It’s the end of the month, and it’s also Friday, so I’ve got some bookmarks for you. As always, if you want a link to your Twitter account, just follow me on Twitter and tweet the following:
@joetech I want a free link in your Bookmark Friday post : http://www.joetech.com/suggests/bmftw
This week, we had just a couple tweeters request a link:
sajicrossroad
Bio: I am an 18 year old who loves gaming and rpg games. I am also a blogger and a tech freak. Visit my site sometime and drop of some comments.Thanks
Site: http://heartnet.pinoygaming.net/
As most of my readers are aware, aside from building websites, playing with electronics, and buying and selling domains, I am also a student (and sometimes teacher) in the art of social media marketing. Anyone who works with social media marketing regularly is aware of how useful Twitter can be in promoting your product, event, or brand. But it’s not only your own twitter account you should think about. Successful Twitter marketing includes getting mentioned by other popular Twitter users. That can come naturally, or it can come in the form of Sponsored Tweets. This is another great offering from IZEA, Inc., the brains behind PayPerPost and SocialSpark, just to name a couple.
Right now, SponsoredTweets.com is working hard to have 10,000 Twitter users signed up to earn. Not only can you earn money, but the 10,000th person to sign up will get $1,000. That’s pretty awesome, but they’re getting really close to hitting that mark, so sign up soon. You’d hate to find out that someone won right before you signed up.
Even without the possible $1,000 windfall, you should really check it out and sign up if you’re working on having a lot of followers anyway. They’re still in the “early bird” sign up phase, but pretty soon, they’ll open the flood gates for advertisers to start providing paid opportunities. I had an opportunity to sign up before they opened it up to the public and even took a paid opportunity already. It’s a great feeling to make a decent dollar amount just for a couple clicks that post a tweet for you.
If you win the $1,000, though, you better come back and post a “thank you” in the comments!
Yesterday, I got something new in the mail to review, but this time, it’s not a robot or DJ equipment. This is a little more practical and can come in handy if I get stranded by the side of the road or just want to go camping. It’s a flashlight, and a really good one, too. Anyone who’s ever had the need for a decent flashlight knows the value of a professional grade compared to the plastic ones you find in the grocery store. It’s an LED Lenser, and it’s a bright little beast, but before I show you, let’s get to know a little about it.
The LED Lenser P7 sent to me by Coast Products, came with a nice product guide and a full 2009 product catalog, but I was excited to try the P7 out, so I went right for the box. It’s a nice little box with everything tucked away in a manner that shows the flashlight off, which is nice. Inside the box is the P7, four “AAA” batteries, a wrist strap, a sheath and a user’s manual. At first sight, I was immediately impressed with the look of the flashlight and when I dug a little deeper, I was even more impressed with the sheath to carry it in. It’s seriously durable and covers most of the P7 well. I doubt I’d ever have to worry about losing my flashlight as long as it’s safely nestled in its sheath. The back top folds over and stays closed with some heavy velcro. On the back is the belt strap which also velcros and snaps for added security. Better still is the carabiner attached to the belt strap so I can just clip it almost anywhere for fast access.
The P7 Model 8407 I have here uses the four included “AAA” batteries to produce some really bright light with a max of 192 Lumens at up to a staggering 738 feet, and their flashlight line gets even brighter, although this is plenty brightness for most people. In fact, the user manual comes with a warning.
My first thought at reading this warning was that warnings like that have always been about the sun and lasers. You’re probably not going to be pointing it into your own (or other people’s) eyes, but it says something about how incredibly bright the light is that comes from this little package. At 5.25 inches long, it’s about an inch longer than my iPhone and fits easily into any of my jeans pockets and with its aluminum body, it weighs a sturdy, but not encumbering, seven ounces. According to the product guide, I should be able to get about 78 hours out of the batteries, which is pretty decent.
What really intrigued me was all the advanced flashlight technology crammed into this thing. For starters, it has an Advanced Focus System that helps it focus the light much more cleanly. It’s pretty easy to notice in the photo to the right and the demo videos below, too. I’m sure this also helps the light reach as far as it does. Another thing that the P7 includes is a heat sink. If you’ve heard of one of these, it was probably in reference to your computer’s processor or video card. They get really hot and a heat sink cools them down. The same is true here. The P7’s LED system is pretty efficient with it’s power consumption, but still could produce some heat throwing all that light out, so they included a heat sink to keep it cool, and it hasn’t felt warm to me yet, so I guess it works.
To see the LED Lenser P7 in action, just watch the two short videos below. The first is a quick example of the levels of illumination provided and the second is a demonstration of easy and accurate light focusing with one hand while I recorded the video with the other.
I think the only real gripe I had about this flashlight was the turning flashlight head. From everything I’ve read (and just using it), I’ve found no logical reason for the head of the flashlight to easily turn on it’s body like it does. It’s not really a problem until I focus the beam with my thumb by pushing the flashlight head for ward or pulling it back into the body. It just barely reduces the ease of use in focusing the beam, but it does so unnecessarily. That said, it was my only gripe and is certainly forgivable, but has to be mentioned regardless.
Before I opened the box, I knew where this flashlight would live if it lived up to my expectations, and it has exceeded them. I’ve been meaning to buy a torch for my car and I no longer have to. I work late a lot and Michelle and I love road trips, so this is a must. She has a decent high end flashlight in her car and I’ve been planning on buying the same one for mine, but now I’m glad I procrastinated. Though they’ll both perform well, I’m certain I have the better flashlight. I couldn’t help but think, however, about other uses for a P7. Since I’m going camping again in a couple weeks, that popped in my head right away. Then I thought of some other obvious uses. Obviously, police officers, firefighters, EMTs and other rescue personnel could really benefit from the bright light, which is why this is considered a professional grade flashlight. Spelunkers would love it, and anyone who works for the power company and has to climb a pole at 2 AM might find it handy. It’s waterproof, so I wonder if it would be a good deep sea diver’s tool.
