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While ski technology has dramatically improved over the years, there’s one area that still leaves me cold: gloves. I have very poor circulation in my hands, resulting in freezing hands unless I wear mittens.

Kombi iRip Glove

I like the added control that gloves give me, however, so I was excited to try out three different gloves from Kombi Sports. Of the different brands we reviewed, Kombi’s gloves may well go farthest in seriously pushing the envelope in technology and design.

The Kombi gloves also include nice touches like the nose wipe (Sounds funny until you’re on the slopes and then you discover what a necessity this little bit of fabric technology is…) and a generally lightweight feel without offering lightweight protection from the cold.

Take the Kombi iRip, for example. This is one of the absolute coolest gloves I have ever seen…or heard. The Kombi iRip lets you control your
iPod from your glove. It’s completely wireless so that you don’t have to fumble for your iPod on the chairlift…only to watch it topple into the snow.

It works with a wide range of iPods, though I couldn’t get it to work with my iPod Video. (It worked flawlessly with every other iPod we tried, however, so I’m blaming my iPod on this one.) You simply plug the wireless transmitter into your iPod, tuck it away, and go. There is nothing like slamming the moguls to Jane’s Addiction (”Mountain Song,” anyone?), turning it up on the way down without anything more than nudging the iRip’s “joystick.”

Very, very cool.

The Kombi iRip kept the other three reviewers toasty warm…but left my fingers a little cold. Remember, though, that I’m a bit of an anomaly here so unless you have a history of freezing fingers this glove should be plenty warm for you. It’s made of stretch nylon with X-Loft insulation, a Waterguard waterproof membrane, and Accu-Dri lining (meaning, the lining wicks moisture away from your hands which keeps you dry…and keeps the glove from smelling). This glove is worth its price ($150).

Kombi Freeform Glove

Though less flashy, the Kombi Freeform Glove (MSRP: $100) has some interesting tricks up its sleeve. Two, to be exact. That is, two sleeves.

The Kombi Freeform features Gore’s 2-in-1 technology and includes two chambers. (Meaning: You can slide your hand into one of two chambers.) One chamber isn’t as warm but gives you an incredible grip. The other is fully insulated and kept even my circulation-poor hands toasty warm. (The other reviewers even found the minimally insulated “grip” chamber plenty warm.) This is the perfect glove to use throughout the season: use the “grip” chamber for Spring skiing and the insulated chamber through the colder months.

Beyond this, the Kombi Freeform features a textured nylon shell with leather reinforcement and the lining is Accu-Dri (no-stink and wicks moisture away). Though polar bear warm it is doesn’t feel at all bulky.

Kombi Phoenix Mitten

The last glove we reviewed was actually not a glove at all: it’s the Kombi Phoenix Mitten (MSRP: $80). As noted above, I’ve worn mittens for years but this one was different: it’s very lightweight, making it easy to grip, yet super warm (due to a Goose Down insulation and a GoreTex lining).

I loved the little touches to this one, as well. The hidden pocket that lets you put in handwarmers (though I can’t imagine needing one). The super-soft fleece cuff. And, of course, that ever-useful nosewipe fabric on the thumb.

I had never worn Kombi gloves or mittens before now. They are exceptional. Each of the gloves or mittens we reviewed were distinct from the others we reviewed from the other brands, reflecting innovative thinking in what a glove should be. I’d highly recommend any of these three models.

Current, the edgy news and culture channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, has come up with a new way to broadcast the presidential debates: show Twitter commentary on what people are saying.

Through an official partnership with the microblogging service, Current will broadcast “Hack the Debate,” which will live-stream on Current.com as well as air on the network. Twitter updates, or “tweets,” will be shown in real time for all four debates (three with the presidential candidates and one with the vice presidential candidates), which begin on September 26. It makes a whole lot of sense, given Current’s slant toward young and tech-savvy news hounds (i.e., the people who use Twitter) and heavy focus on user-submitted content.

“The debate stage is only set for two candidates, but Current was founded to make room for millions of participants,” Current CEO Joel Hyatt said in a release. “We’re thrilled to work with Twitter and take advantage of their extremely powerful communication platform, giving people a chance to speak directly to Current’s nationwide television audience.”

