Great Products!
At a recent holiday gathering I was asked to bring a gift with a story, meaning, and perhaps a life changing experience for whomever was to receive my gift. I generally custom make gifts for friends, so making something for a stranger was a bit tough. So instead I asked myself “what are life changing products that have made a huge impact to my lifestyle and would be useful for anyone”?(this gathering was a bit tech oriented). We’ll, here are two products that have changed my life drastically along with some software producs that have done the same.
Sonicare Electronic Toothbrush : It’s a massage in your mouth using this beauty. Once you go electric, it’s hard to go back.
Logitech 8-button mouse(MX510): Navigating will never be the same! I personally use the extra buttons on the mouse to, “go back, forward, scroll, close windows, and launch internet browser”. I rarely hit those backwards and forwards button on the nav bar, nor do I ever click on that “x” to close a window anymore…saves thousands of seconds daily.(their new “hyper-wheel” seems interesting)
E-mail Clients:Eudora, Outlook(or express), Mail, Opera, Thunderbird, etc:
It amazes me how many people don’t use email clients. I can’t imagine managing emails without them. It surprises me to see people typing in passwords to check mail only to find no mail at times. E-mail clients save loads of time if you communicate through e-mails. E-mail clients still have a long way to go, but the first jump has been drastic.
Digital Calendars: Outlook, GCal, 30boxes, Sunbird,iCal, etc:
Never forget a meeting, birthday, appointment, event, etc…even have the calendar send you a text message reminder! In the world of information overload, calendars will be playing a HUGE role in our everyday future of multitasking and managing ourselves.
Lots of other compelling products out there, but these are some that I bring up all the time. Do you have a life changing product story? Let me know..
Happy holidays!!
December 23rd, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Okay, I have a few:
This toothbrush works much better for me than the Sonicare (which I did have).
The Windows program Fitday (downloadable for $20 from Fitday.com—or you can use the Web site) does a fantastic job of tracking nutrition, exercise, mood, fitness, etc. It works like a charm even though it’s version 1.0. I still haven’t found a bug.
Strange to say, the old implements of wet-shaving (safety razor and badger brush) give great pleasure and delight to something that was formerly a routine chore. (Check out this comment from an Aussie.)
I cook, and I get daily pleasure from using All-Clad Stainless and Copper-Core cookware.
Although the RCA Wireless Lyra, which flawlessly sends music from your computer to the auxiliary input of your stereo, has been discontinued, this guy has eight of them for sale. Very easy to set up, works right out of the box, and if you have a lot of music on your computer and your stereo’s in another room, it’s a great device.
The Dymo LabelWriter 400 Turbo seems inconsequential, but it’s extremely helpful.
Google Reader, of course.
That should do for now.
December 26th, 2006 at 12:23 am
wet shaving…i can imagine though I dont need to shave that much(just a mustache)…but when a shaves good and smoothe…its’ awesome.
Funny thing you brought up food tools…one of my friends lives and worships a laser cut cheese cutter…i dont have the model on hand, but i think its an oxo.
another one of my friends, well several, worship the wacom tablets…I guess it’s one of those things that once you go there, you cant go back…i hear the same for the big trackballs you flick around..
thanks for your list!
December 27th, 2006 at 4:51 am
Nice wrap up Tango! Although it took me a while to get used to it (and keep from shooting toothpaste all over the bathroom mirror), I too use and enjoy the Sonicare toothbrush. As for e-mail, I stopped using e-mail clients after becoming accustomed to Gmail and its list-view + email grouping features (I was using Hotmail and Outlook in the past). Plus, I’m usually pretty paranoid when it comes to my email, so having an email program ask for a password during startup is cool with me.
December 27th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
ah, yesh, i guess it depends how many emails you get a day…. At least you made the gmail jump which is an email client of its own in an online way…way cool, but I’m a hog at speed and I cant stand waiting those 1-2 seconds for refreshes…and I love dragging and dropping files right into the box… I’d switch over to gmail and gcal full-time if they offered desktop versions that synced for speed, but i think mac mail does that on and offline already, though I’m a pc person fro reasons…yes, I’m a designer, but I do 3D work, which macs dont support greatly(solidworks, maya, alias, proE)…
i think i’ll stick to gmail when traveling without my laptop…kindna like how I use meebo.com for IM’s when i’m traveling. check meebo out as well…basically an ajax of all you im’s in one window…nuthing to download, and always updated…pretty cool start up!!
December 28th, 2006 at 3:23 am
I do switch between a laptop (work) and PC (home) on a daily basis and I do think that’s why Gmail has been such a blessing. Although I will say that being able to “tag” emails with labels has become much more useful IMO since an email can’t always be grouped under one single designation. For example, there are times when my fiancé sends me a song via email and it’s nice to be able to tag the email as “music” and “fiancé”. Although things might definitely be different if I were to use a laptop all the time.
Oh, and now since Macs have Core 2 Duo and can run Windows, you can switch to pure Mac and ditch the PC!
December 28th, 2006 at 3:39 am
yeah, i can see how that works for ya…but for them outlook users, you can get a MS exchange server, and everything exists online with a desktop version that syncs…i personally dont use it, but one of the firms i consult for does, and it’s great.
I never really botherd to tag emails..though i’m sure its good. I gerenally separate all my emails by folders, clients, etc..i learned this from a professor i once had that got like 600 emails a day(400+ of them being real)
As to the mac duo pd thing..hehe, I’ll can debate the mac vs pc thing forever..i’m not against or for either, but i’ll say this, the PC has always been more powerful and more useful for my needs…it took macs so long to switch to intel, and finally get the duo, but they have so much to catch up to… i love the mac designs, but I’ve never seen anyone sucessfully run solidworks on a mac without major glitches….one day i’ll own both, but for now, i gotsta stick to a pc. Maybe I should start a post about mac vs pc….i usually end up telling mac users ..”hey, if macs are that much better, why does only 4% of ppl use it”. Most mac ppl just debate, the macs look better, its easier, and its better…but they can never prove it to me, besides the looks.(personally the sony tx series are alot sexier than the macbooks)
December 28th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
I too use Outlook at work and I can only imagine how difficult it would be to use a non-desktop client for email, calendar, and meetings. Interestingly enough, our collaboration application is purely web-based (MS SharePoint) and we also have a web-based version of Outlook (Outlook Web Access) yet for a large and medium sized business, I think Outlook has most of the solutions available now.
As for PC versus Mac, I too am pretty much neutral to the debate. Here’s the kicker though, I have a couple of friends who work in hardware validation at Intel and they actually have nothing but praise for the internal Apple architecture that utilizes Intel’s CPUs. And now with Intel inside Macs, the performance gap is pretty much non-existent in most cases (HERE’s an older Macworld article with some benchmarks).
I’ve been a PC user for all my life, but Windows XP will most likely be my last Microsoft based operating system (just as IE6 was my last MS based browser). The reason is that Microsoft just doesn’t seem to be innovative anymore. IE7 doesn’t have much to offer over Firefox, and Windows Vista feels like an OSX clone (check out THIS funny review). So, chances are that I will switch to a iMac and give it a try. I’ve gone so far as to (legitimately) secure an extra copy of Windows XP in preparation for running both Windows and OSX with Apple’s Boot Camp while I try and get used to Apple’s operating system.
As for the Sony TX, a buddy of mine just got one so I’ll have to check it out!
December 28th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
For sure, I’m ready to split over to osx when Vista comes out, or just stick to XP… I’m not sure what MS is up to but I personally do not crave a more graphic transluscent intense system..I even set the XP settings to classic cause it’s less clutter and not as bubbly…sure its more glittering but not as useful(i’ll await next year after the major bugs are fixed) They seem to be chasing a trend rather than setting one.
IE6 and IE7 suck BIG…the problems are endless…i only use it so i know what a majority of ppl experience, but I use Firefox and IE7. As far as i know, i’m pumped if Google actually launches a browser..perhaps mr jimmy wales and his Wiki power will do something magical.
The Sony TX is breataking at 2.98 pounds and a beauty it is.heres a review of it.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2931&review=VAIO+TX
back to the pc vs mac…all my CS buddies tell me how they are virtually the same with different settings, which I understand…It really comes down to the customer…do you like to customize, or stick to one thing. I find tons of thhing better on PC’s than macs, but also tons of things better on macs than pc’s. i custome a ton of things, so PC is good for me. I’ll applaud apple for their software+Hardware integration(itunes, iLife series, etc), but as most ppl know, the reason macs never seem to have a problem is 1) there are not enough ppl to complain about issues to make it huge, or 2) mac ppl try a pc out and get frustrated because it is not like a mac..(smae goes with pc to mac ppl)
And if you want to talk simplicity, I’ll just say this…everyone says the ipod is sooooooo simple.sure, less keys, seems liek less work….but what if i told you to play a piano with 5 buttons rather than the 88. on the ipod, turnign off shuffle is like 12 steps. etc etc..
In all, we need both…there has to be a bad to have a good…and without competition, it’s no fun..As far as i’m concerned in this Long tail world…many years from now, ppl will be custom making their OS systems like we do apple pie. Some buy from stores, some make on their own.
(I’m an optimistic type)
December 28th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
some slight news on gmail eating up peoples emails:
http://gigaom.com/2006/12/28/mom-google-ate-my-gmail/
December 29th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
I completely agree with you on the points you made about PC’s and Mac’s, in the end it’s like asking someone what the definition of beauty is because it’s all relative to what and “in the eyes of the beholder”. Some people like to tear into their computers and hack it left and right, and others just want something that works and is easy to use.
BTW, have you heard of Ubuntu? It’s a free and customizable Linux based OS, check it out if you haven’t done so already!
And thanks for the Gmail article, it looks like I should back-up my Gmail emails to POP or IMAP just to be safe.