heart, people will want to link to your content. For one it will be original, because its your own thoughts. For the most part, be you. If you are just trying to write for money, you probably won’t get anywhere. I wrote on shoemoney.com for a year and half without ever thinking I could make any money off of it.
Melvin asks: Jeremy when do you consider nofollowing or dofollwing a link on a blog post? any explanantion?
ShoeMoney: Its almost like an endorsement, so sometimes when I want you to easily get to the site but I don’t want to be associated with them I will use a nofollow. It tells the search engine that hey I’ve met this dude, but I’m not vouching for him.
Johny B asks: Adwords question - if some of my keywords become inactive due to google required minimum bid becoming higher than my maximum bid - what should I do with them?
Delete, pause or something else? ShoeMoney: If you aren’t going to change anything else, I would delete it. If you are going to change the ad copy to get a better click through ratio, you’re going to have to pay more for a while. But eventually it will come back down. If you can pay more, then do it. The only thing that is going to bring down the quality score is spending more money to get that click through ratio to get your price down, or improving the user experience to get the quality score up.
Myron McDaniel asks: We are launching a new site and need some sponsors. The site is hbcuighlights.com we links open for podcast, blogs, partners section. Would you like sponsor our site with fighters.com or another one your properties?
ShoeMoney: Possibly. Demonstrate what is in it for us and we’ll talk.
River Girl asks: When and where is the next elite retreeat?
ShoeMoney: I don’t think it makes sense to have it anywhere other than San Francisco. Unless somebody wants to put up the money to do it. We sold out the last one in San Fran, but we don’t have any plans to do another one. But I get asked once a week when the next one will be. I think it will sell out in 48 hours. It would probably be next Feb – March, in San Fran. Unless somebody wants to put up some money and have it somewhere else. We could try it in Vegas, but you want people actually at the event. We’ll have more on that at the end of this year. I know there is a big demand for it. I don’t know that we can top the last one, but we could definitely still do it.
Jim asks: besides craigslist, what job listings boards have you found to PERSONALLY work for you for recruiting employees? Please do not answer with monster.com, hotjobs, etc where the fees are in the hundreds. These cannot be virtual people, like elance etc, but professional (i need teachers) in the US?
ShoeMoney: Husker Hire Link
zxj asks: why can not I see my comment?
ShoeMoney: Read my post on comment spam and the comment system. If you have never commented before, it will be in the comment moderation cue.
David G. asks: Shoe,
Your recommendations 1. Wordpress or Blooger or Other. 2. The Best Web Hosting Companies. 3. Any Recommendation for Auction Software for web based auction. 4. Did you check out PicLens? Thanks ShoeMoney: Wordpress
We haven’t used a web hosting company for years No No idea what piclense is
SalutaryBlog asks: Would you recommend stealing videos and branding them as your own?
ShoeMoney: Obviously no. But I think on the other hand, you see a lot of people stealing my content and branding it as their own. You want to always respect copyrights of everyone.
Robert asks: What did you think of how TAC (top affiliate challenge) came out?
ShoeMoney: I think based on the fact that they had absolutely no money to spend on it, the producers. Thor didn’t have a very extensive marketing background, and a company that produced wedding videos. It has gotten more buzz than anything that I can remember. There are a number of things that need to be improved. People always bring it up. I know they were happy with the amount of revenue that the producers got out of it, and the winner got out of it. I don’t know that I’ll be apart of it again, time wise, it was just taking up a lot of time. I’ve been approached about it, but I’m kind of saying no for now. It was pretty successful. I haven’t seen past the third episode, but people will ask me about it, and tell me that it gets so much better. It received a lot of negative press, but they had a lot of how they would do it differently. So I don’t know that it was that negative. They have kind of volunteered to help out with the next one. I agree there was a lot of room for improvement, but at the same time it was one of the biggest success stories we’ve had in a long time.
Ted asks: Shoe say you have a website selling a physical product. What do you think a manufacturer/wholesaler of said product wants to hear in order to give you the best discount (and thus a greater re-sale margin for you)?
ShoeMoney: I think the representation of the product is a big thing. If you can show you have a budget for advertising, they will give you a better margin. If you have a reputation in the space for sales with similar products, and showing you are not just going to waste their time. Will all result in a better payout.
browie asks: if you had the name browie, what would you call your new company when you started to bring in enough revenue?
ShoeMoney: Something else, I would call it something else.
George @ Micro Marketing asks: If you can start all over again… would you still build a blog or go for the static webpages…
here’s another question… which utility o software you will not be able be without or lose its application… which is the most important to you? ShoeMoney: I would start my blog again.
Terminal, without terminal I would be in deep trouble. With no access to command lines, it would be a real issue. I use skitch a ton as well.
James asks: Do you have a dog? If so whats the dogs name and male or female…..
ShoeMoney: Baxter, male
Victor asks: Can a blogger starting now possibly have the same kind of success you and John Chow have had, with all the competition today?
ShoeMoney: Yes. I think it depends on what you determine as success. As far as the blogosphere, John Chow and I are both in the top 100 Technorati. We are just regular guys. I think anyone can do it. I graduated with a 1. Something GPA, anyone can do it. I write anything from how I used to be fat, meeting paris Hilton, and people find that interesting. So you can do it too.
mr K asks: What are the 3 biggest mistakes you’ve made in your online marketing journey?
ShoeMoney: 1. I had an oral contract with a company, and they broke the agreement and there was nothing we could do about it.
2. I’m a horrible manager, so I should have hired a CEO a while ago. I’m a marketer and some what of a programmer. For me to be a CEO and run all of these different sites and do marketing, but I think I still should hire a CEO to run all of these companies. 3. Newsletter. I should have started a newsletter years ago. And people tried to tell me, but I never listened.
Justin asks: How is Below A Buck doing? Traffic? How many successful bids/ACRU is it doing in per a month?
ShoeMoney: Belowabuck is a site that we created in less than 24 hours. We did it on less than $500 budget. In the first month it did a couple thousand dollars. But we haven’t even changed the links to the new CJ links, so it does absolutely nothing. Its actually blacklisted in google, because another site was causing a duplicate content issue. We’re actually trying to get that cleared up.
Mike asks: How do you usually start driving traffic with new projects or affiliates and how much money do you usually take in the hand?
ShoeMoney: Organically is nice. Usually I use low hanging fruit. So if I know someone in that space. Say we have a baby product, I would ping a lot of the mommy bloggers. Just go after low hanging fruit.
Glenn S. asks: What do you consider the best pay-per-lead affiliate programs?
ShoeMoney: The poker industry, if its legal for you to do so, still has incredible payouts per lead. Mortgages pay really really well if you have quality stuff. Financial industry. It depends on your quality of leads, and how you build the leads.
Ryan asks: Sometimes I find myself in a “mental block” when trying to think “outside the box” to come up with new keywords. What tips can you provide us with, to allow our minds to break free from the block?
ShoeMoney: I did a post one time on harvesting your own internal data. For instance on nextpimp, which is our mobile community site. People will type in artist names, and typos. And then bid on that in our keyword set. We have our own keyword generation tool, and keep them fresh all the time. You can subscribe to shoemoney tools, for $100 per month right now in the beta. The only thing you can do unique, is your own data.
JumboCasher.com asks: how would it feel to ask john ths question?
ShoeMoney: Pass
Dave asks: If you had a full-time job (that you don’t hate) and your online income was about 1.5x what your job makes, would you quit or stick with it? On the one hand, I could probably grow it quite a bit since I’m only spending about 8 hours a week on it now. On the other hand, when I don’t rely on the online income as much I outsource more (less work for me), save more, and spend more on fun stuff. Think if you didn’t get fired you would’ve kept your job?
ShoeMoney: If they are happy, just do what makes them happy. There is a certain level of security with working for someone. And having benefits. Most people want to know at one point should you quit your day job and pursue. I think it just depends on how much you believe in what you are doing.
Reid asks: Shoemoney-
Did you ever have a time in your life where you wanted to give up on your internet ideas, or what gave you the push to become a successful internet entrepreneur? ShoeMoney: I never wanted to give up. Its like a hobby to me, to try different things. Like playing the game of life. Being that it doesn’t cost anything to do it. The push really to do it, was a position of opportunity meets preparation. I basically got fired from a job, and my girlfriend at the time had decent enough income to support us as I tried this.
JumboCasher.com asks: How would a search engine rate a single landing page against a small say 10 page website?
ShoeMoney: If all the links are going to the primary page and isn’t linking to the internal pages then it doesn’t matter. If all the links are going to an interior page, than that main page isn’t going to rank as well. I’m not an SEO.
terminator69 asks: What is the coolest thing you have with the shoemoney logo on it? (excluding the swimming pool).
ShoeMoney: When I was 12 years old, I took a fluorescent plastic that goes over light fixtures. I did that logo in duct tape, and then spray-painted it. So when the light was on, it would shine through the logo.
Craig asks: If timing was different how do you think you would have done on the TAC, it would have been really interesting to see all 3 gurus battle it out.
ShoeMoney: It wasn’t a battle between the gurus. We were there as just a resource for the contestants. It would have been interesting to see if we had a competition between us 3 gurus.
Geiger asks: What’s it take to get to the top of the Free T-Shirt Friday Queue?
ShoeMoney: I don’t really see the shirts, till Tigh hands them to me. So maybe a $20 to Tigh and Susan.
Bryn Youngblut asks: Are you less motivated with your blog lately?
ShoeMoney: The thing with my blog , is its my blog. So if I want to write, I can. If not, then I don’t have to. I’m more excited about the blog than ever. But unfortunately the blog has always taken a back seat to our other company stuff. The company is definitely low on the priority list. We do have a new design that will be rolled out this week.
JumboCasher.com asks: Shoe, what are the 3 biggest mistakes that you have made on this blog!
ShoeMoney: 1. The newsletter, not having one.
2. Redone the URL structure. But I like the way it is now, and by the URL structure you and tell by what dates the post was made. 3. I wish I would have implemented some of things I do now earlier. The behind the scenes thing, those are fricken awesome. Absolutely love doing those. Wish I would have done that earlier, and we have quite a waiting list of companies that we’re doing. I think I just took too long doing something things.
Mitchell Blatt asks: How does it feel to have a Wikipedia page about yourself while John Chow doesn’t?
ShoeMoney: I actually have a huge list of all the things I’ve done that John Chow hasn’t. I actually didn’t even know that he didn’t have one. And my page lists me 2 years older than what I actually am. I’m not going to lie, it is cool to have a wikipedia page. But I still have to work tomorrow.
Martin Muehl asks: You once mentioned that you track your website traffic with your own analytics tool. Do you track any key metrics other than the usual?
ShoeMoney: Depending on the site and the goal. For instance on our webmasters tools stuff.  We track what tool people use, and devoting the most amount of time on what people are using.
samn asks: How do you get a “Great” quality score on a single page landing page.
ShoeMoney: Click through ratio has to be very good. The user experience is very vital, and so the user doesn’t immediately click back right away. As much as you can answer the keyword, and your ad copy has a lot to do with it. Read some of my old posts on paperclick.
Mitch asks: Whenever I try using an image ad (CJ, Common Connect, etc) on the side panel of my Wordpress blog (my server, but their software), that entire side is suddenly at the bottom of the screen on the browser instead of on the right side. What could the issue be?
ShoeMoney: Sounds like you have a fixed width issue. Your website is a fixed width, and that image is too big.
Coaster asks: I am new to this site.
Where should I start reading on your site? It seems to be a bit all over the place to me and I don’t know what to read first! ShoeMoney: At the bottom is a previous questions and answers, there are over 1,200 Q&A’s. I would start there.
Chris Edwards asks: Can I become a rep of yours someway over here in California (Los Angeles)?
ShoeMoney: Absolutely.
team ray asks: auctions ads how long did it take you to put it together and in what programming language did you use?
ShoeMoney: Dave Dellanave wrote it in a couple days, for the core of it. Maybe less than a day. It was derived from a product called Shoemoney Ads.
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mcQ asks: Do you think Bruce Ivin’s is the anthrax guy? or he is being used as a scapegoat?
ShoeMoney: Not familiar. Sure.
Geiger asks: Choose one…
Rock, Paper or Scissors? ShoeMoney: Rock. Because I’m built like a rock.
JumboCasher.com asks: nice question!. I have about 14 and counting…
ShoeMoney: Pass
elsewhen asks: i presume that you are well connected to people who have successful internet businesses. can you disclose the annual profits (not revenues) the top tier are making in different internet business categories… like people who specialize in running adsense sites, affiliate marketers, people selling digital goods, i am not asking you to disclose names, just something like, i know three guys making approx 1.5million/year with adsense or whatever. thanks!
ShoeMoney: I know 3.5 million guys making a dollar a day. If they just want to be inspired, I saw a guy log into his CJ account, and he was doing 2 million a month. That is pretty impressive. The adsense question is interesting, because most of the people making money from adsense, don’t know any better yet. This excludes digg, myspace, etc. Adsense is a great starting point, but it leads you to other things. It lead me to affiliate marketing. We were doing 100k’s per month, and led us to affiliate marketing years and years ago. I don’t know a lot making much with adsense, because it’s a little embarrassing that they are making much. I don’t know anybody making over $5 a month on adsense.
JumboCasher.com asks: making a little money is one thing… what about sustaining that income over a long period of time.
ShoeMoney: That would be good. I agree. That’s how I started with adsense and paperclick stuff. You are rich, and you’re poor. We have grown the staff and entered more stable markets.
Lawrence asks: I have a number, it’s in the range of 1-10….make a guess:
I want to check if we see eye-to-eye ShoeMoney:5
Mark - The Niche Store Builder asks: If you had a stellar idea for a new website… what are the first 5 things you would do? AND, if you were somewhat new… where would you turn for guidance?
ShoeMoney: Turning for guidance, go to my site. We have 3 core things we look at: 1. Business model, is there a way to make money. 2. A needed service, is it something you would want to use, and going to use 3. Is there a viral component, will it grow without spending money.  If they aren’t there for your stellar idea, you should probably can it.
Kacper asks: What is your biggest online success so far in this year?
ShoeMoney: The Elite Retreat was big. We launched Fighters.com. I guess it depends on what is “success”. We are hitting all of our goals with fighters.com, but we’re just not profiting. I would say fighters.com is our biggest. Or the tools system, I’m really impressed by how many people have signed up already. We have a great feedback thing now, where people can submit suggestions. And we let members vote on it, and if everybody wants it, then we’ll build it. Its still too early in the year, we usually do the best in the 4th quarter. The 1st and 2nd quarter we suck. 3rd and 4th look very promising.
Dan Schawbel asks: How do you charge advertisers on your blog? Is it by the number of RSS subscribers you have?
ShoeMoney: No. We charge, because we’re capitalist pig, we basically let the market set itself. The advertisers are locked in at that price, but when they stop advertising we charge more for the next advertiser. We increase the price 5% each time, until nobody wants to advertise then we’ll bring the price down.
BigPappa asks: Can I buy you a beer next time I am in Lincoln?
ShoeMoney: Probably not. Only because between work and family, I can’t remember the last time I went out to a bar in Lincoln. Except for one night with the TAC. I can’t even name a bar in Lincoln.
JumboCasher.com asks: what according to you is going to be the next big thing about the internet?
ShoeMoney: The internationalization of the internet will be the next frontier. When you look at the market, and many people use the internet in other countries. If affiliate marketing is there, then adsense will be there. There are just so many people that aren’t on the internet yet, and the mobile, international stuff. Most people in other countries use their phones more than their computer to access the internet.
Charlie asks: Would me buying at a great hibachi grill here in Vegas be a fair trade for some time to discuss a couple projects I have been working on? And when are you going to be in Las Vegas again? (pubcon I assume)
ShoeMoney: I’ll be in Vegas for the DMA, in October. Taking me out for dinner, I just don’t have time for that. I appreciate the offer, but I just don’t plan lunches and dinners. I usually just go with the posse. Unless you want to buy dinner for 20 people. Usually Neil Patel buys for everyone. I’m free to talk, just tag along with.
Joe Hall asks: Best online business: subscription based service, or for sale product? And i also want to know what your thoughts are on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but if i have to choose, I want to know about the online business first.
ShoeMoney: Subscription is the win. Ongoing subscription is timeless. Blockbuster and netflix monthly subscription models, they absolutely kill it. With some of our sites , we have subscribers going back 5, 6 years. That’s awesome revenue. Even with our shirts, we lose money on the shirts. The shirts cost us $7, and $5 to ship. So we lose money on them. We have people call about wrong sizes, or shipped to wrong address. I’ve never cared to actually have a physical product.
I think they’re cool. They don’t have to dress up, they just have their shell. Each has their own specialty.
Allen asks: If you had very limited time and resources, what would you do to make money in the least amount of time?
So let’s say you wanted to make $50/day and had 8 hours to set it up what would you do? ShoeMoney: I would probably put $10,000 and 5% interest on that. Whatever would give me $50 in interest, I would put that much money in the bank. By the time you get all the paperwork done, it would take less than 8 hours.
meethere asks: why dont you post a monthly income report similar to johnchow
 ?ShoeMoney: Honestly, because I would just be guessing. I actually run several other companies and projects. I’m not that guy sitting at home in his underwear anymore. I have one person does all accounting, Tigh does all the operations, and Dave does all the programming. And I do the marketing. I know we do good revenues. The blog should bring in about $300k, $400k this year. Probably 90% is profit. Most of the advertisers don’t want to share, and some have a good rate, some don’t. We have to make $1,400 just so we’re in the green, because we have employees. And in some projects we have investors, which would not want us disclosing the financial info.
TEKFIRM asks: - Content is king
- Viral - Service ShoeMoney: Pass
TEGS asks: Hey Shoe,
I sent you a picture of me and a affiliate check but you never posted it! Either way, love the site! Thanks! ShoeMoney: Send in a pic of yourself with a check. And people started sending in pics with their dog and a check, car and a check. And it might have just got tagged a spam. Send it again.
Geiger asks: How does one start their own ringtone site?
ShoeMoney: A lot of affiliate companies have API’s that you can start right away. Years and years ago, people could generate their own ringtones upload and share them. That would be hard for you now though. I’m assuming you don’t have a very good marketing team, programming team.
corey asks: the website that is the most enjoyable for me to run and create content for is in a niche that is not a huge affiliate arena. only a few of the online stores have affiliate programs. have you ever motivated a company to start a program? is it a lot of trouble for a seller to get setup with one of these networks?
ShoeMoney: We have motivated and written affiliate programs for companies. If this company has something you believe in, have them contact us and we can implement one for them. They can go with CJ, they charge like $5k off the top, and hold $5k. We custom write them, and the way we do it is pretty slick for SEO value. It has better tracking than most affiliate companies. And its more hands on. When people are blocking CJ cookies, and links. You won’t be affected by that.
Andrew asks: Do you have a college degree? Is it valuable these days for someone who aims to live off the internet or is it a waste of precious time ?
ShoeMoney: Like Tigh, he has a 4 year degree in Mathematics. But he is also from a very small town. When people are from small farming communities are usually very hard workers, and good work ethic. That combined with his education was hard for me to ignore. I don’t have a degree, I just don’t learn very well in an educational setting. I learn better from experience. If you are already doing this, and learning, and getting experience from it. I don’t know what school is going to do for you. But if you want to be an accountant, or marketing wise you can learn a lot from school. I benefited greatly from classes I took like business law and marketing. More key classes, and less degrees. I’m not a degree person.
Melvin asks: when you started out putting ads on this site, whats the average price of an adspot?
ShoeMoney: I think around $200 a month.