Last year, MTV featured Twitter as a promotion platform for the Video Music Awards, and featured some popular tweets on-air, but did not incorporate them into a live broadcast.

Current has not said how the tweets will be selected for on-air display, but it’s likely that they will be hand-picked to provide a range of perspectives and serious commentary. So expect more about the candidates’ differing views on the economy…and less about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s hair.

What wasn’t included: Craigslist personals and “missed connections.” I’d like to see if the volume of posts skyrockets right before Valentine’s Day.

At the top of the rankings was SinglesNet.com, followed by PlentyOfFish.com. PlentyOfFish’s high ranking may have something to do with the fact that it’s a free site and therefore might draw the attention of people who are looking to score a quick V-Day date rather than make a lasting connection. Rounding out the top five were eHarmony, True, and Yahoo Personals.

But the really interesting statistic is that visits to dating sites were up 26 percent in the week ending February 9 in comparison with the equivalent week in 2007, according to Hitwise. This suggests that the taboo associated with dating sites–my friends are still embarrassed to say they’re using those sites to meet guys–is gradually going away.

Yeah, um, big surprise. The nauseating pink-and-red fever leading up to the holiday everyone loves to hate has resulted in higher traffic to dating sites, according to Web metrics firm Hitwise–and it’s bigger than last year.

According to a Hitwise representative, dating site visits hit a peak shortly after the new year, presumably to fulfill those “get a girlfriend” resolutions or perhaps to deal with the aftermath of those awkward over-the-holidays breakups that seem to happen all too often. Traffic was back on the climb right before Valentine’s Day, but Hitwise had not yet tabulated the days after February 9.

To make matters worse, I was perusing Google’s Android Developers blog and there has been little mention of anything important surrounding the launch and availability of Android.

I guess not.

Disagree? Take a look at what Google has said recently about Android. If you notice, the company has stayed relatively tight-lipped about its plans going forward and although it may hint at interesting developments going forward, I’m not sold on the fact that anything big is coming out of the Android camp.

Chances are, Google is being tight-lipped about Android’s progress for one of two reasons: it’s having more trouble than it originally anticipated or it simply doesn’t want us to know anything before it springs some major developments on us.

A quick glance around the Web tells you everything you need to know about Android — nothing. I spent a good hour looking for something to discuss here and after giving up in disgust, the best I could come up with was some useless news about the top Android applications.

Even though the company promised it would be the cornerstone of its mobile plans going forward, Google’s Android platform has fallen off the radar in the past few months. Some say it’s because the company has had a series of issues with its SDK and companies are complaining about the difficulty of developing on the platform. All the while, we’ve been waiting for something from the Android camp to find out what’s going on.

While I know that there are probably thousands of people right now that are anxiously awaiting an Android-based phone, I can’t help but wonder how many have stopped caring. Let’s face it — if something is announced towards the end of 2007 and it’s hardly mentioned by the middle of 2008, how many people can we truly expect to care?

With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder what is really going on at the company. Is it simply trying to hide its problems so we think that everything is running smoothly or is it doing all it can to build up the hype? If it’s the latter, I don’t think it’s doing a very good job.

And in the end, it’s on Google to find a reason why we should care about Android and except for the boring updates on the company’s Android blog, Google has gone silent. If you ask me, it better wake up soon or there could be more trouble on that front than it may expect.

Google’s Android platform may be as wonderful as the company wants us to believe and some may even say that it’s better. But unless I can actually see it with my own eyes and I have some concrete information about its development, I need to consider it AWOL.

Regardless, I can’t help but wonder if things have gone awry. After all, in an industry where the
iPhone gets most of the attention, wouldn’t Google want to do what it can to remind us all that it has something of its own up its sleeve?

Here’s my theory:

Google got into the open handset business with too much hope for the future. The company figured that because of its success online, it could expect to enjoy the same kind of success in an extremely competitive environment — the cell phone industry. Realizing that it’s probably not all it’s alleged to be, Google ran into trouble with software development and getting Android up and running on some of its partners’ devices. And in an attempt to reassure us that everything is fine, it has maintained radio silence.

Wake up, Google. We want to hear more about Android.

All this makes for a vulnerable takeover target. SanDisk’s chairman and CEO, Eli Harari, said last month that the $26-a-share bid from Samsung was “opportunistically timed at the trough of an industry-wide downturn.”

