Sunday would have been the 87th birthday of legendary singer Sarah Vaughan, who died in 1990. She is generally considered one of the great vocalists of the 20th century, and you can see that in the two videos I selected. I was fortunate to see Sarah Vaughan at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1984, where she put on an amazing set that showcased not just her great voice but also her love of performing for and interacting with an audience. One of my favorite songs of hers was a great interpretation of Errol Garner’s Misty. You can hear her doing the male part of Misty in the second video (not present in… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When I post my weekly PC game deals roundup I invariably buy stuff myself, and hear from others good and bad about the various sites and deals. The huge Strategy First deal, for example, sparked an email and forum exchange about the service. But mostly things go very well. This week I was really looking forward to Precursors on BeamDog, from Russian developer Deep Shadows. I grabbed it straight away, but quickly hear of issues with the game being sold out. One thing folks never understand about digital sales is the concept of a ‘sell out’. I mean, it is digital so how can it ‘sell out’?!? Well, it is all about… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Start the week with a Gear Deal that will MAKE YOU $50. Yes, today’s Gear Deal brings us the Motorola MB502 Charm with MOTOBLUR and a deal that doesn’t just SAVE you money, no it MAKES you money. The Motorola MB502 Charm with MOTOBLUR features a “unique squarish design”, a 2.8′ touchscreen, a full QWERTY keyboard, an FM radio, a 3MP camera, 512MB RAM, 2GB built-in memory (expandable up to 32GB microSD), 3G access, Android 2.1OS, and more. It has an MSRP of $324.99 but, thanks to our Gear Sponsor, you can get it for free AND get free shipping AND a free Bluetooth headset AND you will get a $50 auto-rebate that… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! Hopefully you have been enjoying the game releases so far – this week has mostly Nintendo 3DS games. Today is Nintendo 3DS release day, with midnight launches and a bunch of mediocre games jumping quickly on the 3D bandwagon. And we also get more releases such as Dynasty Warriors 7, Shift 2 Unleashed: Need for Speed and the final DLC Mass Effect 2: Arrival. And we are starting to see Nintendo 3DS games as well as standard DS games, so for now I will leave them combined until we see how the balance of releases plays out. And there are… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The other day we brought word that Waterfield had just released their latest iPad accessory, the Travel Express. The Travel Express is larger than the company’s iPad sleeves (reviewed here) but smaller than their iPad Wallet (reviewed here). It looked great and the company was kind enough to send one over so we might take a closer look. Once again they have designed a case that looks great and is super function. Here’s a closer look. From Waterfield: Ticket to Ride. The Travel Express is your all-in-one mobile office solution. Store and protect Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The blogosphere was buzzing yesterday when word came that Apple might hold off on releasing iOS 5.0 until the fall. What does this mean? Why would Apple break such a long tradition that goes all the way to… January 9, 2007. Okay so maybe it is not such a long-standing tradition, but you know what they say: “Do it once it is innovative; Do it twice and it is redundant; Do it a third time and it is a tradition.” By now an annual hardware and OS update is a TRADITION. Why would Apple mess with tradition? But it is not just tradition that is putting pressure on keeping the annual cycle. No, there… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When Amazon bought Audible.com in 2008, I wasn’t sure what the impact would be for Audible as a company, and for me as a loyal customer since 2001. I hoped that Amazon would just bring more scale to Audible’s existing service, and help them to increase the number of audiobooks available on Audible.com. Luckily, this is exactly what Amazon did, and Audible now has over 85,000 titles available. Audible still is fairly autonomous. It isn’t really integrated into the Amazon’s online store; you still log in directly to Audible.com to access you audiobook content. Late last year, the ability to merge your Audible account with your Amazon login was released. This isn’t a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Now just because everyone is all hot and bothered about tablet reading apps–iBooks, nook, Kindle, the NY Times app, The Daily, and all the rest–doesn’t mean that folks have given up on the web. Quite the contrary, in fact, and I find it excellent that that’s so. The more options for the consumer the better, as far as I’m concerned. Into the online magazine fray comes iDrum which, despite it’s i-name, is not an iOS app, but rather a web magazine. iDrum purports to be “the world’s first truly interactive magazine for drummers”, and I don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t seem unlikely. In any event, if you  are a drummer, or if you… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Now, speaking personally, I like the iPhone’s built-in calendar app just fine. My calendaring needs are fairly simple, and I’ve never had a big need to look around for anything else. But I recognize that there are plenty of other folks out there for whom the iPhone calendar is not adequate. Those folks need options. Options, I say! Options are good! One such option is the Easy Calendar app. The main difference between Easy Calendar and a lot of the other calendar apps available is that it strives to be a “single window” option, doing its best to not force you to march through multiple windows to get to what you need. Easy Calendar… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This one just came in today, but it is a great sale and an opportunity to pick up some great games for a great price. Here are the details as shown above: at checkout use code ‘TOPSECRET’ and get any normal (non-collector’s edition) game for 50% off. All standard games are 50% off – so instead of $9.99 for a game, all games are available at $4.99! This sale ends Sunday March 27th… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the big news items recently was the opening of Amazon’s Android app store. I think it’s a big deal (even though some of the Gear Diary brethren/sistren correctly point out that this fragments the Android market somewhat), because if there’s one company that has even more market penetration in the online world than Apple, it’s Amazon. In celebration of this launch, the Swiftkey Keyboard folks are offering their Android typing-and-word-prediction software for Doug’s Favorite Price of FREE. So surf over to the Android Market and download it. Because jeez, for FREE, you can afford to try it out and simply ditch it if it doesn’t fit your needs, right? Surf and save, saith… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Speck has been doing some interesting things lately with regard to adding an extra layer of style to their proven case designs. That is especially the case with the Speck Fitted cases! They feature Original fabric-wrapped patterns give your iPad protection with a fabulous tailored look Form-fit two-piece hard shell case design protects from scratches and scuffs Access to all buttons, controls, and 30-pin connector while in the case Add in the ability for Speck to put original artwork on the fabric portion of the cases and you have unique works of art that also protect… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Competition is always a good thing, right? I mean, the iPhone was the first true innovation in the smartphone market for years. And along came Android, which accelerated healthy competition and made all smartphones better, and therefore better for users. So why am I not very happy with the Amazon Appstore, at least at the moment? The promise of the Amazon Appstore sounds great, at least on paper. Adding another option for a store for consumers to buy Android apps sounds like a win-win situation, but in practice, I don’t think that it is all that it is thought to be, at least not yet. Some changes need to come to the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Good news if you’ve been hanging on to a stock (unrooted) NOOKcolor; B&N has confirmed the long-promised software update is finally coming! It’s not clear yet what apps will be coming, but email is specifically mentioned. Add in a decent selection of productivity apps and some games, and the NOOKcolor will become a very good tablet out of the box. Of course, the big question is how open this update will be and what it will bring. There’s been speculation that this update will bring FroYo and flash, which would be fantastic, but this will still involve heavily curated access. Unlike Amazon’s appstore, it’s unlikely we’ll see B&N approving Kobo’s app anytime soon! As if the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I grew up in Northern Virginia right in the middle of the Nixon/Watergate madness.  Both my parents were big readers, and growing up then, and there, turned me into a big newspaper reader.  A big newspaper reader.  When I went to college, I made sure my dorm subscribed to a paper; when I moved into my own place, one of the first things I always did after getting the power and phone and such turned on was to order the paper; when we moved from Santa Cruz to San Jose, and then to Austin, I always made sure I had a paper. As time went on, it bummed me out that the papers were shrinking… Continue reading on Gear Diary …