While this flashlight will cost you a few dollars more at around $90, it’s built to stick around long enough to make up for it and then some, compared to most of the cheaper flashlights. Trust me, I know all too well. It’s also one of those “you get what you pay for” products… Well, maybe a bit more. It’s water proof, has gold plated contacts for optimal performance, the aforementioned technology built in, great battery life, and of course, really good light output. In short, it’s a serious flashlight from a company that seems to know what they’re doing, judging by their product line.
If you haven’t yet heard about augmented reality or seen it in action, now’s the time. Augmented reality is a new way of seeing the world in a very rich experience. In short, it’s just really cool.
What is Augmented Reality (or AR)?
Per Wikipedia:
…a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time.
One really cool, and now increasingly popular, way to experience AR is with printed markers, special software to recognize the markers, and a decent web cam. The marker is a unique shape, often black on white. The software is programmed to recognize the marker in a live video stream and replace it with something else. Generally, the replacement will be an animated 3D image.
The demos above represent about a minute of preparation to email the marker image link to myself and retrieve it on my phone. You don’t need an iPhone to do this, either. You could use any phone or device that can display the image. For even better results, print the marker image out on paper.
Uses in gaming
ARhrrrr is an augmented reality shooter for mobile camera-phones, created at Georgia Tech Augmented Environments Lab and the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD-Atlanta). In the video they produced below, you can see a great example of how augmented reality programming is used for a more immersive gaming experience. I love the use of skittles as additional markers. It goes to show that anything can be a marker if you get creative.
Augmenting education
Imagine you’re a kid in grade school and your teacher hands you a display headset and a book. When you view the book through the display, the pages come to full 3D life, displaying, for example, an animated 3D volcano. You don’t have to imagine it. It’s in the video below from Hit Lab.
Anything that makes learning more fun for kids while also providing them with more information gets an A in my book.
Practical commercial uses
The practical uses in the commercial arena are virtually endless. Most could involve the use of AR to let a client see a product inside and out like Toyota has done here:
Additionally, we’re starting to see iPhone apps being built to use the phone’s camera, GPS, and compass to bring you real time information about your surroundings on top of a live video.
AR is a winning concept with very little in the way of limitations or hurdles. It’s moving fast this year and even just in the last 45 days or so. There’s so much that will come from it and I can’t wait. I haven’t felt this excited about advancing tech since the cable modem.
A few weeks ago, I got a fun little package in the mail. It was from the UK and inside it was a shiny new Nokia E75 phone for me to use and review and so I did before sending it back this week.
Small footprint and stylish
My first impression when I pulled the E75 out of the box is how small it is. It’s about as thick as some of the thinner smart phones, maybe as tall, and definitely less wide. The trade-off for the small size is the screen, which is also on the smallish side compared to a lot of the high end smart phones that boast large colorful screens. I love my screen real estate, so that was a drawback for me.
The E75 just looks good on the outside. It’s not the best looking phone I’ve had the pleasure to review, but it’s definitely up there. I want a phone to look good from afar, but then the small details really drive it home for me. In the case of the E75, it starts with the vibrant red or deep black front color and silver back combined with more oblong rounded corners, creating a noticeable break from the popular rectangle with slightly rounded corners in black and gray. When you get closer you catch some of those details like the muted silver contrasted by chrome accents and a textured metal back plate. The keypad on the front is pretty easy to handle by touch, alone, and the two little bumps in the middle help you know where your thumb is on the key pad or provide a starting point. At the top of the key pad are some multi-purpose buttons that might have been better as just individual buttons. However, this phone does provide a lot more options right from the key pad, which is nice. An unexpected visual treat was the slider’s full keyboard. Colored to match the phone, it looked good, and the layout is great, offering slightly larger keys than some others while providing all the right keys. The only think I didn’t like was that the keys were so flush with the phone, which had me hitting the wrong keys a lot. Keys should be raised an appropriate amount from the surface to prevent this. The keys had a coating that felt a bit like a matte paint coat. On a phone like this, I thought it made it feel more exclusive. It’s definitely a unique phone in it’s class.
Every day use
The call quality was decent, as I had expected, but what about the user experience? The smaller screen detracted from the on-screen experience only in that I felt I was scrolling a lot, especially during web browsing. Luckily, Nokia makes up for that quite a bit with the really smooth scrolling. Through menus and applications, the scrolling was probably smoother than I’ve seen on any other phone that wasn’t a touch screen. Everything seemed easy enough to get to without a lot of hassle and the center navigation button proved useful for easy and accurate navigation. Two thing I use a lot on a phone are email and web browsing that’s becoming more and more the case with the rest of the world, too. The email functionality of this phone was decent. The mailbox access and filtering options were easy to change and general email operations were up to par. The web browsing experience suffered from the screen size to an expected degree but also helped show off the vibrant screen, which didn’t seem so vibrant otherwise. The keyboard slides out smoothly, the buttons are all in the right places, and it’s very responsive. The 3.2 Megapixel camera is full featured, but seemed to fall short on photo quality in my tests.
Conclusions
It’s a great phone, but it could use some improvements. Namely, I’d like a bigger screen and raised keys on the keyboard. The camera is, after all, a cell phone camera, so improvements in photo quality would be nice, but it still takes decent photos for a phone. The phones aesthetic is nearly perfect and it’s a great size and weight. The E75 is a decent offering for the price, and is a great tool for the traveling business person, and at $399, it’s decently equipped for the job.
