The Gadgets Page

I’ve been thinking about the George Foreman Grill a lot lately. Why did it become so popular? It seemed like everyone I knew became an advocate for the thing a few years ago. It was like they suddenly discovered that they could cook food. Couldn’t we always grill food on our stove before? Yes we could. So why did we forget it? One word:

Microwave

Back in the seventies and eighties, we became obsessed with the microwave. It was SO easy and quick to heat up food. We tried to cook EVERYTHING in the microwave. We even were willing to bake cakes in the microwave, as shown in this commercial from Pillsbury:

As silly as it sounds, those microwave cakes tasted alright. I remember another commercial when I was a child in which a woman was demonstrating a microwave and a curmudgeon in the back of the audience kept asking, “But does it brown?” None of our microwaves browned food (except the miracle microwave in that commercial), but browning is something we gladly gave up for the convenience of speed.

After ten or fifteen years of eating soggy microwaved food, grilled food sounded pretty good. Food that was grilled on both sides at the same time was innovative and made the grilling time quicker. That, coupled with the infomercial world that we found ourselves in was a phenomenon.

Do I like my George Foreman Grill? Yes, I own the red one pictured here.

I’ve never used the other three plates that have come with it, but I keep thinking that I’ll make some waffles with it someday. Huge waffles for an army of angry football players who are REALLY hungry. Until then, I’ll just keep grilling my pork chops, hamburgers and steaks. It’s an awkward and bulky appliance sitting on my precious counter space when I could just as easily grill on my stove with a pan, but I still love the thing.

What can I say? I’m a child of the microwave generation.

Why do laptop and cell phone batteries seem to just die suddenly, while other forms of rechargeable batteries wear out gradually? What’s the best type of rechargeable battery to replace Alkaline batteries in remotes and toys? Understanding a little about how batteries work will help you make good decisions about how to use them, which type of rechargeable battery to buy when you have a choice, how to dispose of them, and how to compare them to each other.

Battery is measured in “milliamp hours” or mAh, which is a measure of how many milliamps the battery can deliver in one hour. For example, if your device requires ¼ of the rated mAh on the battery, it should last about four hours.

There are three basic types of rechargeable batteries in use in consumer electronics today:Ni-Cd, NiMH, and Li-Ion

Nickel Cadmim (Ni-Cd, also called “Nicads”)

The first “consumer grade” rechargeable batteries that could replace disposables, Ni-Cd batteries hold a moderate charge (about 1200mAh for AA size—about 1/3 of an alkaline battery’s life in typical use) and are easy to recharge with a simple trickle charger. They have memory effect, however, so you should discharge them completely before you recharge them for the longest life and best performance. They also contain cadmium and must be disposed of responsibly—don’t throw them in the trash. You’ll find them in cordless phone handsets and on the shelf as replacements for alkaline batteries. Nicad cells have a natural 1.2v per cell voltage that is close enough to replace 1.5v alkaline batteries.

Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH)

An improvement to Nicads that more than doubles the energy density (about 2500mAh for AA size) and removes the toxic Cadmium, NiMH can be used wherever you use disposable Alkaline batteries or Nicad batteries. NiMH batteries suffer from memory effect, and should be used until they die before being recharged. While they can be trickle charged, they charge much faster when pulse charged by a “smart charger”—typical smart chargers can put a full charge on them in about an hour and can automatically perform deep-cycle charges to refresh batteries that have a memory effect. They’re safe to dispose of in the trash, and have about half the energy density as a disposable alkaline battery so they’re very good disposable replacements. You’ll find these batteries in older laptops and cell phones, and as rechargeable batteries in all the common sizes. Overall, they’re the most reliable and best price point per energy density of all common disposable batteries and should be your first choice when choosing a replacement for disposable alkalines.

Lithium Ion (Li-Ion)

A completely different and new battery chemistry, Li-Ion has the highest energy density of any battery chemistry (about 3600mAh at 3 times the voltage per cell). They’re common in high-end electronics such as cell phones, laptops, cameras, and camcorders. They have no memory effect, but they don’t like to be discharged completely—keep them on a charger as much as you can. They also don’t last for many charge cycles (discharge to recharge) as other chemistries so they’re relatively short lived. A typical Li-Ion cell will last 300 charge cycles, which is one to two years of common use. Li-Ion batteries are not as toxic as the mercury in alkaline batteries or the cadmium in Nicads, but they should be recycled.

Li-Ion batteries have to be charged by smart chargers that can prevent overcharging, which can cause a Li-Ion battery to explode violently and catch on fire. Lithium Ion batteries have a natural 3.3 volt charge per cell. If a Li-Ion battery is charged above 4.2 volts, it will explode, and if they are discharged below 2.2 volts, it will never take a charge again. For this reason, you’ll only find them used in electronic devices or smart battery packs that can act as chargers that monitor the battery constantly and power off before they drain too much power. A variation of this type of battery uses a polymer matrix to improve energy density and is sometimes called “Li-Poly” batteries. They are otherwise equivalent.

Charging Recommendations and Disposal

You don’t need to worry about Lead Acid batteries—you can’t hurt them. Nicad and NiMH batteries like to be completely discharged before you recharge them. Get a smart charger for them—in addition to being faster, it can refresh them to eliminate memory effect and make them last longer. Li-Ion batteries don’t like to be discharged so keep them plugged in whenever possible for longest life. Be careful how you dispose of batteries: NiCd and Li-Ion should not be thrown in the trash.

The bottom line

Whatever style of battery you find in your cell phone, laptop, or camera, make sure to follow these simple guidelines and your batteries will last far longer than you imagined.

Anyone know what this thing is?

Here is KityKity’s description:

This is not a mouse. But sometimes I forget and grab it.

I have no idea what this thing is and I’m intrigued. Anyone out there have an idea?

Apple has done some more funny computer banner advertising, this time on CNet. You can see it here:

I love that this ad wouldn’t work on any other medium except on the web. I especially love that it doesn’t start talking at me the second I load up CNet. It just silently moves in the background and I’m not assaulted with it unless I choose to press the play button. I also like that it STOPS moving after a few seconds and doesn’t bother me after that.

Kudos to Apple for creating an ad that I WANT to see!

Who knew that Google had their hands in the solar panel industry. Fortunately, whatever they touch turns to gold, or in this case, electricity. Nanosolar has created a solar panel that can be “printed” onto a thin strip. It then can be cut to whatever size you need. Most importantly, the production costs less than building a new electric coal generator, which has been the goal of solar since the beginning.

Because of this amazing achievement, Popular Science has named Nanosolar as one of their Innovations of the Year:

• PopSci’s Best of What’s New 2007

Nanosolar isn’t vaporware. They shipped their first commercial panels back in December.

• Nanosolar Blog » Nanosolar Ships First Panels

You can see a CNN clip that briefly mentions Nanosolar here:

As promising as it sounds, I can’t wait for these solar panels to hit the mainstream so that it’s an easy and lightweight addition to your roof.

Via: Nanosolar by Sheri Bigelow of Design Simply

Ms. Jen was part of Nokia’s Urbanista Diaries Relay, which means they sent her to India to promote the Nokia N82 in all its glory. While on the trip, she realized how well the Sports Tracker (a typically exercise related feature) could be used to track the geo-locations of your photos:

• Nokia’s Sports Tracker could be ‘Photo Tracker’ – Black Phoebe :: Ms. Jen

Here are her directions:

1. Turn on Sports Tracker. Start a “workout”. Make sure the GPS signal is strong.
2. Start going around on the adventures and take photos. Go lots of new places, take photos, make sure the GPS signal remains strong.
3. Stop the Sports Tracker “workout”. Click on “upload to service”. Sports Tracker will find the photos associated with the “workout” route and send them to the ST server with the GPS data and athletic data.
4. The Urbanista Diaries flash app then pulls the photos, geo & route data feed to create a photo map and the slideshow that you can watch on the site.

I haven’t used the Nokia phones, but they seem to be the favorites of the technorati. With features like live streaming of video, Sport Tracker and other GPS related ideas, Nokia has some great ideas.

Scott C. Lemon at the.Inevitable.Org/anism bought a XO Laptop from the One Laptop Per Child people. The first time I saw these was at CES 2007. They allowed me to play with a prototype, which is very similar to the original.

• Gadgets Page » CES 2007: The $100 Laptop

Back then, I found the keyboard completely unusable for my petite hands, but I was excited to hear Scott’s review of the product.

• the.Inevitable.Org/anism » XO Laptop Thoughts …

He didn’t mention the small keyboard, but he had lots to say about it’s “half-baked” status:

So what isn’t baked yet? Well … the XO Laptop can’t see any of the FIVE wireless access points at my house! Yes … I read the entire Start page on “connecting” … but that isn’t it. I can manually open a terminal, and use iwconfig and dhclient to get the networking working … but that is a hassle. I have taken the laptop elsewhere and it seems to detect the wireless APs of other places. I will admit that I have some unique SSIDs (that contain slashes) that might be screwing them up … so I might try to poke around the source code looking … 🙂

Other things are that they don’t currently support cut and paste in some places! I’ve been reading the wiki and getting instructions on how to do things … but then I can’t cut from the browser and paste into the terminal. Ugh!

The one thing that I will say is that Sam loves his new laptop. And we have downloaded a whole bunch of the activities, and he is already navigating through Sugar and playing with lots of them. I just got one that is a peer-to-peer game of Connect 4 … he and I haven’t played that one yet … but Andrea and I did … we each won one game.

My biggest problem with the OLPC initiative is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You can’t advance up the pyramid of needs until the bottom layers are taken care of. The OLPC seems like an esteem need to me. It falls in the “achievement” category. Having a computer might seem like a basic need for survival to you and me, but in the thick of things, I would sell my computer for food. Children in the third world countries are a little more preoccupied with the lower levels of the hierarchy of needs, so OLPC turns out to be a valiant, but misguided effort. If you want to help kids in the third world, send them food, vaccines or help them build an adequate house. They can worry about OLPC’s when they have those basic needs met.

Today I wanted to look at the Everex CloudBook. This mini-computer is similar in size and style to the ASUS EeePC, which I reviewed last week, but there are some major differences, however, enough to put each system on a very different playing field.

A few weeks ago I looked at both the CloudBook and EeePC with computer expert GJ (acomputerpro). The CloudBook looks similar in style, a simple 7″ screen, fully functional QWERTY keyboard and a pointing device. It also has a unique open space beneath the screen which I think is more for aesthetics than function.

One very different feature of this mini vs. the EeePC is the 30 gigabyte hard drive. Hands down that is much better than the meager 4GB of solid state memory the EeePC has. Although the joy of having all the storage space does come with a price; reduced boot up time. Solid state memory allows for almost instant on capability. You may be just fine waiting for the system to come up, but in my opinion lessens the cool factor of instant on.

The CloudBook also uses an non-Intel CPU, from a company called VIA. The speed is 1.2GHz which isn’t too bad, its three times faster than my T-Mobile MDA, but no where near the speed of my 2.1GHz HP Pavilion Notebook.

Pros:

• 30GB Hard Drive.
• 1 DVI Port (great for external monitors).
• Built in WiFi (wireless network capability).
• 2 USB ports (because everything runs on USB these days).

Cons:

• Mouse pointer is above the keyboard, requiring you to completely stop what you are doing to use the built in pointing device.
• Non-Intel CPU.
• Internal memory is not upgradeable past 1GB.
• Weird looking screen configuration.

OK, so I’m stretching on the cons for both the EeePC and the Cloudbook, but in the end, my vote is for the EeePC based on two factors; speed of boot time and a real pointing device that users are accustomed too. The ASUS is also cheaper when buying at NewEgg. The CloudBook can be purchased at NewEgg and will eventually be available at your local Wal-Mart Super Store.

This week I came across a mini-pc I think will give both of these machines a run for their money because of one incredible feature. But you’ll have to keep watching for my next post to find out just what that is.

This review is graciously provided by Thom Allen. You can read more of his musings on his personal blog:

• DigitalThom – Thom Allen Weblog

If you are flying with a Macbook Air, you might run into luddite TSA agents. They were completely unable to fathom it:

• Wide Awake Developers: Steve Jobs Made Me Miss My Flight

Fortunately for Michael, a younger agent recognized it and explained it to the senior TSA agent. Unfortunately, it was too late for Michael to catch his flight.

The senior agent hasn’t been trained for technological change. New products on the market? They haven’t been TSA approved. Probably shouldn’t be permitted. He requires me to open the “device” and run a program. I do, and despite his inclination, the lead agent decides to release me and my troublesome laptop. My flight is long gone now, so I head for the service center to get rebooked.

If you are flying with a Macbook Air, you should give yourself an extra hour to get through security just in case you encounter the same luddite TSA agents.

Via: How a MacBook Air baffled airport security – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

We just received our Apple Time Capsule this week, and it’s happily backing up my files right now. Time Capsule, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a WiFi hub that supports the new 802.1n standard and also contains a hard drive for backups using the Time Machine feature of OS X Leopard.

I purchased the 1 TB model, which costs $500. A 500GB model is available for a much more reasonable $300. I won’t be able to do a detailed review until a month or two has gone by, so I can try restoring some backups, but in the meantime here are some first impressions:

• It’s big. I imagined it being the size of a Mac Mini, but it’s actually wider, about 8″ square.
• Setting it up with the included software was very simple.
• There are very few settings—I can add drives or folders to a list of things not to back up, but that’s about it.
• Not surprisingly, backing up over the network is slow. My iMac, hooked directly to the Time Capsule with gigabit Ethernet, has managed to back up 223 GB in about 15 hours. Laura’s computer, hooked up to our old non-gigabit network, is taking much longer. I hesitate to imagine how long the first backup would take over WiFi.
• During at least the first backup, a little progress dialog pops up. This seems contrary to the “invisible” approach Apple otherwise takes with Time Machine. If the progress dialog pops up every hour while I’m working to do hourly backups, I’m going to be truly annoyed.
• Apple includes documentation for both Mac and Windows computers, but Windows simply sees the device as a network drive. If you’re strictly a Windows user, you could definitely beat the price by buying a separate WiFi hub and hard drive.

So far… so good. I’ll post further after I’ve had a catastrophe or two and seen whether Time Capsule saves me.