When I first joined MySpace in 2005, it was relatively new, and allowed me to connect with a lot of people I hadn’t seen a long time.  Facebook was only available for college students.  Social networking was still a young-ish enterprise, and no one had ever tweeted. Ever.  Hard to believe.

MySpace quickly became less fun as more and more profiles turned janky, and more and more fake profiles started asking me to be their friend.  You it’s relatively easy to tell when a fake profile wants to friend you, because it will have a profile picture  that looks like a model’s head shot, and they have only 3 friends.  The same thing happens on Twitter – same kind of profile pic, and though they’re following 3,000 people, they in turn have only 7 followers (hapless schmucks who most likely have auto-follow turned on.)

Now, for the first time since I’ve been using Facebook (~3 years) I got a MySpace-style spam friend request.  See picture on the right.  I’m pretty sure I don’t know that person – I’d remember a stunningly hot woman named Miles Michaels.  And I notice that the fan pages “she” is following are both for clubs in Las Vegas.  Huh.  What do you know.

I was surprised to get this request, and kinda bummed.  I don’t spend as much time on Facebook as I used, but as it becomes pervasive enough for even my Dad to to have a profile, it’s increasingly useful as a way to share information (like pictures of my new dog, Cash.)

If I had to give this a rating between 1 and 10, I’d call it a 2.  Spam is lame in all it’s varieties, and Facebook is no exception.

Post Script:

If anyone believes that I’m wrong, and Miles is actually a sensitive, passionate woman who deserves friendship like anyone else, here’s her info.  Have at it:

Basic Information:

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The Best Buy Kiosk is a great idea.  People like to make awesome, spur of the moment gadget and electronics purchases.  Those not least when traveling and on vacation.  Doubtless Japan has been doing this for many years.  Damn they’re on the ball.

Essentially (in case you live in 29 Palms, CA and you’ve never seen one) these kiosks are like a self-serve gizmo vending machine.  iPods, camcorders, headphones, and other fun items are ready to hand for spontaneous shopper.   They are un-manned, which is obviously a huge costs savings in labor.  Right up until Windows goes into a tail-spin spiral of death, and/or DELL chokes on the BIOS screen.

At the airport I ran into a Best Buy Kiosk that was in excessive FAIL mode.  On a scale of 1to10, this scores a 1 on the “success” meter.  (It looked like this for at least 25 minutes, FYI.)

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On a scale from 1 to 10, Time Machine can really save your bacon.

Mac has a very cool program that fits seamlessly into September’s theme on data backup and protection. Not September anymore you say? Well, things have been busy. Nevertheless, for those who haven’t heard of it (both of you) this software merits a little blog love: Time Machine.

From their website:

“Never again worry about losing your digital files. Time Machine automatically saves up-to-date copies of everything on your Mac — photos, music, videos, documents, applications, and settings. If you ever have the need, you can easily go back in time to recover anything.”

As with many Apple products, Time Machine is built well and built smart.  It will regularly remind you if you haven’t backed up recently.  And it’s simplicity itself to open the program, pick a day / time that you want to restore, and it will revert your computer to the state it was in at that time.  Cool?  But it gets better.

I might lose a file, delete a photo, or even corrupt my iTunes library so that it shows only gibberish instead of my meticulously labeled and organized music.  Any of these issues are incredibly frustrating, but I might not want to revert my entire computer back to two weeks ago, cause I’ve gotten new emails or shot new pictures since then, or who knows what.  Time Machine will let you restore an individual file or an individual program, without affecting anything else on the computer.  Now that’s cool.

So how do you use Time Machine?

- Well, to start with you need an Apple computer – Time Machine only comes with Mac OS X.

- Second, you need an external HDD – I use my Seagate FreeAgent Desk as my dedicated Time Machine backup drive.  You can use a variety of different external storage devices, including setting aside a partition on a RAID or in your NAS box, or even in your DROBO, but I decided to have a dedicated disk for TM.

-  Third, you’ll have to plug the drive into your Mac (or connect over your wireless network) and open Time Machine – it’ll walk you through the steps of how to format the drive correctly.  They do a good job of holding your hand through it.

And that’s pretty much it.  If you always leave your drive connected (or you’re always connected to your Wifi network) it’ll keep backing you up automatically.  If not, then you’ll get regular reminders that you need to backup your machine.  Plug in and it will back up without any fuss or muss.

One note of caution – if you set it to backup too frequently (like, say, hourly) then you will quickly fill up even a very large HDD.  The Time Machine is smart enough to only note the changes to your computer since you last backup (as opposed to making a complete copy of everything – overkill considering that 90% of your files don’t change much from day to day.)  But still, even those relatively small changes can start to add up quickly, and you will discover that your HDD is full before long.

If I were forced to give Time Machine a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I’d call it a 9.  It’s a great piece of software, it comes free with your Mac (as long as you buy one with OS X or above) and it works perfectly. Huzzah!  Huzzah!  Huzzah for Apple.  :)  (Like they need more kudos, self-inflated as they are.)

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Today 12seconds launched a new app in the iTunes app store. It’s called 12mail, and you can download it from iTunes here.

I know that I’m biased, being that I work with the company and all, but I do believe that this app has incredible potential – it offers a new medium for communication. It’s like video visual voicemail.  It leverages all of your friends in Twitter and Facebook to build your list of “contacts.”   You can then send short videos (twelve seconds long) to those people.  If they also have the 12mail app, they’ll be able to watch the video right there on the phone.  If not, they’ll either a.) receive a DM on Twitter with a link to the video (private) or b.) a wall post on their Facebook profile (public)

Combining the ability to record and send video with the social networks you’ve built up on services like Twitter and Facebook is an excellent move.  And the twelve second limitation on the length of videos works to your advantage on a mobile device.  It’s quick to upload when you’re sending, even over clunky old EDGE.  And it’s very fast to buffer and stream when you’re on the receiving end.

Sol, Jakey, Ethan and the rest of the team have worked really hard to put this app together, and I think the effort was well spent.  A number of different folks in the press and blogosphere have covered the app today, including Cult of Mac, AppleTell, Techcrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Download Squad, and a bunch of others. I have no qualms giving this app a 10 out of 10.  If you think I’m biased, well, you’re right.  Don’t care.

A sample video I shot is below, as is a SRIBD doc that walks through the entire app.  Check ‘em out.

You should get 12mail for your iPhone. on 12seconds.tv

12mail Overview

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On a scale from 1to10, I’m a strong believer in redundancy.

It keeps you alive when you’re setting rock climbing anchors, and it’s extremely valuable when it comes to digitally stored data. I have 2 hard drives inside my PC. The two are mirrored (RAID 1 – see the Wikipedia link above).  Briefly, what this means is that every time I create a file or add a new program on my computer, that data is stored to both HDDs.  Both of the drives in my PC reflect the exact same data (hence the term “mirror.”)  This protects me against mechanical failure (i.e. one hard drive melting down.)  It does not protect against something like, say, a virus or worm.  This is because if it affects one drive, it will also affect the other.   The two are exact mirrors of one another, and reflect the exact same operating system, data, software, etc. So if I fubar one (by installing a corrupt file or a virus) both will be messed up.  But, if one of the disks stops turning, the other one can remain active and continue to run the computer.  This is a type of redundancy which I am very fond of.

Now, if the computer itself catches fire, or if I do somehow install a virus, the redundancy in the RAID is no protection at all.  It’s strictly a backup against mechanical failure of a single drive.   That’s why I also use an  external HDD to store independent backups of important data.  Again, redundancy.  Get it?

Spencer Boerup, a wedding photographer in Phoenix, AZ has a nice post with exhaustive detail on his beliefs in redundancy, and the steps he uses.  If you’ve got 10 minutes, it’s a good read.

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On a scale of 1to10, Google Chrome just got cooler.

This post is off-topic.  Meaning, it’s outside the scope of “storage” month. But I’m excited about a new feature of Google Chrome, and that’s inspired me to write.  M.G. Siegler at Techcrunch wrote a post today about Google Chrome’s latest update to version 3.0.  Chrome is also a little more than a year old – I’ve been using it consistently pretty much that whole time.  I like it a lot.

Chrome 3.0 has made all kinds of performance and benchmarking improvements and upgrades – javascript thingamajigs load waaaay faster than they did before, blah blah blah.  That’s all cool, and I’m glad the browser is better-performing and more reliable now.  But to be truthful I don’t know that much about the technical side of web-browsing, and I don’t want to pretend that I do.  I take it at face value that the performance is now better than it was (seems great to me.)

What does impress and please me is a feature I hadn’t noticed previously – the ability to create application shortcuts out of a webpage.  This is very similar to what Fluid does on the Mac OS, and this is nothing really new.  But it’s cool.  Basically, you can take a website of your choosing, and using the “Control the current page” dropdown at the top right, you can create a shortcut for that website on either the desktop, the start menu, or the quick launch bar.  For instance, I turned Pandora into a shortcut.  This does a couple things:

1. You can launch said webpage as a standalone app, as opposed to a browser tab or browser window

2. The page looks like an app, with not URL bar or other navigation tools

3. If you close your browser, that application stays open

Again, this is very similar to what Fluid does.  And Google did a nice job of incorporating the site’s own iconography and favicons to make the shortcuts look decent.  I like using the quick launch personally, cause I dislike a cluttered desktop.  Oh lord, my OCD is showing.

Fluid rocks, and this little feature is a nice move in a similar direction.  If I gave it a numeric rating, it would be an 8 out 10.

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That might be a little confusing – let me back up.  I own an XBOX 360.  In my opinion, it’s one of (if not the) very best home media devices ever made.  I enjoy playing video games, but the XBOX Live has a lot of cool functions, including the very best implementation of Netflix I’ve ever see (blows the TIVO interface out of the water.)  And one of the other things it lets you do is plug in external media.

Basically, here’s the deal.  I rip all of my movies and TV series (from The Big Lebowski to Entourage) into digital files, generally MPEG 4 files (either .MP4 to .M4V) with AAC audio encoding.  To do this I use either DVD Fab Platinum (a paid software available only for PC) or Handbrake (a free software that works best on the Mac, though it does have a PC version.) I then store these files in multiple locations (a future post on redundancy will elaborate on this point.)  One of those locations is a Maxtor OneTouch HDD (pictured right) – I bought a 750 GB drive at Costco a while back.  I transfer ripped movies and shows, and plug it into my XBOX.  This gives me a backup of those files, and a medium to deliver them to my big screen.  The files, ripped into 720p quality, play beautifully on my plasma.  I have a large library of content, accessible through an awesome UI, and totally independent of things like an Internet connection or a solid WiFi signal.

Don’t get me wrong.  I still watch DVDs.  And I still stream shows through Netflix (30 Rock in HD is awesome.)  But I am a hoarder (OK not that bad), and I like having the files themselves, locally, and the XBOX is perfect delivery device for watching those local shows.  Now I can see each and every episode of Arrested Development as often as I like, on the big screen, right off my HDD.  That makes me happy.  10 happy.

I’m a big fan of using an external HDD as both a storage device and a delivery mechanism.  You’ll need to rip your DVD collection, but it’s satisfying to have it at your fingertips and not have to fuddle with disks.  Yeah, I said fuddle.  Sue me.

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I’m a strong believer in the KISS principal: keep it simple, stupid. There’s lots of complex and confusing ways to backup your data, including a Network-attached storage (NAS) box, a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID), and beyond.  The deeper you dig into these solutions, the more complex they become. Do you want a RAID 0, a RAID 1, a RAID 10…? Do you want to mirror your drives, or stripe them? Does any of this make sense?

If you’re like 95% of the world, the answer is no, it does not make sense.  It is most certainly not simple.  Well, you know what is simple?  An external hard drive.  That’s what.

An external hard drive is precisely what it sounds like.  It’s a hard disk drive (HDD) that sits outside your computer case.  Generally they have a plastic or metal enclosure, and connect to your computer via USB cable (or sometime Firewire.)  Larger capacity HDD’s will generally also have a power source.  Smaller capacity (under 250 GB) can frequently run off power drawn from the USB port.  Many different storage and CE (consumer electronics) companies make these drives, including Seagate, Western Digital, HItachi, Buffalo, and Simple Tech and many others.

The beauty of the external HDD is the guiding light behind the title of this post.  Its simplicity.  You plug the drive into your computer, and boom another hard drive appears on your desktop.  You can drag files onto it, or drag them off.  That’s it.  If you have a bunch of photos, music, movie files, or work documents you can make a quick, simple backup of all that data with just a click and a drag.  You can get a high quality drive for around (or under) $100 depending on the features you’re looking for and the capacity you need.

