product review

As you read about recently, my wife won me a Cisco Flip Ultra HD video camera for Christmas, and while my initial impressions were not great, I did promise to keep using it and let you know how my impressions evolve. And here I am keeping that promise. Incidentally, I found out from a subscriber on my Youtube channel that Windows 7 finally supports standard MP4 format - I'm still running an older version which is why it did not work for me. So that much is good.

Here is a quick comparison of my trusty old Canon A590 and the Ultra HD, in a typical scenario where people would be using it - a school play. I made several videos like this and posted the longest of them - just shy of 4 minutes. I held one camera in each hand so the two videos below capture the exact same scene. I held them snug up against each other almost as though they were taped together - so they moved as one unit, and any jostling that one experienced, so did the other. My initial impression of the comparison is that the Flip audio is clearly far superior to the Canon. As for video when comparing 480p on both videos (since I cannot even view the 720p on this 4 year old PC - way too choppy) - well - I won't tell you my impressions because I don't want to taint your mind. Have a look yourself and see what you think. Look for little jostles, as well as scenarios where I am panning the cameras back and forth - focus not on the action I'm following, but rather the background as I pan.

I was pretty excited a week or so ago when my wife told me that she won me a Flip Ultra HD video camera for Christmas. I'd heard friends talking about them, and they certainly seemed to be the bees knees as far as home movie making goes. I do a lot of videos for this blog, which I upload to my Youtube channel, so it seemed like it would be a huge boon to me. It arrived by courier a few days ago, and I've been playing with it ever since. Sadly, my impressions so far are not so great. While I'm sure this will be a great camera for a lot of people, in the way I am using it, it is pretty cumbersome.

Aesthetics

Let's first talk about some out-of-the-box aesthetics with this camera. The very first thing I did when I took it out of the box was look for the little wrist strap so that I could install it. My son once dropped my Canon A590 into the cat water because he was not using the strap, and I don't even trust myself using a camera without it. Well, it is a petty little thing, but the Flip Ultra HD does not include one! WTF? I worked for a dozen years for one of Cisco's major competitors, so I know all about cost-reducing products to beef up profit margins, but this is just ridiculous saving a few cents for a wrist strap. Fail. Fortunately we had a couple of old digital cameras around so I just took a strap off one of those and installed it. I honestly did not feel safe using it without one - it is like the feeling I get in a car without a seat belt.

Then next thing I did not like about the camera was the USB connector that flips out of the side. Guess what Cisco - there is a good reason why nobody else does this - my first thought was "I wonder how long it will be before that breaks off". And then once it does, the camera is useless because there is no removable memory card here that can be taken out and plugged into a card reader. Honest to goodness I'd far rather have a micro-USB port on the camera like other digital cameras have. The Flip Ultra HD is really awkward to plug into your computer, and once plugged in the weight of the whole camera is pushing down on that connection, which looks and feels to me to be a recipe for disaster. This is just a really bad idea that seems to be driven solely by a desire to do something different - and in the end what they've achieved is completely counter-productive. Though I think if I pick up a USB extension cable I can use it to overcome this problem for the most part. But even with that, I'll have to flick open that stick, which still makes it susceptible to being broken off. Fail.

With two school-aged boys in our family of five, breakfast on school mornings can be a bit hectic. Our default go-to meal is often toast or, when we have some, cold cereal. Our boys love cereal, but so many of the cold cereal options in the stores leave me feeling a bit.. uh.. cold. They're full of refined sugars, fillers, artificial colours and flavorings, and really don't offer a lot else. Wait, they're fortified, which I guess is supposed to make it all okay. Sorry, but I don't want to feed my boys crap just because it's fortified. Vitamins and minerals aside, it's still over-processed garbage!

The folks at The Green Beaver Company kindly sent us some of their kid-friendly products to try out and review. I've been a big fan of their shampoos and conditioners for grown-ups for a few years (I buy it by the case!) and having been using some of the Jr. line for a few months, so I was pretty excited to try out some more of their products for kids!

Product Name: Marvels All-In-One
Company: Kissaluvs
Country of Origin: USA
Materials: Outer: 100% Polyester Urethane Laminate (PUL); Inner: 100% Polyester; Soaker: 100% Polyester

Diaper Type: One-Size (OS) All-In-One (AIO)
Weight Range: 7-35 lbs
Height of front rise at each setting (approx.): Small -- 16.5cm (6.5"); Medium -- 18cm (7"); Large -- 19cm (7.5")

Let's face it: rainy summer days can really suck if you don't have a magic trick up your sleeve to distract your kids! With this in mind, and knowing I'd need a little extra something to get me through a summer with the two older boys and a baby, I bought an awesome set of activity cards through #1's classroom Scholastic order.

Product Name: Easyfit All-In-One
Company: Tots Bots
Country of Origin: Glasgow, Scotland
Materials: Exterior: 100% Polyester with Polyurethane Laminate; Interior: 50% Rayon from Bamboo, 50% Polyester

Diaper Type: One-Size All-In-One
Weight Range: 8lbs - 35lbs
Height of front rise at each setting (approx.): Infant - 14cm (5.5"); Medium -15.5 cm (6"); Toddler - 17cm (6.75")

Those of you who know me well know that I'm a bit of a cloth diaper nut. I was rather sad when #2 finally toilet-trained, as it meant packing away all that beautiful fluff for an indefinite period of time.

In the few years since then the cloth diaper market has exploded and they've become much more accessible to the average consumer. Accompanying this demand, natural laundry washes, soaps and detergents have multiplied on store shelves -- increasing consumer options and leaving me feeling, at times, as though I went to university just to be able to read the ingredients labels on cleaning products.

I received a package of Swiffer 360° Dusters* for review and I admit dust is something we see a lot of in our house. The package contained the dusting handle and three dusters, and required a bit of assembly.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the product performance. It grabbed the dust just as the packaging promised and was really great at capturing the "fly away" dust that can sometimes rise from the surface with conventional dusters. The handle was comfortable to hold and made reaching those higher spots easier to manage. It even somehow managed to make the dusting seem more fun than usual -- this is always bonus for me. I really dislike housework.