I’ve been looking for a Bluetooth speakerphone that is easy to use and sounds great for a long time. A few have come close to doing the job for me but nothing really stood out… until now. An impulse buy while in CostCo last week led me to pick up the Jabra SP700. I’m really impressed by it and in my review noted-

This is by far the best Bluetooth speakerphone I have ever used. How good it is was clear from the minute I turned it on and it immediately announced (in a rather sexy British female voice I might add) “pairing mode on”.

A full review is over on whatsoniphone.com.

I’ve just got word that Corrine Chorney has received her HP Magic Giveaway goodies! She posted an entry about it on her blog, and with her permission I am reposting it here…

Dear Gear Diary,

Just a quick note to let you know that the HP Magic has arrived at my door!

Judie Lipsett from Gear Diary wasted no time shipping the HP Magic packages across the country. The incredible shipment arrived today. My husband signed for the shipment.

I couldn’t wait for the end of my work day. I took a couple hours vacation. After rushing home, I found myself awe-struck seeing the boxes really there in front of me. Soon, however, curiosity got the better of me and I started investigating.

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(Note- This post is done in order to share my experience creating a Hackintosh. It is not intended to recommend or encourage similar hacks. Gear Diary neither recommends, nor takes any liability, if you choose to do the same.)

I’ve been through the whole UMPC thing from the start. I had a TabletKiosk UMPC the day they were shipped. I had a Samsung Q1P, Q1Ultra, Q1Ultra Premium and a Sony UX 280P in rapid succession. I loved the whole UMPC concept but none of the machines ever fit the bill quite well enough for me. Each was either returned or, more often, found their way to eBay in pristine condition.

When I made the shift to Mac a year and a half ago I figured I had left the whole “netbook-thing” behind- at least until Apple made their way into the arena with more than the iPhone and iPod Touch. Three weeks ago, however, I decided to try again. I had an Acer Aspire One for a week and was impressed with it on many levels. The trackpad did me in, however, and it went back. From there I jumped into an HP Mini-Note 1000 and loved it. Seriously, I absolutely loved the machine. Yet after a few days using it I realized that as much as I loved the Mini-Note I hated being back on XP. (here is one exception- XP Tablet- but that is another post.) Then, earlier this week, I saw that RealTek had released a wifi driver that allowed the MSI Wind U100 to be “OX S-ified” without having to make any changes to the hardware. (Prior to this in order to get wifi working you needed to either use a WiFI dongle or open the machine up and swap in a different WiFi card.)

So goodbye HP Mini-Note, hello MSI Wind.

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SplashShopper is a brilliant little program I use on both my iPhone and BlackBerry. The software organizes my grocery list and holiday gift giving. In the past I’ve done a lot of last minute buying only because I’d failed to make a proper list leading up to the holidays. Not so this year. I’ve tailored SplashShopper as outlined on the next page – to track the people who I need to buy gifts for.
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This week’s Wednesday Walkaround takes place on a brisk 15 degree (F) day in Dearborn, Mich. as we check out the all-new 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid.
(Click on the image for video)
UPDATED with review! Continue Reading

Here’s a quirky idea for your next dinner party. This cup and saucer set are specially hand painted and give the illusion of ants marching up the saucer and into the cup. When guests linger too long at the end of the night, offer them coffee. Watch as they grab their coats and head for the door as you present their coffee. As a special bonus, guests are guaranteed to turn down your party invitation next year!

Ants On My Cup and Saucer via Nerd Approved

It’s no secret that many of the Team Members and Contributors here at Gear Diary have Macs.  Some of us use them more for a Windows Machine, like me (sorry…the hardware is just too freakin’ awesome…), but most of us use them with their native OS, as intended. Like many people, most of us here have applied the newly released OSX 10.5.6 OS update.  Some of us have had success. Some of us have bumped into a number of problems.  One of the biggest things to hit members of the Team here has been issues with Mail:

Mail Many users are having problems with Mail crashing after the update when trying to read email messages. For some the program will not open, but for others it seems to crash when messages are selected. Some users have been able to fix this problem by removing Mail add-on software, but this does not apply to all affected users, most who do not have any third-party add-ons. As such, users might try the following to fix these problems:

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A jumpy video has surfaced that shows the BlackBerry Application Suite apparently running on an AT&T HTC Fuze. The 4:16 video appears to confirm the existence of either a virtual BlackBerry OS that runs on top of Windows Mobile or someone with a lot of skills at making a move that appears to depict such an act. I’m not thinking someone would go to the trouble of making a movie like this, so I’m left with only one question. Why would anyone want to piggyback the BlackBerry OS on top of a Windows Mobile OS unless they absolutely had to. Maybe this will be all the rage but I see it as more of a geeky administrator type tool than anything we’ll all be downloading in the near future.

Berry Review