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Apple products

iPhone

Some personal yes/no/maybe recommendations on Apple Products:

  • Apple iPhone 4 – Yes (our first iPhone purchase and will be buying for wifey to replace an old Treo…my phone is a Nexus One)
  • Apple MacBook Pro 13"*, other MacBooks – Yes
  • MacBook Air – No
  • Mac Mini* – Yes
  • Apple TV – No
  • iMac – No, better off with a mini or an iPad
  • iPad – Not yet, waiting for the next version w/ Retina display and front facing camera, printing support, and general tweaks, and generally an actual need for one given that I own a MacBook Pro already…
  • iPod – Nano, Yes; Shuffle/Classic */Touch, No;
  • Peripherals – Keyboard*, maybe; Magic mouse, no; Cinema display*, maybe; Airport Express*/Time Capsule, No; Airport Extreme*, maybe
  • Software – iLife*, Yes; iWork*, if you have to; Aperture, No; MobileMe*, No

*products I own

I think a pretty good Mac setup would be a Mac Mini for "home" stuff/home server type of deal.  A MacBook Pro for work, iPads as the "secondary" computer.  iPods for on the go, exercising, and for the car.

From a PC side, probably harder to cobble up a similar setup.

Belorussian Translation provided by PC.

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bed linens, etc

At some point got caught up with finding nice bed linens.  Eventually settled on the following:

  • Thomas Lee sheet and pillow set — a flat sheet, fitted sheet, and two pillow cases.  They're 500 thread count cotton sheets which seems fine to me, neither arbitrarily too high or too low.  In any case, sheets are comfortable and reasonably priced.
  • Libeco Belgian linens — have a couple pillow cases and I like their linen sheets
  • Rough Linen — haven't gotten anything from here but local company and I like the simplicity of their products
  • Pacific Coast pillows and comforters — very comfortable, got the firm and 'luxury' down pillow

If you're going to spend 6 – 8 hours a night on your bed, might as well make it comfortable.  We're still sleeping on a $200 Serta mattress from 1999, it's still very comfortable — so it's not all about getting the most expensive, just what's comfortable.

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Dell XPS m1330

I like this computer. c|Net gave it a good review, a 7.9. Here it is on Dell's web site. I'm currently running a white MacBook. I also have an IBM X31 ThinkPad. I may get one of these XPS m1330 laptops but I'd like to get another MacBook (to replace my current one) probably in October this year or January next year. I want to wait until Leopard is pre-installed and then get Parallels for it too. I have a feeling the MacBook will get a good upgrade pretty soon.

Anway, one of the nice things about being in software is that it's easy to justify computer purchases. :-) Oh, and it's too bad these Dell laptops have to have Windows Vista installed. They really need to start putting in the option of a Linux OS installation as well. I'd pay for Ubuntu and Windows Vista installed.

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Nuvi 650

I got a Nuvi 650 GPS device. It's pretty cool. It works pretty much out of the box. The screen is nice 4" x 3", it's color and fairly big. The voice is fine but I don't have any place to stick the device unless I mount it on the windshield (luckily I have a little compartment that I can use for it where the GPS device for the car was supposed to be).

I recommend it overall and definitely over the other 600 series — it has the wide color screen with the least features so the least expensive of the bunch. I'm sure the devices will get even bigger but this one is large enough and the voice is loud. I haven't explored the other features, there might be too many. This device gets the basics right — map, directions, places of interest — so that's all I really need.

I would wait until it gets down to like $250 – $300 though if it ever gets there.

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good pots – Bourgeat

There's nothing like good pots. We're doing a slow kitchen upgrade, kitchen 1.5 if you will. Kitchen 1.0 consisted of cheap Emerilware non-stick pots and pans built by All Clad. They've done well the past 5 – 6 years and it was a good starter set. All Clad's marketing is pretty good but I can't really say the same for their low-end pots and pans — their low end pots are just ok, a bit overpriced, and slightly overrated.

So over to Matfer Bourgeat products. We got a 7 1/2 quart "sauce" pot (we use it as a stock pot) and I like it a lot. We got it from Culinary Cookware but I think there are probably cheaper places to buy these pots.

I christened the pot with this killer mussels with saffron and mustard recipe. The next day cooked some pasta in it and none of the pasta stuck to the bottom, sign of a good pot.

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MACプロ用ナイフ or MAC Knives

When you first start off buying house stuff, it's probably for college and you end up with a knife from the dollar store. Maybe you get lucky (or you're rich) and you get to buy nice stuff off the bat.

The next phase of accumulating stuff is when you get married or single but grown up a little bit more. Usually you're still not sure what to buy and get whatever is marketed to you, e.g. All Clad cookware, whatever.

That's a long way of stating I'm looking to upgrade our knife set, after a couple tries, and hopefully getting a set of MAC knives — a chef's knife, slicer, and paring knife from the pro series. I'd like to get a yanagiba knife too eventually, probably in lieu of a slicer.

MAC knives are made in Japan and are highly regarded by chefs like Thomas Keller of The French Laundry/Per Se and Charlie Trotter out of Chicago. They're also not that expensive in comparison to some other knives 0n the market.

A couple more things:

  • It's funny that the brand is MAC. Owning a MacBook and other Apple products and then have MAC knives seems a little too Mac-ish.
  • Buying a MAC knife is interesting because I can buy it off of Amazon but I see that it's cheaper to buy them here at Chef Knives to Go. How do I verify this business? Well, the store is hosted on Yahoo! Shopping. They have a number to call. So I may give them a call and probably will do business with them. Do I care if their checkout process is encrypted? Yes. Do I care where they got their cert? No. Am I using a credit card that covers me against online fraud and online purchases? Yes. I could also buy these MAC knives from a more local store in Sacramento — they own the MACKnife.com domain but the knives are also more expensive there.
  • Knives are cool.

—

I have a few more "domestic" and food things to write about that I want to get out of my system. I do like writing about products, partly because some really great/good products get buried by marketing machines who tout inferior or just ok products e.g. BOSE speakers. The other fun part is seeing my product "reviews" actually getting up there in various search engine's results. A side goal is to maybe get some free stuff. I could do with a free year's supply of Yakult. :)

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crocs footwear

crocs

This is my second or third post on footwear. I only own a few pairs of shoes, that's why I guess I talk about the one's I do have. Anyway, I talked about Keen sandals the last time, and they're great, I wear them just about every day.

It was at Ironman Canada though where we ran into the Men's winner, Chris Lieto at the airport that I saw these sandals. He was wearing these Crocs (picture in the photo isn't me) in a bright yellow. They looked really funky, and I thought they were like some special Ironman secret.

Anyhow, I saw these sandals at a store and I think I'm going to grab a pair. They're very chic looking and I saw another person wearing them today during lunch. They're not going to be for everyday wear. Just for wearing after working out and for going to the beach.

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my Keens, or the end of my Birkenstock era

keen's
I've been wearing Birkenstocks to work everyday since March 1999. I have two pairs, a black pair and a brown pair and I've resoled them both numerous times.

I thought it was time for a change and couple weeks ago, I started wearing Keen sandals. They're very comfortable and seem to be well designed. I do hope they last a long time or I'll just have to pull out my Birkenstocks again.

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Shopping Spree

I've been on a little shopping tear lately. Here's what I(we) have bought:

– ordered (not yet bought) a new car
– cast iron dutch oven for camping (on sale! @Amazon)
– GoldTouch keyboard (ergonomically sound)
– Humanscale keyboard tray
– Tom Bihn cafe bag (it's NOT a purse!)
– iCurve laptop stand

Our home office is coming together and becoming ergonomically correct. Already have Steelcase Leap chair that's pretty awesome and our furniture is nice too. I have some more kitchen stuff to buy and then get some more shirts to wear to work. It's getting to be pretty bad when I have Firefox and Mozilla polo shirts as shirts I wear on the weekend (not that I mind, but just shows I need more clothes).