OK, so your loved one has finally been able to wrestle that DuPont Registry away from you and demands you find suitable transportation back here in the real world. After spending hours perusing the Auto Trader and Craigslist, you find yourself with more questions than answers that are perhaps keeping you from signing on the bottom line or plunking down that hard-earned dinero. For some real world advice and assistance, you might check out realworldautomotive.com, run by ASE-certified master mechanic Alex Steele.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Wow!  What an awesome time!!  Its time to announce the winner to the ioSafe Slogan Contest, and I am happy to announce that we do have a winner to one of the most successful contests ever run here on Gear Diary! After a great deal of consideration to over the 100 responses (some with MULTIPLE entries), I am pleased to announce the winning slogan to the ioSafe 500GB External Hard Drive Slogan Contest: Its not safe unless its ioSafe The writer of the slogan, uzziah0, has been contacted earlier tonight, AND he quickly responded to our e-mail with his shipping address. Honorable mention was awarded to the following… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I have long been a fan of Adobe’s photo editing (Photoshop) and video editing (Premiere) software.  I have been fortunate, here at Gear Diary, to be able to review several incarnations of these fantastic programs.  Now, adobe has announced the release of the Photoshop/Premiere Elements Bundle 8. There are a host of new features in this one, including: PHOTOSHOP – The new Auto-Analyzer, which automatically analyzes and tags the most interesting and highest-quality photos and video footage. – People Recognition, which identifies people in photos, becoming more intelligent over time, as it learns to associate names and people. – Full-screen previews, which  displays photos and video clips Continue reading on Gear Diary …

True, I may be just a “Gaijin” from Texas, but I do know a work of art when I see one. The new Infiniti Essence concept car is just that. Staring at it in adoration, I think I also broke a few commandments.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome to the first entry in the new Netbook Gamer series! In the fall of 1997 LucasArts delivered into the hands of gamers something they had wanted since they first saw one twenty years prior – a lightsaber. Dark Forces brought the Star Wars universe a new level of immersion through the first person shooter perspective. The story brought in classic settings abd characters and introduced a new hero – Kyle Katarn. Former Imperial Academy hero shaken by the discovery of the nature of the Empire through tragic events, Katarn is joined by his partner Jan Ors as the pair serve as mercenaries in the hire of the Rebellion. Dark Forces was an amazing game that delivered a visceral experience and new technical advances to the new first person shooter genre. What it didn’t give gamers was a taste of what it felt like to be a Jedi.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Big news for BlackBerry users — 7digital’s on-device BlackBerry music store officially launched today on BlackBerry App World. The free application allows you to wirelessly purchase DRM-free MP3 music to your BlackBerry smartphone.  Unlike the Thumbplay music store, 7digital integrates it’s own advanced media player that will import your existing playlists and MP3 music collection. The 7digital music store was first announced in July, but wasn’t the first BlackBerry music store to hit the market (Thumbplay beat them to it).  The good news?   The 7digital app has a much better selection of music than Thumbplay, and the integrated media player in 7digital is much better than RIM’s standard player. More screen shots and feature list after the jump… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The creators of this Jedi bathrobe may have latched onto a hot new clothing market. Did you know that according to Wikipedia over half a million people throughout the world declared themselves as Jedi on their census forms? While I think that might be considered to be a practical joke and probably doesn’t reflect the real number of Jedi in the countries concerned – there’s still got to be a fair number that would buy this bathrobe. The Jedi Dressing Gown has a Jedi logo embroidered on the front, is made of 100% cotton velour and is machine washable. It has 2 front pockets and a cotton belt. The dressing gown is 1 size and will fit adults. The bath robe is… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome to a new series here at Gear Diary! Called the Netbook Gamer, this will allow me to share two of my loves – playing computer games and exploiting my netbooks to deliver whatever performance I can squeeze from them. In this series I will look at games released over the last decade that might have pushed the boundaries of what was possible when released, but still work on a modern PC and will run smoothly on a current release netbook. In the title I will identify the game, the year it was released and the genre – expect these to be heavily FPS (first person shooter) and RPG (roleplaying game) centric. I will do a review… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

In a world where some companies tell their customers to “shut up”, and others take days to respond to customer service inquires, one company in particular is just plain doing it right. I wanted to share my recent experience with Case-Mate.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the recent mobile application trends for the iPhone and Android devices — and perhaps the most exciting — is the use of augmented reality to overlay digital data on a real-world view right on your smartphone’s screen.  In June, Wayne first showed us such an application made specifically for the Paris subway.    It wasn’t long after that Dan discovered the feature in the Yelp! application. Since then, other applications making use of these features have begun to trickle in.  Augmented reality applications make full use of the compass, video, GPS, and accelerometer capabilities of the iPhone 3GS — and integrate them together in a way that that gives developers an exciting new method of displaying data within their applications.  You get a real-time, real world view of whatever is around you — via your device’s camera — with data you define is relevant based on your physical location. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you go back in history to just after Thanksgiving of 2004, the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP were just starting to creep into commercial availability, and the growing feeling among gaming media was that while you should never count Nintendo out … Sony had a device that could very well give them handheld gaming superiority. Even a year later, crossing into 2006 after the 2005 holidays, the PSP had the sales lead over the DS worldwide, and a tremendous advantage in the US. Yet within a year, many of those same pundits who proclaimed the PSP as Nintendo-beater were declaring the PSP dead. What happened, and what does it have to do with the upcoming release of the PSP Go or the title of this article? Read on and see!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today only you can get the popular BlackBerry notification application BerryBuzz 50% Off ($2.97) from the Gear Diary Software Store ! Berry Buzz allows you to customize the LED color for various alerts on your BlackBerry.  The app can be set up to keep your LED flashing for longer than the default 15 minutes and repeat alerts until  acknowledged so you will never miss an important call, appointment, SMS, instant messages or urgent emails again.  You can keep your BlackBerry on “quiet” or “vibrate” and still be alerted by custom notifications when your most important messages arrive. Still unsure? Let’s take a look at the full list of features in BerryBuzz to show you an app that puts you in control of your BlackBerry’s inbox… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

RIM, makers of the wildly popular BlackBerry smartphones, reported earnings for Q2 yesterday that fell short of expected levels. The company blamed the settlement of patent litigation with Visto for lower current quarter earnings and set the stage for reduced Q3 earnings. During the earnings call RIM said that 80% of all new subscribers were from non-enterprise markets. While that growth in non-business users is impressive it also could be dangerous since RIM’s aging operating system seems to perpetually play catch up with other phones such as iPhone, Windows Mobile and Android in terms of features and applications. One new tidbit to emerge from the earnings call was the mention of a new “services” platform but unfortunately no details on what that platform… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Tom Tom’s long-awaited and once delayed iPhone Car Kit is on the way next month, and we finally have a price for it in the US. Yup, the car kit will run you $120. Sure, it offers the addition of another GPS chip that will work with, and presumably augment, the GPS chip already in the iPhone. But with the software itself costing $100, the total cost of this setup is going to run over $200, and that still requires YOU to supply the “brains” (in the form of the iPhone). For that you can get a stand alone unit and still use your iPhone for things like.. calls!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Remember my review of the excellent Tradewinds 2 for the iPhone? Well, in it I mentioned that the game is a port of a PC game … and today (September 25th) only, Amazon has the original for $0.98! The game is loads of fun, here is a snip from the 2005 GameSpot review: Tradewinds 2 is a whimsical take on the life of a privateer who sails the high seas, trades broadsides with pirates, and makes friends and foes in the Caribbean at the turn of the 18th century. The game is quite simple to play, and it’s easy both to buy low and sell high throughout the Caribbean isles, as well as to Continue reading on Gear Diary …