my name is taken

occasionally insightful, always online

I've ordered a Dodo

Just placed an order for a Dodocase for my iPad. It's a doppelganger for a Moleskine, with the "pages" cleverly simulated by the bamboo form into which the iPad is inserted.

It looks great, but what sold me was the video (see below) showing how the covers are made by hand using traditional book binding techniques. I love knowing what goes into a product, and it's obvious within seconds of watching these craftsmen that they've been doing it for years. 

Updated: Their Facebook page has additional production photos and videos, as well.

     
Click here to download:
Ive_ordered_a_Dodo.zip (59 KB)

Now that is an iPad case

Hand-stitched leather from Orbino. You can almost smell it through the screen. I love the brushed metal home button. Just <cough> $209.

   
Click here to download:
Now_that_is_an_iPad_case.zip (173 KB)

50ft off the ground

That's Gillian near the top of REI's climibing pinnacle. I just finished climbing this route, too. My arms are jelly.

Kahalui airport takes their sanitation very seriously

Just found this coin. Anyone able to identify it?

via tweetie

"I just saved over 8Gb on my iPhone"

And 15% on my car insurance.

Whee!

Okay, seriously. I was pleasantly surprised today when I tried out the new auto-conversion option in the new iTunes 9.1. It takes the music you sync to your iPhone or iPod and automatically samples it down to 128Kbps AAC files. Since I use Apple Lossless as the format when I rip a CD, my music files are huge.

By turning this option on, the 13.5 GB of music I had before now fits in just 4.75Gb of space. It took quite a while for it to resample the music, but from what I've read, once a song's been resampled, iTunes caches it and never needs to do it again.

Explosion of light