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Barton 1972’s Braided Leather Camera Straps
Hong Kong-based company Barton 1972 makes a lot of cool camera straps. The braided leather models are particularly stylish, and they have a sort of soft stretchiness with lots of surface area, so they're also quite comfortable to wear. Perfect for micro 4/3 cameras. There are several braided straps to choose from: Braided Style ($79) — Depending on how tall you are,…
Phone Clean for Mac — Free Up Space on iOS
I recently looked at my iPhone's usage statistics and noticed Spotify was using 1.1 GB. For an app that is supposed to be about streaming music—I don't download anything locally—that seemed like a lot. I've run into this situation before. Over time, Dropbox and Google Drive can grow to 800-900 MB without much effort. I used to deal with this by deleting…
Reminder: Our Guide to Backyard Cooking is Awesome
For Tools & Toys readers in the US, Labor Day is just a week away. It's the perfect time to close out the summer with a great cook out with friends and family. We've got a great guide to make sure you have the right gear for all your backyard cooking. Even if you've got a great grill already, I highly recommend you…
SF Cable Ultraflat CAT6 Ethernet Cable
For all the greatness of Wi-Fi, wired ethernet is typically faster and more stable. In my new house, I had CAT6 ran to every TV location to hardwire all of my Rokus. In one of the rooms, we decided that we wanted to swap the TV location to another part of the room. I ordered a 45-foot roll of flat CAT6 cable.…
Olympus M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 Micro Four Thirds Lens
Okay, owners of Olympus mirrorless cameras. You've got the 25mm f/1.8 lens. Maybe you've got the 40-150mm f/4-5.6 too. Now you're ready for another addition to the lineup, maybe something for portrait work. How about the 75mm f/1.8 lens? This lens -- equivalent to a 150mm focal length when used with a micro four thirds sensor -- sports an all-metal construction with…
Delta Faucet 54424-PK 9-Spray Handheld Showerhead
This Delta 9-spray handheld showerhead is pretty great, for several reasons: It's strong enough to feel like I'm getting clean (2.5 GPM flow rate) without feeling like my skin is being melted off. As the name suggests, there are 9 different spray settings to choose from. Variety is the spice of life! It has a "pause" button that basically reduces the shower…
‘Raw Materials: Collected Essays’ by Matt Gemmell
Matt Gemmell has long been a favorite writer of mine on the web. He writes about a number of things: software development, productivity, technology, etc—but his deeply personal essays are always the most captivating to me. He has collected a number of these essays into a Kindle ebook called Raw Materials. In it, Mr. Gemmell introspects about various aspects of his life's…
‘It Will Be Exhilarating’ by Dan Provost & Tom Gerhardt
Speaking of Studio Neat, did you know they wrote and published an ebook about indie entrepreneurship a while back? It Will Be Exhilarating is all about the ins and outs of starting and running a small business in a Kickstarter-fueled world. Dan and Tom give details about manufacturing hardware products, launching a Kickstarter project, and they give a few marketing tips along…
Studio Neat’s Simple Syrup Kit
After a highly successful Kickstarter campaign for their Neat Ice Kit, the boys at Studio Neat are back with a new Kickstarter project: the Simple Syrup Kit. Simple syrup—a concoction of sugar and water—is great for sweetening both iced coffee and cocktails. We almost always have a jar of the stuff in our fridge. To use Tom and Dan's words, the Simple…
Miccus Mini-Jack RX: Bluetooth Music Receiver For AUX Port
One of the major annoyances with my new car it is that it supports Bluetooth, but not Bluetooth audio. Thankfully, the car at least has an AUX port. I could use a 3.5mm cord, but I wanted to ditch cords altogether. The Miccus Mini-jack RX solves this problem. It plugs into the AUX port, then connects to your phone via Bluetooth. It's battery powered,…
Loyal Stricklin Ruck Sack
This leather ruck sack from Alabama company Loyal Stricklin is as beautiful as it is functional. Made from 4oz rich tan Horween Leather Chromexcel, it sports a large primary opening with two smaller pockets on the front. When the enclosure flap is rolled up, the bag measures 12"x19"x5"—plenty large enough to carry one's daily essentials—and extends to 25" tall when unrolled. Each…
Olympus 40-150mm f/4-5.6 Micro Four Thirds Zoom Lens
One of the best reasons to pick up a micro 4/3 camera like the Olympus E-M10 is portability. Olympus' 25mm f/1.8 lens complements this idea nicely, but maybe you need something with a little more versatility. We recommend the Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/4-5.6 R zoom. This entry-level zoom lens gives you the extra oomph you need to capture subjects somewhat far away…
‘The Sketchnote Workbook’ is Here
Mike Rohde's new book, The Sketchnote Workbook, has officially launched. This is the follow-up to his popular introductory book, The Sketchnote Handbook. In the original book, Mike taught us how to use sketchnotes to visually capture ideas and remember key bits of information. In The Sketchnote Workbook he expands on those concepts, showing how to adapt your sketchnote skills to all sorts…
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Scanbot for iOS
This is a guest post by our friend, Bradley Chambers. Scanning from my iPhone has really made a big impact on my ability to go paperless in my life. Scanbot is my current go-to app for this. It's extremely fast and simple. Some of the included features: Automatic upload to many cloud services (Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, Box, OneDrive) Ability to edit…
Sony a5100 Mirrorless Camera
Sony has announced their upcoming mirrorless camera, the a5100. The tl;dr is that it's basically the a6000 in a more compact package. The a5100 has no electronic viewfinder or any physical control dials to speak of, but it does contain the same 24.3-megapixel CMOS APS-C sensor and BIONZ X image processing engine as the a6000. In other words, it still focuses on…
Chamberlain’s Leather Milk
If you're like us and enjoy quality leather bags and such, you know how important it is to properly care for and maintain the leather's finish over time. Chamberlain's Leather Milk is the right tool for the job, and is even what Saddleback Leather recommends for their products. There are actually five versions of the stuff, each with a different purpose: No.…
Panasonic LUMIX GH4 Digital Camera
The features that set the Panasonic LUMIX GH4 apart from its much cheaper competition aren't the 16MP micro four-thirds sensor, WiFi connectivity, weather-sealed body, fully-articulated rear LCD, or even its excellent battery life. It's the fact that Panasonic managed to squeeze 4K video recording (!) into such a compact package. The non-video specs are still perfectly respectable, but I wouldn't pick it…
‘Nuanced Opinion on Pluto’ T-Shirt
Wherever you stand on the Pluto reclassification issue, you may get as much of a kick from this t-shirt design as I did. If you can't read the front-facing text in the image above, it says: Demoting Pluto to a dwarf planet was a reasonable decision, although the choice of nomenclature was flawed. As of this writing (Aug 14th, 2014) there is…