There was a time when I was a HUGE fan of silicon skins for my devices. The excellent protection, wide array of color options and variety of designs were just some of the reasons I would, at times, choose a silicon case over a leather one. More recently however I have found myself choosing leather when I decide on which case to use. All this noted, iSkin’s new silicon iPad case offerings have me rather tempted with regard to opting for the brightly colored silicone. One of the designs they are now offering is the iSkin Duo for iPad Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When we bought my wife a nook, and then her sister and niece got nooks of their own, a great thought was ‘hey, this LendMe feature will be GREAT’. Sadly, the three have them have yet to exchange a SINGLE BOOK, despite all being voracious readers! Here is the promise from Barnes & Noble: Share favorite eBooks with your friends or family. Most eBooks can be lent for up to 14 days at a time. Just choose the eBook you want to share and send it to your friend’s NOOK, computer, or handheld device enabled with our NOOK software. In reality, if you browse the LendMe section you will find 135 books. Sounds pretty… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I don’t know about anyone else, but one staple of my childhood cartoon viewing was the Rocky & Bullwinkle show. The high-pitched squirrel and block-headed moose, along with the not-so-well-disguised Russian spies Boris & Natasha, My. Peabody & Sherman, Dudley Do-Right, and so on wove a wonderful set of memories that have lasted through the decades. Today we learn that the creator of those shows, Alex Anderson, has died at the age of 90 after suffering for years with Alzheimer’s disease. For many years it was assumed that Jay Ward, the producer of the shows, was sole creator. That is because he copyrighted them after Anderson chose not to move to Los Angeles… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Remember years ago when Nextel’s Direct Connect phones were all the rage?  They aren’t used widely today, but back then the familiar beep of the walky-talky feature was something heard often.  Thanks to a tip from a YouTube friend I’ve been using a new iOS application called “HeyTell” which mirrors the Nextel Direct Connect function. HeyTell turns your iOS device into a walky-talky.  You record short (limited to 30-seconds) voice notes and they are transmitted to another user and played on his/her iOS device.  The application utilizes push notifications to alert users when new messages have arrived so once you send the message your contact gets alerted about it right away. It’s very simple to use too.  Once… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Ah… Android. The allure of a completely open system. You’re in control, unlike on iOS devices. Right? Right? Sometimes, not so much. Turns out, AT&T Android-touting users, for example, can only install applications in the Android Market. Recently, Travis asked about installing non-Market applications on an AT&T Android smartphone, and Francis told him a few possible ways to do this. It’s definitely a source of frustration for users on carriers with such restrictions. Removing a standard feature of Android is simply an annoyance to users, and can be circumvented, as the Tested.com article How To Install Apps that are Filtered Out of Your Android Market App points out. Some Android users are… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We all know that being a so-called ‘netizen’ requires sacrificing a bit of privacy. The problem is knowing exactly where that line is between what you need to expose to get business done and what you should keep private even at the expense of being able to do something you want. Well … as the funny Venn diagram above shows, it isn’t easy to find that line, and often not even in our control! Because as a recent WSJ.com article shows, our ability to find the balance between online activity and personal privacy is being greatly outpaced by the race to collect, track and monetize any and all information about who we are… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I have spent plenty of words both supporting and criticizing the PSP for all sorts of reasons, but one thing I have been very clear about is that while the PSP Go is my favorite portable gaming device, the value proposition is lousy: games are too pricey, and the system is a terrible value. Sony hopes to fix that in time for the holidays. About a month after Nintendo dropped the price of the DSi to $149 and DSi XL to $169, Sony has announced that they are dropping the price on the PSP Go from $249 to $199. That is confirmed looking at Amazon or GameStop. Is it enough?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We start the week with a Gear Deal from Lenovo on their 14″ Lenovo ThinkPad EDGE 14. Starting at 4.9 lbs., the ThinkPad EDGE 14 offers up to 4.5 hrs battery life, a spill-resistant keyboard, an integrated fingerprint reader, a Webcam, a built-in DVD+/-RW optical drive, a 7-in-1 Card Reader, 4 USB ports which includes 1 powered and 1 USB/eSATA combo and much more. The Core i3 model runs at 2.4 GHz and has a starting MSRP of $994. The deal our Gear Sponsor has found will get you $365 off plus a 14% stackable coupon plus a free 500GB hard drive upgrade for a final price of just $540.94. It will even ship for… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Update: The Izozzi giveaway is now closed, and the winners are Jewelzz (iPhone 4), evic (iPhone 4), lloydrv (iPhone 4), and Rita El Khoury (iPod touch 4G). We appreciate all who participated, and we congratulate our winners. I was absolutely captivated by the Izozzi iPhone cases Larry reviewed last month; the freaky surreal art of Bill Carmen, especially his “Saint of Early Vices” iPhone 4 case, was an immediate “want”. After his review, Larry sent me that case and it has been a favorite ever since — rotating in and out with… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When Apple announced the new MacBook air this past Wednesday I knew immediately that I would be ordering one. The question was – which one? Dan- Let me go back a few years. I have always wanted a thin and light computer that allowed me to do everything but was simple to lug around. When my arthritic wrists became increasingly painful the need for a light notebook grew significantly. As a result I ordered the first MacBook Air as soon as it was available. In fact, mine came in the very first day the computers were hitting the United States… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Regular readers of Gear Diary may remember I got married earlier this month. We just returned from our honeymoon, a fabulous week on beautiful San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. It’s absolutely gorgeous; white sandy beaches, sun, drinks, food…what more do you need? Well, in my case, the one thing missing from the island (and the one thing that had Sarah practically doing cartwheels of joy) was the distinct lack of internet service. Yes, I had to go an entire week without a smartphone. Just like the five stages of grief, I went through five stages of connectivity withdrawal. It’s not pretty, but read on for the gory details of my symptoms during… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When the new ADT PULSE system became available in my area I immediate jumped at the chance to have it installed in my home.  PULSE not only allows for the ability to arm and disarm one’s home security system from anywhere in the world, it does much more.  The new ADT PULSE system is all about home automation.  It includes lighting, temperature control, video, and more. As a kid this sort of thing seemed like something that would exist in the far, far future, maybe not even in my lifetime.  But it turns out that future isn’t far off at all;, it’s actually here now… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! This is perhaps the biggest blockbuster week of 2010, and if that sounds overly dramatic, look at this: Fable III, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, Rock Band 3, Shaun White Skateboarding, and Lego Universe. But wait … there is still more! The PC gets the excellent games DeathSpank and Shank, as well as a new add-on for The Sims 3: Late Night Expansion Pack. Speaking of that game, arrives this week on DS, PS3 and XBOX360. And there are quite a few other releases this week – read on to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When Apple announced the new MacBook Air, I knew that I would be buying one. It looked to fix the issues that I had with the first one and fitted into my current situation better than my 13” MacBook Pro. I purchased the 13” MacBook Pro as soon as it came out. At the time it combined the right size, performance and battery life that I needed whilst at uni, catching the train every day, and needing to do a bit of video editing at home and on the move. That has changed however, since I no longer use my laptop for video editing, and in a lot of cases I want to be… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Some quick news items for the end of the week. Sony sees success with the Playstation Move, Microsoft tries again to sell you games, amazing Valve user-created content success, and a few more! Sony Gets a Move On! While the NPD just told us that video game sales are still slumping, Sony has some reason to rejoice – the market has broadly supported and accepted their Wii-alike ‘Move’ controller, to the tune of 2.5 million units already shipped! While reviews of the games using the technology have been largely … um, unflattering, it shows promise and should yield some good stuff in 2011. From the LA Times article: The company said Thursday Continue reading on Gear Diary …