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| Nokia 3610 Fold Phone | ||
| The Nokia 3610 Fold is designed with usability in mind. Its ergonomic shape provides a natural alignment to the face. Spacious keys allow for comfortable text messaging, while smooth back offers an understated elegance. The integrated 1.3-megapixel camera has a 6x digital zoom to capture high-quality photos. Its vivid 2.0-inch LCD displays pictures, messages and web pages in up to 262K-colors. The external LCD indicates incoming calls, messages or an analogue clock. It support optional microSD cards of up to 4GB in size. | ||
Related New Nokia Cell Phones
©2002-2008 Mobiledia Corp. A Cell Phone Resource Site. All Rights Reserved. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. |
| Motorola ROKR EM28 Phone | ||
| The Motorola ROKR EM28 is enhanced with 3D sound effects, giving music a surround-sound quality. It provides music in a familiar clamshell design. An audio equalizer provides 11 pre-set music genres, including rock, reggae and pop. Users can also boost the bass up to nine decibels. Airplane Mode plays music for approximately 11 hours of music playback. Consumers control music using touch-sensitive keys that appear only when needed. The external screen shows the name of the artist and song without opening the flip. Using Radio Data System (RDS) technology, users can identify unknown tracks playing on the integrated FM radio. Additionally, FMShare can record station information to share with friends via text message. Listeners can find song details with SONGID technology. Transfer music from a PC with drag and drop via USB 2.0. | ||
Related New Motorola Cell Phones
©2002-2008 Mobiledia Corp. A Cell Phone Resource Site. All Rights Reserved. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. |
| Sony Ericsson W902i Phone | ||
| The Sony Ericsson W902i delivers excellent music quality through Sony Ericsson's clear audio experience to provide a crystal clear sound quality and a richer bass. Together with Sony Ericsson premium headphones, HPM-77 included in-box, music sounds better than ever. The W902i also has retro music navigation keys to skip forward, back, play and pause with the push of a button. A built-in 5.0-megapixel camera snaps high-quality stills and videos with additional features such as an integrated flash, 16x digital zoom, auto-focus, BestPic, Image Stabilizer, Picture Blogging, video recording and video calling via high-speed HSDPA technology. With 25MB of internal memory and ample external memory, more than 8,000 songs can be stored on an 8GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) card. | ||
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©2002-2008 Mobiledia Corp. A Cell Phone Resource Site. All Rights Reserved. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. |
| Would You Hit It? |
It's Gordon "You Stupid Donkey" Ramsey! Speaking of donkeys, Gordon is not hung like one. A baby donkey, maybe. A fetus donkey? Yeah, that's more like it. I think we finally found Ashley Tisdale's old nose! It's in Gordon's speedo. And yes, I'd let him go balls deep. Actually, I'd let him go balls in, because something tells me the peen just won't be enough. |
| LG Lotus Hands-On |
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The keyboard especially is a joy to use. The keys are bubbly, well defined, and give a distinctive click when you hit the key. The screen is bright, sharp, and appears to have a respectable pixel density. The phone UI was too early in development to get a strong idea of what to expect, but Frog collaborated with Sprint in the design, which was easy on the eyes. The LG Lotus is set to hit stores in October for $150 and will probably attract those who want the texting features without the high end features that drive prices up. [LG Lotus on Giz] |
The first thing that stands out about Sprint's exclusive | Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 to Hit Streets First in Europe, September 30 |
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Sony Ericsson's upcoming Xperia X1 smartphone is due to go on sale at first in Europe in just 20 days. It'll hit the streets in the UK, Germany and Sweden then, followed by many other countries throughout the remainder of 2008. To "start the countdown" SE will be launching a live global webcast on September 15 at 1PM London time, demonstrating the handset's fucntions. That's fab news, and confirms that rumor the phone | The future of search |
The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the 10 years since Google's founding. It has changed politics, entertainment, culture, business, health care, the environment and just about every other topic you can think of. Which got us to thinking, what's going to happen in the next 10 years? How will this phenomenal technology evolve, how will we adapt, and (more importantly) how will it adapt to us? We asked 10 of our top experts this very question, and over the next three weeks we will present their responses. As computer scientist Alan Kay has famously observed, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, so we will be doing our best to make good on our experts' words every day. - Karen Wickre and Alan Eagle, series editors.I am a search addict. I’m naturally inquisitive – I’ve always liked finding things out. Plus, I’ve worked at Google on search for the past 9 years and 3 months. Of course I search - a lot. Yet I would guess that on any given day, I only do about 20% of the searches that I could. This past Saturday, I kept track of the things that came up in conversation that I wanted to search for right then but couldn’t: Are "fab," "goy" and "eely" words? (There was a Scrabble game going on.) What time does J.C. Penney open on Saturday? Which school has a team called the Banana Slugs? What is the team mascot for San Jose State? How much power does that hydroelectric dam generate? What do you call a group of turkeys? What time does Tropic Thunder show? What’s the name of that great Irish flute player, first name James? What’s the name of the largest city in Russia after Moscow and St. Petersburg? Which is older, a redwood or a cypress? What’s the oldest living thing and how old is it? Who sings “Queen of Hearts”? What kind of bird is that flying over there? Is the "LF" in San Francisco on Union Square or Union Street? What are the dance steps to the Charleston? What day of the week was The Lawrence Welk Show on? What are the lyrics to “In the Mood”? How does Coumadin differ from aspirin in its blood thinning effects? What was the story behind the naming of the number "googol"? And those are just the ones that I remember. Looking at this list, two things are very clear: (1) I could do a lot more searches and (2) search still has a lot of opportunity for innovation, change, and progress. There are lots of ways that search will need to evolve in order to easily meet user needs. Let’s look at some of my unanswered questions from Saturday and consider how search might change over the next 10 years. Modes First, why couldn’t I do these searches right then, when I needed to? Because search still isn’t accessible enough or easy enough. Search needs to be more mobile – it should be available and easy to use in cell phones and in cars and on handheld, wearable devices that we don’t even have yet. For example, when the topic of the oldest living thing came up during a boat ride, everyone in the conversation was curious about it, but no one wanted to break out an awkward, slow device to do a search. It would be much nicer if we had a device with great connectivity that could do searches without interruption. One far-fetched idea: how about a wearable device that does searches in the background based on the words it picks up from conversations, and then flashes relevant facts? This notion brings up yet another way that “modes” of search will change – voice and natural language search. You should be able to talk to a search engine in your voice. You should also be able to ask questions verbally or by typing them in as natural language expressions. You shouldn’t have to break everything down into keywords. Further, why should a search be words at all? Why can’t I enter my query as a picture of the birds overhead and have the search engine identify what kind of bird it is? Why can’t I capture a snippet of audio and have the search engine identify and analyze it (a song or a stream of conversation) and tell me any relevant information about it? Services that do parts of that are available today, but not in an easy-to-use, integrated way. In the next 10 years, we will see radical advances in modes of search: mobile devices offering us easier search, Internet capabilities deployed in more devices, and different ways of entering and expressing your queries by voice, natural language, picture, or song, just to name a few. It’s clear that while keyword-based searching is incredibly powerful, it’s also incredibly limiting. These new modes will be one of the most sweeping changes in search. Media Then there’s the media aspect. The 10 blue links offered as results for Internet search can be amazing and even life-changing, but when you are trying to remember the steps to the Charleston, a textual web page isn’t going to be nearly as helpful as a video. The media of the results matters. Universal search, which we released last May, was an important first step that included images, videos, news, books, and maps/local information in our main Google search results. Yet our presentation is still very linear (the results are just a list) and even (no one result is more important or larger than the next). What if the results page began to transform radically to really harness these different types of results into something that felt much more like an answer rather than just 10 independent guesses? What if results pages pulled the best media together and laid it out such that the most useful content was not only first but largest? What if we laid out content in columns to use more of the width available on newer, wider screens? We’ve barely scratched the surface with universal search, but it’s an important first step to exploring the full range of what we can do with rich media. For the past year, our goal has been to take advantage of these new types of results and evolve the interface design and user experience in response. You’ll see the fruits of this experimentation in the coming months, but even these changes are just the beginning. The face of search will change dramatically over the next 10 years. Maybe it should contain even more videos and images, maybe it should sharply differentiate the relative weight and accuracy of the results more, maybe it should be more interactive in terms of refinements? We’re not sure yet, but we do know that the one thing that the search experience can’t be - especially in the face of the online media explosion we’re currently experiencing - is stagnant. Personalization Search engines 10 years from now will be a lot better than the ones we have now. We know this because Google itself gets a little better each day. We’re constantly writing and revising new notions of search relevance, and we release improvements almost daily. Those improvements add up for us and for other search engines, so it follows that search engines 10 years from now will be markedly better. Therefore, the real question is not will search be better, but rather how will it be better? One answer is clear: search engines of the future will be better in part because they will understand more about you, the individual user. Of course, you will be in control of your personal information, and whatever personal information the search engine uses will be with your permission and will be transparent to you. But even with the most rudimentary user information, search engines can and will provide drastically better search results. Maybe the search engines of the future will know where you are located, maybe they will know what you know already or what you learned earlier today, or maybe they will fully understand your preferences because you have chosen to share that information with us. We aren't sure which personal signals will be most valuable, but we're investing in research and experimentation on personalized search now because we think this will be very important later. Location Your location is one potentially useful facet of personalized information. Looking at my questions, the answers to a number of them (What time does J.C. Penney open? How much power does that hydroelectric dam generate? What time does Tropic Thunder play?) require the search engine to know that I was in Yankton, South Dakota and Crofton, Nebraska when I asked. Since location is relevant to a lot of searches, incorporating user location and context will be pivotal in increasing the relevance and ease of search in the future. Social Another element of