This is one of those bits of news that bears repeating, particularly if you use online banking.  CNET is reporting about a new type of Trojan horse, known as URLZone, that is designed not to steal your login information for online banking sites, but rather to actually steal your money while you’re on the bank’s website.  URLZone is sophisticated enough that it calculates how much money to steal based on how much is in your account, then displays a false balance to the user so as not to arouse suspicion. The Trojan is being distributed through emails, infected sites that carry the malware, or an Adobe PDF.   It exploits a hole in Firefox, Internet Explorer… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Okay, so it doesn’t rank up with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, but a major barrier to communication just came down.  Until now AT&T refused to let customers use their iPhones to connect to services like Skype over 3G. All that changed in the blink of an eye, with AT&T making a surprise announcement.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

On February 9, 2009 Google enabled wireless sync of both contacts and calendars between their service and iPhone and Windows Mobile phones. They did this by using Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology to wirelessly push the updates. On September 22, 2009 Google updated GoogleSync to include push Gmail for iPhone, Touch and Windows Mobile. Unfortunately the system worked seamlessly for all of about three or four days. Since then it had worked but with sporadic minor delays. On Saturday morning October 3, 2009 Larry noticed that all of Google’s properties were briefly off-line. Since that fateful day my poor Googlesync has been sunk. While it will sync data between my iPhone and Google – it does so extremely sporadically and without any set… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Over the past few months I have highlighted the anticipated release (here and here) of the Sega Master System classic Golvellius for the iPhone. A couple of weeks ago the game finally released, and the folks at DotEmu were kind enough to provide a promotional code for the App Store, so I’ve been enjoying playing it since. For me there are two questions: does it hold up as a standalone gaming experience for folks like me who never played before, and does it work as fan service for fans who played it two decades ago? Read on and find out!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Baseball Superstars from Gamevil was one of the very first sports games I loaded on my iPhone.  I’m a big fan of sports games and until its release there really wasn’t a good team sports game in the iTunes App Store. Gamevil has followed up it super successful title with an all new version of the game.  Baseball Superstars 2010 features several new enhancements and features which make it one of the top baseball games available for the iPhone OS.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This morning was a busy one for HTC, as they have just announced five new Windows Phone touchscreen models. Why does it stand to reason that the one I find most exciting will only be released overseas? I guess because I am just hard to please like that. Ah well, maybe I’ll get lucky and Leo will come to the states next year… HTC HD2 (Overseas), AKA “Leo” images of HD2 courtesy of Infosync The first Windows Mobile device offering HTC Sense, the HTC HD2 makes life easier by putting you at the center. Designed around the three philosophies of “make it mine,” “stay close,” and “discover the unexpected,” the HTC HD2 offers unique features not found in other smartphones. For instance, an industry leading 480 x 800 WVGA capacitive touchscreen is comprised with a strikingly slim 11 mm shell. Powered by Qualcomm’s new 1Ghz Snapdragon mobile processor, applications, media, and games are available at the touch of a finger. The HTC HD2 will be available later this month with selected operators across Europe, before rolling out to other regions in the coming months. all thumbnails, click to enlarge Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve tried a few external batteries for my iPhone 3Gs, but none of them have stuck.  The cases type (Mophie Jucie Pack Air, Incase Power Slider) are nice but I prefer to use a regular case most of the time and the case batteries result in a much larger phone profile.  The other choice, external batteries which plug into the bottom of the phone, are usually bulky or have an awkward connector. The iON Power Pack from FSP Direct solves many of my external battery pet peeves.  It features a 1500 mAh battery in a super slim credit card sized shape.  It not only works to recharge my iPhone and iPod while on the go, but it comes with adapters which allow it to be used with most any electronic device that use less than 5v of power.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Still hanging onto your Windows Mobile 6.0/6.1 device? Not sure about this whole 6.5 upgrade? Really jealous that people with 6.5 can use the totally awesome and well stocked Windows Mobile Marketplace? Well, first of all, it’s not well stocked, so you can drop your jealousy a tad. And if you head over to xda-developers, a kind soul has already stripped out the Marketplace cab and made it available to all of us that are still on 6.0/6.1, so you won’t have to shell out for an HTC Pure just to buy apps on your phones.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

You may remember the 7digital Music Store announcement on September 25th.  While the on-device BlackBerry app featuring it’s own music store & player was available through BlackBerry App World users in the UK, US, Spain, Italy and Germany, it was only in a “preview” mode. Well, this morning 7digital came through with their promise to launch the official U.S. store that will tie-in with the BlackBerry app.  The 7digital BlackBerry app will change the download quality depending on the connection: it downloads low-bitrate tracks when on a cellular connection but will download the full-quality tracks if the BlackBerry has Wi-Fi and connects to a hotspot.  The app also integrates its own music player… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last year Judie reviewed the Altec Lansing Orbit speaker.  It was a interesting speaker that can be used with any device sporting a normal 3.5 mm headphone jack.  The downside to using such a speaker with a laptop is that the internal sound card in most laptops can be a bit noisy. Altec Lansing recently sent me a sample of their  Orbit USB iML237 speaker. It solves the sound card issue perfectly.  … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

With so many Gear Diary Team members spread geographically throughout the world (who knew there were tech-o-holics in Australia!?!) we need the best communication method possible. Google Wave may be just what the doctor ordered, but it won’t be here for a bit. In the meantime, we have been using Yammer and it does a pretty good job of keeping us in touch. For those of you not familiar with Yammer it, is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: ‘What are you working on?’ As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced. A recent update to the Yammer iPhone app added some nice features. One, in particular, stands out…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

At home I’ve got both an iMac and an Mac Book Pro.  One of the things I sometimes struggle with is getting pictures off my iPhone and on to my Mac Book Pro.  My iPhone does all its syncing with the iMac, and I so I avoid confusing it I don’t allow it to communicate with the Mac Book Pro. Now with WiFiPhoto I can easily and more perhaps importantly, wirelessly pull pictures off my iPhone and bring them on to my Mac Book Pro. The application only requires the installation of its 99¢ iPhone app, and nothing else that running on the computer you want to transfer photos with.  This means you’ll be able to transfer pictures to any computer, anytime, anywhere. I just set up the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Leave it to Michael Arrington to hit the nail on the head. In a post over on TechCrunch, Arrington points out how the recent approval of an iPhone app for Vonage merely serves to highlight the total nonsense Apple spewed when trying to explain their Google Voice rejection. The gist… Apple said the Google Voice app was rejected because it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls… All good and well until you take a closer look and see that many apps do just that. Numerous camera apps all but replace the “core” camera functionality. And phone apps like Skype, Truphone and the recent Vonage app have.. gasp… dialers of their own. That’s when Arrington nails it. He writes…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

50% Off Today Only! BlackBerry users can get currency conversions using a professional currency exchange rates provider with over 120 currencies for only $3.49.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We mentioned a few weeks ago that the Android 1.6 SDK had been released for developers, and T-Mobile and Google have been rolling it out over the past few days to T-Mobile G1 and myTouch 3G owners. It seems that the rollout is in full force now, as I received the update recently. Read on for more information and screenshots of the new features.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …