I ordered a couple prints from a new(ish) service called FractureMe.com. I’ve been looking for clean simple alternatives to printing and framing digital photos with a bend toward sleek and modern. Fracture uses an interesting printing technique where they print on the back of clear glass (it appears that they actually print to a thin film that is adhered to the glass. The result is a simple but stunning picture that floats just behind the glass and just off the wall- the photos come with a think black cardboard backing which is part of the framing sandwich with holes drilled to hang vertically or horizontally.

After studying them both for a week I have come to the following conclusions:

1. If you are a normal person (aka any kind of run of the mill, point-and-shoot photographer even with a DSLR) and you are looking for something nice to hang on the wall for yourself or gifts you will be totally happy with the slick results of Fracture.

2. If you are a real photo buff you will find the print quality only a B as if you look closely you can see some pixilation from the printing process. It is not bad, but it is not the same as super high quality photo quality paper and a professional printing process.

3. I theorize that because the film they print on is so thin and the backing is black the pictures come out *slightly* dark from what you would expect.

I ordered two prints both 8.5×11, cost was $18 each plus shipping which is a very reasonable price vs cost of print+frame.  I will order again, I will order for gifts, but for certain photos I want the highest quality from, I will order actual high quality prints and frame.

Update: I have taken a photo (using my canon DSLR) of the FractureMe print side by side with an 8×10 actual photo print from SnapFish. You will see some of the color differences as well as slight loss of details in the FractureMe photo. Note, the original was taken with a canon point and shoot, not a DSLR. (click to enlarge image view)

If you are driven at all to push yourself, then you must listen to this fantastic RadioLab.org piece on limits- of human mind, body and knowledge.

Something doesn’t add up here for ads.


Let’s look at the simple math: current model for CPM based advertising on network TV is a $15-40 CPM with about 16×30 second ads shown (that’s 22 minutes of content and 8 minutes of ads, 6 national and 2 local).


If you take the top range of all of this $40CPMx16 ads you get $.64 of ad revenue.  Content producers are now proposing to charge $.99 per episode to watch ala carte which is an almost 55% increase in the cost to the viewer (and a hard cash cost, not a soft time cost).


Granted content producers (and networks) also pick up revenue from cable and other providers as content fees which increases the $.64, and probably substantially, but at $.99 per episode, even with a hefty distribution cut to Apple or others this still just doesn’t seem like a good value for viewers, especially given then can already time shift the shows and skip all the ads effectively bringing their cost to pennies.


Consumers want on demand content, but at what price?


Additional posts:
Top Droid Apps | Nike+ vs Cardiotrainer accuracy

Trying to figure out the best site/company/tool to print photobooks is brutal.  Here’s a great summary review of the major photo book players in details, very helpful.

Not sure how much I like the new Life series on Discovery. Planet Earth was epic, but somehow I can’t quite get into Life as much as I would like. We’ll see, only two episodes in.

The following is a short list of my top apps that are must haves and work well specifically for the Motorola Droid. Just my two cents.  [Now Updated!]

Poll powered by SnapApp

0. K-9 is a an alternative mail reader to replace the default Android mail app. While it has a few issues and some bugs here and there, it is a much much better solution for reading mail on your phone and is highly configurable.

1. Home++ replaces the home navigation system with a highly customizable and powerful application.  Allows for the increase of screens with apps/icons, overloads lots of information and links in a strip across the bottom.  It does crash from time to time (really just restarts the app) but I find it FAR superior to the built in home screen management.

2. SMS Popup better notifications for SMS messages- I prefer this as it actually opens the message in a modal window on your phone without having to open the messaging app (make sure to turn off default notifications from the built in messaging app)

2.5 Swype is a pre-release software package that is a totally new way to type.  You just drag your finger across the keyboard without ever lifting it and it guess the word.  It requires a little more back-end work to install as it is not in the app store yet, but I have found it to be pretty great, and is *especially* good for one handing typing as you can just drag your thumb.  It’s in beta but they do give access to users.

3. NewsRob an RSS reader that syncs with google reader for your feeds.  Very slick and well done and makes reading your feeds excellent on your phone and avoids repeat content sorting.  You can use the volume keys to article up or down- makes reading your feeds on the go a snap.

