Hasta La Gadget!

After much anticipation, the all-new Legoland Hotel opened on Friday, April 5, 2013. Located right next to the theme park in Carlsbad, California, the three-story 250-room hotel does not disappoint, especially for those that can’t get enough of those colorful plastic bricks. We visited the hotel just two days after it opened to scope out some of the 3,500 Lego models scattered throughout the hotel. Made from more than three million Lego bricks, these sculptures were like individual artworks in and of themselves, starting with the huge dragon in the tower, guarding the hotel’s entrance. The green, smoke-breathing dragon, alone, was made out of 400,000 Lego bricks and took roughly 4,000 man hours to construct. More »

Comparing books to ebooks is like comparing mechanical watches to digital watches, or manual cars to automatic cars. No one doubts the convenience, reach, and flexibility of the ebook format, but it will never convincingly replicate the experience of a paper book—nor does it need to. Ebooks are a fundamentally new medium, stuck in an awkward growing stage. More »

If you have a PC with Windows 8 but miss Windows 7, there’s no need to downgrade. Following a few simple steps, you can make Microsoft’s current operating system look and feel almost identical to its predecessor. Here’s how to bring back the Start menu and the attractive aero glass theme how to hide other Windows 8 elements like the Charms menu. More »

Much has been said over the demise of Google Reader and what it should mean to users. A popular position advocated by many tech bloggers is that you should pay for services rather than trust your data to companies offering services for free. They argue that paying for services will give you more control over your data in the event that a free service closes its doors. This position is partially correct, but following this advice entirely will needlessly cost you time and money.¹ More »

Just a couple of years ago, if you wanted to make something look trendier, you put a bird on it. Birds were everywhere. I’m not sure if Twitter was what started all the flutter, but it got so bad that Portlandia performed a skit named, you guessed it, “Put a Bird On It“. More »