Directory — Shopping and Fashion — Blog Details for "The ProductCritic Blog"

The ProductCritic Blog

The ProductCritic Blog
Need an easy way to determine whether a specific Digital Camera, Camcorder, or Cell Phone is worth it? ProductCritic is a free site that gives you one location to find professional reviews of a particular product. The site also calculates a score of

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Articles

Armor For Your Camera. That's Hardcore.
2009-06-09 10:07:00
For the photographers who either travel in war zones or are really worried about keeping their gear in pristine condition (so you can sell it when you upgrade to the next hot DSLR?), get this camera armor from cameraarmor.com.I think this is so cool. The "body armor" is customized for a variety of cameras and includes a clear shield for the LCD and a hood that stretches over the lens for protection.The following cameras are supported:Canon 30DCanon Rebel XTi/400DCanon 5DNikon D70/D70SNikon D80Nikon D200Nikon D40Sony Alpha A100If you get one of these, send me a picture of how it looks being carried around and used.
More About: Camera , Hardcore , Armor

ProductCritic Has Most Extensive List Of iPhone Reviews
2008-01-02 04:57:00
ProductCritic's Cell Phone Reviews now lists 18 reviews for the Apple iPhone. I think we have the most extensive list of reviews you will find anywhere.Currently, the iPhone has a ProductCritic score of 87 which puts it tied for best rated phone on the site along with the Sony Ericsson K800i and the Sony Ericsson W810i.This post brought to you by:If you love cell phones and need a cell phone rental plan, sign online today. Our international cell phone rental is the perfect option for all of your international phonecall needs. Our cell phones have high convenience with low commitment. Find out why we're number one when it comes to satellite phone rental!
More About: Iphone , List

This Camera Was Really Dirty
2008-01-02 04:54:00
A friend of mine sent me this picture (not of him) of someone cleaning their dirty camera. Looks like I've been using the wrong method to clean my camera.This post brought to you by:Do you feel like you need more security around your house? Why not purchase a Surveillance Camera ? Our website will put you in touch with the best resources for home surveillance systems. Sign online today and find out why our customers trust our Surveillance Camera System over any other system. From video cameras to monitors, we have a wide selection of Surveillance Cameras and accessories!
More About: Dirty

Don't Get Scammed By Online Camera Stores
2008-01-02 04:23:00
We've posted about being scammed by online camera stores in the past but yesterday we received an e-mail from a visitor of our digital camera reviews warning us about an experience with one of the worst online camera "stores", bestpricecameras.com.I just wanted to warn your readers of a "supplier" of digital cameras that I regard to to be highly suspect: bestpricecameras.comI found that they had the best price advertised anywhere for a new Canon Rebel xti 400d and for the lens, a 17 to 40mm L. All for around $960+/-. Sounds too good to be true? That's because it is. Please post this on your website so that others do not suffer the strange tactics of this company. I cannot imagine what they hope to obtain from their methods.I ordered the camera and lens (which I suspect will be of outstanding quality). After waiting a couple of weeks, I called them and they said it was on back order and that I should receive it within a week. After 2 more weeks, I called them again and got so...
More About: Camera , Online , Stores

Don't Get Scammed From Online Camera Stores
2007-12-28 10:10:00
The Wise Bread blog has a post entry titled "DO NOT buy a digital camera online until you read this". The post is a detailed account of exactly what happened when he tried to purchase a digital camera from one of the most notorious online camera stores, Bestpricecameras.com.The usual way these Brooklyn-based online camera stores scam you is the simple Bait-and-Switch tactic. They lure you to make a purchase by showing cameras that are well below the prices you see elsewhere (as much as half as much). That's the bait. Then, once you place an order, you'll get a call or an e-mail saying that your order is backordered or you find out it's for the camera body only (no battery, manual, box, or anything else) and you'll get pressured to purchase a bunch of different stuff (or a different model of camera).In a previous post, I talk about how I look for these scam stores advertising on ProductCritic via Google Adwords. The only way to ensure that the visitors on your site don't go to o...
More About: Camera , Online , Stores

