the contemporary shopping lifestyle

Hey Tastefully Driven connoisseurs!

Pineapple Pinnacles will be bringing you articles on Fashion as well as Technology.

This being the first post from Pineapple Pinnacles, I’ve decided to marry the two topics together for this month’s virgin post!

I came across off-beat thumb drives like sushi-styles poking out from laptops in workplaces and schools.

Another would be dolls or bears where you rip their heads off to expose the thumb drive.

These definitely fall in the quirky range but would you bring it to a high-profile meeting to transfer files? Or simply pass it around your workplace?

Muffled sneers and masked grins abound.

I don’t think you’ll want that kind of attention.

Of course there are those boring thumb drives that look like this.

‘Safe’ designs – you may call it boring.

I personally wouldn’t fawn over generic designs. The above included.

For this mission, I set out searching for the thumb drives that you might fancy.

Pineapple Pinnacles found two exceptional companies which uses natural wood as their primary material.

They are, Loewestamm Wooden Jewellery based in Ukraine, and ZaNa Design based in Poland.

Any natural material definitely beats artificial materials like plastics.

And get this – the price range is not too out of reach too. =))

I would like to first introduce Loewestamm Wooden Jewellery with history dating all the way back to 1989. It has offices based in UK, US, Canada and Europe.

His collections compose of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, belts, and of course thumb drives.

Endemic Black Sea Coast wood, Grey Mountain Oak, Ash, and Pistachio wood, harvested during the professional thinning of the National Reserves are specially used for Loewestamm’s conceptual creations.

The finished products are covered with a wax-based polish. Some of products have natural Baltic amber.

Each product created by the Loewestamm Company is hand-made and unique; there no two identical pieces of wood.

A highly professional workshop team and strong design control, under the direction of the designer, guarantee the quality of Loewestamm’s exclusive collections.

Bog Oak which has been radio carbon dated 1300 years old, Crimean Mountain Oak, Ash, Plum wood are utilised for their 1–2 GB USB flash drive.

Each product is marked with a metal label of 3.92 mm in diameter.

When you finally order yours from the Loewestamm website, your one-of-a-kind thumb drive would arrive in a package like this.

Prices start at an affordable $60. Enjoy.

For those who would just want a understated quality thumb drive, without the dual ability to morph into jewellery..

I present ZaNa Design which aims to provide consumers the highest quality hand-made products aided only by state-of-the-art woodworking and design technologies.

For the production of their goods, they use quality exotic “Merbau” wood in conjunction with silver of a 925 standard and natural stones such as amber and striped flint.

But style is not without technology in this case; their unique designs are accompanied by electronic flash drive units based on USB 2.0 high-speed technology in the sizes of 1, 2, 4 and 8GB, and comes with in-built Vista ReadyBoost technology.

Unique solutions – such as Ultra Safe and Ultra Stable Technology – guarantees full security of stored data and protects it from damage in the case of connection loss between the computer and the Flash Driver, while saving information on the medium.

In addition, they also can be transformed into necklaces!

But I thought they look bulky, the ones from Loewestamm still looks best on your neck – but whatever rocks your boat!

You also have the option of embarking on your own engravings!

Prices start at around $60.

Additional engravings start at $12.

Enjoy!

Share your delights, experiences, or products with other Tastefully Driven connoisseurs here!

About the Author:

 

Pineapple Pinnacles can be found at www.iamsamuel.org

I love to praise and critique good/bad products, people, things, problems, and events.

I love to do fashion and style, and technology reviews, as well as updates on sales!

If you are game for a round of ψ uncensored ψ action - this is your place.

I love your intelligent comments and also your constructive criticisms.

Keep me posted and I’ll keep you posted too.

This writer is majoring in Projects and Facilities Management.

I look forward to study Fashion Marketing in Parsons The New School for Design in NYC, and if possible get a sponsorship/scholarship/grant to fund my tuition.

