Have you ever thought about buying a fountain pen, but then gone: “It’s nice – but just a bit too long”?
No, nor have I.
Which makes me wonder what they nice chaps at Ohto were on when they thought up the Tasche Fountain pen . Yes, it’s one of the world’s most compact pens….but why?
I have to say such logic left me when I stumbled on a mention of it it over at DIY Planner.
A quick search led me to the utterly wonderful CultPens site (How did I not know about that??); and within 18 hours, my lovely little pen arrived in the post thanks to some freakishly efficient behaviour from Royal Mail.
So, how is it, you ask? As you can see from the pic, it’s super short, but goes to full length for writing because of a cap that’s the same size as the pic. Most of all, it has that ‘nice object’ feel about it – and when compact sits neatly alongside a moleskine notebook.
It also writes like a dream. I still have a bit of a thing for fountain pens, even though I’m a leftie and so smudge ink everywhere if I’m not careful. This is comfy enough for every day note taking.
The handy thing about the size is you can fit it into your jeans pocket, although it’s actually so small you need to be careful. I accidentally chucked mine out with some tissues and had to spend 10 minutes rummaging around in a pub bin to get it back.
This points to my other problem. Based on empirical evidence, I will lose this pen within a week. Which is a shame – but better to have loved and lost…
In the meantime, can I recommend you head over to CultPens…these are the corner shops of cyberspace, and we need to keep them in business!!!
So, I’m nearly a week into the new iPhone, and without doubt it is the App Store that elevates this from a cool phone to a product in a category all of its own.
If anything, it now feels like the direct descendent of the palm 10 years ago. And, to be honest, I wouldn’t mind having the option of graffiti input!
Anyway – my favourite apps so far.
Beat Maker: is an£11.99 sequencer. Frankly, I have no real music making skills at all, but this is pure brilliance…
ZenbeLists – obviously for a not-quite-GTD-er like myself, you’ve got to have a good list app. And this one works nicely and syncs well.
NetNewsWire- I’ve pretty much moved my RSS life to GoogleReader for reasons of portability. But, this is a better experience on the iPhone- so I’ve used it for all my daily/ essential feeds (Guardian/ PaidContent etc). Their clippings service almost compensates for a lack of simple delicious integration.
Twitterific – my personal jury is still hung on Twitter, but if you’re going do it on the iPhone, you might as well do it in style.
Last.fm – so,my current favourite iPhone trick is to fire up Last.fm recommended music station over the speaker on a 3G network…personalised radio, on demand, anywhere you want it…
Shozu – well it’s good to have a quick link to Flickr, and I liked this a while ago on an old Symbian phone, not sure if there’s a better way to do it!
My only grumble is the fact that it needs rebooting quite a bit. In particular to get the GPS working….but more on that another time.
So, after months of lusting, I got hold of a Flip Video a few months ago via eBay (they’re still not officially available in the UK. I loved it..and then handed it on to the gang at the GetSurrey.co.uk who I know will have put it to good use.
And then, I realised I needed a mini-cam for our trip to Dorset and I read about the Creative Vado. What could I do other than find one on eBay…and off I go.
If you have been living in the gadget equivalent of the middle ages and both of these have passed you by – I think these are rather like video notebooks. Brilliant at recording exactly what’s going on around you – rather than creators of high quality video. And cheap too. Frankly, it now costs less to buy one of these than fill up my car with diesel.
OK – I’m a rubbish reviewer, but here we go.
Form factor
The flip has a great, chunky Fisher Price-like feel to it. Like much cheap tech (including the Asus EEE I’m writing this on) the line between tool and toy is getting increasingly blurred. It feels great in the hand, but it’s a bit bulky in the pocket. All the buttons are also reassuringly clunky.
To be honest, it reminded me of nothing so much as my old Rio Diamond MP3 player, and I suspect will hold a similar position in the evolutionary process of this particular product category.
The problem with the Flip though is its bulk – it’s just a bit too big to be comfortable in the pocket – and the fact that the screen on the back looks disproportionately small.
The Vado gives more than a nod to the iPod aesthetically and is by far the sleeker of the pair. If anything, it almost feels too light.
However, it suffers from a silly name, a sticky-out USB grip (which ruins the line, but helps usability) and an on-off button that is just a little too fiddly for a fat-fingered oldie like myself.
That said – it can slip in a pocket unnoticed, it weighs next to nothing. Also – the inbuilt USB connector is flexible, while the one on the Flip is rigid. This gives the Vado a huge advantage, it’s just that bit easier to plug in.
My one big fear with the Vado is that it’s so portable – I’m worried about the lens and the screen getting scratched if its in my pocket (which is where is should be, I think..). The flip comes with a simple cloth case, and it would have been good to have this for the Vado as well.
Getting going
The Flip wins here. Pop in a couple of AAs and you are away – it’s effortless.
The Vado is a little more fiddly, you have to put a rechargable battery in, which is better in the long run (recharging is done by plugging into your USB port), but getting the back off is again, not for the fat-fingered. Initially I put the battery in the wrong way – and it actually seemed to charge up ok, but then didn’t start. I was about to start sending angry e-mails when I went back to check and realised my mistake.
Again – once that little error was sorted, then it’s very similar to the Flip – get it on, press the big button and you’re off. But, frankly, by then it was just relief that it wasn’t a dud, whereas with the Flip it was excitement all the way.
Spec
You get an extra gig for your money with the Vado. But, to be honest, if you’re really shooting an hour of video, you probably want a slightly more robust camera anyway. The best benefit is actually the larger screen.
In terms of video quality – they seem very similar. I think I noticed that the Vado was a a little slower at adjusting exposure if you swing the camera between inside and outside.
Either way the Vado probably nudges ahead here.
Connectivity and software
So, the big sell on these is that they’re designed just to plug into your laptop and whoosh, before you know it, the videos are on Youtube.
Actually, I’m not that keen on putting pics of my children up on Youtube…and anyway, I think I prefer the comparative calm of Flickr..so that’s not that important to me. Also, I’m a Mac user, which slightly changes things.
Both have their software on the player, but the Vado doesnt include software for the Mac. Strangely, this turned out to be a blessing, because it works perfectly with iPhoto – which is in fact, exactly where I want my videos to be.
On the other hand, I found using the Flip’s software a little unnecessary. Also, for some reason it didn’t sync automatically with iPhoto, so I was having to import manually which was a bit fiddly.
That said, the Flip software for the Mac seemed fine and yes all the exporting worked pretty effortlessly, and it covers quite a few sites as well as YouTube. It’s just that I’m trying to keep the number of different bits of software I use to a a minimum these days.
The other thing to stress is that if youre a mac user, for both you need to download the free Perian plug-in for Quick Time if you want to actually see and hear your video. This is dead easy to do – but a bit of a pain, in both cases that you have to find it out for yourself. And yes, you should make a donation to them.
So, from a completely personal view here, I’m going to nudge the Vado ahead.
Summary
So – yes, I’d give it to the Vado by a nose. I suspect a slimmer Flip with a larger screen might be in the pipeline [Update: here it is, the Mino] – and might regain the crown. But, if you want a portable video notebook…can’t recommend the Vado highly enough.
Funny thing the old Asus EEE. I still have absolutely no idea of how Linux works, and I’m sure I could have mastered Mandarin in the time it’s taken me to try and install VLC Player (still not there)…however, setting up wireless broadband with a vodafone dongle was a breeze - as near to plug-and-play as you can get
Works a treat – even on the 8.32 from Effingham Junction.
Been bouncing all over the place for the last couple of weeks – hopefully something like normal service will resume next week, but in the meantime, 10 things keeping me busy.
1. Getting to grips with my Asus EEE.
I’m now using this when I travel, leaving my Macbook back in the office. It’s a long way from perfect (battery life..grrrr…small keys with fat fingers…grrr..) but it’s so light…will do an idiot’s guide when I have time.
2. Dropbox
Online storage that just works, they say…and you know what, they’re right. Beg to get on their beta list.
3. Evernote
OK – I’ve tried a million note apps. This one has a pretty seamless integraton between desktop, mobile and web.
4. Good new albums from Weller and Costello.
Both of them back on form – it’s like being 16 again…but a bit more mellow.
5. Word magazine putting John Martyn on the cover
At last…not the world’s prettiest cover star…but one of the more deserving.
6. Getting to grips with the Ricoh Caplio GX-100
OK, so this was the camera I went with after my faffing about. I’m still not 100% sure about it (images get very noisy very quickly)…but am sticking with it. Pic above of twin a was taken with it – sorry about the wonky skyline.
7. At last – wireless printing at home that works
Yes, it’s been a bit of gadget overload recently – I finally stopped trying to get my HP PSC1215 to try to work. It’s been sitting in the house for two years now refusing to connect to the network and stuttering whenever it tries to prints. So, I went for a Canon Pixma MP600R – working within minutes on all macs and pcs in the house. Yippeee.
8. Ning as a corporate tool
Somethign we’ve been experimenting with. Remarkable how free/ cheap web apps can help you do things that massively expensive middleware just can’t.
9. Days in the garden
I don’t care about the rain – there’s sun out there…grab it while you can.
10. Extra small moleskines
Picked some up in Hamburg airport. But, you can find them here when they’re back in stock. Bizarre state of the world – these are £3.99 for two in other words a 52 page blank notebook is the same price as a Saturday newspaper.
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