A fantastic article by Matt Legend Gemmell:

When you see a mature product that’s somehow managed to innovate (to be “new” whilst balancing all the constraints and annoyances of the existing problem), it becomes almost impossible to see how you could do it any other way. Design blindness sets in: the most successful product is the only possible design. Which, of course, is nonsense – but a very convincing, insistent, tempting sort of nonsense.

Putting up a Christmas Tree this weekend? Got a bazillion Legos in a tub somewhere? Perfect. Use Chris McVeigh’s instructions to make some Lego ornaments for that tree (including some Star Wars themed ornaments). (Via Amy Smith.)

My Thanks to CaptureNotes for sponsoring the RSS feed this week.

CaptureNotes 2 is more than just a note-taking app for the iPad. It lets you record audio while you type.

While there might be other apps that let you take notes and record, CaptureNotes 2 brings an entirely new feature to the experience: Flags.

Flags are intelligent bookmarks, allowing you to place specific marks in time during a recording to follow up on in later review. For example, if you were using CaptureNotes in a class, you could mark things like test questions, text references, follow-up requests, or even make your own custom flag set. In a meeting at work, you could mark action items to follow up on.

When it comes time to study for your test or compile your to-do list, you can sort notes by flag type, taking you back to that specific piece of audio recording and notes.

Note-taking is also available on imported PDFs and email sessions. CaptureNotes lets you store your binders and notebooks on Dropbox.

CaptureNotes 2 was recently selected as app of the week at TiPB, and is on sale to celebrate. Capture everything at school, work, or home with CaptureNotes 2.

Forty-seven of the finest gift suggestions you’ll find.

I love the concept of this brand-new iPhone app slash social network. Primarily because it’s so darn simple. You pick something, such as food, a movie, an album, whatever, and you stamp it. Your stamp is your way of approving and/or recommending that thing.

What’s fun is that you start off with just 100 stamps. You can only earn more via the interactions of your friends and followers. If someone else stamps something that you have previously stamped and they give you the credit then you earn a stamp. You also earn more stamps when people “like” what you’ve stamped.

What I also like about this app is that if you come across something new that your friend has stamped, you can add it as a “to-do”. Maybe its a book you want to read or a restaurant you want to check out next time your in San Francisco.

And resting on top of the overall philosophy of the network is a drop-dead-gorgeous design. I have yet to find a pixel in this app that doesn’t look like it was placed there on purpose.

I have a feeling Stamped is going to be very fun.

Brett likes it. Tony Fadell and his team took one of the least-interesting home utility devices and turned it into something worth writing home about. (Via Ben Brooks.)

Shadoe Huard interviewed me over Skype yesterday. We talked my journey of taking this site full time, and about writing in general.

It’s episode 35 of The B&B Podcast and we’re talking about Jeeps, off-roading, Kindles, Readability and supporting indie writers, and more.

Nearly all the Kindle Fire reviews I read on the larger tech sites were relatively negative. Garrick, however, is an actual customer who got his Fire not as a review unit but as a device which he intends to use. And he likes it a lot.

I’m not saying that Pogue and Mossberg and Phillips were wrong about the Fire — it’s possible that I would have reviewed the device with the same sentiment they did — but it’s great to see how a real customer actually feels about this gadget. Garrick’s opinion is just as valid and important as the pundit’s (if not more valid since he actually paid for his Kindle Fire).

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the forthcoming reviews from the Regular Joes who paid for their Kindle Fire with their own money and didn’t get it until yesterday.

(Via Patrick Rhone.)

My Thanks to Textastic for sponsoring the RSS feed this week.

Who says the iPad is only for consumption? Textastic brings the power of a desktop text, code, and markup editor to the iPad.

Textastic supports syntax highlighting of more than 80 languages, and if that’s not enough, you can extend it with TextMate-compatible syntax definitions and themes.

The visual find and replace feature and the list of function and class names let you quickly navigate documents. A cursor navigation wheel simplifies text selection and the extra row of keys above the keyboard makes it easy to type common programming characters.

As you create, you can preview HTML and Markdown files locally. Once you’re done, connect to (S)FTP and WebDAV servers as well as Dropbox. It even includes a built-in WebDAV server that allows you to quickly transfer files to your iPad wirelessly from your Mac or PC.

Textastic for iPad is just $9.99 and is available on the App Store.

Jon Phillips’ review of the Kindle Fire for Wired:

Is it tablet that people will grab again and again for web browsing, book and magazine reading, casual gaming, and more?

No. It’s not that kind of tablet.

I have read very few positive remarks about the Kindle Fire other than the fact that it costs $199 compared to the iPad’s $499. But, so what if the Fire is less expensive? A lousy product that costs less than a fantastic product is still a lousy product. The same way a lousy brake pad with a guarantee on the box is still a lousy brake pad.

To be fair, Joshua Topolsky’s review of the Fire was relatively positive — especially when compared to the other reviews I have read and linked to today. And during the first episode of On The Verge Joshua talks positively about the Fire.