personalization is social context. Who am I friends with, and how do I relate to them? How can I harness their knowledge more efficiently? For example, I have a friend who works at a store called LF in Los Angeles (hence, the question about LF in San Francisco). By itself, “LF” is a very ambiguous acronym. According to the first page of search results on Google, it could refer to my friend’s trendy fashion store, but it could also refer to Leapfrog Enterprises, low frequency, Lebhar-Friedman, Li & Fung Investment Group, LF Driscoll Construction Management, large format, or a future concept car design from Lexus. Today, the person typing “LF” has to figure out which is the right result – to “disambiguate” the ambiguous term – but this is something that the search engine needs to get better at. Perhaps we’ll understand the semantics of the question about where LF in San Francisco is, and infer that LF is a store. Or maybe, search could analyze my social graph and realize that one of my friends works at LF, that I saw that friend this weekend, and that in that context “LF” refers to her place of employment. Algorithmic analysis of the user’s social graph to further refine a query or disambiguate it could prove very useful in the future. In addition, there are searches where actually asking a friend helps. I was having a hard time finding out the answer to the question about aspirin versus Coumadin because I was spelling it â€cumitin’ and Google wasn’t correcting me. A quick email to a doctor friend, and I was back on the right track - equipped with the right spelling and his explanation of the difference, so I could search and learn even more about how these two drugs are used to thin blood. There’s a lot of expertise, knowledge, and context in users’ social graphs, so putting tools in place to make “friend-augmented" search easy could make search more efficient and more relevant. Language The above examples show how modes, media, and various forms of personalization have the potential to vastly improve search – but what about language? We know there are cases where an answer exists on the web, but not in a language you read. This is why Google is investing in machine translation. We want to be able to unlock the power of web search for anyone speaking any language. The basic concept is – if the answer exists online anywhere in any language, we’ll go get it for you, translate it and bring it back in your native tongue. This is an incredibly empowering idea that could really change the way that users experience the web and communicate with each other, particularly in languages where not a lot of native content is available. You can see our early explorations in this space here, by visiting our cross-language information retrieval tool. Conclusion We’re all familiar with 80-20 problems, where the last 20% of the solution is 80% of the work. Search is a 90-10 problem. Today, we have a 90% solution: I could answer all of my unanswered Saturday questions, not ideally or easily, but I could get it done with today’s search tool. (If you’re curious, the answers are below.) However, that remaining 10% of the problem really represents 90% (in fact, more than 90%) of the work. Coming up with elegant, fitting and relevant solutions to meet the challenges of mobility, modes, media, personalization, location, socialization, and language will take decades. Search is a science that will develop and advance over hundreds of years. Think of it like biology and physics in the 1500s or 1600s: it’s a new science where we make big and exciting breakthroughs all the time. However, it could be a hundred years or more before we have microscopes and an understanding of the proverbial molecules and atoms of search. Just like biology and physics several hundred years ago, the biggest advances are yet to come. That’s what makes the field of Internet search so exciting. So what's our straightforward definition of the ideal search engine? Your best friend with instant access to all the world’s facts and a photographic memory of everything you’ve seen and know. That search engine could tailor answers to you based on your preferences, your existing knowledge and the best available information; it could ask for clarification and present the answers in whatever setting or media worked best. That ideal search engine could have easily and elegantly quenched my withdrawal and fueled my addiction on Saturday. I’m very proud that Google in its first 10 years has changed expectations around information and how quickly and easily it should be able to be retrieved. But I’m even more excited about what Google search can achieve in the future. And here, in order, are the answers to my Saturday questions. Are fab, goy, and eely words? Yes, yes, and yes, according to Merriam-Webster: Search: [fab site:m-w.com ] Result: http://dev.m-w.com/dictionary/fab Search: [goy site:m-w.com] Result: http://dev.m-w.com/dictionary/goy Search:[eely site:m-w.com ] Result: http://dev.m-w.com/dictionary/eely What time does J.C. Penney open on Saturday? 10 a.m. Search: [jc penney yankton ] Hours on results page: http://www.google.com/search?q=jcpenney+yankton Which school has a team called the Banana Slugs? University of California, Santa Cruz Search: [banana slugs] Result: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Santa_Cruz What is the team mascot for San Jose State? The San Jose State Spartans Search: [san jose state mascot] On results page: http://www.google.com/search?q=san+jose+state+mascot How much power does that hydroelectric dam generate? $35M of electricity annually Search: [hydroelectric dam crofton yankton] Search: [gavins point dam] Result: https://www.nwo.usace.army.mil/html/Lake_Proj/gavinspoint/welcome.html What do you call a group of turkeys? A rafter of turkeys Search: [group of turkeys] On results page: http://www.google.com/search?q=group+of+turkeys What time does Tropic Thunder show? 7 p.m. Search: [movies yankton mall] Result: http://www.moviefone.com/theater/carmike-cinemas-yankton-mall-5/9346/showtimes What’s the name of that great Irish flute player, first name James? James Galway Search: [irish flute player james] On results page: http://www.google.com/search?q=irish+flute+player+james What’s the name of the largest city in Russia after Moscow and St. Petersburg? Novobirsk Search: [largest Russian cities] Result: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Russia_by_population What’s older, a redwood or a cypress? Cypresses (4500 years old is oldest known) are older than redwoods (2200 years old is oldest known) Search: [cypress tree age] Result: http://www.payvand.com/news/08/apr/1253.html Search: [redwood tree age] Result: http://www.sempervirens.org/sequoiasemp.htm What’s the oldest living thing and how old is it? The bristlecone pine, living for 5,000-11,000 years Search: [oldest living thing] Result: http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0601.htm http://hubpages.com/hub/Oldest_living_thing Who sings “Queen of Hearts”? Juice Newton Search: ["queen of hearts" song] On results page: http://www.google.com/search? =%22queen+of+hearts%22+song What kind of bird is that flying over there? A turkey vulture Search: [turkey vulture flying] on Google image search Pictures that match on results page: http://images.google.com/images?q=turkey%20vulture%20flying Is the LF in San Francisco on Union Square or Union Street? 1870 Union Street Search: [lf san francisco] Address on results page: http://www.google.com/search?q=lf+san+francisco What are the dance steps to the Charleston? Show in video below Search : [Charleston dance demonstration] Video result: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zzyg7l6qxNQ What day of the week was The Lawrence Welk Show on? Saturday Search: [lawrence welk show] Result: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lawrence_Welk_Show What are the lyrics to “In the Mood”? “In the mood, that's what he told me, In the mood, and when he told me, In the mood, my heart was skippin', It didn't take me long to say "I'm in the mood now".” Search: [“in the mood” lyrics] Result: http://www.lyricsdepot.com/glenn-miller/in-the-mood.html How does Coumadin differ from aspirin in its blood thinning effects? Aspirin is an anti-platelet agent that prevents clotting. Coumadin also prevents clotting but the mechanism is different. Both thin the blood, but Coumadin is stronger and much more effective in certain instances like atrial fibrillation. Search: [aspirin Coumadin how different] Result: http://www.stmaryhealthcare.org/body.cfm?id=250  
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Sony's just come up with the software development kit for the | Gear Gallery: Sexy and Tough Mobile, Green Dell PC and More |
 : First, a word to the RAZR fans. (There are some still left.) Though the V750 has similar looks and ergonomics, this isn't the second coming of the world's favorite fashion phone. With military-grade protection from dust, shock and high and low temperatures, it's a different creature entirely. Even though it casts the same fragile silhouette as the RAZR, my review unit took repeated 4-foot drops and dirt naps with ease (and just a few cracks). After brushing the phone off, I was still able to make and receive calls with reasonably clear audio. If you're concerned with the average accidental drops and collisions a cellphone endures on a day-to-day basis, the V750 has you covered, hands down. Ohhh, but that doesn't mean all is well in Rugged Town. The phone's hard plastic chassis and keypad did fine in my splash tests, but without the official certification in place, it's unlikely that the V750 could take a full dunk. Luckily, Motorola defied rugged convention by outfitting the V750 with an impressive array of multimedia features. Be it pictures, video, music or (gasp!) mobile web, the V750's brisk interface and capabilities match pace with most midlevel multimedia phones. Its 67 MB of memory and crippled Bluetooth keep it from groundbreaking status, but paired with its price, these features make the V750 a solid investment for the weekend adventure-seeker. WIRED: Sensible balance of utility and entertainment. Fantastic data speeds via EV-DO Rev A. 1,000-entry phone book stores multiple numbers per entry and postal addresses. 1.6-inch external LCD makes on-the-go media playback a breeze. Looks and handles like a sleek, non-rugged phone. TIRED: Modestly rugged at best. Push-To-Talk setup is convoluted and clunky. Muddy speakerphone audio at high volumes. Flimsy battery door flies off during impacts. Verizon OS cripples Bluetooth, video message length and file sharing. Flashless cameras are the stuff of the Dark Ages. $260, Motorola
Read our full Motorola V750 Adventure review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : The Dell Studio Hybrid doesn’t run on ethanol and D-cells, but it does consume about 70 percent less electricity than those hulking desktop towers. This über-cute little media-cruncher comes in your choice of rich automotive colors (or bamboo, for Pier 1-themed abodes), and you can swap colors on demand with interchangeable sleeves. The Hybrid starts at $500, but by the time you trick it out with goodies like a slot-loading Blu-ray drive, Wireless-N adapter, Logitech’s diNovo Mini Keyboard (a must if you’re planning couch time), a digital TV tuner, and the bamboo sleeve (a $130 upgrade -- WTF?), the price rockets north of $1,300. Hybrids can serve desk duty or accent your living room: Even the base model comes stocked with HDMI port (DVI, too), so it’s a cinch to pair with HDTV. Blu-ray movies at 1920 x 1080 did just fine aside from a video stutter every time we adjusted the volume. Dell scores big points for style, power conservation and customization. WIRED: Sips power, unlike those heinous watt-guzzling towers. Swappable color sleeves let you change the paint job to match your mood -- or paint job. Reports for media-center duty with HDMI port and slot-loading Blu-ray drive. Metal stand cleverly morphs between vertical and horizontal positions. TIRED: Wussy integrated graphics choke on 3-D games. Looks rigged for silent running, but actually runs a little noisy. $130 bamboo sleeve will only appeal to aristocratic pandas. $1,365 (as tested), Dell
