It’s not every day that someone successfully reinvents the wheel, but when it happens it can be a sight to behold … and that is essentially what Happy Owl Studios has attempted to do when it comes to iPad cases. Rather than coming out with a simple sleeve or even a back-covering shell, Happy Owl has created three fully protective cases which not only look fabulous, two of them are also folios. Let’s take a look … I’ll cover the most simple case first — the $49.99 Wallet Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I was amazed in early 2002 when I came across a jewel-case FPS game at my local EBGames for $19.99 called ‘Serious Sam: The Second Encounter’. The images on the back looked quite nice and the description of a fast-paced action romp sounded like a complete blast – and somewhat of an anachronism. The funny thing is that when I first saw the Serious Sam games, I passed on buying them that day because they were on the ‘junk rack’. There was a four-sided rack of jewel-case games in that store, and they were pretty much universally either low budget junk or re-releases of games no one bought before. Of course, since then the market… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Joey didn’t have the chance. That’s right, when it comes to loving technology there wasn’t even a possibility that he wouldn’t get hooked at an early age. You see his grandfather was on the cutting edge of technology in the 70s and 80s. Among other accomplishments he helped develop the technologies that allowed the first optical fiber transatlantic cable to be laid. Joey’s father has a degree in engineering from MIT. And his uncle… while a member of the clergy, Joey’s uncle has a deep passion (obsession) for technology that has him writing for a little tech site called Gear Diary. Joey’s sister Talia, on the other hand, can’t really be bothered. It’s not that she doesn’t like technology but… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We are all feeling the financial pinch!    Blue Plate Special is a weekly review of bargain apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Nothing over $.99. Last week I was syncing my wife’s iPhone and she told me she wished a couple of movies would fit on her phone.  I could fit a movie on the phone, but would have to delete some of her music which she did not want me to do.  When our boys go to bed, she sits in their room while they doze off and plays on her phone so… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Tired of being saddled with those older BlackBerry smartphones for work?   You want to use that shiny new device you just bought to manage work and play, but your company IT department just won’t let you.  What’s a cutting-edge techie to do? Cortado may have the answer that both you and your iT department can live with, allowing you to integrate your personal BlackBerry onto the company network — without sacrificing security or features.   Straight from Cortado: Employees connected in this way will continue to have their existing BlackBerry® Email and will also be able to access shared drives on the corporate network, view and manage files, send them by email, print, fax, scan, copy, or render them as PDF files from their BlackBerry smartphone.  As a special feature, the new Cortado Corporate Server offers a completely novel Active Directory search for network printers. Print, access the company network, manage all those powerpoint presentations, fax ‘em and handle your email — right from your BlackBerry. Without the extra charges for a BES plan.  Look for Cortado’s 5.0 Corporate Server to be available Q2 2010.   Sounds like this could be a solution both that may make both you and your [...]

RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis came through at today’s WES keynote, providing a sneak peak of BlackBerry 6, the new BlackBerry OS with a refreshed UI that will debut next quarter. This update will feature the WebKit Browser, giving the BlackBerry faithful something to truly look forward to — and maybe ease the pain of the current ‘Berry Browser experience. The fact that RIM is going to start phasing this into the market next quarter is good, but still a bit ‘late to the game’ playing catch up in a market they used to arguably dominate.  With Android expanding like wild fire across almost every single wireless carrier; and iPhone 4.0 OS bringing a few traditional ‘Berry, and other smartphone, features like a unified inbox,  customization, and background processing … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I love to support small game developers, especially in the RPG genre. I have helped Spiderweb Software where I could with beta testing, also own copies of all of the games from Soldak Games. And I thoroughly enjoyed Basilisk Games Eschalon Book I (in fact, if you look on the link page you’ll see the 4.5/5 star rating from GamerDad … that was my review). Way back in February of 2008 I wrote an article called txa1265’s “Baker’s Dozen” Best RPG’s of 2007, and pronounced Book I as my Indie RPG of the Year, saying: “This single-player game has a story that finds you waking up in the wake of a disaster Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I reviewed the Samson Go Mic, a compact USB directional condenser microphone designed for mobile recording a bit back. SAMSON: Go Mic. My conclusion… I liked the small, compact, easy-to-use design. I also liked the good sound quality that comes in a small, relatively inexpensive package. The Samson Go Mic offers… * A folding, compact design that allows for easy laptop attachment or desktop placement * Professional quality performance, with multidirectional recording options for maximum flexibility * Frequency response of 20Hz – 18kHz ensures crystal clear recording quality * Plug & play MAC and PC compatibility with no required drivers for ease of use It is available at: BestBuy.com, Amazon.com, Sam Ash, Sweetwater, B&H, J&R… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of AMD Today AMD is happy to announce their new Phenom II X6 CPU,  890FX Chipset, and ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series video cards. This trio is the latest offering from AMD/ATI and promises more bang for the buck and unmatched performance. AMD put the hours in at their R&D lab and developed a 6 core CPU that utilizes Turbo Core technology allowing 3 dedicated turbo cores to turn on/off as needed for optimal performance while maintaining proper thermal dissipation and power efficiency. AMD is stating that the new CPU will work in the current AM3 and AM2+ sockets and utilize the same heatsink/fan setup that you have today. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Desktop… notebook… desktop… notebook… desktop…. If you’ve been trying to figure out if you should get a desktop or a notebook, do we have a Gear Deal for you! Lenovo refers to their ThinkPad W701 17″ notebook as a Mobile Workstation, and they aren’t kidding. The machine offers a nice big screen and power to spare. It can easily fit the bill if you want both a desktop and a notebook but don’t want to purchase two separate computers. It has a list price of $2912, but our Gear Sponsor has a nice discount of the MSRP. More on that in a bit. The base specs for Lenovo ThinkPad W701 are impressive. It offers a Quad-core i7-720QM processor… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Time for the third crazy week of the Direct2Drive Spring Sale. As with last week there are loads of great deals on digital download PC games. To see all of them head on over to Direct2Drive! Some of my favorites: Civilization IV Complete – $9.95 – $10 for this massive collection encompassing some of the best strategy game ever is a sweet deal. Torchlight – $9.95 – this isn’t the best price we’ve seen, but it is still 50% off the normal price for this great game I reviewed for the Netbook Gamer. X-Com Complete Bundle – $4.95 – one of the best strategy games of all time is Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Smartphones are all the rage, right?  We’re a society that’s constantly connected via our high-priced unlimited data plans to keep us Facebookin’, Tweeting, and reachable 24x7x365.   Add our insatiable desire for apps — be it games or the latest and greatest promise of added productivity — and we’ll gladly fork over a few more bucks. So what is all this about “dumb” (feature) phone apps?   I mean, first there was the announcement that AT&T was going to push Qualcomm’s BREW platform for feature phones.  Now we see that Shorthand Mobile is bringing even more app goodness to phones that don’t require a data connection. Could this be the next ‘App Goldrush??’ Read on to see why carriers and consumers alike love this new appraoch.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A universal number and system that can reach you regardless of whether you’re at your desk, at home, traveling for a business meeting, hitting golf balls on the greens, or just hanging out by the pool.   Exciting stuff, right?  Well, when RIM first brought it up at the 2007 Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES), it sounded pretty neat. Fast forward 3 years.    Cisco has their own unified communications solution.  Google Voice is prized by all that were lucky enough to get in on the beta (even when it was originally Grand Central).   To RIM’s credit, their reps did confirm that their Mobile Voice System 5 implementation would work with Cisco’s solution — and offer more security and flexibility of control. The overall idea, though,  has lost a bit of luster when RIM touts it now. In 2010.   Sure, there are additional bells and whistles — namely security policy extensions and IT controls — but, really, is anyone that excited?? Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I have too many device. Okay, not quite true since you can never have “too many devices”. I do, however, have way too many cords as a result of having so many devices. I’ve tried a number of various charging solutions that allowed me to juice up a number of devices at one time but all of them fell short in the aesthetics department. That’s why the IDAPT i3 Charging Station caught my eye when it was first announced. It is sleek, it is function and it can charge up to three different devices at a time. Nice! According to the company… IDAPT I3 uses a simple system of interchangeable tips that allows you to charge three portable devices (mobile Continue reading on Gear Diary …

You gotta hand it to RIM.  They’re really working hard to earn developer love.  Today, the Canadian mobile phone giant announced the BlackBerry Developer Resource Center.  This portal will make things much easier for developers who need or want to build some BlackBerry apps. Part of the problem — and the complaint from developers — is that the BlackBerry platform itself has traditionally been a pain to build apps for in the first place.   So much so, that RIM has pretty much completely redone their strategy to implement easier tools, with integration into existing development software like Eclipse (and, maybe some day soon, Adobe’s lineup of utilities …since that was announced during… Continue reading on Gear Diary …