Another day, another Direct2Drive Holiday Deal! Now in time for Christmas they are back – they are featuring a game a day for now until Christmas! Deals so far have been great, and it just keeps rolling today! Game #19 is the excellent Civilization 4: The Complete Edition. Here is the announcement Tweet: D2D’s 24 Days of Christmas – Day 19 – Civilization 4: The Complete Edition is 60% OFF – now just $15.95! http://bit.ly/5w5ISJ This special includes one of the best strategy games of all time for a solid 60% off – $15.95 rather than $39.95! But be quick – this deal ends at noon EST on December 20th! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Well, Hanukkah is almost over and Christmas is just a few days away. The contests here at Gear Diary, however, are just getting started. It’s time to formally kick off our grand prize giveaway a package that is worth well over $800 $1000! The entire package will be awarded to one Gear Diary reader on Christmas Day. The prize package is filled with three kinds of items. There are a number of items that we have reviewed and are therefore lightly used, brand new items from some of our favorite accessory vendors and iPhone apps and some services that we find particularly useful. For information on what’s in the package and details on how to enter, read on.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Tom Bihn is a company I have been following for a while now, ever since Judie reviewed the Aeronaut when she was still at The Gadgeteer.  Tom Bihn is not only based right here in the United States, they make their bags in the US, which is a rarity among bag manufacturers.  When Tom Bihn let me know about their new Synapse backpack, I jumped at a chance to review it.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The iPhone is a fantastic organizational device. It carries and organizes my email, address book, notes, documents, tasks and much much much more. But as good as the device is, there are a few iPhone apps and services that make it far better. Over the last few years I have tried just about every organizational app and service and there are four I keep returning to. My favorites… Evernote, WebIS’ Pocket Informant and Appigo’s ToDo and Toodledo. Evernote is great because it works with Mac, Windows, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android as well as through a web interface. In other words… it is available EVERYWHERE. Pocket Informant for iPhone is a fantastic calendaring and task app that works with Google Calendar and Toodledo. Appigo’s ToDo is great because it is a full-featured task management app that syncs with Toodledo, Remember The Milk and Appigo’s own desktop sync program. And Toodledo is a web-based task management system that simply rocks! Over the next few days we’ll be sharing some tips for using each. In the meantime we want to tell you how you can win them in order to “Get Organized In 2010″! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Hello and welcome to another State of the eBook! The end of the year hasn’t slowed the eBook world down; we have news, more news, and a bit of debate! Let’s get started!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The folks over at Cignias let us know they are running a promotion where  you can save $50 on their popular NAO Symphony and Symphony Noir Wireless Speaker systems (although I’m afraid the sales offer is limited to the US and Canada).  If you have a BlackBerry, iPhone, or iPod touch you’ll be able to stream your music to the speaker wirelessly.  I recently received a review unit from Cignias and have been rocking out rigorously testing the system using extremely scientific methods.  OK, not so scientific. But look for a full review of the NAO system in the next few days. Until then, if you are a procrastinator — or just looking… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I like casual games.   I’ve said that before here on Gear Diary and I’m sure I will say it again.  I recently got to review Montezuma 2 from Alawar Games and now I’m back to review another Alawar title – Hotel Mogul.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you find that standard role-playing games take themselves too seriously, Grotesque Tactics might just be for you! Combining humor with loads of quests and a turn-based combat system, the game offers similarities that will be familiar to anyone who has played a ‘strategy-RPG’ on a console or PC before. The company draws comparisons to Fire Emblem, Shining Force, Disgaea, Heroes of Might & Magic and King’s Bounty. Only sillier, of course. Read on for more details and the first gameplay video!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

photo credit: Stuck in Customs  Lately, there have been a number of updated releases in the iPhone navigation software market.  With all these recently updated releases, I decided to try some of these new versions out this past week as I made my way up and back between the Alabama Gulf Coast, and southern Michigan – about a 1000 mile (1600km) trip.   This trip also gave me the opportunity to try the new live traffic features of Navigon (courtesy Navigon).   We often talk about using these apps to get you around town, but now I had the perfect chance to see just how well these apps did on a very long road trip!  Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Another day, another Direct2Drive Holiday Deal! Now in time for Christmas they are back – they are featuring a game a day for now until Christmas! Deals so far have been great, and it just keeps rolling today! Game #18 is the excellent Trine. Here is the announcement Tweet: D2D’s 24 Days of Christmas – Day 18 – Trine is 50% OFF – now just $9.95! http://bit.ly/5w5ISJ (actually their tweet was messed up, but the site has the right price!) From my review: Sure there are some issues, but none compare to how much fun this game is and how fresh the gameplay feels. Trine is a very nicely put Continue reading on Gear Diary …

photo credit: Express Monorail We at Gear Diary are very proud to announce that Travis and Clinton have each completed their Masters Degree requirements; Clinton has earned an MBA in Global Leadership, and Travis has earned a Masters of Education Administration. Clinton’s graduation will be tonight, and Travis’ will be in May. Please join us in congratulating them both for their major accomplishments! I feel smarter just knowing them! … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

For all of you Windows Mobile users out there, be warned: Kaspersky, a company that offers a number of award-winning computer security solutions, has recently released information on a new Windows Mobile trojan: The Trojan-SMS.WinCE.Sejweek.a trojan is commonly found associated with pirated software, downloads an XML file from a website which contains the numbers of premium rate SMS numbers and the frequency at which the expensive ($1 per message) SMS messages will be sent. Due to the variety of SMS numbers being sent to it is less easy to block the money making part of the scheme, making the trojan’s utility that much longer lived You will only get this trojan by installing untrusted… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I still remember driving with my friends JT and Ken from Troy, NY to Burlington, VT and home to Massachusetts in the winter in JT’s old Saab 99 with marginal breaks, marginal heat, marginal floorboards but a great little engine. So today I saw some news that made me feel nostalgic and sad. This morning CNNMoney brings us world of the impending death of a classic auto maker. According to the article, the final potential deal to sell the automaker to Spyker Cars. According to the head of GM Europe: “Despite the best efforts of all involved, it has become very clear that the due diligence required to complete this complex transaction could not be executed Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I like my Livescribe PulsePen… a lot. It is, in fact, one of my most used gadgets and is up there as one of my best purchases of the year, if not the decade. The pen offers tons of “wow that’s really neat” the first (or one hundredth) time you use it, but also has real, practical uses that fit right in with my work style and needs. In additional, the device has constantly been improving (the desktop application is much better now than it was previously) and the system has constantly been adding functionality (such as screen casts). Now Livescribe has won me over in another way. They have my respect as a company that does things right. Thanks to their straightforward, honest, no-excuses way of handling some recent issues I’m even happier to recommend the device to anyone who does any serious note taking. Here’s what happened…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Space Machine, the makers of Pocket Map navigation software for PNAs and Windows Mobile, have released Pocket Map Navigator 2010. This release doesn’t add any major new features, but rather the big news with this release is that they’ve included the newest updated Navteq maps and they’ve improved some of their routing. PocketMap Navigator has been a long-time favorite of mine on the Windows Mobile platform due to its excellent interface.  You can read my review of PocketMap Navigator here. PocketMap Navigator is available from the PocketMap store.  The price is now only$59.95 for the full USA version Continue reading on Gear Diary …