Read our full Dell Studio Hybrid review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : To instantly win the mine's-better-than-yours camera contest, show friends the Z150's gorgeous 3-inch LCD. It's mammoth for a camera with a sub-$200 price tag, and bright enough to see in direct sunlight. You can also fire off a group shot without having to take the customary 20 steps back to fit everybody in: The Z150's wide-angle lens (28mm) offers a dramatically broader field of view than most pocket cams. Meanwhile, the lens zooms to 4x before the digital faux-zoom kicks in -- that’s a whole "x" better than other models in this price range. Idjit-proof controls and logical onscreen menus make the Z150 a camera anyone can pick up and use sans manual. A dedicated video-record button captures YouTube-friendly movies at 30 fps. The Z150 tops out at 8.1 megapixels -- more than adequate for the party scene. But as you might expect, the camera produces considerable image noise when the lights are low and the ISO high. Only the color reproduction disappoints: It's good, but lacking that zing we see in competing models from, say, Canon. Of course, some of Canon's pocket shooters tend toward the bulky as well, so we can forgive the EX-Z150 its slightly excessive carriage. And we're mad for its big-screen, sweet wide-angle lens, and affordable price. WIRED: Wide-angle lens just plain kicks ass, and 4x optical zoom gets you close. One-touch video recording and YouTube-upload software make this the perfect camera for Paris-Lindsay-Bigfoot sightings. TIRED: Too thick and heavy to leave in your pocket all day. Small, stiff control pad. Snapshot colors lack pop. Battery must be removed for charging. $200, Casio
Read our full Casio EX Z150 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Everything’s getting tiny. The once-sexy V-8 engine is now an automotive pariah while the Smart Car gets all the chicks; HD video cameras are now damn near Twinkie-size, and we’ll probably be implanting the next-generation iPod in our molars. But at least one company isn’t succumbing to all this smaller-is-better madness: TiVo just announced the TiVo HD XL. Stuffed like a Cornish hen with a terabyte hard drive, it’s the highest-capacity DVR available, with room for 150 hours of HD content. That’s, like, every Olympic event you actually care about plus all 60 episodes of The Wire. It’s an entire season of Sunday Night Football with more than enough space for your Food Network-obsessed roommate to go balls-out on Batali. -- Joe Brown WIRED: Western Digital hard drive is nearly silent. THX-certified audio and video (finally). Say goodbye to the ugly stick -- the XL gets the same slick programmable remote as the Series 3. TiVo-easy, as expected, with the company’s ever-expanding catalog of downloadable videos (YouTube!). TIRED: Remote collects more greasy fingerprints than a secondhand sexbot. Annoying info screen hovers over the picture a few seconds too long with each channel change. Cutesy TiVo noises are a little grating, and your only other option is to turn all the sound effects off. We noticed an increase in video artifacts when recording off both tuners simultaneously. In San Francisco, at least, you have to deal with $600, TiVo
Read our full TiVo HD XL review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Need to juice up your desktop music scene? Nuforce has just the thing. Its new Icon is a miniature, multithreat amplifier that can be used to pump music from a computer or audio player to your speakers and headphones. Although it's only 12 watts per channel, the Icon is powerful enough to act as a pre-amp to full-fledged stereos and on its own can drive most bookshelf speakers, producing a wide, spacious sound stage. The sound quality from the headphone jack on my laptop is thin and distorted, but when I hooked up the Icon via the USB port and patched in my Grado SR80 cans, it was a revelation. The Icon uses a high-quality digital-to-analog converter to convert the computer's digital signal to sweet-sounding analog, and all of a sudden the music was crystal clear, the bass cleaner and deeper, and the overall sound infinitely better. The only downside here may be that you'll realize how crummy some of those downloaded MP3s actually sound. In the end, the beauty of the Icon is that it can be used in so many different ways. I've got it powering some outdoor speakers on my patio -- and it excels wherever you rig it. WIRED: Sturdy silicon-like stand holds it vertically. Rad design and color choices: red, black, blue, silver. Small enough to take on vacation. TIRED: Ethernet speaker cables are cutting-edge, but standard banana plugs would be better. Bass can be a touch thin in heavier (rock, hip-hop) music. Price/maker: $250, Nuforce
Photo: Christopher Jones/Wired.com Read our full Nuforce Icon Desktop Amplifier review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : The Treo Pro sports a shiny, rounded, tuxedo-black exterior and a handful of practical OS "shortcuts." Aside from the industrial iPhone-like design lines, those shortcuts are enough to make even the most die-hard Machead grin and bear Windows Mobile (almost). At the top of our shortcut list are the dedicated WiFi button on the right side and customizable button on the left (ours was set for camera). Circumventing the main menu and tiresome nav made the phone a joy to use. The touchscreen, on the other hand, was far from blissful. Laggy and unresponsive, we found ourselves double- and sometimes triple-tapping -– even with the stylus. Palm is definitely flexing its once-mighty muscle and trying to say it can build a stylish multimedia device with a touchscreen. But for $550, a touch interface should have more precision than this. We can only hope Palm continues to fine-tune the screen and ditch that archaic stylus permanently. WIRED: Trim, light and pocketable. Shortcuts prove beyond useful. Decent 2-megapixel pics. MicroUSB Battery lasts almost two full days. 3.5mm headphone jack. PPT/Excel/Word and PDF-reading, of course. Google Maps and TeleNav GPS, which offers turn-by-turn directions plus target searches; e.g., gas stations by price. Ships unlocked. TIRED: Menu scrolling is about as fluid as a piece of dolomite. Slippery "obsidian" plastic casing retains more fingerprints than the NSA. Noticeable screen glare. Curved design comprised by bottom-side USB/headphone jack that should be recessed more. Bluetooth not included in image send options. Only way to access microSD? Remove battery cover. Price/maker: $550, Palm
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com Read our full Palm Treo Pro review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Look! Hardware that breaks –- on purpose! The Z10's apparent bendy kick-slide design may be flashy, but turning out an innovative design is about the only thing this phone has going for it. Though it's billed as a "pocket-sized mobile studio," this 4-ounce, platinum-trimmed phone is certainly no substitute for even a mediocre minicamcorder (Exhibit A: the Flip Mino). So why drop $500 on the Z10 when you can get a 5-megapixel camphone (Exhibit B: the Nokia N82) that shoots crisper stills and comparable vids? Beats us. Maybe it's the intuitive editing suite: The Z10's storyboard feature let us cut together a montage of clips and pics with cinematic fades, circle dissolves, music and title cards in less than 10 minutes. Unfortunately, the OS wasn't nearly as user-friendly. We literally had to break out the instruction manual just to send a Bluetooth pic (no joke). Had Motorola spent even half as much time making the software as innovative as its breakaway hardware, the Z10 would have wowed us. But with its lacking OS and underwhelming camera, the phone didn't feel ready for prime time. WIRED: 30-fps vid clips don’t look too shabby. Quick, easy uploading to YouTube and Shozu. Storyboarding was a cinch. Camera shortcut button, plus autofocus, great for snapping pics on the fly. Easy-to-access external microSD card slot is ready for 32 GB.
Price/maker: $500 (unlocked), Motorola
Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com Read our full Motorola Z10 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : The Sylvania G Netbook is a fairly direct response to the Asus Eee PC 900 series, with an 8.9-inch screen, Linux OS and chicklet keys that make touch typing a fever dream fantasy. And while some of Sylvania's choices here are merely dreadful (the arrow keys are a mere 12mm wide — thinner than my pinky), it's actually the OS that royally blows it for the Netbook. Ubuntu is known for being one of the most stable and simple versions of Linux on the market, but Sylvania somehow turns it into a nightmare on this system. For a computer ostensibly designed for inexperienced users, it's a disaster. I had trouble with the Ubuntu installation on the Netbook from the start: Blank screens on bootup. MPEGs wouldn't play and codec installations repeatedly failed (or even crashed the machine). Help files weren't installed. And most annoying of all, the battery meter couldn't decide whether the computer was plugged in, and pegged battery life remaining at 0 or 2 percent no matter how long we charged it. The Netbook abruptly shut itself off on at least one occasion, possibly convinced that it was out of juice. With stability this dismal, the specs are largely irrelevant. But if you're willing to invest the time to work through the Netbook's quirks and faults, it could make a great replacement for your desk calculator. —Christopher Null WIRED: Has a real hard drive (80 GB) instead of flash storage. Includes three USB ports and an SD card reader. Comes in colors. Bright screen for this category. TIRED: Slower than a sedated slug at just about every app despite 1.6-GHz Atom chip and 1-GB RAM (standard $399 model includes just 512-MB RAM). Cartoonish styling. Considerably heavier than advertised (and the Eee PC 900) at 2.6 pounds. Far too buggy to be taken seriously. Price/maker: $450 (as tested), Sylvania
Photo courtesy Sylvania Read our full Sylvania G Netbook review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Think of this 26-inch TV from Samsung as any one of last year's larger models, shrunk down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's only 720p, but its bright, detailed picture is impressive and its vivid color is surprisingly accurate for a set this small. It scores surprisingly well in our video-processing tests, even besting many of this year's small models. Sure, this model is a bit challenged in the areas of de-interlacing 24-fps film-based HD sources and removing jaggies from diagonal lines, but then so are many of the 32-inch and smaller TVs we've tested this year. And who really worries about 24 FPS film sources on a 26-incher besides geeks like us? Unlike many small sets, though, the Samsung's noise reduction performs beautifully. We saw good results leaving it in "auto" for all but the crappiest video, and only had to really adjust for our truly hideous NR test clip. Hardcore testing aside, the Samsung's good NR combined with its great picture and color delivered where it matters the most: Our HD and SD test movies looked awesome, as did satellite HDTV and output from our 360. —Chuck Cage WIRED: Attractive, simple remote-control. Side ports (HDMI, S-Video and composite) make hooking up a 360 or camcorder a breeze. Optical digital audio out -- perfect for tying into that massive dorm-theater sound system. TIRED: Some video-processing issues. 1366 x 728 native resolution makes it a not-so-great computer monitor unless you're over 40 and want to read without your glasses. Price/maker: $550, Samsung
Read our full Samsung LN26A450C1 LCD TV review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : The HP TouchSmart IQ506 is an update to last year's all-in-one touchscreen, the TouchSmart IQ770. This year, HP went for a countertop-friendly design by packing all the components into the IQ506's brilliant 22-inch, touch-sensitive display. As a whole, this makes for a much more streamlined and clutter-free presentation compared to its predecessor. In terms of general ease and responsiveness, the IQ506's touchscreen does a marginally good job. Common maneuvers like double taps and click-and-drag highlighting can be pulled off with minimal hassle. Even problem areas like corners were accessible with relatively effortless finger pokes. Save for a pinch/zoom gesture, however, all the image-rotating fun we were expecting was largely nonexistent. In its defense, leaving notes, creating calendar reminders and a host of other "bulletin board" tasks were a cinch using the TouchSmart dashboard. But even though you can incorporate non-dashboard programs like Firefox into the interface, opening these applications kicks you back out to the Vista desktop. On one hand, the system is a great value when one compares the sticker price to the components, but it's disconcerting that a $1,500 computer lacks the flair and usability of a relatively inexpensive device like the iPhone. We've got our fingers crossed for next year's model. WIRED: Elegant space-saving design. Speaker bar produces booming lows and clear highs. Bright 22-inch screen hides smudges and fingerprints. Integrated TV tuner adds living room chops. Blazing connectivity via gigabit Ethernet and integrated 802.11b/g/n. 500-GB hard drive offers plenty of room for media storage. Whisper-quiet operation. TIRED: Not the smoothest touch-based interface. Handoffs between TouchSmart/Vista programs are slow and awkward. Very limited upgrade options. Midrange GPU puts a damper on hardcore gaming. Retractable bezel feels cheap and rickety. Sluggish processor given its all-in-one class. What? No Blu-ray? Price/maker: $1,500 (as tested), hp.com
Read our full HP TouchSmart IQ506 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Dubbed the "Boulder," this angular, candy-colored handset is the offspring of the Gadget Lab's crumpled Type-V, Type-S and Type-SL review units. The Boulder isn't another rugged rehash, though. In fact, Casio finally threw a curve by including some fairly useful multimedia features. Welcome additions like music playback, a more powerful (but still lacking) camera, and zippy EV-DO connectivity fatten up this phone's already rock-solid resume. But let's face it -- Casio is extremely late to the party with these commonplace features. Previous pratfalls like the laughably low-res external LCD, and an annoying light show for incoming calls have returned too. Foibles aside, a lot of the "new" features were actually well integrated into this otherwise hard-knock handset. Tasks like downloading and playing music, mobile messaging and accessing webmail were brisk and painless due to a sensible layout and speedy EV-DO network. Little usability improvements (and smart additions like a waterproof cover for the microSD port) reinforced Casio's obvious commitment to achieving a rugged/user-friendly balance. Casio definitely gets kudos for bringing a tank like the G'zOne into the multimedia era. However, the Boulder is more a patchwork of desirable features, rather than a cohesive marriage of entertainment and durability. WIRED: Armored cross section where mud meets multimedia. External LCD doubles as wanderlust-friendly e-compass. Awesome camera flash/flashlight combo. Expanded memory via microSD card slot. Solid call quality -- even after 12 rounds of tough love. Included cradle doubles as a travel charger. Also comes in "less-flamboyant" black. TIRED: Terrible speakerphone quality for both voice and music. Far too expensive. Annoying multicolored lights show signals incoming calls. No file sharing via Bluetooth. Lackluster 1.3-MP camera sucks for both stills and video. Sweet angles still can't hide a brick-ish profile. Price/maker: $130 (after $50 rebate), Verizon
Read our full Casio G'zOne Boulder review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Out of the box and straight up to the eye you'll immediately enjoy the D3's spacious and bright viewfinder. The noticeably improved 51-point auto focus system is whip-fast and works in concert with an outstanding 1005-pixel metering sensor that gets it right in the most challenging lighting. Images are beautifully consistent with a wide dynamic range and improved noise-reduction settings that give the pictures a more natural look. To achieve that end, Nikon pulled back on the sharpening levels, leaving the choice of added "crunchiness" to a photographer's post-production predilections. Nikon's new three-inch high-res LCD is a revelation. If you do take the plunge, be ready to spend a good chunk of time learning the feature set to exploit the D3's capabilities. From resolution to speed, color control, bit-depth and so much more, the D3 is incredibly customizable. Dial it in for lightning-quick 11-fps sports action, superlow-light shooting (ISO up to 25600), handheld or tripod-mounted live view -- you name it, whatever and however you want to shoot, the D3 does it exceptionally well. WIRED: High ISO shooting is fantastic with relatively low noise at settings up to ISO 3200 and beyond. Live view function the best of the top-end DSLRs. Dual CF card capability. TIRED: So many functions it could take a lifetime to learn them all. No in-camera dust-reduction system. Price/maker: $5,000 (body only), Nikon
Read our full Nikon D3 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : The U110 ultralight we received looks striking, with a scarlet paisley-etched aluminum lid paired with a shiny jet-black keyboard area. As soon as you open it up and power it on, you come face to face with one of the U110's most interesting yet unsettling features: VeriFace recognition. After booting up, the webcam embedded in the bezel starts scanning the room. When it finds you, it superimposes disturbing cross hairs on your eyes in an attempt to recognize you and unlock the PC. If you haven't registered your peepers, the system will hang, so you have to shut it down, turn the notebook away and open it up again to get it to boot. The 11.1-inch display is bright and sharp, though it can look a bit iridescent at close range. The glossy black keys are big and square but the thin membrane beneath the keys is flimsy and deforms as you type. There is a decent set of ports, but the designers couldn't find room for an optical drive. Seriously, we're pretty disappointed. The included external DVD drive looks cool, but you know what would be even cooler? Not needing an external drive at all. For work purposes, the Lenovo is a capable little machine. The U110 excelled in our PCMark tests, far outdistancing most other ultralights. Overall this is a good PC; it just has a few annoyances. WIRED: Charming good looks will attract the Lenovo faithful who are sick of looking funerary. Excellent business performance will silence office critics of your "red PC (Harumph!)." Delightfully light and slim. TIRED: The keyboard, though pretty, is pretty flimsy. Terminator-style face recognition will give you the heebie-jeebies and make you torch all your Schwarzenegger flicks (Especially Batman and Robin). External DVD means one more gadget to tote. Price/maker: $1,800 (as tested), Lenovo
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com Read our full Lenovo IdeaPad U110 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Dishing out a hefty helping of HD, the SR12 is a lot of camera, both in your hand and under the hood with its 120-GB hard drive. The upgraded CMOS sensor and Bionz image processor have significantly improved image quality and stomped out even more noise. Sony’s face-detection system, which works snappily for video and the 10.2-megapixel stills, is very effective both up close and at long range. OK, so it makes great video, but what about the controls? For those who fly on manual, the Cam Control Dial is like piloting an F22. Neatly nestled next to the lens, the silver nubbin is a twisty-twirly festival of videographic functionality, providing quick access to manual adjustments of exposure, focus, white balance and aperture. There’s also an “easy” button on board. A quick tap on the little blue button and all you’ve got to do is point the camera in the right direction to get the good stuff. In spite of all this Sony video goodness, the SR12 has one glaring flaw — terribly difficult Mac integration. To get it working you’ve got to have iMovie '08. Previous versions of iMovie don’t have the capability to natively read the AVCHD codec meaning that you had to convert the video to other formats in order to do any post-production. WIRED: Excellent AVCHD video quality got better this time around. Extra-wide 3.2-inch touchscreen LCD is a big bonus. Outstanding sound quality. TIRED: Massive internal hard drive makes it somewhat chunky and a bit of a load to carry. The “easy” button should be bigger and easier to find. And it should be red. Yeah red and all glowy. $1,400, Sony
(Photo by Jackson Lynch for Wired.com) Read our full Sony HDR-SR12 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : With Kensington's Wireless USB Docking Station, the moment you open your Wireless USB (WUSB)-enabled notebook, all your desktop devices are ready to go. We were amazed at how seamless the process is: The station recognized our 20-inch monitor, wireless USB mouse, keyboard and printer. It was as if they were always connected to the notebook. Of course, there are a few gotchas. WUSB is a new standard and some notebooks can't hook up with this docking station. Dell and Lenovo offer a few models, and other companies should be out the gate by this fall. With its plain, geeky looks, the 11.4-ounce antenna-topped station could get lost in a field of wireless routers. But that's not quite enough to put our Battlestar boxers in a knot: The Kensington Wireless Docking Station is a snap to set up and makes mobile computing, well, mobile and hassle-free. You know, the way it's supposed to be. —Michael S. Lasky WIRED: Drop-dead, simple setup and instant wireless connection of all desktop peripherals makes moving a notebook to and from the desk a hassle-free, nothing-to-plug-in experience. Small footprint means no great loss of desktop real estate. TIRED: Still few WUSB-enabled notebooks on the market. Audio handling could be smoother; default requires USB-powered speakers. First generation device is still pricey. $230, Kensington
Read our full Kensington Wireless USB Docking Station review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : This standard-definition lightweight shoots better video and has a much smarter feature set than most of its competitors. In fact, JVC knows that YouTubers can't bear missing the latest police beating or Matthew McConaughey shirtless in the grocery store, so the MS100 is lightning-quick on start up. The 35x optical zoom allows you to capture the crushing blows and bothersome blemishes while keeping a safe distance. Plus, the nifty laser-touch LCD makes you feel like a real cinematographer with speedy access to manual features. While it's nicely appointed, you've got to bridle at a couple things. First, there's no optical image stabilization. But shaky image stabilization aside, the very nature of this camcorder calls into question its usefulness. While neither big nor expensive, there are other, better, ultrasimple run-and-gun camcorders out there. Most are smaller and cheaper, too. With this form factor at this price, the MS100 is kind of stuck in the middle between the svelte flash-based AVCHD camcorders and the shirt-pocket shooters from Flip, Kodak and Creative. WIRED: 35x optical zoom brings the action right to your doorstep. Superb video quality. Formula 1 start-up speed. Easy to use laser-touch LCD. TIRED: No optical image stabilization. Lack of Mac compatibility is inexcusable and utterly perplexing. Three hundred and fifty bones for a camera that's made to record for YouTube? The Flip Mino does the same thing for about half the cost. $350, JVC
(Photo: Jackson Lynch/Wired.com) Read our full JVC Everio GZ-MS100 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Through some loophole, wormhole or deal with the devil, Gateway has produced a massive desktop replacement that's fast, good and cheap. How fast, you ask? Fast enough to go toe-to-toe with -- and school -- a $4,800 Alienware Area 51 m15x: In our Quake 4 test, the Gateway posted a score of 167.8 fps to the m15x's 167.2. This is partially because the Gateway's 512-MB Nvidia Geforce 9800M is running the show. The FX also has Olympic endurance for larger-class notebooks, going 2 hours, 23 minutes to play a DVD. And that brings us to the cheap part. The Gateway is just $1,400 -- more than three times less than the Alienware and hundreds (and more hundreds) less than most other desktop replacement machines. Sure, it lacks the latest processor (it's got a 2.27-GHz Core Duo), but it has a whopping 4 GB of RAM to help it attack processing tasks and a spacious 200 GB of drive space for your stuff. The big bummer here is the missing Blu-ray drive, which is what is likely keeping this thing so affordable. WIRED: Some of the best gaming performance ever recorded on a PC. Long battery life for a desktop replacement. Comfy and solid keyboard withstands heavy hands. Multimedia controls and slide volume look cool without glowing too brightly. TIRED: No Blu-ray is a letdown for HD-heads, and you can't configure your PC to include the drive. The battery sticks out a bit in the back, and the power brick is monstrous. Power lights on the front, unlike the multimedia controls, are too bright. Price/maker: $1,400 (as tested), Gateway
Read our full Gateway P-7811FX Notebook review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Alienware prides itself on its tower rigs and desktop replacements, but several of its earlier forays in to the mid-size laptops were disastrous; the branding was intact but the performance wasn't. Not so with the m15x. This 15.4-incher is plenty portable, yet it has all the gaming trappings and the performance to back it up. From the unboxing onward, you can tell that you are paying for the experience as well as the hardware. A baseball cap with an alien head on it, an extra battery, VGA-to-DVI adapter, FireWire adapter and entertainment remote show that Alienware will risk no dissatisfied customers due to lackluster goodies. With specs that include a 2.8-GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme processor, 3 GB of RAM, and a 512-MB nVidia GeForce 8800M GTX, the m15x performs impressively, but not out of this world. It all comes down to the loot; this is a luxury item and there are far more affordable PCs with comparable performance. WIRED: Tip-top business and gaming performance. Lots of included extras for gaming elitists. The solid and handsome design will please gamers, and cool lighting effects will titillate geeks. TIRED: Exorbitant price that only a space tourist could pay without wincing. For all the expense, it's not the very best gaming PC. Dual batteries take a long time to charge up. The Blu-ray drive must be removed to accommodate the secondary battery. Price/maker: $4,880 (as tested), Alienware
