The last two weeks I’ve tested two different accessories for my iPad. A Bluetooth keyboard and a Skin Case, both are supplied from Wirelessground.com. They asked me to test and review them. These are my experiences without any influence from any one or any where.

The Candy Skin Case review:

Pro:

• It took some effort to put the skin on the iPad, but once it’s there it isn’t falling off, thats for sure!
• If you own an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad you know how slippery they can be. With this skin on it’ll never slide anywhere
• You can drop your iPad and I bet it’ll be unharmed most of the times. (I didn’t test that, but the skin is pretty thick)
• The price vs. value

Con:

• Sound quality is reduced. It sounds a bit muffled, but my wife still enjoys Angry Birds HD
• The bottom port is a bit covered by the skin, so you need to fiddle a bit to plug the data cable in
• Makes the iPad look a little “ugly”. It’s a shame to ruin the beautiful design

Summary:

The skin is still on my iPad, but as soon as I get my iPad case I think it’s coming off again, but for the very low price tag, it’s a very affordable solution to protect your precious iPad.

You have to fiddle a bit to get the data cable plugged in

The hole doesn't fit completely over the Apple, but thats a minor thing

The Bluetooth Keyboard (Freedom Pro) review:

Pro:

• Very easy to setup and install
• Doesn’t take up much space
• You can write even faster
• 1/10 less greasy fingers on the display
• Works on other devices (Blackberry, Playstation PSP, Android, Windows Mobile and so forth)
• A lot of keyboard short cuts

Con:

• A lot of keyboard short cuts. It might confuse some, because not many works on an iPad (not sure whos’ fault that is)
• The price (you really have to write a lot on your iPad to spend the money on this)
• Another device to drag a long
• Takes some time to get used to writing on compared to the iPad

Summary:

Folded up and in the case this keyboard doesn’t take up much space. I’m just not completely sure about the concept of iPad and keyboard yet. I think it looks a bit dumb to first take your iPad of out the case and then unpack a keyboard afterwards. Why not just bring your laptop then?! I’ve given the keyboard a chance at some business meetings. I think it’ll stay in my bag for a while and then I’ll see what happens.

Nice folded up in the package

Text written with the keyboard. Looks the same

Opened and ready

Which accesory will you buy for your iPad?

Curse ze French, they are ahead of us again. This time The French National Railway Company (SNFC) is testing train tickets on a 4 Gb. USB dongle.

The USB ticket is called Weneo ID Smart. It consists of two chips. One that contains personal data and one with an ID-number, that is used when paying for your ticket.

According to plans, you can buy your ticket on your computer at home using the USB-dongle. At the same time you can copy your itinerary, travel times and other relevant information to the dongle.

If everything runs as planned Weneo ID Smart is available in 2010.

SFNC is already using RFID-based tickets that allows you to “refill” your train ticket at certain refill-stations.

The Beta News Wiki:

An RFID tag is an object that can be applied to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves. Some tags can be read from several meters away and beyond the line of sight of the reader.

Applications for the Apple iPhone aren’t taking up the internet bandwidth and space. Actually only one company have developed an VoIP (Voice over IP) application, the Israeli company fring.

If you haven’t heard about fring, then perhaps you know one of the people behind it – Avi Schechter. He was one of the founder of the once very popular chat-program ICQ. I still remember my ICQ number 7914159, which was stolen by a hacker some time ago.

The idea behind fring is free access to your favourite instant messaging service like Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk or AIM. You can also connect to your Skype contacts and use twitter.

It requires some kind of high-speed connection. That can be either 3G, Wi-Fi or GPRS. I wouldn’t recommend the latter though.

Since you often will use 3G (or GPRS) I would recommend a free data-plan. fring might be free, but the data you are transmitting when talking through Skype isn’t. You’ll still get a bill from your service provider.

I’ve been a happy fring-user for almost a year now. I have it on my Nokia N80IE and Nokia E51. If I had an Apple iPhone I would install it on it too.

As I mentioned fring is the first company to launch a VoIP application for iPhone. You can download fring for iPhone here.

Jonathan MacDonald has written a guide to installing fring on iPhone.

So do you fring while you Skype? Or is it the other way around?

Do you ever consider the environment when you buy a new gadget? I tend to forget and pick gadgets with lots of features, nice design and geek status.

However eco-friendly gadgets are also a competitive parameter. The gadgets manufacturers has found out that consumers are interested in green products.

So which gadget should you buy if you want to be green?

Greenpeace recently launched a report “Searching…for Green Electronics“. The report analyses several parameters among others; dangerous chemicals in the product, energy saving and can it be recycled. Several companies refused to participate in the survey. This includes Acer, Apple, Asus, Creative, Microsoft, Nintendo, Palm and Sharp. I’m very disappointed in you guys. I own an iPod, Zen Vision M, Xbox360 and Nintendo Wii…tsk tsk @ me.

The scale goes from 1 to 10, 10 being the best grade and this is the top 3 lists:

Cell phones:

1. Sony Ericsson T650i – 5.30 points
2. Nokia N95 – 4.40 points
3. LG Electronics KE970 4.05 points

PDA or Smart Phones:

1. Sony Ericsson P1i – 5.10 points
2. HP iPaq 510 – 3.95 points
3. Mio Technology P350 – 3.15 points

Notebooks:

1. Sony Vaio TZ11 – 5.29 points
2. HP Compaq 2710p – 4.82 points
3. Toshiba Protégé R500 – 4.74 points

Greenpeace states that no manufacturers score high within all criteria. Still, Greenpeace give Sony and Sony Ericsson a thumbs up! I guess this must make Sony’s competitors green with envy…If I’m looking at our latest energy bill, our consumption is equal to a family of four. We are only two adults and a 5 month old toddler. All our domestic appliances are power saving. The same goes for the light bulbs. Nothing is left in stand-by mode either. EXCEPT… My PC runs 24/7 with router, ADSL modem and all kinds of power adapters. Two laptops and a 42″ plasma TV. I guess they eat a bit too.

If you are interested in more green gadgets, cars and scooters. Read “5 Green And Eco-Friendly Gadgets”.

Do you own any green gadgets? When you buy new gadgets do you prefer the eco-friendly ones? What are you doing to reduce energy consumption?

In my quest to make a living of blogging I’ve now turned my attention to my equipment a.k.a my gadgets.

If you didn’t already know that, well I’m working on it. Hopefully in a couple of years I can quit my day job and make a living out of blogging. I think I would be the first Dane to do that.

I’ve compiled a list of gadgets, equipment, skills and programs that I need in order to match the stereotypical blogger.From my interview series I’ve learned that most bloggers have

1. Use a Mac, usually a MacBook Pro, iMac or MacBook Air
2. Keen interest in photography, usually a Canon Digital Rebel XTi or Nikon D40 or similar. Darren Rowse, Matt Mullenweg or Lisa Bettany. They all take great pictures and have a lot of followers on flickr
3. Adobe Photoshop skills. The photographs must be edited in someway. Also great for making graphics for your blog posts
4. Attend a convention. I always envy the bloggers that attend a blogger convention. SXSW is just one of the conventions I would love to participate in. There is so much going on there
5. Speak at a convention.Jennifer Laycock, Guy Kawasaki, Lorelle VanFossen and Andy Beal travel the roads and sky thin speaking at conventions.
6. Have a cool nickname. Robert Scoble is the Scobleizer and Jeremy Schoemaker is Shoemoney. Just to mention a few. I’m sure there are plenty of others out there too
7. Vlog, podcast, lifecast or stream either your life or a daily/weekly show. Justin Kan from justin.tv, Sarah Meyers from Pop17.com, Justine Ezarik from iJustine and Chris Pirillo from LockerGnome all have a show or lifecast (sometimes both). Use services such as Revver, Qik, Ustream, Mogulus or YouTube
8. Say smart, useful and thoughtful things on twitter or pownce
9. Be a part of a Web 2.0 startup

So what kind of stereotypical blogger thing am I doing?

1. I’ve been a pc-guy for many years, but I’ve decided that my next laptop will be a MacBook. (If you have any recommendations then please let me know)
2. I just bought my own Nikon D40. It’s a great camera and a huge upgrade from my old Olympus point and click. The only followers on flickr I have are my parents. I guess the average The Beta News visitor isn’t really interested in pictures of my son with food all his face or our vacation pictures. Who would have guessed! (I do look good in shorts though).
3. Did you notice the graphical improvement after I switched theme. I’m slowly learning to use Photoshop. I just love it, when I find a new feature and figure out how to use it.
4. Attend a convention. Man, I would love to go to a blogger convention. All a part of my big “become a problogger and move to the States”-plan.
5. Being the first Danish problogger that moved to the States. If that doesn’t earn me a spot as a convention speaker. Then what does?
6. Cool nickname. In real life my nickname is Don, but that doesn’t really catch on. I’ve tried with “dennisbp”. Right now I’m trying with my full name: Dennis Bjørn Petersen. Let’s see how many remembers it.
7. I’m experimenting with Qik.com. What a great service. I can stream directly from my cell phone. Besides that I’m trying Camtasia Studio out too. A few of my blog posts will now be recorded using Camtasia Studio. The first one was the prize draw as a part of The Beta News Contest.
8. I try to say smart things on twitter. I’m not as clever as Maki (DoshDosh). He has some really insightful and philosophical tweets.
9. I have no programming skills whatsoever. I do have a couple of great ideas. I just need someone to develop it for me.

Now I’ve revealed my most intimate and secret dreams for you. Which of these points do you follow? Or perhaps you are going your own way and starting your very own trend? What made these people so famous? They were usually first movers or early adopters, some might even call them visionary (not me of course).

UPDATE: I don’t usually ask for diggs, sphinns or stumbles, but as an experiment perhaps you would consider digging or sphinn this?

Last summer I wrote about the Medison Celebrity laptop, a.k.a. $150 laptop. No one has received the laptop yet. So the question still is: Is the $150 laptop real or a scam?

Not according to Medison. As you read this the Swedish company is busy redesigning their website and recently released the following statement:

Medison will start delivering the Medison Celebrity laptop during 2008.
[more to come]

Yes – WAUW – In the next 8-9 months you can expect to receive your $150 laptop, but thats not all. Medison have other big plans.

The Medison Celebrity webshop is also getting a face lift with new products and accessories. They also plan on new services like broadband connections, software downloads, support and service (?!)

The payment is still handled by 2Checkout, but who will distribute the cheap laptop?

Did you order one or perhaps you are considering it? Do you think Medison can deliver?