Feed Your Mind with Feedly

If you read this blog with any regularity, you’ll notice that I haven’t been posting very often the past few months. The reason for that is that I have a great many things clawing for my attention. Chief among them are work, late-night classes, my two little boys, and my photography hobby. Despite all that, I still like to stay up to speed on new technology news. An awesome tool that helps me sift through all of the electronic noise these days is Feedly, a cloud-based RSS reader that can aggregate a vast number of Internet sources into a beautiful, easy to consume, and customizable view.

RSS readers have been available for more than a decade. The most popular of those, Google Reader, is the reason I’m writing this post. Many online have lamented Google’s recent announcement detailing the death of Reader. I too was annoyed at first. Google is notorious for experimenting, keeping everything in “beta”, and then killing a product you've come to rely on with little notice. In this case though, I’m actually excited. Without the torrent of negative press surrounding Google’s decision, I would never have discovered the awesomeness that is Feedly.

Essential Image Comparison Tools

Last year, I wrote a post about some great hardware comparison tools to use when looking for your next camera. As cool as those sites are, they are only part of the camera research toolbox. What should matter more for your next camera is the quality of the images it produces. On that note, I recently came across two image comparison tools that I thought I should share. Both of these tools offer handy side-by-side comparison images of the exact same subjects, taken with various cameras, across a range of ISO sensitivities.

There’s no question that these tools fully amount to “pixel peeping.” That means looking at images at 100% resolution and comparing the smallest details. While I think doing that can be valuable for comparing one camera to the next, try to stop doing that once you actually get the camera. A memorable image can be blurry, noisy, improperly framed, poorly lit, etc. The subject, story, emotions, and so much more, are far more important than any pixel-level imperfections. See what I mean by checking out this Anti-Pixel Peeping thread.

That said, I like to know that I’ve done everything I can (within budget) to ensure that my gear isn't what’s preventing me from getting the shots that I want. These tools help me know what a camera is capable of under ideal conditions. I strongly recommend bookmarking the following two sites for your next camera search.

Automate Your Life with IFTTT

I ran across a pretty slick service the other day that allows you to setup electronic triggers for performing certain automated tasks. The fast growing “If This, Then That” (IFTTT) service ties into a myriad of other services such as Facebook, Gmail, Google Calendar, Dropbox, SkyDrive, and many more. Anytime an action occurs in one of those services ("If This"), you can instruct the service to automatically perform a certain task ("Then That"). Many mundane tasks can be performed automatically by IFTTT, saving precious time each day.

Can Bitcasa Challenge Dropbox?

I think I must be slowing down in my “old” age, because I managed to completely miss an announcement last year on the new cloud storage service Bitcasa. At the time, the small start-up had recently started accepting public beta testers. It wasn't until they came out of beta and formally launched the service a couple of weeks ago, that I realized Dropbox may have some serious heat to contend with.

Bitcasa is similar to Dropbox in many ways, but dissimilar in one very important way; infinite storage. If you've read my Dropbox post, you’ll know that I absolutely love Dropbox, but ultimately that loves comes at a price.  Currently I’m paying $100 a year for 100GB of Dropbox storage (not counting referrals). If I want more space, I’m forced to spend an additional $100 a year for 200GB. With Bitcasa, that same $100 gets me unlimited amounts of space. Done deal right? Cancel Dropbox and make the switch? If only life in the cloud were so simple.

Maximize the Value of Google Voice with Talkatone

My last post was all about using Google Voice to replace your landline. This week, I wanted to tell you how you can get even more value out of Google Voice by using it to make free calls over WiFi from iOS or Android. If you've ever seen the insane rates mobile carriers charge while roaming, you’ll quickly see why this could be of incredible value.

Right now you might be thinking, “Can’t I already do that from the Google Voice app?” Actually no you can’t, and that's one of the most common misconceptions people have about Google Voice. Let me attempt to clear that up if possible.

Say Goodbye to Landlines with Obihai

It seems like fewer and fewer people these days have a landline phone. There is something to be said about having one in certain emergency scenarios, but I think for most, the $30 to $45 a month costs are simply too much to justify. Years ago, I thought I’d try to save a little cash and go with a Vonage line. It worked well for a while, but costs steadily rose and I found myself using it less and less. Eventually, I decided that even paying $18 a month for my entry-level Vonage plan was a waste of money. Thankfully, I found the perfect solution that allows me to retain my phone number without having to spend a dime in monthly fees.

Beating the Itch with Therapik

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that a gadget from a website as cheesy and poorly designed as therapik.com, would ever prove to be useful. Thanks to a review from Gizmodo, I can now say that yes ladies and gentlemen, there actually is a gadget out there that can effectively mitigate the annoyance and itchiness that come from mosquito bites.

As a full time resident of the Midwestern United States, I am very familiar with mosquitos and the persistent annoyance they leave behind long after they've sucked the life out of me. It was for this reason that immediately clicked on an article titled “Bug Bite Relieving Gadget Review” a few weeks ago. If not for the effusive accolades that Gizmodo gave the device, I would have run for the hills after seeing the Therapik website. It’s just one “buy now and get a mini Therapik free” claim away from being a late night infomercial. Thankfully though, the review’s praise and the low price of $12.95 made me think “What the heck? I might as well try it.”

It’s late in the blood-sucking season for my hometown’s unofficial state bird, but just the other day I FINALLY got a bite! I can’t believe I am saying this, but for the first time in my life I was excited to get bitten. Now I could try the Therapik out! 

Terms of Service? I Most Definitely Never Read, and Now I Don't Have To

Terms of service (ToS) agreements are everywhere today. In fact, they are so ubiquitous that I’m pretty sure almost no one reads them when clicking through to install a new piece of software or use a new online service. I’m guilty as charged when it comes to that. I never have (or make) time, interest, or the legal skill to interpret them. Thankfully, a new site I've just heard about (thanks Ed T.) aims to bring clarity to what lies within these often long and painful to read documents.

The new site ToS;DR does what almost none of us do. The people behind the site actually read the terms of service agreements for many popular websites, companies, and software packages. Not only do they read them, but they summarize them concisely and even provide ratings from Class A (very good) to Class E (very bad).

What the Soluto?

I saw a tweet from Dropbox recently about a service called Soluto that really piqued my curiosity. It appears to have been around since 2010, but this is the first I've ever heard about it. Read on to find out more about why I find this service intriguing.