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com Read our full Alienware Area-51 m15x review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : The Archos 605 WiFi is a damn fine portable media player. Now it’s slightly mo' better due to this new GPS accessory, which for $130 adds full-bore street navigation that's on par with a Garmin or TomTom system. Well, a low-end Garmin or TomTom from a few years ago, anyway: This lackluster accessory does not have many of the bells and whistles of modern nav systems, and the one it does have -- real-time traffic updates -- works only in Europe. On the plus side, the software locks in satellite signals faster than NORAD. However, it navigates like a base commander heading home from the officer's club. On several occasions the GPS tried to route us totally out of the way instead of continuing on the road right in front of us. To make matters worse, the software doesn't announce street names, only directions. The GPS Car Holder would look pretty good if this were, say, 2003. And it does get you where you're going, if not always by the fastest or most logical route. At $130, it's a decent deal for current owners, but definitely behind the GPS times. WIRED: Cheaper than a standalone GPS, at least if you already own an Archos 605. High-resolution screen makes maps look mighty purty. Lightning-fast satellite lock. TIRED: The 605 can’t navigate without the car holder, so you can’t go on walkabout. Doesn’t say street names. Requires you to move to Europe if you want traffic features. You have to manually restart the GPS app every time you power on the 605. Price/maker: $130, Archos
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com Read our full Archos 605 WiFi GPS Car Holder review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : As one of six new Fujitsu offerings equipped with Intel's Centrino 2, the Lifebook A6120 more than makes up for its dull exterior with features that will have prettier laptops quaking in their neoprene sleeves. Opposite its no frills glossy shell resides a gorgeous 15.4-inch LCD capable of brightening even the darkest depths of Mordor. Battery life and performance are equally impressive. The new 2.26-GHz CPU more than did the job when it came to photo editing, gaming and pretty much every other benchmark we threw at it. What's more, we squeezed a respectable four and a half hours of battery life under normal usage out of A6120. In fact, after playing with the Lifebook for a week, we were hard pressed to find anything significant to complain about. Would Fujitsu be well served by spending a little more time and effort on design and shrinking down that plump chassis? Sure. But this reviewer is more than happy to overlook a 1.7-inch waistline as long as it hides enough goodies. WIRED: Great bang/buck ratio. The A6120 starts at only $1,150 and jumps but $200 for a Radeon HD 3470 card and Blu-ray drive. Sharp, beautiful screen is one of the brightest we've seen on a laptop. Screw the chicklet-style keys found on other notebooks: Fujitsu's old school keyboard provides near perfect "clickiness" (to borrow a term from designer Amar Sagoo). TIRED: Small trackpad makes for a less than thrilling multitouch experience. Runs consistently hot -- don't rest it on your lap for long or risk a scorched crotch. While certainly not ugly, design is blander than a plate of lima beans. Price/maker: $1,350 (as tested), Fujitsu
Read our full Fujitsu Lifebook A6120 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : GeTac clearly had utilitarian users in mind with the E-100, which makes for a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to function. On the bright side, this surprisingly light ultramobile PC is military certified to withstand splashes of water, dust, humidity, shock and even freezing temperatures. Even common vulnerabilities like exposed ethernet and USB ports have been sidestepped with a bevy of watertight rubber stoppers. In fact, my review unit was able to smoothly stream South Park episodes while taking repeated tumbles down a flight of stairs. But it was when I looked under the hood that I found kinks in the armor. Mission-critical applications like Office ran at a reasonable clip in a number of bumpy environments, but for the E-100's price I was expecting a little more "oomph." The 100-GB shock-resistant ATA hard drive and 1 GB of RAM tilt the balance a little bit, but honestly, even the unassuming Eee PC comes stock with Intel's newer Atom chips. Mediocre specs aside, this rough and tumble UMPC performs solidly in a number of harsh environments and boasts a host of connectivity options. WIRED: Rock-solid construction, ergonomics and field performance. Responsive 8.4-inch touchscreen looks phenomenal in direct sunlight. Web ready with 802.11b/g, gigabit ethernet and SIM card slot. Waterproof combination SmartCard/PCMCIA slot. Decent battery life at 3.5 hours (WiFi on). 100-GB hard drive has its own heater for cycling up in freezing conditions. TIRED: Too little processing given the amount of buck. Near three grand price tag? Seriously? No option for a solid state drive?! Recessed USB and headphone jacks are a hassle to plug into. Tinny speaker is more of an afterthought. Lose the stylus and you're S.O.L. Looks that only a FedEx driver could love. Price/maker: $2,880 as tested, GeTac
Read our full GeTac E-100 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Most of the new mini-laptops look like toys, educational tools or lab experiments in miniaturization, but the MSI Wind is an actual PC. Packing the latest 1.6-GHz Atom processor and a roomy 80-GB drive, the Wind boasts some legit PC cred. Yes, your iPod probably has more drive space, but 80 gigs was plenty not so long ago, and it's not like you're going to be producing HD video on this thing; it's more of an internet lapdog than a laptop. The 10-inch widescreen can display most fixed-width webpages comfortably, and its keyboard is large enough to house decent-size keys so you can type easily without resorting to Homer's dialing wand. While even some larger laptops are short on ports, the Wind finds room for three USBs, an SD slot and a display connector (take note, MacBook Air!). Of course, it's not perfect. We would have loved to see a DVD burner included, and with all its ports, a mini FireWire would be welcome. Also, don't expect high-end performance from the unit or hearty battery life from its slim, three-cell battery. But if you want a cheap and tiny companion for uploading pictures during a Malaysian jungle trek, or just a little buddy to hang out with you on the couch for IMDB searches, it's pretty hard to be against the Wind. WIRED: Grown-up looks (as opposed to "I want to sit at the big kids' table" found in other netbooks). Full keyboard and the largest screen among mini-notes. Plenty of ports to plug away at. 2.3-pound weight and rounded edges make it simple to pack and lug. TIRED: Lack of a DVD is understandable, but it still makes us cry a little. Hard drive sometimes makes mysterious swallowing sounds. Two-hour battery life is OK, but three would be better. $500, MSI Mobile
Photo: Jon Snyder/ Wired.com Read our full MSI Wind U100 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Behold, the new Eee Box! Like the rest of the Eee bloodline, these varicolored desktop boxes are small, cheap and adorable (think AppleTV or Mac Mini). Intel's 1.6-GHz Atom processor, up to 2 GBs of memory, four USB ports, an SD card slot, 802.11n and Bluetooth are plenty for the Eee Box to hit that elusive "good enough" mark with aplomb. Once again, you'll get your choice of running either Linux or Windows XP. Then there's the size. While it does have a slightly larger overall footprint, it's much trimmer than the Mac Mini. Not only will this elegant 8.5 x 7 x 1-inch box fit anywhere, but you also have the choice of mounting it directly to the back of any extra monitor you happen to have lying around. To be clear, the Eee Box is not for sweaty frag fests or heavy-duty HD video decoding. But if you have a hankering for a killer kitchen PC or just an über-cheap second or third home PC that runs Linux or XP, it simply can't be beat. WIRED: Small, lightweight and cuter than a bowlful of kittens. More than enough processing power for everyday computing. Cheaper than an ounce of Da Kine bud. The option of running Splashtop for preboot access to Skype, web browsing and IM clients. TIRED: Where's the optical drive? No HDMI output, which actually doesn't matter much because there's also no hardware to decode acceleration. By itself, the Atom processor can barely handle 720p H.264 streams, dashing our hopes of this being the ultimate home-streaming box. $300 as tested, Asus
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com Read our full Asus Eee Box review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Iomega's own $190 solution for a filled DVR is a 500-GB drive that plays nice with two DVRs in particular: Scientific Atlanta's 80-GB standard definition 8300 and the more recent 160-GB 8300-HD model. We tested the drive out on the latter model and found it more or less did what it promised. It even worked with a neighbor's Series 3 TiVo, which (to its credit) is known for being something of an eSATA slut. Setup in both instances was quick and painless, and involved simply turning off the DVR, plugging in the Iomega drive, and then turning everything back on again. Voila, no more having to choose between Emmanuelle: The Art of Love and the latest episode of Mad Men. WIRED: Reasonably priced. Your grandmother could probably set it up. Instantly adds an additional 300 hours of SD TV, or 60 hours of HD content. TIRED: Only one way to connect the drive to a DVR (that would be eSATA). Limited compatibility, although Iomega claims the drive will work with future SA eSATA-enabled DVRs. No way of controlling what gets stored on the expander drive and what gets stored on the DVR. Transporting DVR'd content to your computer is verboten, and plugging the drive into a computer will automatically reformat it. $190, Iomega
Read our full Iomega DVR Expander Drive review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  :
The Samsung U900, aka Soul, aka Magical Touch, doesn't really have any supernatural abilities. What it does have is a tiny, touch-sensitive OLED nav-pad that is one of the coolest, most efficient touch interfaces we've seen on a handset. The small display (situated below the main 2.2-inch QVGA screen) features icons that morph based on whatever application is currently on the screen. Switch to camera mode and controls for snapping pictures. Toggle to the music player and buttons for fast-forward, rewind, pause and play pop up. The big selling point is the phone's pocketability. The picture quality and dynamic range could be better (LED flash, we're talking about you), but at 0.5-inches thick and 7 ounces, this slider is more svelte than just about every 5-MP cam we've tested. Ultimately, our biggest complaint is that you cannot use the camera without sliding open the phone first. This design protects the lens from dust bunnies and pocket grime, yes, but shooting with a fully open device was a tad awkward at times. WIRED: External microSD slot makes it a cinch to swap cards on the fly. Bluetooth (+A2DP). Competent image-editing suite. Video editor allows you to layer additional audio tracks. Decent facial detection. Haptic feedback can be tweaked to three different levels of intensity or switched-off entirely. TIRED: Bundled proprietary ear buds sound duller than Ben Stein. No Xenon flash. No GPS. No WiFi. Lower-res video clips. Proprietary headphone jack positioned on the side = hard to pocket when phones are plugged in. Noticeable screen glare when outdoors. $400, Samsung
