Friday, September 12, 2008

SENZ Umbrella Review. Marry Poppins Watch Out!

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/yankodesign/~3/389536445/

The SENZ Umbrella is the most unique umbrella I’ve ever seen and used and that’s saying a lot because how “designed” can an umbrella be? What makes the SENZ different is its aerodynamic shape which keeps rain off your back and withstands up to 70 mph winds. I tried it out and found a couple other unique features that make this umbrella a must have for any rain drenched area.

It’s solid but still lightweight - the first two things I look for in any umbrella. The handle is foamed and rubberized to keep your grip from slipping which leads me to the next unique feature. To open the umbrella, you pull down. Yes the mechanism is reversed but it makes sense. The mechanism you’re pulling on actually becomes a part of your grip. As long as you hold steadfast, the umbrella refuses to invert.

At first glance the shape looks odd but again makes so much sense; I’m amazed no one’s thought of it before. The cab forward aerodynamic shape does two things. Firstly it keeps rain off your back, an issue I find prevalent with traditional umbrellas. This shape also channels high winds across the surface and behind you. I’m almost positive the drag coefficient is significantly less which helps in resisting gale force winds.

At almost 3-4x the cost of a traditional umbrella, you better live in an area where rain is more than a seasonal visitor. Unlike me, conducting this review was difficult since I live in L.A. but I’m resourceful enough to see how well it holds up against a hose and beach winds. I’m happy to report it aced both events.

The SENZ Umbrella comes in 3 sizes. The one is the review is the XL.

[ Buy It Here ]

(Left to Right: Senz Mini, Original & XL)

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Holy Driver

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/yankodesign/~3/389924241/

You’ve been down too long in the lost-bits sea! Tom Murray’s Ring Driver’s got all the bits you need attached. See what I mean? Superb simplicity for college students or people on the move; people who only need the bits necessary for those easy-to-contstruct furniture pieces who’d love to have it all in one solid hand-held tool.

With a simple “innovation of the screwdriver” goal in mind, Tom Murray took time to explore many different drafts of new and “memorable” screwdriver models. What he came up with was what it often turns out to be in these situations; that is, the most simple-seeming concept.

While the long-skinny aspect of a normal screwdriver is gone, this Ring Driver has no more blunt a nose than a power-screwdriver has. Some of the drafts show the handle being detachable, allowing for more bits to be added or subtracted from the ring, allowing for different sets for different jobs.

Barring the inability to choose which color I can get: on my belt it would go.

Designer: Tom Murray

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MessageSling Moves Your Plain Phone's Voicemail to the Web [Voicemail]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/388612783/messagesling-moves-your-plain-phones-voicemail-to-the-web

Newly-launched voicemail service MessageSling takes over your standard cell phone's voicemail and replaces it with one you can control from the web. Once you've signed up and typed in a single forwarding string to activate your MessageSling mail, you can see your voicemails in a Gmail-style inbox, listen to them in an embedded player, and label, archive, and search them later. The service promises voice-to-text translation in the near future, and can get emails with MP3 messages or SMS alerts about new voicemails (useful if you're the type to leave your phone on silent). Right now, it's a lower-level counterpoint to GrandCentral, but one that doesn't require a number switch and can be easily turned on or off. MessageSling is free to use, with (seemingly) unlimited storage.


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VirtualBox 2.0 Adds 64-bit Support, Updated Interface [Featured Download]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/388673467/virtualbox-20-adds-64+bit-support-updated-interface

Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): Free and open-source virtualization tool VirtualBox recently released a 2.0 version that includes a few major upgrades. Most importantly, 2.0 supports running 64-bit operating systems, like Windows Vista and certain Linux distributions, on a 64-bit computer. Windows, Mac, and Linux clients have all gotten an upgrade in the looks department, and networking support has been boosted for Macs (improving its standing as a free alternative to Parallels and VMWare). Performance improvements for AMD chips is also baked in, so most users can find a good reason to upgrade. VirtualBox is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.


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Top 10 Up-and-Coming Products [Lifehacker Top 10]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/388803744/top-10-up+and+coming-products


More than 100 companies are strutting their stuff at the Demofall '08 and TechCrunch50 conferences out on the West coast this week. At events like this, which involve dozens of beta demonstrations of new products in development, a lot of the items blend together into a white noise of over-hype, but a handful of this week's debuts are intriguing. Let's take a look at 10 of the neatest up-and-coming offerings that aren't yet available—and the tools already available to you that replicate some of their eyebrow-raising tweaks. Photo by TechCrunch50-2008.

10. Rate Surfer

Not to sound like a doting parent here, but Rate Surfer is really a tool of last financial resort. Still, for those carrying balances between multiple credit cards, it can help you put more dollars toward getting back to financial freedom. You give the webapp access to your credit card accounts, and it monitors them for rate changes. If one card's got a better rate than another, it suggests moving your balance over. It may not be the best situation to be in, but Rate Surfer is nothing if not an honest tool for those with a serious credit fix.

9. RealDVD

There are, of course, many, many tools for any system that let you take a commercial DVD and copy it, or put it on your hard drive for as-you-like viewing. Until now, however, no major media player has stepped forward with a consumer-level, legal software package. RealDVD aims to be exactly that! —i t keeps the DVD's copy protection intact, and adds an iTunes-like layer of its own. At a $30 introductory price, it's still paying a ransom to use your own possessions, but it might make an easy-to-use solution for legal-conscious parents or less-geeky friends.

The alternative: Adam covered this ground when RealDVD was announced earlier this week, offering up a guide to ripping full DVDs without the nasty DRM.

8. Postbox

Aiming to serve as an intelligent index for your inbox, Postbox is a mail client that focuses on auto-sorting emails into topics, rather than just showing what's newest. So if you're part of a team of writers who are, for example, covering the latest browser release, Postbox keeps track of every URL, image, and all the text about that browser are available in a front-and-center tab, while your bills, PR pitches, and other get-to-laters are in discrete topics lists in the lower-right. That's how it looks, anyways, and we're always intrigued by new approaches to email.
The alternative: Taking the reins into your own hands and setting up a system like Inbox Zero or a personalized version, like Gina's Trusted Trio.

7. Popego / Angstro

There are a lot of startups dedicated to hooking into, organizing, or ot! herwise taking advantage of people signed up to multiple social networks and social media. Most aren't going to help you get much done, but these two deserve some mention, and together might work quite well. Popego looks at what you look at on the web, checks out your social profiles, and recommends web content with adjustable filters. You can see sites that Popego thinks you and your friends enjoy in common, show only videos that you might find interesting, and make other adjustments. For those who use social media mainly as a career-boosting tool, Angstro is perfect—it shows you news and items about the people you follow on Facebook and LinkedIn, not all the stuff they've dashed off and posted. So if one of your clients makes an announced sale, or your old boss suddenly winds up at a company you'd really like to work for, Angstro is the one letting you know. Now, that's some helpful network noise.

6. 2Pad

If you only had 10 seconds in an elevator to pitch 2Pad, you'd do well to say it looked a lot like the Gmail-only Xoopit, taking all the photos and videos in your inbox and setting them up in a easy-browse gallery. 2Pad, however, works with Hotmail, AOL, and other webmail services, and offers separate storage and retrieval for varying-price plans.
The alternative: For Gmail users, well, Xoopit.

5. OtherInbox

If you're your own worst enemy when it comes to stemming the high tides of email, OtherInbox can act as a personal levee. The web-based mail client provides you with an email address tha! t you tw eak for all the email sign-ups for deals, alerts, notifications, and other bacn you invite. So you'd give Facebook an address of facebook@yourname.otherinbox.com, and OtherInbox's interface separates out all your commercial/non-human email for quick reading, archiving, and deletion.
The alternative: Users of advanced filters and disposable addresses in Gmail or other advanced email systems already have these tools available to them.

4. MessageSling

MessageSling wants to replace your plain vanilla voicemail with a web-archived, SMS-alert-ready, voice-to-text email forwarding system. Signing up and switching is ingeniously easy—just type in a forward-enabling string on your phone—and the results look pretty neat, although the voice-to-text functions aren't explained fully at this point.
The alternative: As noted by our commenters this morning, also-free service YouMail offers many of the same features, with a slicker interface and personalized greetings.

3. Fitbit

The makers of Fitbit have their hearts in the right place—for many of us, keeping track of exercise and daily physical activity is just another task that makes getting in shape seem a chore, on the order of paying quarte! rly tax estimates or organizing receipts. The Fitbit is a small, wireless, rechargeable device that can be worn on your pants, shirt, wrist, or undergarments, and tracks how far you walked, how many calories were burned, and even your sleep patterns. From the screenshots, it looks like a data geek's dream, but time will tell if the tracker is comfortable enough to fit into people's lifestyles.
The alternative: If you're an iPod owner, and not all that interested in tracking your non-workout time, the Nike+iPod combo is a cheaper solution. The newest line of iPods actually have Nike+ receivers built in, so the chip alone only runs you $20.

2. Snipd

The idea of "web clipping"—running through web pages, grabbing text or entire pages as you go, organizing them later—isn't very new. Snipd, however, brings a cross-platform, anywhere-you've-got-a-browser bookmarklet into the game. Of course you can search through all that text later, and organize your clippings into different job buckets, but what really might help is that, for the time being, bookmarklet tools like this are really helpful in extension-less browsers like Google Chrome.
The alternative: Setting yourself up with Google Notebook, which integrates nicely into Google Bookmarks and can serve as its own helper for Getting Things Done.
Check out a video of Snipd in action below:

1. UsableLogin

This password-aggregating service hews closely to the secure password system our lead editor proposed two years ago: One password you can remember, modified for every web site login by a system you can understand. UsableLogin automates the second part of that equation—you type in a passcode, and it adds bits of cryptographic data to it for each site. The system appears to work through an extension, so time will tell if it ends up being a Firefox-only novelty or a great idea in password security.

What product on this list are you most interested to try out for yourself? Let us know in the comments.


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