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. Well, the summer of addicting games continues!  I found Tiki Totems Premium on sale for free today.  The premium version includes over 200 levels and guarantees any new updates will come to your phone free of charge.  The game is basically a puzzler with a cute twist.  Here is the background story for the game. The tribes of the mythical island Tikonia have for centuries worshipped the Tiki Continue reading on Gear Diary …

CoPilot Live North America has now been updated to fully support iOS 4 and the iPhone 4 Retina Display. What does that mean? Well first off it means the app is once again usable on your iPhone if you are using an iPhone 4. When the iPhone 4 was released last week the high res screen posed a problem for the CoPilot app. Just a few days later the issue has been resolved and all is working fine. The bigger deal is the fact that the app now fully supports iOS 4.0 and that means it will keep running even when you leave that screen or hit the Home button. This is a huge improvement… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Amazon is working overtime these last few weeks to really cement their status as the alpha-dog of the ebook world. Not only has the Kindle 2 had a regular price drop to $189, but today only you can grab one from Woot! for $150. Yes, $150 for a Kindle 2. So back away from B&N’s site, don’t buy that nook wifi, and head over to Woot! This is an exclusive one-day offer, but it’s a big one. If you recall the Gear Chat a few of us had earlier in the week, we were discussing how the Kindle 2 makes an excellent “spoke” device to a tablet “hub” if you’re using an iPad. And Dan… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today’s Gear Deal will nab you a quad-core notebook for under $600 but you’ll need to hurry since this deal ends today. The Toshiba Satellite A660D-BT2N22 is a 16″ notebook with an AMD Phenom II Quad-core processor. It is customizable but even the base specs make for a nice machine. Among those specs… the AMD Phenom II P920 Quad-Core running at 1.6GHz, 3GB DDR3, a 320GB Hard Drive, 802.11n, HDMI, harmon/kardon stereo speakers, ATI Mobility Radeon HD graphics and more. This configuration has an MSRP of $939 but our Gear Sponsor has found a deal that brings a $120 component rebate (CPU upgrade) and $220 off. That brings the price to $599 shipped. But… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’m a long way from my college days, when I trucked my weary butt up and down all the hills at UC Santa Cruz.  Things have changed quite a bit since then (Reagan was President!  The Mac hadn’t come out yet!), and one of the biggest ways is that you can now carry hundreds or even thousands of bucks worth of gear around in your backpack.  Which can be a little worry-making. iSafe wants to help; they’ve developed and are offering a line of packs and bags with a built-in alarm which they say “doubles as a personal body guard.” It is a security backpack with a cord that the wearer can pull if Continue reading on Gear Diary …