E-Monk's Live Blog

"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion" - Abraham Lincoln At the beginning of every Jewish year, in the month of Tishrei, there are 10 days, called "The Holy Days" or "The Terrible Days". During this period, every Jewish believer has to search his soul, ask for forgiveness and repent. At the end of this period, during Yom Kipur (or The Day Of Atonement), the Jewish believers fast and pray in hope to be "signed for life" for the coming year.  They hope that the balance between good and bad deed will turn in their favor. Some make sure that it will happen using donations, others by a brutal ritual which I will not describe here. But the question is, "What is a good deed?". Is there a universal standard for it? The answer is simple: no. You can often find a negative aspect in every good deed, even if it was done selflessly and with the sincerest of intention. If we started by talking about

In a recent study, it was reported that a policy of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has already been adopted in around 40% of the American corporation, and this trend will grow in the following years. The idea behind BYOD is that people work better with technology they already chose themselves and know how to use. BYOD should save the organization purchasing, training and some of the maintenance costs, while increasing productivity and worker satisfaction. However, it increases security concerns, introduces compatibility issues and requires a wider range of skills from the IT and HD departments. I did not realize this, but for the past 5 years, I've been using BYOD on an almost daily basis. It started with a PDA, went on to smartphones and now I find myself using my own 2 smartphones, my laptop and my GMail account for work. I was offered alternatives, but I am very particular about the technology I buy and I often refuse to use the equipment I am getting from work: usually I fin

I will begin by apologizing. In a blog post that I wrote some time ago, I claimed that the phones are getting to large to handle, literally. I claimed that a phone shouldn't be wider than 65mm, thicker than 10mm and heavier than 130g. I still hold that these are the perfect dimensions for a phone, so if I were a man of my word, I shouldn't have bought the HTC One X. Therefore I apologize for betraying you, but at the end, I did get a phone that's considerably wider, at 69mm. But seriously, there's a good reason for this choice. I could have bought the HTC One S, which is lighter, slimmer and smaller. However, when it came to specifications, it looked a little like yesterday's news. The CPU is a very modern dual-core, and the metal finish is said to be very luxurious, but the screen is pentile, no NFC and no 5GHz WiFi. I was actually willing to compromise on these, but it also has just 10GB of accessible storage space with no possibility to upgrade, and to a music

Back in 2009, Google and HTC introduced the Nexus One, the first Google-branded smartphone. The phone was described in a new term, "superphone", in order to emphasis the fact it had features that exceed any other smartphone on the market. When I heard the term "superphone" for the first time, it instantly reminded me of supercars. Supercars are usually described by their manufacturers in terms such as "high performance", "beautiful" and "exclusive". Those terms are usually true, but Jeremy Clarkson's description is just as accurate, saying most supercars are "big", "impractical", "unreliable" and "trying to kill you". Superphones are therefore surprisingly similar to supercars: they are usually beautifully designed, have high-quality screens and powerful features. But also, they're usually too big, suffer from unstable software, fragile and have battery life that will hardly suffice f

Well, not really. I am going to write reviews (or rather extended opinions), but they won't be detailed. Also, I am not connected to any gadgets producer or distributor, so those reviews will be written only on products that I actually own or use. I promise to write the reviews only after using the products for at least a week. Most of the reviews are being written by professional writers, who usually have a high level of understanding in the products they write about. However, despite their credentials, they simply cannot predict production flaws and design quirks that appear only after a longer period of usage. Another kind of review which I don't like are those who simply quote numbers, analyse components and perform synthetic benchmark tests. I'm sorry, but very often these benchmarks are irrelevant. Also, those super-technical reviews tend to exaggerate minor differences in performance, which have no influence in the everyday life. I rather have a product that wor

After a few years of using solely Sennehiser IEMs (In Ear Monitors, a fancy name for in-ear headphone or earbuds), I was convinced to buy the Shure SE215. These earphones are the lowest in Shure's range of IEMs that includes the SE315, SE425 and SE535. I always perceived Shure as a firm that makes very good high-end models, but neglects the middle range. Apparently, the SE215 is a break from this tradition, which they made in order to cash in the ever growing number of portable media players and smartphone. The SE215 received excellent reviews, like "the best under $100 you can buy" and another review "$100 earphones should not sound that good". My own opinion is not different: the build quality is great: the design is utilitarian and sturdy but pleasant, with detachable cables and memory-foam or silicone tips. The SE215 feel like a quality product and they make me believe that they won't start disintegrating like the Sennheiser IE6 did. They are also