After saying I would eventually get one, for more years than I care to count, I pulled the trigger tonight and bought my first Mac: the 15″ MacBook Pro.

Isn’t it lovely? This is the newly announced version with the Multi-Touch trackpad, an Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor (256MB of video memory), and the new Penryn processor.

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One of my best friends just sent this to me, and I about fell over when I watched.

The item in the video starts off looking like a big fat flashlight…and then, as the demonstrator says, this MAGPUL Industries FMG9 concept idea (that they say they have no intention of producing) is very “transformer-ish”, and if you are walking the dog, taking out the trash, and any “problems occur and you need immediate action, you can get on target and go with it.”

Did I give away too much? Watch the video…

I’ll leave it to you to see exactly what this product is, but holy cow!

Thanks for the tip, Grabb!

I’ve been having this conversation with Chris Gavula on and off for about six months now: what is the huge draw for 3G cellular speeds here in The States? With 3G coverage so sparse here, and all of the cell carriers and device manufacturers and OEM’s barking about how this device or that device does 3G, it kinda makes me wonder… So, after listening to one of the latest MoTR podcasts, I finally decided to buckle down and create (what I am certain will be) the buzz that should get everyone thinking (and hopefully talking…) about it – Here in the States, what is really the big draw for 3G; because I really don’t think the masses care, know what it can offer them, or even really care (did I just repeat myself..?)

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CD Printing at home has been around for several years now, negating the need for sticky labels that make the disc so thick that it won’t fit in a laptop drive properly. Dymo, famous for their many label-making solutions, have entered the market with the DiscPainter, a stand-alone CD and DVD label printer that prints directly onto blank discs in around 60 seconds.

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Judie: I have alluded in the past to the fact that Gear Diary Team emails can be quite entertaining as well as enlightening. Sometimes we talk about meaningless subjects – like the press release that came through today for NBA Jersey air fresheners. Other times, we talk about things that we aren’t ready to put into an article, but that are on our mind.

Today Wayne kicked off just such an email which many of us soon chimed in on, and I thought it would be fun to let you all peek in on some of the stuff we talk about behind the scenes. Grab a cup of coffee (or tea), and come join our conversation…

Wayne: Did you guys see this writeoff — $ 29 BILLION — and bleeding 1 million + customers per QUARTER….

Is there any way that Sprint can remain independent? About the closest match now would seem to be Verizon who uses the same CDMA technology.

IMHO, aside from the technical problems, these guys really lost it with the Nextel acquisition. There simply was not any synergy between the technologies. They bought one of the most profitable niche players and literally destroyed them.

Now you could debate whether Nextel could stand along with their iDEN technology — but geez — $29 BILLION writedown….WOW

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We’ve all seen the mini PCs like Lenovo’s Thinkcenter Desktops and Dell’s small desktops. We’ve also seen other PCs about the size of a external CD rom. Now, we have one that’s about half that size. VIA had brought out the Artigo Builders Kit. The motherboard on the Artigo is about the size of a credit card but is about as thick as a stack of credit cards. The whole PC is designed to fit in the same slot as your desktop’s DVD drive. You can take multiples of these and install them in a standard desktop case; it is that small.

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Go ahead and mark your calendar now for March 6th at 10:00 am PST, as that is the day Apple will hold an intimate gathering where they will announce details about their iPhone software roadmap, which according to PhoneMag includes “the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features”

Ooooh…”enterprise features“!

Does this mean I finally get Exchange on my iPhone?

I’ll post the actual web address for Vincent’s live coverage as soon as it’s available.

When I bought my new car in September 2007 I knew I would be keeping it for a few years, so I decided that I was going to take the plunge, and build a Car PC like those that I had read about on the MP3Car.com forums. The computer would replace the standard audio system, and add MP3 playback, video, GPS, GPS tracking and internet access to my car

After months of dreaming about such a setup my Car PC is finally installed. I’ve had the computer on my desk for over 3 mths now but time and money kinda pushed it WAY forward to this day. Since my dad was off work for the Australia Day holiday, we decided it was time to tackle it.

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[Note: This is the second part of my look at the Toshiba Qosmio.  For my unboxing and initial impressions, take a look at Part 1]

When I first started looking at the Qosmio laptop, I thought I was going to have a panic attack.  There were just so many different features here.  How was I possibly going to discuss them all?  Was I in over my head?  In fact, I came close to wondering whether I should have asked for it at all.  Yikes!  Talk about a crisis of confidence.  Luckily, I had a chance to discuss this with Judie, who put it all in perspective.  “Just talk about your impressions…your impressions.”  She said.  And with that last phrase, “your impressions” echoing in my head, I set out to take a look at the Toshiba Qosmio G45-AV690 multimedia laptop.

The Qosmio is decidedly NOT the MacBook Air.  In fact, I would call it the “anti-Air”.   Is that a bad thing?  Not at all.  Taken together, the Air and the Qosmio really highlight the difference between mobility and portability.  Mobility offers the opportunity to access your data from anywhere at anytime; often at the cost of usability or other functions.  Portability allows you to carry everything you need from point A to point B, even if you cannot easily access that data before reaching point B.

To put it another way, the Air takes a shoebox and says put all of the features you can fit into this box.  The Qosmio, which is a portable laptop, looks at a pile of features, takes them all and builds a box around them.  Trust me, with a 17 inch screen and weighing in at 10 pounds, you are not likely to confuse this portable device for a mobile one.

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When Sarah and I traveled to Amsterdam, I was trying to travel with the lightest gear possible, so I brought along my HP TX1327 which easily fit into a sleeve inside my carry on. But when I went to CES, I wanted to bring the laptop I most enjoy writing on – the Toshiba X205. Now here’s the thing: the X205 is a 17″ beast, and I knew that it wasn’t a laptop I would be toting on the floor or bringing to meetings; I just wanted my laptop in the hotel room, waiting for me at night when I was ready to write daily recaps. So what I needed to make the trip was a carry-on bag large enough to accommodate my laptop and hopefully carry other items, too.

I soon found out that there really aren’t that many bags which can handle such a tall order, as it would seem most bags cap out at the 15.4″ screen size, but I did find one – the Targus 17″ Trademark II Overnight Roller. It wasn’t only a laptop carrier, it was also made to carry a couple changes of clothing!

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There have been some interesting developments the past couple of weeks.

MS & Yahoo
This is probably one of the more interesting developments I’ve seen in a while. MS makes a play for Yahoo!, and Yahoo! says no.  While I understand that there may be some initial resistance to all of this, AND Yahoo! as an organization would likely get swallowed in one form or another by MSN, I have to ask if this is truly a bad thing or not…especially if Yahoo!’s Board is [somewhat] split on the decision to reject Microsoft’s offer of $44.6B, saying that the bit undervalues the company.

I saw another article today that said Bill Gates wasn’t interested in upping MS’ bid for Yahoo!  This seems to indicate that some sort of proxy fight is in the mix, as MS takes it to the shareholders. This clearly isn’t over yet, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens…

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Perhaps leather cases just aren’t your style – maybe because you want added drop protection without adding too much bulk, or maybe because you just happen to enjoy hard-edged industrial design. Well for whatever reason, when you want tougher than leather and clear cases aren’t going to cut it, the best option is a metal case such as this one by USB Fever, their iPhone Aluminum Case.

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Anyone who watched Chuck last season couldn’t help but see their weekly flashes of Sarah’s iPhone in its clear case, and when I got my iPhone, clear cases had been so firmly (yet subliminally) implanted in my brain that it seemed only natural to want to give one a try. Granted, I have never been a fan of crystal cases, mainly because I have never had a device that I thought would look good in one; the iPhone however, does…and it became a sort of mission to find the perfect clear case – if such a case existed.

In this review I am going to take a good hard look at not one, but four clear Apple iPhone cases, namely: the SCOSCHE Hard Case and Skin, the Seidio Slim Hybrid Hard Case, the Griffin iClear, and the GizMac Titan Clear. Each one has it’s own pluses and minuses, each one offers crystal clear protection, but only one had the unexpected opportunity to truly impress me. I should mention right now that I have heard the horror stories of the iPhone’s case possibly being scratched when it’s inside a plastic case, but I never worried about it and I didn’t notice it happening. Worse things can happen (and have happened) to my iPhone than light scratches; I can live with it.

In that now infamous package of iPhone accessories sent by Vincent from the MY iTablet Store, I found the SCOSCHE Hard Case and Skin, the Seidio Slim Hybrid Hard Case, and the Griffin iClear; the GizMac Titan Clear was sent directly from the manufacturer.

Lets start with the least expensive and work our way up the line…

The Griffin iClear

Of the three that Vincent sent, this one was the first that I tried. Bear in mind that I received the box on December 21, so I only had the case a few days before disaster struck…more on that in a minute.

Included in the iClear box are the two halves of the clear case, a microfiber cloth, and a screen protector which only covers the main portion of the iPhone’s screen – and by that I mean the viewing screen – not the entire surface. This seemed chintzy, but I wasn’t too worried about it because I had already installed a full-coverage Smartphone Experts Screen Protector. The gray microfiber cloth was pretty sweet, though.

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Introduction
Last fall, the Palm Centro was launched upon the U.S. on the Sprint network. Judie did a review of it and covered everything from the unboxing to her impressions of the device. Rather than repeat covering the basics of this device, I’m going to recommend that you take a look at her review here and here for a basic overview of using the Centro. Today, I plan to talk about the Centro on AT&T’s GSM network, AT&T highlights and additions to the Centro, and my impressions of the device and service.

Most import, for some folk, is the fact that Centro appears on the AT&T network in a brand new color – Glacier White. You’re either going to love the white with green combination or you’re going to hate it. I actually find it kind of interesting.

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I really liked the original N95, but a few things left me with a sour taste in my mouth. For the price, the build quality was absolutely appalling, the battery life was pathetic and it constantly ran out of memory. I reviewed the N95 just under 6mths ago, and in that time they have released a new version titled the N95 8GB. While it shares a similar design and innards to the original, it feels like an entirely new animal.

Note: Due to the server crash, the photos no longer have links to large versions. Right-click them and click “View Image” to see the full 800×600 version.

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