Speck makes a number of products designed to protect your mobile valuables.  We here at Gear Diary have favorably reviewed several of their cases for iPods and smartphones, including one of my favorites, the CandyShell for iPhone.  Now, Speck introduces protection for your Western Digital Passport and other small portable hard drives.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Wal-Mart has started offering caskets and urns at prices that are probably cheaper than what you’d pay at your local funeral home. Online casket sales are not a totally new concept as Amazon offers them and so does Costco. But somehow a Wal-Mart casket seems, well, cheap. Take comfort knowing that you didn’t overpay for Mom or Dad to be laid to rest in a specially designed $999 “Dad Remembered” or “Mom Remembered” casket. Wal-Mart even ships coffins directly (embalming sold separately) to the funeral home which I’m sure will cause your local funeral director to be really friendly when you meet with them to plan the viewing that they’re now going to charge you $12,000 for. Walmart Caskets Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Sooner or later it was inevitable.  I’ve started seeing fishing emails posing as Facebook communications.  Simply “click” to update your password. After that, they use a Bot to get into your account, and push out spam messages to all those that follow you, friends, family etc. As always, no matter how legitamate looking an email is, assume  it is a phishing expedition.    Most email programs and sites have a way to check the links.  In Microsoft Outlook, simply hover over the linke (The underlined “here” above) and you’ll see the full link.  Most scammers will put the legitimate name within the domain such as http://facebook.com.slkjsdf.eu  in hopes that somebody will see the facebook and not realize… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Wayne informed us this morning that the Blackberry Storm 2 is now available. Verizon Wireless has also released its first commercial for the new device and they couldn’t help but take another shot at AT&T. Take a look at the ad. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It is not a so-well-kept secret that I travel quite a bit for my day job. While 2009 has seen a slow down in travel for me, I still will easily make my American Airlines Platinum status for the 4th year in a row. As a reminder to everyone: Airline status is not something to be proud of. It means that you spend too much time on airplanes and that you know exactly which seats and rows have power outlets… but I digress. Since September 11, 2001 the single biggest challenge with air travel has not necessarily been the airlines but the security process you have to go through in order to get to your gate. I’m not complaining – security has kept us from having any significant airline issues since 9/11 – but it can be challenging, especially for seasoned travelers. Normally when you go through the security checkpoint at the airport you are required to remove your laptop from your bag and put it in a seperate tray in order to be x-rayed amongst the other things you have to removed from your person – shoes, belts, etc. For most this is not that big of a deal [...]

GeoLife Ltd and PosiMotion have announced that they have submitted an application to the Apple App Store which enables personal turn-by-turn navigation on both the iPod Touch and the iPhone. When the application is approved it will be the first navigation solution available for the iPod touch. Navigation on the iPod Touch is made possible through Geolife’s Navmii software and PosiMotion’s G-Fi mobile network/GPS router.  iPod Touch owners with both the hardware and software will be able to transform their iPod Touch into a personal navigation device with smart routing, interactive maps and spoken directions. “To celebrate this achievement, the G-Fi will go on sale… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

DataViz has updated their popular Documents To Go  software for BlackBerry users.  Not only can you view, edit, and create Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, now you can keep the files synced between your computer and BlackBerry.  In addition to bi-directional file synchronization, the new version also includes support for password-protected Microsoft® Office 2007 files, an updated PDF To Go® file viewer, and a new file browser for accessing and managing documents. Pricing and Full Press Release after the jump. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Just when I thought they’d outdone themselves Case-Mate has done it again. Case-Mate has just announced their iPhone Recession Case Photo Contest. At just $0.99 our Recession Case for iPhone has been a hot seller. Following on its huge success we are holding the Recession Case Photo Contest. All you have to do is add your own artistic twist to the case, take a picture and upload it. The picture with the most votes receives the Grand Prize: a super sweet 1982 Suzuki FA50 moped and runner’s up get a shopping spree in the Case-mate store. We’re not sure you’re gonna want to ride it, but it’s sure to impress your friends or a date sitting in your living room. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There are many games from the history of computer role-playing games that deserve the attention of a full retrospective, looking back in depth at what made the game great and putting it into modern context. However, for every ‘Ultima IV’ or ‘Arcanum’ there are a hundred games like Hexplore – minor releases that added something at the time but were not significant enough to merit much attention even a year after they came out. Certainly I had never heard about it until recently when it was mentioned in a thread on a PC RPG forum. As part of my love affair with my netbook, I am seeking these games out, playing them and will be writing about them here.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Whether you’re running a small business or a small household there’s probably one area – data backup – where you’re not paying close enough attention. Just yesterday I had a client who hadn’t backed up their server in well over a month. While a lack of backup is great business for consultants and data recovery businesses it’s really a bad idea to leave yourself vulnerable to a hard drive crash. Many of my clients have started touse inexpensive USB drives such as these from HP to make quick backups to supplement their regular nightly system backup. While these drives serve as great supplemental storage for images and media they’re also a great way to create a backup… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Here are two news-worthy iPhone bits… First up… Apple is reportedly upping their production of the iPhone 3GS by some 20%. In other words, Apple underestimated the demand for the phone and, half a year after its release demand is still high for it. Pretty impressive! Then there is this… In less than a year and a half Apple has now approved over 100,000 apps in the App Store. As Cult of Mac points out, by comparison there are 246 Windows Mobile apps in their store and about 96 for the Palm Pre. Even if these numbers were triple Cult of Mac’s… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Sprint announced yesterday at their 2009 Ope\n Developer Conference that they’ll be doing away with extra charges for subscribers using conditional call forwarding to connect their cell phones to third party voice providers such as Google Voice. Previously the carrier was one of the few who charged a per minute fee to their subscribers who programmed their phones to forward incoming calls that were unanswered. The  new policy: Although no charges will be applied for conditional call forwarding (meaning busy calls or calls not answered), some Sprint customers may incur a $0.20 per-minute charge if they choose to forward calls directly into voicemail or to another number without first allowing the call to try to Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Sprint recently announced that the latest Palm OS device, the Palm Pixi,  will go on sale in the U.S. on November 15th.  The original Palm OS device, the Pre was released in June of this year.  There has been a lot of commentary relative to the Pixi positioning.  It’s got some great design features and some head scratching limitations as well. Let’s take a closer look.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This Merry Pet Room-With-A-View is perfect for pet owners who spare no expense on accessorizing for their animals. If you’re regularly buying cat food from  the refrigerated food case  in the pet food aisle  -this pet bunk bed may be right up your alley. Made from kiln-dried Asian fir treated with natural color stains. Steps along one side lead to roof-top balcony surrounded by latticework. Measures 29 by 21 by 26 inches; interior measures 18 by 18 by 14 inches. Pet Bunk Bed – $87 Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It’s certainly one of the more anticipated and definitely one of the more hyped up phones this fall season.  Details have been released and the Motorola Droid is officially coming to Verizon Wireless on November 6th. The newest Android Phone and what will be Verizon Wireless’s first, will sell for a contract price of $199. The phone is jammed packed with all the goodies Android 2.0 has to offer including a 3.7″ display, visual voice mail, 5 MP camera with dual LED flash, included 16 gig memory card, Google Maps Navigation, 3G, WiFi, a full keyboard, voice search and more. The Droid even has this die-hard iPhone user taking notice. Via Continue reading on Gear Diary …