New Gear Daily Deal- Vostro 230 Mini Tower with 21.5 monitor Okay, we’re even impressed with this New Gear Daily Deal. Sure you can fully customize this Dell Vostro 230 Mini Tower plus 21.5″ monitor but even the base system is impressive. And the price? We’ll get to that in a minute. The base system comes with an dual-core Intel processor, Windows 7 Home Premium, a Dell 22″ widescreen flat panel display, 3 GB DDR3 RAM and a 250GB hard drive. As we said, even the base system is impressive. So get this, the price for the system with this configuration is normally $675.00 but with this New Gear Daily Deal… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Recently I was involved in a short discussion about the iPad, and one of the debators (debaters?  debatees?  debatniks?) pointed out that you can’t avoid using iTunes through your PC or Mac, so it’s more like a peripheral.  I said, Well gee, you can store your stuff in the cloud.  And the other guy said Oh yeah?  And who has such a capability, Mr. Smart Guy?  Huh?  And I said, well, this company called Mi Media does, actually, and I’m going to be posting about it in a few days. Okay, not in those exact words, but you get the gist. In fact, let me just let MiMedia tell you about it: Despite other Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Good news for Kobo! Despite Borders and REDGroup both out of the picture due to bankruptcy, Kobo is still going strong. It’s easy to forget that Kobo hasn’t been around that long, but they’ve really only been in existence for 14 months! So while at first glance having 2.7 million users isn’t too exciting compared to Apple, Amazon, and B&N, it’s a much bigger number when you consider the context and speed of their growth. eBooks are a young business, and there’s a tremendous amount of space for companies to expand and make their mark. While Kobo may not be a household name, the fact that they’re growing at an exponentially faster rate in the face… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

For many, the images of the World Trade Center bring back the all-too-real horrors of the events of nearly a decade ago. I have personal connections to those lost in the attacks, as do many people I know in the New York / New England region. By now I had assumed everything was released, but apparently NIST had some video it was studying that was recently released under a Freedom of Information Act request. I read about this first on the Guardian this morning, who had a few reports including this clip and summary text: New York – New video has surfaced from the Sept. 11 attacks Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Two word- Two Terabytes! Yup, today’s New Gear Daily Deal is for an external hard drive that offers a full 2 TB of storage. I mean… Remember when computers with an 80GB hard drive were considered to have a huge amount of storage? It wasn’t all that long ago yet now you can get a full 2 TB for just $149.99. Oh wait, $149.99 is the MSRP WITHOUT the New Gear Daily Deal savings of $60. With the discount you can get this Seagate external drive for just $89.99. Seagate external Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Just after CES we reviewed the Mogo Talk XD for iPhone 4. The Mogo Talk HD is an iPhone case plus Bluetooth headset in one. When I had first seen the product released I thought it was a bit silly, but after trying one for myself I was sold. The case is decent enough and the convenience of always having a good, comfortable BlueTooth headset around is fantastic. Well ID8Mobile, the company behind the product, has now released the Mogo Talk HD2 for iPhone 4 and we’ve got a quick look at one. . What’s in the Box: MoGo Talk Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Every time I write about pickup (trucks) I mention Texas being the No. 1 market in the world. And every time I write about Ford pickups I mention their market domination (Ford has led in pickup sales for 34 years straight now). And every year about this time, this top market is inundated with television and print advertising announcing some sort of “truck month” promotional campaign. And this year is no different. What is different is that fuel prices are skyrocketing at a record pace and may potentially threaten truck sales even while pickup manufacturers have been working to produce more environmentally-friendly models for the consumers (mostly at Big Brother’s behest). Despite all… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

D3 Publisher is a Japanese game publisher that has been around for nearly twenty years, but for me they hit my radar back when they published the original Puzzle Quest on DS & PSP. Since then I have seen their name on loads of anime-inspired games such as the Naruto and WTF for the PSP, and they show no sign of stopping! Now they are preparing for the launch of several big games in the spring – Gods Eater Burst for PSP, Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury for Xbox Live Arcade, Dream Trigger 3D for Nintendo 3DS and Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon for PS3 and Xbox 360. To celebrate these releases they are featuring… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Nuance puts out the best voice to text transcription software around. Period. End of discussion. What is fantastic is that they now have a solution for Windows, a solution for Mac OS X, and mobile applications for both Android and iOS. A number of us make extensive use of their technology in both our desktop computing and in our mobile lives and would be largely lost without it. The software isn’t inexpensive, at least not for the desktop versions, but they are well worth the cost, since they work so incredibly well… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

You’re a data hog!  Oh no! Okay, maybe not; but you could be, right?  I know my kids certainly are, to the point where I had to disable their 3G data connectivity so that they would be forced to only download at home via wifi.  But if you’re an Android user, SPB Software has a better way to monitor your data usage then getting a snarky email warning or having a huge bill drop into your lap one ugly month: their new SPB Wireless Monitor app for Android.  SPB sez: SPB Wireless Monitor prevents unwanted mobile service charges and gives subscribers control over their mobile data spending. SPB Wireless Monitor measures data traffic, calculates network Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the first pieces of software I got when I made the move to Mac OS X a few years ago was Roxio’s Toast software. Back then Toast was an amazing all-in-one media software bundle at the time and it has only improved in the years since. Well, Roxio has just announced the latest version of the software, Roxio Toast 11 Titanium and Roxio Toast 11 Pro, and they are impressive. As the company explains, A major update to Rovi’s marketing-leading digital media software, Roxio Toast 11 helps greatly enhance and extend Mac OS and iLife® applications with new capabilities Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Okay, I’ll admit it:  for a long time I thought Twitter was a crock, a fad, a waste of time.  I didn’t think it would last.  I figured people would get tired of it, like they did with MySpace (with a big help from Facebook, of course). Now, I still think it’s a waste of time, but the thing is even I’m wasting time on it these days.  And people keep developing Twitter apps to allow and enable you to do more and more and more–shorten URLs, access web sites, and launch nuclear missiles for all I know.  And now Felwig has stepped into the mix with Twoodles, a drawing/doodling program that allows you to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Apparently Andy Rooney is not a fan of Kindles and NOOKs. His 60 Minutes rant this past week was all about ebooks. I really hate to say this about Andy Rooney, but he really missed the mark big time. He expressed surprise that paperbacks are being outsold by ebooks, and seemed wholly perplexed by the concept that an eBook reader holds 3,000+ titles. At one point he touches upon one of his books being free, though he doesn’t explain if he’s mad about piracy, or if it was some sort of “freebie” deal organized by his publisher. Sadly, the germ of that one good thought gets lost in the rest of his rant, which boils down to “it’s… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

WildTangent Games ‘FATE’ from 2005 was prescient of the coming merging of casual and hardcore genres we have seen in more recent games such as Puzzle Quest and Plants vs. Zombies. Last year they had a fan drive to give away the original Fate, where all you had to do was Like the page and you got the game. Now they have upped the challenge: Great News! If we get 15,000 people to “Like” this page by March 14th, we’ll post the PC unlock code for a FREE copy of FATE: The Traitor Soul. Spread the word, the clock starts NOW! Head on over to Facebook and ‘Like’ them, and if they reach 15,000… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Upon seeing one of the latest USBFever offerings — that waterproof Bluetooth keyboard right up the top of your screen there — one of your friendly Gear Diary writers proclaimed that he would love to try it, especially if it’s coffee as well as water-proof.  Because that’s the kind of shakedown we give the gear we test here for you at Gear Diary! And as usual, USBFever is not limiting themselves to just one BT coffee-proof keyboard for the week.  Of course not!  Because it’s not a real week unless they crank out at least half a dozen new pieces of gear, from microUSB adapters to cases for your iPad to, well, coffee-proof keyboards.  That’s… Continue reading on Gear Diary …