Product At-a-Glance

Shaving purists might scoff at the idea of using an electric shaver to keep stubble at bay, but those purists likely haven’t tried the Philips SensoTouch 3D. I will concede that electric shavers will never offer quite the same quality of shave as traditional razors, but that doesn’t mean the SensoTouch 3D can’t encroach on the leader’s status.

At first glance, the SensoTouch 3D seems entirely typical. Resting in its black plastic charging cradle (which sadly doesn’t collapse for transport), you can see its glowing charge indicator and typical three-head array of shaving heads. Upon closer inspection, however, you find that the entire shaving head assembly pivots freely from the handle. Similarly, all three shaving heads move independently of each other, allowing for easy access to harder to reach places.

The construction of the 1250X feels solid, being crafted from plastic and rubber. Retracted into the device is a sideburn and moustache trimmer, accessible via a unique sliding button. Also, the SensoTouch 3D is entirely waterproof, allowing for either dry or wet shaving.

In our testing of the 1250X, we found it to be the closest and easiest shave of any electric shaver we have used. After an hour of charging, you get 50 minutes of shave time and up to 17 days of standby. Its pivoting heads are not gimmicky, so much as they are incredibly comfortable on skin. We experienced very little irritation with the 1250X, potentially due to the SkinGlide technology that coats the shaving heads. We’re not exactly sure how SkinGlide works, but it seems to help out if you have very sensitive skin.

The unique ergonomic design of the handle allows for a solid grip while shaving, which is critical when using the 1250X in a wet-shave environment. When we tested the shaver in the shower, the shave we experienced was even closer than dry shaving. It’s also entirely possible to use the SensoTouch 3D 1250X with shaving gel or foam in case you have very sensitive skin.

We also tried out the moustache and sideburn trimmer and we weren’t entirely impressed. The width of the trimmer is much smaller than on typical shavers due to its unique retractable design. This means, instead of one quick and guaranteed-straight trim, it takes at least two strokes to deal with unsightly rogue sideburns. The trimmer is also “built to avoid unnecessary skin contact” to reduce irritation. However, it seems to make the process of shaving just a few rogue hairs much more difficult and requires a few extra passes to take care of them.

These shortcomings are minor compared to the fantastic overall shave quality you get from the Philips SensoTouch 3D 1250X. At $163 on Amazon, it’s not the cheapest shaver money can buy, but for an appliance you use on a daily basis, it is undeniably worth the price tag.

Product At-a-Glance

While we mostly focus on the technology side of reviews, we had to dive into the world of personal care as part of our back to school coverage. Personal hygiene and grooming doesn’t always take a front seat at college, but let’s face it; it should.

Designed specifically for use below the neck, the BG2040 Bodygroom Pro is Philips’ latest addition to their line of body grooming products. The BG2040 sports both a trimmer with an adjustable length setting and a shaving foil with a 3D adjustable head.

What this means is that, instead of open trimmers where it’s incredibly easy to nick your skin, the Bodygroom Pro has a shaving foil which makes it almost impossible to pinch or nick skin. In addition, the self-sharpening blades make getting a close shave incredibly easy.

The shaving head also pivots, making reaching difficult areas much easier. In contrast, the trimmer is fixed, but is covered by an easily adjustable guide with six length settings. Hence, cutting yourself with either attachment of the Bodygroom Pro is incredibly difficult.

Cleanup is a breeze, as the product works fine in either dry or wet settings. Simply rinse it off in the sink or shower after use, and it’s ready for storage on the included dock.

In our testing, the Bodygroom was by far the easiest trimmer we have ever worked with. While it obviously doesn’t get as close as a razor, it’s infinitely easier and safer. And when you’re trimming more sensitive areas, safety is quite a priority.

So, for those of you who are looking for an easy solution for trimming below the neck, the Bodygroom Pro is an excellent solution. Combining both a trimmer and a shaver into one elegant form factor, the Bodygroom is the de facto standard in cleaning up for a night out.

We reviewed the Amazon Kindle back in January of last year, and now Amazon is back with the Kindle 2. With an improved display (although not larger), sleek new design, and a new navigation joystick, plus text-to-speech, does the Amazon Kindle 2 win our praise? Read on after the break for more details and our final opinion.

While there aren’t as many improvements as people had hoped for, the new design is a welcome enhancement. The new display now has 16 shades of grey instead of four and makes text appear crisper and clearer. Page turns are also 20% faster than the original Kindle display. Check out the video below showing you a 360-degree spin of the new Kindle 2 design.

Gone is the SD expansion slot, replaced with 2GB of on-board memory. This isn’t a huge deal, since it’s enough to store over 1,500 books. In terms of software features, not much has changed besides tweaking location of certain functions such as search, which has now been relocated to a search bar at the bottom of your screen. One new feature, the only major one at least, is the addition of text-to-speech.

Any newspaper, magazine, book, or blog can be read out loud and pages turn automatically when being read, so you can sit back, relax, and enjoy your favorite book. We’re still wondering why Amazon hasn’t built in a backlight or a reading light, because reading the Kindle is virtually impossible in dim lighting. The battery isn’t user-replaceable either, which shouldn’t be a problem, but eventually it will need to be replaced. The process costs $80 to send the device to Amazon, and the process doesn’t replace the battery, but replaces the entire Kindle.

If you’re an avid reader, by all means, go out and get a Kindle. Buy it today from Amazon.com for $360 with free shipping. Still a hefty price, but well worth it for bookworms. We’ll be taking a look at the Kindle DX soon too.

Pros

• Enhanced design.
• New crisper and clearer display.
• Text-to speech functionality.

Cons

• No backlight.
• Still somewhat expensive.

Chances are by now, you have a Twitter account, or after reading this article, you will. Twitter has become the social network of 2009, and nearly everyone is using it. From local TV stations, to celebrities, and even ConnectReviews. Here are five tools you need if you use Twitter.

1. Twitpic – Wish you could share pictures with your Twitter friends wherever you’re at? Twitpic does just that, and it’s extremely simple. When you sign up, you’ll get a specific email address for your Twitter username, simply email your photos to the email address given to you, and voila!

Twitpic sets you up with a specific email address to send images directly to your Twitter account.

2. Tweetie – Being the most popular smartphone around, the iPhone holds your lifeblood and has everything you need, and Tweetie is the Twitter client for the iPhone. It offers several features that can’t be found on other clients, including multiple accounts, and access to the latest Twitter trends (the same ones you now find on the browser). It costs $2.99 at the App Store, and it’s well worth it.

3. Trackthis – Wish you could track that FedEx package anywhere you go? Besides offering email, SMS, and RSS integration, Trackthis also sends package updates directly to your Twitter timeline. Follow @trackthis, send a direct message with your tracking number, and you’re good to go.

4. TweetDeck – Want to get a birds-eye view of your timeline, replies, and direct messages? TweetDeck is for you. My favorite feature is that it allows you to save searches in their own separate column, letting you track certain topics you may be interested in. It takes up quite a bit of screen real estate, but if you’re a Twitter-holic, check it out.

5. Twhirl – If you want a lightweight Twitter client that’s full of power, check out Twhirl. Twhirl offers several features that most Twitter clients offer, and manages to pack everything but the kitchen sink. Upload photos, filter through tweets, and more.

It’s always been hard for me to find the perfect office chair after testing out the Think chair from Steelcase last year. I came across the Zody chair from Haworth just a few months ago, and it just might be the chair for you.

You probably haven’t heard of Haworth unless you work for an office design place or a cubicle designer, but the Zody is great for work and home. The Zody is available in eight different colors, and one is perfect for you.

Lumbar support system on Zody.

I’ve been testing this chair for the past three or four months and it’s been awesome. Ever since I switched to this chair, I simply cannot move back to the cheap Office Depot chairs of yesterday. According to the company, it’s the first chair to have a passive pelvic support and asymmetrical lumbar support system.

It’s also the first task chair to be endorsed by the American Physical Therapy Association and the first task chair to be certified as a Cradle to Cradle Gold product. What does this all mean? It means this is a great chair, from a comfortability standpoint and an environmental standpoint. 77% of the chair is made up of steel and aluminum, two of the most recyclable materials on this planet, and 98% of the chair is recyclable.

Being a green nut, the chair is assembled using 100% renewable wind energy, equal to planging 194 acres of mature trees. This is a big plus in my book. The lumbar support allows you to achieve varying amounts of support on either the left or right side just by rotating the handle up or down. The arms are also adjustable in four different ways: in/out, forward/backward, up/down, and pivot left/right.

From a build quality view, Haworth didn’t cut corners on making this chair both functional and eco-friendly, but there was a little wiggle action going on in the chair pad, which became loose after about a month of day-to-day use.

I know this review looks like a bunch of marketing terms, but believe me, this chair could very well be a strong competitor to the Steelcase Think. Find the Haworth Zody at Sit4Less.com starting at just $549.99, it’s well worth the price.

Pros

• Eco-friendly.
• Extremely comfortable.
• Lumbar support.

Cons

• None.

My thoughts are after the jump, along with a video with more on what exactly Blog Action Day is.

Global warming is a growing issue that is being debated every day and is partly caused by the use of greenhouse gases in our cars, and factories across the nation. You’ll learn a lot more about it from Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth than you will from me, but here are some simple ways for you to help stop global warming.

1. Take public transportation
2. Make the switch to a hybrid or fuel-efficient car
3. Use Compact Fluorescent Bulbs (CFLs)
4. Use recycled printer paper
5. Replace older appliances
6. Turn off your computer

These are just a handful of the ways that you can save money and save the Earth while you’re at it. If you’re looking for more, check out StopGlobalWarming.org. Wikipedia also has an extensive list of environmental issues, and TreeHugger, one of the best environmental blogs, has a whole section on “How to Go Green“.

Those of you who are in college or on a tight budget and need a comfortable, yet somewhat affordable way to relax in style – it’s your lucky day. Take a look at the Sumo Omni Lounge.
Now, you’re probably thinking, who wants a bean bag these days? This isn’t any bean bag per say, it’s a massive bean bag or a giant pillow or a make-do couch, it can be anything you want it to be. Measuring around 4.5 feet by 5.5 feet and weighing only 18 pounds, the Sumo Omni is made out of rip-proof nylon and filled with thousands of tiny foam beads (we learned that the hard way). It is also available in tons of different colors including green, grey, dark blue, red, tangerine, lime, brown, and much more.

The Sumo Omni bean bag came in a huge FedEx Ground box and we recommend you use two people to unbox the compressed item inside. Also available from Sumo is the Otto – a small table, ottoman (get it?), or a small seat for the little ones.

The Sumo Omni is available for $149 from Sumo’s website, and the Otto is available for $79. That’s just under $230 for a stylish, yet affordable way of relaxing in your pad.

- John Pastor

Designing for Web Standards, Second Edition by Jeffery Zeldman is one of the best books out there for web designers that are interested in meeting W3C and DOCTYPE standards. The content of the book is excellent and most web designers swear by it. From learning how to compile great code, to making your websites look the best of the best in modern browsers, even discussing what those particular older browsers do to your new-age website.

Spark’d Rating: Highly recommended. Zeldman explains from beginning to end what web standards are and why they’re important. 5 out of 5 rating.

Publish and Prosper: Blogging for your Business by DL Byron and Steve Broback is a new book that explains how you can drive more traffic to your website/blog and get the best navigation possible for web usability. Byron and Broback also let you in on some tips to help keep your readership stable, for example, posting frequently and making content worthwhile. While being a short book compared to other books, this book is chock full of content to satisfy any blogger.

Spark’d Rating: Highly recommended for bloggers only. If you’re not a blogger, this book isn’t for you, but on the other hand, if you want to start blogging, check out this book. Great little tips for newer business blogs. 5 out of 5 rating.

The book, Ubuntu Hacks, covers the ins and outs of Linux in an easy and understandable format for Linux newbies to professional programmers. Ubuntu Hacks has all the information you need from installing and test driving Ubuntu Linux, to how to run a server using the Linux distribution.

Don’t want to switch from Windows to Linux completely? Learn how to dual-boot! Want to switch to Linux but is there a Windows app leaving you hanging? Learn how to use Cedega, the gaming virtualization tool for Linux, or Wine, the all-in-one tool for running applications from Microsoft Office to Adobe Photoshop.

Overall, this book tells you how to tweak Linux from start to finish, and how to keep everything in ship-shape. Although in this review, I’m not going to rate it for obvious reasons, but I can certainly recommend it for anyone looking to use Linux as their mainstream operating system, or even the geek just wanted to play around and get their hands dirty with another operating system.

Ubuntu Hacks is available online, or in many brick and mortar booksellers near you for a very reasonable price of $29.99 USD or $38.99 CAD. ISBN 0-596-52720-9

I’m not a book reviewing expert, but expect more books from O’Reilly and other fine book publishers to start appearing here soon.

by John Pastor, Senior Editor, Spark’d