Matador Member – thefuturexpat

Photos by thefuturexpat

I travel because I feel wanderlust deep in my soul. The first time I left the country was for a school exchange in 5th grade and I haven’t looked back since!

Be sure to check out thefuturexpat’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Anything by Malcolm Gladwell

Photos courtesy of WebUrbanist

WebUrbanist has rounded up a few amazing gadget and tech designs that make James Bond’s toys look like…well, toys.

A few that made the list almost seem a step backwards, like the Warmouse OOMouse, which has no less than 18 customizable buttons.

Others were downright creepy – case in point, the Amoeba Phone, a tiny hunk of plastic that contours to your face like the Blob, but with reception. Or this bed-and-entertainment-center, which makes Wall-E seem frighteningly plausible.

But most are downright cool. How about speakers that are nothing more than a clear membrane on your TV screen?

A headset that allows you to control video games with your brain?

Or maybe contact lenses that deliver news, weather, and email right to your eyes, and an implant that allows you to touch a word and hear its definition and pronunciation whispered in your ear?

Amazing progress? Freaky sci-fi movie? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

A compact, lightweight travel tote and water bottle holder, the Cruising Caddy is the perfect companion while taking walks or orienting yourself to a new city.

You can carry essential identification cards, a camera, cellphone, maps and other gear to help you survive your trek.

Managing editor Julie Schwietert reviewed the Cruising Caddy awhile back for Matador Goods and here’s an excerpt:

The Cruising Caddy is my latest bag, a small tote that’s ideal for filling with essentials for short walks.

Though it would be perfect to stick inside a larger bag and pull out at Immigration and Customs, all documents organized comfortably inside, I like this bag because I don’t have to store it under the bed between trips.

It’s got a dozen day-to-day uses, from a walk around the neighborhood with my dog to an afternoon rollerblading on the Hudson River.

The tote retails for $24.98 and you can read the entire review here. In the spirit of thanksgiving, we’ll be giving away a free Cruising Caddy to our readers.

AND THE WINNER IS…

@namedwon.

We will be sending them their free Cruising Caddy.

Want to win more free stuff from Matador? Follow us here @matadornetwork and keep your eyes peeled for the next contest!

Photo by ddqhu, feature photo by karindalziel

GelaSkins

Chances are someone on your list already has an iPhone, Blackberry, Kindle, iPod…

For all of these and more, GelaSkin offers an artistic way to protect the front and back from scratches. Choose from their gallery of artwork, or visit GelaSkins to customize your own skin with art or even photos.

Price: $14.95 to $17.99

IOGear WiFi Finder

This little keychain will alert users to hotspots within 500 feet, meaning there’s no need to power on the laptop to find Wi-Fi.

Four LEDs will show the signal strength and LAN service coverage. While the finder won’t tell you whether or not the network requires a password, it’s still a good deal for around $10.

Price: $9.95

 

QuikPod Handheld Convertible Tripod

Personally, I like the odd angles and in-your-face images that come from taking a real self-portrait.

But this attachment is great for those times when you actually want to see some background behind your mug, not to mention capturing some decent video.

Price: $17.37

Tavo Gloves

Touch screens are great until winter comes and you realize you’ve got to choose between using your iPhone outside, or losing the gloves (and possibly a finger).

These gloves by Tavo are designed to let you use you iPhone or Blackberry Storm while keeping your fingers free of frostbite.

Price: $29.88

iLuv Mini Portable Speakers

There’s a wide variety of mini-speakers out there that range from cheap and awful to amazing and bank-breaking.

A good option is the iLuv for mp3 Players and iPods, which users claim have great sound for such a tiny package.

Price: $21.99

USB Humping Dog

And finally, for the less mature computer geeks on your shopping list, these pointless but hilarious little pups might make a great stocking stuffer.

No function, no purpose – just plug one in and watch him show your laptop who’s boss.

Price: $8.94

Photo courtesy of Wired, feature photo by jardenburg

In the ongoing battle of Mac vs. PC, it seems odd that the workers in those blindingly white Apple stores surrounded by slick Macbooks and iPhones would use…the horrors…a Microsoft product to help customers. But alas, in the past they have indeed been employing Windows CE-based handheld computers in the checkout line. Of course, like Vista, there were complaints of the usual crashes and general tortoise-like operation.

The solution?

An app, of course. According to Wired, the workers now use an iPod Touch with an application called EasyPay Touch to scan items, read credit cards, issue returns, and more. Much like the excitement of using your iPhone to, say, print a document on the printer in the next room, this Friday workers and customers alike will get to geek out over tapping “cash” on the Touch and opening a register drawer on the other side of the store. (Does anyone else see a potential safety issue here?)

Wired points out a bit of irony – to accept signatures, the Touch needs a stylus, which Wired themselves named “The Most Useless iPhone Accessory. Ever.” two years ago. Still, it seems a small price to pay for yet another shinier, sexier replacement for a Microsoft product. Even if it is only the employees that get to use it.

Feature photo by MPD01605. Photo above via Gerrymay.com

Over at the Freelance Writing Jobs Network, they’ve rounded up a solid list of Black Friday Deals for Writers such as a variety of netbook and laptop deals from Best Buy and Dell.

The official 2009 Black Friday Deals site has begun listing some goodies on sale and stores like Circuit City are offering early deals to those of us who’d rather be sleeping off a heavy turkey dinner than lining up at 3am in the cold.

Here are just a few offerings below:

Acer Aspire 10.1 inch Netbook

Complete with a wireless mouse, lightweight external USB DVD burner, and a protective bag, nab this durable 2.79 pound netbook for $309.00.

The deal also includes free shipping to most US locations.

More specifications:

- Intel Atom processor, a full GIG of DDR2 memory
- 160Gb hard drive,
- 10.1-inch brilliant WSVGA CrystalBrite LED-backlit display.
- Powerful 6-Cell Lithium-ion battery with up to 6 hours playing time

Price: $309.99 | BUY from Circuit City

Sony Walkman 8GP MP3/MP4 Player

This 8GB video MP3 player from Sony provides up to 45 hours of continuous music and 8 hours of uninterrupted video on a single charge. 8 hours of video translates into four full length movies that can be loaded onto the player.

It includes a 2.0-inch LCD display and an obviously long-lasting and powerful battery.

Price: $69.99 | BUY from Circuit City

For more sweet deals, visit Black Friday Ads – The Official Black Friday 2009 Website.

Rosetta World™ allows you to play with your newly acquired language skills. Literally. You can play games, engage in chats, and other activities to help you apply your knowledge in everyday situations.

Brief Overview

Rosetta World ™ provides three modules – Solo, Duo, and Simbio. In Solo mode, you get to play games by yourself in your new language (in my case, Swedish). Duo mode means you get to play against another player, and in Simbio, you’ll actually share your native language (in my case, English) with other members and take turns helping each other out. TOTALe’s dashboard is intuitive and so accessing a particular Rosetta World ™ mode was just a click away.

Solo Mode

I had two game options available to me: Mengo and Gambo. Opted for Mengo since it kind of reminded me of mango, plus I couldn’t access Gambo anyways because I hadn’t reached a crucial learning milestone.

The goal of the game was to flip two cards over, find pictures and their matching words or phrases. The game seemed impossible to win or even get into since each time you flipped two cards that didn’t match, it kept saying you were wrong.

If there was some hidden sequence or way of figuring it out besides flipping two random cards, as a Solo player, I didn’t get it right away (read more on Duo mode below).

A cool aspect of the game was the fact that the words were read out in the language you were learning so, in a sense, you kept learning whether you got the concept of the game or not.

Duo Mode

In Duo mode, there were a lot more gaming options. World ™ lets you know how many people are available online to play with and you can also “Find partners” as well. Like Solo mode, some games are in lockdown until you’ve reach certain milestones.

Finding a partner to play with took two days, mostly because Swedish isn’t a popular language but I was finally able to connect with Oleg, another native English speaker learning Swedish. We first played Nimba, a word matching game, but quickly tired of it and moved on to the picture games of Tingo and Mengo.

This was where Rosetta World ™ truly shined.

Once Oleg and I got into the games which required mental mapping and matching pictures with words and phrases, our competitive juices began to flow.

I smoked Oleg while playing Tingo which required quick fingers, matching pictures to words, while Oleg left me in the dust while playing Mengo – the same flipping-of-cards game I didn’t get under Solo mode.

And I finally understood how Mengo worked after playing with a real partner.

Once we were done, I found a way of instantly messaging Oleg using the Connections manager to say thanks for playing, including asking if he was up for one more round of Mengo for the road – which he subsequently won.

Simbio Mode

Simbio mode is when you get a chance to teach others your native language (English) by speaking with them while they teach you theirs as well (Swedish). Since most Swedes already speak English pretty fluently, my Simbio mode had “0 People” available for me to chat with.

I wasn’t able to find a Swedish partner to verbally engage with mostly because of the time difference and because there weren’t too many students studying Swedish so I really couldn’t test Simbio like I wanted to.

But if it’s anything like Studio where I actually got to speak with a live person, I probably would have really liked it.

The Verdict?

I initially approached World ™ skeptically. Nowadays, finding the time to learn a new language, let alone spend hours playing games in that language seemed very unrealistic.

So Solo mode didn’t really work for me, but once I got into Duo mode, I was re-energized because of the one-on-one interaction with another player.

With Duo, I could easily spend hours just playing games with someone else.

Overall Assessment of Rosetta Stone TOTALe

After hours of reviewing TOTALe, an extremely high quality and dynamic product, where it clearly excelled was when there was some real life interaction with someone else. Rosetta Studio is rock solid as is the Duo play mode in Rosetta World.

Like I mentioned in Review 2 of Rosetta Studio, if some of the interactive aspects of the program could be packaged separately, then the pricing structure won’t be a big issue for potential customers.

If you truly are serious about learning a new language while also remotely immersing yourself in the language with native speakers, I highly recommend Rosetta Stone TOTALe.

Read Review Series: Rosetta Stone TOTALe – Part 2.
Read Review Series: Rosetta Stone TOTALe – Part 1.

Pricing information

The entire program costs $1,199 per year and this includes unlimited online access to the three modules outlined above and an accompanying audio kit to use offline for learning the courses.

Photo by Mike Licht.
Feature photo by goXunuReviews

Whether or not you’re a fan of e-readers like the Kindle or nook, they aren’t going anywhere. According to The New York Times, you might even be able to soon check out e-books from your local library.

NYT reports that the New York Public Library, for example, “has about 18,300 e-book titles, compared with 860,500 in circulating print titles, and purchases of digital books represent less than 1 percent of the library’s overall acquisition budget.”

It’s a small start, but it’s a start nonetheless. In a time where the only purpose books sometime seem to serve is to be made into a blockbuster movie, it’s refreshing to see libraries making great literature both old and new even more accessible to the public.

Maybe newspapers and publishers haven’t quite figured out how to embrace the digital age, but it seems at least libraries are thinking about the future.

Photo by ubrayj02

Mapes’ book is best appreciated in contrast to its cinematic counterpart, Veer, a documentary claiming to cover all elements of bike culture. Unlike Veer, which never looks beyond Portland, Oregon, Mapes’ new book actually accomplishes its tagline.

Mapes, a Portland-based journalist, looks far beyond the subcultures of his city to other urban areas such as Davis, Chicago, Minneapolis, and New York. He even ventures overseas to European bicycle bastions Copenhagen and Amsterdam, where cyclists are ubiquitous. Mapes is a trained reporter but doesn’t let that stop him from participating in his own story; he actually rides a bike in each of the cities he visits. This strengthens his assertions and makes his research more accessible.

The book first runs through a history of the cycling movement in American cities, then includes chapters on Amsterdam, Davis, Portland, New York, with a smattering of other cities dropped in. The book covers bikes and safety, the health benefits of biking, and children on bikes.

Mapes touches on both the recreational aspects of cycling (the World Naked Bike Ride and Zoobombing in Portland, for example) to more technical urban planning issues.

Supporting his extensive research are interviews with an impressive array of cyclists and cycling advocates. Mapes manages to visit and document a daunting collection of cities and issues without losing sight of his central tenant: that cycling is a vital part of the future of healthy, livable American communities.

Bikes present an attractive solution to a number of urban problems, Mapes argues. “The bike offers a non-polluting, non-congesting, physically active form of transportation in a country, and in a world, that increasingly seems to need such options,” he explains.

The heightened global competition for the world’s oil supplies has ended the era of cheap fuel that made our automobile dependency possible. Our increasingly sedentary lifestyle raises the specter of an obesity epidemic that could shorten the life span of the next generation. And we’re outstripping our ability to maintain and expand our network of roads and bridges….Pedaling Revolution

The Pedaling Revolution eventually proves that the movement towards bicycle-friendly streets goes beyond just cycling; it fits into the larger solution for smarter urban planning and more liveable cities. “Imagine fewer parking lots and more public plazas,” Mapes writes.

“Think of urban neighborhoods that have the walkable ambiance of an old European city, not wide streets and strip malls. Or maybe just the kind of street that is safe enough for kids to once again play in.”

My only criticism is that the book’s many unfamiliar terms would be easier to remember had Mapes included a glossary. Ultimately, though, Pedaling Revolution is the best source out there for understanding how and why cyclists are slowly accomplishing the unthinkable: wrestling American cities away from automobile drivers and changing the very landscape of our cities.

Community Connection

For more on the biking culture around the US, check out these articles:

A Pedaler Amongst Lead Foots: Biking to Work

May is National Bike Month in the US

Bike Touring Montana: Classic Big Sky Rides

How To Be Good (Better) Drivers and Cyclists

Feature photo by Ken@Okinawa. Photo above by Ed Yourdon

For the majority of musicians, making music keeps us sane and grounded. Music is an extension of who we are, an aspect of our personality. Too long without music and we end up like my poor houseplants – wilted and ready to die.

Unfortunately, most instruments don’t lend themselves to travel, especially if you’re trying to keep your pack weight low. Imagine schlepping your backpack along for a mile in the rain to board a crowded train.

Now imagine doing that while carrying an acoustic guitar.

Photo by Photomish Dan

Maybe, like me, your main instruments are bass or piano. Or, maybe the thought of even letting the airlines look at your guitar gives you nightmares.

If you choose to leave your primary instrument at home, you will need to learn a new, smaller instrument for travel. Choosing a new instrument to learn is not a choice to be made lightly.

To become even mediocre will take hours and hours of practice, but this time investment will pay great dividends when you find that perfect spot for an impromptu concert.

Plus, learning to play well is a matter of common courtesy. Have you ever heard a poorly played violin? Did it remind you of a dying marmot?

In the following list, I’ve tried to avoid miniature travel versions of real instruments. With the exception of the Martin Backpacker, these are all ‘real’ instruments. For those who can sing, the first seven instruments on the list are good for accompaniment. All others are solo instruments.

Finally, in an effort to improve the quality of sleep for hostel guests around the world, I have omitted djembes and other hand drums.

Guitar

If you really have to take a guitar, the Martin Backpacker has a decent sound, a low price, and plays well. If you’re really brave, you could always take your chances with hostel guitars.

Mandolin

Mandolins require a little more care than some of the others, especially to maintain decent tuning, but gives you a good range and the ability to make chords. . Not the best choice if you have small fingers.

Accordion

These come in several shapes and sizes, and it’s possible to find small models of reasonable quality.

Autoharp

A unique, folksy instrument, the autoharp allows you to play a melody over chords while singing. Like a zither but easier to play because of the chord buttons.

Ukulele

Another good accompaniment instrument. Cheap and versatile, but can’t match the mandolin in terms of sound quality and resonance.

Violin/Fiddle

Possibly the most difficult and expressive instrument on the list. If you can play violin well, you already know how awesome your instrument is.

Erhu

The Erhu is a two string Chinese violin. This delicate instrument requires a hell of an ear but wins hand down for uniqueness. With the right case (think hard foam padding), this could be a remarkable travel instrument.

Recorders

You probably learned to play one of these in school. What this instrument lacks in range it makes up for in low-weight quirkiness.

Clarinet

Not the lightest or easiest instrument on the list, but definitely the dorkiest. Conveniently breaks down into a small package. Pads and reeds could pose a problem, especially in subtropical zones.

Flute

A pretty instrument, difficult to play well, but a little easier to play than the clarinet. Like the clarinet, pads will require extra care. As a bonus you can play along with Jethro Tull covers.

Harmonica

The harmonica is almost a travel cliché. Lightweight, cheap, durable, and reasonably easy to play. Unfortunately, anyone you play with is limited to whatever key your harp happens to be in.

Ocarina

An instrument so light and smooth it can be worn as a necklace. Against all conventions of fashion, people do just this. Cheap and easy to play, but limited in range.

Bonus Instrument – Your Own Mouth

You’re already carrying your own mouth with you, why not use it? The most lightweight instrument of all, you can both whistle and sing.

If this is going to be your main instrument, learn some songs. Pop songs, folk songs, and Irish airs are a good place to start.

Over to you. What kind of instruments have you seen or taken on your travels?

Community Connection

For more on traveling as a musician, check out Essential Gear for the Traveling Musician and 5 Things You Should Know When Traveling With Musical Instruments.