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Reviews

The Gizmo Report: Victorinox's Trevi 17 briefcase

(Before I get started with this review, a note of caution about one of my other gizmos. My Sony PRS-500 eBook reader has developed some kind of display problem; the leftmost inch of the screen no longer updates. I checked around online and the going price for this repair appears to be about $250. That's on a gizmo that sells for $279 on Amazon right now. Not a good deal. I'll check with Sony and update this information if I get a better price.)

I've been carrying around a cheap nylon briefcase I bought at the Apple Company Store about ten years ago. I bought it because it had a front pocket the perfect size for my… Read more

Daptone Records: MTV visits Brooklyn's analog oasis

If you think all new records sound sterile and cold, check out this amazing MTV video tour of Brooklyn's Daptone Records. Hunkered down in a funky townhouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Daptone's revivalist sound is rough, raw and supremely soulful. It doesn't hurt that the records are cut direct-to-analog tape with real, hard working musicians. Unlike poser labels that record analog as an effect and immediately transfer to digital to edit, mix and master their music, Daptone's LPs and singles are 100% analog (only converting to zeros and ones to make CDs). The MTV video takes you … Read more

What's all this social news stuff, anyhow?

I've been reading blogs since before the term "blog" came into popular use. Pioneers of the format such as Jerry Pournelle (jerrypournelle.com) and Robert Bruce Thompson (ttgnet.com) just called their sites "day books" or "journals," terms carried over from the world of paper and pen.

As a reader, all I really cared about was… Read more

Hands-on Friday: The newly redesigned 24-inch iMac [update]

As a Mac Mini and MacBook owner, I think it's safe to say that I know my way around the Mac. My MacBook comes with me wherever I go and as for my Mac Mini? Well, the Mac Mini was an impulse buy that was designed to make my life a little more comfortable. Along with the purchase of the lowest-end Intel Core Duo Mini, I purchased a wireless keyboard and wireless mighty mouse for distant computing. Once home, I hooked it up to the HDTV in my bedroom and it has sat there ever since. Why in my … Read more

The Gizmo Report: Option's GT Max 3.6 Express for AT&T

You might wonder why I'm posting again so soon after that twelve-post blogging marathon at Hot Chips. Well, I got a new gizmo last night and I just had to write about it.

Two years ago yesterday, I bought a Sierra Wireless AirCard 860 (a PCMCIA cellular modem card) from Cingular for my Apple PowerBook G4. I also… Read more

Modern Jazz: CD review, Maria Schneider Orchestra's "Sky Blue"

Maria Schneider is a jazz composer, but on "Sky Blue" (artistShare) her music doesn't immediately sound like jazz--it's more meditative and expansive than what you might expect--it glides more than grooves. On paper her group, which has been together since 1988, looks like a big band, but it definitely sounds like an orchestra.

I recently spoke with Schneider about her music and she said "I want to create beauty and hopefully each time you listen to the CD, you'll hear something new." Well, with arrangements as densely layered as Schneider's that's … Read more

Hands-on Friday: Bose QuietComfort 3

As a guy who prefers silence over noise and high-quality music playback over garbage, I'm an ideal candidate for noise-canceling headphones. And while I know these headphones have been out for a while and most of the people who already own them are the only people who care about noise-canceling headphones, I couldn't resist taking a look at the Bose QuietComfort 3 noise-canceling headphones.

The Bose QuietComfort series of noise-canceling headphones were originally designed as a way to block out annoying noises. If you're a frequent flyer and you can't stand the sound of the roaring … Read more

Listening to Luxury: What does a $350,000 stereo sound like?

The very best high-end systems don't have a sound per se, they sound like the music they're playing. That's the goal at least, and the $350,000 system I heard at Bill Parish's GTT Audio & Video shop in Long Valley, New Jersey, was one of the best ultra high-end systems I've heard. And I've heard a lot.

The wild looking MBL 101E Radialstrahler Reference speakers ($49,900/pair) employ utterly unique woofer, midrange, and tweeter technology to radiate sound with perfect, 360 degree dispersion. Sounds technical, but trust me you don't have … Read more

Post-Siggraph book review: "GPU Gems 3"

As I described in my recent blog entries about Siggraph 2007, there's a lot of cool stuff going on in hardware and software development for graphics processors (GPUs).

GPUs are programmable devices like the more familiar CPUs, but the programing model is very different. A CPU core implements a simple linear model; programs consist of one instruction after another, though a good CPU scans the instruction stream for opportunities to execute a few instructions in parallel. A busy GPU, on the other hand, always… Read more