Attention Developers! Rhomobile’s mobile application development contest can put $10,000 in your pocket. The contest is promoting Rhomobile’s Rhodes framework, which allows developers to write native applications for the iPhone using HTML and Ruby. After you’ve written your iPhone application, the Rhodes framework will allow you to run the same application on BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android mobile phones!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Cellular carrier Virgin Mobile announced today that they’ll pay the phone bill of any monthly “subscriber” or any prepaid subscriber who has been with the company at least two months on their new $49 unlimited plan (being introduced April 15). The agreement will only cover 3 months of service and it is included free with all monthly plans and the new $49 prepaid unlimited plan. Virgin Mobile via Technologizer Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Proporta, purveyor of quality gadgets and accessories, is having a storewide sale this Easter Sunday (April 12). Enter the promotion code FEAST (on what? On chocolate of course!) at the cart page and receive a 15% discount on your order. And for a limited time, buy any product at Proporta, and you’ll get to choose a free gift from their Stock Clearance Store. If you don’t already have one (and every discerning gadget lover should), get a Gadget Bag, and fill it with the Ted Baker mobile device charger – available in a very appropriate chocolate-y shade of brown. Read about the sale here Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Tapulous, maker of the Tap Tap Revenge games, has introduced another artist-exclusive special edition, this time featuring British rock band Coldplay. Built on the new Tap Tap Revenge 2 (TTR2) engine, the Coldplay edition offers several new features, including an in-game feed of Coldplay news and a unique look inspired by the band.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One deal per day site Woot! has the latest iPod Nano (4th Generation) in 8GB memory configuration for only $99.99 plus $5 shipping. You can purchase a maximum of 3 and still pay only $5 for shipping. Colors available are black, blue, green, orange, pink, purple, silver and yellow. Warranty is 90 days via Woot! Woot! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve been buzzing around the net in a drastic attempt to find something interesting to write about. With so many new people contributing on Gear Diary now-a-days (which is so TOTALLY awesome, I can’t see straight!!), the competition is going to heat up!  I can’t wait to see what awesome goodies the team can come up with! Anywho, one of the bit things that I’ve been working on is Windows 7 on both my MSI Wind and on my new unibody MacBook (review in process).  I noticed on JCXP the other day that Windows 7, build 7105 had leaked out.  Rumors of the RC hitting the streets tomorrow, 10-Apr-09 are all over the place.  Many are speculating that this either IS the RC, or isn’t far from it. Neowin reports that from an ‘exculsive source,’ they were able to pinpoint build 7100 as being the most viable build number to recieve the ‘RC’ status. Compiled on April 4th, Build 7105 bears the following build string: “6.1.7105.0.090404-1235_x86fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GB1CULFRER_EN_DVD” The following are reported to be visible changes in this new build:  Continue reading on Gear Diary …

VMware, one of the leading companies in virtual computer software has began hyping the announcement of their new cloud computing product. The announcement will take place on April 21, 2009 at 9:00 AM PDT as a live Simulcast. You can register to attend the announcement at VMware’s website. I am a big fan of VMware Fusion on my Mac to run my windows applications as well as their enterprise products, so I am very interested in how they will approach cloud computing… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

NASA astronaut Mike Massimino has been Twittering up a storm in advance of his upcoming trip to maintain the Hubble Space Telescope. He’s managed to attract over 18,500 followers online and while he only has 18 updates – one has to wonder whether NASA will seize the PR value of a Twittering Astronaut. After all, Twitter is in the news everywhere and is the hot fad of the moment. Celebrities are Twittering and sending pictures of their daily life – why not Astronauts? Which raises the question of whether we may see the first Tweets from space on this upcoming space mission? Astro_Mike via The Register Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Data Robotics has introduced the newest model of their Drobo storage system: the DroboPro. If you are not familiar with the original Drobo, picture a box that you can stick whatever drives you have laying around into. The Drobo mixes them together and gives you a large external drive that has built in redundancy, so if one drive fails your data is still safe. The magic of the Drobo is that if one hard drive gets full, you can just pull the drive out and replace it with a larger drive. The Drobo will automatically add the new space to the available storage capacity. In addition to doubling the number of drives you can store from four… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Does it get any crazier than this? Here’s a 3-in-1 automotive air ionizer and perfume dispenser – that also lights your cigarettes! On the surface this gizmo looks to be an ordinary air freshener powered by your car. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find that this thing’s also the source of the stink. Built into the ionizer is an electronic cigarette lighter! This Black Automatically Smoking Lighter can light the cigarette and purify smoke automatically and uniquely: intelligently controlling the automatic ignition and lustrating smoke, products fixed in six cigarettes memorily, pressing the switch gently, the cigarettes will be automatically ignitend and then lustrated out. Reducing the trouble to take out the cigarette and Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I usually keep my MacBook Air nekkid as a jaybird because I love its skinny form factor, but the scratches I’ve begun to notice appearing on its metal shell have been causing me a bit of consternation lately. In an effort to keep my svelte beauty’s skin unblemished, I agreed to give the Speck Products See Thru Slim Hard Shell Case for MacBook Air a try. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

In my lighter moments and more adolescent male times, in other words all the time; I play games on my iPhone! Currently I have two games, Bejeweled 2 and Zombie Invasion.  By far its more fun to play Zombie Invasion and watch the zombies bite the dust!  Zombie Invasion is a classic shooter game with one shooter standing at the bottom of the screen shooting at the approaching zombies.  As the level increases there are more zombies and more weapons.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As you have probably noticed, there have been a lot of new names posting here at Gear Diary over the past week or so. When I recently wrote the “help wanted” post, I had no idea the type of response we would get; almost 100 potentials replied! As of today, we have 18 new contributors at Gear Diary, which is a completely mind boggling amount of new talent. These new writers are excited, filled with fabulous ideas, and they have been keeping me extremely busy behind the scenes. In the next week or so, their bios and pictures will be going live on our Contributor’s page; I think you will be surprised by… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’m one of those people who will go sign up for whatever new hot service everyone is talking about, just in case I might use it someday.  One such service was GrandCentral, now Google Voice.  I signed up for a number right before GrandCentral closed their beta, but I never really used it.  I figured it was something that would be nice to have for certain situations, but I didn’t find a chance to put it to the test until GrandCentral made the Google Voice transition.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Customizable Flip Minos have been available for a while now, but if you want one that’s been professionally designed, Amazon and CafePress have just introduced several new designs by ‘talented artists and well-known designers’. Through April 19, you’ll get two free accessories of your choice with the purchase of a MinoHD, and one free accessory with the normal Mino. Unfortunately, the range of eligible accessories isn’t vast – several cases, a tripod and a set of USB cables – but for a basic camcorder like the Mino, those are pretty much all the accessories you’ll need. Flip Online Store at Amazon.com Continue reading on Gear Diary …