The Syndicate Turns One ⇢

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Marcelo Somers:

One year ago this week, I launched The Syndicate, my first venture into running my own business. It’s been a roller coaster – a blast getting to work with some amazing writers who I greatly respect.

To celebrate, this week I’ll be writing several posts to give a glimpse behind the scenes of the business: things I’ve learned, how it’s run, the technology I’ve built to simplify things, and suggestions for marketing your own products and services.

Marcelo has done a great job running things. I was honored when he asked me to be a founding member of the network, and thanks to his hard work, 512 Pixels is in the black, each and every month.

To mark the occasion, The Syndicate is having a sale. If you want to reach over 87,000 nerdy yet handsome RSS readers across 11 sites, get in touch!

Review: The Nike+ FuelBand

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I’m in pretty decent shape. Like most nerds who spend all day in front of a computer, I could stand to lose a few pounds, but I try my best to stay active.

Back in July, I ordered a Nike+ FuelBand. after reading several reviews online. I thought that if I could gamify being active, I would be more prone to get up and move through out the day.

Hardware

The FuelBand is a plain black bracelet, with a silver clasp. Coming in three sizes with two additional “links”, it’s not hard to get a FuelBand to fit comfortably. That said, it’s a little clunky for my taste, but I wear a very thin watch.

Across the top of the band, there’s two banks of LEDs, both controlled with an ambient light sensor. The larger one is made up of 100 white LEDs. This panel will show time, NikeFuel earned, calories burned, etc. Below it, there’s a line of LEDs that fade from red to green as you inch closer to your daily activity goal. The band can be worn on either wrist, the software will let you flip the text on the LED display over.

I’ve noticed that my FuelBand doesn’t seem to be aging very gracefully. The four hex screw heads on the inside of the band are rusting, presumably from sweat. Likewise, the black rubber already seems to be fading.

The battery life is pretty great. If I don’t sit and play with the LEDs all day, I can get two days worth of usage pretty easily. The band comes with a USB cable, and charges quickly.

Software

The FuelBand will track steps, calories and the number of active minutes in your day. While these numbers can be seen individually, FuelBand wraps them all up in something called your “NikeFuel.”

NikeFuel is a number derived from all sorts of activities — walking, jumping, running and more. (As a cyclist, I found that sticking the FuelBand in my pocket let it do a decent job at tracking my activity.)

The FuelBand will hook up to your iPhone over Bluetooth, and sync the number of steps it has recorded. The app keeps up with your trends, so you can see your activity over the course of a week, month or all time.

The software also will “reward” you when your meet your goals by having a robot dance around. No, I’m not making that up. More usefully, the app can push a notice to Twitter or Path when you meet your daily goal.

(All of the data is also available on Nike’s website.)

Wrap-Up

Over the last few months, I’ve seemed to fallen out of love with the FuelBand. It’s a little too bulky for my taste, and it’s rather limited in what it captures, not to mention it doesn’t seem to be holding up well. I want a more complete look at my fitness level, so I’ve pre-ordered the Fitbit One. I’ll be sure to share my thoughts on it after some use. I think it will out-shine the FuelBand pretty easily.

Update: Here’s my Fitbit One review.

One Year

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I hadn’t planned on writing anything marking the one-year anniversary of Steve Jobs’ passing. Then I saw the video on Apple’s homepage.

In it, Jobs quotes Wayne Gretzky:

I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is been.

To drive that point home, the video highlights three products that Jobs brought to the market: the iMac G3, the iPod and the iPhone.

The video includes black and white photography of Jobs with the products, with audio of him introducing them between rounds of applause. The lines from the keynotes should be familiar to Apple nerds. The video clearly paints the picture of Jobs being the man — the force — behind these revolutionary devices.

To show Jobs’ human side, the video includes a photo and audio from the original iPhone introduction when Jobs prank called a Starbucks and ordered 4,000 lattes to go, then plays a clip of Jobs talking about Apple’s love of the arts and humanities, married to technology.

After the video, the website transitions to a letter from Apple CEO Tim Cook. In it, Cook writes:

One of the greatest gifts Steve gave to the world is Apple. No company has ever inspired such creativity or set such high standards for itself. Our values originated from Steve and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple. We share the great privilege and responsibility of carrying his legacy into the future.

No one can replace Steve Jobs, and this video reminds us of that, but I have no doubt Apple will continue to thrive in the coming years. It’s a unique company, thanks almost entirely to its unique founder.

Apple Releases OS X v10.8.2 Supplemental Update 1.0

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Here are the fixes:

  • Resolves an issue that may cause certain Japanese characters to appear incorrectly in Mail
  • Allows Safari to access secure sites when parental controls are enabled
  • Addresses an issue that may prevent systems with more than 64 GB of RAM from starting up

The update can be found in the Mac App Store.

Review: The Kindle Paperwhite

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A year ago, I reviewed the $79 Kindle. Here’s what I said:

The $79 Kindle is very much a contender in the e-ink reader space. While it might not be as fancy as the new Kindle Touch or as large as the Kindle DX, its low price and high build-quality are a tough combination to beat. I’m thrilled with my purchase.

In the 12 months sense, I’ve used the heck of my Kindle. I ended up buying the Amazon case with the built-in light to read more at night, in bed, after my wife is asleep.

When Amazon announced the Kindle Paperwhite with built-in front-lighting, I pre-ordered right away. Here are my thoughts.

Hardware

The Paperwhite returns to the soft-touch back found on the Kindle with Keyboard, and thus shows off fingerprints like crazy. While it feels and looks great in black, over time, I fear my Kindle is going to look greasy. Even the hard black plastic used on the front shows fingerprints. Ick.

The power button and micro-USB port remain on the bottom of the device:

This year’s model drops the audio support found in the Kindle Touch, but coming from the low-end model, I won’t miss it. I will miss the buttons on the side of the device, however. I would have loved the option to use buttons to turn the page, but alas, Amazon has decided to get rid of them in favor of the new touch-ready screen.

Unlike the Touch’s weird-ass IR-blasting “touch” screen, the Paperwhite uses a fully-integrated touch panel. The nasty side effect of the Touch’s super deep bezel isn’t found here. The screen is still depressed in to the device on the Paperwhite, but it’s not uncomfortable to look at anymore.

Touches are precise and register quickly, but in my brief time using the device, I haven’t gotten used to poking the screen. But that’s not the fault of the Kindle, but rather my own years of use.

Speaking of the display, it’s far better than the one on the previous Kindle. Fonts look crisper, and book covers look nice, too. This is thanks to the increase resolution of the panel itself.

(Speaking of fonts, there are now several nice options for reading.)

Then there’s the light.

Oh my, it’s glorious. The light is bright white, but not hard to look at. On my model, it’s rather even, with slight hotspots across the bottom of the display. Overall, the lighting is far more even than what I’m used to with the in-case light I’ve been using. Early reviews state that many people will probably use the Kindle with the light on all the time. I don’t disagree.

Software

The Paperwhite’s software is vastly different that what I am used to. Like some crazy mashup with the Kindle Fire, the new Paperwhite (by default) shows books by their covers, with an easy toggle to see what’s in the Cloud. However, I like the “list” view far better:

The Paperwhite includes a control bar, that’s brought up with a single tap across the top of the display. This area includes a home and back button, as well as search field, link the Kindle Store and a button to show additional menu items. The brightness is also controlled from the bar:

The Search function is interesting. Depending on context, it will search local items, previously-purchased items or the Kindle Store.

The Experimental Browser is still here, and still … well … terrible:

Conclusion

All in all, the Paperwhite acts more like a tablet any other e-ink Kindle I’ve used, and it’s not a bad thing. It feels much more modern than the $79 Kindle ever did, and the ability to see what’s in the cloud easily is simply great. Coupled with a much better display that still retains the benefits of e-ink, this thing is a must-have for people who are serious about ebooks.