Good idea, good concept, sloppy implementation
350194
This book has a very good intention and concept - to introduce VB6 developers to VB .Net.  In general it is a very good book.  Not very deep, but good enough to start working with VB .Net and bee reasonably productive.  So, if not for sloppy writing, I would probably give that book all 5 stars.
What do I mean by sloppy?  For once, author uses terms object and class interchangeably throughout the book.  Sometimes it is contextually understandable what he means, but often it might be very confusing, especially for people relatively new to OO.  Then there are errors and typos in code examples.  Some of them are also very confusing.  For example: on page 80 author introduces the new VB concept - delegates.  For VB6 folks this is something fundamentally new and strange.
In code example author defines delegate type and calls it ProcessFunction.  Then he defines variable of this type and calls it ProcessDelegate.  After that on the same page he shows how to use delegates and assigns value to ProcessFunction and retrieves value from ProcessFunction.
From the context one should understand that in the last two cases the variable ProcessDelegate should be used instead, and that this is just a typo.  Yet, given that VB .Net now supports shared properties and methods, when Class (Type) name can be used where one expects to see Object (Variable), this types of mistakes are very confusing and annoying.
I would not go here into more examples of books imperfections.  There are some more.  Not terribly many, but enough to frustrate.
Would I recommend this book?  Yes, if you have patience and some other VB .Net book to resolve inevitable confusions.
This could become a great book in its next edition if author takes time to make it a bit more accurate and precise.
2118190
The Logitech Touch Mouse T620 is a great idea on paper. Unfortunately, when it comes to performance and real world usage, it left me disappointed and frustrated. It isn't all bad, but I found myself going back to my trusty Logitech M510 mouse.

First, the T620 installs very easily, and the unified receiver allows me to also keep my Logitech M510 wireless mouse connected at the same time. Once installed though, it didn't take long for me to get frustrated by its lack of precision. Despite being described as a "Touch Mouse", the left and right buttons are nothing more than mechanical switches on the bottom of the mouse. To left or right click, you push down on the corresponding sides of the mouse. Not only do I find the clicking sounds it makes annoying, it is also hit or miss what or if the clicks are recognized. I find things right clicking when I want a left click. Menus opening when I don't want them to, etc. I thought with time I'd get used to it and get better at it. After many hours of use though, it still performs poorly. On a positive note, I find the side scrolling useful when navigating through Windows 8 Metro UI, but I find regular scrolling through things like a web browser to not nearly be as good as when using my regular mouse's scroll wheel. Another positive note is that the T620 does track very well. When you add it all together though, the added Windows 8 functions do not make up for the fair at best performance of the mouse. I'd much rather have a regular mouse like my Logitech M510 that works perfectly, and is very precise. All in all. it's a very mixed bag. The Logitech T620 adds some nice features if you're running Windows 8, but it's completely offset by mediocre performance. Perhaps over time and usage, a user can get better control of it. In my opinion though, I'm sticking to my old mouse. Since I can keep the T620 connected with my M510, I will keep trying it though. If I find my experience changes, I'll update my review.
3116149
This is a book that could have been great. The concept is compelling: a storm is brewing at a distance between those who embrace change, embrace technology and innovation, whom she calls dynamists, and those who fear change, believe it's corrosive on our way of life, and, like the Unabomber, want to stifle technological innovation and revert us all back to an agrarian, self-sufficient society, in effect. An eclectic mix of political factions -- the Pat Buchanan anti-free-traders, the Al Gore environmentalists, the Ralph Nader anti-industrialists, Bill Bennett cultural conservatives, the Hillary Clinton technocrats (who want to fiddle with everything to make it "better", Theodore Kaczynski luddites, and others are awkwardly but inevitably coalescing into a new party or faction that will oppose/is opposing the free development of technology and the like, ostensibly to protect consumers and in their minds, to protect a "status quo" standard of living or way of live, that in their mind is superior to whatever may lie
 ahead. In contrast, a separate cast of political factions -- Milton Friedman freemarketeers, "genomic" liberals (who want free rein in biotech research), Harry Browne libertarians, Cher social-liberal types, militant Timothy McVeigh federalists, the Howard Schultz entrepreneurs, investment bankers, and others. Weird bedfellows, to be sure. But recent protests at
WTO conferences, acts of sabotage by Earth Liberation Front cells, the popularity of isolationist rhetoric by Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan here and counterparts abroad are symptomatic of an escalating tension driven by the accelerating adoption of technology worldwide. Things are moving fast, and not everyone
  is comfortable.
The author argues that dynamism, the label she gives the pro-technology/pro-progress faction, is innate in each of us: we crave learning, and trial and error is part of learning, and technology is a logical result of trial and error, starting
  with early man's need to make stone tools all the way to a young engineer's need today to build a better ultralight aircraft. Much of what we do is utilitarian, but the author makes a forceful argument that play, or challenging ourselves
  just for the sake of challenging ourselves, is innate in each of us and thus argues that the dynamic path, not the stasist (status quo/anti-progress) path,
is our natural destiny. The implications for all of this are profound, and it will be fascinating to watch existing centers of power grapple with this issue as the transition to the "new order" oriented around this issue will be awkward and contentious, but I would agree the day is inevitable
  when this issue will be front and center.
My main, and significant, problem with this book is the quality of the writing: it meanders, could be more forceful, seems unclear in its purpose at times, and misses many opportunities to make earth-shattering points. For this reason, it's not a super-page-turner, but rather is something that can be power-read without missing important pieces of learning.
2916505
The concept is a good one, but the execution is not quite up to par.
The Phillips SA61 portable media player is one of those "jack of all trades, master of none" players.

It's music function is okay, if lacking.
It's video function is okay, if lacking.
It's picture viewer is okay, if lacking.
It's radio function is okay, if lacking.
I never made use of the voice recording program.

In fact, it's biggest issues are the features it lacks.

For example, with video play, your movies have to be converted over with the Phillips Media Converter, or 3/4 of the time it won't play. There are also no skip functions for in movie viewing, just fast forward and rewind, so if you're watching a long movie and want to move ahead a chapter or two, you can move at 4x or 8x fast forward.

The music function is alright, but lacks real controls as well. For example, playing a song is fine, but there is no stop button. You can only pause or play, and if you're not on the music menu function, you can't stop a song at all or skip ahead. You have to go back to the music menu, find the album, find the song, and then pause it or skip to the next song.

The picture viewer is just that, a picture viewer. You can turn the image sideways, which is nice if you need to do so, but there is no zoom, no other options. Just next and turning your image to the side on the screen.

The radio function works okay, there's not much to it but I guess there doesn't have to be. You can scan up and down the radio dial and save presets.

As for the voice recording option, I didn't make use of it. Your mileage may vary on that one.

Finally, the settings. It's the most bareboned settings menu I've seen in any kind of electronic interface of it's type. I mean, there are a list of options, but there's very little that you can really change. You can change the "screensaver" time, you can change your video and music playing settings, but even those are very limited. In fact, I would describe the whole setup as limited.

It's about as basic as it gets. iPod, Zune, even the first edition PSPs, these media players are well ahead of the Philips GoGear. If you're looking for absolute bare bone essentials, with just enough to barely get the job done, then I guess you could get this player, although I'm certain you can find something more feature equipped and just better able to handle slightly more complex functions other than "Play/Pause/Next".

Overall, 3 out of 5 stars, and I'm being a bit generous with the 3.
1771218
This was a product I was wanting to like, really.  My first non-PC-based mp3 player was something I really looked forward to.  Unfortunately, despite some truly attractive and useful features and generally good performance, I have now shelved the unit for good and will likely return it to Amazon.
First, the Good:
* The SmarTrax navigation system worked tolerably well, a must when playing disks with 200 or more tracks on them.  Enough of the track info was displayed to know what I was playing and moving through the list was easy, though sometimes a bit slow.
* Playback was of generally good sonic quality, though it became a little ragged at upper volumes on particularly "hot" tracks.
* The bass boost mode was very helpful when using earphones that are lacking at the lower end of the audible spectrum.
The Bad:
* Setup menu navigation is at times frustrating as the software constantly insists on taking you back to the play screen, forcing you to invoke the menu system over and over to complete your setup.
* The track list doesn't show track titles for CDs, only mp3s.  I'm sure such data are available, but the RCA just calls them track 1,2,3...
* The unit turns itself off after only a couple of minutes paused.  I don't know if this is a technical requirement to avoid damaging the disc, but I do know getting to track #127 again is a hassle after you pause it to go get a Coke down the hall.  RCA might tweak the next generation to allow the unit to remain powered and in stand-by if it's on the AC adapter (as mine was).
The ugly:
* The headphones.  Ugh.  Non-adjustable, flimsy, poor phone-to-ear connection (indeed if you can even get a connection...I was only able to get the earpads to my ears when I put the 'phones on from the back of my head).  If you simply have to have this player, do yourself a favor and get a decent set of 'buds or 'phones.
* Here's the thing that disqualifies this unit, IMHO: it skips.  Yes, I know it has a 3/6/13 minute anti-skip, but I'm not talking about physical shock-related skipping, but software glitch skipping.  I used this player at my desk at work and it never experienced a shock greater than a dropped pen or telephone handset hang-up. Yet every few minutes a 0.5 second dropout or omission occurred in the music. At times there was a short silence, but most of the time it was as if an entire quarter note was missing from the song.  The drop-outs happened on both CD and mp3-encoded discs, home-burned and factory-burned media alike.  CD players have been around for 20 years or more...I don't think anyone need tolerate this sort of defect anymore in a player.
Normally, I would have said that for the relatively low price I could live with the quirky menus, irritating automatic shut-off and mystery track names on CDs...I was even willing to pop for a set of good earbuds.  But when I found my teeth grinding at yet another sonic hiccup in the middle of Warren Zevon's artful piano riffs in "Frank and Jesse James," I knew this player's days were numbered.
717516
I saw this product on Indigogo as well as on YouTube - The idea is brilliant - A door bell with a camera that lets you interact with the person at your door, and have a one-way video conference over a plethora of devices that begin with the letter 'i' or run that robot operating system with some devices named after celestial objects.  Again, brilliant.

Brilliant in idea.  Not in execution.

Here are the product's failings:
- The instructions are inconsistent.  They state to hold down the main button for 20 seconds to enter setup mode.  My unit blinked red for 2 hours before finally going solid red, which is what's required before the 20-second push.

- There are no settings in the unit to configure at this point besides silent ring.  The photo you can assign the door bell is cute but worthless.  That's dev time that could've been spent elsewhere.

- The camera is NOT wide angle by any stretch of the imagination.  Its adjustability will render it mostly useless in all but the highest of door bells.  In my home, I get a nice view of  half of someone's chest and stomach along with one of the front posts of my home.  I cannot fix this.  I have to tell whomever is at the door to crouch down and look directly into the camera.  This is inexcusable given the fact that wide angle lenses are cheap and readily available, and a product like this will not have a uniform location on every home.  A wide angle lens would mitigate this significantly.  The few millimeters that the camera can be adjusted are trivial and ultimately useless.

- The audio that comes out of the unit (using an iPhone 5s) is low bitrate and played back at a slower pace.  Imagine playing a tape at slow speed, or slowing down an MP3 for you newfangled kids reading these reviews (shakes his cane atcha) - It makes you sound like you're heavily intoxicated while talking to half of whomever's chest is at your door.

- There is often a lengthy delay in getting a ring notification, if you get one at all.  Sometimes, I can hear the door bell but get nothing on my phone.  Sometimes, it just takes 20-30 seconds.  And I'm on LTE on my phone with 50Mbits down/10Mbits up on a business class line in my home, with new 802.11 AC Airport Extremes - I get 4 bars at my front door for both LTE and 802.11n.

- The retention mechanism to keep the doorbell on its plastic mount is laughable.  It's the tiniest, cutest little screw with the tiniest, cutest, most bendable allen wrench ever.  You have to unscrew this little screw out into a little hole in the outer shell to lock it on.  It's like SkyBell included the most unfun minigame ever as an added anti-bonus.

-Support isn't replying to forum responses or youtube videos showing failures.  Guys, user experience is key. When techies are having difficulty with these, once your initial batches are sold, do you think these technical thought leaders will get their mothers one for Christmas?  Certainly, if they hate their mothers.

Ultimately, the SkyBell's raison d'etre is to serve as proof that a product cannot be successful based on marketing and development requirements alone.  Technical quality assurance processes must to be put in place to ensure the product delivers on its promises in a way that enables the technology to get out of a user's way and enhance their lives, not needlessly complicate it with mediocre documentation, poor camera choices, bare-bones software design, and Smurf-sized allen keys.

I have two NEST thermostats as well as a zWave network in my home.  Not to mention 3 Litter Robots.  I love when technology serves me and enhances my life.  This is technology that makes me sad both because of what it promised, and how it ultimately fails to deliver on those promises.

I will likely be returning my unit soon.  If I can find another tiniest little allen key ever, since mine was bent during installation.
2992547
This is such a good idea it hurts, but the execution is dissapointing.
Set up was a breeze and the web site is friendly and intuitive.  The problem is that the 12-bit color and passive matrix display produces images  of poor quality.  There is noticiable dithering and color aliasing, and  photos are hard to see from the side.
I'm sure a year from now they will  come out with a model aith 16-bit color and an active matrix screen.  And  it will probably cost 1/3 as much.
I suspect my parents will still like  this, but it's not as gfood as it could be.
2862186
Nice concept. But poorly executed. Major work is needed to make the user interface usable, stable, fast, and functional.
At the moment, the software takes forever to start up.  Setup is clunky and awkward.  Product libraries are incomplete and inconsistent.
Bugs in certain devices (DirevTV DVR) get stuck sending endless loop of IR commands.
Feels like it was designed by engineers with little or no UX (User Experience) understanding or background.
Wait for some major software revisions before considering to purchase.
3048573
The concept is very good, but the plastic parts may be a durability problem.
I've added my photos of how this arrived and how it goes together.  I used a rubber mallet and gently seated the rods in the plastic side moldings.  The sound changes as the rods bottom out making it easy to check that they are inserted fully.  Once seated, the rods seem to be firmly held.  When clipping the 3 pieces together that make the side, it was important to make sure the tabs fully click into place.  I found I had to push on each one to make sure it locked correctly.  The metal hanger slots onto a tab on the uppermost plastic side.  The plastic tab does look flimsy compared with the metal hanger and could be potential failure point with lots of shoe weight added.  It was a little tricky to line up all the rods when attaching the other side molding, but the plastic is flexible enough to be able to knock in each rod in sequence and then engage the next rod.
I'd measured my closet door before ordering so I knew what to expect for fit.  It works just right for my installation.
The Velcro stickers to stabilize the rack are not much useat all.  They are an afterthought and aren't strong enough to hold the one side to the door, where the plastic seems to be twisted slightly compared with the other side and hangs away from the door.  There's no designed in place for these round stickers and they sit on a narrow rectangular part of the plastic. - as mentioned, an afterthought in the design.  Fortunately the one side does sit well to the door and those Velcros are enough to stabilize the unit to the door with shoes weighting the rack down.
This is absolutely not a 36 pair rack.  24 yes, 36 no way!  My wife's size 8's only fit two pairs to a row, not even room for a single shoe between them.
 The rack can hold size 13 shoes, though they stick out quite a ways, but with high ankle shoes, the weight, being on the outside, is likely to cause the shoe to fall out.
I'll have to wait and see how long this organizer lasts, as other reviewers have mentioned durability issues.  However, it does exactly what I wanted -for now.
513140
The idea is good, but this is poorly executed in terms of usability and layout. Pages are too narrow and, when combined with the explanatory type for each line item (e.g., username, password, site name, etc.), there is not enough room for writing the info that you need to capture - unless you can write very, very small. Too bad, because the overall quality of the product, in terms of materials and finishing, is quite good.
1714778
Nice concept. Couldn't get it to work right.
3299543
The conceptual idea of this product is good but it fails in execution. Having used this for 3 months before I decided to publish a review to ensure it was made hastily, I would like to keep potential buyers informed before making this purchase.

This review is matched and identical with the Wireless Outdoor Sensor which I bought and used as a pair for the full duration.

The biggest weakness of this product is that it uses batteries, which means they do not last very long, you need to continually replace batteries and they are not on "always on". I had lost connectivity a few times and has to figure out how to hard reset and repair with intuitive app and no instructions either in the app or on Elago website.

When it works, you need to at least open the app once a day so it downloads all the data from the past 24 hours helping it map and trend the statistics the device is meant to capture. That process takes an extremely long time because of bluetooth connectivity, in practicality, nobody is going to sit around and wait for more than a few seconds to get the information needed.

And when the battery is low or flat, there is no pre-notification indicating a fresh set of batteries is required. Instead, you need to replace and possibly reset and repair everything again. This is not a process I am not interested in repeating once every few months, coupled with long wait times to pull the data whenever I use the app and poor intuitive app interface, this product only looks good in concept. I will comfortably assume the door sensors will not perform anywhere in real-time to provide any real notifications.

With the type of readings provided, I have plenty of other IOT products in the house (Canary and LEEO) that can provide these seamlessly, quickly and most importantly, permanently powered and accessible anywhere in the world.

I wouldn't say I hate it but I definitely learned something from buying these Homekit products. By the way, I send this product straight to the trash as I write this off as a failed product and important experience learnt.
2004612
Great concept, some flaws with execution.
1. There should be an option to hardwire the device instead of going through charge / recharge cycles with the battery which is annoying. I want something that I can wire up and that works on it's own without somewhat regular maintenance (the battery lasts a week maybe, often less).

2. The wire is too short, I have tile around the toilet and didn't want to drill into it. I know I could've stuck it on but don't think that would hold up in the long run.

3. The sensor activates even if you're just taking a piss. There should be some sort of time-delay, it activates 30 seconds after it detects your presence.

4. If the device was hardwired one could conceivably have a much smaller sensor making it visually appealing , right now with the battery it's massive and well ugly.

I'm still rating it four stars since it does do the job it advertises and reasonably well at that.
1819439
Great idea but poor implementation.  The little buttons are very tricky and had the same protective paper as the other parts.  BUT they were still too big for the holes - so I had to use a small file to enlarge the holes.  Also, one of the nuts was too small for the screws, so I had to use plyers to even get the nut started.  Casing is tricky to assemble.  I found easiest was to turn over the screws and start them at the bottom so the nut was at the top - so everything held together better and I could remove the top layer to get at the buttons more easily.  After spending an hour or so getting this together, I plugged everything up, pressed the boot button and.... it stuck.  This is not a good casing when you need to do many of them - too labor intensive.  Maybe it's good for a one-off use.

The adafruit bone case is better (but doesn't have the buttons).  I liked the SVTronics pandaboard case.
1404433
This is a nice idea. That's basically where it ends. Sometimes it works, which is great. I have not had much trouble with the clasp, as others have. My problem is that it should be easier to put on and remove. It does loosen during wear. I have small wrists, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but it tracks my sleep about 75% of the time. It picks up that I have "been active" and inquires into the activity about half the time. The food tracker stinks, and it's not a watch. You can't see anything on the band. Everything has to be seen on the app. This was a gift, and if you are thinking of giving something like this, try a fitbit instead.
3853260
Not as good as i thought it was going to be - clunky interface - might get better with patches
1741822
The Good:

* Excellent key response; I normally dislike chiclet keyboards, but the keys feel good.
* No need for charging or battery replacement so far.
* Linux-compatible with minimal trouble (but check "The Ugly" for more details on this).
* Flip-out legs to elevate the back of the keyboard; nice to see that in a wireless keyboard.

The bad:

* Absolutely horrid key placement.  For example, the Enter key is vertical - occupying the "QWER" and "ASDF" rows, rather than only the "ASDF" row like a normal keyboard; the backslash/pipe key is then placed in the home row instead of the row above where it should be.  There is literally zero reason for this (the Anker equivalent to this keyboard at least makes the Enter key wide *and* needlessly tall; this is simply double-annoying).  Same goes for the left Shift key, which - instead of being nice and wide like on a normal keyboard - is shortened and instead replaced with *another* backslash/pipe key between it and the Z key.  Yes, because I *totally* need not just one, but *two*, backslash keys on my keyboard instead of my keyboard layout being, you know, sane.  On the plus side, at least now typing out long command pipelines and escaping special characters in a bash shell might be marginally easier, though at the expense of relearning how to touch-type thanks to the absolutely-horrid layout.

***NOTE: this is different from what the photos in the Amazon listing display; the photos are not accurate.  Be prepared to get used to pinky extensions as you try to type normally.

The Ugly:

* The backside is a bit slick, making it tricky to type while the keyboard is on your lap.
* If you're a Linux user looking to use this keyboard in conjunction with a mouse via the Unifying Receiver, you will probably need to install an additional program on your computer to replace Logitech's software, which is only available for Windows and OS X.  The Arch Linux folks have some good documentation on said Unifying Receiver at [...] I'm using ltunify, which works like a charm: just run 'ltunify pair' (without the quotes) and switch the keyboard off/on.  Solaar handles this with a graphical interface, which is probably easier if you're not comfortable with the command line.