Daddy Dan

The latest gadget I’ve purchased is the Flip Video Ultra, a small, cheap (around $139), easy-to-use, video camera that you can easily take with you wherever you go.

The camera does not have a lot of features. It only has a 2x zoom, for example. But what it’s meant to do, be a simple, easy to use, convenient way to capture video and download quickly and painlessly to your computer, it does very, very well.

The camera does not use tape or memory cards. It saves your video (30 or 60 minutes worth, depending on the model) onto a built-in flash memory. From my limited use, the picture is excellent, at least for use on the web. I used the camera for the train video below. The camera also does not come with a rechargeable battery. It’s powered by two AA batteries.

Another great feature of the camera is that all of the software you’d use to play or edit the videos is built into the camera itself, so no need to download any software to your computer. The camera will work with any computer. Even if you don’t have a computer you can take the camera to many drugstores and they will download your video to a DVD for about $10.

If you do want to download the video, the camera has a hidden, built-in USB arm that plugs right into your computer. It couldn’t be simpler to use.

The back of the camera features just a screen and four buttons (record, play, zoom, and delete). You’ll be using the camera and fully understand all of its features in mere minutes.

The camera also comes in a variety of colors:

I highly recommend this camera if you’re looking for a video camera that you can take anywhere and is simple to use. The picture quality is much better than the video cameras built into most cellphones. And the price can’t be beat. I got mine, a 60-minute version for $139 at Best Buy.

I’ve been playing with my Amazon Kindle now for a few weeks, so I’m ready to provide my full product review of the product. Let me start out by saying that, despite some small shortcomings, I love it! The Amazon Kindle, beyond between a fantastic e-book reader, comes with several features they don’t even mention at Amazon.com, including a full web browser and a feature called NowNow that I’ll get to later.

First the positives:

• Readability - The Kindle screen uses e-ink technology that makes the screen look very similar to paper. The screen is very easy on the eyes with no glare. It’s easy to read even in bright light. You can also adjust text size, which is a great feature. After using the Kindle for a few minutes you really do forget that you’re not reading an actual printed book.
• Navigation - While I’ve read other reviews where people complain about the navigation, I find it very intuitive and easy to use. The Kindle has a large button running on the right hand side that pages forward. The left hand side has two buttons, one for paging backward and one for paging forward. There’s also a scroll wheel which allows you to select sections of text for various reasons, including leaving notes, bookmarks, or to go to either the dictionary or Wikipedia to look up a word.
• Kindle Store - The Kindle Store is very similar to Amazon.com in that you can search for books by genre/category and it includes reader reviews and ratings. The selection of books is excellent, with most of the current best-sellers and classic books available, most for $9.99 or less. Another absolutely fantastic feature is that Kindle allows you to download a sample of the book for free before deciding whether or not to buy it. The sample size is generous too, usually featuring about the first 10% or so of the book. I love this feature because you can usually determine whether or not you’ll enjoy reading the entire book by reading the sample size. You can also subscribe to newspapers (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.), magazines (Time, Fortune, etc.), and some blogs for a monthly fee. I tried some of them with a 14-day free trial, and they worked fine, but I cancelled them since I didn’t want to pay for something I could get for free on the internet (or even the Kindle web browser).
• Storage Capacity - Kindle has enough internal memory for about 200 books. Even if you decide to delete a book from the memory Amazon knows what books you’ve purchased and you can always add a purchased book back to Kindle free of charge. The Kindle also allows you to add a SD card for even more memory. The 200 book storage capacity will be more than enough memory for most people. If you’re like me you are reading several books at one time and go back and forth between them, depending on your mood. Kindle allows you to take many books with you wherever you go in one small package.
• Your Documents - you can also add your own Word and text documents to Kindle by e-mailing them to a specific e-mail address. Amazon charges 10 cents per download. I’ve only tried this once and it worked flawlessly.
• Battery Life - Battery life, according to Amazon, is approximately 30 hours, more if you don’t leave the wireless feature on.
• Web Browser - Although it’s currently marked as experimental, Kindle comes with a full web browser, which works best for text-heavy websites. I’ve accessed blogs with the browser and it works great. I’ve even responded to comments on my own blog. Best of all, the web browser is FREE and works anywhere you get cellular phone service.
• Ask Kindle NowNow - this service allows you to send in a question and receive 3 responses back, usually within 10 minutes. You can ask anything you like. As a test I sent in the following question: “Who are the ten most popular “Daddy bloggers” on the web today?” I received three responses, all listing ten daddy blogger sites. I didn’t recognize any of the sites except DadGoneMad.com, and alas, Daddydan.net wasn’t included in any of the responses. =)
• Other Features - The Kindle also plays mp3 files, but I haven’t tried this feature yet. I’ll leave that to my iPod for now.

Areas of potential improvement:

• Backlight or attached light - The Kindle has no backlighting or built in light at all. I like to read in bed, so a light would be a nice feature.
• Color screen - The screen is in black and white. A color screen would be nice, especially if the book you’re reading has many pictures or illustrations.
• GPS - Since the Kindle has wireless access that works anywhere cellular phones work, why not add GPS capabilities to the Kindle. That would be a killer app.

Overall the Kindle is even better than I expected. I’ve been getting a lot of use out of it on my morning commute and during my breaks at work. I haven’t had any problems with it at all yet. It’s an expensive toy at $399, but to me it was well worth the price.