No matter how many times I see it it never fails to impress me. The Dell Adamo XPS 13 is one cool looking notebook. And the surprising think about it?? It is a powerful notebook too. That’s right, the Dell Adamo XPS has form AND function. The form is obvious just from looking at it. The function comes from a Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.4GHz, 4GB DDR3, a 13.4″ WLED 720p LCD w/ 2MP Camera, GS45 graphics, 802.11n WiFi;, Bluetooth,  a 128GB SSD, HD Audio 2.0 and, of course, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. And all of it weighs in at around 3.2 pounds. All this form and function doesn’t come cheap. The Dell Adamo XPS has… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of Rightway GPS It’s hard to find a vehicle now days that doesn’t have a GPS mounted to the dash or windshield. Sometimes I wonder how we even made it anywhere before cheap consumer based GPS units stocked the shelves of Best Buy. Well RightWay GPS has announced a new addition to the family, the Rightway 550 Navigator. Rightway Navigation units are full featured NAV systems available at a much lower cost of their higher end competitors. The 550 is powered by CoPilot v8, and navigates using a SiRF Atlas IV GPS chipset. Windows CE 6.0 is stuffed under the hood along with 128MB of Ram,  and a 4.3″ widescreen. The RW… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Leave it to developers to start filling in the gaps left by Apple. Until now the VGA dongle that Apple happily sells at an overpriced rate has been a bit crippled. That will start to change and the first taste of that is  comes in the form of Expedition – The VGA Out Web Browser. The app costs $4.99 in the iTunes App Store but promises it is… the first VGA out web browser for the iPad. Expedition uses the VGA out iPad accessory to display the web content you see on Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I have been happily using an Epson all-in-one printer since I reviewed one for the site last year. The printer does everything I need and much more. Best of all it does it quickly and accurately, and it’s relatively easy to use despite the huge number of functions available through it. It is intended for a small office, and so it hasn’t gotten the wear and tear that others might put on it, but over a year later it’s working other than ever. In fact, it fit what my dad needed so I set it up for him when he got his new iMac last week.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There’s no denying that the iPad is a revolutionary device.  What it can do and they way it goes about doing it is just amazing.  However, to my disappointment application developers have not been quick to release programs for the iPad that take advantage of everything the device has to offer.  There are a few applications currently in the iTunes App Store that do though, and when you load one of these onto your device you immediate just get it. Such is the case with Disney Publishing’s newest digital interactive book.  Recently released in the iTunes App Store, Princess and the Frog Read Along is an interactive, read-along story that utilizes all the elements… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of my favorite activities during the spring and summer months is to go hiking.  I don’t mean just for a afternoon hike, but all day.  Just pack a lunch, thermos full of coffee and a bagel and head out the door for a long hike in the woods.  Of course you have to make sure that you have a jacket, some raingear, sun block, a hat, water and maybe even a tent and bedroll for a quick overnight in the woods.  Some daypacks barely have enough room for this kind of activity and  if you are a scout leader and like to have extras in your pack… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

LinkedIn was once described to me as ‘Facebook for professionals’. In keeping with that analogy, it is fitting that LinkedIn has now come out with something that is more or less the same as Facebook’s ‘Fan’ page that many entertainment companies have. It is called ‘LinkedIn Company Following’, and is as simple as searching out a company you are interested in, and clicking ‘Follow’ on their profile page. From the Mashable article: However, instead of receiving status updates from the companies you follow, you will instead get information such as recent hires and promotions, new job opportunities and company profile updates. “Follow” has been added as a tab on company pages now as 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. This weekend, my brother Sam asked me if I had that app that you knock on somebody’s phone and then can see what their camera sees. When I told him I did not, he was excited to actually have an app recommendation for me. I was also surprised to find out the app did not require the 3GS.  The app actually creates a live stream to another iPhone using the built-in camera.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I have lived in places where they wanted you to divide your recyclables into four separate piles; I have also lived in places where everyone just heaved everything into one bag and did it all the old-fashioned way–even down to the really loud trash guys who came at the crack of dawn and enjoyed banging your metal trash cans. But maybe you want to do a little bit more than your immediate area supports.  Well, Green I.T., working in conjunction with ComputersOff.org, is sponsoring “International Green I.T. Awareness” from Tuesday 1 June to Thursday 3 June to “potlight Green IT and pave the way for organisations to initiate, promote and support green IT discussions, enabling… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Can you ever have enough memory? These days the answer always seems to be ‘no’. Whether for our computers, our smartphones, external backup drives, camcorders, cameras, digital music players, laptops, netbooks, digital picture frames, or any other device that is meant to hold data, the need for more memory continues to be never-ending. But we don’t just need more memory, we need ways to keep the stored data secure. Which brings us to the Lexar JumpDrive Secure II Plus, a USB flash drive available in denominations from 2GB all the way to 64GB which has built-in 256-bit AES encryption; I was sent a 32GB model. Right out of the package you’ll notice something a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If it seems like reviews of certain brands seem to come in waves it is because I get the vehicles by brand in waves. There are five companies regionally located here in north Texas that rep for the major automakers. A couple of them only handle families of brands, i.e. the Ford office delivers Ford/Lincoln/Mercury product and the agency working for Toyota only brings Toyota/Lexus/Scion models. As I have been on the rotation schedule with Ford recently, my columns seem to be leaning heavily with Ford headlines. And here is another. This spring saw the arrival of a pair of specialty F-150 pickup models, two of the most highly requested vehicles in their fleet: The… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I tend to hang onto odds and ends from gadgets. My justification is always “you never know when you might need a cable/case/obscure memory card format/box”. And 9 times out of 10, I forget about all that stuff until it’s time for spring cleaning. But sometimes it really comes in handy. I never threw out my Kindle 1 case even after I replaced it with a M-Edge one, since I figured it might be useful someday. Last week I was reading a few books on my Camangi Webstation, and it just highlighted how much I hated the simple slipcover that came with it. I strongly prefer book-style cases, especially for items I’m using to read… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(underlying image courtesy Fanpop) Looks like Google Books are coming! The Wall Street Journal says to expect them in late June or July, but there are not many details so far. Supposedly it will be heavily cloud-based, and retailers can sell them and split the revenue with Google. It does lead to a few questions, at least for me. One, will Google be enabling offline reading, or will this require a full internet connection? Based on my experience with Shortcovers, it is a huge battery drain to require a fresh connection at each page or chapter turn. Two, how is this going to tie in with Agency pricing? Has Google… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Kodak’s still in the game and this Gear Deal is pretty impressive. The Kodak Slice is a 14MP Digital Camera. It brings with it a pretty impressive feature set that could even let someone like me take good pictures. Among the specs… A Schneider-Kreuznach Prism 5x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom, a 3.5-Inch Touch-Screen LCD with a 16:9 widescreen touchscreen interface,, the ability to take high-quality pictures up to 30 x 40 inches thanks to the 14-megapixel resolution and internal memory that holds up to 5,000 HD resolution pictures. The Kodak Slice has an MSRP of $349.95 but our Gear Sponsor has it for $244.96 + $10.50 shipping. If you are in the market for a pocketable high-quality camera… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Dan has tested out what sounds like a great iPad bag from Waterfield, but just because there’s one good bag out there doesn’t mean that some competition wouldn’t be a good idea.  STM Bags of Australia certainly thinks so; they’ve jumped into the iPad gear bag market with a trio of bags for you iPad (and associated gear).  STM Bags says: Australian based STM Bags (www.stmbags.com) announced today the release of their newest iPad carrying solution – the jacket. Designed to protect the shiny new device from scratches and abuse, it has a nifty, diagonal slider pocket that cradles your iPhone or iPod in brushed soft-tech fabric. A front zippered pocket stows Continue reading on Gear Diary …