Product review: Citrus Herb All-Natural Soap Old Man Murray

As soon as I opened the box the scent was fantastic. I love soaps that smell so nice, while they wait to be used I store them in my underwear draw. So nice to put on something that smells so pleasant.

The soap bar is sized 3.375"W x 2"L x 1"H. It weighs 4.4 oz. The bar itself is very plain, but scent is complex and wonderful. It smells very nice as it sits on counter and as you wash you hands, but does not linger on your hands.

I like that it is all natural, no parabens, no artificial dyes, no artificial fragrances.

I received a set of 6 soaps from Old Man Murray for testing and review. This gives me an opportunity to compare the different scents for those who trying to decide which scent to buy:

★ Citrus Herb lemongrass, rosemary, lime is very lemony and fresh. I would describe as soap with a light scent and I think it would be gender neutral in its appeal. It is light yellow in color.

★ Lavender with comfrey root is a feminine Lavender scent. Among Old Man Murray soaps I would describe it as strong scented. It is purple in color.

★ Kerouac patchouli and orange peel has a masculine scent. I would describe it as earthy and woody with a slight bitterness when I first smelled it. Interestingly enough I did not smell any orange peel. Among Old Man Murray soaps I would describe it as strong scented. I It is beige in color.

★ Bouquet Garni has a fairly light scent. To me it smells like herbs with a hint of mint mixed in. I see it being appealing to both men and women. It is green in color.

★ Everything nice oats, clove, spice. This soap reminds me of freshly baked oatmeal cookies. Among Old Man Murray soaps I would describe it as medium strong scent. Anyone who likes oatmeal cookies would love this soap. It is beige in color.

★ Sanguinello blood orange and bergamot: I can detect faint orange scent in this soap and scent that makes me think of Earl Grey tea. I would describe as soap with a light scent and I think it would be gender neutral in its appeal. It is dark red in color.

I loved all the soaps, if I had to pick my favorite it would be a toss up between the Citrus Herb and Lavender.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: Lighting EVER® 7W Dimmable LED Desk Lamp

The best feature of this desk lamp is its ability to pivot both the neck and the light panel in many different angles.  It gave me a lot of options for shining the light exactly where I need it, even in some challenging locations. The stem of the lamp can be adjusted 90 degrees horizontal to vertical, and the light panel can be adjusted 180 degrees from horizontal position in one direction to horizontal position in the opposite direction.  The lamp's neck is 16" tall and the light panel is 14" long.  The base is 7.25" by 5.5".  The weight of the lamp is 2 pounds 2.3 oz.  It has 3 brightness levels.

The lamp's cord is 55" long and plugs into the base on one of the sides.  If there was anything I wanted to change about the lamp it would be the length of the cord.  I would have found a longer cord more convenient, I would have liked it to be 6 feet or longer.  The cord ends with a plug with a transformer, but the plug is long and narrow and takes up only wall slot on the old-fashioned style power strip which has the slot positioned parallel to the strip.

Because the light has a long light panel the desk light cast a pretty big area of light. In attached video I show the light cast on 16" by 9.5" hard cover book and you can see that it is totally in the light.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: Hype Mini Capsule Bluetooth Speaker

In the last year I have tested a lot of small bluetooth speakers, I rank HYPE Mini Capsule speaker sound quality as good overall. It has good mid-tone and OK bass. The sound is louder and richer than the built-in speaker of my tablet, but even at the max volume HYPE Mini Capsule speaker is not as loud as some of the other small speakers.

I am attaching a video which has several short snippets of music to demonstrate the speaker's sound. As one of the top reviewers I get asked to test and review a fairly large number of speakers. This allows me to compare a large number of speakers to each other. To help me make this comparison I always use the same two pieces of music, so I can compare speakers using "apples-to-apples" comparison. As a stress test for the bass I use Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. I use Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 to test the mid-range. The HYPE speaker performed well in these tests.

In the video I switch between the tablet's built-in speaker and HYPE speaker so you can compare the sound. You can hear that the speaker produce the sound that is richer, fuller, and louder sound the the built-in speaker. However this speaker does not have a super loud sound even at its max. In the video both the speaker and the tablet have the sound set to its maximum volume.

HYPE speaker is 2 1/8" tall. It weighs in at 3.1 oz. Its fairly small size makes a good travel companion.

The speaker comes with a charging cable.

A note on pairing: The initial pairing works well but even though the speaker remain connected if you turn it off and then turn it back on, so you still need to manually reconnect the audio by clicking on the device in bluetooth settings.

I received HYPE speaker from the manufacturer for testing. Based on other speakers of similar size/price I rated this speaker as 4 stars. The HYPE speaker performed well with music without strong base as well as when I listened to spoken human voice (e.g. news), bass sounded fairly good for a speaker of this small size.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Product review: SHARKK LIGHTNING 8 PIN 3 in 1 SD Card Reader Camera Kit Connects Cameras, USB, & Memory Cards To The New Apple iPad 4Apple iPad Mini

I tested this 3 in 1 card using my SONY NEX-5N camera, USB memory stick, and SD card with iPadMini. I am attaching a photo collage that I will be referencing in this review, which can be found by following 'customer photos' link under the main photo.

Attaching the camera with USB cable just worked. If you are out in the field taking photos or videos with my camera and want to transfer them to you mobile device there is nothing extra you have to do.

Copying random photos, videos and other files from a memory card/stick (i.e. not directly from a camera but from another external memory) also works if you follow the rules that iPad Mini expects. I describe these rules below.

Sometimes I need to copy files to my iPad Mini while I don't have a Wi Fi or my PC with iTunes handy. I want to be able to insert a memory card and copy the files to my iPad Mini. 3-in-1 card reader allowed me to do this, but it required me to figure out how to use what iPad Mini allows me to do to accomplish my desired goal.

I discovered that not every memory stick works in the card reader. Some memory sticks generate an error message "The connected USB device requires too much power". See photo #1 in collage of photos I am including for reference in this review. The smaller older memory sticks tend to work better. None of my large memory sticks worked, however one of the old non brand name 1Gig memory sticks worked (an old 1Gig SanDisk did not).

The 3 in 1 Card Reader documentation says "When you insert U-Disk/TF/SD card into the reader your iPad automatically opens the photo app which lets you select which photos to import." This is how it worked when I used it directly with the camera. However, when I copied several photos to a memory stick and inserted it in to the card reader and nothing happened.

Turns out I had to follow a very specific format for naming my files and the directory structure where I place them:

✔ 1. Use FAT file format on the USB drive (this is the format used by cameras and thus expected by iPad)

✔ 2. Create a folder on your memory stick called DCIM.

✔ 3. Copy your files into that folder. The files have to be stored directly in the DCIM folder of the memory card or memory stick. No sub-folders are allowed, images at the top level are not seen.

✔ 4. Name the photo images following the camera image conventions:

"_DSC" followed by 4 digit number followed by ".JPG", for example, _DCS0001.JPG.
You can also transfer movies by naming the files with an 8 digit number followed by .m4v extension, e.g. "00000001.m4v"

✔ 5. As soon as I renamed the files on my card/stick to follow these conventions iPad Mini immediately began showing thumbnails of the images that are on the card. When the transfer process is done you'll be asked if you want to delete the images that were just transferred or if you'd prefer to keep them on the memory stick/card.

This technique could be used to move files other than photos or movies, as long as you have an iPad app that knows how to open such files. For example you can zip text files into a zip file myfile.zip and then rename the zip file to be called myfilezip.pdf. When Photo app starts you can import your PDF file. To get the PDF file out of the Photo import folder, you need to open it with an app that knows how to handle pdf extension (for example, Files Pro). Then you can rename the file back to myfile.zip and extract your files.

➨ ➨ Warning: do not leave the card reader plugged into the iPad (even without a memory stick) if you are not using it. I left it in for the day and it totally drained my battery. Without the card reader plugged in I only need to recharge my iPad Mini every few days.

I received this card reader from the manufacturer for an honest review. All in all 3 in 1 Card Reader is a useful gadgets at a very good price. I hope my tips will help you get the most out of it.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: SURPAHS Ultra-Thin Anti-Fingerprint Stainless Steel Digital Kitchen Scale, Food Scale

This digital kitchen scale matched my digital postal scale (which has been calibrated) in accuracy pretty closely (see video).  It runs on four AAA batteries (which are included in the package).  It capacity is  11 pounds and 4 oz, 5000 g, 176.35 fl.oz, 5000 ml.

This kitchen scale is quite precise. Its graduation is 0.1 oz, 1 g, 0.1 fl.oz, 1 ml. If the battery runs low the scale displays "LO" indicator, if you try to measure more weight then it can handle it will display 'Err'.

The scale has on/off button. It turns off automatically after 60 seconds of not being used.  Changing the units of measure is done by pressing "unit" to cycle between g, ml. oz, and fl.oz. 

The scale measurements are 5.25" wide x 7.875" long.  Because the scale platform is totally flat I was able to measure items much larger than the scale platform.  The read out has nice larger numbers, they are 0.75" large, and easy to read.

I thought the scale is very attractive. It has a beautiful smooth stainless steel finish and a sleek look. It showed accurate results in comparison with my postal scale. I would recommend it.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: Surpahs Bamboo Cutting Board (Large, 17"x11", 16:9)

I really like bamboo cutting boards, this is my third one.  I like bamboo because it is hard, lasts a long time and they look good.  This Surpath cutting board is a very attractive board. It has a beautiful light brown natural finish.  It has a channel for catching juices. I also like a channel because I can place an egg on a channel and know it will not roll away.

The board generously sized:

☼ 17 inches long, 15.5 inches from the channel to channel
☼ 11 inches wide, 9.375 inches from channel to channel
☼ It weighs 3.3 oz

Cutting board care:
☼ Cutting board is not dishwasher safe. It should be washed with hot soapy water and dried in between uses.
☼ Manufacturer recommends applying mineral or vegetable oil to the surface after each use

I thought the board is well made, nicely finished, and looks beautiful. I would recommend it.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: SURPAHS WAVE Bamboo In-Drawer Knife Storage Block

This bamboo knife block is very attractive and practical. I like the horizontal orientation of the knife block. It meant to be an in-drawer knife block but I keep in on the kitchen counter, under the cabinets where a vertical knife block I had before did not fit well. I like bamboo because it is hard, lasts a long time and look attractive. This knife block has a beautiful light brown natural finish.

The video include a photo of the block with various knives I own. You can see that the block can accommodate various sizes including a ceramic knife in its sheath.

Here are the measurements:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
♦ 17" long
♦ 5.25" wide
♦ 5 long slots
♦ 6 shot slots
♦ It weighs 2 pounds 15.4 oz

Bamboo knife block care:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
♦ Knife block is not dishwasher safe. It should be washed with hot soapy water
♦ Manufacturer recommends applying mineral or vegetable oil to the surface

I thought the knife block is well made, nicely finished, and looks beautiful. I would recommend it.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★★