I have several of these devices that I use for a variety of purposes – I will touch on those here, and may expand upon them in future posts.  One drive that I use specifically for backup is the FreeAgent XTreme from Seagate. It has both USB and Firewire ports for connecting to your PC or Mac, and a separate power supply.  The Freeagents are (in my opinion) some of the best looking drives on the market, which makes some level of difference if you’re keeping it on your desk all the time.  It looks like a neat gizmo with artistic flair, rather than a janky box.  I have an Extreme in 1 TB capacity, and I use it to backup my data on a regular basis.  Most storage companies offer a software suite to do “automatic backups” which sync your data and update the external drive with only new files, or files that have changed.  This can be really handy, and Seagate’s works as advertised.  The other option is to manually drag over new files from time to time, or to overwrite old files by simply dragging the whole folder (with new additions) over to the external.  Salt to taste.

Personally, I do not backup every file, only those that are most important to me.  This includes some older documents, my photos, my music, and my movies.  And my books.  That’s right, I listen to audio books, ripped from CD into MP3 format.  Running sprints or swimming to the spoken word is good for you.

I also have a Maxtor 750 GB external HDD.  This one is connected to my XBOX 360.  I will elaborate on this in a separate post.  Lastly, I have a Seagate Freeagent Desk which I use with my Mac.  Again, watch for an upcoming post for more details.

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On a scale of 1 to 10, more people should really be backing up their hard drives.

You know you should.  We all know we should, but most of us rarely do.  If you go into a room of 10 people and ask: “Do any of you back up your hard drives?”, usually only 2 or 3 people will raise their hands.  If you ask a followup question: “Have any of you ever lost data or had a catastrophic hard drive failure?”  I’ll lay down a bet that the same 2-3 people raise their hands.  My friend Jeremy likes to say that “people don’t like to think about loss – it’s depressing, and our minds just don’t want to go that direction.”  I agree.  Most of the time it takes a severe loss of data to make someone a true believer when it comes to data backup and redundancy.

To fight that apathy, I am making September “Back It Up” month on 1to10reviews.  This month’s posts will all be related to storage solutions, data backup, and other related topics.  This will cover the gamut from:

- cloud-based storage solutions like Box.net

-to external HDD (Hard Disk Drives) from companies like Seagate and Maxtor

- and heavy-duty solutions like RAID, NAS (network attached storage) boxes and DROBO

Many people in September will be thinking about back to school.  Folks in Quahog are starting to worry about those damn leafers from New York.  But here on 1to10, we’re going to explore the depths and variegated folds of that tortured terrain called data backup and storage. If you have comments, objections, personal horror stories or other ideas to contribute (things you’d like us to review) let us know.  You can comment on a post, or email us at: david [AT] 1to10reviews [DOT] com

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It’s been frustrating recently, because I finally decided to pull the trigger, and I’ve had a hard time locating one.  I found a great price on one website, and they actually charged me for the knife, but then sent me an email saying they were back ordered for about 2 weeks.  I called a couple days later to check in, and was informed that their “backorder email” is actually a form letter, and in fact has no actual bearing on the expected delivery time.  They have no idea when Emerson will send them more, and they are not willing to call Emerson to find out.  Davey no likely.

Fortunately, EDCKnives.com came through like champions and not only got me the knife I wanted, but in the exact model and finish I wanted and for a great price.  They’re worth a visit.

So, now I’ve finally got one.  I love it.  The handles are black G10 with an exceptionally rough, textured grip.  Some people may find the handles a little too abrasive, but I actually like the degree of friction it adds to the grip.  The blade has a gorgeous, mottled finish (in the satin) that’s relatively recent.  Obviously it features a tanto point (some people call it a chisel tip.)  Emerson boasts that this knife was the inspiration for the modern tactical folder.  I don’t have a really hard time believing it – it’s an amazing blade.  Details and material below.

I know this has been a relatively gushy review.  And I am obviously grateful for the cogent and well-thought-out warning, courtesy of Emerson (see right.)  Obviously, if I were to give this a numeric rating from 1to10, it would be a 10.  I have only one qualm thus far.  The blade sits a little too close to the right handle scale, and it rubs when I close the knife.  I don’t know if this is intentional, or if this one is off spec.  Anyone out there with a working knowledge of the CQC-7B have a suggestion on this?   Video explanation below.

The Emerson CQC-7B SFS on 12seconds.tv

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Cautionary note: this post contains profanity. A 28 year-old guy named Justin is writing down the things his 73 year old Dad says and sharing them on Twitter. His feed is titled “Shit My Dad Says.”  The tweets are awesome.  Justin’s Dad is awesome.  I can only surmise that Justin must be awesome as well, despite Dad’s frequent and colorful critiques. As of the time of this post, he has 129, 825 followers (Yes, that’s more than pictured below.  Since I took the screenshot below, he’s gotten 429 new followers. Dude.)

This is my favorite tweet.  It has a personal connection to me, to Sol, and to our buddy Joel.  If I were forced to give this a numeric rating from 1to10, it would be a 10.  No holds barred.  Justin is the man right now, and so is his Dad.

Update:

Techcrunch picked up this story on August 28th, and graciously gave a link back.  Following that, the LA Times also covered this phenomenon on September 2nd.  According to Mark Milian at the Times, Justin’s in coversation for a book deal.  Mazel Tov!

Also, at the time of this update, Justin has more than doubled his Twitter followers since my original post.  He’s currently at 308,955 followers.  Egad.

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I got the red rings of death about a month ago.  It’s a well documented (and sucky) phenomenon that afflicts older XBOX 360’s.  Basically, if three red lights come on around the power switch you know that you are well and truly fuct.

I am not technical and geeked out enough to try the “rip it open and tinker” method that Doug demonstrates on Crunchgear, so I tried the anti-intuitive but briefly successful method of superheating:

I was shocked that this actually did fix my XBOX… for about 3 days.  Then it crapped out again.   Fortunately for me, I shop at Costco.  From all reports Microsoft has actually been very good about fixing or replacing these consoles, and I did print out a free UPS shipping label.  But then I decided I was better off to simply purchase a new console at Costco and return the old one.  Their outstanding return policy is, after all, part of the reason I shop there.

So now I have a new XBOX 360, and one with a 60GB HDD instead of a lowly 10GB HDD.  Hooray.  Except, all my data is still on the 10GB.  This includes saved games, unlocked songs on Guitar Hero, downloaded content (DLC) like map packs for Call of Duty and more.  In aggregate that represents a large investment in time and energy.  But I don’t know how to get my data off the old HDD and onto the new one.

I’m aware that there is a transfer kit, with a special cable and a disc.  But XBOX doesn’t sell it.  And neither does any other reputable retailer.  I found and bought one on Ebay, but it turned out to be a complete POS.  The disc does not work at all – the XBOX 360 reads it as a “mixed media disc” and won’t effect the transfer.  This leaves me with very limited options.  I’ve emailed Microsoft asking for help, but I am not sure what their response will be.  I’ll update this post when I find out.  If you have other suggestions, I’m listening.

If I were forced to give this entire experience (the red rings of death and the difficulty in making a data transfer) a numeric score between one and ten… Well you can probably guess what my ranking would be.

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I just got a Benchmade Griptilian knife.  On a scale of 1 to 10, this knife is hot.

This blade from Benchmade features a lightweight molded handle, ambidextrous thumbhole, a combo edge and a sheepsfoot blade shape.  The blade shape is gorgeous, with a gentle belly and and a good cutting front edge that’s easy to control.

This knife has swiftly become a favorite of mine for everyday carry. It’s extremely lightweight and comfortable, and the black clip actually fades against pants or jeans making it less noticeable than bright stainless clips.  The edge retention is outstanding, despite lots of rough cutting and use, from carpentry pencils to box opening to cutting rope.  I’m extremely pleased thus far.

I did have one big problem with it.  I took a spill off my bicycle on my morning commute to work, landing on my right hip and sliding a bit.  My body was largely undamaged except for a good scrape on the knee, but the knife took a bad hit.  The clip and part of the Black Glass Fill Noryl GTX®/Color Valox® Handle Scale broke off, exposing the blade tip on one side.  I was very surprised to see this break occur.  I wouldn’t have expected the handle scales to be that brittle, especially since the knife was padded on one side against my hip.

I was also a little surprised when my email to Benchmade went totally un-answered.  I visited their website and in the “contact us” section was a web-form to fill out and send an email.  I received no reply to my request for service, and after 5 days I called them directly.  The customer service rep I spoke restored some of my faith in the legendary Benchmade service reputation.  She was courteous, solicitous, and concerned not only about the quality of the product they had made, but also about my condition post-accident.  I thought that was very sweet.  :)

I’ve sent in the knife, and been assured that they will repair or replace it.  I haven’t heard any communication from the repairs department (it’s been about a week) but I expect everything to turn out all right.  I will update this post when I get the knife back.

In regards to customer service, I am reserving judgment on Benchmade. Their rep was outstanding on the phone – but communication has been slow and needed to be initiated by me each time, and I like to know what’s going on.

As far as the blade is concerned, I think this is a fantastic knife. At a price point of $100, the Griptilian isn’t cheap exactly, but you’re getting a lot of knife for your money.  Light, sturdy, beautifully designed and with an outstanding 154CM Stainless Steel blade, this is a knife that should last a lifetime.  So long as you don’t fall on it.

If I were forced to give it a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I’d call it a 7.  (Would have been a 9 without the handle failure and slow communication.)  If you’re looking for one to pick up yourself, I’d look at The Blade Shop – they have it available for $75 right now, $25 less than the recommended MSRP.

UPDATE:

The knife arrived today (8/18.) It looks brand new – not sure if they replaced the handle scale only, or if they actually replaced the whole knife.  If they just refurbished it, they did a hell of a job making it look new. 

Note: Dylan Tweney from WIRED had a nice roundup of a couple different folders, including the Griptilian this past June.

Knife Details (from the Benchmade website):

Blade Length: 3.45” Blade Thickness: 0.115” Blade Material: 154CM Stainless Steel (550T: 440C) Blade Hardness: 58-61HRC Blade Style: Hollowground Modified Sheepsfoot; Ambidextrous Thumb-Holes Weight: 3.25oz.

Clip: Tip Up, Reversible, Black Lock Mechanism: AXIS Overall Length: 8.07” Closed Length: 4.62” Sheath Material: Sold Separately Class: Blue

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LG makes a lot of different devices, from Netbook computers to stove tops to televisions and blueray players. Today I’m reviewing one of their smaller gadgets, a pair of bluetooth stereo headphones.  This is a pretty straightforward hardware review, not some kitchy byplay full of personal commentary on the state of our civilazation and the degradation of our social milieu.  Mostly.

No, seriously, let’s cut straight to the chase.  What’s the point of having bluetooth headphones?  You don’t want wire draped all over your body, getting caught on chairs, keyboards, elbows, and the other myriad detritus of urban living.  Ideally, you’d also like good stereo sound, decent bass, comfort, and a microphone so you can use them on your mobile handset or bluetooth-enabled PC with Skype.  The HBS-250 delivered.

Comfort: The headphones are comfortable.  Even though they have foam padding against the ear, my ears don’t get hot and sweaty.  And since they’re not in-ear, there’s no gradual pain or discomfort from having something stuck in your ear all day.  The behind the ear clips are easy to use and totally innocuous.

Sound: The sound is great.  There’s an EQ button for switching between sound settings (more bass, live settings, etc.)  They frankly sound very good.

Ease-of-use: Setup on the iPhone and the computer was excellent.  Simple, straightforward and easy to do.  Just turn on the “discovery” feature on the handset / computer, turn on the headphones, and then you get a “would you like to synch the HBS-250?” message.  Done.  Now, operating the headphones is slightly more challenging.  The buttons are small and a little finicky – you have to get used to which ones are located where, and gently feel around.  Also, and this is actually pretty lame, the skip /reverse track feature doesn’t work with my iPhone.  The headphones are built with LG mobile handsets specifically in mind, but I think this is a pretty key feature, and I’d like to be able to skip tracks without having to go directly to the device.  Volume seems to work fine though, as does pause / play.  So that’s something at least.  But the tricky buttons and failed skip issues are the weakest points for me.

Phone calls: I was happy to see that these headphones come with a microphone, making them perfectly usable as a hands-free calling headset.  The sound quality is good.  It’s isn’t great, but it’s good.  I can hear the other person’s conversation perfectly.  Folks on the other end of the call say I sound a little like I’m in a tunnel, but perfectly understandable.  I did have one call (out of 3 test calls over a period of 2 days, in a variety settings) that was a total fail.  Solly couldn’t hear me at all, and I had to switch to just the phone itself, where I was then totally undersatandable.  Still, all bluetooth headsets I’ve used have occassional failed calls, so this wasn’t too distressing.  Maybe I should be more finicky, but for the most part I think these are pretty good.

Still and all, I think the headphones / music part is the big win for these.  I was bummed initially that they aren’t a little more “sports” oriented – I don’t think I’d want to use these to run with for instance.  Sweaty foam bums me out.  But, then again, I always exercise with a shuffle, and those don’t do bluetooth, so the point becomes pretty moot.

If I were forced to give the LG HBS-250 a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I’d cal it an 8.  Usability issues notwithstanding, this is a good looking, effective gadget that delivers a lot of value.  (Speaking of value, these aren’t super cheap at $80.  But if you’re in the market for bluetooth headphones and you have the cash to spend, I’d pick some up.) Nicole Lee at CNET has an excellent review with additional specs and info.

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Now, I’m not trying to be “fattist.”  I struggled with weight as a kid, and I understand the pain of being heavy, and of being made fun of for it.  I’m not having a go at the participants, or at heavy people in general.

My issue, rather, is with the whole concept of reality television, and the American attitude that enables it.  I was going to write “uniquely American” but I don’t think that’s accurate. The plethora of Big Brother national spin-offs (from Spanish to German to Australian) belies the idea that only Americans can be moronically shallow, self-absorbed and voyeuristic.  But I think it’s fair to say that Americans revel in crappy, scripted, poorly-written and smugly self-satisfied “reality” television more than anyone else.

My annoyance stems from the fact that More To Love screams ignorance, falsity of purpose, and hypocrisy from every cathode-ray pore.  The people who watch are not tuning in to absorb the humanity, feelings of loss, and sense of righteousness of people who feel down-trodden and misunderstood.  They want to watch fat people struggle into “sexy” clothes and make fools of themselves.

I’m no “down-on-America” communist.  I love this country.  I just think that most of it is filled with people who give little or no thought to the actions they take, or what those actions mean about themselves.   Thougthlessness is an ugly quality; sometimes it makes me sad, and othertimes it makes me angry.  This show makes me angry.  Not just because it’s exploitative, but because the producers would hide behind false argument that it’s empowering.  It is not empowering anyone.  It’s social usury.

I suppose this post is more of a rant than a review, but so be it.  It’s my blog after all.  The television show “More To Love” (as yet, un-aired) get’s a 1 out of 10.  Boom.

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It’s no secret that I’ve had an iPhone for a long time.  Sol and I waited in line at the Capitola Mall when the first iPhone launched in June of 2007.  We were even featured in the Santa Cruz Sentinel because we were wacky enough to do so (and we projected Star Wars onto the ceiling of the mall while we waited.)  I’ve enjoyed the iPhone tremendously for almost 2 years straight.  As I am notoriously hard on my gadgets, this is a minor miracle.  When the 3G iPhone came out, I decided that I would stick it out with my old-school Gen. 1 iPhone.  It works great.  Until a couple of weeks ago.

In Vegas for a soccer tournament, my iPhone spontaneously developed a huge issue: the top half of the touch screen stopped working.   It’s pretty hard to use a touch-screen phone when the screen won’t respond to touching.  This left me without a way to communicate for several hours, and more importantly, left me with a device void.

As much as I enjoy the design, form factor, and user experience of the iPhone, there have always been some things that bother me.  For instance, the email function.  The push and pull are slow and sometimes unreliable (at least in my experience.)  Sometimes emails don’t make it out at all, or they come in much later than they should.  Before I got my iPhone, I had a Blackberry 8700c, the last one with the scroll wheel on the side. It worked great.  RIM has it nailed when it comes to mobile email, and I’ve missed the steady reliability of Blackberry email.

Ever since it came out 4 or 5 months ago, the Blackberry Bold (the 9000) has caught my eye.  With a defunct iPhone, and an AT&T account already setup, I thought this was a good chance to try it out.  Worst case, I always have 30 days to return it.  So Monday morning I went to the AT&T store here in SF to check out the Bold.

First thing I discovered, the thing is expensive.  Even with a 2 year re-commitment, I still had to shell out $400 with a $100 mail-in rebate.  Second thing I noticed?  It’s probably worth it.  It is a beautiful device from the gorgeous screen to the cool leather backing.  Drool.

The keyboard is crisp and easy to use, and even though I’ve never liked the nipple / nubbin / pearl / trackball thingy, I found that’s not that hard to get used to.  Email setup and functionality are easy and work like a dream.  One thing I was concerned about was my address book – the iPhone syncs so darn well with my Mac Address Book (and everything else on my Mac.)  I read a bunch of different blog posts, and found very mixed reviews on all the software product.  Luca Filigheddu.com had the best solution I could find: Google Sync.  I exported my Mac Address Book, uploaded it to my Gmail, downloaded Google Sync for Blackberry, and voila everything is where it should be.  Now I have a phone, an amazing mobile email device, and something that is functional for media playback (video, music, etc.)  It’s not as good as the iPhone, but it’s functional.

Now, there’ve been hundreds of reviews of the Bold already, and I don’t need to add yet more detritus to the review world in that sense.  So I’m sticking to the theme of replacing my iPhone with a Blackberry Bold, as opposed to an outright review of an already thoroughly reviewed device.

Unsurprisingly, there are some things I seriously miss about the iPhone.  Media playback is one.  It’s not clean or intuitive on the Bold.  The memory card (I got an 8GB Micros SD for $20 at Buy.com) was easy to insert and load, a lot of the file types supported by the iPhone won’t play on the Bold.  The screen is crisp and beautiful, but it’s a little smaller than the iPhone, and I’ve had a hard time finding things that will play.  This is annoying when I have multiple 1/2 hour commutes on the Caltrain that cry out for entertainment.

In general, I’d say that the overall user experience (form factor, software aesthetics, heft and polish, etc.) are just not as good on the Blackberry.  My wife put it well – the Blackberry is a performance device, it gets the job done.  The Bold is a beautiful phone, but it’s just not an iPhone.

Having used the Blackberry Bold for 3 weeks straight, I’ve come to a decision.  I like having an iPhone.  I love Blackberries – but it just ain’t the same.  Conveniently for me, Apple announced the iPhone 3Gs just this past Tuesday, well within my 30 days tryout period.  So I’ve returned the Bold.  I am waiting it out with my old-skool 8700c for another 8 days, and then it’s back to the iPhone.

If I were forced to give the Blackberry Bold (as a replacement for my iPhone) a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I’d call it a 6.  It’s an amazing device, and if I were going to keep with the Blackberry, I would’t own any other.  But it doesn’t replace the iPhone.  It really doesn’t come close.

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It’s been a little while since we had a silly post on 1to10, so I decided to have a little fun and review my own recent haircut.  I was hanging out with Sol and decided I needed a change.  Truthfully I had been thinking about it quite a bit. We spent last Saturday building a chicken coop (I know, right). We were hot, sweaty and tired, and decided to call it a day around 7:30PM.  After a few minutes of rest and a beer, we decided that we should cut off all my hair.  The pictures below tell the story far better than I ever could, so I’ll let you peruse those.  Needless to say, several friends criticized me for not keeping the hawk.

My new haircut on 12seconds.tv

If I were forced to give my new haircut a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I think I’d give it a 5. I don’t hate it. But I don’t love it either. I’m relieved that my head is not so misshapen that I look freakish, but I’m not sure this is the right look for me either. One of the best things about shaving your head though, is that hair grows back. Any thoughts or feedback on cut are welcome in the comments.

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I’ve written about water a couple times in the past.  Here, and again here and here.   Water is great.  ”Water is life.” (A point for anyone who can identify the quote.) But drinking plain water, especially tap water, can get kind of old.  That’s why, despite the relatively high cost and seeming utter absurdity of the purchase, I agreed to buy a Penguin.  Even more surprising is the fact that I love it.

The concept is pretty straightforward.  You fill a small glass bottle (20 ounces, or about .6 liters) with tap water, place it in the machine, lock it closed, hit the lever in short 2-second bursts, release the excess pressure, unlock the machine, and voila you have sparkling, bubbly seltzer / soda water.  (Seltzer or salsa?) The machine sort of looks like a penguin.  Hence the name.

Here’s a short video I recorded of the device in action:

As you can see, this appliance has lots of stainless steel, and it feels nicely solid in your hands.  There are no wires or cords, and it requires no electricity.  It comes with 2 glass carafes, and two Co2 cartridges.  The Penguin does use large carbon-dioxide cylinders, each of which lasts for about 6 months (depending of your frequency of use – each cartridge fills about 60 carafes.)  Also, the thing is just fun to use.  I like to squeezer a little lime juice into the carafe, after I pump it full of gas.

Now, if you prefer flat water, this is obviously not for you.  But if you like the fuzzy-nosed tingle of sparkling water, this is a cool, cool device.  I wouldn’t ordinarily buy Pelegrino or another sparkling water brand, so I can’t argue that it’s saving me money long term.  But if you do buy sprakling water at the store with any quantity or frequency, this machine will probably pay for itself in less than a year.  And this is a gadget that I definitely consider “eco-friendly” – especially compared with the possibility of an endless stream of glass or plastic bottles from the store.  You’re cutting down consumables by a huge margin, despite the recyclable carbon-dioxide cartridges.

Speaking of money, this is device is not exactly cheap.  it runs $200 at Williams Sonoma (that’s where I got mine.) Re-fill cartridges run $30, so they’ve set themselves up with a nice, repeating revenue stream. But I think the costs still bear out in your favor, depending on the variables mentioned above.  However, there’s no value you can really place on joy – and this device is joyful.

The WS website (and other locations around the web) offer other video demos, all of  which probably have greater artistic merit than mine (read: better lighting, a superior camera, and a better looking spokesperson.)  But I had fun making my video.  The company behind the Penguin is called Soda Stream USA; you can choose to purchase it directly from them, as well as finding additional recipes on their site (for those that crave flavor.)  There’s another excellent review of the device over at Uber Review if you want a second opinion.

If I were forced to give this appliance a numeric rating between 1and 10, I’d call it a 9.  It’s pretty, it’s functional, it’s green, it’s simple, and it’s fun to use.  If I have a complaint, it’s on cost.  Not because it’s not worth it, I just like my money in my own wallet.

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I use Mac Mail.  Not because it’s the best mail client of all time, but because it’s better than most of the other ones I’ve tried on the Mac (Entourage [which is Outlook for the Mac], Thunderbird, Zimbra).  They have major issues.  Mail has the best search, and does a good enough job with everything else.  The attachment issue (it frequently shoves whole docs or picutres into the mail itself) is annoying, but not a big deal to me. But there has been one persistent, annoying, frustrating, stupid issue I couldn’t get past.  Hyperlinking.

Every mail client in the known Universe, even the ones on Arrakis, let you use a simple keystroke to hyperlink to a website within an email.  But not Mac Mail.  It’s such a basic, obvious feature, and something I need to do in virtually every email I send.  And instead of a quick keystroke, I have highligh, edit, link, add link, type link, hit OK.  Every time.  Stupid.

But Andrew just showed me the solution. Many of you probably think it’s obvious, just add a keystroke in sys pref.  Others probably say “Why didn’t you just Google it.”  Well maybe you’re right, I should have figured it out earlier.  But now Andrew has made my world a little better for me, and I appreciate it (and him.)

If you want to be able to create hyperlinks in Mac Mail, look here.  For those who don’t want to click, here’s the easy steps:

1. Open “System Preferences” (from the “Apple” symbol in the top left)
2. Select “Keyboard & Mouse”
3. Select “Keyboard Shortcuts” (third tab, right side top)
4. Click the + symbol to add a new shortcut
5. From dropdown, select “Mail.app”
6. In Menu title type: “Add…”  (no quotes)
7. Assign a keystroke shortcut (I chose Command L)

That’s it.  Quit Mail (if it’s open) and then re-open it.  You should now be able to assign hyperlinks in Mac Mail with keyoard shortcuts.  Thank you Andrew.

BTW, if it doesn’t work, then Andrew is to blame.  FYI.

On a scale of 1 to 10, using keyboard shortcuts to assign hyperlinks in Mac Mail deserves a 10 out of 10.  El yay!

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Good lord.  Where to begin.  Let’s start with a disclaimer.  I haven’t touched or seen the new shuffle in person.  Deride me all you want, I don’t care.  Apple has made several colossal, incredible mistakes with this device.

Anyone who’s read this blog before (only a rare few have come back more than once) knows that I care a great deal about Apple, and that I adore the aluminum shuffle.  That review was one of my very first, and it took place almost exactly 2 years ago.  I like that shuffle so much that I even got a second one and had it waterproofed.  But this new one… sigh.

Let’s see.  No buttons. Brilliant, let’s use an earphone-based switch.  Except, wait a second, what if I want to use a different set of earphones?  I can tell you for a certainty that some people (Sol) don’t like Apple’s earbuds – they just don’t fit.  So now I’m locked into Apple’s proprietary earphones whether I like it or not.  I will be unable to skip songs, pause and play, or change the volume without them.  Epic Fail.  And the controls are not very straightforward – Adrian Covert over at Gizmodo compares it to Morse Code.  Haha.

Form factor.  The new one is smaller.  Small as a house key.  Whoopee.  I use my square shuffle when I run, and I clip it to the waistband on my shorts.  It fits easily and doesn’t pinch or push against my skin.  The new one is long and skinny instead of square.  Maybe it occupies less cubic space overall, but it’s still longer than the square version, which means that it sticks further down the leg and is significantly more likely to pinch and press against the top of the leg while running.  Wahhhh!  I know, I’m a crybaby.  Don’t care.  I don’t see how making it rectangular and slightly smaller is an improvement.  Doubling the flash memory while shrinking the device (and preserving battery function) is a technological feat, I will grant them that.

The point is, they’re messing up an excellent product.  Even sight unseen, Apple just took a 7.5 and made it a 3.  The earphone restriction is egregious.  Moronic. Idiotic. It’s dumb.  The judgement on the form factor is my opinion.  Others may disagree, and that’s cool.  They can write their own blog.  But imho, there is no excuse for this stupidity.

Apple is a money-hungry American corporation that wants to insert themselves into our lives and control all our devices and hence have control over our actions and more importantly our buying habits.  For this I applaud them.  Seriously, I’m an American and a capitalist.  I love Apple, even if I find some of their practices annoying (DRM anyone?)  But when they start making bad (or worse yet, stupid) product decisions, that shakes my faith and my confidence in the world of consumer electronics.  As noted above, if I were force to rate this product (albeit without playing with it in person) on a scale from 1 to 10, it would get a 3.  If it weren’t being compared to such a superior previous version, it might score better.  But the earphone thing is pretty stupid.  Gahhh.

This review is also published at LIVEdigitally.

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If I were forced to give this a numeric rating between 1 and 10, it would be a 10.

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Wow.  That sounds harsh.  I actually think the Mophie Juicepack is a really cool gadget.  Basically it’s an external battery for your iPhone.  The product design is fantastic – it’s got a black, slightly rubberized, really high quality feeling to it.  The colors (black outside, green inside) look sharp, and it has a neat light-up battery meter.  Sol got one for his 3G iPhone and loves it.  Loves it. (I sent a message to Mophie prior to publishing this review, but they’ve declined to comment.  )

Once I saw his, I knew I wanted one also.  When your phone is starting to run down mid-day, just pop it into the Juice Pack and boom – you get at least another 3 hours or so out of your phone, and you’re still totally mobile.  Sounds great right?  Well, it is great.  When it works.

My first Mophie Juicepack was a dud.   A lemon.  It didn’t work.  I charged it up over night (using a regular 10 pin iPod cable) and the following day, after my phone was about half dead, I popped it into the Juicepack.  Immediately I heard the little upbeat “ping” noise that means the phone is charging.  Sweet.  Until 4 seconds later, I heard the downbeat “pong” noise that means you’ve just unplugged your iPhone.  Weak sauce.

Basically, the iPhone would find the power source, ping the connection, show the “charging” icon with the lightning bolt, and then lose the connection and stop charging.  Naturally I called tech support, and they were honestly great.  The guy I spoke with had me run through some crazy diagnostics, including sticking a butter knife in the connector (it was pretty sweet) to test whether it just needed a reset.  But the test and  reset did not fix the problem, so the Mophie guys sent me out a replacement.  It came in two days.  I have no complaints on tech support, they were stellar. 

Sadly, the new one didn’t do a whole lot better.  It has a slightly less severe, but even more annoying version, of the same exact problem. What happens is this: I plug in the iPhone.  “Ping” goes the connection and BOOM! we’re charging.  Awesome.  Until 30 seconds or so goes by, and the phone “pongs” because it lost the connection.  For 5 seconds.  Then “ping” we’re charging again.  In the 3 hours I had my iPhone plugged into the Mophie Juicepack, it connected, disconnected, and then reconnected no less than 81 times.  I kept count for a while, but got bored.  Do you have any idea how distracting it is to hear your phone going “ping,” “pong,” “ping” in your pocket over and over again?  “Gee David, why not just turn it on silent?”  Nice try.  Vibrating in your pocket ever 15-20 seconds is, if anything, even worse than pinging and ponging.  I had the one of the most annoying, distracting, frustrating dinners of all time on Friday with my damn iPhone buzzing on and off every quarter minute.

Now, as I said, Sol has one of these for the 3G and loves it. And the new “Air” Juicepack for 3G’s looks sweet as well. So maybe just the Gen. 1 version has quality control issues.  The look, style, and feel of this device is so cool, but the performance on two in a row was awful.  And at $99 (a damn hefty price for an accessory) I’d expect solid, reliable performance.  I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt on the first failure.  But two in a row is two too many for me.  If I were forced to give the Mophie Juicepack for gen. 1 iPhones a numeric rating between 1 and 10, it’s a 3 for me.  Outstanding marks for design, dismal scores for quality assurance and performance.  Below is a 12second video of the Juicepack in action. 

Mophie Juicepack for Gen. 1 iPhone on 12seconds.tv

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This review is about messenger bags, bike messenger bags, and specifically those made by Chrome.  I got my grubby mitts on a Citizen Bike Messenger bag from Chrome Industries, based in foggy San Francisco, CA. Typically a messenger bag is a single shoulder bag that opens horizontally, has one main strap, a large primary compartment, some level of secondary organizational compartments, and then a myriad of different possible accessories.  These might include some degree of padding, a laptop compartment, stabilizer straps, a removable primary strap, a grab handle, etc. etc. ad nauseum.  (I like bags.)

Working daily in San Francisco, I keep seeing Chrome gear all over the place.  Mostly they’re carried by dirt-baggy, scruffy faced ruffians who nimbly dodge through traffic and congregate during lunch on Market and Montgomery (read: bike messengers.)  The other primary class of people carrying these bags are poseurs.  I mean, serious wannabes who think the logo is cool and want to seem hip with their designer, hip-hugger jeans, their button down shirts with swirly embroidery, their stupid looking goatee with pencil-thin sideburns on their jawline and their aviator sunglasses… yeah, you know who I mean.  I don’t want to be that guy.  And I’m not sure I can pull off the Citizen, especially off my bike (you know, just walking around.)

Now, to be clear, I am looking at messenger bags from a particular perspective.  I do use it on my bike, I commute from San Mateo to San Francisco using my bicycle and the Caltrain.  My typical time on the bike varies between 45 minutes to 1 hour and 45 minutes per day, depending on which route I choose.  So I am doing a fair amount of biking with the bag.  But I am not a bike messenger.  This means a couple things.  I am not on my bike 8 hours a day.  And I specifically need to carry a few key items, not all kinds of random crap for delivery across the city.  I am commuting to work, not routing back and forth across a concrete jungle.  I need to carry:

• laptop
• power charger
• sunglasses
• a book
• a layer
• a snack
• an iphone charging cord
• gum

I’m on the train for part of my commute, so I frequently need to yank out my computer, or get to my book to catch up on some leisure reading.  I want the bag to be comfortable, even when heavily weighted.  I want it to be weather proof, I get caught by rain frequently, especially in the Winter time. I’d like some organization options, multiple pockets and compartments.  Ideally I’d like a padded laptop sleeve, so that I can pop out the computer without having to scrabble past all the other junk in my bag.  And I want it to look dope.  Yeah, I’m vain.  I deal with it, and so should you.

Before I ever picked one up, I went to the streets and asked some regular folks sporting Chrome what they thought.  One person complained that though he was really excited at first, he didn’t like the fact that it was just a big sack.  One big hole to drop stuff into, with little or no organizational options.  This is one of my concerns too.  On the one hand, I like simplicity.  The Citizen is straightforward – it’s a bag, it holds stuff.  There are a few pockets.  One zippered, one non-zippered, and a couple of pen / pencil sleeves.

This is sufficient for most of the small items, and offers a decent level of organization.   My biggest gripe, organizationally speaking, is really the lack of a laptop sleeve and the lack of padding.  It would be great to be able to pull out the laptop and leave the rest of my gear undisturbed.  As it is, I use a neoprene sleeve that I bought aftermarket in order to put some padding around my way-too-expensive mac.  This works fine, but the sleeve would be a nice built-in feature.

It’s important to note here that the Citizen is not intended to be, and was not designed to be a laptop bag. It’s a messenger bag, for carrying stuff around on a bike.  I am choosing to use a messenger bag as a laptop bag.  If I use a screwdriver to drive a nail, I might succeed in pounding the sucker in, but I also might get some bent nails.  So I am duly forewarned. That being said, more and more people are bike commuting all the time – lord knows it’s hard to get a seat on the Caltrain for the 8:15AM train.  So I think I’m not the only person who’d benefit from a couple of design alterations.  And Chrome, btw, does offer some laptop-oriented bags.  But none of them are quite like the classic “messenger-style” bags, and none of their messenger bags really hit the mark for the computer commuter.

Another oddity to me is the stabilizer strap.  It seems to me like it ought to run opposite of the primary strap.  In other words, if I wear the bag on my left shoulder, then the stabilizer strap should logically come up my right side, no?  Well, Chrome disagrees, and their stabilizer runs along the same side as the primary strap, and runs under armpit (see left.)  I found this to be pretty ineffective – the bag rolls on me just as much with this as without it.

There are a couple of things I would change about this bag, to make it the perfect bag for me. Let me reiterate – these are not necessarily shortcomings in the bag itself (at least not all of them); rather, these are things that would improve the bag for my purposes:

• Padded laptop sleeve (I’ve covered this)
• Waterproof zipper with storm-sleeve to access the laptop sleeve – it would be awesome to be able to yank out the laptop without needing to unbuckle two clips and rip apart massive velcro.
• Better stabilizer strap – I think it ought to come from the other side of the bag

The lack of a zipper will stop me from using this bag when I travel.  It’s just too difficult to pull things out of the bag when it’s stuffed under the seat in front of me when I’m riding coach in an airplane.  All that velcro, ugh. But I can also understand not wanting to compromise the waterproof integrity of the bag.  And for riding into work everyday, I am willing to put up with the shortcomings because there a lot of things I really like.  I’ll tell you what I think makes this bag a big winner:

• The buckle – it’s darn near iconic in San Francisco, and it’s just like a seatbelt in a car.  That’s rad.
• The materials – ballistic nylon and truck tarpaulin are badass, durable and waterproof
• The anatomical, padded shoulder strap – even heavily loaded this is a comfortable bag to ride with, even without any padding to speak of
• Shoulder strap again, specifically, the way it holds the bag upright – with a lot of other messenger bags I’ve used (including an Osprey and a Jandd bag) there is a constant tendency for the bag to swing sideways.  The shoulder strap on the Chrome messengers actually hold the bag more or less vertically, and the shape itself (with a little help from gravity) actually hold it in place.  It was this design element that first caught my eye.
• The one-handed tightener and loosener on the chest strap

Here’s a quick video demo of the Citizen:

Demoing the Chrome Citizen Messenger Bag on 12seconds.tv

The Citizen from Chrome is an outstanding messenger bag with an unusual and innovative design, outstanding materials, the sweetest logo on the market, a wickedly cool (unbreakable?) buckle, and awesome color options.  There are some things it does really well, and others that could stand improvement.  But on the whole I think the bag will serve well enough for my biking commuter-geek purposes, and it’s clearly outstanding for the purpose for which it was originally intended – to be a bike messenger bag that will last for years of hard abuse.  When I’m riding my bike, I’m stoked to have this bag cause it’s comfortable, functional, and cool-looking.  When I’m not on my bike and I carry this bag, I feel like a poseur, a big lame-o that’s trying too hard to look cool.

If I were forced to give this bag a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I’d have to split things up a bit.  For the purposes of a computer-commuter bag, I’d give it a 7.  As a travel bag it’s a 5.  And as a bike messenger bag this one is a 10.  If I change career paths and start delivering packages via bicycle, I won’t carry anything else.  (I’d be laughed at, scoffed and mocked by the other guys if I did anyway.)

This review is also available at LIVEdigitally.

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When I was 18 years old I had my first Avo torpedo, one of the best cigars of my whole life.  13 years (and hundreds of cigars) later, my opinion remains unchanged.  These are some of the best cigars around, period.  The hype about genuine Havanas is both true and false.  It’s true that many Cuban cigars are fantastic.  But it’s false that they are necessarily the best in the world.  In point of fact, you can find other brands that are every bit as good as Havanas, and this is one of them.  

My wife bought me a box of these incredible smokes as a wedding present when we got married.  (The fact that she bought me cigars for our wedding should help clarify why I married her.)  :) Normally these are outside of my limited budget, and I’ve been hoarding them since our nuptials. The stock is starting to dwindle, so I am carefully rationing them out and enjoying each one immensely.  

Smoking an Avo Torpedo on 12seconds.tv

If I were forced to give them a numeric rating between one and ten, I’d call them a 9.  There’s really nothing I would change about them except the price.  At $140 a box (MSRP of $250) they’re a tad pricey.  But I can’t really blame them – they’re worth the price.  All Avo’s are tasty, and the pyramidos are spectacular.

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