Fluevog

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 01:46:00 GMT

Last Sunday I went shopping for shoes down on Haight. I went into the Fluevog shop and just couldn't walk out without purchasing something. I took home a pair of the Supervog I made the mistake of taking a business card with me. They sell their merchandise online. This could be very dangerous.

Center for Sex and Culture

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 07:00:00 GMT

One of the most wonderful things to spring out of SF's progressive sexuality is the Center for Sex and Culture. This organization offers classes in human sexuality through the Good Vibrations stores. The organization was started by renown sexologist Carroll Queen.

If you think you've seen the face of sex shops in America, this will change your impression of them. Forget the image of dark dingy store you might have in your mind, this store is more of a boutique than anything else with friendly employees with over 60 hours of sex training.

Your life in your pocket

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:20:00 GMT

Steve jobs is undeniably the most brilliant man in the computer industry. When he gave us the Mac he revolutionized the way we thing about computers. When he gave us the iPod, he revolutionized not only music but the way people broadcast. Now he's done it again but this time with the phone. In the beginning of his iPhone introduction he said his product was five years ahead of the competition. When I heard that I was skeptical. Now I think it was a drastic understatement. If he's only five years ahead it's because his competition will incorporate some of his ideas is their products. This phone has over 200 new patents. It's amazing.

The phone has 3 advanced sensors built in to improve user experience. The phone uses a proximity sensor to detect when the user's brought the phone to their ear so it can disable the controls and turns off the display. It has a ambient light sensor to automatically adjust brightness. It has an accelerometer so it can detect when the user holds the phone horizontally and automatically goes into landscape mode [00:13:00].

You control the phone using your finger not a stylus. There's no hardcoded keyboard. It's software driven so the interface can actually evolve after the hardware's been released. Text messaging is done using a GUI QWERTY keyboard for example. When you first pick up the phone you slide the unlock button across the screen start using it. It uses a technology Steve calls "multi touch" so to zoom in to a picture you un-pinch your fingers on the screen [00:33:00]. There is only one button in the hardware, a home key [00:15:20].

The device runs OS-X so it runs full blown applications, not the trimmed down stuff you see on most phones. That means it has a fully functioning browser for example. You sync your phone to your PC using iTunes. The phone includes an iPod application that allows creative way to scroll through album art (an app it calls Cover Flow). It supports widgets and email through either pop3 (Google Gmail, AOL Mail, Most IPSs) or imap (e.g. Yahoo Mail, MS Exchange, .Mac Mail). They've partnered with yahoo to offer free email.

One of the most impressive parts of the demonstration was when he demonstrated the call management features because it's hard to believe that he actually improved the basic functionality of a phone. When calls come in there's a picture of who's calling. You can answer the call and the person goes into a list. You can merge the call, unmerge the call, drop a call, switch between the calls all with the GUI interface. He made it seem really simple, far simpler than my RAZR. The phone also supports video voicemail which allows the user to pick which voicemail you want to listen to instead of listening to them in the order they came in [00:29:30]. At some point he called his favorite sushi restaurant (415-332-3940) sushi ran, you can't get a better recommendation than that.

The phone supports 5 hours life (16 hours of audio playback). It has a 2MP camera. It supports Bluetooth 2.0, WIFI and it switches between WIFI or the network intelligently.

Apple has teamed with Cingular and will start shipping the phone in June. It is priced at $500.

Just to get a sense of how big this market is, here are some stats from the speech. If you get 1% market share that means you've sold 10M units. [1:16:00]

Game consoles   26M
Digit Cameras   94M
MP3 players    135M
PCs            209M
Mobile phones  957M

It's a GSM phone so that means it won't work with the MetroPCS service I use but is so amazing that it might get me to switch phone carriers.

The video for the iPod introduction and the Macworld keynote are available on the Mac site.

Ultrafineonline service

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:20:00 GMT

Isn't it funny how the sites with excellent customer service always seem to have any place to rave about their customer service? Take ultrafineonline.com for example. That place never messes up my orders and ships them out in a reasonable time. Their prices are excellent and when I call, they talk my ear off with things I want to hear; I actually take notes! When I place an order with them, they always send me an email asking me to review them and I always reply with a positive response. This store, in my opinion, rates well above average.

QICBoy - good tag

Fluevog

Center for Sex and Culture

Your life in your pocket

Ultrafineonline service