Photo: Issac Brekken/Wired.com Read our full Samsung SGH-U900 Soul "Magical Touch" review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : The biggest selling point of the new Sidekick is supposed to be the customizable "skins" you can order to replace the solid-color ones (we opted for jet black). But apart from flashy aesthetics, the pocket-friendly 2008 is 0.4-inches shorter and 0.9-ounces lighter than the pricier LX. It also packs features that were sorely missed with the tragically minimalist iD. Most notably, a 2.0-megapixel camera that can also capture video clips (albeit crappy ones). Though the 2.6-inch WQVGA swivel screen’s received a slight -- and necessary -- boost in pixels (400 x 240), the resolution’s still not fantastic. And neither is Bluetooth. We found data transfers not only paused the media player (annoying), but afterward, we had to go back and manually un-pause whatever track was playing (doubly annoying). For the price, though the 2008 is a solid option compared to the LX -- but only if you live and die by instant messaging and you don't mind being seen with Paris Hilton's device of choice in public. WIRED: Spacious, comfy QWERTY. 3.5-mm headphone jack. Surprisingly loud, radically clear music player. Wide screen excellent for web browsing. Solid battery life. Quick video recording/sharing. Comes with two skins (we got black and iridescent lime). Bluetooth with A2DP (great to have, even if it does disrupt tunes). TIRED: Screen retains more fingerprints than the Feds. No flash. No WiFi. Mike captures poor sound when recording video. Only 20-second video clips. Only 512-MB microSD card included. Apps are mostly in the $2.99+ range (except for the janky free Calculator). No 3-G. Price/maker: $150 (with 2-year contract), T-Mobile
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com Read our full Sidekick review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : Cyclists know it's plum foolish to roll around on two wheels sans helmet, but it can be just as dangerous to bike about at night without a light. A good headlight affixed to your handlebars is just the thing to help cut through the murk and get you to your destination safely. Here we pit two of the top dogs on the market against each other and see which comes out on top. —Eric Smillie This one-watt LED cannon goes the extra mile, and we don't just mean it shoots light a ridiculous distance. Due in no small part to its particularly aggressive blinking mode, accurately called superflash, it didn’t just help us catch drivers' attentions; it had them anxiously craning their necks to check whether we were trying to pull them over. Drawing on only two AA batteries, this baby cuts down on weight but its CREE XR-E diode, coupled with a specially engineered Fraen lens, still pumps out the brightest light of all the lamps we tested -- enough to bounce off signs, license plates, and other reflective materials up to four blocks away, giving us plenty of time to make an impression. All we have to worry about now is whether some cop-hating, GTA IV-overdosing motorist trying to run us down. WIRED: Recessed switch only works if pressed firmly, which means it won’t turn on in your bag while you jostle your way to the bar, leaving you in the dark at closing time. Planet Bike spends 25 percent of its profits on bike advocacy. TIRED: The brightness and reduced weight come at a price: 20 hours of battery life in blinking mode, and only seven on high. Though it installs without the use of a tool, the handlebar bracket is tricky to tighten and slips easily. $50, Planet Bike
Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : While not the sharpest bulb on our handlebars, the WhiteLite HP AA is in it for the long haul. Don’t get us wrong -- just like other 1-watt LED headlamps, this portable, all-in one lamp is more than a glorified blinky. When engineering this light, Topeak got all snippy, cutting the cords to one of its external power-pack lights and reengineered it to accept three AA batteries. Its widely diffused beam covers plenty of surface area and earned our trust by helping us dodge nasty potholes and tree roots on unlit paths. But where this guy really shines is in perseverance, by lasting 30 hours on high and a whopping 120 on flash. WIRED: The mounting bracket screws tight with a finger knob and adjusts five degrees left and right to get a straight aim even on angled handlebars, although it does require an Allen key to tighten. Little red LED signals when batteries are low. TIRED: Blinks come slowly and lack urgency in flashing mode. Pushing the rear on/off push button can rotate the mount and mess up the light angle. Sound like a small problem? It won't be when you look up just in time to face plant into the bumper of a lifted pickup. $60, Topeak
Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily.  : The E71 looks more like a Blackberry Killer, but don’t be fooled: This great white hope gives the iPhone a run for its money in a lot of different areas (yes, really). Despite its obvious lack of an oversize touchscreen interface, Nokia wins points for a remarkably trim profile (10mm vs. 12.3mm), decent 3.2-megapixel camera (instead of 2.0), and the fact it's not tied to any carrier (yet). Setting up Nokia's Mail for Exchange program required no IT help or time. QuickOffice let us create, edit and send Word/Excel/PowerPoint files on the fly while we browsed PDFs with Adobe Acrobat Reader. The E71 is stocked with enough apps and goodies to keep even the most overworked road warrior on the ball, but it didn't feel too "business" due to two separate customizable home screens. One is designed to house all of your work apps while the other is geared more toward entertainment with programs for audio, video and gaming. The phone's 2.36-inch, 320 x 240 QVGA display is only slightly smaller than the iPod classic's, and though the resolution can't top the iPhone's, with 15 fps, the E71 is still solid for YouTube clips. Oh, and did we mention the E71's got battery life for days? Yes, literally, three of them. WIRED: Up to 8 GB in an easy-to-access, external microSD slot. Quick and seamless OS. GPS, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth (you name it, it's basically got it). Vivid screen (even in direct sunlight). Textured stainless steel backing prevents slippage. Relatively lightweight (127 grams = six grams lighter than iPhone). Hit any letter on the QWERTY pad and predictive text calls up that section of your address book. TIRED: No standard 3.5-mm headphone jack. 3.2-megapixel camera's optics could be better. LED flash could be way better. N-Gage gaming platform not available. Screen's wide, but not wide enough to do a feature-length film justice. For $500, you could get two 8-GB, 3-G JesusPhones (with $100 left over to put toward AT&T's data plan). $500 (unlocked), Nokia
Photo: Max Buck/Wired.com Read our full Nokia E71 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily. 
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| A review of the Nokia E71 |
When Apple’s iPhone 3G came out, I was pretty sure I’d get one. It had all the features I was waiting for. But the lines just weren’t going away. I searched Twitter. For a week, then two, every day brought fresh reports of five-hour waits. And then the reports of bugs started coming in. The Exchange synchronization features weren’t up to snuff, I heard. The phone crashed regularly, I heard. Basic operations were painfully slow. Battery life was abysmal. Adam Curry suggested getting a Nokia E71. I had never heard of this thing. Nokia? Really? For years I had always thought that Nokia made chunky Europhones that were always just one button short of a usable user interface. But, no, the more I investigated, the more it seemed that the E71 was a truly credible alternative to the iPhone 3G. The reviews coming in from Europe were stellar. There was one hitch: it didn’t seem to be on sale over here. There was one last hope. Around the corner from the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, Nokia had opened a pricy boutique where they sold unlocked, unsubsidized cell phones, mostly to foreign tourists who invaded New York to take advantage of our banana-republic currency.
“I have a demo model you can look at,” the guy said. It seemed very sleek. Smaller than the iPhone, all metal, nothing chintzy… with the best keyboard I’ve ever used on a phone. “They’re not on sale until tomorrow… if we have any left after tonight’s super-exclusive launch party. Which is invite only,” he emphasized. I’m shameless. “How do I get invited?” “Well, um, put your name on this list.” He gave me a blank piece of paper. “And come back at 6 pm.” Which I did. There was a short line of a dozen Nokia fans—a somewhat ghetto version of the five hour iPhone lines. Within minutes, I had my E71, and they even helped me with the arduous task of popping in the SIM. Plink! It worked! I’ve been using it for a month now, and I’m completely sold. This is the best phone I’ve ever had. I love it. Now, don’t get me wrong: I think the iPhone is brilliant. The Apple iPhone is truly an inspired piece of design that pushed the state of the art and then went about ten steps further. If the iPhone competed in the Olympic swimming tournaments, Michael Phelps would have just retired on the spot and given up swimming for life. For many people, the iPhone 3G is perfect. I thought that it meant “game over” for all the other handset makers. But Nokia is a fantastic company and they weren’t going to give up that easy. Their new E71 is a fantastic phone, clearly inspired by the competition, and the game is not over. There were three reasons I was looking to upgrade.
The E71 met most of these requirements. It’s got a decent music player, a built-in podcasting client (so I can download podcasts directly instead of going through my desktop PC), and it’s even got an FM radio. There’s a third party software app called JaikuSpot which uses the 3G connection and the WiFi in the phone to turn your phone into a mobile hotspot so you can surf from your laptop. When I tried JaikuSpot, it kept dropping the connection, so I can’t say that was the perfect experience, but I’ll keep trying. Nokia’s built in Exchange synchronization is very 1.0. It doesn’t know about folders, which means there’s no way to get things out of my inbox into an archive folder after I deal with them. This was unacceptable. It meant I would have to go through all those emails again when I got back to my desk. But there’s a third party app, DataViz RoadSync, which handles Exchange synchronization and does support folders, and that works perfectly. There are some other great features I discovered when I really got into this phone. The GPS is great fun. It doesn’t work indoors. It doesn’t work in the city where the sky is a distant memory. But it works when you’re out in the country, and it’s really fun to get Google Maps satellite images showing exactly where you are. That is, if you’re not so far out in the country that there’s no cell reception. Combined with the 3 megapixel camera, if you’re really lucky, you can snap pictures and then upload them directly to your Flickr account, and the picture will be tagged with its exact location. You have to be pretty lucky for this to work: getting the GPS to find enough satellites is not always possible.
The fit and finish of this phone is amazing. It’s the slimmest Nokia I’ve ever seen: smaller in every dimension than an iPhone. It feels solid. The keys on the keyboard are really clicky and extremely easy to type with, especially combined with the predictive word autocomplete. (Why don’t desktop word processors have autocomplete yet?) The battery lasts a couple of days under heavy use, and is easy to replace, so I keep a spare around for those days when I forgot to charge the phone. The call quality is the best I’ve ever experienced. After years of using junky phones I literally did not know cell phone calls could be this good. The external speaker (for hands-free operation) is the loudest I’ve ever heard. The phone will announce your callers by name using a synthesized voice. There are probably dozens of other features buried in here which I haven’t found. I think there’s a second camera in front for video calls but I’m way too old to figure out how to make that work. The music player is adequate, but not great. It’s amazing how something as simple as playing MP3s is so fraught with minor problems… Apple makes it look easy to build an MP3 player, so when someone else tries, it’s always surprising to see just how hard it is to get right. On the E71:
The built-in browser was decent, but ignore that… just install Opera Mini, which is stellar. I still haven’t found a website which doesn’t display respectably on this phone with Opera Mini. There's a built in GPS map application, which always freezes. Ignore that, too. The free Google Maps is better. This phone is inevitably going to be compared to the Apple iPhone 3G, so I might as well list the big pros and cons of each.
In any case, it’s the best phone I’ve ever had and I’m loving it. Not loving your job? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people. |
“Do you have the E71?” I asked. 
The pictures are, um, well, cellphone quality. I uploaded | Recover Digital Storage Media |
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| Retrieving data from pen-drives, CD-Rom, DVD, floppy disk |
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