The day after Thanksgiving Apple was having their traditional 1-day sale, and I picked up this little travel speaker from Altec Lansing called, Orbit-M.
The Orbit-M was on sale for $28 (normally $39.95). I was a little skeptical of the sound quality of something so small, but I needed a new travel speaker, so I took the risk.
I have to say I am really happy with the quality of this little speaker. Sound is very clear, it has a reasonable amount of base, and considering it’s size it has surprisingly loud volume. I only heard a small amount of distortion when turning the volume to full. I backed it off just a little and everything was fine.
The Orbit-M’s built-in cable wraps neatly around the unit in a special groove, and the plug snaps into its own slot. The plug is small enough to fit into the iPhones headphone jack without the need for an adapter.
The manufacturer claims 24 hours of play on 3 AAA batteries, but I haven’t tested this yet. Since the unit uses AAA batteries, its relatively light, even with the batteries in.
My only real complaint with the Orbit-M is it’s on/off switch. It sticks, rather badly. I don’t want it to move so freely that it comes on in my suitcase, but this is a bit too much. The sticky switch, combined with the fact that there is no light indicating the unit is on, it’s sometimes hard to tell if you actually turned it off or not.
The Orbit-M obviously won’t replace your home stereo, or even a good boombox, but as a travel speaker it’s excellent. It’s more than enough for a hotel room, an outdoor picnic in a relatively quite location (not the beach), or hanging out with a few friends. I recommend this product.
side-note: The Altec Lansing site lists an Orbit-M and an Orbit-MP3. As far as I can tell, they are actually the same product. I think they are in the process of rebranding the M to MP3.
Erasure was (and is) one of my favorite bands back in the 80’s. The band consisted of singer Andy Bell, and keyboardist Vince Clarke. As an added bit of trivia, Vince Clark was also a founding member of Depeche Mode and Yaz before teaming up with Andy Bell.
The folks at Agency Fusion have put together a truly awesome (and hilarious) little video spot for, Make My Logo Bigger!!! Cream. It represents every designer’s worst nightmare.
“… This set of designs are really sharp, and their usage of ornamental backgrounds shows just how terrific the style can look. And the best thing is that it doesn’t feel forced or like an after thought. The ornamental designs have been carefully crafted to fit into the design for a unified result.”
My thanks go out to Patrick McNeil, the designer behind Design Melt Down.
Here’s an excellent opportunity to test your powers of observation and attention to detail. Five Differences is an awesome flash game that presents you with a series of almost identical images and it’s your job to find the differences. Some are relatively easy, but others are down right hard.
As you click on an item that is in one image but not the other, a running countdown lets you know how many are left. On the first test the countdown is obvious, but on subsequent tests the countdown becomes part of the scene, so pay special attention to where it is.
The site seems to be having some technical difficulties, so if the link doesn’t work the first time, try again in a minute or two.
A group of Star Wars enthusiasts built this very cool 21-foot model of an X-Wing fighter, and equipped it with actual rockets. The plan was to launch it in a similar fashion as a traditional model rocket and recover it in one piece through the use of parachutes. You can read the whole story and see many more pictures and a video over at Gizmado, here and here.
Unfortunately, as this video shows, the launch didn’t go quite as planned. But, the first few seconds still looked pretty cool.
Today only (4.24.08) Evernote is opening up its private beta to anyone who wants to join. You need to use THIS LINK. Evernote is an awesome app for clipping content and organizing it on your desktop or on the web. It's worth checking out. [ via Web Worker Daily ]
Apple is offering a FREE 1/2 day seminar on using Final Cut Studio and Final Cut Server. The list of cities isn't long, but luckily there's one here in San Francisco on June 26th.
Woohoo! One of my favorite Apple Mail Plugins, Mail.Appetizer, has new betas out for Tiger and Leopard. I totally thought this software had gone bye-bye. I'm glad to see it's still being developed.
