Over the last week I have written a few times about the upcoming Zinio app for the iPad. The reason for my enthusiasm was two-fold. First I had been using Zinio as long as I have been using Tablet PCs. Since moving to the Mac I had used it less — not because it doesn’t work well on the Mac, but because it really lends itself to the tablet format. When the iPhone app came out my enthusiasm was once again peaked; on the larger iPad the promise of eMags was hopefully going to be fulfilled. In addition, my attempt to move entirely away from using… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

So, Greenberg caved. Yes, after Larry gave Judie and me a tremendously hard time about the fact that we weren’t going to wait for the 3G version of the iPad to be released … he actually broke down and decided to get one for himself. So he got in his car, drove over to his local Apple reseller, and bought… not a 16 GB model… not a 32 GB model… no Larry bought a 64 GB WiFi version of the iPad. When Greenberg caves he caves big-time! That’s actually not the reason for this post, although it did give us a great excuse to give Larry a publicly hard time. No, the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Have you always wanted to start your own business? Have you got a great idea that could make you the next Entrepreneur featured on the cover of Newsweek or Time Magazine? If you’ve been thinking about starting your own business, then you’ve no doubt also been thinking of all the miscellanea needed to get it up and running — like setting up a communications system, getting legal paperwork done, designing a logo, buying business cards, and finding web hosting. It’s a little daunting when you think about everything that must be done — separate from what you plan on doing to make money, right? We are here to help. RingCentral… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Stay tuned! On Wednesday we will be announcing a giveaway where one of our readers will not only win a brand new and never opened 32GB WiFi Apple iPad, they will also win some primo apps and swag to be revealed along the way. And that’s all I’m going to say about that … until around noon CST on Wednesday! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I don’t know how I missed this last week but better late than never… Dragon Dictation is great. As I have written ad nauseum the app works great on my iPhone and is even better on my iPad. It is fast, it is accurate and it is currently free. It saves me form having to type. All of this is just awesome. But there is a problem. As much as being able to speak instead of type is a time-saver, in order to use Dragon you still need to SPEAK. Mix in the fact that Dragon… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Okay, so you survived the launch of the iPad. Your friends are gaga for it but you… you aren’t enthralled. You want a real computer that doesn’t have Big Brother Steve controlling what you can and cannot do with it. You want Flash. You want a real keyboard that is always attached. You want a full 160GB of hard drive storage or more. In other words… you want the anti-iPad. Well our GearSponsor is ready to hook you up. The IdeaPad S10-3t is Lenovo’s first 10-inch Multi-touch Capacitive Netbook Tablet. It has an Intel Atom N450 or N470 processor, runs Windows 7, has 802.11n WiFi and, of course, a 10.1-inch screen. That screen is a thing of beauty since it… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Vertu, the high-end Nokia luxury handset company, released a flip version of their phone towards the end of 2009 and I finally got my hands on one!  So this is the unboxing view, and I’ll come back in a few weeks and do a proper review of the phone whilst in use. I purchased the unit from one of the jewellery stores here in Sydney after much haggling, and carried my plain brown box through the city back to the train stop.  I found it a bit odd to carry a large shopping bag from a fine jewellery store through the city, so I opted to carry my new prize just… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Also falling under the heading of “News that has absolutely, positively nothing to do with the iPad or Easter” . . . Are you a marketing person trying to keep an eye on new trends in industry?  And you would like to keep an eye on such things even when you’re away from your computer?  And you have your Android device with you a lot more than your laptop?  Well then, maybe Ad-ology‘s new app is right for you.  Available for the low, low cost of free, it lets you do just that from your Android device.  If that sounds like something you could use–and what marketeer wouldn’t?–surf on over and check it out Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! Looks like the ‘New Release Easter Basket’ is fairly empty this week … or should I say ‘weak’. The only new release of interest is the wild west shooter Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West, and mainly because there are so few western themed games available. Other than that there is some add-one content (Borderlands: Double Game Add-On Pack and Mass Effect 2: Kasumi’s Stolen Memory). Actually, there are a couple of other things – read on to find out! Borderlands: Double Game Add-On Pack Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I adamantly refuse to call Korg DS-10 Plus a ‘game’, despite it being a cartridge for the Nintendo DS. Read on to find out why! The Hype: KORG DS-10 Plus is an enhanced version of the revolutionary KORG DS-10 synthesizer software that was released to critical and retail acclaim for Nintendo DS in late 2008. In this new release the original KORG DS-10 music-creation software, which combined the superior interface of the Nintendo DS with the functionality of the famous MS-10 synthesizer, has been optimized to essentially double the power of the original when used with the Nintendo DSi. * Exchange sounds and songs and play with up to eight units simultaneously through a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(check out Snaptic at SXSW) Talk cloud-based notes on a smartphone, and everyone thinks Evernote. But there’s another competitor in that space, Snaptic, and they are quickly becoming a strong presence. Snaptic recently passed 2 million+ downloads of their 3Banana Android application! Their goal is to help your brain along, connecting all the pieces so you don’t have to. Specifically, they work to bridge your notes with context-aware items, using hash tags (#), pictures, even bar code scanners. The concept is that your notes should be available everywhere, in the cloud, on your device, and interconnected with apps you use daily. I had the chance to speak to the CEO of Snaptic, Steve Brown, and I walked away very excited about the service and its future growth!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Yes, folks, it’s Easter weekend.  Or if you’re a non-religious (or in my case, Jewish) nerd, it’s iPad weekend.  But because other things are actually happening this weekend, and because you all need a break from wall-to-wall iPad mania, here’s a little news in the Windows Mobile world. Paragon Software has release Handy SMS, an advanced text manager that helps you access and exchange messages on a WM phone.  Handy SMS has a number of texting options, privacy protections, and gives you some organizational control as well.  If you’re interested, surf on over to the Paragon web site and… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It will come as no surprise that the more I use the iPad the more I like it. It is powerful, gorgeous, and just a lot of fun to use. I do see it replacing a notebook for much of my day-to-day needs. At the same time, however, a few imitations have emerged. Well, to be accurate, a number of limitations that I knew to expect have clearly shown themselves to be limitations that hopefully will change sometime in the near future. First and foremost on that list — the ability to run multiple applications at the same time. Not being able to run more than one application at the same… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Remember Blockbuster Video’s no late fee policy?  You could rent a movie and keep it as long as you’d wished without being charged any late fees whatsoever.  In truth the policy allowed you to rent a movie for two days and then enjoy a 1-week grace period before they’d charge you the retail price of the movie, less the rental fee. Even if the customer ended up being charged, they could return the movie within 30-days for a full refund and basically end up keeping their rented video for a full month for the charge of a 2-day rental. Business analysts estimated that the company stood to lose between 250-300 million dollars per year… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Congratulations to vlbsweeps, the winner of our Mobile Edge Women’s Netbook giveaway! Please email carly (at) geardiary.com with your shipping address and enjoy your new bag! If you didn’t win, you can always purchase one of the reasonably priced bags at Mobile Edge’s site, but also keep checking back with Gear Diary for more great giveaways!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …