A couple years ago, I finally took the plunge and bought a DSLR. It came with the stock lens and was all I needed and I didn’t even need a camera bag. Since then, I’ve gotten a tripod and several lenses, and throwing them all in a regular backpack stopped working pretty much right away. It became clear to me that a good camera bag was what I needed.
My wife bought me a camera bag and lugging around my camera and accessories became a lot easier. This is not the same camera bag. This is a bigger bag for lugging around a lot more lenses, cameras, and, well, just a lot. This Booq Python Blur camera bag turned up at my office recently for a review.
Haul Lots Of Camera Equipment
I have my DSLR camera, a 500mm mirror lens, macro lens, fish-eye lens, some filters, a tripod and I carry around my camera battery charger, an extra battery, Rubiks Cube, and a Flip Ultra and a small point-and-shoot Sony digital camera. I first pulled all the filler paper out of the Python Blur (look at all that). There are pockets everywhere. One really good pocket to have in a camera bag is a laptop pocket. If you have a DLSR that you can control with software on your laptop, you know the benefits. I would have never gotten this hummingbird photo without my laptop and at the time, I had to carry both the laptop bag and the camera bag, which was a pain. To get a feel for the capacity, I emptied out my camera bag and loaded it all up in the Python Blur.
It still felt pretty empty. I moved stuff around and it still felt empty. It makes sense, though. A professional photographer is going to have his or her good camera and then their backup, a slew of lenses, color meters, remotes, etc. And a professional photographer would probably be able to fit all that in the Python Blur easily enough. The bottom of the top compartment can be moved or removed, as well, to join the bottom area and form one large storage space. A professional photographer is going to need this much bag. Sadly, it seems this is a little too much bag for me… for now.
Size Isn’t Everything
So I didn’t have enough camera equipment to make much of a dent at all in the amount of pace this Booq bag provides. That’s a good thing, one would think, and it still is for most, but it provided some concern for me. The very first thing I noticed when I threw it on my back was that it felt a lot heavier than my old basic beginner bag. The heft does not come without it’s reasons (see below), but it feels like this bag weighs almost as much empty as my bag with everything in it. I’m sure I could get used to it and it’s not exactly a ton, but it would be less convenient, especially when I take my gear hiking. The site lists the Python Blur as only 5.7lb, so maybe I just need to go to the gym more.
The next problem I faced was the lack of anywhere to strap in my tripod. Even though it throws the balance of my current bag all off, it’s one more thing I like to have integrated into a single bag. This is more than offset with the laptop pocket, but I want both.
Finally, the side pockets felt small to me. They were the obvious place to store my lenses, but it didn’t feel like it. Cramming my largest lens in there didn’t feel right and even a couple smaller ones felt forced, though everything fit and came out fine.
Reward If Found And Other Cool Features
While it doesn’t actually say anything about a reward, that’s the first thing someone might think. When I opened up the top compartment, I found a bar code and serial number on a tag that reads, “IF FOUND PLEASE VISIT TERRALINQ.COM”. Something tells me that there are people out there who would guess correctly that a nice camera bag like this loaded up with equipment could sell for quite a bit, but there are plenty of helpful and honest people out there, too, who would love to return such a thing to its owner if only they knew who that was. That’s where Booq’s Terralinq service comes in. Buy a Booq bag, register it, lose it, someone finds it, they report it, Terralinq contacts you and you meet up with the finder for your bag. It’s a great idea that is hopefully saving some people lots of money or insurance headaches.
One of the small features, but still worth pointing out, is the key ring in the left side pocket pictured above. Even better, but harder to show with a photo, is that the Python Blur’s exterior is 1680 denier ballistic nylon and water repellent. From the high-quality zippers to the denim lining, this thing is built to last a long time and absorb the impact of some of our clumsy mistakes. The inside is soft and protects without scratching. Aside from any features, a good bag should last and this one looks like it will.
Conclusions
There’s a lot of camera bags out there and bags made specifically to carry around expensive camera equipment and protect it from damage, rain, etc. are never cheap. At $229, this one is a little more than I would be willing to throw down for a bag for my camera equipment which I could replace for about $800 or less. More than the cost, it’s just too much for me. I need a simple bag for my simple photography needs. The Booq Python Blur is, however, a serious bag for serious photographers with a price tag that is justified by the years of rugged use it is likely to provide, the peace of mind named Terralinq, and the over-abundance of storage space.
On the heels of my DROID review Verizon brought me a Droid ERIS to review. As you may have guessed from the title of this review, I liked it a lot, and so did everyone I showed it to.
It’s Like DROID’s Little Sister
You’ve heard of the DROID, of course, and if you haven’t, click above to read the review. While DROID is a top phone choice for those in need of constant communication and all the bells and whistles, it can be overkill for others. The ERIS is like a smaller, curvier, little sister with a few of DROID’s key features missing. Since I’m comparing it to the DROID, I might as well point out what I couldn’t find on the ERIS.
The first is obvious. There’s no hardware keyboard. In iPhone user, I didn’t find this to be of much concern, especially since the software keyboard was pretty responsive and accurate. For some, this takes the ERIS out of the running when choosing a phone, though, so it’s important to note. The other main thing I found missing from the ERIS was voice control. DROID has it and I’ve gotten used to it in the iPhone. This is a software feature and I really don’t understand why it wasn’t included. It’s forgivable, but an unnecessary loss.
Otherwise, the ERIS runs on Android just like it’s big brother, so the environment was nearly the same.
In Its Own Class
As much as the ERIS makes me think of DROID, it really stands apart from a lot of the phones on the market. It embodies many of the features I find in the pricier smart phones but at around $100 less when bought from Verizon online (around $80 with a 2 year contract). That’s not a bad trade-off for the couple missing features previously mentioned.
Beyond having all the features that come with the Android OS, the ERIS is just really nice to look at. It’s not too flashy, but it has very smooth rounded corners and buttons that are pretty flush with the phone’s surface.
The front of the phone has Call and End Call/Power buttons that sit on either side of the combination roller ball/action button. This roller ball lights up when in use, which adds to the aesthetics of the phone, but I find myself not using this for navigation. It’s just not a natural feel for me, although it may make navigation a little easier. Above all this is a row of four navigation buttons. The buttons, which take you home, back, to a menu, or to a quick search are sensitive to the slightest touch and are completely flush for a smooth feel. Of course, there’s volume control buttons on the side and a standard headphone jack on the top.
Mass Appeal
The fact that I was a little more eager to take this phone with me to gatherings with friends says something, but what spoke volumes was how much other people wanted to play with it. At a friend’s birthday party, I think I spent a half hour talking about the phone and people were eager to play with it. These same people (one of them a DROID owner) noticed and made mention of the missing voice control and physical keyboard, but still had lots of good things to say about it as well.
Conclusions
I was excited before I ever put my hands on this phone and was more excited after I got to play with it. I was excited enough, in fact, to overlook the lack of headphones that I think every smart phone should include. Holding its own with some more expensive phones, this is a more affordable way to get your hands on a good-looking smart phone with all the benefits of the Android platform. Not only would I recommend this phone, but I tried to convince my wife to buy one (though it just wasn’t for her). This phone is an easy winner, provided you don’t need voice control or a physical keyboard.
A couple weeks ago, Robert Scoble tweeted out a link to an interview with a couple entrepreneurs who did something I haven’t seen others perfect. They came up with a way to let anyone create an iPhone application without developer knowledge or a lot of cash. Of course, I was thrilled about the idea and a little apprehensive about the results, but I just had to try it out.
Their company, Genwi, recently launched iSites.us, a site that enables people to easily create an application for the iPhone and Android platforms with little effort, and little cash outlay. The whole process involves $25 (or $99 – see below), some image preparation, and about 10 to 15 minutes of your day. This is followed by a week or two of waiting, depending on demand.
Preparation and Planning
iSites offers a couple different pricing options. The more expensive option gives you full control over advertising, allowing you to have your own ads embedded in your app or none at all. The cheaper option (the one I chose) is $25 and includes their own ads in your application. The ads really aren’t in the way, so for me, this was not a problem. If you want your own ads, you’ll need to make sure you have an account with the ad network you choose, but either way, give it a little thought and determine what will work best for you and your budget.
