Just how do you “assemble” this puzzle? I had to watch the video tutorial several times until I got it. It is cool and definitely a conversation piece. Can’t tell you how many coworkers stopped at my desk after seeing the angled structured Levit8 holding up my MacBook Air.

It’s sturdy and doesn’t feel like it’s going to tip over easily. The weight of a MacBook Air is easily supported, and I’m guessing the folds and angles provide enough strength to support heavier laptops. My only minor issue is the footprint base for your laptop. For a smaller machine like my 13-in Air, the footprint extends from the front of my machine to the very back. There’s not much leeway at all. Although it won’t, there’s a slight sense that the laptop is going to fall in to the Levit8 itself. But supported on the sides, this, of course, can’t happen.

I haven’t yet tried the Levit8 with my new (and bigger) MacBook Pro. The larger 15-in frame of the Pro will probably eliminate that sense of the laptop falling in.

Love the color combination, love that it folds flat, and can’t beat the price tag compared to other standing desks.

An inquiry to Pebble’s customer service led me to a replacement unit at no cost. No cost! Even after originally backing the project on Kickstarter years ago. Even better, the replacement unit shipped and arrived right before Christmas, giving me an unexpected gift. Thanks Pebble!

This $35+ gift could be left in cars, attached to your keychain, or simply stored in your emergency kit. When you need light, simply touch the Lumen and be illuminated.

More Holiday Gift Guide 2015

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And yes, a MORF Men shirt is planned as well so be sure to pledge your support.

I’ll be honest. This gift is actually for myself and won’t be available until February 2015. But when you tout your product as the “perfect keyboard for the iPhone,” the wait is worthwhile for the Next Keyboard.

Slide on the space bar to move the cursor? Genius.

My personal favorite, no confusing shift keys.

Swipe key entry for one handers. Handy. No “full access” needed. That always scared me. And there’s more, but all you have to know is that the product resonates with iPhone users witnessed by complete backing after days of its Kickstarter launch. You have $5 to spare for the “perfect keyboard for the iPhone” right? Merry Christmas to you!

This holiday gift is going for a $299 Kickstarter pledge but later the price of the Arist goes to $349. Since we are talking Kickstarter, the product won’t be available immediately (read this holiday season). Funding goals have already been reached so that’s an excellent sign looking forward to the projected June 2015 launch date of Arist.

More suggestions from the Pulpconnection Holiday Gift Guide, 2014 edition.

Follow Gee Why’s board Holiday Gift Guide 2014 on Pinterest.

Basically, post workout, active women can “change clothes in public without getting naked.” Easy enough to understand, and this project is well underway with their initial funding request of $22,000 obliterated with over $290,000 worth of pledges.

With a pledge of $69, you can order an Undress in a variety of sizes and colors with free shipping too. However, as a holiday gift, the Undress won’t be ready until January 2015.

More suggestions from the Pulpconnection Holiday Gift Guide, 2014 edition.

Follow Gee Why’s board Holiday Gift Guide 2014 on Pinterest.

So fine, I’ll wait for the next batch and instead bought an inexpensive Modal case from Best Buy. Not the best, but it fits and was cheap. It’s grippy and smooth enough at the same time.

Now I have a soft spot for Kickstarter projects and so does Eri who I happened to notice backed a project called the Felt Case. Simply, this is a felt covered case for the iPhone 6 or 6+. Its look is somewhat subdued but kinda interesting since, well, it’s felt. And the felt is supposed to be tough, grippy, and smooth all at the same time. For $29, I’m willing to go off the beaten path and give the Felt Case a shot. How about you? Watch the video then make your pledge.

Some things to note about Juicies+. It’s bigger than the Apple Lightning cable. The Juicies+ is longer, and the connector casings are fatter. Of course, the connectors themselves follow specs and standards. The fatter Juicies+ Lightning connector fits my cased iPhone 5 and works as expected and fashionably too.

After binging on backing Kickstarter projects, I made an effort to stay away to keep the cash flow incoming and not outgoing. But there are always exceptions. With a nod to nostalgia, I had to kickstart the revival of the classic Robotech series.

As many others in my generation would agree, Robotech was the show. Yeah, it was an amalgam of three different anime series, but the stories of the Zentraedi and Invid doing battle with the mechanized Valkyries, Cyclones, and Alpha fighters provided indelible memories. Can new memories be forged with a new Robotech series? The only way to find out is to back Robotech Academy.

Some inspiration for you…

Fast forward to 2013, and Juicies is back to charge up your newer gear. Meet JUICIES+. Instead of continuing their rainbow palette, JUICIES+ is going after cable pliability. You notice how the outer jackets of cables tend to keep their shape over time? If you keep winding a cable a certain way, the cable will want to stay that way. JUICIES+ answer is a “flexible tangle free woven cable.” Made of high quality, certified materials and construction, this charging cable also has the looks to match. Added to the black or white JUICIES+ is now a champagne gold to match the iPhone 5s.

While I don’t have an iPhone 5s, having this gold JUICIES+ is a great way to indoctrinate myself to this new Apple colorspace. Oh, and with a bin of various black and white cables, this golden cable will surely shine. You have a few days to back the JUICIES+ project so don’t wait!

Anyways, there was an order mixup that was resolved. But besides the fast resolution and apology, I’m getting additional magnets! Yep, that’s delighting your customers right there. I can overlook a delayed order when there’s even more goodness that’s being delivered.

So if you want great magnets (seriously, these stick to anything) and exceptional customer service, you need to check out Strong Like Bull.

Tapping and swiping brings up different views or more details yet navigating the app isn’t overly confusing. Forecast also doesn’t use real images or rendered images to represent the current weather. I always found these visual representations misleading thinking that the images were live shots, not stock images.

I don’t know why I have a thing for weather apps living in temperate Hawaii. The weather just doesn’t vary very much, but still, I have gone through at least 5 different weather apps. So far, the new Yahoo Weather app has been my favorite, but it showcases images on Flickr taken in the area. While the images are gorgeous, they feel somewhat misleading. Solar is interesting and artistic but a little difficult to use. Weather 2x has been a weather mainstay of mine. I like the app’s overall balance of information and ease of use. I stopped using Weathercube. While it was neat, I was so lost when trying to swipe in different directions for additional data. Living Earth was just overkill for my weather needs. Of course, there’s the built-in iOS Weather app that I always fall back to. I like the way the information is presented though the interface does feel dated.

I’ll give Forecast a try but I’ve noticed one shortcoming already. Since it’s not a true app, it doesn’t provide notifications for impending weather alerts. Accessing the app will show you alerts but there are no notifications outside of the app. This might be a deal breaker for me.

When I learned of the Pebble project on Kickstarter, I backed it without hesitation. The promise of a “smartwatch” working in conjunction with a smartphone aka iPhone was, well, simply smart.

What’s Great

The e-paper display is absolutely great. It’s readable and visible under almost any condition. The only time it falls short is in pure darkness. Kinda no duh, but because it’s easy to see in dim light, you forget the obvious. But the Pebble does have a backlight. Push a button, tap the watch, or even cooler, shake your wrist, and the configurable backlight engages for a few seconds.

The setup of the Pebble is also a thing to marvel. It’s so easy; you’re up and running in no time. No complicated instructions, just download the app and follow along. The app’s diagnostic function lets you know of any problems or available updates.

Message and phone call notifications work! The Pebble vibrates upon incoming text messages or phone calls. No additional setup needed that I recall. I was surprised when the Pebble started vibrating on my wrist showing Caller ID information as my iPhone started to ring.

What’s Good

The look of the Pebble isn’t Apple-esque. It’s made of quality materials but not of Apple’s caliber or design aesthetic. The included watchband is basic, but you can easily change it. In the box, the Pebble didn’t immediately strike me as attractive but once on your wrist, it does look better. I personally like the Big Time watchface that shows off the readability of the e-paper display.

Navigating the watch’s controls is definitely manageable. Even with four hard buttons, the watch’s menus lead you along so there’s no question which button to push.

Controlling iTunes music playback is a neat trick. It works after you fire up the Music app on the Pebble. I thought the Pebble would be more telepathic, knowing that my music was playing and therefore have the Music app already loaded.

What’s Not So Good

Maybe I haven’t learned everything about the Pebble that I should, but some features seem like they’re missing. I can’t readily see how you’d use the Pebble to help track runs. I thought I remember reading about partnering with RunKeeper but don’t yet see this feature (yup, not available at launch). I’d like to see Nike+ integration at some point but doubt it since Nike also sells their own run-tracking watches.

More notifications. Right now, the Pebble can notify you of text messages and phone calls. Email notification and display isn’t yet available for iOS. It’d also be cool if any/all notifications could be Pebblified (without jailbreaking your iPhone).

Along these lines is the dearth of apps for the Pebble. Seemingly, the only customization available are a few watchfaces. At this early stage, the Pebble App Marketplace isn’t thriving, but hopefully that changes over time as more developers crank out apps.

The charging cable is unique to the Pebble which is good and bad. The magnetic coupling of the charger is what helps the Pebble be water resistant, but on the other hand, without this special cable, you can’t charge your watch. Fortunately, the battery life is approximated at one week (which I’m nearing).

Recapping at this early juncture, the Pebble watch is good with awesomeness in reach.

Unboxing Pictures

So what’s it to you? There’s a Kickstarter project that has taken the Gooley method and created an iOS app called Simple Bracket for the upcoming March Madness festivities. For a mere $1, you can have access to the app. Pay more for additional goodies.

Now here’s the challenge from my point of view. The app is the thing, but the developers are only asking for $1. The entire project is aiming at $10,000 in funding by March 5. That’s a heck of a lot of $1 pledges in a short period of time. Sure, there are higher pledge packages, but I don’t see many paying more. I’m hoping this project gets funded, and this video will convince you to offer up a buck.

Although this project has reached its goal, you can still back the project to get your own copy of the DVD and other goodies. Deadline is February 15, 2013.

I stopped by the store to pick up my bean-to-bar chocolate. Unfortunately, they weren’t fully stocked with their entire product line due to the demand of the Holidays. But fortunately, they did have three of their best available (and I did get to sample others). My three picks are the Lavender, the 72% dark chocolate Peru, and the coffee-infused Breakfast Bar. I did like the new Pineapple Chili chocolate (which was being made), but you have to endure that building smolder from the ghost chilis.

I saw the new grinder in action which was the direct result of Kickstarter pledges. This guy can churn out 60 pounds of chocolate compared to their original 8-pound grinders. With this extra capacity, you’ll soon see Manoa Chocolate bars at Whole Foods Markets.

It’s been a long journey for the Kickstarter-powered Juicies project. Started in 2011, Juicies goal was to bring colorful cables made out of recycled materials to the iPhone market. The colors were delicious, the price was right, and hey, Laurens from Hawaii was behind it all so why not back this project?

Then there was a string of manufacturing delays that Laurens explained in detail. Then Apple moved from the de facto 30-pin dock connector to Lightning. Juicies persevered with production and allowed backers to change cable types to a USB extension or a micro USB cable.

After a long wait, here are the results.

Love this display.

The box design deserves some attention and credit as well. No fuss, no muss but good looking.

What’s in the box is minimal and looks made out of recycled materials as well.

At long last, my Juicies cable in lime green. It was either green or orange, but I thought the green was more vibrant. Actually, the pink and purple colors had a good sheen on them as well.

Thanks Laurens! Oh yeah, he may have extra cables to purchase for the holidays.

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