Reviews Archives - Page 43 of 43

My boss told me about Cardstar today, an iPhone app that lets you input various membership numbers for things like REI, Costco, Safeway, etc and then have the barcode rendered on the screen.

I had very low hopes for this app since my previous experience with attempting to get a barcode to read off the iPhone screen was met with disappointment, as well as several articles online saying it’s not possible due to physics (at least when it comes to laser readers. “Imager” readers work fine).

But, given the fact that it’s an app, and him saying he got it to work at Blockbuster, I decided to give it a try.

I’ll say right now, it’s finicky. Laser readers will in fact work. It took reading the directions for the app to get it to work. Basically, distance matters. 5-7″ really is necessary for it to work. The other issue is the angle the phone is held at relative to the reader. While I’d like to say you hold it 5° off plane, it’s not quite that simple. Depending on the barcode symbology, the angle seemed to be different. This could be completely circumstantial, but it seemed that barcodes using EAN 128 had to be a bit differently angled than Code 39. =/

But, that all said, it does work. Since getting home, I added a bunch more cards, and hopefully I’ll be able to stop carrying all those silly cards. It’s just upsetting some cards are magstrip only.

At this point, can’t give a real rating. Once I’ve had the application for a week or two, I’ll come back.

Thanks!

As a start to my reviews, I figure I’ll give a brief review of something I’ve owned for a year or so, but it pretty darn cool (and simple).

Aeropress Kit The item in question is the Aeropress, by Aerobie (yes, the people that make the frisbee type things).

So, I’m no coffee connoisseur. I don’t use an espresso machine (I own one, but it’s not very good). I have a very simple, quiet nice coffee maker (Zojirushi EC-DAC50 5 Cup) and a pretty good sub-$100 Conical Burr grinder (Breville BCG450XL). That said, however, I have drunken my share of coffee in my life. I love the smell of coffee, and the taste is pretty good when made with good beans, and a decent brewer.

But, after reading a review by Mark Frauenfelder (of boingboing.net and Make Magazine), and seeing the video of the Aeropress, I was intrigued. I went to the local nicer cooking/kitchen store, Hartwicks (a few notches up from Bed Bath & Beyond), and bought one.

Let me say this, it produces the best cup of coffee I have ever had in my life. bar none.

The process adds a bit of time to the coffee making/drinking process, but a cup can basically be made in about 90 seconds, start to finish (assuming you have an electric kettle for the water, and an automatic grinder). Basically, the process is something like this:

Put about 2 cups of water in my kettle, turn it on, and set a cup out
Hit the button on the grinder, and put the filter on my Aeropress
About this time, my grinder stops, and I scoop (or just eyeball pour) the coffee from the grinder “catch” into the press, and then set the press on the target cup
Kettle has hit about 190 at this point, so I turn it off, add the water to the plunger up to 1-2 cups (depending on the amount of grounds), and then pour that into the press
Stir the water/ground mix for 10 seconds
Insert the plunger, and take about 10 seconds to depress the plunger fully
Remove the press, and then add enough water to make a full “cup” (basically an Americano)
Enjoy!

If I do it all right, it takes around 90 seconds for a really delicious cup of coffee. And what do I mean by delicious? I mean, do you know the slightly bitter aftertaste that a cup of coffee can have? Even good coffee? Yes? Aeropress coffee doesn’t have that. At all. It is by far the smoothest coffee I’ve ever had, and lets you taste flavors in the coffee that you may never have tasted. Add to that the fact it’s only $25, and you have an amazing little gadget.

The only caveat I’ll give, is that I have not tried it with blade ground coffee. I’d imagine it would still be delicious, but may not have quite the subtle notes that burr ground coffee would have.

All that said, I can highly recommend it. It’s inexpensive, works wonderfully, and after you get the hang of it, it doesn’t take much more time than using a normal coffee pot, especially when you count adding water, a filter, rinsing the pot, adding the grounds, then waiting for the coffee maker to finish.