Status-Q

I love my new Motorola RAZR V3. It's the first phone I've really been able to slip in my jeans pocket and not notice. It doesn't spoil the outline of my otherwise svelte figure(!) and it also has noticeably better sound quality than any mobile I've used recently.

Of course, when moving away from Nokia, you sacrifice ease of use, and Motorola's user interface is even worse than most. This has bothered me less in recent years because much of what I used to do on phone keypads I now do on my Powerbook, which integrates with most of them very nicely. Sadly, however, the RAZR doesn't integrate with the Mac Address Book as well as my previous phones. In particular, unlike the Nokia, it doesn't let me send SMS messages directly from the Address Book.

This is why I was particularly pleased to discover BluePhoneElite, a $20 utility which not only gives you lots of control over SMSes, incoming and outgoing calls etc, but also does some cute things with Bluetooth, like pausing your music and changing your IM status when you (& your phone) go out of range of the computer. It also does genuinely useful things like pausing iTunes when you make or receive a call.

Very nice. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Look at the stars!

Mmm. The Segway XT looks fun.

See also the comments on my last segway post for another use for Segways.

Yesterday I rode on a Segway for the first time. I had high expectations and it lived up to all of them. A beautiful bit of engineering.

The main reason I don't have one (despite it being an expensive toy at present) is that I would feel guilty about not exercising. It's faster than walking and more convenient than but not as fast as cycling, but since it wouldn't give me any exercise it's not a compelling replacement for either of those. I couldn't really justify it simply on the basis of being more fun.

For me to buy one I'd need to find a convincing reason to use it instead of a car. I don't have that yet. But I'll keep looking!

Ooh. Now, I really want one of these.

I have a lot to do in my gadget competition with John since he bought his Prius, but I think this might just allow me to overtake!

The iPod camera connector will be available before long. It's on The Apple Store (U.S.). No details yet, though.

It's also very interesting that IBM decided to release this as hardware when, presumably, it could easily be done in software.

Scott Knaster has written a very useful article on the O'Reilly site:iPod Shuffle Tips and Tricks

Recommended for all Shuffle owners.

Do you use water softeners or a filter jug to take all the calcium out of your drinking water? Here's how to put it back again!

This comes from the "let's put two random things together in one new product" school of invention, but I think it's rather fun.

The world's first shoe with active suspension?

This is fun, but considering the power that goes through the sole of your running shoe, it's sad that you still have to fit it with a couple of watch batteries...

Apple is to allow you to download your photos straight from your digital camera to your iPod Photo, using the the iPod Camera Connector, due out in late March. CNET:

The camera connector, Joswiak said, is a small white plastic device, similar in appearance to a small docking station, that has a cable for connecting to the iPod and a USB port for connecting to a camera. It will work with both the new iPod Photos and with earlier photo player models, Joswiak said. Pictures loaded onto an iPod directly will be able to display immediately on the iPod.