I saw this on a blog that I follow, and I thought it was simply brilliant. I’m not going to post my answers, nor do I expect you to share yours, but I still hope you will take a moment to do this. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to take stock of everything that has happened during the past year and then answer the following questions. I’ll catch up with you again after the quiz… YEAR IN REVIEW When you consciously review your year, you may notice how little you noticed it as it whizzed past. To review is to re-view. To rewind, pause, look again. And in looking again, to see more clearly. You may be astonished by how much happened. And how much didn’t. By how much has changed. And how much hasn’t. You may laugh or sigh to notice that your life remains its usual jumble of contradictions. In 2007, I gained _______________________________________. I lost _______________________________________. I stopped _______________________________________. I started _______________________________________. I was hugely satisfied by _______________________________________. And frustrated by _______________________________________. I am so embarrassed that I _______________________________________. Once again, I _______________________________________. Once again, I did not _______________________________________. The biggest physical difference [...]

As a downtown worker, I have to make a daily jaunt of several long city blocks to my office. It’s not because I choose to walk, but rather, it’s because the expense of downtown parking. Thus, I carry the necessities of mobile computing on my back like a modern day beast of burden like everyone else I see whether it’s downtown, at the universities, or the tourists. Of course, all of the gadgets along with the related materials such as books and assorted odd and ends need to be compartmentalized in an orderly fashion, while keeping weight and comfort in check. Skooba Design is well known for their unique line of traditional bags, satchels, sleeves and organizers. They have introduced a new backpack: the Skooba Shuttle. Let’s take a look at this distinctive backpack.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Have you ever driven fifty miles out of your way before realizing the map was upside down? Have you ever had to stop and make that embarrassing phone call when you got lost on the way to a friend’s house (or worse, a date or job interview)? Or the ultimate insult…have you ever had to stop at a seedy gas station or motel off the highway and ask for directions (yup, when you hit the cornfield, you have gone too far)? Well, Navigon is putting an end to all of these and many other embarrassing situations. With the Navigon 7100 GPS Receiver, you never need to worry about getting lost again. And most importantly, you will never have to worry about folding your map back into the glove box. Let’s take a closer look. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of most laptop’s main limitations is their battery life, which can usually only be relied upon for a few hours. This hindrance is never more evident that when traveling, because finding a place to recharge in airports and train stations can be a major challenge. On January 1, 2008, carrying extended batteries will become a little bit trickier when traveling by plane, but it can still be done as long as the extra battery is packed in your carry-on luggage (versus in your checked luggage) and it is under a certain size. Copied verbatim from the US Government’s Safe Travel site: The following quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of “equivalent lithium content.” 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours. Debating the effectiveness of the new rules is a discussion best left for another day, but in the meantime the Proporta Portable Laptop Battery can be combined with other electronic devices carried while keeping the owner in compliance with these new rules (it holds 66.6Wh). Let’s see if carrying one would be worth the bother… Look at those smudges! I [...]

I have written reviews of just about every current Treo on the market. I looked at the Verizon Powered 700w on pocketnow.com, the Sprint Powered 700wx on pocketnow.com, and the Cingular (now AT&T) Powered Palm 750 here on Gear diary. I also wrote a couple of follow-up articles on the 700w on pocketnow (Good Night Sweet Treo…or Not, and Over the Air Synching Issues Investigation) that really stirred things up. However, problems are problems, and if they need to be resolved, I’m not necessarily going to hold back. I’ve been using the 755p for a little bit, and honestly, while the device is a good, solid device, there are some contributing factors here that you need to be aware of.  Carrier issues aside (I think Verizon’s rate plans, and other wireless services products are over-priced and, in some cases, outrageously expensive); many previous Palm users may be looking at this device and wondering what the 755p gets them, over say, the 700p or any other Palm Powered Treo Smartphone.  Let’s take a look and see what the 755p provides…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A huge shortcoming of Blackberry devices is they can’t natively display html email. Instead the Blackberry presents you with a bunch of urls and html code. Ugly, Ugly, Ugly. Recently rumor sites have reported that native html email capabilities will be coming “soon” from RIM. For those who can’t wait , I noticed that Empower Your Blackberry launched their email HTML Viewer last week. I’ve been testing it for a solid week – and it’s the best and most stable HTML viewer I’ve ever seen on a Blackberry. More thoughts, screen shots and a fat 50% off discount code (only good through 12/31/07) are on the next page. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When Gear Diary was created on September 30 last year, I didn’t think about keeping track of how many visitors came until Vincent mentioned that I was missing out on one of the joys of site ownership…statistics. Upon his advice, on December 21 I installed a little counter at the bottom of each page and promptly forgot about it…until the numbers started racking up. For the last month, the Gear Diary team has been watching to see when our first official million visits would occur; today was that day. I almost let it go by, but Wayne just reminded me. For the record, we are also at 1,452,443 page views, we currently have 1,600 posts, 7,553 comments, and Akismet has captured 61,306 spam comments. Yikes!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Are you still allowing your laptop to sit flat on your desk…cooking its hard drive in the hot air swelling from insufficient vents? If it works as promised, then Jetart’s new NC5000 CoolStand notebook Cooler might possibly be an inexpensive and effective way to keep your hard drive healthy and your laptop in the cool zone. Let’s take a look… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When one thinks about the massive undertaking it takes to set up a concert tour and the amount of gear that a band takes on the road, it boggles the mind. Besides the band of musicians and a drummer, it takes lots of hands to pull off a concert every night. There are tour and production managers, roadies, sound and video engineers, production crews, technicians, tour drivers, merchandisers and tag alongs. Tractor trailers are filled with concert sound and light equipment, merchandise, and much more. For some bands, it can mean endless days on the highway, playing seedy bars from coast to coast, with each night wishing and hoping for a lucky break to hit the big time. When a band goes on tour, it may or may not have the financial backing of its label. An artist receives a fixed fee or a percentage of the tickets sold by the venue owner or promoter. Touring is an expensive process. A moderate estimate of touring costs with a bus and small crew can easily reach $15,000 a week. If an artist tours with the support of their label, the expenses are all recoupable, thus potentially increasing a band’s debt. Many [...]

