Category: Product Reviews (Page 4 of 7)

by Steven Hoffman, Publisher of Founders Space

Nothing is better for Xmas than an XShot — it makes the perfect stocking stuffer for anyone who wants to take photos over the holidays!

Check out the video below.   This product is brilliant. And they have an iPhone case that works like a I charm with both the XShot and any tripod you may own.  I know because I own them both!

As you can probably tell, I love the design. The product is also incredibly well made. It doesn’t feel cheap. It’s actually very sturdy. If you love gadgets, like we do, you will get a kick out this one!

NOTE: We received free samples of their products for this review.

by Steven Hoffman, Cofounder of Founders Space

Like most founders out there, I pre-ordered my iPhone 5, and I love it.  The one problem was that I was terrified of dropping it before I had a new case.

Fortunately, I just got two cases in the mail from Cygnett, and they’re pretty darn cool.

The first is Cygnett’s WorkMate.  It’s a shock-absorbing case that’s both rugged and stylish.  I’d say this case is for guys.  Mine is kaki green, and it looks like it’s ready to go to battle.  The case is well built.  It snuggly fits an iPhone 5, and it’s simple to remove.

The case is built of high quality materials.  Nothing cheap about it, except the price.  It’s only $24.99.  For the money, this is a good buy — especially if you’re a guy (or an outdoorsy woman) who wants a sturdy, yet stylish case.

The second case I tried out was the Cygnett UrbanShield.  Now this is a sleek and minimal case, and it too only costs $24.99.

What you gain in looks, you do lose in protection.  This case seems well-made, but it’s definitely not as rugged as the WorkMate.

For women and guys who’d rather have a smart-looking case, I’d recommend it over the WorkMate.

Again, this is made of high-quality materials, so it should provide adequate protection for most drops, but I wouldn’t go running over your new iPhone in a car.

Also, this doesn’t have much of a rim that sticks out over the glass, so if your phone falls face-down on a rough surface, it might not help much.  The WorkMate, mentioned above, does have a rim that protrudes well beyond the glass.

All things considered, it comes down to what you value most: style or protection.  You decide!

NOTE: We received free samples of their products for this review.

Okay, so you’ve got your iPhone 5 and you’re looking for cases, like every startup founder is right now. We just tried out two cases from STM, and they are really nice.

The first is the STM Opera for the iPhone 5. It’s perfect for anyone who wants a simple, lightweight case that affords pretty good protection.

Tile pattern inspired by the Sydney Opera House.

The opera iPhone 5 case is designed to be slim and comfortable. The form fitting design protects your iPhone 5 with impact resistant thermoplastic polyurethane. All ports are accessible, while the case front edge wraps slightly around the glass bezel to further guard the screen. less

* Lightweight, flexible yet durable iPhone 5 protection

* Textured TPU – comfortable and easy to hold

* Access to all ports, buttons, controls and camera lens

* Sleek and form fitting

* Protective rim around edge of phone for front glass protection

In our opinion, this is a durable, well-made case.  It’s not as fancy as some other cases.  No natural woods or leather, but it’s highly functional and will get the job done.  For $29.99, it’s a good buy.

The second case we tried is the STM Harbour for the iPhone 5.  It’s not quite as sleek as the Opera, but it provides more protection.

As the name says, this is a safe harbour for your iPhone 5.  It comes with a dual hard shell and soft touch construction protecting your device. The inside lining is modeled after the Sydney Opera House tile design. It has satin matte finish for long term finger print and scratch resistance.

The harbour iphone 5 case has a unique design that hinges open to remove or insert your iPhone. Dual density thermo polyurethane cradles and protects the device. Sleek and form fitting, the harbour protects from external abuse and compliments the design and contours of the iPhone 5.

* Dual layer construction for durability and protection – soft touch TPU against your phone with hard shell outer lining

* Access to all ports, buttons, controls and camera lens

* Sleek and form fitting design for a comfortable carry

* Protective rim around edge of phone

* Easy access to remove or dock your phone with hinged bottom

* Satin matte finish for long term finger print and scratch resistance

Overall, we like the design.  It’s sturdy, well-made and good looking.  We had no problem accessing the buttons or ports.  For $34.99, you can’t go wrong with this case.

NOTE: We received free samples of their products for this review.

Here are our top 10 favorite apps for both Android phones and tablets. These are apps we use all the time. Most of these apps are free, and they’re all wonderful. We’re constantly amazed at the creativity out there.

1. Evernote (organize your life)

2. BBC News (keep informed)

3.  Jackpot Words (my favorite game)

4. Instagram (photos) or KakaoStory (new & cool)

5. Seesmic (Twitter) or Facebook (social network)

6. Google Sky Map (map the stars)

7. Layar (augmented print)

8. Skyfire (this browsers supports Flash)

9. Swype (new way to type)

10. Songifty (turn speech into music)

If you’re running a startup and need an audio editor, check out Amadeus Pro.  Nothing beats having a Swiss Army Knife of sound tools when you need them.  We’ve reviewed other audio editors in the past, but none of them has as many features as Amadeus Pro.  It does just about everything you can think of, including providing support for a variety of Audio Units and VST plugins.

To start with, Amadeus Pro is a fully featured multitrack editor. Each track can have its volume and panning adjusted independently from the others. Each track can be split into multiple audio clips that can easily be dragged independently of each other. In addition, Audio Units can be applied to individual tracks in real-time without requiring any destructive editing.

Amadeus Pro supports batch editing, which makes life much easier.  If there’s a collection of files that you wanted to convert to Mp3, but you first wanted to normalize them and make them fade in and out nicely, you can do it with a few clicks.  The powerful batch processor allows you not only to convert large numbers of files between any of the supported formats, but you can also instruct Amadeus Pro to apply any sequence of sound effects to the batch.  Any professional audio designer will appreciate this.

A handy repair centre allows you to find and to repair cracks with a simple click of the mouse. Furthermore, Amadeus Pro’s powerful denoising functions allow you to easily get rid of that annoying hiss on your old tape recordings or of that 50Hz hum picked up by a badly insulated microphone.

Convert vinyls or tapes to CD

• Amadeus Pro’s powerful denoising and repairing functions make it easy to remove that annoying hiss on your favourite tape recordings or the scratch on that old vinyl recording
• Split your recording into multiple tracks with one handy function, for use by iTunes for example
• Burn your recording to an Audio CD straight away from within Amadeus Pro with a simple click of the mouse
• Dedicated equalizers make it easy to get the original sound back from very old recordings

Powerful batch processing functions

• Converts to and from the following file formats: Amadeus, AIFF, WAVE, Mp3, Ogg Vorbis, Mp4, M4a (AAC and Apple Lossless), FLAC, Apple CAF, QuickTime, SoundDesigner II, Next, Mp2 (reading only)
• Allows you to apply arbitrary sequences of sound effects to a collection of files
• Preserves metadata (artist, song title, album cover, etc) even across formats, provided that the format supports metadata

Sound effects

• Full support for both Audio Unit and VST audio Plug-Ins means that the functionality of Amadeus Pro can be extended and tailored to suit your particular requirements perfectly
• The most commonly used effects (multiband graphic equalizers, volume normalization, fade in/out, echo, speed and pitch change, etc) are built into the program and therefore benefit from a nice MacOS X – like user interface
• Amadeus Pro allows you to maintain a list of favorite actions, so that your commonly used tasks are always only one mouse click away

Analyzing functions

• Create high quality sonograms or spectrum analyses for professional or amateur use
• The many real-time analysis tools of Amadeus Pro make it the perfect pedagogical tool for explaining the physics of sounds
• Extensive waveform statistics