Most of the time, we don’t really need to own THE newest and coolest gadget that has been released to feel happy and complete; just convincing ourselves that we don’t actually need it is often well enough to make us feel satisfied anyway.

So if after reading this review you still think “what is the purpose of this?”, then there’s probably no reason for you to get an iPad.

Smile, you just saved $500 (sorry, $499)

When I’m working from home, I have a dual-monitor setup for my PC. Very useful on busy days or for keeping an eye on RSS feeds while watching a movie. The truth is, it makes me feel like being some kind of a successful trader who monitors the financial markets… “buy, buy” or “Oh my God! Sell, sell!!”. Really??!
No. But some fellows do that, I’m almost sure.

On the road I take my MSI Wind netbook, and while multiple desktops are handy, I sometimes wish I had a second screen for that thing, too – all the more so as netbooks have such a tiny screen that you get your eyes burnt after 30 minutes of browsing the Internet. Yeah, it’d though be pretty weird to set up a 13-inch LED-backlit secondary screen at a coffee shop but anything to get the job done, right? Right.

Made by MEDL Technologies, it’s called simply “The Panel” and it’s exactly what it says it is: a secondary screen that uses USB as its display link. There are smaller solutions, of course, but this is the biggest standalone monitor I’ve seen that just runs off USB. It’s also battery-powered, and will run for five hours, which… is good, I guess, but it isn’t clear whether it’s charged by the USB or not. If not… why not?

It weighs just over 2 pounds, and at a 1280×800 resolution, it’s just big enough for HD stuff. One really handy use I can think of is if you have kids, you just hook this sucker up, put a few cartoons into a playlist, and put the screen facing away from you so the kids can watch while you work. Handy for airports and vacations.

Unfortunately it’s not a touchscreen. That would have been a really nice feature, but I guess we’ll have to wait for “The Touch Panel.”

Design “Made in Switzerland”
We are all familiar with the swiss army knife which had its time of glory at the end of the 80s thanks to Holywood actor Richard Dean Anderson (aka “Mister I-can-fix-a-car-engine-with-a-tooth-pick-a-pant’s-zipper-and-my-swiss-army-knife”). By no other mean the guy who came-up with such a crazy (but revolutionnary) idea of putting a toolbox in a knife (and that was in 1897!) could be anything else but Swiss. When I ask (non-swiss) people around me to define Switzerland in a word, “chocolate”, “clock”, “William Tell”, “snow covered mountains”, “secret bank accounts”, “Heidi” and “Swiss Army Knife” come always first. I hope that after reading this post, those same people will from now on add “beautiful and intelligent design” to their list.

The Story
My passion for Swiss design (I’m not talking here about “cucu clocks” or “glass snow-balls”) started at the age of 10 when my grand-father offered me my very first Swiss Army Knife during a holyday in Zinal, Switzerland. Since then, I’ve been a fan of those wonderful objects bearing the Swiss cross logo. And since today I can still not consciously accept to spend 700€ in a Strellson jacket, I started to look for some alternatives for cool, practical and design accessories made in “Helvetia”.

The Problem
The issue I have with netbooks is that they’re so small, that computer case manufacturers don’t bother designing really cool cases for them. They think that a netbook per se is meant to be carried in any existing type of case as most of them weigh around a kilo. Fair enough. I used to carry mine in a backpack. Most women I know carry theirs in hand-bag. But for me, that was not enough. Until today.

The Solution
In my quest for the “Ultimate Computer Case”, my latest acquisition was an amazing Swiss Army hand bag of the 1960s I found a couple of weeks ago at the Euroantik Show in Innsbruck, Austria. Cost: 15€ after a little negociation with the vendor. But 15€ is a great bargain considering the quality of the manufacturing of this Swiss Army garment which mixes fine leather, thick denim and stainless steel blades to protect the top, sides and bottom of the bag. And the best of all is that most netbooks with their charging cables, USB cable, earphones and mouse can fit in this 17x30x10cm case! This is what I’d call “space optimization”. And when you’re tired of using it for your laptop, you can always turn it into “The Ultimate Six-Pack Case” or something in that style. Your imagination is the limit, after all.

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Conclusion
I guess that making the same kind of case today, with the same level of manufacturing quality and design originality would bring its retail price to 80€ to 100€. Why would you like to spend this amount of money when you can get it at the flea market or on ebay for less than 15€?

A lasting design of the 1960s for today’s modern technologies.

Practical. Beautiful. Swissmade.

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Skype has been expanding its footprint to most of the major smartphone platforms over the last year or so. It was included on the Nokia N97 when the device launched, but lagged behind with no support for Nokia’s main smartphone platform, S60 3rd Edition. Today, Skype announced a beta version of its software for S60 3rd Edition phones.

On the feature side of things, Skype for Symbian supports:

* Free Skype-to-Skype calling
* Call phones with Skype credits or subscription
* Receive calls on your Online Number
* Instant Messaging
* Group conversations
* File sending and receiving

This beta release of Skype for Symbian supports 17 different phones. Skype says the production release is planned to be compatible with a larger number of devices, and is expected in early 2010.

Skype for Symbian supports the following S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 devices: E71, E63, E66, N82, E51, N95, N95 8GB, N81, N81 8GB, and the E90.

Skype for Symbian supports the following S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 devices: N96, N85, 5320, 6210 Navigator, 6210 Classic, N78, and N79

Remember: Skype for Symbian works over both Wi-Fi and 3G data connections and the application itself is available for free. You won’t have any excuse any more if after that you still manage to blow-up your monthly contract fee and piss-off your banker…

***

Smashing Magazine reviewed some great (and not so great) online invoicing tools, so that you can spend less time creating invoices and more time doing the things you love!

Remember that if you spent so much time and money designing your business card, which is somehow the first creative and useful thing you’ll give your client or prospect, invoices are the last thing you may exchange with them and thus just deserve the same attention and care for their design. Make them impacting and have fun designing them.

***

click here to access the full review

Last week, I was in our London office, and I talked with the guy in charge of Social Media for Nokia (fantastic guy, by the way) and his N97 started to ring. After his conversation, I engaged the discussion on the forthcoming N900, embedding Firefox Mobile, codenamed “Fennec”. And by chance, the guy was playing with it …
Hopefully, I had my camera not too far. I just took these few pictures.

I had not enough time to make an in depth review. However, I played with the browser and with the device for a few minutes.

First impression: it’s glossy, it’s black, it’s sexy.

The people in charge of the design at Nokia are making remarkable efforts, and the N900 is probably one of the most convincing one. The keyboard slider looks remarkable and very robust. It’s a bit thicker than an iPhone, but would perfectly fit in my pocket

Second impression: it’s not S60 – Penguin inside.

Nokia for many years has been working on its Symbian platform, making it the most popular OS for mobile in the world. But looking back to the first steps of Nokia in the tactile world, it seems this OS has difficulties to keep racing against iPhone’s OS or Android’s OS in term of ergonomic, ease of use and user interface. But Nokia secret weapon could be with open source OS. Nokia is experimenting since many years now its Maemo OS, based on the Linux platform, slowly nurturing its community. And having played a few minutes with it, the interface is truly remarkable, far ahead what the Symbian OS could do. And probably the best answer from Nokia regarding the incoming Android Phone and the iPhone.

Third impression: it’s not Firefox – it’s Mobile Firefox.

During the few minutes with the N900, I especially focused on the browser. I carefully followed all the development stage of Fennec, and I must admit that I’ve been truly impressed to test it “live” and to see that Mozilla has made a fantastic job by bringing Internet to the mobile. Of course, iPhone definitely created a market with its iPhone (internet on mobile). But now, Mozilla is in the place, and it is truly great news, since they managed to make a real “mobile Firefox”, not “Firefox redux” or “crappy Firefox for phones”.
I encourage you to have a look at Jay Sullivan demonstration of Firefox Mobile. Nope, it’s not photoshoped, I also did that last week

As a conclusion

This article isn’t only to talk about a nice glossy incoming new phone. The N900 is probably a milestone, by bringing true internet access and raw computer capacities to mobile worker and internet nomad addicts … Can’t wait to test it more extensively, and to see how the ecosystem will work (on today’s phone, the “markets” and the “stores” plays a big role in phone success – look at the itune store and the the android market … probably a big challenge for Nokia).

Looks like just found a new thing to add on my whishlist for Christmas …

More info : http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/

Author : Kerolic