Since it is Christmas morning*, I thought it would be fun for us to open Gear Diary cards and presents together… The first item is a card that came from Belkin. I honestly didn’t expect anything further from Jackie and Melody, because they had already sent a really cute box of chocolates. There will be no picture of those because they went home with mom; they were beautiful, though. So I received this card, which at first glance was quite pretty… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Moving your digital information from point A to point B is usually best done by using a USB flash drive, and nowhere is it written that the drive used must be some boring thumb drive. Witness the mimoco mimobot art toy USB flash drive, a memory device with more personality than any I’ve ever seen… mimobots are available in 512MB, 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB capacities, produced in limited editions, are hi-speed USB 2.0, compatible with both Mac and Windows, and are enhanced for Windows Vista’s ReadyBoost technology. There are many styles of limited edition mimobots to choose from; I was sent the Domo X mimobot, which is available in 1, 2 and 4GB sizes. Mine came with 1GB and a red protoHoodie. If you aren’t familiar with Domo-kun, you can read more about him on his Wikipedia page. My Domo is number 130 of 3000…RAWR! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

an December 20, 2007 – 12:56 pm EST was the last time in 2007 I used Microsoft Outlook, Exchange or any Microsoft Office application. For the next month I’ll forgo them, instead using only the free online suite of Google Apps – and sharing my experiences. The good (new features discovered), the bad (features I’ve given up) and the ugly (resulting chaos). Want to play along at home or in your office? Share your experiences in the comments section. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

HTC introduced the Touch earlier this year, and this winter they have released the Touch Dual. Both feature TouchFLO, HTC’s touchscreen technology which allows “finger-touch scrolling, panning and photo zooming” with its “3D touch cube interface for quick and easy navigation.” Both have flush mounted screens which allow unfettered finger swiping, both are quite the minimalists with their D-pad and two button fronts, and both have a lovely rubbery coating on their ergonomic and caressable bodies. And yes, I know that there is a third Touch available, the Touch Cruise, but it looks nothing like its siblings…and since I don’t happen to have a Cruise in my possession, we are going to ignore it in this comparison. mmm-kay? By now reviews have peppered the web about Touch-Flo and the whole new cube interface and user experience, so I thought it would be fun to approach this review from the hardware only standpoint, as in “What are the main differences between these two Touches?” And “Why might you like one more than the other?” Let’s take a look! photos were taken by Jerry Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the things that I dislike about going out of town is having to take my pets to the boarder; Gizmo usually tries to hide (and then seethes for days after my return), and Avah also makes her displeasure known by hiding before the fact and then ignoring me afterwards. It’s like they know that when you are breaking out the suitcases something bad is coming, and it is stressful for all involved. Then there is the issue of stopping the mail and getting someone to come by to pick up packages; it’s a hassle, and there’s really no other way around it…right? But if you live in the Addison Texas area, you’ve got options that are not available to the rest of us – and they involve a unique applications of MMS. Let me introduce you to The Pet Nanny Addison, a company is making the most of Windows Mobile technology. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ll admit, I have it a little better than most cubicle dwellers. I actually have an office. With a window. Of course the window just looks out into a bigger room at somebody else’s cube. And they quit recently, so I’m just staring at an empty chair and a blank computer monitor. Maybe I should burn up some carbon credits by leaving a screensaver of the outside world up on my ex-coworker’s screen so that I can pretend to have some contact with the outside world. Or I could just dress the barren space up with some decorations from the good people at Cube-Star.com. They offer everything you need to turn your own personal space into a place you can be proud to call home for 8+ hours a day. Check out some of their fun stuff after the jump. From cubicle decor Continue reading on Gear Diary …