dresses

SmartLook Dress offers users a chance to preview how clothes will look on their body before purchasing them. While this program has its strengths, its description is slightly misleading.

The program's interface was simple to maneuver and work with, even though it unnecessarily broke into two separate screens. Operation moves intuitively, feeling almost like a shopping Web site rather than fashion software. Also, the Help file is a great source of information and guidance for those with questions. Picking clothes and trying them on the model was simply a matter of pointing and clicking, which made this program fast … Read more

After reading Rick Broida's post on how to save a small fortune on custom eyeglasses, I decided to do some research into what other custom clothing items you can purchase online. I found a Web site called Shirts My Way that lets you design your own dress shirt using a variety of different fits, fabrics, and cuts.

The project started with co-founders Michael Yang and Peter Crawfurd, who married their knowledge of custom tailoring with Web programming to start the site. The interface of the online design studio is simple, but comprehensive: the ordering process begins and ends with … Read more

Whoever thinks that oil and water don't mix has another think coming: with this Double Cruet designed by Rudi Keller for the MoMA Design Store, you can store two different liquids right next to each other.

So maybe you won't choose to mix oil and water, but oil and balsamic vinegar would be a delicious combination for a salad, or you could pour oil into both sides and infuse them with different herbs and flavorings. Either way, having the option to double up your liquids in one vessel is both convenient and tasty.

The taste factor isn't … Read more

All cooks have things they'd like to try more often: one thing on my list as soon as the weather gets warmer is to try making more of my own salad dressings. As of now, I'm still using plain old vinegar or store-bought varieties.

However, making a great emulsion can be intimidating. Will I add the olive oil too fast? Am I going to waste a half of a cup of my good olive oil before getting it right? What if my arm cramps?

OK, so I'm exaggerating, but salad dressings do require quite a bit of … Read more

Start-ups that sell T-shirts are a dime a dozen, but a tool to let you search across all of the stores has been nonexistent. Enter PleaseDressMe, a simple search engine that lets you hunt for specialty T-shirts from several vendors at once using some simple filters.

Included are big-name online T-shirt stores like Threadless, BustedTees and TShirtHell. More will continue to be added, but for the time being the selection is far greater than any of those stores alone.

You can find the shirt you're looking for by keyword, tag, the color or price. You can also see shirts … Read more

Once upon a time there were no iPods, iPhones, Xboxes, Blackberrys, or Tivos. Really, I'm not kidding. There were PCs, though. And they were really expensive. But we didn't have anything else to spend our money on, so that was OK. We paid $2,000 for our PCs and liked it.

Back in those days, there were three microprocessor companies--Intel, AMD, and a little Texas (it's an oxymoron, I know) company named Cyrix. If you don't recognize the name, that's because Intel had such a lock on PC makers back then that Cyrix's processors were sold primarily through the third-party reseller channel.

It's a popular misconception that Cyrix "cloned" Intel's processors. Cyrix's processors were actually all original designs. In fact, Cyrix's manufacturing partners--initially Texas Instruments, later IBM and ST Microelectronics--licensed Cyrix's designs for their own branded processors. … Read more

A few years back I wrote a monthly letter on marketing and business strategy, but there was a section at the end called Tobak's Great Wine for Techies. I think that was the only part anyone read. It had tutorials on wine varietals, regions, aging and storage, plus monthly wine pics, on-line resources, all kinds of stuff to help folks enjoy great wine without breaking the bank or taking a class.

You can check out the archives here.

I'm only bringing this up because 26 days ago I decided to go sober for a month. I've gone a week or two before but never a month. I don't know what I was thinking, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

About two week in I recalled reading about dealcoholized wine. I got on-line and found a handful of wineries in the business of making wine without the buzz.

They all use roughly the same process. They make the wine using typical fermentation techniques, then employ a filtering process to remove virtually all the liquid, including the alcohol. This produces a kind of dealcoholized wine syrup. Then they add water back in and bottle it.

Ariel Vineyards, owned by J. Lohr, claims to have won a gold medal in a blind tasting against wines with alcohol. The website also listed about 20 awards. This got my attention.… Read more

We thought this LED dress would be the subject of immediate mockery, considering our view on the infamous "Illuminated Handbag" some months back. But those who have far more fashion sense than us apparently think otherwise.

The lighted garment, which will reportedly be available only on the Japanese market later in the year, would apparently be de rigueur for club-wear, as far as Shiny Shiny is concerned. We'll stick to the kind of apparel we know--like solar-powered fan hats.

Countless apparel items on the market claim to play music, or at least play wearable iPods and such. But this dress tops them all.

The "Yuga," a conceptual frock from designer Teresa Almeida, has a speaker apparently woven right into what's called a detachable "belt," though it looks more like a saddlebag to us. But fear not, fashion mavens: Balance is everything, and this accessory can be offset nicely by a matching handbag for full stereo output. (Remember to carry it on the opposite side for proper acoustics.)

Perhaps a pair of speaker shoes will … Read more