Ratio Clothing Custom Dress Shirts Online
Ratio Clothing Custom Designed Dress Shirts
Busy travelers have little time to shop for new clothes when on the road especially when looking for custom clothing tailored to fit. Ratio Clothing is the perfect solution for the road warrior because of its easy-to-use website that allows you to design your own custom dress shirt. Even if you make a mistake, the tailoring team is ready and waiting to make any needed adjustments.
The company’s goal to “make a great shirt that fits” is clear, and the website reassures customers that the shirt will be the perfect fit. It begins by choosing the desired design and fabric; the website sorts them by pattern or material making it easy. High resolution photos allow you to get a detailed look at the fabric of the shirt. True, you cannot touch and feel it like in the store, but the convenience and assurance for satisfaction are perfect trade offs for those with limited schedules.
Slim-fitting or more traditional fits are an option as are the style of collar and cuff. The option to have the shirt monogrammed adds a classy touch. Instructions on how to measure one’s sleeves, chest, waist, and neck are easy to understand, but most people can use the existing measurements they are familiar with (like those for a blazer, for example) for their shirts. This is typically the biggest concern for people buying shirts online, but the website is clear on how to understand one’s measurements based on their existing clothes.
Many clothiers measure shirts simply by neck size and sleeve length, but Ratio Clothing features five variables to get the best possible fit including shirt length, sleeve, and chest size.
A team of talented professionals reviews measurements and then handcrafts each shirt in the USA using high-quality fabrics and buttons. Free shipping and easy returns are the icing on the cake. The shirt arrives in an attractive gift box wrapped in crisp paper making an excellent impression. Shirts are priced competitively starting at $89. This is one of the best online retailers for custom designed clothing because of its simple website and excellent customer service. Other companies have clunky websites that add to the complexity of the shopping experience.
Ratio Clothing delivers a high-quality product that is perfect for on-the-go travelers who want to dress well without wasting time in a store.
Posted by Ramsey in Business Gear on January 16th, 2012
Magellan RoadMate Traveler GPS System
I’ve long been a holdout on the car GPS front. I only seem to spend a little bit of time driving in places where I really have no clue about where I’m going and the rest of the time I’ve just used Google Maps on my cell phone, which usually guides me where I need to go.
I agreed to give this Magellan RoadMate Traveler a whirl though to see what I had been missing. Since this one claimed that it would guide me to landmarks and attractions, it seemed to be a good one for people who take lots of road trips.
It does all the things you would expect a car GPS device to do of course. You plug it into the cigarette lighter outlet, though there’s a built-in battery that will keep it going for about two hours with no power. It’s got an attractive and bright five-inch screen, which is an inch more than my Motorola Atrix Android phone. That can make a difference in how clear the street names are. It shows the speed limit where you are, shows and tells you where to turn (including the actual street name), and tells you about how long it will take to get there. In my tests the directions were very good and the ETA was surprisingly accurate—within a minute many times. You can zoom in or out and use the display in either portrait or landscape mode. 
It’s got an intuitive spelling function you see on many GPS devices that eliminates letters as you spell the address. This saves loads of time. I also liked the highway exit point of interest function. This is like the signs you see beside the interstate telling you which gas stations or restaurants are coming up, but it’s more comprehensive and you can look ahead to a further exit beyond the immediate one. Supposedly there are six million points of interest in the database of this thing, so you won’t be hurting for info on where to spend your money on your road trip.
Thankfully all of this is pretty intuitive because the “user handbook” only has 11 small pages of info. Two of those are safety warnings and two and a half are about the Wi-Fi function and browser nobody will use. You need to be good at figuring out icons on the menu settings though. Once you do you can command it to take you to the city center, to a certain intersection, or to a previous address.
Directions for Travelers
There are a few bonus features that make this model special though, especially if you belong to AAA. Magellan is the only company making GPS devices that include the built-in “AAA TourBook” that shows Diamond ratings and descriptions on AAA-approved places. If you are a AAA member, you can easily access Roadside Assistance phone numbers from your device to call for help.
The TourDirector feature highlights nearby attractions and you can bookmark favorite places with the OneTouch menu. I can’t say I’ve used that favorites even once though since, if it’s my favorite, won’t I know how to get there already? This is probably more useful for business travelers who return to the same city regularly but don’t know it inside and out. It’s a bit misleading too that the Tour Director icon shows a woman with talk bubbles around your head. Nothing is actually spoken: it’s all text on a screen. So you’re not going to be referencing it while in motion.
In other specs, this GPS unit weighs a half pound and is very thin, it comes with a USB cord and SD slot, and the GPS accuracy is listed as three to five meters. The warranty is good for one year.
Overall this performed pretty much as I expected it would—better than expected with some of the obscure addresses I gave it—and with the included lifetime traffic and map updates it seems like a decent dealcoming in at around $199 in stores. I’m not sure how much the included clunky Wi-Fi function adds to the price but I can’t imagine very many people ever use it. Most people who can afford this device are already going to have a smart phone and a tablet in the car—maybe both.
I had two main beefs with it though that keep me from being totally thrilled with it. First, the dash mount won’t work on an actual dash unless you happen to have one that’s as shiny smooth as glass. Otherwise it’s got to be mounted on the windshield. I know that’s pretty standard, but if my inexpensive Cobra Mount I use for my phone can get around it, surely their design modifications could too.
The more annoying problem is a built-in function that I can’t find a way to disable in the settings: a warning that you are going over the speed limit. Every time you go over by more than 5 mph, the voice goes “Warning! Warning!” The only solution seems to be to slow down—which means everyone is flying by you on the interstate highways—or to turn the sound off. Neither one is very practical, so I ended up just shutting it off when I had a pretty good sense of where I was. I understand why you would need this in a school zone or residential area, but it’s just silly on the open highway, when people routinely set their cruise control 6 or 7 mph over the speed limit just to keep with the traffic flow.
Get the Magellan RoadMate 5175T Traveler GPS at Amazon.
Previous Magellan reviews:
Posted by Tim L. in Business Gear, General Gear, Kids and Family on January 12th, 2012
Boingo Wireless subscriptions bring Wi-fi freedom to travelers
In case you haven’t heard, Wi-fi is all the rage these days. But what is not all the rage is providing it for free. Airports and hotels rake in big bucks by charging hefty fees for their Wi-fi signals, but there is a voice of reason for frequent travelers. Boingo Wireless is the industry’s leading provider of software and services worldwide and serves as a roaming partner for thousands of hotel and airport Wi-fi services among others.
Since sampling this service, I have been hooked. Despite traveling with my iPhone, there are times when I need to connect with my laptop and have little interest in spending $9.95 for a half hour of Internet usage. Boingo Wireless has packages good for a month or a year, for example, that make frequent travelers’ Internet use far more user-friendly.
A recent positive change to the offering is that members with the monthly plan can now log into multiple devices with a single account. This includes up to two devices simultaneously with additional devices possible for $5 each per month.
In addition to airports and hotels, Boingo has signals in restaurants, shopping areas, sporting arenas, convention centers, and other public hot spots.
Boingo will broadcast its own “Boingo Hotspot” SSID and fully manage the end user experience through walled garden sales pages and gateway hardware or make it available to roaming partners iPass, KT, NTT Communications, Optimus, Orange France, Skype, Sprint, Swisscom, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, and Verizon as part of Boingo’s neutral host approach to managing Wi-Fi hotspots. The latter is what is especially valuable for international travelers.
At the moment, Boingo has a total of 60 airport Wi-Fi networks under management including top 25 airports Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare, London Heathrow, New York John F. Kennedy, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, and Houston George Bush Intercontinental, as well as European airports London Gatwick, London Stansted, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Southampton, Aberdeen and Zurich.
Signing up for this service pays for itself after forking over for a few nights of Internet in hotels each month (maybe after one night), and it takes the sting out of connecting to email or the Internet for short periods of time. It is one of my traveling power tools that I have come to rely on across the globe.
Posted by Ramsey in Business Gear on January 9th, 2012
Our Favorite Travel Gear of the Past Year
We review a new item each weekday here on Practical Travel Gear, which means 200+ items a year we collectively try out in foreign lands, in airports, in the car, or in the great outdoors. Most of the stuff we think we’ll hate we don’t bother to even accept. Some items make us scratch our head or make us think the concept could be better executed. What’s really great is when our jaded selves put something through its paces and then go, “Wow—that’s really cool!” or “How did I ever get by without this?”
Kara Williams, who sadly is saying goodbye after more than 2.5 years, already provided a rundown on her favorite gear from the past two years. The items that stood out for her in 2011 were the REI Sunblock that was silky-smooth and only $6.50, the simple $12 Energizer Dual USB charger for the car, and at the other end of the budget scale the GoPro HD Hero waterproof helmet camera.
Pam Mandel stopped by for eight months before getting too bogged down with other gigs. Here’s what she loved from the items she traveled with in 2011.
She says this Digital Photography Rucksack from Kata “goes everywhere” with her. It holds a laptop, SLR, extra lenses, and more.
Pam also likes the super-bright flashlights and headlamps from Icon.
Speaking of light, Kelty’s Lumapivot Lantern wins the prize for the most interesting looking item we reviewed in 2011. See a photo of it at the top of this post. Pam says, “This cute, versatile little light could have been designed in an almost answer to my camp light wish list.” The “almost” part of that quote is for the inexplicable design decision to make the thing run on six AA batteries. Really, you couldn’t make that rechargeable like 2/3 of the other gadgets we reviewed?
We all try out a lot of footwear for this blog. The shoes that Pam kept coming back to were the Keen Voyageur hiking boots. She’d waterproof them if she were you, but otherwise great for hitting the trail.
Ramsey Qubein reviews most of the business travel gear and gadgets we feature on Practical Travel Gear. Here’s what impressed him this past year.
Ramsey likes this Solid Line iPad case because it solves the biggest problem with trying to replace your laptop with an iPad when traveling: with this case you can actually type at a semi-normal speed. It also protects the pad and serves as a stand for movie watching, so he says it “has lightened my carry-on bag by several pounds.”
Since he’s carrying that iPad on long flights across oceans, one of his other favorites has been the PressReader app, which allows you to download actual newspapers (not web versions) from all over the world, to be read without an internet connection.
When it is time to take the laptop, he says he keeps going back to the Jack Spade computer case from Bonobos. “It is neither the largest nor the most practical for lots of exterior pockets. However, it has a beautiful cotton fabric exterior and has yielded more compliments in the two months I have had it than any other bag.”
I’m Tim Leffel and I edit this thing, as well as reviewing two items a week for much of the year. That’s a whole heap of travel gear, so there are more than a few items that keep making my packing list.
I’ve worn (and in some cases given away after) a crazy number of different travel shoes this year. Three pairs are still in heavy rotation in both my home life and my travels: the Cushe Surf-slipper Loafers, the Ecco Tahoe shoes, and the casual comfy Sanuk Donny Primo loafers. Hey, I lived in (and traveled around a lot in) Mexico and Florida this year, so I guess I was in a kick-back beach mood.
I got a sneak peek at a prototype of the SteriPEN Freedom USB-rechargeable purifier almost a year ago and knew then and there it would make my list. If you’re traveling to countries where the water is questionable to drink, you need to buy one of these. End of discussion.
Probably one of the most expensive things I’ve reviewed since this site launched was also one that got used a lot—and will keep getting used a lot. The inflatable (but very high quality) kayak from Advanced Elements. It’s the size of a suitcase when packed, so you can take it anywhere you can drive—even if you have a BMW Mini.
It’s pretty hard to get excited about a water bottle, but I tried out two exciting ones this year. The Dominate water bottle resulting from a partnership between Under Armour and Thermos really does dominate, keeping liquids cold for an unbelievably long time, even in 100-degree weather. I also used the Camelbak filter one a lot for traveling around the U.S.
Since this is Practical Travel Gear, I have to give a shout-out to the best values I encountered: the unbelievably good for the price Roaring River jacket I reviewed from Hi-Tec and the whole range of Ryder Eyewear sunglasses that routinely come in at a fraction of the list price of their rivals.
We’ll continue to bring you reviews of great gear at fair prices in the coming year. Get our RSS feed so you’ll have them all on tap. Happy new year!
Posted by Tim L. in Adventure Gear, Business Gear, General Gear, Travel Light on January 5th, 2012
Antler New Size Zero Four-Wheel Carry-On Bag
This British-born rolling carry-on bag is slender, sleek, and stylish. In fact, it is one of my new favorite travel accessories for two reasons. One, it is lightweight. No extra fees from those mean airlines that weigh carry-on bags (I am looking at you Swiss and Air New Zealand!). Two, it comes in dual versions including one with four wheels allowing it to glide down the airport concourse with the slightest push of my wrist. No tired arms when I reach my destination.
It even comes with a built-in TSA-compatible lock, which makes it easy to pack expensive items and not feel as worried that things will be snatched by nosy “security” personnel.
Zippered pockets in the front are excellent for storing newspapers, books, passports, tickets, or keys that need to be reached in a jiffy. That is a hugely important factor for me as a frequent traveler. I hate having to carry important items in my pocket or hands because there is nowhere to store them for quick access later.
Inside the bag, zippered pockets keep small items separated from clothes so that laptop cables, adaptors, or shoes remain separated from neatly pressed clothes. A hanger hook keeps suits properly in place the second the bag is opened.
The sturdy base of the bag is padded with a strong material that is also used in golf club heads to maintain a shock-absorbent surface and then double protected with a layer of foam. That should be enough for those less-than-careful baggage handlers on regional jets who love to toss bags like basketballs even when passengers are watching from those tiny regional jet windows.
The handle has an air mesh surface making it easy on the palm when lifting even the heaviest of bags. This bag can handle both short weekend hops and longer excursions where careful packing insures that every pocket and interior inch is used. The fabric material even expands when you bring back too many souvenirs.
These bags are available at www.antler.co.uk and come with a ten year warranty. Next time you are being extra careful with the weight of the bag you are dragging behind you (or in this bag’s case, beside you), think of this crafty and nimble bag. It is my go-to travel bag when I need to manage the scale!
In the U.S., get the Antler 22 in. Super Lightweight Rolling Carry On at Luggage Guru or LuggagePoint.
Posted by Ramsey in Business Gear, Travel Light on January 2nd, 2012
