Earlier today, Dan posted an article about a fabulous new application to hit the iTunes App. Store. Line 2, which allows you to add a second line to your iPhone — or even better make WiFi calls over your iPod Touch, was working great for Dan and me most of the day. The new application was featured yesterday in the NY Times, and just a few hours ago appeared on the front page of Yahoo. About an hour ago though, the application stopped working.  That is to say it works on the iPhone, but dialing one’s Line2 telephone number produces nothing but a fast busy signal. I reached out to Toktumi, the company which developed Line2, over Twitter… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The last few weeks have been interesting. We saw the release of a lot of new products during CES earlier this year.  One of those products was the version 3.x of Documents to Go Premium from DataVis.  Now, quickly on the heels of that, they have release version 3.1 which adds even more improvements including Google Docs support! On a personal note – my own life has been a crazy roller coaster with my day job sending me all over the place and then getting seriously ill, all of it ramping up to this past week where I had to rush three different people to the Emergency Rooms of three different hospitals on 3 different days (ok, ok - in the 3rd case I only had to MEET the ambulance at the hospital)!   Nevertheless, the level of general chaos in my life over the past couple of months has been huge, but, interestingly enough, at the same time, the iPhone version of Documents to Go entered my life and I was actually mostly able to continue to function throughout it all.    I really appreciated being able to work with my office documents on my iPhone, but I have to add that  it [...]

As bloggers we’re all guilty of it.  We see some really cool gadget over the internet, or we’re sent a random press release on what’s described as the next, greatest widget to hit since the invention of the cell phone.  Usually we spot some fancy press release picture along with it which only serves to further peak our interest. So what do we do?  We post about it.  Sometimes we even offer our opinion on how “cool” the thing looks.  Or the fact that we’d love to have one.  But guess what?  We’ve never even held it once, never tested it, don’t really know a darn thing about it. Case in point, this Gizmodo post on the Rad Blaster.  After reading it you are probably thinking, “wow, that looks and pretty cool.”  The article says of the RadBlaster “it’s certainly bigger than a shuffle, but it doesn’t sound like a bad deal for $60.” I was recently sent a Rad Blaster for review and guess what?  $60 is actually an awful deal. I’m sure the RadBlaster article on Gizmodo generated a good amount of traffic on the Rad Blaster web site and probably a decent amount of orders too.  All [...]

UPDATE UPDATE: Looks like Line2 is working again!!! UPDATE: The app has been removed. Let’s hope it was removed until the current DOS attack is over but… as we said at the end of this post, we won’t be surprised if Apple just pulled it entirely. There is an application that’s been getting a lot of play over the last day or two. David Pogue of the New York Times reviewed it yesterday. Cali Lewis Is Tweeting on it about it. And Larry and I both took a look at it earlier today. The application is Line 2 and it adds a second line to your iPhone. It… …adds a second number to your iPhone that works over 3G, WiFi or Cellular networks using the same number… an industry first. Ideal if you have poor cell reception or just want to reduce your cell bill. That means that you can have a second number that will ring on your iPhone when the application is open. It is great for outgoing calls over WiFi instead of using your cellular connection. I tried the application on my iPhone and discovered that it works incredibly well. Setup is rather simple and the call [...]

photo courtesy of Ford The Ford SYNC voice-controlled communications and infotainment system made headlines this week with the 2-millionth installation. While all new Ford/Lincoln/Mercury vehicles I have been testing over the past couple of years include this feature I must admit I rarely, if ever, use it. For one, I don’t talk on the phone while driving if at all possible. Secondly, I am not in most of these vehicles long enough to take full advantage of all of the features available with SYNC. And as I have discovered this week, while testing the cool new Harley-Davidson F-150 pickup, SYNC (by Microsoft) does not fully integrate with my iPhone (by Apple). Go figure – I am a Mac and they are a PC. That said I did discover the phone will pair with the system via Bluetooth (sans text capabilities) and the iPod functions of my iPhone work with the truck’s nice audio system via USB connection. Admittedly I usually have the music up so loud I wouldn’t be able to talk on the phone and I am not going to interrupt a great jam with something so trivial as a phone call. Priorities, y’all.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(photo courtesy Engadget) Kobo today announced they will be selling a lower-end, dedicated ebook reader for $149 at Indigo in Canada and Borders in the USA. The unit itself is pretty basic; you transfer your books via USB, and it has some nice UI flourishes, but that’s about it. All day various websites have crowed that this is the start of the slide to a magic $99 ebook reader, and I agree. The bigger question, though, is what market does a cheap ebook reader serve? Kids: This is a fairly easy one; you wouldn’t necessarily expect a child to take good care of a full blown tablet, but a cheap, rugged ebook reader loaded with age-appropriate books would be a hit. Even with eInk this could work well. Pair it with a good text-t0-speech engine, and it is a great tool to help encourage reading! Colleges: Yes, the whole “Kindle as a textbook” idea hasn’t really gone anywhere, but what about purely for reference materials and supplementary articles? Sell them in bulk to schools, along with dead-easy conversion software. Bookstores could then “rent” the devices to students, and professors could email out ePUB/text versions of interesting articles or passages students [...]

Everyone and their cousin is reporting that a subscription to theWallStreet Journal on the iPad will run around $18. Ouch. While it is certainly cheaper than the current “dead tree” , is much more than people are usually used to paying for digital content. Think about it this way, if you get the 3G iPad and a subscription to the WSJ, you’ve just added about $50 to your monthly nut. That’s not peanuts. Moreover Engadget is reporting that when prices are announced for iPad content, “magazines to be at or near newsstand prices”. All this raises a few thoughts/questions for me… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

AT&T’s Microcell. You get great reception. AT&T gets to double dip. As you may have read elsewhere on the web AT&T is rolling out Microcells that will solve many of the reception issues people have at home. That is, assuming they already have a highspeed Internet connection. You see, the Microcell will allow you to connect to your high-speed Internet service and then have your iPhone or any other AT&T cell phone jump on the data connection from your cable company and route calls through it. This will, in turn, improve your cell reception because you won’t be using AT&T’s network. This will also be the case with data… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

What’s the most popular color for an iPhone case?  If you said “black” you’re correct.  Apple’s retail stores are stocked full of black leather cases.  But guess what?  Black cases are boring!  Sure, sometimes you need to be conservative, but every once and a while you do need a little color to spice things up. Enter Proporta, who has released some new, colorful, aluminum lined leather cases for your iPhone 3GS and 5G iPod nano. These cases are handcrafted from the finest quality leather to the exact specifications of each device, both cases feature Proporta’s trademark “Screen Saver” System, with a sheet of lightweight, aircraft grade aluminum built in to protect against even the worst impact damage and crushing. Available in Mulberry and Teal, these cases are colorful but not blinding. The iPhone version sells for $42.95 and the iPod Nano version (continue reading to see) for $35.95. Check them both out on the Proporta web site.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Speck recently came out with a new line of Fitted Cases for the iPhone. The Artsprojekt line of cases offers unique artwork printed on durable fabric wrapped around a hard protective shell. Speck was kind enough to send us one of each (plus a few bonus cases) so that we might get them into the hands of some of our readers. The Artsprojekt line is available now and each case has an MSRP of $39.95. For more information or to order one you can visit the Speck site HERE. In the meantime… the contest is over… and the cases go to… (Oh, and if you won do us a favor and shoot your shipping address to us here.) Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of Consumerist The Consumerist website regularly tracks misdeeds by various companies and also our rights as consumers … oh, and some crazy stuff going on in the retail world! Starting back in 2008, they started awarding the ‘Golden Poo Award’, for the crappiest company in the nation! The first year it went to Bank of America, last year to AIG, and now they are getting underway with the bracket voting for the finalists! First up – Walmart vs. Sears/KMart. Who do you think is worst? I’m not sure what else to say but … get to Consumerist and Vote! Personally I am not sure who to hope wins … but… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

At just 1″ thin the Dell Inspiron 15z is a 15.6″ dual-core notebook with few, if any compromises. Unlike other thin and light notebooks it has a built-in DVD+/-RW optical drive, a dual-core processor, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and 2GB DDR3. All of this puts the Inspiron 15z way ahead of any and all netbooks. Yet, thanks to our Gear Sponsor you can get it at a netbook price. It has a list price of $599 but with this Gear Deal you’ll get it for just $449.25. Oh, and you’ll get your choice of either Obsidian Black or bright Cherry Red. Dell Continue reading on Gear Diary …

With the delivery date of the iPad fast approaching one YouTuber has taken the fever of waiting for the new device to a whole new level. She’s recorded her very own music video complete with iPad themed lyrics, all to the Owl City tune Fireflies. This is just one of the many reasons I love YouTube. I’m thinking Apple might want to consider using this for their next commercial. Watch the video below: Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you’re in need of a new bag for your gear and have been holding off, or are looking for a change, wait no longer! Many of us here are Skooba bag fans (myself included), and they are having a ripper of a sale across their range of bags and accessories. The catch? You have to checkout their blog at www.skoobablog.com, which keeps you up to date on the latest news and product releases from Skooba. Amongst the posts you’ll find a 7-digit code hidden in a post or a photo that will give you 40% off a cart filled with over $40 worth of items! The coupon ends on 3/26/10 so get in quick!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

From The Neat Company….. “The NeatDesk is a high-speed desktop scanner and digital filing system that will quickly turn all the paper on your desk into organized, digital files. More than just a great scanner, NeatDesk also includes patented NeatWorks software to identify and extract key information from your paper files, then automatically organizes it in the easy to use database.” I’ve tried a bunch of systems to manage my receipts, business cards and paper but I just can’t seem to find one that works the way I want it to.  Previously I was using Evernote to manage my business cards but that meant actually taking a picture of each card and syncing it with the Evernote servers.  For receipts I used Jott Not on my iPhone.  But again the process was tedious. When I saw the NeatDesk in a technology magazine I was immediately excited.  It looked to be exactly what I needed to keep everything organized in one place.  So I reached out to Neat and they were kind enough to send me a sample I could review it and continue to test it over the long term. Just this week they announced a new version, 3.0, of their NeatWorks software for [...]