If you’re looking for a bigger screen laptop at a Netbook price – check out this GearSponsor deal for a 15″ Dell Inspiron 15n laptop with Ubuntu 8.10. The system price actually starts at $299 but with one configuration tweak you can boost the power with only a $35 jump in price. Different case colors are available for $40 each and the recommended upgrade includes the processor bump to Dual-core T4200 2GHZ (adds $35) to top the price out at $334. More Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Joel Evans over at Geek.com weighs in with some first day impressions of his newly purchased Palm Pre. Among the interesting but not so surprising (based on other reviews) tidbits: battery life “the sales associate at the Sprint store recommended that I buy the car charger since the battery is “really bad”.. More Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Put this under the heading of — In a world with a tremendous number of terrific web-based services that are good and respect privacy, if you employ sleazy tactics you’re out. I subscribe to a tremendous number of social networking sites. As a rule, however, I don’t sign up with a site unless it’s directly recommended to me by a friend or I know a little bit about it. There are good reasons for doing it this way — and the website Tagged is one. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Footwear manufacturer Aetrex Worldwide and GTS Corp are teaming up to develop what seems like a “why didn’t they make these before” product. It’s a pair of shoes with an embedded GPS. They’ll use the shoes with Alzheimer’s patients, 60 percent of who tend to wander at least once during the progression of the disease. Using the GPS coordinates the patient is tracked to within 30 feet of their location and perimeters are set so the instant they’ve wandered outside a preset zone an alert is sent. If the cost was affordable I’d buy a pair for each of my kids! Physorg Photo Credit – Hong Kong Hustle Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Blue has been well known for their microphones.  They are of exceptional quality, they look good, and they are very well built.  Well Blue has taken one of their most portable microphones, the Snowflake, and made it into a webcam called the Eyeball. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Facebook lovin’ BlackBerry users can rejoice today. The latest version 1.6 of Facebook for BlackBerry is available for download. What’s new? Cleaner interface with the ability to view a friend’s wall without having to exit to the Facebook Mobile version, ability to scroll through friends photos, support for Thai, Indonesian and Portuguese languages. You’ll need version 4.2 of BlackBerry’s OS. Facebook for Blackberry and New Feature List Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Cliffs Notes made me the scholar that I am today. Everything I learned about boring Literature flowed through one of several CliffsNotes guides that I bought to “assist” me in College English. These handy guides summarize the key points of classic literature and point out important themes that students may overlook. The guides (aka “student’s best friend”) are apparently just now making their way into the iPhone App store with 5 initial titles. The application features two modes – “Cram Plan” which promises to provide an effective study session in just 5 minutes. The e-Reader interface provides the complete content of the guide in a manner similar to the way you’d see it in the printed CliffsNotes books. I’m unsure whether this… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Dell has some most excellent gaming buys. Just last week I picked up a Sony PSP 2000 for $119. Today (via GearSponsor LogicBuy) I spotted this Xbox 360 Elite 120 GB Holiday Bundle plus 2 games (LEGO Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda) for $319.99. Use your Dell Preferred Account to score another 3% savings. The Xbox 360™ Elite System from Microsoft® features a Console with a premium black finish and a custom-designed Xbox 360 central processing unit that runs at a high speed owing to its three powerful core processors. Featuring 16:9 cinematic aspect ratio, anti-aliasing, full surround sound and DVD playback, the Xbox 360 System lets you enjoy a great game in cool style. The 120GB detachable hard Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today’s the big day for Palm Pre. It’s the first day you can (should able to) walk into a Sprint or Best Buy Store and pick up the new smartphone from Palm. This morning I noticed an interesting article that Peter over at Just Another Mobile Monday linked on his Facebook page titled Picking nits: why I’m skipping the Palm Pre. I think the article gives some really good background information that may fill in some of the spaces around the reviews that have appeared in the last few days. I’m willing to bet that most of the shortcomings are fixed pretty quickly by software updates. The battery life and keyboard could be reasons to wait for a Pre 2… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I believe the future of Broadband cards will arrive in the form factor of this Verizon Novatel MiFi 2200. Rather than limit you to only one wireless connection, the MiFi creates a Wi-Fi hotspot that supports up to 5 simultaneous connections. You’ll still deal with the same monthly bandwidth caps (5GB on Verizon) so you best be choosy about who you share with. Amazon’s selling the MiFi 2200 for free with no need for a rebate. In return you get a wireless modem that will surf at a claimed speed of up to 1.5 Mbps. Of course if you’re sharing the connection with four other friends that speed’s going to be a lot slower. One drawback to this device is that… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Sad news from AvantGo who were one of the first to compress and download mobile versions of regular web sites for easy viewing on portable devices such as PDAS and Smartphones. In the bygone era of slow mobile data speed AvantGo was used by many to synchronize mobile versions of popular web sites for subsequent offline reading and browsing. They served as a type of RSS feed that provided a richer browsing experience than the more commonplace mobile text content. I’d lost touch with their progress for some time. As data speeds gradually increased the need for an AvantGo solution to compress web sites and deliver them to my smartphone were less and less. RSS feeds also took over and with Google Reader… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As I was sorting through the various emails from everybody at Gear Diary last night I noticed something interesting. A number of the emails came through with the signature ”Sent from my iPhone” or “Sent from my Blackberry“. It isn’t a surprise. I’ve long known that my iPhone pre-formats such a signature. But for some reason it struck me last night how incredibly smart it is for Apple and Blackberry and the likes to have such default signatures on their devices. After all, what better way to get some additional free advertising ! It was then that I decided to do a little experiment. I asked everyone to send me an email with the words, “What device am I using?” in the subject line and nothing in the message box. I figured that way I could quickly see the various signatures everyone uses. The results were… interesting.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Who carries 97 items in their coat pockets? If you guessed “my kids” – you’re close. This is a video from Patrick Rigney who managed to cram 97 different items into his Scott eVest jacket. As you may know the Scott eVest clothing (jackets, shirts, pants) are chock full of pockets and zippers which are meant to give you a place to hold all your gear while out and about. I love the video. One suggestion – take all that crap through airport security with the coat on — I’ll kick in $100 to see THAT on YouTube… eVest via YouTube Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The BlackBerry Storm 9530 is down to only $49 on Amazon. The phone had been selling for $199 then $99. The new price reduction is most likely to clear inventory in advance of the Storm 2 which Verizon has acknowledged will launch sometime really really soon now. BlackBerry Storm – Amazon $49 w/2yr Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This replica of a Star Trek Communicator is perfect for the Trek geek who has almost everything. The phone contains a working microphone and earphone and features 21 sound effects. Works with most VoIP software like Skype, MSN, AIM and Ichat and costs $43. Star Trek USB Communicator Phone – $43… Continue reading on Gear Diary …