Low-tech wins the day
341543
This is my second hand-cranked ball winder. I purchased my first nearly 20 years ago from Bond, the people who make the Sweater Machine. It still works, but it's creakier and slower than it used to be, and it's more likely to catch the yarn and tangle it below the spindle. It probably just needs a good cleaning and some oil, but I don't want to mess with it until it actually stops working.

Anyway, I wanted a second one to use upstairs. I hesitated to get this model because it didn't seem as "nice" as my old one - my old one has two guides, and I thought having just one yard guide would make it harder to control the tension or maybe increase the odds of a misfeed and bad tangle. But I figured that as long as it could wind the yarn, it'd be fine as a backup winder.

Well, now I realize just how finicky and moody my old ball winder really was. THAT one is now the backup, and this Stanwood is my primary. I seldom get any tangles with this winder. I have to tighten the wingnut from time to time, and as with most winders I have to watch the yarn to make sure it doesn't get caught underneath and wrap around the base (rare); but otherwise it isn't tricky at all.

As low-tech tools go, I would be hard-pressed to ask for more. It never sticks; it can wind a 3.5 oz skein of worsted in just a few minutes; and the one yarn guide is positioned perfectly. I paid a lot more for an electric winder that didn't work at all, so I'll stick with the inexpensive one that's just right.
1350024
I am pleasantly surprised.  For a lower-end model it does everything well.
888483
This is a GREAT and very useful low tech and budget friendly phone while I save up for the hi end.  The slide out keyboard makes it all work easily for my texting.  There are options to go on line and surf, but I have a desktop computer for those kind of things.  This gets me around town without worrying if I will leave or drop it.  It's OK!
2484061
Better than sliced bread. Programmed correctly, this thing will turn your mildly retarded Uncle Nicky into the King of Tech. Boo-Yah.
2610318
A low power IBM-PC in a cigarette-case -- well not quite that small.  But it's a great introductory product at least!  If Intel keeps up the good work, they'll surely bring some embedded-solution device competition back into the field. They really need to get some comprehensive text books out there on this particular system, as well as the forthcoming Edison.  It's really nice that Intel has brought some backward compatibility back to the hardware market after certain software companies, whom I will not mention, shafted the mom's and pop's of the field back in the 90s and 2000s era.  Nice to have an X-87 coprocessor, ISA interface and much more to work with in a compact small profile machine.  ARM is really great, but X-86 rules in my opinion.  Then again, I'd take a hacker-proof, vacuum-tube-based-EMP-proof ENIAC above all of them any day of the week.  Now, let's get the balls rolling on the Edison itself!
4431442
Pretty cool .. and not expensive.. pretty easy to add devices and automate home
4263230
Worked as expected as a lower price than others that didn't prove as reliable.
2037097
Although my profession is technology, I'm still surprised how my simple home network has morphed. Only a few years back, a simple cable modem/router was all I needed to hook up all there was.  Now it seems every device in the house has a web interface.  Every little cluster of technology needs its own switch to get all the toys online.  Over that time, network switches have gone from chunky forbidding boxes to simple plug-and-play devices.  In general, this WD switch meets that profile: plug in the power supply, connect one port to the home network and connect the other ports to a stack of local devices.

But WD adds a nice little twist--prioritization. While most routers targeted toward the home offer some prioritization, it's often too coarse to set up ideally.  Western Digital has helped out by prioritizing the ports on this switch.  Two are high-priority (your media devices should go there), a few are medium-priority (computers), and the rest are low-priority (printers, security cams, refrigerators).  In most instances there will be no effect at all on your network performance.  But at busy times, proper priority will keep the video from stuttering while Aunt Edna is busily updating her Facebook page.

It seems that Western Digital has strongly committed to the sophisticated home network.  They have media players, flexible NAS devices, routers, and now this little switch.  I own a lot of their stuff and have found it to give a real bang for the buck.  While there are certainly technology companies with more familiar names, WD is doing a great job at putting it all together.
2733990
Out of the box, I was impressed with the performance, considering the little 4gb of ram and a 5400rpm HDD. The Pentium is snappy even with the default setup, but being the tech junkie I am, I decided to buy hardware upgrades that arrived with the laptop..

I installed:
an 8gb 1.35mv stick of crucial ram (about 70 on amazon) and a crucial m500 240gb SSD.

After successfully cloning the HDD and booting from the SSD, I noticed an immediate increase in performance - a night and day difference.

I clocked cold bootups on the HDD around 32-35 seconds. After installing the SSD, cold boot time is anywhere from 4-7 seconds.
The multitasking and HD video is average with the default HDD and 4gb ram, but after upgrades and I can watch stutter-free HD video with the processor underclocked to about 1.3ghz (accessible under advanced power management).

If the processor was an i3, this laptop would easily be categorized as an ultrabook.
The Pentium is actually nearly identical to an i3, it just doesn't have Hyper-threading, which isn't even noticeable on an i3. But the i3 was not upgraded to haswell, so this little penitum is much more battery-friendly than most of the other, more powerful haswell intel's.

Overall, I have no complaints other than fantasies of a backlit keyboard, which would make this product even more premium than a MacBook air, but that's a minor spec and a luxury that just isn't a deal-breaker.

Looking for something powerful enough for school but battery-friendly enough for long stints away from the charger?
this little bad boy will do the job very well.

Good luck and enjoy it if you get it.
4710795
This was entertaining and real.  Makes you know you weren't the only one thankful for the low tech days!  No evidence.
2072349
The features found in this router are pretty amazing. Setting it up was pretty simple, even for my semi-techno-challenged brain. Well, the truth is I'm not bad when it come to basic tech, but sometimes the owners manual is written by someone who dreams in binary code, and I find that generally difficult to comprehend more often than not, which has forced me to be observant enough to figure stuff out on my own. In this case, it was much easier than usual, and for that I am grateful.

I can't say for certain, but I truly believe my internet is now faster than it was before and definitely more reliable. The router provided by my internet provider (who is maybe a half step above dial-up for where I live) was just sub-par and provided absolutely underwhelming performance, which I just found very disappointing. The provider gave me lame equipment to deal with their horrific service. You'd think if their performance was as poor as it is, they'd give me the best router to maximize what they possibly could, but nope.

This router has made quite a bit of difference, that's all I can say. Very happy so far with its solid performance.
2535146
Fun to automate your house with these devices. The industrial design is nice, and they seem to work amazingly well, even dimming lights which I was quite surprised I could dim. INow if only caseta would support a wider range of home automation devices -- locks, appliances, alarm clocks, security cameras, whatever. Now the automation suite is very limited (lamps, shades and a few thermostats).
271539
Not a techie, and was a little scared when reading the instructions, but somehow I did it right and it worked.
4084357
Fairly easy setup. Unit is louder than i anticipated which is not so bad as I will be away from home most of the time when using.  The cat still don't like it too much!  The bin fills up fairly quickly for me as I have some wool area rugs that it tends to vacuum a bit too heavy when it straddles the edge of the rug on half and the wood floor on the other.  Battery life is decent - better than I expected for a vacuum cleaner robot.  I feel like the price is too high for the higher end units but that is the price you pay for being a technology junkie!  The app is decent but could be better.  The scheduling feature is nice!  They seem to be updating the app and improving regularly.
4591923
very easy to use. you don't have to be a tech genius. I am very happy with it so far
3619267
I purchased this device at a reduced price and it performed as advertised. I was able to program the shuttle to work with three separate Cinedecks thorough a KVM switch and it did great.
It's a very small form-factor, which is great in my work-space.

It's a little easy to loose your bearings on the five buttons and hit the wrong one; if the shuttle is turned to the side, I have to look down to find the center button. I may put a little SUGRU on the center button just to stay on target.
You can't beat the performance for the price.
2895989
works well.  impressed with quality for the low price.