Jessica just recently posted a great tutorial on how to get MMS on your iPhone now, before AT&T’s promised September 25th delivery date.  If you missed it check it out here. That got some of us here at Gear Diary started on a small debate about the merit’s of MMS. I saw the MMS trick a few days ago couldn’t come up with a reason for MMS on my phone so I simply didn’t install it and still haven’t. For the life of me I can’t understand why everyone is making such a huge deal about MMS.  Is it just that AT&T’s failure to deliver it a few months ago was something… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

My distinct memories of getting an air hockey table back during the 70′s fad era certainly places me in time, but I do still have a certain fondness for the game that I share with my family from time to time. Our kids got one of those multi-game tables with a small air-hockey board included. So when I heard about Arcade Hockey coming to the iTunes App Store I was thrilled … but the obvious question remains – how does the table game translate to the small screen?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you have to send large numbers of snail-mail, a dedicated label printer may be just the thing for you. If you want speed and flexibility in your label printer, then the Dymo 450 Twin Turbo is definitely worth a look. While having a dedicated label printer with two different bays that hold two different sizes and types of labels may sound like overkill, it isn’t. In fact, it makes life even simpler by allowing a degree of flexibility that can save the time of switching from one type of label to another. For example, one side can have address labels while the other can print stamps. Here’s a quick look…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The Internet is proving to be an interesting outlet for traditional, commercial radio. Many programs like iTunes, offer streams from various radio stations. WunderRadio is from the Weather Underground folk, and it brings you literally thousands of radio stations and streams from around the world.  Let’s take a closer look!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Talk about taking your time… Let’s see, back in March we found out that RIM was sponsoring U2′s latest tour.  In July, RIM began hyping a mobile album and application that would be coming out for BlackBerry users.  Then, the waiting began. A lot of people thought that when U2 kicked off their North American Tour on September 12th something cool exciting mildly interesting would happen with the BlackBerry/u2 joint venture.  No such luck. Instead of a big announcement. No no Blackberry commercial featuring the band. At least not so far. (Given the speed lack of speed with which things are being rolled out perhaps there is one pending for next year month), Nope, all we got is an app… if you can find it. To get it you have to go into BlackBerry App World and search for the application. Good news is once you find it it’s  free. (That assumes you are in a country that has access to BlackBerry App World since our poor friends in Australia still don’t.)  The application itself is pretty well put together.  So long as you don’t mind waiting for songs and video clips to download you get some nice animated transitions [...]

Some of the biggest challenges with technology and the gear we decide to regularly use is what problem(s) does it solve?  Will it improve my efficiency? Is it cost effective?   Take the challenge of wireless printing, backing up data from multiple computers, and then sharing that data across your network. This used to require separate pieces of equipment and the frustration time to manually configure each separate item on your network.   As is usually the case with new products, convergence is the name of the game (and Gear Diary loves convergence!).  Let’s take a look at the new Belkin Home Base, which aims to let anyone with an existing wireless network easily print, backup files, and share their data to anyone on their network. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Since reviewing the Epson WorkForce 600 last year it has been my work horse in my home study. We have other printers (most came bundled with computers we bought) but the WorkForce 60 is the printer I use. Today Epson announced a new, mid-range photo scanner, the V600. The V600 offers advanced performance for photos, film, slides, and everyday documents. Delivering higher resolution and expanded versatility compared to competitive flatbed scanners in its class, the scanner features 6400 x 9600 dpi resolution and 3.4 Dmax for creating high-quality enlargements up to 17” x 22”. It also includes powerful photo restoration tools for both film and prints to bring faded and damaged photos back to life, as well as productivity enhancing Epson ReadyScan LED technology. The V600 Photo will be available in mid-October for $249.99. The full release follows…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This Acer Aspire One with 11.6″ screen, 1GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, 802.11G Wi-Fi and Windows XP Home SP3 is a relative bargain for $280 shipped from J&R. I use a slightly smaller version of this computer and while I wish the keyboard was backlit you can’t beat the small size for carrying this on a plane or throwing into a briefcase during daily travel. I’ve used my Netbook to connect into client sites via Remote Desktop without a hitch. What it lacks in processing horsepower it makes up for in far superior battery power and convenience. Acer Aspire One 11.6″ Netbook – $280 Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I reviewed the SoundID 300 back in April and LOVED it. It is sleek looking, super comfortable and, most importantly, sounds fantastic! It happens to be the headset I use most on a day to day basis. SoundID will soon be releasing the SoundIS 400; it is the update to the 300, and it looks to take a great headset and make it even better. The most significant improvement seems to be the new “Environmental Mode”, a new functionality that grabs sound around you and passes it through to your ear between calls. This means you don’t have to remove the headset between calls in order to listen with both ears. That is a great feature considering the headset is comfortable enough to wear all day. At an MSRP of $129.99 the SoundID 400 is the high end of the market, but for the degree of comfort and sound quality it offers it promises to be well worth the price. Full Release Follows.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

So, yesterday in my daily perusal of the web, I saw that AT&T had started silently rolling out MMS functionality for the iPhone in small batches.  It didn’t seem to have a rhyme or reason–some people on iPhone OS 3.0 had it, some on 3.01, and some on 3.1, all in different locations. Some people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were reporting working MMS, so the question at the forefront of my mind was HOW DO I GET IT!?  I’m an impatient girl, and I didn’t want to wait another 11 days for MMS on my iPhone if I could get it now!  A little more Googling and a few visits to the HowardForums gave me the answers I needed.  How can YOU get MMS working on your iPhone?  Well, I’ll show you.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Remember the Milk, the popular online Todo list manager, is well-known for not just for having an intuitive web-based interface, but also for their wide array of ways to access your data. Add another one to the list. Today, a new native Android client was released.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Boneyboy, a classic Run & Jump game by Mobisation, gets an update to version 1.3. In the 1.3 release, the game now supports touch control. Also, it now supports all new display sizes (800*480, with an additional banner at the top and the button). If you have not heard of BoneyBoy before, BoneyBoy was a winner in Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine´s “Best Software Awards” in the category Run & Jump Platform Scrollers in both year 2007 and 2008! Check it out, it’s a fun game to play. … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

HP announced a new set of notebooks and netbooks to their lineup today, including the new ENVY series of premium notebooks.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you’re a decaffeinated coffee drinker don’t you hate having to trust the person behind the counter to give you the right cup of coffee? Or how about when you get a cup of coffee in a conference room and your only clue about whether the pot contains regular or decaf is a chintzy table sign? Here is the definitive answer to “is that decaf”. Use these 20 test strips on a sample of coffee. Insert a strip into a sample of coffee and if it turns brown you’ll know you have regular coffee. These strips detect caffeine above a 20mg to 6 oz ratio. Works with hot or cold beverages (but not latte). D+Caf caffeine test strips – $9.95 Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As you will recall, this week started with me being quite frustrated when I had miserably failed the Milestone at the end of Unit One. I was also concerned about the empty checkboxes that I was seeing on my Unit 1 progress bar, but I figured I would get things straightened out — eventually. Tuesday morning, I received quite a bit of encouragement from an unexpected source…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …