I’m a huge fan of the website Uncrate.  It caters to men.  How about that, a blog that talks about fashion, gear, food and spirits that’s actually focused on a male audience.  Crazy, right?  Anyhow, the number of things I’ve ultimately ended up purchasing after become aware of them on Uncrate is pretty hefty.  The Aviator Chair and the Royal Master Sealight are just two of the more ridiculous, albeit cool, purchases I’ve made.

Recently, I came across two products that I feel compelled to gush about.

The first, are Sheex sheets.  Yes, I said sheets.  I actually first learned about Sheex sheets a few months back on Uncrate.  They definitely had me intrigued.  For starters, I’m a sucker for great sheets.  I figure if I’m going to be spending 8 hours on something it better be awesome.  I’m also skeptical of claims about sheets.  High thread counts don’t always equal soft, smooth or comfortable.  Add in the need for them to also be durable…you don’t want them fraying, ripping, falling apart or becoming scratchy after 10 washes.  The folks at Sheex were coming from a completely different direction.  Not unlike the evolution of tee shirts from cotton to dry-fit like material, Sheex’s belief was that we needed sheets that were designed for performance.  Huh?  Well, they leveraged all that learning from athletic apparel and created sheets that feel like dry-fit shirts.  If you’ve ever put on a dry-fit shirt you know how cool, light weight, comfortable, smooth and moisture resistant they are.  Well, the sheets are just like that and then some.  Seriously, I’ve never slept on better sheets.  When Sheex first came on the scene, they were an internet only brand.  But, recently they started distributing through Bed Bath And Beyond.  That means of course, you can use your 20% off coupon that I’m sure you have somewhere to reduce the price of the sheets from $200 to $160.  I promise you, you won’t spend better money for your bed.

Going the completely opposite direction, let’s talk about leather.  I like a good belt.  A good belt is one that is both functional and stylish…well in my opinion.  The folks at Tanner Goods, in Portland, have been hand making leather goods for over 45 years and it shows in the finished product.  I recently ordered “Standard Belt” and couldn’t be happier with the leather quality, hardware material, and color.  To boot, it was true to size, which I find is a rarity with belts.  I’m going to order a few more and suggest you do the same.

Earlier this month I took a trip to New York City. On the recommendation of my very good friend Ashley, I popped into the Animazing Gallery in SOHO to check out their collection of Dr. Seuss prints. The gallery was typical SOHO…small, simple and breathtaking. Initially, I was enamored with a print called “Incidental Music For A New Year’s Eve Party.”

I was actually ready to pull the trigger on this print when the gallery curator stopped by to ask me if I had any questions. I asked her about the print. She explained some of the history and then offered to show me some other prints that weren’t on the wall. 10 minutes into the exploration I fell in love with a print called “A Prayer For A Child.” It was full of color and wonder. I connected with it. The print conveys the idea of dreaming. A child’s mind and imagination are precious. They are full of hope and the audacity to question the norm. There is no impossible. It’s ok to go big, because if you don’t go big, then you might as well go home. I love that idea. It’s how I try to live personally and professionally.

If you don’t like my description, here’s the official information from Dr. Seuss:

The painting, A Prayer for a Child, stunning in its vibrant colors and captivating in its galactic point of view, has been painted from the perspective of one child’s small place in the universe. The prayer, spoken in first person on behalf of that child, makes the connection between their cozy home and the heavens.

The history of the print as told by Seusville is fascinating.

Dr. Seuss tinkered with Christmas images and ideas for years, but it wasn’t until 1955 when he wrote, “A Prayer for a Child” that he put into words his thoughts about the true meaning of the holiday. In this poem, his one wish was not for material gain, but for peace on earth. His ideas continued to ripen and take shape and, in 1957, Random House published How the Grinch Stole Christmas! — the first holiday picture book ever to go beyond elves and reindeer and sugarplums to touch upon the deeper meaning of Christmas. Christmas isn’t just about giving gifts. Christmas is about coming together as a community, a message that is as resonant today as it was then.

The poem being referenced was:

From here on earth,
From my small place
I ask of You
Way out in space:
Please tell all men
In every land
What You and I
Both understand . . .

Please tell all men
That Peace is Good.
That’s all
That need be understood
In every world
In Your great sky.

(We understand.
Both You and I.)

I have to be honest with you. I don’t see the message of peace on earth in the visuals. I see the dreamer. But, maybe the idea of peace on Earth is a dream and the only way to make it happen is to be a hopeless dreamer…like a child.

Here’s what It looks like hung in my place in Chicago.

I have to give some serious thanks to the folks at Supreme Frame And Art here in the West Loop of Chicago. Inside of a day they framed the print, the accompanying poem and the certificate of authenticity. The work was speedy and professional, and the staff helpful and knowledgable. I highly recommend them.

When my contract on AT&T was up, there was no doubt in my mind I was going to switch to Verizon.  I knew that doing so would mean I’d be giving up my iPhone. I was ok with it.  Mostly, because, well…the iPhone was a horrible phone.  The AT&T network was horrendous; especially in Chicago.  I couldn’t take the dropped calls anymore. In addition to the AT&T infrastructural problems that existed, I had a big philosophical problem with Apple, Steve Jobs and the walled garden approach to the iOS platform. I believe in open.  I think open is good. I think open wins the day.

The first phone I switched to from the iPhone was the Google Nexus One.  It was nearly flawless and honestly opened my eyes about what a smart phone could really be.  I was hooked on Android.  I loved the innovation that was happening.  I loved the options – well I loved options period…something you didn’t get with Apple.  My first phone on Verizon was the HTC Incredible. It wasn’t an iPhone killer. It showed promise.  But, poor battery life and some strange ergonomics stopped it from being a real keeper.

Up next was the Samsung Galaxy S. This was so close…so close…so close. As I wrote a few months back:

Here’s the deal, the Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate had all the makings of being a great and legendary Android phone. But, Samsung let Verizon dictate far too many decisions. Additionally, Samsung made a number of puzzling decisions regarding email. Those decisions have an adverse impact on the end user experience and make it tough to recommend for corporate phone users. If you’re looking for a great Android phone with amazing battery life and are planning on using the phone for non corporate activities, this is a great choice. But, for you power users out there, I recommend looking at the HTC Incredible or the Droid X.

Lastly, let me say, if Samsung works out the Bing issue with Verizon and makes the needed updates to the mail app, this is a clear cut winner and would be the best Android phone on the market for Verizon and in my opinion, even the best across all carriers.

I’m on Galaxy S phone #2. My first one went through the washing machine and didn’t survive. I have a love hate relationship with the phone. I love the screen. I love the size. I love ergonomics. I hate the battery life. I hate the bloated pre-installed and un-installable software.

But, here’s what I hate the most and what has me looking at the iPhone, now that it’s on Verizon: the lack of commitment to software upgrades. Samsung Galaxy S owner are running Android 2.2. Many of the competition are already running Android 2.4 and Google is already demoing Android 3.0. Samsung and many of the other Android manufacturers (HTC, Motorola, etc.) have been rather mum on when updates will happen…if at all. Had the Google Nexus S (also made by Samsung), which in my opinion is the BEST Android phone ever built, been launched for Verizon, I’d be switching to that right now. It’s a perfect phone. Flawless. But, it’s only available for AT&T…and we already covered my feelings on that network It’s a shame really, because the Samsung Nexus S shows that Samsung can make a great phone when they aren’t being hamstrung by the carriers.

The lack of software upgrades and commitment to refining the customized flavors of Android created by cell phone manufacturers, leaves users like me feeling left out and working with buggy out of date software. All of that basically means we’re working with inferior phones.

When you talk to Apple iPhone users they often say, “it just works.” That “it just works” comes with a price and a tax. That price is limited customization. That tax is the iTunes store. But…it just works. Well damnit, I want something that just works too.

I won’t be doing the iPhone 4 though. Nope. No need to pony up the dough for out of date technology that is inferior to the Galaxy S. I’ll be waiting for the iPhone 5. I have a feeling it’s going to be a killer phone and on a network (Verizon) that actually works.

Available for purchase here; go get one.

New apartment…no couch…no coffee table…so I improvised.

3 weeks later the new furniture arrived.  This was a welcome relief as my butt was getting sore sitting on the floor.

For reference here are my reviews for the Nexus One and the HTC Incredible.

Much like the HTC Incredible, I had high hopes for the Samsung Galaxy S. Now you might be wondering, which Galaxy S am I talking about? It’s a fair question seeing as Samsung has 4 different phones named Galaxy S. In addition to that name, each phone has a second name. For example, the phone I’m talking about is the “Fascinate,” which is only available on Verizon.

The Galaxy S has a lot going for it. For starters the 4 inch (perfect size) Super AMOLED screen is beautiful and definitely outpaces the HTC Incredible and is on par with the new Apple iPhone. The form factor is outstanding. I actually find it better than the Nexus One. It’s light weight, well sculpted and the battery is inter-changeable. The fact it’s only available on Verizon is a huge plus. Unlike the iPhone, you’ll actually be able to use the phone to make and receive calls. The phone ships with a 16gb sd-card, which is more than enough storage, in my opinion. Amongst all the great specs and features, what I was most impressed with was the battery life. If you’ve used the HTC Incredible you know what a battery suck it is. Even after purchasing the extended battery from Seido, my Incredible never made it through the day without needing a recharge. My Galaxy S makes it through the work day and then some. Bravo!

So far so good, right? Well the Galaxy S isn’t perfect; granted nothing is. It suffers from 4 big issues that for some might be deal breakers.

1. Bing has replaced Google as the preferred search engine on the phone. That means voice search, phone search, browser search, etc. This would be ok if you could switch search providers. But, you can’t. I’m serious, you can’t make google the default search tool on a google android phone.

2. Things get worse from there. Verizon made sure to load the phone up with more crap-ware than a trailer park garage sale. From games to apps to bookmarks, the phone is full of preloaded crap you didn’t ask for and you can’t delete or change. Yes, even the bookmarks.

3. The mail app is weak and frankly an embarrassment. Where as the HTC Incredible let’s you file mail into folders you can not do this on the Galaxy S. Think about that. If you get a message in your inbox, you won’t be able to move it to another folder. You also can’t sync emails or calendar events that are older than 1 month. This just seems silly and arbitrary. What value is there in limiting how far back you can sync? The Incredible, the iPhone and many other smart phones let you sync as far back as infinity. I don’t know about you, but most of my projects last more than 1 month. This is a huge problem for corporate phone users.

4. Despite having a 1ghz processor running the show, the Galaxy S often slows down and seems sluggish. This has a negative impact on the user experience and while I can’t verify this 100%, it seems to cause program crashes.

Here’s the deal, the Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate had all the makings of being a great and legendary Android phone. But, Samsung let Verizon dictate far too many decisions. Additionally, Samsung made a number of puzzling decisions regarding email. Those decisions have an adverse impact on the end user experience and make it tough to recommend for corporate phone users. If you’re looking for a great Android phone with amazing battery life and are planning on using the phone for non corporate activities, this is a great choice. But, for you power users out there, I recommend looking at the HTC Incredible or the Droid X.

Lastly, let me say, if Samsung works out the Bing issue with Verizon and makes the needed updates to the mail app, this is a clear cut winner and would be the best Android phone on the market for Verizon and in my opinion, even the best across all carriers.

I’ve been using a Nexus One for about 2 weeks now. By using it, I mean that my iPhone 3G has sat in a bag for 2 weeks and was not used at all. By using it, I mean that the Nexus One has been my everyday cellphone. I’ve used it for everything from phone calls (including 3 way calls) to youTube watching. I really wanted the Nexus One to blow my mind. I wanted it to succeed on such an amazing level. I wanted it to kill the iPhone and knock Steve Jobs off of his pedestal. But, I didn’t get that. Nope.

In short, the Nexus One is nice, but not yet ready for prime time. Let me break it down.

The Good

Form and Feel
The Nexus One is lighter, slimmer, and feels a hell of a lot better than the iPhone. Were as the Nexus One feels sleek and contoured, the iPhone feels cheap (the plastic back) and heavy. We’re talking BMW vs. Kia here.

The Screen
As already covered elsewhere, the screen is amazing. It’s bright, vivid, has amazingly sharp contrast, and it seems more scratch resistant than the iPhone.

The Battery
I’d say the battery life is roughly the same. I can’t get through a full 10 hour day on 1 charge. But, the Nexus One wins here because I can swap batteries throughout the day. Yes, you heard me. Imagine that? People wanting to have an extra battery. When will Apple learn?

Google Integration
This is where the phone. If you don’t need corporate email and everything you do in the cloud is tied to Google, this is the phone for you. It’s not even a question. Inside of 3 minutes you’ll have the phone setup and integrated with GMail, Google Calendar, Google Voice (this is such a nice feature), Google Maps, Google Contacts, etc. The one thing that leaves my saying WTF is the lack of a Google Docs app for editing and creating files offline. Strange omission Google…just strange.

GPS
It has real GPS. Nuff said. You want turn by turn navigation, you got it. You want better map accuracy, you got it. This kills the iPhone’s seemingly archaic approach to directions. In short, if your car is lacking GPS map integration and you don’t have a portable GPS device like a Tom Tom, the Nexus One makes your life so much simpler.

The Camera
It’s light years ahead of the iPhone. You can elect to choose different megapixel options, it has a flash, it has white balance options, and it even has auto-focus. Well done.

The OK

Sound Quality
The noise canceling microphone is a dream and makes calls sound a hell of a lot better than the iPhone. But, beware when using the speaker phone. The sound is tin like and overly compromised when the phone is sitting on a counter/floor/etc. with the screen facing up. For whatever reason, when using the speaker phone like this, the sound is muffled.

Customization
You can customize so many different features and behaviors, it’s almost daunting. From wallpaper to sounds, from notifications to fonts, just about everything can be customized to your liking. Please note, this can take a lot of time, but it’s worth it. While you can customize like never before, the actual act of customizing is perplexing. For example, if you have a screen full of app icons and you want to flip flop the placement of two apps, you’re going to be frustrated. Where as the iPhone recognizes you want to do this and slides all the other apps over to accommodate, the Nexus One makes this chore similar to giving birth. You’ll have to move the app to another screen, thus opening up a spot on the screen you want the app to live, then you’ll need to rearrange the apps so that you create a hole for where you want the app to live, then you’ll need to go to the other screen so you can grab the app and slide it into the spot you want. WTF? That’s horrendous.

Apps
Lots of apps. Not nearly as many as the iPhone platform. But, all the key apps are there. For example fourSquare, Facebook, twitter clients, USA Today, etc. However, the apps are not as polished as the iPhone options. For example the Facebook app isn’t even a real Facebook app. It was created by a 3rd party. Also, the fourSquare app lacks push notifications. If you want games, you’re out of luck. This really bummed me, even though I was well aware of it before I got the Nexus One. There’s apps though that you’ll never ever find in the iTunes App Store. For example email clients, calendar management tools, oh and Google Voice

The Bad

eMail
Honestly, what was Google thinking. Weather you’re using GMail, Exchange Mail, IMAP, POP3, etc. you will not be able to move email into folders. Huh? Really? This is classic Google. They simply think people want to to search for information and are incapable of organizing content. Also, if you work for a company that uses Exchange for mail, you’re out of luck a big time way because there is NO calendar management or integration. No, I’m serious. You will have no access to your calendar…zero…nadda. If the Nexus One was supposed to rival the iPhone, Blackberry, and other smartphone I don’t know what they were thinking with this decision. This is a huge fail and honestly almost made me send the phone back on day 1. However, thankfully you can rectify this problem by buying Touchdown, a 3rd party app that will cost you $20.00. The app is nearly flawless and takes care of all of the Nexus One exchange problems. But, seriously…I have to buy a 3rd party app for this. C’mon you’ve got to be kidding me.

Media Management
Again, as with eMail Google assumes you want to search for content and you want your content aggregated. So, for example if you go into your photos Google for some reason thought you might want to see every photo attachment in all of your emails. Huh? That’s right. Let’s say I emailed you a photo. Google thinks that photo should show up in the photo library. The concept of folder structures is non-existent. This makes no sense. Music is the same way. Total fail.

Soft Keys
I love and hate these 4 keys at the bottom of the phone. I love the concept, I hate the implementation. The number of times I’ve been typing an email only to hit a soft key and then lose my entire message is in the 100s by now. The irony of course is that when I actually want the keys to work, they don’t. Seriously. Often you’ll press the keys and nothing will happen. This is either a hardware failure (the touch screen portion of the screen for the keys is defective) or there’s a bug with the software. I lean toward hardware.

Power Connector
Why? Why? Why? Why, didn’t they just use a standard mini-USB? Instead they’ve opted for this connector that looks like a mini-USB, but isn’t. Why is this a problem you might ask? Well because the number of accessories for the Nexus One is few and far between. If it had used a traditional mini-USB, existing car power cables (amongst other accessories) would work. And let me tell you, if you take advantage of turn by turn navigation you will want the phone plugged in and drawing power from the car.

The Network
Oyve. T-Mobile or AT&T are your options. AT&T will work only on Edge. Thus you get no 3G. And while T-Mobile will give you 3G, there 3G coverage is worse than AT&Ts. Besides the exchange server mistake, the biggest mistake by Google was not releasing this phone on Verizon first. A Verizon version of this phone will be made available in Spring of 2010. If Google had really wanted to take a bite out of the iPhone market share they chose poorly, by launching with T-Mobile and AT&T first.

Summary

If your entire life is bundled in the suite of Google applications like GMail, this is the perfect phone for you. If you need a kick as smart phone for work, I can’t recommend the phone to you until they fix the Exchange Server Syncing problems. Google and HTC did a great job with this phone, but it’s not perfect and more importantly in a lot of ways it pales in comparison to the iPhone.

I don’t know what it is about the Apple “white” color.  There’s something striking about it.  I love how my white Apple TV looks in my home theater rack.  I love how my Airport Extreme sticks out on my computer desk.  I’ve been looking for a new USB 2.0 hub and came across this simple and beautiful options from Belkin.

It’s not even a real question.  There’s no hesitation.  No second look needed.  I will be purchasing this when it comes out.  I’m a huge Beatles Fan and love video games.  This such a natural fit.  Partnerships like this should happen more often.  Again, it’s a natural fit.  It’s not forced.  Too often brands get involved with sponsorships or licensing agreement that don’t make sense.  For example the M&Ms Nascar car.  Enjoy the trailer and get excited.

I had a beer this evening with my good friend and colleague Mike Fetrow.  Part of our discussion centered around the face people know they need the quality of $300 boots, but would rather purchase $100 boots because it’s all they can afford right now.  If you will, rather than buy the quality product what they really need (usually costs more)…something that will last them years, people would rather simply “save” their money and spend much less on an inferior product.

Well, you know what they say; you get what you pay for.  My mom was a big believer in buying quality handbags.  Her opinion was that it was cheaper in the long run to buy a quality bag than a cheap low quality one.  The reason being, you’d need to replace the cheap bag so frequently that you’d eventually end up paying more than the quality bag’s cost.

For what it’s worth in our discussion, boots were a proxy for websites.  As I was driving home I got to thinking about other items that you shouldn’t skimp on.

1. Watches
2. Shoes
3. Belts
4. Sunglasses
5. Socks (trust me)
6. Mattresses
7. Pillows
8. Towels
9. Silverware
10. Wine Glasses
11. Speakers
12. Office Chairs
13. Vodka

Eclectic list…but I think it’s a good one.