This is the first time I have been on an airplane in almost a year, but is the first of a series of trips I will be taking in the next two months. Therefore it was a good opportunity for me to get a better sense of what gear is currently best for me when going from place to place with airline travel in between. My writing on Gear Diary affords me a rather wide selection from which to choose, which is both a blessing and a curse. The upside – I have a wide selection of devices from which to choose, so I can pick the ones that work best for me while traveling. The downside – I have a wide selection of devices from which to choose, and ultimately I have to make choices.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

TechCrunch today announced that the Crunchpad is dead. A victim of an unfortunate falling out between CrunchGear and FusionGarage, Crunchpad was apparently supposed to go live this week. Behind the scenes here at Gear Diary, there’s a lot of tablet lust, and we were all sad to see a potential contender disappear.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

photo credit: joiseyshowaa We hope you enjoyed a relaxing Thanksgiving before rushing out to shop for all those Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals.   It was typically busy here at Gear Diary.  Perhaps in between family festivities you missed Judie on WOR radio.  Maybe during the hustle and bustle of the holiday, you didn’t spot Carly’s eBook buying guide for 2009 — if you can still get ‘em. There were plenty of highlights from the past week, so let’s jump right in… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Laws are continuously evolving to deal with technology and the potential hazards of using it while driving. As a consequence, it is now considered unsafe in many states – or it has been made illegal – to drive without some kind of hands-free solution when using a mobile phone. Many people are wearing headsets, but there is another option if you aren’t yet ready to embrace your inner Borg – a Bluetooth speaker system for your automobile. Say hello to the Motorola T215 Bluetooth Car Kit Speakerphone; let’s take a look at the hardware, and then I’ll tell you how it performed. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Here are some interesting new videos from General Motors …… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

So its the first day back to work after a long holiday weekend with family..and if you were brave enough..Black Friday shopping.  From all accounts around the web, it was a good Black Friday.  Sales were up .5% from last year, taking in over $10 billion.  Not too shabby.  But, people in the financial world are taking this as a “bad” sign.  They are hoping to make things up today– Cyber Monday. For those uninitiated, Cyber Monday is just like Black Friday, except its all done online. There are some decent deals to be had. Some of the Cyber Monday deals include: Best Buy: Acer Aspire Laptop with AMD Athlon- $399.99 Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Everyone knows the 12 days of Christmas song?  But did you ever wonder how much it would cost to actually have all of those items?  I mean 10 lords a leapin?  5 gold rings? Well, the folks at PNC Wealth Management have done the work for us in their 26th annual PNC Christmas Price Index …… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I can imagine that being the victim of identity theft would be an absolutely devastating event, but I’m not sure that a $299.95 biometric wallet made of fiberglass that pairs with your Bluetooth mobile phone is the solution, either. Sure, using a fingerprint to access your money or credit cards is geeky as hell, but it seems that a moment alone with a pry bar would be all that was required to crack this safe. Think about it for a moment — this is a wallet that if dropped and found, couldn’t be opened by an honest person in order to check the owner’s name — unless that owner had spent an additional $99.95 to get their name and phone number engraved. It seems silly, right? As an added bonus, putting a little brick like this in your butt pocket may not guarantee that you get keep your identity or its contents safe, but it should give you a good back tweaking. Just what you’ve always wanted … right? On top of everything else, I think that naming a non-Apple product iAnything is a cheap attempt to ride the iWave, but maybe that’s just me. … Continue reading on Gear Diary [...]

It is Cyber-Monday and there are some big gadget deals on the net if you know where to look. Our GearSponsor LogicBuy has a BIG one for us. How big is this deal? Try 18.4″ big! That’s right, $200 in instant savings plus a $250 coupon will nab you an 18.4 inch HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Core notebook for $899.99 and shipping is free. The notebook includes a Quad-Core i7-720QM processor, 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M, Blu-ray and a 1080p Ultra BrightView Infinity display. Free upgrades include 4GB DDR3 RAM and a 320GB 7200 RPM drive. It even ships with Windows 7 64-bit preloaded. If your mantra is “bigger is better” this… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Bad news if you were hoping to stalk your local Barnes and Noble for a nook this morning: the Wall Street Journal is reporting that B&N is not shipping units to stores until December 7th. Apparently pre-order demand was so strong they have nothing available to ship to the stores. With this on the heels of Sony being unable to guarantee pre-Christmas delivery on the Sony Reader Daily Edition, it is obvious that dedicated eBook readers are a hot item this year. And now that Amazon seems to have stabilized their Kindle supplies, they may be the only ones with anything in stock this holiday season! Via Wall Street Journal (Paid membership… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

photo credit: ntr23 The internet was buzzing today with news that an unknown iPhone model had shown up in a number of different blogs. Since Apple is pretty consistent with its numbering sequences, all indications are that this will be a big update for the iPhone when it is released. You see, the first iPhone was designated version 1.1. The iPhone 3G just changed the case and the radio. As such it was a small bump in device specs and in numeric designation — 1.2. The iPhone 3GS moved the device’s guts forward significantly, and Apple appropriately labeled it 2.1. So why is this important? Simple- the new device that is showing up has the designation 3.1. That means Apple does not view this as a small incremental upgrade but as a significant update as they move the device into its 4th generation. But what does that actually MEAN? What does it mean for the hardware? for the look of the device? for the interior specs? What will it means for the overall experience of using the device when it is finally released. That was the question this morning, or more precisely — those were the questions…… Continue reading on Gear [...]

At a recent family dinner, my mother (a history teacher) very excitedly asked me if I’d ever written about whiteboards for Gear Diary. I stared blankly at her, since I didn’t understand how markers and plastic boards were very tech-y. She then explained that she meant electronic whiteboards; her school had recently procured some for the classrooms, and she was excited at the opportunity to really expand what she showed her students.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

iPhone and iPod docks are great.  They keep your device upright while charging and syncing which allows you to easily access them.  They look cleaner on your desk and there’s no fussing with cables or connector plugs that might become damaged from overuse. But docks are not without flaws.  Many docks are device specific.  One that you purchase for your iPhone may not fit your iPod Classic and so forth.  Another problem is cases.  Most of us carry our devices protected in some sort of case.  Often these cases prevent the device from fitting properly on the dock which means if you want to use it you’re forced to remove the case first. All of these issues vanish with the new Universal Cradle for iPhone & iPod from USBFever.com.  The cradle works with most every model of iPhone and iPod and best of all, in most cases, you need not remove the case from your device before docking. USBFever.com was kind enough to give me a unit to review, here are my thoughts.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! Hopefully everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday and you are squeezing in some last minute relaxation today before getting back to reality tomorrow! Fortunately things are slowing down, so chasing after new releases is one thing you WON’T have to stress about from here on out. There are a few new releases, and my big picks this week are a puzzle game in a classic franchise Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, and also the final release in the trilogy of add-ons for the strategy game Elven Legacy.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The other day I was having lunch with a good friend. He enjoys his gadgets as much as the rest of us and was excited to tell me about this latest acquisition. He had purchased a pair of Sennheiser MM400 Bluetooth stereo headphones and couldn’t stop raving about them. At a cost of over $260 they were bit on the pricey side but he kept talking about them so positively that I finally said I would need to go check them out. “Hold on a minute” he said and he ran out to the car. He brought them back into the restaurant for me to have a look and… well, wow. As it turns out there was good reason for him to be raving about these headphones. They are exceptionally comfortable, sound superb and seem to have the ability to create and hold a Bluetooth connection far better than most Bluetooth devices I have tried. Moreover, they have an neat little design feature that lets you use them while flying even when the flight attendants demand that all devices with radios be turned off. They can even be used as a headset for your cellphone! In the end I picked [...]