Tag Archives: shopping

My Watch Collection

A video guide to choosing a good watch band

This weekend, I put together a video guide that will help you decide the proper watch band for you. You may not have given a lot of thought to this topic in the past, or perhaps you’ve just lived with the band or strap that your watch came with, but I think after you watch my guide, you’ll start to think differently about watch bands — about the materials they’re made of and about the quality that you’ll want.

By average YouTube video length standards, my guide is like a novel, weighing in at around 20 minutes. I wanted it to be thorough. If you haven’t got 20 minutes to spare, here’s the abridged text version.

Watch bands are made of four different materials:

  • Leather
  • Metal
  • Rubber or silicone
  • Cloth

Leather watch bands are simple, elegant, readily compatible with all skin types, but they may wear out quickly, may tear and may smell (with time). If you get a leather watch band, make sure it’s molded round, it’s stitched with strong thread (contrasting thread adds an extra element of style) and that it’s thicker at its base (where it attaches to the watch) and thinner at its ends. This makes it strong and at the same time easy to attach to and detach from the buckle.

Metal watch bands are sturdy, practical, modern and they last a long time, but they may not fit properly on your wrist, may change color (oxidize), may open readily if clasp mechanism is worn or fails, and may not be compatible with all skin types (may cause rashes). If you get a metal watch band, know that mesh bands offer a better fit than link bands and link bands will need to be adjusted to your wrist at a watch shop.

Cloth watch bands are cheap, sturdy and colorful, but they may fray, discolor, smell and may not be easy to attach and detach. Go for cloth watch bands with metal (not cloth) loops and try not to wear them too much, or they’ll discolor and get grimy, and they’ll stay grimy even if you wash them.

Rubber watch bands are cheap, sturdy, great for aquatic sports and easy to wash. Newer silicone bands are colorful. But rubber and silicone bands may discolor or form a film on the surface when exposed to chlorine and salty water, may accumulate dust and grime inbetween their ridges, and let’s face it, they’re not elegant. If you get a rubber watch band, go for simple bands with fewer or no ridges and watch out for silicone watch bands, which will literally attract dust and grime. Only wear them when working out and wash them afterward as you shower, to make sure they stay clean.

Finally, there are two mechanisms for keeping the bands closed: the buckle and the clasp. The buckle is a time-proven design, works forever but is slow to open/close. The buckle will also indent the leather band where it closes and its pin may tear through the punch hole over time, requiring the purchase of a new band. The clasp is a modern, practical design which opens and closes quickly. The clasp pins and pin holders may wear out over time, causing the clasp to open suddenly and the watch to fall from the wrist. Whichever design you choose, go for something simple that is less likely to break.

I hope this has helped you!

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Thoughts

Storage drops below 7 cents per gigabyte

In January of 2009, I mentioned the price of storage had just dropped below 9 cents per gigabyte. I see now that 2 TB drives are selling below $150 (they’re $140), so it’s time to update my figures. At $139.99 for a 2 TB (2,000 GB) SATA hard drive, that comes out to less than 7 cents per GB. That’s a great deal, and it goes without saying that it’s the lowest price for data storage consumers have ever seen.

Updated 4/19/10: Micro Center is selling 2 TB Seagate SATA drives for $119.99. It’s an in-store special, with a one drive per household limit, but still, that makes it 6 cents per gigabyte. What can I say — expect the price to keep dropping…

On the downside, it seems hard drive manufacturers have hit a ceiling with 2 TB drives. I haven’t heard talk of 3 or 4 TB drives, or anything larger than that. Perhaps I haven’t been keeping up with storage news properly, so if you’ve heard some good news, do let me know!

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Thoughts

Frustrated with European shopping carts

My wife recorded a video clip of me venting my frustration with European shopping carts back in February. Sorry for the rough words in the video, but I tell you, every time I go shopping and have to deal with those idiotic things, I want to get the guy that invented them, pin him to a wall and lob rotten apples at him. What simpleton makes all four wheels pivot, seriously? How can you not realize that loaded shopping carts have inertia, and cannot be steered at all when all four wheels pivot?

American shopping carts should be the standard. Only their front wheels pivot, so they’re easy to steer everywhere, especially around corners. They’re probably cheaper to make for that same reason. As for their European counterparts, they go anywhere except where you want them. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and what makes it worse is they’re everywhere in Europe. It’s like every store got together to figure out how best to frustrate and anger their customers, and decided to get these asinine carts. If that really was their intent, then they succeeded. It truly boggles the mind how they all went for the same moronic design. Didn’t any of their executives put two and two together? Don’t they use shopping carts? Don’t they know there’s something better already available?

See this video on blip.tv, Vimeo or YouTube.

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Reviews

Hardware review: LaCie Little Disk 500GB

I needed a larger external drive to do my Time Machine backups, and the LaCie Little Disk 500GB was the best value for my money. It’s a portable drive (2.5″ form factor), it has 500GB of space, and it only cost me $100 at B&H. They’re pricing it at $124.95 now, so I guess I bought it at the right time (right before Christmas). (Amazon still has it for $100 if you want it.)

The design of the drive is distinctive, and builds upon the brick design that LaCie used to their advantage in the past. The enclosure is made of glossy black plastic, and it comes with a removable top/lid, which masks a short, retractable USB cable. I’m not crazy about that top, since it doesn’t sit tightly on the enclosure, but at least it can be removed easily.

In terms of weight, the drive is as light as other portable drives — perhaps even lighter. In terms of size, it is a little longer and thicker than my 160GB WD Passport drive, whose design, although almost three years old by now, is still one of the best I’ve ever seen.

I like my little LaCie drive though. It’s fast and roomy enough for me to back up my MBP’s 250GB hard drive as often as I need. Time Machine backups complete in minutes, and then I can simply eject the drive and put it away until I want to do another backup. I am even using the carrying pouch for now, to protect the drive as it sits in my backpack during travel.

Photos used courtesy of LaCie.

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Thoughts

Storage drops below 9 cents per gigabyte

I see that Newegg.com lists the Seagate 1.5TB SATA hard drive for $129.99 with free shipping. Sure, it’s an OEM drive, which means it’s not boxed, but who cares? Do you realize what this means? It means you’re paying $0.086 per terabyte gigabyte. Storage has become even cheaper — unthinkably cheap. The previous relevant price point was $100 for a 1TB drive, which meant $0.100 per gigabyte (a dime).

Seagate 1.5TB SATA Drive

A gigabyte is now cheaper than a dime! I just didn’t think it would happen this fast. I remember when a dime would get you 100MB, and I thought that was a lot. Okay, let me not kid myself: I remember when a dime would get you 1MB or less. Now you get 1GB, which is 1,000 times the storage capacity, for less than the same tiny dime. Amazing!

If you’re looking for extra storage capacity, now would be a good time. If I hadn’t already filled up my main Drobo with 1TB drives, I’d jump all over these, because they’re definitely at the right price point, especially now that they’ve been cleared for use with the Drobo once more.

Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme 1.5TB

While I’m on the subject of good deals, let me remind you of my guide to getting good deals on hard drives. I mention it because Micro Center happens to be selling the Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme 1.5TB (a triple interface external hard drive) for $149.99. This means that you’re paying $20 for the enclosure over the price of the hard drive alone.

Remember, this is a triple interface drive (USB 2.0/FW400/eSATA), and that means the enclosure is very inexpensive. Instead of buying one of those DIY enclosures that may or may not work (I’ve been there), you’ll get something that’s guaranteed to work, or you can return it.

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