One of the things I’ve really been loving in recent years is seeing more manufacturers of things like cases and speakers trying out wood as their material.  No, it’s not as durable as plastic or metal, but to my eye it has a wonderful quality that you just can’t get with more robust materials.  And I think wooden speakers sound better, although of course I bet you could find 10,000 audiophiles who could pull out reams of material telling me just why I’m so wrong about thinking that.  But hey, when it comes to music, our subjective experience is just as important as the objective reality, right? Okay, maybe not.  But it works for me!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of my all-time favorite movies is… Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Even though it looks dated now (since it is) I still laugh when I watch it. And I’m not alone. A few years ago Elana and I went to see the Broadway version of it- Spamalot. (More accurately, I dragged her to see it with me.) She near died of embarrassment as I kept saying lines as they were being uttered. I believe she would have moved her seat were it not for one small fact… Half of the theater was doing it too. In short— I really like British humor. It is, for the most part, smart, creative and just… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Trying to figure out how many Kindles Amazon has sold is like reading tea leaves. No one’s quite sure, though Amazon likes to give vague hints during their earnings calls and make boastful announcements without any actual numbers beyond “double last year!” But several financial analysts have debated and studied, and it seems like a few rumors are pointing to upwards of 8 MILLION KINDLES sold in 2010 alone! It’s not a shocker that the Kindle has had a great year. Between iOS, Android and Blackberry apps, plus the popularity of the Kindle 3 wifi and 3G, it’s been a banner year for Amazon. Not to mention the Kindle broke free of it’s online-only roots and started… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Shape Services, the maker of such apps (for numerous platforms) as GPSed, RDM+ Remote Desktop, and Mobiola Player), has updated two of their most popular apps, IM+ (and IM+ Pro), and iDisplay for both the iPhone and iPad.  The descriptions of the apps are below, but I just wanted to mention that I personally use IM+ pretty much all the time, and think it’s a durn solid app.  If you’re looking for a good IM consolidation app for your iPhone or iPad, I can recommend it with a clear conscience.  If you’re in the market, you should check them out on iTunes.  And now is a good time, as they are both being offered at… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Yup, it’s that time again; the time when USBFever gives us their latest bolus of new products!  This week’s set of new products includes the Ultra Slim Handheld Endoscope with 40X Magnification.  I don’t think having a low-priced (MSRP $69.99), 40x endoscope is that amazing these days.   I mean, yeah, 40 years ago these things probably cost 10 grand, or something, but still, I’m used to that.  (Military Top Secret gadgets from the Vietnam war that cost the Pentagon God-knows how much scratch can be had from Sharper Image for $100 today–it’s the times we live in.)  But it still does amaze me that this thing is attached to a flippin’ USB connector!  I love… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I love shooting and editing video with my iPhone 4 but Flip’s line of pocketable video cameras will always have a warm place in my heart. I have owned a number of them and even reviewed the Flip UltraHD here on Gear Diary back in May of 2009. It is today’s Gear Deal! The video camera is small, light, pocketable and shoot nice video. Sure many of us can now shoot high quality video with out smartphone but the UltraHD lets you shoot the video you need while not draining the valuable battery-life of your communication device. Here is Flip’s description of the video camera… The Flip UltraHD™ video camera combines Flip Video’s™ signature Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy pajiba.com) Admit it-if you’re even the slightest bit geeky, you’ve debated the real-world issues of superheroes. How does Spider-Man justify all the time he takes off work? Does Bruce Wayne write the Batcave off as a business expense? Not to mention, where does Superman keep his cape under his Clark Kent suit? As it turns out, some truly smart geeks have taken this to the next level. “Law and the Multiverse” takes on the complex legal issues superheroes face every day (if they were real). What kind of issues? How about insurance costs? Or the thorny issue of shapeshifters and dual identities? These guys have put some… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

To my mind there are four qualities I care about in a jacket: appearance, build quality, useful temperature range and functionality. When you talk about a SCOTTeVEST jacket ‘functionality’ suddenly transforms into ‘massive amounts of usable space’. The Hype: Imagine that you were about to embark on a long journey to a far-off land, and you could carry nothing but what you could fit in your pockets. For this grand expedition, you would need the appropriately named SeV Expedition. 37 pockets – yes, blink a few times and re-read that – 37 pockets in one jacket, the most ever on a single SeV. (Maybe the Guinness Records folks should look into it….)… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last night Kevin and I watched the lunar eclipse. It was cold but clear outside as we watched the earth’s shadow pass over the moon, and I was able to snap a few photos with my Canon G11. I didn’t have a special lens attachment, I wasn’t using a tripod, these aren’t going to win any awards, and I sure wish that I had planned ahead and got a camera mount for our telescope … but even so, we had a lot of fun watching our fully moonlit yard go dramatically black. How about you? Did you catch the eclipse? Were you able to take any pictures? Continue reading on Gear Diary …

At some point or other, most folks work for someone that makes them think ‘how did THEY ever get put in charge of other people’? Or we think ‘I’m glad that person isn’t MY boss’, or otherwise notice someone who should never have been put into a position of authority. But compared to the folks on the Worst Bosses of 2010 most of those folks would seem a great alternative! eBossWatch is a site that: eBossWatch was launched in June 2007 to help people avoid hostile work environments and workplace bullying. Because it is extremely difficult Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I just spent the day in NYC with my family doing the typical holiday season touristy stuff — the tree at Rock. Center, FAO, American Girl Place and a whole lot more. I’m on the train ride home and wanted to send this message to Dan. You see I picked up a Samsung Galaxy Tab yesterday and there’s one thing it can do that the iPad can not. POST!!!!! Yes, I took the picture above with the Tab’s front camera and then used the Word Press app. to write this post.  Then I used AT&T’s 3G service to upload the draft. Is the whole process ideal?  Nope. But nothing is.  I do think the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Let’s face it, today’s devices are expensive and beautiful.  Unfortunately their function and uses makes it difficult to keep them looking as shiny as they were right out of the box.  It is always so disheartening when the dreaded scratch shows up on the beautiful screen of a device.  There are many ways to protect these works of beauty and a leading product is the clear protector.  They provide scratch protection while not adding bulk or changing the appearance.  There are many brands and kinds of clear protectors, but BodyGuardz has proven to be one of the leaders in the category.  Their scratch-proof transparent film coating provides maximum protection from keys and other scary… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Appigo makes some of the best iPhone and iPad apps out there. Todo and Todo for iPad are fantastic apps for managing your tasks, Corkulous is an interesting, and useful iPad “corkboard app” that is super for brainstorming and collecting bits of information and Notebook is a great notes app that works well with todo and syncs with Toodledo. Appigo was one of the first to release a task app for the iPhone and they have been regularly updating all their apps since then. The result is a collection of apps that are useful, refined, look good AND are a pleasure to use. Best of all… As a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Are you one of those people who orders adult movies when you stay in hotel rooms? Oh, don’t worry … I’m not here to judge you! But if adult entertainment is your thing, and you hate getting raised eyebrows from nosy hotel staff, then you might want to take a look at Fyre TV’s new FyreBoXXX. When you hook the FyreBoXXX to your broadband connection and your television, you get access to over 20,000 adult movies from the “most popular adult studios in the industry”. Their search engine allows you to find “virtually any category, title, star, series or studio”, and “maximum customization options, libraries, and playlists provide ultimate… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A few weeks back I ordered two things from different online vendors, one for my brother and the other for my parents. I used an email address I rarely use, an account on which I only get a few spam messages a week. Naturally within hours I had received a months’ worth of junk email! One vendor was sending me messages directly advertising their own stuff … but aside from them I was getting tons of other sales messages. Some of those messages were related to the purchase I made from the other vendor and others were classic ‘wide-casting’ spam sales junk. It was pretty clear to me -… Continue reading on Gear Diary …