(image courtesy Houston News) Just last year there was a pretty serious controversy over how Amazon handled pirated books in the Kindle store. Since anyone can upload a book to Amazon, a version of 1984 was uploaded and sold without the copyright holder’s permission. Amazon took an unfortunate stance of removing all copies without warning, only to find a huge internet uproar emerge from the “big brother” behavior. Luckily, Amazon has learned from those mistakes. Their Australian store mistakenly sold a book under Jamie Oliver’s name that was not actually written by or affiliated with the chef. Rather than yank the titles, Amazon refunded everyone and let them know there would be no… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last week I had heard about Tiger Woods Golf being on sale for $0.99 from PocketGamer, but that is a UK site so the sale didn’t apply to the US. However, today I hit up the App Store and my search for Tiger was still current – but now it showed the lower price! Quickly I bought it, and noticed it saying there was a big EA games sale … so I bought more. Then I headed to the App Store on my PC and saw Doom II RPG on sale – SOLD! And so on … then I saw news first at PocketGamer and later at Joystiq that there is a massive sale… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve made no secret of my fondness for Slacker Radio. I listen to it all the time and love the fact that the music service just gets better and better. Well now Slacker Radio, Austin City Limits and Seed Labs have released a groundbreaking festival application for iPhoneand Android and to celebrate they are giving away 5 annual Slacker Radio Plus Subscriptions. The new app… provides a “laid back” way for people to listen to the artists who are performing this year, while making a schedule of what bands/stages to be at during the 3-day event. It includes: – Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Here are a few of my books… in this picture alone there are over 100 different books. 16 of them are of the dead-tree variety. The rest are in the Kindle app on my iPad. Yup, that’s my iPad right in the middle of the picture. It is sitting safe, hidden and secure in its new BookBook for iPad. The BookBook for iPad is one of the offerings from TwelveSouth. TwelveSouth is the company behind my favorite iPad travel stand, the Compass. (Reviewed here on the site.) While the Compass had a lean modern look to it, the BookBook goes total vintage. It has the look and feel of an Old World… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. The cochlear implant is often referred to as a bionic ear.  According to Wikipedia, as of April 2009, approximately 188,000 people worldwide had received cochlear implants; in the United States, about 30,000 adults and over 30,000 children are recipients. There has been an ongoing debate in the deaf community over the use of this procedure.  For some deaf individuals cochlear implants are an affront to their culture, which as they view it, is a minority threatened by the hearing majority What’s not up for debate is the look of joy on both the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve been making jokes about BatBelts for years – usually when referring to the way so many of geeks will carry a plethora of items clipped to their waist. And now, for $149,  geeks everywhere can have a real BatBelt of their own. Composed of polished bronze leather with silver studs, this isn’t some cheep plastic wannabe — it’s the real deal with usable and movable pouches. Fantastic for Halloween and cosplay, the TDK Batman: Utility Pouch should also make an interesting addition to your “Casual Fridays” attire. And for those of you who are thinking “But it’s gold! Too shiny!” Get over yourself! Bob Kane drew… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There are no words! Dieter Bohn (@backlon) just tweeted this, and I thought it was so awesome that I had to share. See if you can name all the songs and artists Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake go through; the imitations are spot on, fun to watch and the whole experience is hysterical! Unfortunately this video is Flash, but if you can’t watch it on your mobile device it is worth clicking when you get back to a computer. Kottke.org Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The folio is, by far, my favorite design for an iPad case. It does exactly what I need it to do and, in the process, protects the iPad when I am on the go. Now Booq has added a new line of cases that brings another folio-stlye option iPad case to market- the Boa folio. The Boa folio is The ultimate carrying case for the Apple user, Boa folio can be carried on its own or easily slide into another backpack, bag, or purse. To insure you get the most out of your iPad while on-the-go, booq’s three-position design lets you use the iPad flat across your lap, slightly elevated for comfortable typing, and near Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last week I noted that the specs on the Nintendo 3DS had been leaked, along with speculation of a November release in Japan followed by a March release elsewhere. Today we get word that some things were correct, some incorrect, and some cool new things added on! First off, the 3DS will ship in late February in Japan and in March in North America and the EU. North America is the largest market for the DS, and also one that has seen a decline in sales as more folks move to gaming on the iPhone/iPod Touch. The launch price in Japan is 25,000 yen (about $298), though no pricing for anywhere outside of… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Bottled water is everywhere.  With it comes an incredible amount of waste in the form of the empty bottles.  Some of these bottles get recycled but many do not.  More than 2.4 billion pounds of plastic bottles were recycled in 2008. Although the amount of plastic bottles recycled in the U.S. has grown every year since 1990, the actual recycling rate remains steady at around 27 percent.  What’s not recycled ends up in our landfills. Part sustainable water company, part art project, part philanthropic project, the Boxed Water company offers a solution. Water in paper cartons just like milk.  About 76% of the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today’s Gear Deal brings us savings on two of Microsoft’s biggest sellers… MS Office and MS Windows 7. Microsoft Office 2010 Home & Student 3-User Microsoft Office 2010 Home & Student 3-User Edition for Windows has a retail price of $149.99 price. With this deal the price is cut to $124.99. Add in our Gear Sponsor’s $10 coupon code and the software is just $114.99 and will ship for FREE. (This package includes 2010 versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote.) Microsoft Office 2010 Home & Student 3-User via LogicBUY. Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of Lan Gear Back since I bought my first caddy load cd drive I have been building my own computers for personal use and gaming. Since IT is now my career, the past few years I don’t do as much gaming but still like to keep my home system up to date with at least a current video card and cpu. This year I already had a pretty nice base system but decided to replace the Case and Video Card. My fascination with Micro Atx components always presents challenges when building a decent gaming system due to lack of space while using full size components. I was using a Lian Li V351 and absolutely… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of the freemium blog I have had such great feedback from my ‘quickie’ music reviews that I thought – wouldn’t it make sense on occasion to apply the same logic to video games? I mean, I will give a full review to Civilization V, but not everything needs such an extensive treatment, and sometimes games can easily be grouped together in a theme. With that thought I turned my attention to the so-called ‘freemium’ business model. I think the image at the top sums up Freemium pretty well – your product combines a Free segment with Premium content. As quoted here, the obvious goal is to convert free users to paying… 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. The last two weeks, I reviewed apps that were kind of off beat and different from the usual Blue Plate Special choices.  As I searched and scraped apps this week, I ended up returning to a familiar genre.  I have the biggest game of our season to date so things are a little stressed.  Getting a minute to escape is important to keep my insanity, so I was continually drawn to finding… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Regardless of where you stand on anything related to gender issues, I don’t think anyone can help but be appalled by the news coming out of Texas last week – that a 13 year old 8th grader killed himself after YEARS of bullying including accusations of being gay and being pushed down the stairs in the days before he took his own life. It is stories like that, and also the recent suicide in Indiana by Billy Lucas, a 15 year old who was bullied and tormented about perceived sexuality and even told to kill himself by others, that led Seattle advice columnist Dan Savage to create the ‘It Gets Better’ Continue reading on Gear Diary …