Mother’s day has passed, and Father’s day is coming up quickly.  What do you get that tech and iPhone obsessed father?  One of the biggest iPhone/iPod docks that I have ever seen from Altec Lansing.  The IMT800 or MIX iPhone/iPod dock has a iPhone/iPod Dock Connector, FM Radio, and not 1 but 2 AUX inputs for other iPods or MP3 Players dad might have.  It also has a built-in 7-band graphical equalizer, a remote, and it can be powered by the included AC adapter or with 8 D Cell batteries. This dock is now available from Altec Lansing for $299.95 Continue reading on Gear Diary …

MacCase makes some gorgeous bags and cases for carrying your MacBook or other Apple products. They offers a line of sleeves that start at $39.95 and a Premium leather line that includes the  Premium Leather Flight Jacket for all sizes of Apple Laptops with prices starting at $189.95. As you add the $20 backpack straps and a $30 shoulder pad the price increases to over $200. That’s a bit of an investment but then again, the case looks awesome and will likely outlive your next five notebooks… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I love my 27″ iMac but have always been fascinated by the idea of an all-in-one touchscreen computer. The idea of being to interact with my main computer using touch is incredibly attractive to me… especially now that I am using a touch-enabled iPad in place of my notebook. One of the best touch-enabled all-in-ones is the HP TouchSmart and our Gear Sponsor has a great deal on one. The refreshed HP TouchSmart 600t is a 23′ 1080p All-in-one Multi-Touch PC that is powered by the new Core i3 CPU, equipped with Bluetooth, Wireless-N and pre-loaded with Windows 7. It has 4GB DDR3 Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I love Evernote. I love my ScanSnap Scanner. I love the tight integration that now lets me scan directly into Evernote. And now Fujitsu has a deal that will make getting started with ScanSnap/Evernote integration less expensive than ever before. If you buy a ScanSnap Scanner (either the ScanSnap S1500 or S1500M scanner) and sign up for an Evernote Premium account Fujitsu will send you a check for $50. (That even leaves over $5 to buy yourself a little something extra.) It is a great deal on two great products. I swear by both and highly recommend them. Here’s the full deal from the Evernote Blog. Have we Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I had the opportunity to spend the last evening at Sprint’s special EVO event in Manhattan. The event formally introduced Sprint’s new powerhouse smartphone the EVO 4G. I also had a chance to get a good close look at the phone, play with it for a little while, and see some of their marketing people do a number of different demonstrations with it. The short version of this post — I’m pretty impressed by everything that this Android powered device can do. Sprint’s Dan Hesse kicked off the evening by introducing the EVO 4G and… in the process… took a few shots at the iPhone for lack of Flash among other things… 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. One thing that has come to annoy me on the iPhone is logging into sites.  Whether it be a website for shopping or a forum, for some reason logging in seems to be a task I try to avoid.  Clicking on the small log in screen boxes is not always easy and sometimes formatting issues makes the experience not very iPhone like.  How about an app that can do all of this… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image from YouTube After getting my iPad, one of the first things I did was to buy the three components of the iWork suite – Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. They cost $9.99 each on the App Store, and I honestly went into the purchase expecting that these apps would integrate nicely with the Mac desktop suite. I mean, $30 for the iPad version isn’t too much less than the $79 Apple charges for the full desktop version. I knew there would be compromises, to be sure. Printing would be gone, as would direct transfers of files and so on. I also assumed that the Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you’re a ScotteVest gear clothing fan, then like me you probably enjoy hearing about it when they have sale items.  And today, SeV is having a 20% off sale on their travel shorts (“just in time for summer!” as the Sears catalogs used to say).  So if you’re needing shorts for the summer to carry your gear in–I particularly like the feature on the SeV site where you can X-ray the items and see what fits in the pockets–surf on over and check them out. Full information, as well as other news from ScotteVest, below. We are reminded time and again why SeV fans are the best.  As you know, we sent out Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Judie: I have personally always thought that unless you were buying something like this as a joke, buying a breathalyzer — especially an $11.50 one for your keyring — means you are already going to be drinking too damn much, and someone else needs to drive. Carly: Agreed…plus Wired did an awesome article on these a month or two ago. Essentially the cheap ones vary so much they are useless. Now that would be a fun chat with a cop. “Honestly, Ocifer, my breathalyzer… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Wait … WHAT?!?! I know what you’re saying: what about the 150 trillion games in the App Store? What about the massive growth in the sales of games for the iPod Touch that I talked about here? I know about all of that, but I still believe this: the iPod Touch business model as it exists today is not one that is sustainable for the game industry, and therefore the iPod Touch will NEVER be a viable ‘major tent-post platform’ based on that business model. OK, you have probably noticed I’m already starting to nuance my phrases in the first paragraph … but stick with me and you will hopefully see that I… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

You know, I thought I would make some kind of joke here like, “Trying to navigate to your mom’s house in less than 12 parsecs?” or some such, but I’m tired from my first day of C25K.  So instead, I’ll just stick with the facts: On May 14th MobileNavigator (full North American version) will be on sale for $49.99, a $30.00 price reduction until June 11th. Also, in line with the upcoming WWDC, stay tuned for another promotion on the three versions of MyRegion. In addition to being a pretty low price in and of itself based on the prices of other navigators I’ve seen, that’s also a pretty huge reduction. … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Does dad love music? Do you love dad? Well Father’s Day is coming up, and if dad likes to get his groove on here are a few items you might want to consider getting him (or yourself for that matter…) Dad’s not wicked (we hope), but these noise isolating ear-buds from Wicked Audio are… Wicked Audio’s Wicked Little Buds are Design-forward, noise isolating earbuds that provide an edgy look and great sound. They are available at: EmpireBrandsInc.com, Amazon.com, Fry’s Electronics, Airport Wireless, and other select international retailers MSRP: $29.99 If you music-loving dad Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I recently reviewed the Survival Strap.  The bracelet, which is made from paracord, is ready to be deployed into up to 16 feet (depending on your wrist size) of usable material in case of emergency. The company has a added a new line to their catalogue and it’s one that’s near and dear to my heart. The all new firefighter line is intended for firefighters, their families and all those who support them.  Survival Straps has released three products to honor firefighters. The regular SurvivalStrap bracelet ($22.95) A key chain ($12)… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Every job I’ve had has been sales or customer oriented in some capacity, so I always geek out a bit at innovative ways to improve customer service. Today I came across a company that used Twitter very effectively to reach out and interact with me as a customer, and I wanted to share that story. I found out about Kigo Footwear on the Runner’s World forums, and thought their “Kigo Shel” shoes sounded really cool. So I poked around their website, and learned the company is as interesting as their shoes. They use recycled materials, and their whole business model is built around sustainability and environmental friendliness. Check out their company philosophy: Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Yesterday we reviewed Appigo’s ToDo for the iPad. If you read the review you know that I absolutely love the application and could not be more thrilled with the choices they made while implementing it. Appigo did a great job with it and it is truly a great task manager. Apparently a lot of other people think so as well. It is currently the number one paid application in the iTunes App Store. And that’s after being out for just two days. Pretty amazing. Like me you may have already purchased the application. If that is the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …