Speck has been covered extensively by Gear Diary, and with good reason – their products are well made, they protect the devices they are meant to hold, and they look great! While at CES I visited the Speck booth, and one of the many things that impressed me was that Speck makes a cover for my 17″ laptop — it seems like accessories for this size are rather rare. Fast forward to last week when I received a SeeThru Satin Hard Shell for my 17″ MacBook Pro, and my laptop has not been naked since. Dan just recently reviewed this same shell for his 13″ MacBook Pro, So I am going to use this post to give Speck a tip of the hat for taking care of my 17″ and tell you all five things I like about the SeeThru Satin Hard Shell … and one thing that I don’t.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Lots of people ask you for money in this modern world, many of them good causes.  The Masons, various church groups, your city government, your school, the local Girl Scouts with their delicious cookies . . . it’s all t0o easy to get lost in a flood of people begging for money when you live in the “developed world”. But once in a while there is a disaster so horrific, so overwhelming, that no matter how short of cash you are, no matter how many people have been calling you lately asking for money to fight tooth decay or re-elect Sam Spade as Comptroller of your local county, it can’t be ignored.  The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A constant issue with notebook users is heat.  There are many products to assist in heat protection.  Some of these products are designed for protecting the user’s lap from heat and some for managing the temperature of the notebook.  These coolers come in many shapes and sizes, with or without fans and a variety of material.  Some are designed to be mobile while others are to be used on a desk and provide an improved typing angle.  The folks at Titan Technology Limited recently released a notebook cooler that combines all of these options in one product and provided me with a unit to review. Check out the details after the break.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It has been a bit over a week since Steve Jobs announced the iPad. In that week the debate regarding the device and its limitations has continued. In fact, some analysts are scaling back their predictions regarding first year sales. If the number of cases and accessories that have already been announced for the iPad are any indication, however, this thing is going to be a huge hit. One carrying solution I am excited about is the upcoming Taipan shadow and Taipan sneak from Booq. I recently reviewed a larger version of the Taipan shadow and was rather impressed. The Taipan shadow XS and the Taipan sneak will offer some great protection for the tablet. The $24.95 sneak is a neoprene case that zips around the iPad for 360º protection. The Taipan shadow is a smaller version of the well-designed messenger bag I am getting superb use from. And the best feature? While it is properly sized for the iPad, it avoids looking too much like a Murse. As Booq founder and CEO Thorsten Trotzenberg notes, “Booq is looking to create stylish carrying solutions for every tool in the creative professionals’ arsenal. With these additions to the booq Taipan line, [...]

Vampire power is the power your electronic devices use when they’re turned off.  Example:  You plug your digital camera into an electrical outlet to re-charge its battery.  Once the battery is fully charged the camera keeps taking power from the wall and attempts to give it to the camera’s battery even though it doesn’t need it. iGo‘s new line of green power accessories seek to stop this wasted use of electricity.  This is turn should save you money in the form of less power used and a smaller electric bill as a result. While at CES 2010 I met with iGo and they were kind enough to provide me with their Power Smart Wall charger. The iGo Power Smart Wall is available for $29.99. Click on through to see my video review of the device,  and then head here to learn more.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

With all of the headlines screaming recall, stuck pedals and brake failure, what is a driver supposed to do or think? First, don’t listen to the headlines or the top of the hour teasers as gospel, they are only there to hold your interest. Second, hit the good old internet, but take all commentary with a grain of salt. The flood of information, both good and bad, is sure to have many eyeballs straining, giving curious consumers headaches and more questions than answers. In my local news broadcast this morning the anchor was reading a story about Toyota thinking about issuing a recall over the new Prius situation while the news crawler in the lower thirds was… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

photo credit: brianbutko Don’t forget to get in line on Tuesday, Feb. 9, from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m, as Denny’s Restaurants once again give away free Original Grand Slams as part of their Super Bowl promotion. You’ll probably want to get there early, as this will likely be a very popular event … again. But that’s not all. You can also enter to win one free Grand Slam a week for a year by registering February 1 through February 14 online at www.dennys.com or in your local restaurant. If… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The Google Nexus One is arguably one of the most successful Android devices to-date. Google was said to have worked closely with HTC in order to produce a device to really showcase what they thought should be a premier Android handset. I was always curious about the design and collaboration that went into creating this device. Turns out a series of videos will explain just that!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I am amazed at how many people are forgoing desktops and only using notebooks to work these days. Then again, with notebooks being so powerful today there is really no reason NOT to go this route. Today’s GearDeal may be one of the reasons why it is so easy to use one machine for everything. With a Core i7 720QM quad-core processor, a 15.6″ anti-glare LED screen, 2GB of DDR3 RAM and Windows 7 Professional the new Lenovo ThinkPad W510 is a beast of a notebook that can and will do all the computing you need. The computer has an… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