4. Yelp & OpenTable pretty self explanatory, both good apps

5. Advanced Task Killer is a must for keeping control of what your phone is running and shutting down power hungry processes.  Also try Advanced Task Manager which is a much more powerful but similar app.

6. Amazon, Barcode Scanner & Shop Savvy are three well known and solid shopping apps

7. Night Ringer is a great app for automatically changing volumes, vibration and other notification based on time of day.  You have to upgrade to get the full functionality (like selecting several emergency numbers to turn the volume on) but a good app if you don’t want drunk friends or opposite coast people waking you up in the middle of the night.  If you DO want that, don’t use this app.

8. Last.fm is probably the best music app for Android.

9. Evernote app is basic but good if you are a user of the product.  Next iterations should allow for local storage of content when the Android OS allows access to SD card memory vs only the built in memory.

10. Wixel is a great boggle like game with online game play

11. WaveSecure allows you to lock down your phone or even erase it via SMS if it gets lost or stolen.

12. Calorie Counter and Cardio Trainer are decent health/lifestyle apps.  Not as good as ones on the iphone (IMHO)- Calorie Counter does have a nice barcode scan feature with the camera, but managing your food is a little clunky.  Cardio Trainer is a great GPS based app for working out outside and tracking where you go, but if you are a serious athlete or really want precise distances for times/splits you’ll find it too inaccurate.  Here’s a review of the accuracy of WorkSmart’s CardioTrainer

13. NYTimes has an android app now that let’s your browse and read content sections, slide between stories and generally read the paper pretty efficiently.  It is a little slow, but a good app non-the-less.

14. NPR along the same vein as the NYTimes NPR has a solid app to read news with the upside of being able to listen to stories directly from the phone by streaming them which is a really nice feature.

15. WTD What the Doodle is a great pictionary like game you can play in real time against people drawing on the touch screen and using the keyboard to guess words.  Totally worth the $1.50 upgrade (free version is good too)

16. Skype Skype on your phone, call anywhere anytime on Skype from your handset…nuff said

17. Dialer One replaces your current phone dialer with a much better functionality and allows easy addition of new numbers.  Best part is you using number pad to type a name and pull it out of your address book.

18. DoubleTwist Great music and video player and with a desktop client is a great way to sync music and itunes playlists to your phone.

19. Androsonos While this app is kind of buggy and not the most elegent, if you have the Sonos sound system you can control it from your android phone, at last.  A for effort.

20. PDANet If you don’t have 2.2 or higher of Android you can use this to quickly and easily tether your laptop to the 3G network.  Works like a charm!

21. Drync Clearly the best way to track, find and learn about wines.  I love this because when you find something you like you can easily stick in in your “cellar” and buy it at the store next time.

Other notable apps that you may have seen on lots of other lists:

Google Sky Map- awesome if you like stars

Google Earth- just amazing

DockRunner- allows you to run the Droid like it was in its alarm clock docking cradle without the cradle

Meebo- IM

Twitdroid- Twitter client (meh, twitter)

Qik- stream video in real time from your phone to the web (totally sweet)

What a score for the user- Google is now running adwords on the bottom of maps.  Not that it really matters, but what is clear is that Google is going to do everything it can to make money in this economy… and is clearly feeling some pressure.  Maybe if they were a little nicer to their advertisers and publishers…nah nevermind.

New movie with the comic genius Michael Cera is sure to be good. But I am most psyched about the actual music selection in the movie which has some great bands like Bishop Allen, Shout Out Louds, Vampire Weekend and We Are Scientists.

By all measures NBC did a pretty good job covering the olympics including arranging for swimming and gymnastics finals to be held in the morning so they could broadcast live to the US.  Still, I came away wanting more from their coverage.  I almost never watch TV, but I did watch a huge amount of olympic coverage each night and still never saw any of the classic events (discus, shot, javelin, long jump, decathalon etc etc).

Maybe they aired on other NBC channels, I don’t know, but what I really wanted was the ability to see any event I wanted when I wanted.  When Usain Bolt broke the 100 and 200m records I wanted to watch it *right then* not read about it on the front page of NYT.com with some BS stop gap photos.  I understand NBC wanted to make sure they generated the ad revenue to cover their $160M+ payout but still, it is lame to make me wait until prime time TV to watch the results of a race I already knew who won.  I would have gladly paid to have access to high quality online video of each event when I wanted to watch it, but maybe I am in the minority.