Do you check Amazon more or less daily for their great Gold Box or Lightning deals? Me too! But way too may times I have been away from my laptop when I knew a deal was going on and missed out. So I was thrilled when I saw today that Amazon had created a small app to help track their daily deals! Here is their description: Stay up-to-date with Amazon Gold Box Deals wherever you go and never miss another deal. Amazon Deals for iPhone lets you check availability of current offers, schedule reminders, and purchase Lightning Deals and Gold Box Deals of the Day. Lightning Deals represent significant discounts beyond Amazon.com’s everyday Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A while we were at CES last week I had a chance to meet with a number of the people who I email and speak with regularly from Nuance. Nuance is the leading company developing voice to text technology; they’re the company that has given us of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, Dragon Dictation for iOS devices and Dragon for Mac (the application I’m using to write this post). There were a few bits of important news that came out from Nuance over the course of the week. Nuance T9 Trace + Android = Happy Samsung Galaxy Tab User Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image via Tech Crunch Judie and I have been discussing the Verizon iPhone 4 announcement all afternoon.  The pros, cons, new features (there aren’t many), etc.  One of the main, if not the only difference, between the Verizon iPhone and the AT&T version is the mobile hot spot feature found on the Verizon version.  The Hot Spot feature allows up to 5 users to connect to the iPhone’s internet connection and share it to get online. After seeing the Verizon iPhone 4 demoed following the announcement we learned that the Hot Spot features appears to be part of iOS and the Verizon phone is running a new version of the iPhone operation… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

You make high-end, expensive audio components for household use and the world falls apart financially–what do you do? If you are a company like Sonos the answer is clear–you stay true to your mission and continue to make the best possible devices for in home music streaming. Clearly this approach worked. In the last year the company’s business doubled. Yes, the world is still in financial turmoil the company with relatively high-priced audio components was able to double their business. Clearly people like what they’re offering. I have long been an admirer of Sonos audio components. The high-end audio company has, for the past six years, built a loyal following… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We were lucky enough to have a private sit down with two Motorola executives on the last day we were together at CES. With Motorola grabbing so much of the excitement and attention this year time was at a premium for them yet they were kind enough to get us in at the last-minute and spend over an hour showing off the two biggest announcements they had this year. We had not planned on a private sit down with Moto but we were glad it happened. During our meeting we got the full low down on the Best of Show CES 2011 Xoom tablet, as well… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I am not a wine connoisseur at all.  However, back in the day I was into drinking good beers.  I remember one trip where I visited a Rock Bottom Brewery restaurant where I had some of the best beer I have ever tasted.  They had beer that I could have taken home in bottles, but because I flew into Denver and was flying out the next day, I could not take any home with me.  If I had the VinniBag it would have been a piece of cake! VinniBag is a wine bottle shaped bag that has a few interesting features.  First, it has a air valve on the opposite… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

CES 2011 has wrapped up for all of us, not that we won’t still be writing articles on things we saw for some time, but the show itself is over. January 3rd through 9th was a great week spent with friends — some old and some new — tons of gadgets, massive crowds, and — yet again — lousy AT&T cell reception. The week our ability to “work” CES was greatly helped by a number of companies, and we would like to take a moment to extend our thanks to them … The other day we mentioned the good folks at… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I am just going to warn you in advance … some of the text of this review will make you wonder if I messed up at the end with my positive recommendation. No – the rating is correct: CLADUN: This is an RPG is a game with plenty of flaws … but one that offers a great overall experience in spite of those flaws, and is very much worth buying. The Hype: Cladun is a retro style dungeon crawler game. Players can create their own main character from scratch using a graphics editor and the dungeons that you will be adventuring in are randomly created for infinite replay value. You can even explore… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of Engadget By know you already know Verizon just announced the availability of the iPhone 4 for their CDMA network. Perhaps the biggest WTF moment though came after the hardware of the device was being closely examined.  Now it might just be the angle of the picture above but if you look closely you’ll notice that the volume buttons and vibrate switch on the Verizon iPhone 4 don’t line up with those of the AT&T version (in the photo above the AT&T iPhone 4 is on the bottom and the Verizon on top.) If this is indeed true that means many cases made for the AT&T iPhone 4 simply won’t… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy This is Beirut) Teleread shared some very interesting tidbits the other day about independent authors and their sales numbers. J. A. Konrath is often the voice of independent authors, as he famously broke free from his publisher and is now thriving through self-publishing and seeing his ebook sales fly through the roof. But he’s not alone. In fact, there are 25 authors listed who sold 2500+ ebooks in the month of December! Granted, these numbers are including the lucrative and extremely skewed Christmas season, but still-some of those authors sold 30k or even 100k in one month! Those are impressive sales numbers for any author, especially for ones that… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Freshly arrived back from CES, I found waiting for me an IoSafe 1TB fireproof, waterproof, and — as has been demonstrated multiple times by this site (and many others) — a virtually indestructible SoloPRO Desktop External Hard Drive. I’m looking forward to setting up this beast and putting it to work protecting my data. Knowing that any files, pictures, movies and music stored on it will be kept safe — even if something unimaginable and catastrophic should happen to Kev’s and my home — gives me a peace of mind that is hard to describe. Check out the IoSafe site, and read about their specifications and guarantees. I can think of no other company… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image Courtesy of Engadget At a press conference held today Verizon announced the iPhone 4 will be made available for their CDMA network in early February.  It didn’t really come as a big surprise since the Wall Street Journal all but confirmed the announcement would be made last week during CES. The device will be available starting 2/10/11 for $199.99 (16 GB)  and $299.99 (32 GB) with a new 2 yr. agreement.  It will be available to both new and existing customers. The device itself will be no different than the iPhone 4 currently available on AT&T (same camera, same retina display, same Facetime etc.) However, the Verizon iPhone 4 will include a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Like any good admitted fanboy, I often find myself looking for Apple products on TV. Lately I’ve been spotting more and more iDevices popping up on many of the shows I watch. So I’ve decided to start a new weekly segment entitled “Apple On TV.” The premise is simple. Whenever I spot an Apple product in one of the shows I watch (and I watch a lot of TV), I’ll take a screen shot of it and post it here, in a weekly recap, with a short description. But I need your help too! Although I watch a lot of TV I don’t watch everything. So if you come across an Apple product in one of the shows… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the things that bummed me out last summer, when I moved from my iPhone 3Gs to my iPhone 4 was leaving behind my Mophie Juice Pack Air, which I loved.  It gave me a ton of extra power when I needed it, and it was light and thin enough to not be a big pain in the tuckus when I was carting it about. Fortunately, plenty of options are coming out these days for the iPhone 4 (heck, I think Mophie even has one).  Like this here one by DigiPower–the Boost Max battery case.  DigiPower tells us that it doubles your battery time which, while I haven’t tested it myself, doesn’t seem that… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It’s a new week in a new year, and what would a week be without a bevy of USBFever products to tell you all about?  Now, I know that they all don’t appeal to all of you, but some of them are bound to catch your eye, and it’s often pretty fun just looking at some of the gadgets those clever blokes come up with.  Like the 12X Telescope (with hard case) for the iPhone.  Heh.  I wanted to be an astronomer when I was a kid (also:  a chemist, an inventor, and the next teenage helper of Dr. Bullfinch, when Danny Dunn finally blew himself up tampering with something he should have left well enough… Continue reading on Gear Diary …