Shuttle Astronaut Mike Massimino received a lot of press for being the first person to “Tweet from space”. Or did he? New reports are now arriving that perhaps what really happened is @astro_mike mailed his tweets home via email where they were posted by someone on the ground. You know, sort of how your grandma or grandpa may ask you to take a written note and convert it to an email? Next year maybe NASA can add the free Twitter service to their budget. More Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A few days after its release, the new Gmail Labs “Message translation” has been enriched by a new, really helpful, feature. Now, if you receive a message you will be able to translate it “on the fly”, without having to mess with the Gmail settings. Once a new mail is received, the space between the message header and body will show two buttons that will allow you to choose the languages of choice. Here is an Italian message. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Who knows if this is simply a web designer making a fancy placeholder for an expected iPhone or whether this is foreshadowing of an upcoming 32 GB storage boost for the iPhone. Since the price shown is zero (pretty obviously a placeholder until final figures can be inserted) today’s headlines could just as easily be “iPhone price lowered to zero”…. The web site operator for T-Mobile Austria is displaying this pumped up iPhone model (sans any details whatsoever on specifications). However if you want to reasonable non-hyped rundown of what probably will be in the next generation iPhone – hit the Daring Fireball site which has the calmest and most logical list of possible next generation iPhone features that I’ve seen… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the more exciting announcements to come from Mobile World Congress was that HTC would be releasing the Touch Diamond2 and TouchPro2 as followups to their preceding namesakes. Neither is technically available in the US – not just yet anyway, but as luck would have it,  HTC was kind enough to loan me a European version of the Diamond2.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The iSkin Revo was one of the most popular cases for the first generation iPhone.  How does the Revo 2 for the iPhone 3G measure up?  There’s no denying the Revo 2 is jammed packed with features.  It offers several layers of protection and comes in a variety of color combinations. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It’s big ass TV day here at GearDiary and our GearSponsor LogicBuy helps spread the fever with three coupons for $200, $300 and $400 off on different models of Samsung LCD (and one plasma) HDTVS. At the (more) affordable level is the $1,499 40″ Samsung LN40B750 with a $200 savings. The top end “screw the economy I’m getting a big TV” is the 63″ Samsung PN63B550 1080 Plasma priced at $2,574.99 less a $400 discount. Coupons are SAMSFOUR, SAMTHREE and SAMTVTWO for the respective discounts. Just think how crazy it will drive your neighbor to see the 63″ tv box sitting by the curb for trash pickup. Details on the coupon codes at the link below. Samsung Continue reading on Gear Diary …

My review of SpiderOak (Online Backup, File and Folder Sync) isn’t quite finished yet, but it suffices to say that I’m using it on my Mac Pro and it’s replaced Mozy on my MacBook. I found it to have the best balance of price, speed and functionality amongst the services I evaluated (Diino, Memopal, SpiderOak and SugarSync) and now SpiderOak has increased their value proposition by offering a very, very time-limited 50% discount on all annual plans. To take advantage of this offer, sign up for a free 2 GB account if you don’t already have one, and use the coupon code ‘recovery’ when upgrading. The code is only valid for 6 hours today May 20, 2009, from 10 AM to 4 PM EST (3 PM to 9 PM GMT) and brings the cost of a 100 GB plan down to $50 a year. There was a miscommunication and the above promo has ended, but you can still use ‘spring’ for a 25% discount.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

My friend Mark contacted me via GTalk video chat three days ago to test out his new Acer Aspire One that he purchased for $349 at Costco. I was so impressed that he was able to connect and video chat without difficulty on a Netbook that cost so little that I immediately ordered one for myself on Amazon. Last night I put Windows 7 Release Candidate on the machine by creating a bootable USB drive (I used a 16GB drive – instructions here – that I bought for $35 from Staples). The USB thumb drive was the easiest way for me though I probably could have loaded it to any external bootable device such as a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Audible is an online audio bookstore.  You can download audio books to burn to a CD or transfer to your favorite MP3 player (or Smartphone) of choice.  Audible  just released their BlackBerry application.  So, how is it?  It is a total exercise in frustration…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you read Gear Diary, you are probably familiar with product reviews on various blogs. But do you ever consider why your favorite website is reviewing product X? Or whether product X has been overly generous to buy goodwill in the blog world? The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cares. How will this affect you? Read on and find out.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I don’t like clear invisible skin protection on my devices. I know a lot of people swear by them. I know they provide excellent protection. Unfortunately, I’m just not a fan. I don’t particularly like the way they look, and I definitely don’t like the way they feel. It’s a shame because there’s no question that they gave the best consistent protection to delicate electronic devices like the iPhone. As a result, I tend to use larger, heavier cases; it’s okay but it’s not as nice or as delicate of a solution. That’s why I was interested to learn about Dome Skin. It’s a very different solution for protecting your device and for giving it a brand-new decorative look, as well. Let’s take a a closer look. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Here’s a cool way to mount your iPhone (original or 3G), iPod Touch (1st and 2nd Generation) or iPod (Nano, Classic, 5th Generation) and make use of that obsolete cassette deck in your car. The mounting bracket is a cassette tape that has a bracket that fits your iPhone or iPod. Audio is transmitted through the faux cassette tape to your car stereo cassette deck. Cost is about $66. MaxiMobileShop Lots of other cool gizmos as well. More pictures of this bad boy in action after the break.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Many people, me included, have been following the SLOG Dump issue that was originally posted on by Carly Z, in her article, “No more SLOG DUMPS!” here at Gear Diary. I’ve been very active in the Epix Support Forum over at AT&T, trying to find my way out of this issue.  I finally bailed on the device, and traded it out for a Samsung Propel Pro (review pending, and yes… I’m much happier now…) Interestingly enough, however, Samsung has released a new ROM update for this device. From the support page at AT&T -… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Update: This giveaway is now closed. The winners are Heatwave316 and geek4life1986. Oddly enough, there were quite a few entries emailed to me, but the rules were clear – the answers needed to be posted in the comments… Keep your eye out for even more Gear Diary giveaways coming soon! It’s been a while since we did a celebrity device guessing game, and it’s definitely time to do one again! The rules are simple – guess which device the famous (or infamous) celebrity is holding by filling in the blanks; submit your answers in the comments below, and we’ll randomly choose three winners from the correct submissions. You don’t have to get the exact model number correct when guessing, but you do have to have the correct maker and a close guess on the model. This time we have some really awesome prizes, sponsored by Skooba Design: •  First Place – Checkthrough Brief (MSRP $139.95) •  Second Place – Checkthrough Messenger (MSRP $129.95) •  Third Place – Skooba Skin (MSRP $29.95) Take a look at the pictures, submit your guesses in the comments below, and we’ll pick our winners from those with at least 20 correct answers on Sunday May [...]

Skooba Design is now the exclusive US sales and marketing partner for Proporta. You might be wondering what all the fuss is about, and what’s in it for you; well read on to find out…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …