after the little finicking i could do with the charger i decided to call zagg's customer support in regards to this issue. turns out that the model of the zaggsparq i just purchased was already discontinued. while their customer support has sent email to customers regarding the unit's defects who have registered the unit on their website, i have not received such email, even though i registered the unit on their website. i found out the reason for this was that i purchased the unit through a third party.

zagg was gracious enough to honor the warranty for my defective unit and the new unit should arrive sometime this month.

this post is simply a shout out to zagg and their solid customer care and to warn those that are interested in purchasing a zaggsparq to not buy any through a third party. more than likely at least a few are still stocking defective models.

while the piece is rather long, here is what i took away as a quick summary:

"if you’re a tech-savvy person who enjoys tweaking your system, installing add-on utilities, swapping in new hard drives, and that sort of thing, android will fit the bill better than the iphone. but the reason apple sands off all those edges and reduces user options is not out of some insane degree of control-freakishness: apple sands off the edges and reduces user options because most people don’t want edges and options on their tech products.

even many tech-savvy people—and i'm including myself in this category—would prefer to have a phone that just works, rather than a phone they can hack within an inch of its life. that’s the path apple has chosen to walk with the iphone, and so far the company has seen massive benefit from that philosophy.

i would not hesitate to recommend a nexus one to a computer-geek friend of mine, especially one who has grown tired of apple’s app store policies. but I’d warn them first that they’ll be trading a lot of well thought-out user experience, of usability."

however, this stuck out to me:

"if the iphone didn’t exist, i would have the nexus one in my pocket right now—but then again, if the iphone didn’t exist, the nexus one wouldn’t either."

"is the ipad just a big iphone?"

quite the contrary.

shawn blanc:

"the predicament with feed reading apps is most certainly not in the quantity of the selections; rather, the quality. this is not to say that most of the legitimate feed reading apps on the iPhone have not been developed with care — but as agents of delivery for my favorite authors, and as contrivances meant for enjoying lengthy bits of text, i prefer a simple app that does less and does it better."

his piece, though it does well in comparing the top rss feed reader apps, doesn't proclaim a winner. rather, he describes his ideal app: reedie:

"my ideal feed reader app would look like some sort of marriage between tweetie 2, instapaper, and reeder. It would have the sounds and ui elegance of tweetie 2, the typographic and state saving bliss of instapaper 2, and the uniqueness of reeder. (for bonus points it would swipe the swipe-top-navigation-bar-to-go-home feature from tweetie 2.)

i don’t want another iphone feed reader, i want a better one. because apps like tweetie, twitteriffic, birdhouse, and birdfeed are all outstanding Twitter clients — each one is clever, polished, and fun. and who says feed reading can’t be as enjoyable as tweeting?"

by far the most comprehensive rss feed app review i've read. 

"Star Wars changed the world forever when it hit the big screen in 1977. In a series of photographs called “The Dark Lens,” photographer, Cédric Delsaux, captures the characters in an apocalyptic world transformed by war. When first looking at these photographs, one wonders, is this our world we’re looking at it, or theirs? C3PO is stranded in a field of alien machinery in what looks to be an old parking garage. Silver androids with arched swan necks, armed by machine guns line up against what could be this years’ newest Chevy truck, while R2D2 stands alone with what looks like a disassembled helicopter in an abandoned repair shop. There is an obvious devastation on whatever planet they may be on. The world seems to be vacant of any human life. Delsaux’s photos create an interesting dilemma for the fan by placing the beloved characters in an unknown world with unknown tragedy. Will they try to leave or attempt to start over? Will they have their own race wars to determine who’s in charge? Will Darth Vader be President!? One can only hope."

here's the full collection (flash required).

absolutely gorgeous.

hilarious.

via: @lonelysandwich

here's the full product description.

one could argue this was probably intentional.