I’ve been building a deck at our house for the past… well, several months. Turns out that I’m going to have to tear up reconfigure a portion of the deck and I’m really not looking forward to hammering all 400+ nails into the joist hangers with pure elbow grease again.

Enter the Stanley-Bostitch F21PL Pneumatic Framing Nailer. This nailer features Bostitch’s cool feature of interchangeable tips that switch between standard “pound that nail into the wood” and “the nail needs to go in this tiny hole in the joist hanger” with a press of a button and some fiddling. From my research, the Bostitch is the only framing nailer on the market that features the metal connector head, making it a great value when compared to buying both a framing nailer and a metal connector hanger.

The line for the Apple Store in San Francisco is apparently going strong and features among those waiting for their crack at the glossy gadget that could a circus freak, a hairdresser and… MERLIN MANN (of 43folders and 5ives).

I’ll be heading out tomorrow to check the lines at at least one of the Denver-area Apple Stores.  Not because I want an iPhone, but out of pure, morbid, curiosity.

Honestly, while I think the iPhone will represent a “new era” of user-interface goodness in the cell phone space, I really can’t see it as the complete end-all, be-all solution that would necessitate camping out all night for a chance at one.  The biggest criticism I have for the iPhone is the same one most of the reviewers mentioned… the Cingular AT&T network.  Between slow as molasses EDGE and a bottom-rating in signal quality (confirmed by my experience here in the Mile-High City… that’s Denver for the geographically un-gifted) the iPhone’s cellular partner may prove to be its biggest handicap. That doesn’t mean a billion people will buy them, they most certainly will and it will be a success.

For those of you looking for an online Office replacement, the Google Docs and Spreadsheets applications have gotten a makeover.  Here’s wondering if this more influence of über-designers Douglas Bowman and Jeff Veen.

The new interface sports a much more attractive interface as well as folders to organize your documents.

via LifeHacker

David Pogue reviews the iPhone for the New York Times and finds that surprisingly, it has a few negatives.  Chief among them is my personal favorite for “iPhone Achilles Heel”, the Cingular AT&T network.  He notes “average” call quality with bottom-rated signal strength (tested by Consumer Reports, but their conclusions seem to jibe with Pogue’s experiences).  Pogue also notes the horrendous EDGE performance when browsing the web.

 Read the full review (with video and images) here. 

Apple today revealed the rate plans for it’s heavily-anticipated iPhone.

Starting at $59.99 with 400 minutes and unlimited data (and 200 SMS messages, way to be stingy AT&T), the iPhone plans don’t seem out of line with the prices paid by the rest of us unwashed masses without the new glossy hotness.

Now if only we could get some kind of high-speed data plan (WiFi rollout is really quite disappointing in most of the country) and the availability of third-party applications to add all the stuff they left out, I’d be in line for one. Until then, I’ll stick with my Treo.

The Icon Mobile Manager is the first truly full-function PDA that’s aimed at those with visual impairments.  I have to applaud Levelstar for being the first to market this type of device to a clientèle that’s been horrendously under-served by this market.

When you think about it, the visually-impaired are a market that most benefits from a device like a PDA.  While those of us with sight have a relatively easy time keeping ourselves organized using traditional mean, the visually-impaired don’t have the luxury of jotting down a note on the back of that cash-machine envelope.  We can also jump into an Internet cafe or Apple Store to check our email on a whim.  Not too many of these places have easily accessible accommodations for the visually impaired.  (more…)

Apple has posted an iPhone guided tour for those of you who just can’t get enough iPhone goodness.

The tour is a twenty-minute QuickTime movie and details almost all of the phone’s features and functions.  Overall, the iPhone has a lot of very innovative user experience features, but it still remains to be seen if the choice to use an on-screen keyboard will prove to be the undoing of the hotly-anticipated handheld.

When I saw this over at Boy Genius Report, it was one of those “doh! why didn’t I think of that” moments. The dry erase fridge is really an idea that should have come along a long time ago.

Rather than cluttering up your fridge (guilty, your honor) with takeout menus and pictures drawn by your kids, why not just let the kids draw directly on the fridge? Then when they you get tired of pictures of dragons destroying your Volvo station wagon, they you can just wipe the fridge down and start anew.

The Aqualera dry-erase fridge is only available in Brazil for now and carries a pricetag of $630 for the model without freezer and $760 for the model with freezer.

Are you listening Whirlpool?

A new combination of software and a specially-built webcam will soon allow officials to monitor at-home test takers (think online university courses and certifications).

The solution, produced by Software Secure, is undergoing testing at Troy University.  It consists of software that does the standard online-test lockouts of Google searches and the like as well as a special webcam that can see in 360 degrees.  The camera (which is a bit scary and looks like a mini version of the sphere in the movie of the same name) monitors the room for suspicious movements and sound events and tags them as “questionable” for later review by the professor or testing center official.

(more…)

Alexander Gelfand writes a piece for Wired about how he and his wife soundproofed an apartment (sounds more like a condo, but I guess that varies regionally) so his wife’s drumming and his piano didn’t tick off the neighbors.

What they did consisted of dropped ceilings, heavy vinyl under the carpet, and this crazy stuff called Green Glue that turns sound energy into heat.

Via Lifehacker