Toshiba and SanDisk have two joint ventures that manufacture NAND flash memory. SanDisk has a 49.9 percent interest in each of the ventures and also funds R&D related to the ventures.

As SanDisk’s profits have been squeezed, its stock has plunged more than $60 per share during the past two years.

SanDisk is the largest supplier of retail flash drives in the U.S.

Toshiba has started negotiations to buy SanDisk’s portion of the facilities, according to Nikkei. The newspaper said this is in response to Samsung’s bid to buy SanDisk that was disclosed last month.

Last month, SanDisk rejected a buyout offer from Samsung. The Milpitas, Calif.-based company has been caught in a brutal downward spiral of flash memory prices and is a laggard in the growing market for solid-state drives–where Samsung is currently the leader.

Toshiba is in talks to buy SanDisk’s chipmaking facilities, according to Japan-based reports.

Currently, Toshiba and SanDisk jointly own flash memory manufacturing facilities in Mie Prefecture, Japan.

But that’s not the point. The PC maker’s first ruggedized notebook isn’t having a New York coming-out party with runway models a la the colorful Inspiron and XPS laptops from last summer. But the company does hope that an option for a tough exterior whets the appetites of some of its most loyal customers, large IT departments.

Dell isn’t really breaking any new ground here. Panasonic has been doing its Toughbook thing for a while now, and neither is Dell trying to beat Panasonic with lower prices. At a starting price of $3,899, that’s more than the lowest-priced configuration of the Panasonic Toughbook CF-30, the Latitude’s closest equivalent. So why rugged and why now?

The Latitude XFR D630 is basically a Latitude D630 in full body armor built to withstand extreme temperatures, falls, moisture, dust, and more.

Dell's first rugged notebook, the Latitude XFR D630.

Dell’s consistent mantra for the past year has been “simplifying IT,” and this fits in well enough with that strategy. But there are lots of questions the company still needs to answer. Will Dell be stuck playing catch-up with its peers after abandoning the one thing that made it different–and incredibly successful–from everyone else? And it’s still defining exactly what kind of company it wants to be. Consumer friendly? Or business focused?

Dell has been in turnaround mode for about a year now. Recent earnings reports seem to indicate that there’s still much more that needs to be done. Sure, Dell has been trying a lot of new things, all at the same time, and, yes, it can be a tad dizzying. One need only review its stream of press releases over the past year to understand the cacophony that is its corporate message. The slew of new products and strategies, many taken directly from its own customers’ suggestions, do include some trendy and new (for Dell) ideas: Linux! Colors! Green computing! New focus on design! Retail!

Director of product management for Dell’s commercial notebooks Brett McAnally says the ruggedized Latitude is “100 percent compatible” with other Latitude D-series notebooks. That means common batteries, AC adapters, software, and more. “When IT wants to update, it can update in a standard way,” McAnally said.

(Credit:
Dell)

But it’s the arguably boring, ostensibly more practical enterprise niches Dell is going after that might be the keys to reinvigorating the company. Dell is spending a lot of energy lately on the business notebook segment. (See the Latitude XT Tablet announced in December.) The people who buy the XFR D630 likely won’t buy it for its looks or cost, but for easy compatibility. The Latitude XFR D630 is just a ruggedized version of the Latitude D630, which is a standard issue for many IT departments. Dell is hoping that its customers will simply swap in the XFR version for certain employees that require tougher notebooks.

With a bit of momentum in product shipments on its side, a renewed sense of purpose, and no pesky corporate scandals hanging over its head, the company has a clean slate and a chance to stake out a new identity over the course of this year. So far, what that will be is still a little murky.

The Latitude XFR D630 from Dell is not sexy.

LiveCycle ES Update 1 will be available next month, Adobe said.

Adobe Systems is updating and expanding its LiveCycle software for building business-oriented Web applications.

The new release also includes two new components: LiveCycle Content Services ES, and LiveCycle PDF Generator 3D ES.

The company on Tuesday is expected to announce LiveCycle Enterprise Suite Update 1, which adds new content management features along with tools to more quickly build financial services and government applications.

The Content Services component, developed in conjunction with Alfresco Software, lets companies build a process or application linked to existing enterprise content. For instance, companies can use the tool to create a system for connecting manufacturers to parts suppliers, or for linking hospitals to insurers.

The PDF Generator 3D ES component is targeted at the manufacturing industry and allows companies to share two- and three-dimensional models in PDF format. The component works with more than 40 CAD applications, according to Adobe.

LiveCycle is one of the primary products in Adobe’s enterprise business. The product is designed for applications that involve document exchanges inside and outside of organizations, such as government Web sites that require people to fill out and process claims. It uses Adobe’s PDF and Flex software to create paperless, Web-based applications.

SpinVox, a London-based company that offers voice mail-to-text conversion technology, doesn’t hide the fact that cell phones can be downright irritating at times. Today the company released the results of a poll of the most annoying cell phone practices as chosen by SpinVox users. Though most of the results aren’t particularly surprising–loud talkers topped the list–a few of the practices I never would have thought of as annoying.

The most amusing practice came in at no. 10 on the list. It was “can conversationalists,” or talkers who insist on having that all-important conversation in a public restroom. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that’s just gross. The two practices that I didn’t expect to be on the list were “walk ‘n scrollers,” or people who scroll through their contacts list while walking through a public place, and “free samplers,” or users who test each of their phone’s ringtones with the volume turned up high (I admit I’ve been guilty of both). When I think about it, those do sound pretty annoying but I’d be more inclined to put driving with a cell phone, using a cell phone in a theater or at the gym, and obsessive Bluetooth users on the list.

SpinVox does offer suggestions for remedying each of the behaviors, but I’ve become more resigned to believe that annoying cell phone habits will never disappear completely. Still, I’d love to hear your comments on which cell phone practices you think are the worst.

For example, “taste blasters,” or people who showcase their musical taste through their ringtones, ranked above individuals who talk on the phone in restaurants (aka “chow chatters”). In my opinion, the latter is a far bigger breach of basic etiquette. Also, the study cited “spinal tappers,” or people who use a loud speakerphone, as more annoying as those insufferable fools who block a checkout or takeaway line while yakking on their phone. Again, I’d choose the latter as the more obnoxious.

The Samsung CLP-315W is designed for working professionals and entrepreneurs who want a laser printer for speed but also need to print out documents, photos, and presentations in full color. This version also has a wireless print server built into the device, a convenient feature if you have several computers attached to the same network that will share the same printer. Unfortunately, the CLP-315W is not without its serious flaws.

First, the quality of the printouts are simply unacceptable. The printer has trouble separating subtle gradations in color and tends to blur together close sections on the color gamut. Also, forget about printing even the lowest-quality photos with the printer–in our experience, even small portraits on a presentation slide look smeared in some spots. We do like the small footprint, the easy wireless setup, and the separate color toner cartridges, but the output quality and sluggish print speeds take the overall score down to just an OK 2.5 stars.

Read the full review of the Samsung CLP-315W printer.

In just a few minutes, I watched the number of items in my inbox shrink from 4,081 to a more reasonable 2,656 (and counting). The program places the duplicate messages in a folder named ODIR_Duplicate_Files. I looked through this folder for non-duplicates erroneously identified by the add-on but didn’t spot any.

(Credit:
Vaita)

Most of my inboxes have thousands of entries dating back years. And since I’ve combined my ISP’s POP mail account with my Gmail account, the inbox-overflow problem has gotten out of hand.

The free Outlook Duplicate Items Remover add-on makes finding and removing duplicate Outlook entries a breeze.

If you trust the program’s ability to tell duplicates from singles, you can simply delete the contents of the ODIR_Duplicate_Files folder. I played it safe by moving the folder’s files to compressed folder on a thumb drive before deleting them.

Tomorrow: pare Outlook further by removing the attachments from your messages.

I may not save a ton of time or hard-drive storage space by ridding myself of duplicate Outlook files, but every little bit helps.

Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who manages to keep their e-mail inbox empty by assigning the messages they need to keep appropriately named folders and deleting the mail they don’t need.

Rather than spending half a day manually removing the duplicates, I installed Vaita’s free Outlook Duplicate Items Remover. The program places an “ODIR” entry on Outlook’s standard toolbar. Click it and choose “Remove duplicate items” (or press Alt-O, R) to open the add-on’s window showing your Outlook folders. Select one of the folders and click the “Remove duplicate items” button at the bottom of the window.