1TO10REVIEWS

My Review: 9

I first read about Hulu, as usual, on Techcrunch. I also go my invite to the private Hulu beta back in January by reading an article Mark Hendrickson wrote for Techcrunch.  Many people across the blogosphere have now written about Hulu, largely with good things to say.   I don’t plan to be unique in this instance - I have good things to say too.  Below is a brisk, bulleted battery of reasons why I think Hulu is excellent and likely to be a winner in this space.  Note to developers and Hulu competitors: most of my likes have to do with, you guessed it, user experience.  Try to keep up.

• Hulu has lots of good content, most importantly: full length movies as well as TV shows
• Great selections from multiple networks (Fox, NBC, etc.)
• Fun, old school TV content as well as new / popular content: lots of old school shows like Battlestar Galactica (the original), Knight Rider, and Flipper
• Incredible Selection of full length movies
• User Interface and User Experience:
  • The in screen player shows video in very high quality
  • There is a full screen mode, still very good quality
  • There is a pop-out player, so you can arrange your desktop as you like - the pop-out size is adjustable
  • Outstanding memory features: I watched 1 1/2 hours of a movie, and then had to close my computer.  I came back the next day and as soon as I logged into Hulu, it the movie restarted from the exact same spot where I had stopped
• Queues and Favorites - you can easily set up a list of favorites or shows / movies that you want to watch

The site is clean, easy to navigate, and well thought out.  There are some basic social features, for instance you can set up a profile with your favorite shows, movie, books and music.  And you can rate content as you watch it, and see feedback from other users.  I’ve used many other video sites before, like Veoh, Daily Motion,  and obviously YouTube.  None of them even come close to Hulu in terms of content variety, content quality, or user experience.  Huge thumbs up and a resounding 9 out of 10.

This get’s a 1 out of 10.

I found it here. Brutal.

My Review: 10

My friend Allison (not my wife) likes to use the phrase “on a scale
of 1 to 10″ in unusual ways.  Rather than finishing the sentence with a
number (like 3 for instance) she’ll say something like: “on a scale of
1 to 10 that’s awesome.”  Or: “on a scale of 1 to 10  this sucks.”

I think it’s brilliant, and on a scale of 1 to 10  she’s fabulous.

My Review: 8

Disclaimer: I work with kwiry.

kwiry is a reminder service. Imagine you are on the bus, or at a restaurant with a friend, and you see or hear about… something. It might be a book, or anew movie, or a new album by Jimi Hendrix (even though he’s been dead for 38 years…) You know this is something you want to check out, but you will probably forget about it by the time you get home again. kwiry lets you send a text message about the movie/book/album/whatever and stores that message for you online, and sends you an email. That way, when you get home with a keyboard and a monitor at your disposal, you get your reminder email and you can check out said movie/book/album/whatever. In addition to the email reminder, kwiry also delivers search results (Yahoo!, Amazon, iTunes, etc.) on your kwiry.

Some people might raise objections: why not just send yourself an email directly with your smart phone?, or using the memo pad function on your phone? But not all phones do email. And you still need to remember to look at your memo pad when you get home. But all cell phones do text messaging, and most people have their cell phones with them all the time. kwiry took the least common denominator (texting) for the most number of people (mobile phone users in America) and created a useful service.

One of the things I like most about kwiry, aside from emailed reminders and search results, is the centralized list of ALL my reminders. Post it notes get thrown away. The tasks I put in my calendar (pay the bills, pick up the Hanukkah bush, etc.) get lost in the shuffle. I think it’s neat (and useful) to have a centralized list of all the little notes to myself that I wanted to remember - these are things I can look at weeks or months after the fact.

I tagged this under the gadgets category, even though it’s a website. I did that becasue it’s useful, and I use it with my phone most of the time. In my mind that makes it (sort of) a gadget. I think kwiry is a cool service, and it’s free. Even though I work with kwiry to promote the service, I still find myself using it on a regular basis, for my own personal needs. And I’m a fan of kwiry on Facebook.

In spite of any potential conflict of interest, I independently find kwiry useful. That’s high praise compared with most of the web 2.0 garbage that I see, take note of, and then promptly disregard as unnecessary. kwiry gets an 8 out of 10; it helps me remember things on a daily basis.

My Review:9

A couple of years ago I bought a knife made in Italy, an automatic. This particular one does not have a button to eject the blade. Rather, it is a style known as a “scale release” knife.

On a folding knife (one that does not have a fixed blade) there are usually two sides to the handle, known as scales. Typically the blade folds down in between those scales. A scale release knife is an automatic (or switchblade) knife that allows you to release the blade by sliding the two scales in opposite directions. See the video below for a demonstration:

My close friend and mentor Earl had a knife like this, and I always thought it was the bee’s knees. His was given to him by a friend, and I only got to play with it about once a week. Eventually, with much painstaking research, I finally figured out where I could get one for myself. A company called: AB Coltellerie. (UPDATE: There is an newer website up, owned by the same group: http://www.skmknives.com/ - it stands for Switchblade Knife Makers)

Here are the dimensions:

• Handle: Silver Satin Anodized Aluminum
• Blade length: 3″½
• Length of closed knife: 4″
• Bolsters: None

AB Coltellerie is an Italian knife company located in Maniago, Italy. They are willing to ship to the United States, but be aware that switchblade knives are illegal to buy and sell in most states. I love this knife, though I do wish there had been an option to have a pocket clip on it. Not having a pocket clip makes it difficult to conveniently carry around.

The quality of craftsmanship and materials is impeccable. The aluminum is finley machined and the knife feels solid and comfortable in the hand. The curve of the blade is nicely elegant for a drop point blade. The spring behind the blade is powerful, and after 3 years of semi-regular use there is no discernible change or decline in its strength. I expect to get a lifetime of good service out of the knife.

Truthfully it is probably not a good knife for everyday carry. But it is a fun knife to use, and it has such a neat and unusual mechanism for opening. Those factors, plus the high quality and beauty of the knife make it a very solid 9 for me.