Don't Have Time? Take 60 Seconds To Improve Your Photos
2007-10-16 08:12:00
idigitalphoto.com has a great blog post entitled "Improv e Your Photos 60 Seconds at a Time ". It's perfect for people like me who really don't have the time to read through a long and thorough tutorial on various photography techniques and skills.The post is broken up into a number of different sections:LightLandscapingPeopleColorCompo sitionBeing ReadyEach section has between 3-7 short "tutorials" in point form (e.g. "Framing the lines") that should take you only 60 seconds to read and absorb. Great job!Maybe only taking 60 seconds at a time is the reason why I still need to take hundreds of photos to try and get a couple really good ones.
More About: Prove

Don't Have Time? Take 60 Seconds To Improve Your Photos
2007-10-16 08:12:00
idigitalphoto.com has a great blog post entitled "Improve Your Photos 60 Seconds at a Time ". It's perfect for people like me who really don't have the time to read through a long and thorough tutorial on various photography techniques and skills.The post is broken up into a number of different sections:LightLandscapingPeopleColorCompo sitionBeing ReadyEach section has between 3-7 short "tutorials" in point form (e.g. "Framing the lines") that should take you only 60 seconds to read and absorb. Great job!Maybe only taking 60 seconds at a time is the reason why I still need to take hundreds of photos to try and get a couple really good ones.

A Cool Way To Find And Compare Cell Phones And Plans
2007-09-27 09:02:00
I stumbled on this site while researching phones - www.myrateplan.com.The site has a cool gadget to find and compare phones and plans according to the criteria that you care about (e.g. must have Bluetooth, play mp3's, have a camera, be lightweight, look stylish, etc).From the criteria I punched in (slim, popular, bluetooth, camera, speakerphone), I was really surprised at the phones I could get for free (with a plan) or even get money back! I could get the Motorola KRZR K1 at AT&T and get $70 back!
More About: Cell Phones , Phones , Cool , Cell , Find

We're back! Apologies For The Missing Posts
2007-09-19 08:00:00
Sorry about the long time between the posts. I recently had a new baby and that takes all the time and energy that I have. I'm back now and will be posting regularly again as well as adding new products to ProductCritic.If you are currently doing research for a digital camera, camcorder, or cell phone, let me know and if the product isn't already on ProductCritic, we'll get it up there.
More About: Back , Missing , Posts , Polo , Logi

What Tech Support Problems Do People Have?
2007-08-16 14:59:00
As part of our continuing effort to make ProductCritic the most useful site on the Internet for helping you decide if you should buy a certain digital camera, camcorder, or cell phone, we've worked with FixYa to be one of the first sites to support their widget.If you don't know what FixYa is, they had recently been written up on Lifehacker. In short, FixYa is a database of user-submitted instructions for fixing tech support issues for various products. They have a pretty good database so far and are continually adding more support answers.We've started adding the widget to every new product that we enter into ProductCritic and will, over the next little while, add the widget to all the existing products that are on ProductCritic. We've already added them to the Top 10 Rated Digital Cameras. I've included a pic of what the widget looks like and you can see it on ProductCritic's page of Apple iPhone reviews.I like the widget as it adds another level of information for people wh...
More About: People , Tech , Support , Problems , Tech Support

Take Better Flash Photos
2007-08-10 23:23:00
Cheapshooter provides three easy (and cheap!) methods to modify the built-in flash on your DSLR so that the flash photos you take don't look so...flash photo-ish.I like their first method of using a white film canister to put over the flash and diffuse the light. Looks like I'll have to go hunting for a film canister though...I haven't had a camera that uses actual film in years.
More About: Flash , Photos , Lash

Now You Can Add RSS Feeds To A Rails Site
2007-08-09 15:16:00
We've recently added some RSS feeds to make it easier to keep track of changes made to the ProductCritic site. This is an easy feature to add extra value to your site and with Rails it's quite easy.There a number of ways to do this but I decided to use a straight forward method of using an XML view.First step is to create a new method in your controller. For the home page feed which provides updates on the latest product reviews on the site, I added an 'rss' method to the PageController class that looked something like this:def rss@products = Product.find(:all, :order => 'created_at desc', :limit => 20)render :layout => falseendNow all that is needed is to create a 'app/views/page/rss.rxml' file to create the RSS feed. In this example I used this:xml.instruct! :xml, :version => '1.0', :encoding => 'utf-8'xml.rss('version' => '2.0') doxml.channel doxml.title "Latest Products from ProductCritic"xml.link(request.protocol + request.host_with_port + home_path)xml.descr...
More About: Site

Now You Can Add RSS Feeds To A Rails Site
2007-08-09 15:05:00
We've recently added some RSS feeds to make it easier to keep track of changes made to the ProductCritic site. This is an easy feature to add extra value to your site and with Rails it's quite easy.There a number of ways to do this but I decided to use a straight forward method of using an XML view.First step is to create a new method in your controller. For the home page feed which provides updates on the latest product reviews on the site, I added an 'rss' method to the PageController class that looked something like this:def rss@products = Product.find(:all, :order => 'created_at desc', :limit => 20)render :layout => falseendNow all that is needed is to create a 'app/views/page/rss.rxml' file to create the RSS feed. In this example I used this:xml.instruct! :xml, :version => '1.0', :encoding => 'utf-8'xml.rss('version' => '2.0') doxml.channel doxml.title "Latest Products from ProductCritic"xml.link(request.protocol + request.host_with_port + home_path)xml.descr...
More About: Site

Not Sick Of iPhone Yet? A Ton Of iPhone Links
2007-08-07 10:10:00
Mashable has once again produced one of their huge resource links, this time for the iPhone.This one has 75+ resources for the iPhone.I'm again bored of the iPhone stuff but am starting to wonder if I'm getting tired of these long lists of resource links too. Do they just get written to be dugg? I wonder if it's working.Anyways, we've made some additions to ProductCritic to make it easier for people to view all their product reviews. Look for posts about the recent changes we just made over the weekend.
More About: Iphone , Links , Sick

This Camera Was Really Dirty
2007-07-31 09:37:00
A friend of mine sent me this picture (not of him) of someone cleaning their dirty camera. Looks like I've been using the wrong method to clean my camera.
More About: Camera , Dirty , Really , Ally

Will It Blend? Camcorder Episode
2007-07-26 20:26:00
I think the Will It Blend ? videos from Blendtec are a must-see. One of the best uses of YouTube I can think of...dangerous stuff with appliances that you wouldn't want to do at home.Since we have camcorder reviews on ProductCritic, I thought I'd post a link up to the Will It Blend? video where they blend a camcorder. The results are amazing (as are all the results from anything they blend).What is even funnier is that they actually brought the blended results back to the store to try and get the warranty back on it. Unfortunately, they had to remove that video from the actual Blendtec site but it can still be found on YouTube.Does anyone know what model of Sony camcorder is he blending?
More About: Episode , Camcorder , Order , Lend

Almost 100 Online Photography Resources
2007-07-23 09:15:00
I don't know why I didn't post this when I read it but last month Mashable had a great post for photography buffs like us that listed 90+ Online Photography Tools & Resources .Read their post for the full list, but here are my favorites in each category:Online Photo Editors:Fauxto - The closest you can get to Photoshop online because it provides support for layers.Phixr - Not just editing but supports uploads to Flickr, Fotopic, Livejournal, Photobucket, and others.Photo Sharing:Flickr - Everyone is using it anyways...SlideShare - I love how easy they make it to embed a slideshow on your own page.Free Photo Hosting:Photobucket - MySpace's favorite.AllYouCanUpload - Like the name says, no limit to image size you can upload.Photography Blogs:DPreview - One of the sites that ProductCritic summarizes reviews from. Still good after being bought by Amazon earlier this year. Not exactly just a blog.Mashups:Colr Pickr - Allows you to search Flickr photos based on their color. This one is...

Guy Gets Kicked Off From Amazon. Loses $400.
2007-07-20 09:02:00
Just read this really simple post about a guy who just got booted from Amazon 's Affiliate program and lost out on the $400 in commissions that he had already accumulated.Although ProductCritic participates in Amazon's Affiliate program, it is not a material part of the sites revenue. How unimportant is it? How about less than $20 in affiliate commissions so far this whole year!I'm not sure why the revenue (and clicks) from Amazon is so low. To be fair, we have mainly put in Amazon links because they have a lot of good general information about each camera, camcorder, and cell phone and is a good place for our visitors to view the features of a product (but not necessarily the reviews).Because we think the Amazon links are helpful for our visitors, we're going to keep the links available but I'm seriously thinking about using a different affiliate partner.Anyone have any good ideas?

3 Kinds Of Successful Adsense Sites? At Least ProductCritic Is One
2007-07-17 17:30:00
Eric Giguere (the author of a couple Adsense books that I haven't read yet), has a post up on his Make Easy Money With Google And Adsense blog entitled "The 3 Kinds Of Successful Adsense Sites ".In summary, the three types he lists are:The Experience Site - a site that describes your personal experience with something.The Clarification Site - a site to better explain a topic.The Compilation Site - a site that organizes information and links to relevant websites.ProductCritic is definitely the third type of site that Eric lists. To quote his post,"The best compilation sites have lots of links to other sites. They're not afraid of external linking, and they're all the more useful because of it. It may seem counterproductive because each link out is one more chance of losing the visitor (and hence any potential ad clicks) but it’s the links that make the site valuable to the visitor in the first place and that draw in the traffic."I can't believe how well Eric describes our philos...

3 Kinds Of Successful Adsense Sites? At Least ProductCritic Is One
2007-07-17 17:30:00
Eric Giguere (the author of a couple Adsense books that I haven't read yet), has a post up on his Make Easy Money With Google And Adsense blog entitled "The 3 Kinds Of Successful Adsense Sites ".In summary, the three types he lists are:The Experience Site - a site that describes your personal experience with something.The Clarification Site - a site to better explain a topic.The Compilation Site - a site that organizes information and links to relevant websites.Prod uctCrit ic is definitely the third type of site that Eric lists. To quote his post,"The best compilation sites have lots of links to other sites. They're not afraid of external linking, and they're all the more useful because of it. It may seem counterproductive because each link out is one more chance of losing the visitor (and hence any potential ad clicks) but it?s the links that make the site valuable to the visitor in the first place and that draw in the traffic."I can't believe how well Eric describes our philosop...
More About: Sens

ProductCritic Has Most Extensive List Of iPhone Reviews
2007-07-11 23:23:00
ProductCrit ic's Cell Phone Reviews now lists 18 reviews for the Apple iPhone. I think we have the most extensive list of reviews you will find anywhere.Currently, the iPhone has a ProductCritic score of 87 which puts it tied for best rated phone on the site along with the Sony Ericsson K800i and the Sony Ericsson W810i.
More About: Iphone , List , Prod

Super Cool Do-It-Yourself Tripod That's Better Than Mine
2007-07-09 15:52:00
I have one of those cheap bendable tripods that you can get for your point-and-shoot camera. I've seen the Gorillapod which looks to be a pretty good improvement on my cheaper version.I saw this video on creating a cool do-it-yourself tripod though that doesn't look as pretty but would do a much better job than my cheap tripod and would also work for my camcorder. Even better than that is that it costs about $1 in materials and about 10 minutes of your time to make (if you're not very handy with tools).
More About: Cool , Super , Mine

More articles from this author:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5