With “web 2.0″ making the transition from targeting the tech savvy to the mainstream, there are an increasing number of tools available online that are not only free, but are often times more intuitive and feature-filled than their offline counterparts. With the economy struggling, everyone is looking for ways to cut costs without sacrificing their current lifestyle. Below are five of my favorite free tools. The only requirements: an email account and a high speed internet connection. Each also adds a bit of freedom by giving you the advantage of being able to access your account online from any computer in the world.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

What it does: office productivity suite
What it replaces: Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and Powerpoint
Where to find it: http://docs.google.com/

While not as feature-rich as its Microsoft counterpart, Google does have several unique offerings in their office suite. Being web based allows for document collaboration (much better than emailing several copies of a file back and forth), the ability to create surveys with spreadsheets, or the option embed YouTube videos within presentations. Advanced users will want the ability to run macros or other features within spreadsheets. Most of the time downloading the free Open Office as a supplement to Google Docs solves these problems without costing you a penny. We’ve been using the Google Docs / Open Office combo as a company for a while now and haven’t had any occurrences arise where we needed Microsoft Office to do something.

Mint

What it does: personal finance management
What it replaces: Quicken
Where to find it: http://www.mint.com/

Mint takes personal finance management to the next level. It securely syncs with all of your bank accounts and credit cards to automatically classify all of your expenses in categories like food, bills, entertainment, etc. It then uses that information to create a budget for you and track spending. You can compare your finances to other people in similar situations, and even have Mint send you text messages or email alerts when you have a low balance in your account or a credit card payment is due.

Pandora

What it does: music player and recommendations
What it replaces: iPod/iTunes
Where to find it: http://www.pandora.com/

If you do most of your music listening from your computer than you will be happy to make the switch to Pandora. Pandora has almost every single song from every single artist classified in a way that matches your music preferences to only the songs that they know you will like. Started in 2000, the Music Genome Project has classified music by more than just genre. They analyze the unique “genes” of each song. From their website “Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony.” To truly be appreciated Pandora is the type of thing that needs to be experienced. I documented my personal experience with Pandora over on my blog with a post entitled Pandora Knows Me Better Than I Do.

Hulu

What it does: television and movies from FOX, NBC, and more
What it replaces: Netflix subscription, DVD sets, DVR
Where to find it: http://www.hulu.com/

There is one caveat to Hulu - the programming is still relatively limited and you’re at their mercy in terms of episode selection. I’d say about 60% of my favorite shows are represented on Hulu. Some shows (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) have nearly all of the episodes online, while others (The Simpsons) only have the most recent episodes. Nonetheless, it has changed my TV viewing habits. No longer do I need to turn on the TV on Sunday @ 8 PM or set my DVR - if I miss an episode of The Simpsons I know I can just catch it the following day on Hulu. The movie selection is still in it’s infancy. You’ll always be able to find a movie to watch, but you aren’t going to find all of your favorites quite yet. Full screen picture quality is very good - not as good as a DVD but better than an analog TV signal from a TV tuner card.

Google Reader

What it does: RSS news reader
What it replaces: newspaper and magazine subscriptions
Where to find it: http://www.google.com/reader

RSS is still not a mainstream technology, but that’s changing rapidly. Nearly every major newspaper, magazine, and blog now offer at least one RSS feed for free. With free and simple software like Google Reader, anyone can cancel their newspaper and magazine subscriptions and not miss a thing. See our RSS Explained: the free technology that will change your life for more information and detailed instructions for how to get started with RSS.

It’s been a little over six months since the ASUS Eee PC captured the imagination of techies all across the globe. The low price point, ultra-portability, and customizability have made it a consumer favorite since it’s arrival. With a rapidly expanding community begging for more (and competition looming) ASUS hasn’t wasted any time announcing the release of the Eee PC 900. And although the 900 model will undoubtedly be popular with consumers, it’s the Eee PC 701 that retails for $399 that I reviewed recently that is still the best ultra-portable device on the market today.

Despite the low price and portability, many Windows-savvy user like myself are wary about using Linux for the first time. I ultimately decided to take the plunge (mostly out of curiosity) but now find myself hooked on the nuances of Linux and have even installed Ubuntu on my home PC. After tweaking with my Eee for hours on end, I have finally come to a set up that enables me to do almost 100% of the work I do on my Windows dual-core laptop.

For anyone looking to get set up quick and rapidly without a bunch of headaches, here’s what I did (with the help of the very awesome EeeUser tutorials):

1. Enable Advanced Desktop Mode.   The Eee comes with a special “easy mode” installed.  Easy mode is great if you just want to boot up and check the web and use the software that the Eee PC comes with, but not much more.  Advanced Desktop Mode puts you in a traditional Windows-like environment with a desktop and a start menu and the ability to customize your computer a bit.
2. Change the taskbar clock format.  Unless of course you like a 24 hour clock.
3. Create more screen space in Firefox.  Since web browsing is likely one of the main things you’ll be doing on the EeePC, this is paramount.  Also make sure to get rid of the Status Bar on the bottom by unchecking view -> status bar.
   
4. Add other software repositories.   The EeePC comes with some great software - Skype, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, etc - but if you want to experience all of the other great Linux software out there the easiest way to do this is to add the list of four Xandros software repositories from that tutorial.  Doing so will allow you to install almost any available Linux software at the click of a button in the Synaptic Package Manager.  In particular, I wanted to install Bluefish for web development and GIMP for image editing.  Both were easy installs once I added these repositories.

Doing those four steps will take less than an hour but will dramatically increase the potential that your Eee PC has to offer (and also familiarize you a bit with Linux).  If this quick guide alone doesn’t satisfy you, the Wiki over on EeeUser has step by step instructions for almost any other task you might want to attempt.

Samsung is naturally following its Instinct to create something that would mimic the popularity of Apple’s iPhone and compete with it. The Samsung Instinct it is, debuting in the most recent 2008 CTIA Wireless Show, it has generated some buzz and recognition as a possible worthy opponent to the iPhone. Still a few months from its official release with Sprint, it may also be the boost that Sprint needs to get the company moving in right direction again.

The iPhone’s success stemmed from a solid base of Apple fanatics and Apple is snatching up market share with all its products which got the iPhone rolling from the get go. Since its release the iPhone has probably converted many more into the Apple cult, continuing Apple’s domination in what it does. Apple has the cool factor in its products with its stylish designs, innovative and functional products. To label any mobile phone as an “iPhone killer” means extremely high praise for that phone. Apple and the iPhone have momentum right now with the growing popularity of Apple branded products and amazing user experience that the iPhone offers, makes it very difficult for any phone to really compete with it. The Samsung Instinct may be the one to take on the almighty iPhone head on. As the highly anticipated Samsung Instinct release approaches and whispers of it being the “iPhone killer”, it’s still hard to believe any phone would do much to derail the iPhone’s success and momentum at the moment. It may take some market share but the iPhone will remain on top for while.

These cell phones will be in direct competition with one another with the striking similarities between the two. Similar design with the all so popular touchscreen interface and common applications with their respective carrier, how is the Instinct going to distinguish itself. Samsung did a great job with the Instinct to better the iPhone in a few very important areas to compete with extremely popular iPhone.

Quick Samsung Instinct and Apple iPhone Spec Comparison

Specs	Samsung Instinct	Apple iPhone
Modes	CDMA 800/1900	GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Weight	4.5 oz	4.8 oz
Dimensions	4.6″ x 2.2″ x 0.5″ (116 x 55 x 12.0 mm)	4.5″ x 2.4″ x 0.46″ (115 x 61 x 11.7 mm)
Battery	Talk time: 5.75 hours Standby time: 130 hours (5.25 days)	Talk time: 8 hours Standby time:250 hours (10.4 days)
Memory	128 mb built-in, 8GB MicroSD	8 GB or 16 GB built-in
Bluetooth	Version 2.0	Version 2.0
WiFi	No	802.11 b/g
Camera	2 Megapixel	2 Megapixel
Data Network	1xEV-DO	EDGE

Even though the iPhone is and will remain the heavy weight champion for a while, the Samsung Instinct has the right stuff to challenge the champ. The Samsung Instinct has some key features that the iPhone doesn’t have, which makes it a very worthy adversary. The Instinct is 3G and utilizes Sprint’s EV-DO network, giving it blazing mobile broadband capabilities. GPS Navigation lets you know where you are and get you to any destination you desire. Be the individual that is you and separate yourself from the status quo with a customizable homescreen. Those are some kick ass features that top the current iPhone. The EV-DO mobile broadband network that the Samsung Instinct will be using will separate the Instinct’s and iPhone’s common applications due to the speed of the network. The Intinct’s 3G capabilities, GPS navigation and EV-DO data network are some huge advantages as the clash with the iPhone imminent.

The Instinct on paper seems like a solid challenger and has the potential to take a bite out of the iPhone’s popularity stronghold, but without a doubt iPhone should stay on top for the time being with all it has going for it right now. Personally I’m on standby and seriously thinking the Instinct maybe my next phone.