I first spotted the Sungale ID800WT back in May when the company issued a press release to announce the frame’s arrival in the marketplace. What intrigued me is that for about $230 you’d be able to have both a digital picture frame as well as a Wi-Fi enabled monitor that displayed news, weather, Gmail and Picasa photo albums. How do the features of the ID800WT measure up in real life?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As someone who is a gamer but also has a busy family and work schedule, I often find my video game time late at night when the house is quiet and most everyone else is asleep. This gives me two options – mute the sound or use headphones. Sometimes it is a hybrid of these, as I leave my headphones sitting my desk as low-volume speakers. For the past several years I have used fairly cheap headphones, starting with a pair from an older Sony portable CD player, moving on to a pair of cheap headphones I bought for my music studio, and more recently ear-buds from one of my iPods. The iPod earbuds have worked pretty well, and I still recall the eerie feelings of hearing the atmospheric sounds of Thief: Deadly Shadows Shalebridge Cradle area flowing through my mind in a darkened room. But the sound quality is not that great, nor is the comfort acceptable for a long gaming session. Recently AblePlanet sent me their new PSM500MM headphones to evaluate for review. The quick version: I have been utterly blown away by this amazing audio device!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the most touted apps on the new T-Mobile myTouch 3G is Sherpa.  Sherpa gives you a unique way to discover things near your current location.  Geodelic, the company behind Sherpa has put a lot of work into its interface, and it’s a very beautiful app for Android based phones.  It is also now available on the Android Marketplace, so I installed it on my G1 and gave it a spin. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I think it is no secret around here that I am a pretty big fan of Sudoku.  I have explored many Sudoku options for various mobile platforms, and even a number of alternate variations on the theme.  For those of you who are new here, Sudoku is a classic Japanese puzzle game, in which you are faced with a grid of 81 squares arranged in nine rows of nine blocks each.  Scattered across the grid are numbers from 1-9.  Your job is to fill in the remainder of the grid by placing each number, 1-9, into each row, column, and 3×3 mini-grid, without duplicating in any direction.  Sounds easy…but that can be deceptive.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Some folks test their gear by putting it in some extreme conditions.   They may drop it from a few feet.  They may splash a little water on it.   Here at Gear Diary, if you are Larry Greenberg, you put it in a car — then you set the car on fire! If your gadget makes it, you have yourself a winner.  If not, well, there’s always a spot on “Will It Grill?” This week had it all  – from flaming hard drive enclosures to a mobile phone that survived (and still worked) after being left outside for seven months.  Let’s take a quick look at just a few of last week’s highlights.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last week we found Elana’s Palm Centro lying buried in a leaf pile down the road from where she had dropped it last winter – over 7 months ago! We were able to power it on immediately, but the biggest surprise came a week later…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ll keep this brief… If you missed this NYTimes piece on the first round in the Google-Apple boxing match when it was published a few days ago, I recommend it as a “MUST-READ”. In it David Pogue does a great job of putting the whole Google Voice debacle in context. You can find the article HERE.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! In case you hadn’t already started Back to School shopping, you can mark the blockbuster release of Madden NFL 10 this week as the official start of the fall release season!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you send a lot of emails from your iPhone or iPod touch this app is for you. Short Hand is a small utility that let’s you create and use macros in the same way that you with an application such as TextExpander on a Mac. While it takes a bit of time to set it up the time is well worth it considering the time and effort it can save. Let’s take a quick look…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We’re working on the next installment of our weekly app update series (and there have been a ton of good ones) but this one stands out on its own… A good bit of drama has been playing out between Apple and Google and it isn’t slowing down. Most recently  9to5Mac posted that, for years, there had been a non-employee poaching gentleman’s agreement between the two. With the resignation of Google’s Schmidt form the Apple board, off. Let the poaching begin! That’s why it was a bit surprising to see THIS update appear tonight. It isn’t a huge update to the excellent free Google… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve just received word of a limited time special that will be perfect for anyone headed back to school. It will also work well for anyone who needs to carry a light laptop during daily travel… Starting this morning and running through August 12, you can get an HP Pavilion dv6t and an HP Mini 110 XP together for $799.98! Think about it — for less than the cost many desktop or larger laptop solutions, you can get a 16″ laptop that can serve as your main machine, and a 10.1″ netbook that you can carry to class or with you on the road. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Prepaid cellular phones are a great way to give your younger teens (and often adults as well) a cellular phone that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. By using prepaid minutes you’ll completely avoid those annoying month end billing surprises that can happen when someone goes over their monthly allotment of minutes. Once the prepaid minutes run out – the phone won’t make or receive calls until you refill (except for emergency calls). Some providers such as T-Mobile even let you keep your minutes for a full year if you fill them with $100 at a time. Target has all brands of prepaid cellular refill cards on sale this week. Spend $44 and get a $50 card. Choose Virgin Mobile, Boost, T-Mobile… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Do you Twitter?  Are you a Twit with your Tweets?  I’ll be honest here and tell you that I really don’t Twitter.  Sure, I have an account, and have tried to understand it, but it just never did much for me.  That being said, I do understand that millions of people out there send what must be billions and billions (sorry, Carl Sagan) of Tweets on Twitter every day (does this make anyone else think of a little yellow canary from Looney Tunes?) … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I am not even a third of the way into my Palm Pre App Catalog series, 30 Apps in 30 Days, and already I am starting to feel its obsolescence.  You seem I learned earlier today of a shadow app catalog.  This unofficial app catalog for the Palm Pre is already stocked with over 75 apps which are not available from the official app Catalog.  These homebrew apps include everything you might have missed when you glanced at the Palm Pre App Catalog: games, utilities, useful tools, and well over double the number of apps the official App Catalog.  so, how can you find all of these apps?  Well, until they make their way over to the App… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

How good is your gear?   Most of the time we become easily enamored by the look of the latest and greatest device.  It’s really only after you start putting your gear through the rigors of daily use that you can really tell how well it’s made — and whether it is something you can truly recommend.  Judie recently reviewed the HP Pavilion dv2 — and even proclaimed she may even (gasp!) move back to Windows from Mac! Over at ClintonFitch.com, Clinton also reviewed the dv2 with a very positive review.  The real test for this machine is how it fairs in the hands of a busy college student needing a dependable, lightweight, powerhouse… Continue reading on Gear Diary …