Category: Technology

  • Review of the Star Telegram iPad app

    Summary: The Star Telegram app is functional app that delivers content well, but restricts and undervalues the content. Pros: great value, photos look great, environmentally friendly, solid delivery of content. Cons: You’re reading a PDF at first, inconsistent browsing behaviors, the power of the iPad is underutilized, download times vary. Price: The app is free, […]

  • What I learned from 46 days of no Facebook

    In keeping with the Catholic tradition of sacrificing something for Lent, I chose to give up Facebook. In the past, I’ve given up chocolate, sweets, dessert, beer, alcohol, caffeine, soda, (listening to) music. Forsaking a technological medium that seeks to connect people, and purposefully disconnecting from it, goes against the instant gratification of modern life. […]

  • The story of Z. Vex effects pedals

    Z. Vex creates handmade and painted guitar effects pedals, a business that started as a hobby. Vex: “My first Z.Vex pedal was an improvement on an Apollo Fuzz-Wah fuzz, which was the Octane. I showed it to Nate at Willie’s American Guitars in St. Paul and he immediately ordered three. I hadn’t planned on going […]

  • Jambox wireless speaker by Jawbone

    Everything about Jawbone’s portable wireless speaker, the Jambox, is well done. The speaker itself, the included cables and charger, the ease of use, the carrying case and even the packaging all show serious thought in the design, presentation and experience of the product. The Jambox comes in four different colors: black, red, grey and blue. […]

  • The Zen of Social Media Marketing – Shama Kabani

    The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Kabani primes people for how to use online social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs and more. It’s mainly introductory, best suited for someone who’s new to social media. She takes old marketing strategies and shows how social media uses them online — attract, transform and convert. […]

  • Google museum view

    Google takes its street view concept to the world’s top museums: Cameras mounted on a special trolley travelled through empty galleries after the public had left, taking 360 degree images of selected rooms which were then stitched together. So far 385 rooms are navigable, and more will be added.

  • Five months

    Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt went from a simple idea–a tripod mount for an iPhone 4–to an actual, physical product, called the Gliph, in five months. This turnaround, from idea to market in five months by two guys with no retail or manufacturing experience, signifies a shift in the way products are made and sold […]

  • A Day in the Future

    As I rise and stretch, I notice I’m sore. Not from tending the fields though. I have no fields. Some unseen person does all the field-tending for me. Sometimes I forget that there’s any field-tending going on at all. Lyrically written.

  • Curation is the new search

    Google has been much maligned of late, due to its increasingly spammy and gamed results. Paul Kedrosky makes a point that curation of web content will be on the rise. The answer, of course, is that we won’t — do them all by hand, that is. Instead, the re-rise of curation is partly about crowd […]

  • Disney, masters of theme park operations

    Disney has theme park logistics down to a nimble operation that monitors all aspects of a park. They use a combination of weather reports, historical records, airline and hotel reservations to predict park capacity, but once the Magic Kindom opens, ride queues, cash registers at in park restaurants, foot traffic in particular areas are all […]