Articles in the Review category

Three Suggestions for the Android Calendar App

By Eric — 1 minute read

1. Two reminders

I want a reminder at the specified reminder time, and another one at the appointment start time. This is how it typically goes for me:

PHONE: Ding!\ ME: Oh yeah, I've got that meeting in 10 minutes. Let me just finish this little bit of code in …

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Kindle for Technical Reading

By Eric — 2 minute read

I've read several novels in Amazon Kindle format (on an actual Kindle device, the PC client, or an iPad), and the experience is pretty good. But having now finished reading a technical book that way, I think it's not quite there yet.

The book I read is Jez Humble and …

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I want my webOS

By Eric — 3 minute read

It's become fairly clear that HP is not webOS' savior. It's also unlikely that webOS can come back from the dead for the second time. But it makes me sad, since webOS and its devices hit a sweet spot that no one managed to exploit.

The currently winning smartphone platforms …

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Sprint Makes Me Laugh

By Eric

I got this flyer from Sprint. I wonder if they wrote that "protecting more than ever before" with a straight face or what.

Protecting more than ever before

New program? \$1 more!

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OK, Maybe TurboTax Is Worth It

By Eric — 2 minute read

I was a bit of a masochist this year. I actually did my federal taxes twice, trying to figure out if there is a cheaper alternative to using TurboTax. But TurboTax, in spite of costing more, ended up being the cheaper option by a long shot.

The whole United States …

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Evernote vs. OneNote

By Eric — 2 minute read

I've used both Evernote and Microsoft OneNote for several years. While there are lots of extensive comparisons of the applications around, I think the difference between them comes down to just a few broad issues.

Evernote has these things going for it:

  1. Ubiquity
  2. Price (free)

OneNote's list is shorter:

  1. It's …

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Speaking of Mice... Good vs. Evil

By Eric

Logitech vs. Apple mouse

I finally had to throw the shiny white excuse for a mouse into the drawer and pull out a trusty VX Nano. The Apple mouse suffers from the form over function malady: it is apparently too damaging to the aesthetic to actually have separate left and right buttons. Instead the …

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Succumbing to the Smartphone Siren

By Eric — 3 minute read

So shortly after crowing about how cheaply I was getting cell phone service, I've sailed headlong into the rocks of an \$80 a month smart phone plan. In spite of all the Android buzz of late, I went with the Palm Pre.

As I've posted before, I used to be …

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New Depths of Printer Evil

By Eric

I frequently say, only half-jokingly, that printers are evil. Actually I love my HP LaserJet 1320, but my Canon Pixma 620 is just plain E-V-I-L.

OK, pretty much any inkjet printer is devil-spawn, with the well-cited fact that printer ink is the most expensive liquid on the planet. Canon has …

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Cell Phone Service for the Non-Garrulous

By Eric — 2 minute read

I'm a man of few words. Well, vocally anyway. My wife has teased that I must have a fixed daily allotment of spoken words, and on evenings when I'm particularly quiet, I must have used them up already. I'm not sure if she buys the "still waters run deep" explanation …

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