“Where’s that durn micro-USB got to? How am I going to find a new one?!!” So earlier this week, I lost my micro-USB charge/sync cable for my Mophie Juciepack.  “Oh no,” sez I.  “I’m heading back to Austin in just a few days; how the heck am I going to charge my Mophie?”  (In desperation, I went to Radio Shack, but I digress.) You know it’s happened to you, but maybe with a different piece of nerdware.  Your iPhone sync cable has fallen apart.  Your splitter has gone on the fritz and you need a new one.  It’s time for a new interface card.  Or whatever.  You need that important but often-hard-to-find component.  Where the heck can you find it? StarTech is happy to help.  Their new ConXit Connection wizard is an online tool that helps you find just the component your looking for.  And without having to put down your Skittles and leave your comfy Aeron desk chair.  Just choose from a couple of drop-down lists, click the search button, and bango:  micro-USB (or whatever) heaven! So if you’re as loss-prone as me when it comes to electronic components, you might think about surfing on over. More info after [...]

(Image courtesy of Seesmic) Though there is a lot of love for Twidroid Pro for Android, I’ve taken quite the liking to Seesmic for Android. It has a clean, simple interface and is quite consistent across platforms. For those who have been living by Twidroid Pro, though, there were some missing features. Read on to see what updates are in Seesmic for Android 1.2.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There are arguments all over the web about eInk versus LCD versus paper. Everyone has their favorites, all for good reasons. But how different is the experience between them? Does the act of reading a book gain or lose something with each platform? I have devised a plan to try and find out! For devices, I will use my Amazon Kindle, the Camangi Webstation, and a plain paper book. The goal in using the Camangi, by the way, is to be a stand-in for the typical smartphone ebook reader. I just hate reading on a smartphone because the devices are just too small, so I’m subbing in the Camangi’s 7 inch screen. The Kindle, obviously, is… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As a word nerd, I kind of admire words like “dope.”  It can mean “stupid,” of course, but also marijuana; that stuff that they used to put on airplanes to tighten their fabric (ah, those were the days!);  and also information, as in “the straight dope.” And when it comes to helping you sort through the tens of thousands of apps that iTunes has, with more coming every day and prices changing all the time, the folks at Sauce Digital are most definitely using the word “dope” in the latter form:  they want to give the dope on all those iTunes apps through their new web site, http://www.appdope.com. At AppDope, they have promo codes to get free apps, lists of newly released apps, and information on app price drops (like when InfeCCt dropped from $9.99 to $0.99, for example–that would have been good to know as soon as possible!).  AppDope also provides you with ways to filter-search through the application lists, so you have a better chance of finding that game that’s just like Myst, but not by the folks at Cyan.  Or whatever you’re into. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m going to give it a look-see [...]

At Gear Diary, we aim to serve you, our dedicated readers. So at great risk, with stealth, ninja skills, and a fair amount of hackery, we have here the rough draft of John Sargent’s open letter to Macmillan’s authors and illustrators. The version that ran in “Publishing Lunch” was punched up by the public relations department; the rough draft is FAR more interesting. The final version is in quotes, and the rough draft is in red below it. To: Macmillan Authors and Illustrators cc: Literary Agents From: John Sargent I am sorry I have been silent since Saturday. We have been in constant discussions with Amazon since then. Things have moved far enough that hopefully this is the last time I will be writing to you on this subject. We’ve had Jeff Bezos locked in the basement of our headquarters since Sunday morning. He’s finally starting to see the light, after we smashed a Kindle DX in front of him to prove we mean business. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Are you tired of all the negative backlash from last week’s iPad announcement … or still tired from all of the hype leading up to the announcement? Probably some of both. Well, as Dan noted, Steve Jobs took an unwise swing at netbooks in his pitch, so naturally we now have a nice list from PC Magazine of things that make netbooks better than the iPad. Of course, since the iPad isn’t shipping, nor are the specs even final, such stuff is largely a useless exercise in … well, something. But it is still good fun to look at these lists!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …