My smartphone holds my whole life. I answer my emails on it, balance my checkbook, manage my calendar, my tasks, browse the web, and even occasionally make phone calls. Sometimes I think my MacBook feels neglected, since I often reach for my phone to answer emails and check things, even when the computer is open and sitting right next to me. Now that I have a Redfly, my MacBook should really be sweating bullets. The Redfly fits absolutely perfectly into my smartphone world. I can pull out at work and answer emails on my lunch hour, I can be sitting in a waiting room and happily browsing my favorite websites, and I love being able to start working on my phone, plug in the Redfly, continue my work, and swap back over to the phone without skipping a beat.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Whenever we make a trip into New York City we like to pose in front of the streaming web cams that capture live images of tourists in action. Before I go stand by the web cam I usually call my mom. I think she gets a kick out of watching us stand and wave to the camera like idiots (or at least she say’s that the she does). The web cam is also fun to watch events unfold live in New York such as New Years or major parades. Just this morning we used it to check on the weather and see if the rain had started in the city. TImes Square Live is available for $1.99. It streams NYC… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A key piece of memorabilia from the hit HBO show The Sopranos is up for auction. This item is from the episode “Members Only” where the character Uncle Junior shoots Tony Soprano setting a significant plot line for the rest of the series. This revolver is apparently a live action working gun as described in this auction listing which indicates a price of $6,000 for more is expected: This live firing .38 Special Rossi 68 revolver was utilized by the character “Uncle Junior” portrayed by actor Dominic Chianese in The Sopranos. Mr. Chianese’s character can be seen firing the weapon in “Members Only” (Season 6, Episode 1) during the climactic sequence at the end of the episode where Junior suffers from Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A new short-range wireless standard for Bluetooth will officially launch on April 21. The claim is that wireless speeds using this new technology could theoretically reach 480 Mb per second ( current Bluetooth has a maximum of 3 Mb). Under the new 3.0 standard, Bluetooth will create the pairing between two devices and hand off data transfer to Wi-Fi. Yes, this means to take advantage of the faster speeds you’ll need both a Bluetooth device and Wi-Fi (speeds fall back to “old Bluetooth” if Wi-Fi’s not present). As of now there’s scant evidence of any device support – however given our need for mobile speed it doesn’t seem like it will take manufacturers long to support the standard when it’s unveiled April… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Truth be told, my favorite style of game in the handheld genre is puzzle. At any given time I have at least five puzzle games loaded onto my iPhone. Astro Sphere is a challenging puzzle style game that’s available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The game takes place in space and the goal is to guide your “ship” through a series of levels. To advance to the next level you must teleport your ship through a portal. You do this by bouncing the spherical ship of certain obstacles, each of which has a different effect, all the while trying to collect bonuses and more lives in the process.  The game features 50 levels and makes good use of the iPhone’s multitouch feature.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It’s been a really long time since I’ve spied an album in a record store. But that doesn’t mean I still don’t have a killer collection of 80′s and 90′s records locked away in my basement. While re-purchasing all that music could be an easier way to move those tunes to my computer – there’s a cheaper solution for the do it yourselfer. Woot! has this Ion USB turntable on sale today only for $59. The player connects via USB to your computer and turns records into MP3 files. A suite of software is included and PC users can download a free version of EZ Vinyl Converter to automatically add album, artist and song information. Supports 33 1/3 and 45 RPM… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF 2009) in Bejing, China, this week, Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel Ultra Mobility Group, demonstrated the Intel next-generation Atom-based Mobile Internete Devic (aka MID) platform, codename Moorestown. After celebrating the first year of life of the Atom processor, a slide crowded with MIDs made an appearance.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Yesterday Iambic released the new update to the Agendus Standard, Professional and Premium Editions, reaching version 13.05. From the producer site a long awaited bug fix.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

According to Appleinsider, Apple is finally planning to change over from their current WinMo-based quick pay systems (manufactured by Symbol) to a system based around their iPod Touch. This change is supposed to happen some time after the upcoming iPhone/iPod OS 3.0 release. The new release is supposed to permit developers to have their applications talk directly to the hardware ports in the iPhone and iPod Touch. Apple (and others) recently demonstrated the new OS and add-on devices that read blood pressure and blood sugar. Since there is already a credit card processing app in the App Store, it’s not a far stretch to add a credit card reader to the device. A few years back, I wrote an article about this topic and even… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Late Wednesday night Gmail Labs introduced a new feature called sender time zone. The feature adds a tiny red or green icon (the color depends on the sender’s local time) to all incoming email so you can tell at a glance whether local time for the sender falls inside or outside of the workday.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

BerryReview has confirmed that the domain name BlackBerryU2.com has been registered by RIM.    Unfortunately, nothing is “live” on the site at this point.  U2 has partnered with RIM for their upcoming “U2 360″ World tour, and the band has already let it slip that they’ve been given access to RIM’s labs so they could “do something really spectacular.” Hmmmmm.  So, will we be seeing a Bono-Berry?  Will it be a U2 mobile application?  If it is an application, will it be something a-la-ZooTV where U2′s fans can upload photos or videos that display at a live show?  Will it be Bono twittering you directly???   “Hellooooooooooooo Cleveland!” Now that the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Enthusiasts of the old Space Invaders and Pac Man games will like this new iPod Nano 4G case from Griffin. Inspired by the 8 bit graphical games of yesteryear (remember when the seemed so state of the art) this polycarbonate case is clear enough so the natural color of your Nano 4G shines through while providing protection from drops. Access to the vital organs (controls, dock connector, headphone jack) is provide via cutouts in the case. Joystick and a rolls of quarters to place on top of the arcade machine sold separately. Griffin iClear Sketch – $24.99… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Woot Sellout has this xPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack up for grabs at $9.99 plus $5 shipping. The same $5 shipping covers as many of these as you buy (so long as you don’t want to buy more than 3). This battery reportedly will charge the iPhone 3G and because one of the connectors from the battery pack is a USB port – you can bring along your regular USB cable to act as a charging cable if you like. There are 6 tips includes (Samsung, Nokia, Mini USB, Sony Ericsson, Palm and LG). Each year you can request an additional 2 free tips (shipping and handling applies and I have no idea what that runs – probably about… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

After reviewing  the Backbeat 106 headphones, the folks at Altec Lansing sent out a version of the headphones designed for mobile phones. The Backbeat Plus Mobile UHS206  are virtually identical to the Backbeat 106 ear buds in my earlier review.  The  design is a little different, and the cables are  wrapped in the same tangle proof cloth covering. This is a nice extra which keeps the cables from kinking up and getting tangled while floating around in a pocket or in your gear bag.  Other than the extra ring for the mic, the mic itself and the call button, the design is very similar.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve often wondered why mobile device manufacturers don’t allow for an automated way to warm reboot our devices as we sleep. It seems that the cure for half of the problems with erratic application behavior can be resolved with either a quick battery pull or click of a hardware reset button. QuickPull 2.0 for BlackBerry OS 4.2+ provides just that. It simulates a “battery pull” – freeing available system memory and reclaiming all the stolen resources that some naughty applications “forget” to return to your BlackBerry. The price is free. Now if RIM could just figure a way to reboot my BlackBerry in under five minutes. QuickPull 2.0 via BlackBerry News Continue reading on Gear Diary …