Welcome to a whole new series here at Gear Diary: the ‘Monthly Software Giveaway’. The main intention of this series is to reward you, our loyal readers with software for your favorite mobile device — BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows Phone. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t win anything this round, because this is going to be a monthly series! Yes, you read it right! MONTHLY! And the best thing is, we will be giving away the latest featured software for all 3 categories mentioned. Here at Gear Diary, we appreciate all of your support because without you, we would not have grown. … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Here’s another LogicRoundup from our GearSponsor. This time they’ve gathered together some of the best available deals on the Sony PlayStation Portable and PSPgo. On the list you’ll find models with free two-day shipping (after all Christmas is in a week!!!!!) and some with up to $40 off. Here are two examples- The PSP 3000 Limited Edition Assassin’s Creed Pack has a list price of $199.99 but can be had for $169.99 plus free shipping. The Bundle includes a “Pearl White” PSP-3000 system, Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines UMD Game, 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo, Angels & Demons PlayStation Network Voucher and Sony Music Voucher for 10 downloadable songs. The Sony PSP-3000 Rock Band Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Apparently last night at ~10PM Twitter was hacked by a group calling themselves the Iranian Cyber Army, based on info at TechCrunch. Apparently it was a ‘redirect attack’ as one of the founders noted: Update 9.: Biz Stone blogged: As we tweeted a bit ago, Twitter’s DNS records were temporarily compromised tonight but have now been fixed. As some noticed, Twitter.com was redirected for a while but API and platform applications were working. We will update with more information and details once we’ve investigated more fully. This is definitely not the first security-related issue we’ve seen with Twitter, nor is it likely to be the last. However, it reminds us of the fact that not… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(Courtesy of The Economist) To the surprise of almost no one, ad revenue has taken a downturn with the rest of the world economy. The bright spot is in internet ads; sadly, this means those awful ads that start playing video the second you visit a webpage or accidentally mouse over them won’t be going away anytime soon. This also means Google, the king of internet ads, is that much closer to taking over the world. Do you use an ad blocker? Or do you just accept that advertising is the trade off for browsing the interwebs? Share below! Via The Economist Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last week Nuance released Dragon Dictation. Now they have just released a brand new app, Dragon Search. Dragon Search is intuitive voice-enabled search app for iPhone gives users a smarter way to search. Dragon Search is an advanced form of Nuance’s world-renowned Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, optimized to service millions of speakers’ simultaneous open-ended search queries, regardless of whether they are first-time or experienced voice application users. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Fictionwise (a Barnes and Noble Company) has sold Kindle-compatible .mobi books for quite some time, but today they announced they are taking it one step farther. They’ve broken out their “Kindle” books on their website, and have an FAQ set up on how to wirelessly transfer Fictionwise books to your Kindle.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It’s not often that I admit it, because there’s such a stigma attached, but I used to be a Trekkie.  Not the kind who dressed up as a Klingon and went to conventions, but the kind who knew every episode and had a pet tribble on his desk at home. (Well, at least up until the second season of Deep Space 9, anyway.) I’ve been to one convention, but it wasn’t my thing.  I used to try to decide if I wanted to be Spock (I was fine with being able to raise a single eyebrow, and loved quick quips, but not so much with the lack of emotion thing), or Scotty (making magic happen with technology!).  Trekkie, but maybe not hard core. Even so as you might imagine, I went to the traveling Star Trek exhibit when it rolled into town in San Jose. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I tend to use my iMac for everything from music to tv to movies when I am in my home study. And why not? After all, the 24″ screen is great for TV and movies. (And the 27″ will be even better!!) There are, however, a few things that make the experience quite a bit better. First off, the SRS iWOW plug in adds both depth and a high level of sound configurability. Second, while the iMac’s speakers do “well enough”, a pair of external speaks make a HUGE difference! I’ve been using the Hercules XPS 2.1 40 Slim speakers which consist of two thin satellite desktop speakers and a separate sub-base and have been impressed with the increased sound quality this inexpensive system offers. Let’s take a look.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The Beejive Instant Messaging application for both the BlackBerry and iPhone is one you’ve heard of from the Gear Diary Team before.  Today Beejive launched their 2.0 version of the popular IM application for BlackBerry smartphones, bringing a host of features including: Facebook chat: Chat with your Facebook friends while on the go, and see a record of your chats on facebook.com. Clickable Twitter usernames: Click on a Twitter username in a chat to launch Twitter. Refined and responsive UI: Take advantage of BeejiveIM’s custom-written user interface, offering speedy and responsive controls and a modern look-and-feel. Voice notes: Instantly record and send voice messages to Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When you think of some of the bigger names in the tech. blogging community, who comes to mind?  Senior Editor of Mac Life Susie Ochs, Jeff Scott Founder of 148apps.com, Victor Agreda Jr., Writer/Blogger, TUAW and now our very own Senior Editor, Dan Cohen. Really?  Well at least someone feels Dan belongs in that great list of writers. Appigo is holding an iPhone App Developer Contest and will award $5,000 for the application which best integrates with their popular application ToDo.  Also up for grabs are five $1,000 honorable mention prizes. The contest begins today and runs through February 9, 2010. Eligible apps will be judged by… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Like a lot of boys–particularly nerdly boys with too much imagination–I was fascinated by magic as a kid.  (Hell, I still am; one of my favorite books is Carter Beats the Devil, available in multiple eBook formats.)  I wanted to learn magic tricks, but I never had either the patience, or the level of fine motor coordination that you really need to do decent magic.  While I can amuse my son by palming coins and such, that’s about my limit. But Quinn Nelson and his filming, editing, and programming partner in crime feel that anyone can learn magic, and all you need is patience, small motor coordination, your iPhone, and their iPhone app.  So I thought, hey, I’ll relive my boyhood a bit and see how it works. (Note:  due to nerve damage in two of my left-hand fingers, I cannot do the tricks very well myself.  I tried to allow for that in the following review.) First, you should be aware that the EOMagic app is not so much an app as it is a series of video demonstrations, not all that dissimilar to the videos or CDs you can get to improve your softball batting swing, or your [...]

Want to throw BlackBerry users into a fit of the shakes?  Take away their on-device email.  Just watch the convulsions as the LED stops the soothing Red pulse of a new messages being received on a BlackBerry.  What’s wrong?!? The device must be broken, right?  Nah, your ‘Berry handheld is fine.  It’s just that RIM’s BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) went down — again – this morning.  The outage impacted all carriers in the U.S.  The official statement from RIM: Some BlackBerry customers in North America may be currently experiencing delays receiving email.  Our technical teams are working to resolve this issue for those impacted.  Phone services, browsing and PIN-to-PIN messaging are 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 #17 is the zombie-killing Resident Evil 5. Here is the announcement Tweet: D2D’s 24 Days of Christmas – Day 17 – Resident Evil 5 is 50% OFF – now just $24.95! http://bit.ly/5w5ISJ This special includes the original game released earlier this year for a solid 50% off – $24.95 rather than $49.95! But be quick – this deal ends at noon EST on December 18th! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A little over three months ago, Google announced an innovative way to consume news articles quickly in Google Labs, dubbed Fast Flip. The premise was provide an easy way to quickly consume news without having to load new web pages per article.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Fast on the heels of the official eBay for BlackBerry application, PayPal announces the availability of PayPal “Send Money” application for BlackBerry.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …