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Our Favorite Things: Logitech Harmony Remotes
Me Hanging With the Gillmor Gang
Our Favorite Reviews of 2010
Five Days of Festivus Contest: Win $500 To Spend On Presents

Our Favorite Things: Logitech Harmony Remotes

Posted: 04 Dec 2010 10:46 AM PST

Logitech Harmony Remotes
MSRP: $40 – $399
Product Page
Good For: People with multiple AV devices, each with their own remote
Not for: Luddites

OEM remotes are little demons, set to hassle owners and confuse guests. They’re horrible and not one is worthy of its space on this earth. They get exorbitantly more painful when another one finds its way into the livingroom and joins the horde. It’s best to cast them away from the coffee table to a junk drawer and instead use a true universal remote like on from the Logitech Harmony series.

There isn’t a more consumer-friendly solution available. It seriously takes about 8 and half minutes to program a Harmony to control an entire AV setup. The online software easily creates natural macros that places compenents within activities rather than functions. Selecting the Watch TV button will power on the TV, cable box, and if necessary, AV reciever and then set each device to the appropate input/mode. The volume keys will automagically operate the AV receiver while the channel input buttons sends commands to the cable box — all without pressing a device button.

The series starts out at $40 with the 300 that can handle just a Watch TV command. Each model increases substantially in price but also feature set as well. Higher models gain LCDs, touchscreens, recharging docks, even RF modes for out-of-sight device control.

Don’t pay for retail for these things though. They can often be found well under their MSRP with a quick Google search. Trust us, what ever one you get (I have the 600 & 900), it will quickly become one of your favorite things as well.

Matt Burns loves writing, gadgets, and puppies. Stalk him on Twitter or contact him direct at Matt@CrunchGear.com.

Me Hanging With the Gillmor Gang

Posted: 04 Dec 2010 10:03 AM PST

What fun! I got to hang with Robert Scoble, Steve Gillmor, Andrew Keen, and Kevin Marks and talk about entertainment media and the future of media.

Our Favorite Reviews of 2010

Posted: 04 Dec 2010 09:54 AM PST

Picking our favorite things of 2010 is hard but picking our favorite reviews isn’t. Here are some of our best chunks of opinion, in no particular order, expressing the mirth and wisdom of the entire CG staff.

Apple iPad

So with this we begin my iPad review. I'll tip my hand right now: My official opinion is to wait. The device, as it stands, is so close to the original iPhone that you get a sense of Deja Vu when you open the box and are exposed to the empty canvas bare of apps. Out of the box it is, at best, a large iPod Touch. As Adam Engst wrote on Tidbits: "Here's the thing that I've realized after using the iPad – it's a blank slate, a tabula rasa." This is both good and bad. Because even the iBook store is not pre-installed, Kindle konverts may be disappointed and because most of the best functionality comes in the form of iWork for iPad and any number of apps and games, as a pure, unadulterated Apple artifact it is a bit underwhelming.

But what should you wait for?

I certainly enjoy using the device, and I will be purchasing a 3G model when it comes out because I don't want to be tethered to Wi-Fi. You could also wait for the second generation and I think many of the unconverted iPhone users will take that route once they see enough iPads to get jealous. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

PlayStation Move

Sony sent us 4 games along with the PlayStation Move. Two of them make me want to turn off the PS3, curl up into the fetal position, and cry my pain away. One is decent. One of them is so damn good that I want to invite everyone I know over for a glimpse into the future.

The platform that Sony built here has incredible potential — now it's up to game developers to make it worth while.

Macbook Air 13-inch

There will be no pleasing either side of the Apple fanboy divide with this review so I’ll say it up front: If you’re looking for an alternative to a heavier Apple laptop – a MacBook Pro, say, or an Apple Powerbook 170 – and you travel, the MacBook Air is an excellent choice. If you rarely travel and/or are not a Mac fan, you will probably be better served by a cheaper netbook.

Dyson AM02 Tower Fan

It's been a long, hot summer here on the homestead. John-John gets the whoopus when the dust kicks up and the house, such as it is, is about as hot as an oven most days. Most of August, when one of the neighbors rides into to town to check the bank thermometer and we find out that it's well into the nineties, we usually just headed out to the old horse trough and poured water on our shirts. But this year we got a fancy, city-slicking Dyson AM02 and I'm here to tell you that whatever man made this fan is a friend to our simple, country family.

Mint Floor-Cleaning Robot

It’s not for everybody, but it sure is for guys like me. This cleaning bot for hardwood floors is a dream come true for dust-haters, and it’s cute to boot.

Canon Rebel T2i DSLR camera>

An outstanding consumer DSLR and liberating video recorder, the T2i is a powerhouse media device in a small and relatively affordable package. What I think of as killer features, however, may not be viewed as such by the buying population at large.

Ceramic Speakers by Joey Roth

These designer speakers have a unique design and excellent sound. Their appearance may not be for everybody, and the lack of a subwoofer affects a portion of the bass, but apart from that these are a true high-fidelity audio solution.

Parrot AR Drone

We’ve seen the AR.Drone floating around multiple events this year including CES but we never really got a chance to play with it until this week. Before I get into my review, I’m going to tell you a story. People ask me all the time “What’s the coolest thing you’ve seen” and like a football stadium toilet attendant being asked how his Sunday went, I always reply with a downcast face and a sad, slow sigh. “Nothing,” I’d answer. “Nihil.”

But the AR.Drone has renewed my faith in gadgets. It is, in short, the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long, long time. This quadro-copter floats effortlessly through the air and has all of the self-righting capabilities of a Segway. The iPhone controls are amazingly intuitive – just press a button and move the iPhone in the direction you’d like it to go. Emergency controls take over when you screw up. It is fun, technologically advanced, and, in short, amazing.

Microsoft Kinect

Oh, Microsoft. You just can’t seem to help but be the last one to every party you attend. You launched the Kin just as messenger phones began to die, then you launched Windows Phone 7 when the smartphone wars were so far underway that most folks had already declared an allegiance.

And now you’ve got your motion gaming platform, the Kinect, hitting the shelves years after the Nintendo Wii and months after the Playstation Move. I’ve spent the last week living with a Kinect in my life. How does it fare?

Five Days of Festivus Contest: Win $500 To Spend On Presents

Posted: 04 Dec 2010 05:59 AM PST

Our friends at Wishpond are offering $500 to the winner of this week’s super contest that you can win just by surfing the Internet. That’s right! Five hundred clams just for doing what you do every day anyway.

First, the Wishpond spiel:

Wishpond is a platform that powers a local product search engine and iPhone app.

As a consumer you can find what you want at both big-box retailers and small boutique stores in your neighborhood (Wishpond is in more than 100,000 locations in North America). If you can't find it, you can just "wish" for it. Like Priceline for travel, Wishpond brings you the power to negotiate—make a "wish" to your local merchants and let them make you a deal. Also, consumers can get green and support their local communities and merchants this season. Local shopping makes a big difference to the air we breath and the communities in which we live.

Now, for the real meat of the deal. For the next five days we’re celebrating the five official parts of Festivus. You must participate each day to win, so no slacking off.

The days will include:

Day 1 – Festivus pole
Day 2 – Airing of Grievances
Day 3 – Festivus dinner
Day 4 – Feats of Strength
Day 5 – Festivus miracles

Each day, from today until wednesday, we’ll ask you to perform one activity. It could be a secret word hunt or it could be a commenting request. Your mission is to perform each one in order. Today’s mission is to answer this question in an email to contest @ crunchgear dot com with the subject like “Festivus #1:” What is the best thing to use when cutting a thread into an aluminum pole and why is this particular substance necessary. (Don’t spoil things by putting the answer in comments. It’s a pretty easy Google search.)

Remember to check back for the next five days for the rest of the Festivus Feats of Strength!

We will pick one person who has completed all of the requests correctly and with great vigor. Special thanks to Wishpond for helping make Festivus for the rest of us.

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