Another thing you need to worry about is your brand management. Before starting, think about your application’s title and description as well as keywords. Additionally, there are a few images you have to have ahead of time. You need an icon, an iTunes display image, a banner and a splash screen image (see the iSites Learn More page to get a peek of the image size and file type requirements. It’s best to have these images all ready to go to streamline the creation process.
Finally, you should grab the category feeds for your blog or site so you can have categories in place when the app launches. The more frequent your content, the more categories you may want to have set up.
Creation and Approval
The creation process and completed application is better seen than described, so I’ve included a video showing the process. For the most part, it’s about 10 minutes of filling out web forms and uploading some images. After that, it’s just a game of waiting for an email announcing the completion of your application.
There may be the rare case in which your application is not approved. In this case, you’ll need to revise text, images, title, etc until it’s approved. When the whole process has been completed, you can just search for your app and download it.
Completed Application
Once completed, the application doesn’t have a lot of features, but it does have some of the important ones. When you start up the application, the first thing you see is the splash screen. I saw at least one other company creating iPhone apps while inserting their own brand here, so I really liked that iSites helps you insert your own branded spash screen here. The app then loads up to the Home screen which shows a listing of your recent posts with thumbnails where available. Each post can be selected to view and read. While reading a post, you can jump up or down a post, favorite it or share it via email, Facebook, or Twitter. The sharing options are a must for an application like this.
Over all, the application is really smooth and brings my blog to a whole new audience pretty seamlessly. Better still is the ability to manage it from the iSites web site control panel. From the control panel, I can change my images, description, etc. Additionally, I can add or change categories and other feeds. This really does feel like a pretty decent blend of control and simplicity.
Application Analytics
I love numbers. More than just any numbers, I love numbers that tell me people are reading what I write. Even before purchasing my app creation, I was a little excited about the prospect of seeing how many people downloaded my iJoeTech iPhone application. Once the app has hit the app store, you have analytics at your fingertips via the iSites web site control panel.
Amazingly, I had a nice bunch of downloads of my app before I even knew it was in the App Store. Pretty exciting. While it’s fun to watch, the numbers are important as a barometer for how your keywords and other criteria work to get someone to look at your app and then to download it.
What’s Missing?
I’m not sure if the analytics pages cover just the iPhone downloads or both iPhone and Android. I’d love to see analytics for both on the same graph. It would also be nice if the application had an option to open a post in Safari. Most of all, though, I’d love if there was some way for the application to hook into my Wordpress and let the user submit a comment right from the app.
Conclusions
I’ve been wanting to create a JoeTech.com app for the iPhone for a while now and although I had seen other offerings, this one resonated with my mostly due to the ease of setup and the low cost. It truly is pretty amazing that I can give JoeTech.com readers a customized iPhone application so easily for only $25. I think every blog should have such an app and iSites.us is the place to get it done.
This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of SellMyMobile.com. All opinions are 100% mine.
I’ve sold a number of cell phones on eBay and elsewhere over the years. I like to upgrade to the newest phone that suits all (or most) of my needs, so I often find myself with a phone to sell. I was asked, this week, to review SellMyMobile.com, a site dedicated you helping you sell mobile phone and get the most out of your used cell phone.
What SellMyMobile Does
In short, SellMyMobile.com is a site that helps people sell mobile phones for more money by showing the seller the current buying prices for used cell phones from (at the time of this writing) 21 different used phone buying sites. So how does it work? I registered for an account, but if you just want to find a the best price for your used phone, you don’t need to register. Just head to the site and search phones. As you type in your phone model, the search box brings back live suggestions and tries to anticipate your phone model to save you time.
I love anything that saves me time. I also love that the search suggestion includes the best sale price. So before I was even done searching, I had a good idea of what I can sell this phone for. I clicked the iPhone 3G S 16GB that I have and it took only about a second to come back with a full list of prices.
It’s important to note that although most people will go right to the top price, there was at least one option for my phone that included “up to £300 in vouchers”. Depending on your specific needs, an option like this could be much better than the top cash offer, so when you use SellMyMobile.com to find a buyer, make sure to look through the whole list. In my case, I clicked the button to sell it for the highest cash amount, which was about $415 US, and it dropped me right out to the buyer’s site to complete the process of selling and shipping out my phone.
The whole thing was pretty easy and took about a minute to get that far. The buyer I ended up with, (phonerecyclebank.com) seemed to have a pretty streamlined process for completing the sale, too. One thing I thing I thought was missing here is the currency conversion. Being from the United States, I’d like to see a US dollar amount, but couldn’t find that option in my settings. A quick visit to Google with a search for “260 pounds to dollars” got me the number I needed, though. Additionally, I hear those of us in the U.S. may have a site with U.S. currency some time soon.
Broken Phone? No Problem
Here’s something I hadn’t considered. Someone wants to buy my broken cell phone. When I went to my buyer in the example above, I found that they buy broken phones, too and would offer almost half as much for a broken iPhone. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to make the results include prices for my broken phone, so for now, I’d probably just go with the highest non-broken offer. This is another feature I’m told is in the pipeline.
Why register?
To be honest, I registered out of habit. Looking back, I may not have save for one reason:
Would you like to be alerted when you mobile phone contract is due for renewal?, Please set when you would like to recieve an alert from SellMyMobile.com
That’s a great idea. My contract is really the thing that might prevent me from upgrading again, so it would be nice to get a reminder. Of course, I might want more than that as a reason to register, but it is a nice feature.
Conclusions
I’m not even sure I have to say it at this point. The site is great and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to part with a used mobile phone. A couple small features would make this site perfect, but even without them, I’m definitely bookmarking it for my next cell phone sale and so should you.
Many states have laws about using your cell phone while driving. Even where the law permits it, using your phone while driving can be dangerous. I have to admit, I talk on the phone while driving a lot. Although I can still drive safely, it’s inconvenient and ties up my free hand. Nokia sent me something that makes it all easier.
About the HF-510
The Nokia Speakerphone HF-510 is a hands free kit for your car that connects via Blue Tooth to your phone. Simple enough, but what makes this different from other hands free kits out there? I’ve seen a ton of them and decent kits start around $50 last time I checked and the HF-510 comes in a little over that mark. The first difference this device has over others is easily noticed the first time you look at it. The large, easily mountable speaker allows for nice clear audio and can be pretty loud if you want, too. Because I didn’t want to mount the speaker for my review, I found myself throwing it in the cup holder in my car. The speaker size is just about a perfect fit for the cup holder, so if you want to share it between cars, you could try that.
The next stand-out feature I found on this device was the OLED display for caller ID. The whole point of a hands free kit is to not be messing with your phone while driving, so it’s nice to have the incoming caller’s number displayed. This is a great feature and shows up nicely. I hate getting stuck on the phone in my car with someone I don’t want to talk to or someone trying to sell me something. If you don’t mount the speaker or use the included visor clip, though, this feature is not as easy to notice without taking your eyes way off the road. So if you need the caller ID, mount the speaker or use the visor clip.
Other Features, Likes, Dislikes
Additionally, the Nokia HF-510 has a ring around the outside that is used to control the volume and sift through the phone book. While it’s kind of cool and probably works fine if you mount it very stable, it otherwise makes the phone book navigation and volume control harder to accomplish with one hand. While I didn’t really use it long enough to notice any battery issues, it boasts up to 30 hours of operation time and 180 hours of stand by time on the included battery. That’s pretty decent, but they provide a car charger for those really long trips.
Conclusions
This hands free kit just worked well. I might have liked it a little smaller for my visor, but it has a nice design and was generally easy to operate. Call quality was as good as being on my phone, itself and it paired up really really easily. For the extra extra mile the HF-510 goes, I expected a slightly higher price than what I’ve seen and that doesn’t hurt one bit. The Nokia HF-510 looks and works great at a good price, leaving little to ask for.
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