As the father of two teenage boys each with a bunch of friends, I can attest to the fact that they can oscillate wildly between brilliance and idiocy! So today I wasted too much of my lunch shaking my head looking over pages of message and response format images like the one above on the site WhyWasIBanned regarding bans from the XBOX Live service. My plan … show them to my older son to be sure he doesn’t do anything stupid and get himself banned. Check it all out here at WhyWasIBanned. Source: WhyWasIBanned via GamersWithJobs Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I know I’ll likely get flamed in the comments below but I don’t really care; not when it comes to the reason for this post at least. Why? Because seriously I’m in a total quandry about this and I would LOVE your help in understanding it. My question: WHO CARES ABOUT THE WHITE IPHONE???? Seriously. Who cares about an almost year-old design in a color that will show smudges and dirt better than just about anything other than smudges and dirt?? Who wants to pay full price or get locked into a 2-year contract when the device is now moving toward its end-of-life lifecycle? I mean, I get why someone… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

  Crysis 2 for 33% Off! It used to be that games would stay at full price for MONTHS, with perhaps a first week 5% discount to bring in sales at retail. Now we are regularly seeing pre-order discounts of up to 10% and decent sales after only a few weeks. But THIS still surprised me – the hot selling shooter Crysis 2 for 33% off ($39.95) at Amazon. Get Crysis 2 for PC for $39.95 Get Crysis 2 for X360 for $39.95 Get Crysis 2 for PS3 for $39.95 Looking for something else? Check out our new sister site New Gear Daily Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Nintendo announces their next console version! Will it be the Wii 2? Will it have HD? All those questions and more answered at this year’s E3 Expo.

Even after three years in New York I still keep up with the Boston Globe via their website, and today they have a short article that really caught my eye marking the 25th anniversary of the explosion that created the worst nuclear disaster in history – April 26, 1986. But what really struck me was the images: 34 images that show the ghost town of Pripyat in the shadow of the nuclear plant, as well as outlying areas. An area twice the size of New York state was contaminated, with a 19 mile exclusion zone set. From the article: On April 26, 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power facility in Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Apple spends a not-inconsiderable amount of their time bragging on how many apps have been downloaded, how many songs, how many movies, blah blah blah blah blah.  But Apple is not the only company selling apps, and even though I’m an iPhone guy, my love of competition is pleased to see that Samsung is now claiming a total of 100 million application downloads since they started their service.  Even if they’re exaggerating a wee bit–heck, even if they’re exaggerating by an order of magnitude!–that’s still a bucketload of downloads.  For comparison, if each app were a yardstick, that’s enough apps to get you one third of the way to the moon in one-yard strides.  That be… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

While there is a lot of talk about Android and how dominant a force it is in smartphones (hey, I love mine!), there is one thing people sometimes seem to forget: Android isn’t a phone. So while the Android OS is doing very well and some of the handset makers are also doing well, there is one company who makes a single phone on two carriers that is beating all of them – including the former #1 handset maker Nokia! That company is Apple. Here is some of the press release: Apple Inc. overtook Finland’s Nokia Corp. to claim the top spot in handset revenue in the first quarter, when Apple racked up Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last year chef Jamie Oliver made a big splash by heading into a small school district in West Virginia and looking at what the kids were being fed … and then tracking back to homes and seeing the source of the issues. While our own kids are not overweight, several of their friends are (and there are some kids – girls in particular – with fed issues of different types) so it was a great discussion. It turns out that the food choices our kids have might be somewhat better than those in the West Virginia school system shown, but they are still not great. Our kids enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

See Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet) for 61% off! My wife and I love watching comedies on the BBC, and have always had a weakness for Hyacinth Bucket … errm … Bouquet, and the rest of the crew on Keeping Up Appearances. Today only you can grab the entire series at Amazon.com for $46.99 – 61% off the regular price! Huge savings! Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced “bouquet”) goes to incredible lengths in her quest for perfection. Hers is a spick-and-span house. Her downtrodden husband, Richard, acts as chauffeur in their immaculately kept car. Their permanently absent son has a superior name, Sheridan. Even the empty milk bottles sparkle on the doorstep after their obligatory rinse Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There’s been a good deal of movement among the various apps for Evernote. The Evernote Windows client saw a huge update. The Android and iOS apps did too. But what of Evernote’s Mac client? Well today it just got a huge update and it offers some key changes that will make this “hybrid-cloud app” better than ever. This is especially true for power users whose Evernote accounts have grown huge. So let’s run down the key changes. Sharing to Twitter, Facebook and more now part of evernote for Mac Say you created a snapshot note in Evernote and want to share it with others. Now sending it to Twitter, Facebook or email is… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today’s Gear Deal brings us the Lenovo IdeaCentre K330 Desktop PC. The PC is powered by the new Intel 2011 2nd Generation Core i3 / i5 / i7 Sandy Bridge processor. The desktop can be configured to have yo to a 2TB Hard Drive, up to 12GB RAM, a Blu-ray and more. There are a few configurations and you can save on each and every one. The least expensive IdeaCentre K330 Core i3 model is $999. After $100 off and a 10% coupon code it is just $809.10. Our Gear Sponsor’s recommended configuration has a Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM and a Blu-ray player. It is $1,199 but after $200 and a 10% coupon Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Oh Verizon, why do you seem to be getting all the cool phones right now? I mean, you have the iPhone that doesn’t drop calls every three seconds. You have the Thunderbolt that Judie loved. And now this??? Yes, the Droid Incredible 2 is making its way to Verizon Wireless and will be available on April 28 for $199.99 on contract. Among the specs: It features the Android 2.2 (not 2.3???), a 4″ super LCD display, a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 3G Mobile Hotspot. Add in an 8.0-megapixel main camera with dual LED flash and a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera, 720p HD video capture, SRS WOWHD surround sound and Flash and you are Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Cords are a pain. Seriously. They are a royal pain. You got your headphone cords.  You got your sync cords. You got your power cords.  You got your… Never mind, you get the idea. The list goes on and on. Well here is one solution that is inexpensive, effective and a lot of fun too. The Applecore is a simple system for getting your cords in line. They come in small, medium and large so that headphones, sync and computer cables and power cords can all be effectively tamed. Better still they comes in a variety of colors. AND, and this is the best part, at $1.99, $2.99 and $4.99 respectively they are affordable… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Latitude E5520m with FREE Upgrade to 4GB RAM   Raw computing power is fine but these days it often comes down to… RAM. Have enough and your computer will chug happily along. Don’t have enough and you are looking at slow downs and bottlenecks. That’s why we took special note of this deal Dell is offering. It has the Dell Latitude E5520m, a fine laptop in its own right, paired with a free 4GB RAM upgrade. That means you’ll get all the laptop you need at a great price. Here’s what Dell has to say:   Redesigned for work in your world: Stay productive on the go while keeping an eye on Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It’s been long promised…and finally here! B&N’s NOOKcolor is coming out swinging for the tablet market with an update that brings apps and Android 2.2 (Froyo) to the ebook reader, meaning flash, email, Angry Birds, and all sorts of other fun time wasters. Of course, the big debate is whether this makes the NOOKcolor a tablet that’s mostly an ebook reader, or an ebook reader that’s mostly a tablet… I don’t have the answers (yet-I plan to update my NOOKcolor tonight), but I do think that if this update is halfway decent it will be a big boost for the NOOKcolor as a whole. I have seen mixed reports around the web, and I hope to have a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …