Stephen Fung’s Gadgets of the Week

Here are a few things that have landed in my lair over the last few days…

EarClicks and Solar Chargers

First up is the Flamingo Music EarClick Headphones (left) by Cellpoint. These unique headphones actually “click” into your ears using a unique retention system for an almost weightless feel. Because they aren’t right inside your ears, you can still hear what’s going on around you. I actually really liked the way they fit and they can be totally customized with a large number of different sized ear pads (or rather, ear nubs) that it comes with. You can barely tell they are on and they won’t come out by accident. These things hit the streets at around $60.

On the right is the Devotec Industries Solar Charger. This device charges up almost any portable electronic device you have with its myriad of attachments. Its small size makes it easy to travel with and can charge up an average cell phone in about an hour. It does iPods and other rechargeable portable gizmos as well. However, it takes about 4 hrs to charge with a plug/USB, or 12 hrs if you leave it in the Sun. They do say it’s for emergency situations so I guess I can let them off the hook for that. It sells for around 19 English Pounds or around $40 US’ish so it really isn’t that pricey especially if it can bail you out in an emergency.

But wait! That’s not all!

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Supersized Dot Com Pho

Today, we had one of our biggest Dot Com Pho’s yet! Attracting over 16 local bloggers, Mr. Lan was surprisingly calm. Here’s this week’s episode of Dot Com Pho put together by John Chow!

If you want to see who attended, you can check out the credits. There are just too many people to list! Highlights of this week’s episode include inappropriate spooning from Dot Com Whistler, Ed’s new Macbook fetish and John Chow’s weight loss challenge/surrender.

Also featured this week is a quick video review of the Manfrotto ModoPocket Mini Pocket Tripod in our Gadget of the Week segment. For a more thorough review, you can check out the one I wrote at Futurelooks.

The World Premiere of Seasons - A Film By The Collective

As some of you know, one of my passions is bikes and every Summer, I get to take The Beast out to some great trails, or bring out the Hardtail to work on my jumping skills. During the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival in Whistler, I had a chance to check out the latest work of The Collective; a creative group dedicated to freeride filmmaking and pushing the art to the limits.

Since their last film, “ROAM”, The Collective had been hard at work on their latest film “Seasons”, a film that follows seven riders through Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. The film stars freerding legends, Thomas Vanderham, Matt Hunter, Cam McCaul, Andrew Shandro, Steve Smith, Steve Peat, and Darren Berrecloth.

The premiere of the film was absolutely packed to capacity leaving standing room only for many attendees. Seasons was definitely highly anticipated as it would also help kick off the coming riding season just like how Warren Miller kicks off each Ski and Snowboard season with his movies.

Attending the premiere with me was avid rider, Brice Wong, but we also managed to snag Ed Lau, Leo Chiang and Michael Kwan to the event. Seeing as they don’t ride at all, it will be interesting to see how the film holds up to the scrutiny of the general Dot Com Public.

Most of the crowd, expecting the film start immediately, went into a frenzy when Latch Key Kid gave a live performance of Coming Home Soon, which was part of the soundtrack of ROAM. This quickly made up the $15 ticket price that was charged for this event, though gouging $10 for a canned beer or tiny glass of wine wasn’t forgiveable. After the musical performance, the crew from the movie and a few of the stars of the film showed up to give thanks to the crowd that came out to support them and then we fade to black for the movie.

The film used many of the film tricks that were developed in ROAM like the zip line camera, which allows the viewer to really follow along and take in both the beauty of the scenery and the lines that the riders are carving. Along with generous 16mm shots, The Collective managed to weave together a lush tapestry of visuals, taking us through the seasons with some of freeriding’s greatest icons. With a driving sound track and impactful cinematic sequences, Seasons is definitely a must see for any freerider looking to bring excitement back into their riding.

Surprisingly, Ed, Leo, and Michael all enjoyed the movie and agreed that it was one beautiful movie that truly conveyed the speed and excitement of the sport. With that, as a rider myself, I have definitely been bit by the riding bug again after seeing this film and can’t wait to get back out there at the dirt jumps and on the trails.

Learn About Software Security With A Directory of Web Articles

It’s been quite sometime since I’ve done a ReviewMe review. Although I haven’t really missed doing them, I guess it’s time to whip up another one just to stay limber. Just in case you aren’t aware, the rules for a ReviewMe review are all built in favour of an honest review despite the fact that I’m being paid for it. If the product or service sucks, you’ll know and I won’t hold back. If it’s great, all the better. The bottom line is that no matter how much the advertiser pleads for a “nice review” I don’t have to be. So from the depths of the Interwebs comes a review that’s about a site that informs you about issues regarding “Software Security“.

Software Security is something that people should be aware of. With all the recent media coverage about people’s systems being hijacked and used to hack small European countries, we have to be ever more vigilant about taking responsibility for our systems. In fact, security is so important that the US Military is creating a cyberwar division to defend against cyber attacks. I guess they’ll be doing an “Extreme Makeover - Pentagon Edition” to put in that sixth wall.

Because this is an important topic, I was eager to see what this site had in store for me on this topic.

First Impressions

Upon first glance, the site looks clean and well laid out. You’ll see three tabs on the right that take you home, allow people to submit articles, and grab free content in the form of the site’s RSS feeds. The article submissions area provides guidelines for what the site is looking for in terms of content, however, the site offers no renumeration and limits your submission to only ONE single link to your own blog or website. However, for the writer looking to gain exposure and establish oneself as an expert, it might be worth it to give it a whirl as a start. The only thing I found a little strange was that the URL provided to me took me to a mere subsection of a larger site. Hmm…

So It Isn’t A Site About Software Security?

Apparently no. The home button takes you to a site called Web Articles where the Software Security category is but one of many categories of articles that are available on the site.  According to the site:

Web articles was founded this year (2007) to publish all written articles, received articles by the visitors of our network. So, we thought that creation, publishing and promoting an online article directory would be a nice idea. We tried to create a simple yet clean design, easy surfing, comprehensive information.

It’s pretty clear that they succeeded in building a very clean design. However, one area where the site gets a failing grade is in the grammar and spelling area. Even in their introduction above, you can see grammatical errors, and you can easily pick out spelling errors throughout the site. It’s almost like someone translated it from a foreign language. With this lack of attention to detail, it makes me wonder what the quality of the content is. However, they do cover their butts by saying that they will pretty much post anything in their mission statement. This turns my attention back to the Software Security area.

A Little Lacking In the Software Security Area…

Clicking back over to Software Security area, I was greeted with a listing of…TWO…articles. There was one on Software protection and Intrusion detection and another one on Open source in the enterprise. Although I did find some interesting nuggets in both of them, the eye bleeding, never ending paragraphs made my eyes water. Even worse, in a subject area where things seem to change every couple of weeks, the information in both articles is almost a year old. I guess learning something new, which I had initially hoped to do, is definitely not going to happen.

The Bottom Line…

After observing the staleness of the articles in the Software Security category and noticing the “Submit Articles” area in my initial pass through, I can only see that they are desperate for new content. However, they don’t really give a whole lot of incentive for people to submit their articles. Without some sort of incentive (besides the ONE single link back to the writers’ site), why would anyone want to write content for you?

The site also needs a good spelling and grammar check. Some of the mistakes are blatant and downright embarrassing. Mispelled words and awkward titles litter the site. As a content site, it really reduces the perceived quality of the content and if you want people to read your stuff, you just can’t be making those types of mistakes. Most disappointing was the fact that I didn’t really learn anything interesting about Software Security. Sigh.

Dine Out Vancouver 2008 - FigMint Restaurant & Lounge

OK, so I lied in my last Dine Out Review. My Port Moody Boathouse Review will not be my only Dine Out Vancouver 2008 review after all ;)

It was kind of funny how this review came about. MONSTER Cable came to town today and invited me to check out some of their new products for 2008. They wanted me down in Vancouver at 8 AM. Hmm…  I only get up at or around 8 AM because I have to…go…like…go to the can (and then I go back to bed)…so I’d need to be up and gone by 7:00 AM just to make sure I would make it in time. Umm…. I think I’ll pass. My “People” promptly called me back to tell me that they really want me there and offered to put me up at the same Hotel that MONSTER was holding the event at. Since I’d be downtown, the day before, for my photography class and my second meeting with the Lab With Leo Crew, I thought…what the heck! Hook me up! Coincidentally, the hotel that they put me up at, The 500 Plaza Hotel on the corner of Cambie and 16th in Vancouver, is attached to FigMint Restaurant & Lounge so I took this golden opportunity to get in one last Dine Out Vancouver experience.

 

I really didn’t leave much time for a dine out experience. It was 5:30′ish by the time I was checked in and my class was at 7:00 PM. Since I wouldn’t be able to eat till 10:00 PM if I didn’t eat now, I took the plunge, hoody, camera bag and all. However, I must say that I was very pleased with the fact that I was treated with great warmth and courtesy despite my scruffy appearance. When I mentioned my time constraint, they said no problem, quickly seated me and told me that as long as I ate fast, they’d have me out of there in 45 minutes. They got me a selection of bread to nibble on right away and explained the menu choices for the Dine Out Menu to me. I was pleased to see that the menu had genuine selections that did not require any cheesy upsells like they tried to pull at C Restaurant last year. After a couple minutes, my waitress returned to take my order and I was off to the races.

 

My first course was the Prawn Bisque with Crème Fraiche and Crisp Prawn. The most unique aspect of the dish was the way in which it was served. The dish was brought out with the soup seperate from the crisp prawn, crème fraiche, and the garnish. I assume that this was done to preserve the crispness of the prawn. After the dish was placed in front of me, the bisque was poured slowly and evenly into the bowl as my server explained to me the highlights of the dish to get me mentally prepared to dive in. I really enjoyed how the crisp prawn mated nicely with the smooth creamy texture of the bisque and the crème fraiche.

 

For my main course, I chose the Pan Seared Arctic Char with Butternut Squash and Amaretti Ravioli and Almond Smoked Buttered Green Beans. What I loved about this dish was the crispness of the Arctic Char skin. I’m not normally a fish skin lover, but it was really crisp and tasty. The most surprising thing I found out about this dish was how well the amaretti ravioli went with the arctic char. The filling had an almost citrus-like pop that really complimented the flavour and texture of the fish. All the flavours really worked well together and I was quite pleased with this dish.

 

Finally, for dessert, I chose the Sticky Toffee Pudding with Walnut Tuile and Vanilla Ice Cream. This is a truly decadent dish. The sticky toffee pudding mixed with the caramel sauce is so sticky and sweet that it was almost too much to bear. However, the trick to eating this dish is to eat each bite with just a bit of the vanilla ice cream. The ice cream takes that too sticky sweet taste down and really smooths it out. The walnut tuile ads a bit of crunch to each bite. I do recommend eating the mint leaf as it really accents all the flavours and further binds them together.

Despite my truncated timetable, I really enjoyed my meal. The server took the time to explain each course as they were serving it to mentally prepare me for the experience and the service througout the evening was exceptional, even though I was dressed a bit like a bumb. They kept their promise of getting me out of there in 45 minutes, but despite my 45 minute limit, I never felt like I was rushed through the meal. I was also pleased with how my pictures turned out despite the low lighting in the dining room. Exposure compensation is definitely your friend when you want to take better pictures without a flash though I have to admit that having my Nikon D80 and a 35mm f/2.0 lens helped too. Unlike a point and shoot, I was able to really exploit the aperture and the higher ISO’s along with a bit of exposure compensation to get the pictures to turn out more naturally in challenging lighting situations.

Michael Kwan also checked out FigMint during the Dine Out Vancouver 2008 promotion so do check out his review as well.