I have a new favorite case for my iPad 2 and, to be honest, it comes as a surprise to me. The case isn’t from a brand name. It doesn’t have a striking style. Isn’t one of the many luxury cases we have the good fortune of reviewing here on the site. No, this iPad 2 case is a relatively inexpensive, unassuming case for my constant companion and yet it has, for now, risen to the top of the heap. The case in question is the Yoobao Executive Genuine Leather Case for iPad 2 and it comes to us via our friends at Xengadget. So why is this the case I am currently leaving on my iPad? Read on… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I procrastinate. Yes, I’m one of THOSE guys. I might put off my research paper a few days to, you know, let it “mature.” I also might put off writing a killer guitar tune because I’m not in the creative mood. Sure, THAT’S the reason. Actually, it’s because I’m not as proficient with musical notation as my high school music theory teacher would like (unfortunately, that man is also my cousin). I’ve been playing guitar for over 23 years now, and I still have yet to write the next big rock hit. So what gives? I’m happy to say that I’ve found something that is sure to help me out of my musical funk… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

While preparing for our family vacation, which included a morning at surf school, I realized I no longer had a rugged watch. I’d owned several over the years, including an Ironman that lasted from Basic Training through several overseas trips before finally succumbing to a broken strap and went missing somewhere in the desert. Surfing…salt water…surf watch? Freestyle is a company which has been making saltwater-friendly watches for many years, so I picked up one of their midrange models. The Freestyle Buzz 2.o ($75-80 MSRP) has gigantic numbers for the main time, two time zones, two alarms, and the usual timer and stopwatch modes. What makes this relatively normal-looking watch stand out is the buzzer… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The weekend is finally here and once again the digital download sites are featuring some awesome deals! I am highlighting the JoWood games sale at Good Old Games – 75% off … though I think JoWood is beyond saving at this point. This week I am continuing to choose no more than 50 deals from all sites … which is a tough one! And as always thanks to the crew at Deals4Downloads for their help finding everything. Now let’s get straight to the deals! Good Old Games: Weekend Sale – 75% off select JoWood games Panzer Elite Special Edition (PC) for $2.39*, Save 60% Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Supermarket Mania 2 is a great time management game, and I raved about it in my review of the PC version. Since then I have played the Mac version and have a review forthcoming on that one. But May 12th it will hit what I see as the best platform for these games – iPhone and iPad! Here is a snippit from my review: As I said at the start, ‘thrilling’ isn’t the word that comes to mind with a supposedly ‘casual’ game … which is why the genre title is meaningless! Supermarket Mania 2 IS a thrilling game, and one you can easily pick up and play for just Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Save $35 on the Logitech Harmony 700 Remote Let’s end the week with a NGD Deal that will make life a bit more relaxing: the Logitech Harmony 700. What exactly is the Logitech Harmony 700? The Logitech® Harmony® 700 is a rechargeable remote that is simple to set up and use, it can go a week between charges, so you will not be looking for batteries when you want to be watching TV. Its color screen can show icons for your favorite channels as well as the commands you need for the devices you’re using. And its one-click activity buttons automatically turn on the right components and select the right settings Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The media is super-saturated with coverage of the royal wedding, so I have no intent of spending any time on it. But as my wife and I drank coffee and watched the wedding – we normally watch the morning news, but the wedding was on pretty much every channel – we noted all of the wild hats. I couldn’t help but notice that next to the princess who reminded me of Monica Lewinski was another princess who was wearing a hat that looked like a combination of a wreath and a huge ribbon, but solid and attached to something that only covered a fraction of her head! How that stayed on I… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Cisco may have shuttered the doors on the Flip camera, but there are many other cameras out there that are still available that are as good or better than the venerable Flip.  Today I am going to take a look at the Kodak Zi8, which I recently purchased with a gift card I received from Judie for my birthday [Aww, that's awesome! ~ Judie].  I’ve always wanted a dedicated video camera, and my old Aiptek died long ago.  The Zi8 was high on my list for many reasons, and even though it’s not the latest and greatest, I thought I would go for it as I wanted a way to capture video for the site and of my… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of Penny Arcade A few days ago I updated the status of the Sony PSN / Qriocity outage. Today we have some more data … and not much of it is good. Let’s get right to what we know: Hackers claim to have the credit card info for millions of PSN users. Sony is contemplating compensation for those impacted by the downtime. Someone has already sued Sony. Yay. Here is the update on the Playstation Blog: Download history/friends list/settings will not be affected by the PSN downtime. Trophies that were earned in single-player offline games during the outage Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I love gear bags, especially backpacks. The great thing about a gear bag is that I can carry more of my stuff. I have a backpack for my DSLR as well as a backpack for my MacBook and all of the items that go with it. Just the other day we took a short family trip and my wife was amused that I had to carry two backpacks with me. She asked why I did not just find one that could fit all of my stuff I was taking. Well, lucky for me, I was able to review the Compuday 250 from Lowepro which does exactly that. Let’s take a look. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Battery life continues to be the bane of smartphones. The technology hasn’t significantly improved in quite some time, which is problematic because the power and functionality of the small devices has increased exponentially. This results in some state-of-the-art devices with battery life that can only be described as horrific. There are a few options for how one might address the current situation but none of them are particularly good. Manufacturers can slow down their devices so they use less power or they can increase the size of the battery. Neither is a particularly good solution. Users, on the other hand, might choose to keep an external battery with them at all times or have charging… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Hulu+ is available on your Mac or PC, your set top box such as the Roku we have (but alas not Apple TV), your iPhone or iPad, and your Playstation 3. With the computer devices you can use the ‘standard version’ for free but gain much greater access to programming with the $7.99 monthly fee. On other systems you need to have a ‘Hulu+’ account to access anything – though you can get a trial account on most systems. Now you can finally catch up on those episodes of Glee on your XBOX 360! Some background on Hulu: Hulu’s ambitious and never-ending mission is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premium content Continue reading on Gear Diary …

HBO GO for iOS is live and available for free in the App Store. It is awesome. You can watch HBO movies on the go. You can watch some of HBO’s amazing series. (I am totally into Game of Thrones!) You can watch HBO comedy, you know, the ones where the funny people don’t need to censor their language or content. You can even watch HBO “late night” programs… If you are into that sort of thing. Yes HBO GO is a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you read my review for the Mac version of Avadon: The Black Fortress and thought ‘hey, I have a PC, when will THAT version be available?’, now you have an answer! As a reminder, here is what I said: One thing I didn’t mention is the length of Avadon. I would estimate it at about 40 hours based on my slow play-style. Jeff Vogel targeted a run through at 25-35 hours based on your own style of play, which is about right. For some, that is short – it is certainly shorter than Avernum 6. But Avadon is a tighter experience – as I said the trash mobs have been reduced Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Did you know the average American family now owns 24 electronic devices? Yup, 24 devices and guess how many of them are covered with smudges, grime and… worse? Pretty much all of them. And when germs are mixed in with the smudges watch out since it has been shown that germs can live on touch screen devices anywhere from 1 day to 1 month. Take, for example, my iPad 2. That’s pretty gross isn’t it?? (And it is the reason I prefer NOT to let others handle my touchscreen devices.) That’s what is great about the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …