(image courtesy Cresco Library) Fictionwise is giving everyone a great New Year’s gift: all of their books they offered at 100% micropay rebate are being offered again for a one-day deal! This means you can snatch up one of 650 books and receive 100% of the purchase price into your Fictionwise account!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

YES! It is finally time for CES. Judie, Larry and Dan are going (Kevin, too!), and we’ll do out best to bring you (for the first time) team coverage of the biggest electronics show of them all. In preparation… It is time to pack! Dan: After months of planning and anticipating CES is finally here. In preparation I need to embark upon one of my least favorite activities — packing. Yes I hate packing. I tend to do at the last minute. I can to bring too much and, inevitably, despite having overpacked, I tend to forget something. To make matters worse, after CES I’ll be heading to Mexico to meet Elana for a friend’s daughter’s wedding. That means I have two full weeks on the road in two entirely different climates, with two entirely different reasons for being there. Did I mention… hate packing. Judie: I feel right at home with Dan admitting that I am a serial over-packer, but at the same time — I travel enough that I have learned (the hard way!) to streamline my packed gadgets. It’s just too big of a pain to keep up with everything, and I don’t want to be loaded [...]

Since its initial release, I’ve been suggesting that people watch the Mobile Maps products from Sygic. They had an interesting approach to navigation software and they seem very committed to making their products better. Now they’ve released Mobile Maps North America version 8.01 and refreshed the look and feel of parts of the app. Lets look at it it a little closer…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Photo courtesy of Engadget Motorola’s (MOT) handset division was all but extinct earlier this year. The release of the popular Droid and Cliq have put Motorola on a high road to recovery. Just days before CES, some new devices were outed in leaked photos. The rumored Motorola “Shadow” has a large 4.3″ (850X484) resolution screen and native 1080P out. The most interesting spec of the phone is that it is only a mere 9.9mm thick, which in comparison is almost 2 mm thinner than the almighty Nexus One, and 3mm thinner than an iPhone 3GS. The camera is reported to be 8MP and have HD 1080P recording capabilities. No mention… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The saga of the Palm  Pre and Palm Pixi seems to be the saga of the little phone that could. Everyone, both tech and consumer alike, likes the interface and smirks a lot at the commercials.  But, its a slow adopter. But, it’s a new year, and time to give the Palm Pre and Pixi some more encouragement this coming year. With that being said, lets hear it for the Palm App store having almost 1,000 applications available for its WebOS platform!!  Woohoo!  While it pales in comparison to the 20,000 for Android and 100,000 for Apple, that still isn’t too bad.  You must remember, Palm’s App Catalog launched in June with just 30 applications. Lets… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Apparently during the holiday shopping season this year the big hit for Apple was the iPod touch. Huge numbers of the touchscreen iPod were sold and the device’s momentum doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon. That is not a huge surprise in light of the fact that once you buy the iPod touch there aren’t any recurring charges the way there are with the iPhone. No question it is an easier and cheaper device to own over an extended period. That makes it ideal for kids and they seemed taking to the touch in the droves. It’s a good deal for Apple. Not only do they sell hardware now, but they also increase the number of people buying apps, movies, music and tv shows using iTunes. In addition, they set the stage for the next generation of iPhone users as well. It stands to reason that when kids who have been using iPod touch go to buy a cell phone they may be drawn to the device that is already familiar and for which they already own a host of different applications and games. As Flurry media puts it… According to Apple, 58 million iPhone OS devices [...]

It all started because I just have too many eBooks, and too many eBook readers on my iPhone. eReader.  Stanza.  Kindle.  B&N eReader. Wattpad.  Kobo.  Eucalyptus.  You get the picture.  And they don’t share information between them.  You can’t load your freeware Wattpad books on your eReader software, for example, without jumping through the hoops of converting it yourself with their eBook Studio software. It was the B&N software that pushed me over the edge.  The fact that those splash pages for the two different eReaders for the iPhone–B&N on the left, and Fictionwise on the right–look very similar isn’t that big a deal.  Hell, they’re only splash pages. But we know B&N bought Fictionwise early last year.  And to my eye, the software for the two eReaders looks damn near identical:… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Ok all.  Raise your hand if you have suffered at the hands of Geek Squad over at Best Buy.  Wow, that many of you.  Sorry.  Now I know that Geek Squad can do a good job. Its just over 2009, their reputation for service caused them more harm that good. Stolen gear, spying on people in their homes, stealing data from systems turned in for service…the list can go on and on. Well, according to a story on CNNMoney, the founder of Geek Squad, Robert Stephens, has some regrets about the team he created: Compromise less. Speak up louder. Put my foot down more. Best Buy rolled out Geek Squad really rapidly, probably a Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’m Continuing the tradition of answering the following questions together with you at year’s end. So read them, think about the questions for a moment, and then let’s discuss our answers… YEAR IN REVIEW When you consciously review your year, you may notice how little you noticed it as it whizzed past. To review is to re-view. To rewind, pause, look again. And in looking again, to see more clearly. You may be astonished by how much happened. And how much didn’t. By how much has changed. And how much hasn’t. You may laugh or sigh to notice that your life remains its usual jumble of contradictions. In 2009, I gained _______________________________________. I lost _______________________________________. I stopped _______________________________________. I started _______________________________________. I was hugely satisfied by _______________________________________. And frustrated by _______________________________________. I am so embarrassed that I _______________________________________. Once again, I _______________________________________. Once again, I did not _______________________________________. The biggest physical difference between me last December and this December is _______________________________________. The biggest psychological difference between me last December and this December is _______________________________________. I loved spending time _______________________________________. I should have spent more time _______________________________________. I regret buying _______________________________________. I will never regret buying ____________________ even though with that [...]