The folks at Kobo are on a roll this week! First they release their new Kobo Touch Edition, then they roll out “ReadOn”, a project where you can pledge your reading time to benefit a school or education program! It’s actually pretty clever, since the whole thing hinges on Kobo’s “Reading Life” social application that tracks what you’re reading, how long you’ve read, etc. It’s on the new Touch Edition as well as part of the Android and iOS Kobo applications, so for people who shop around between stores, this is a reason to stick with Kobo for the next month or so. More importantly, the people who are likely to pledge minutes read are big readers, meaning… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Labeled ‘Songs to Test By’, the ThinkingWithPortals.com site today is offering free downloads of the Portal 2 soundtrack, including a half-dozen ringtones usable for Android or iPhone. The music in the Portal games tends to be whimsical and always memorable – so this is worth checking out! Grab the soundtrack Volume 1 here! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last month mSpot launched a major overhaul of their movie club, delivering day-of-release movies at great prices. Now they are at it again, once more returning to music to introduce the mSpot Radio Spotter. For background, mSpot already has a ‘Cloud Music’ solution: you assign a music folder (or entire iTunes Library) to synchronize to your mSpot Cloud Storage (5GB for free, $3.99/month for 40GB), then you can listen to the songs either on your computer, or a handheld device such as an iPhone or Android smartphone. The service touts two main features: take songs you are already listening to and suggest radio stations that will provide you with a ‘like… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy epodunk) The pictures coming out of Joplin, Missouri are horrific. It’s awful to see what the tornado has done to people’s homes and lives. But thanks to the power of the internet, there is something you can do! In fact, there’s a few ways you can help. One, a consortium of bloggers (via Simple Bites) is working to raise money for the people of Joplin through Paypal, and it’s an easy way to help even if you’re far away. Bloggers without Borders (BwoB) is a blogger-based charity whose mission is to help people—bloggers and readers alike—by harnessing the good will of the blogging community. Its founders are Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you read the NYTimes and have an iPad, does the paper have a deal for you! Just subscribe to the Times for 12 weeks for $105, and you can get a special ZaggMate iPad keyboard-case FREE. That is a savings of $100 and you’ll have the keyboard-case to use long after the 12 weeks of “All the News That’s Fit to Print” has ended. I’ll be interested to see whether or not this incentive has any impact on the Times subscription rate. New York Times 12 Weeks & ZaggMate iPad Keyboard Offer Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Amazon is featuring this deal AGAIN as an ‘Encore Deal of the Day! Whatever you might think of pop singer Lady Gaga, she is certainly riding high on the attention she gets from her songs and her ‘family friendly’ controversies. Her new album ‘Born The Way’ launches today, and Amazon is featuring it for $0.99! To put it in context, that is less than you would pay for JUST THE SONG Born This Way on iTunes (and exactly the same price for the single on Amazon). At that price, if you are even THINKING about grabbing any of the 14-songs, do yourself a favor and buy the whole thing! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

While I don’t tend to be much of a ‘hardcore casual gamer’ in terms of playing stuff like Angry Birds for hours, I love good games of any sort … and have heard nothing but great things about Super Stickman Golf. Here is the basic description: Super Stickman Golf is no ordinary game.. it’s actually an award winning physics puzzler! Warning: Once you pick up this game, you may not be able to put it down. You will definitely never play “golf” the same again.. Ever wanted to freeze those pesky water hazards? Ever wanted to stick your shots on walls and ceilings? Ever wanted to stop your shot in mid-air? Well Continue reading on Gear Diary …

VIZIO Vizio 55″ 1080P, WiFi and Internet Apps 55″, built-in WIFi, a great selection of apps and huge savings… That’s today’s New Gear Daily Deal. The VIZIO 55″ VF522XVT… Offers 5 ms response time for sharp and impressive video motionDelivers incredible dynamic contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1 for rich and dark scenesIncorporates 802.11N Dual Band Wireless Networking Technology for quick and easy connectivity to the InternetOverviewExperience the pleasure of Full High-Definition entertainment with the TruLED™ 55-inch VF552XVT 1080p LCD HDTV from Vizio®. It features Vizio Internet Apps, your passport for experiencing a whole new world of online content. Now, by using the latest wireless technology, you can easily connect to Continue reading on Gear Diary …

For the last few months my MacBook Air has been my main computer. It works quite well for me and, thanks to the large solid-state drive and the ability to connect it to a larger monitor, it serves as a desktop computing platform quite well. When I do connect it to a larger monitor, I like to have a separate keyboard and mouse so that I don’t have to worry about the placement of the laptop itself. Until now that is meant using a magic mouse and Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard. I’ve been trying out something new, however, and it’s a rather compelling option if you are using a set up such as this. In fact… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One thing that the constant Apple march of technology from the 680×0 to PowerPC to Intel has done is decimated your ability to run old software. From 1996 until Apple killed off the ‘Classic Environment’ with the move to Intel Hardware, I would play Star Wars Dark Forces on my Mac every six months. The Mac version was superior in every way to the DOS release – double the resolution, enhanced audio, and so on. But since the ‘death of Classic’ I have had to use DOSBox (or SheepShaver on Mac) to play older games. These tend to require some setup and fine-tuning, and occasionally don’t completely work. Now Boxer for the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There were rumors last week that this might happen, and it actually now makes sense that a couple of months ago IGN made some moves to shore up its own PC digital download store. Now it is official: GameFly is buying Direct2Drive from IGN. Direct2Drive was created in 2004 as a way for gamers to conveniently download and directly run games without downloading a huge install file that then expanded into an even larger game directory. Direct2Drive is the #2 largest digital download service after Steam, and has been very successful through the years. As noted at GamaSutra, the exact terms are not yet known: As part of the deal, IGN Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This morning my younger son left for school carrying his towel … since he became a big fan of Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy a year or so ago he ALWAYS knows where his towel is! He has been excited about celebrating ‘Towel Day’ all week. Unfortunately he wouldn’t let me take his picture for this post! Towel Day was created just after Douglas Adams death in 2001, in a post that said: Towel Day: A Tribute to Douglas Adams Monday 14 May 2001 06:00am PDT Douglas Adams will be missed by his fans worldwide. So that all his fans everywhere can pay tribute to this genius, I propose Continue reading on Gear Diary …

While I am sure things are proceeding at a breakneck pace at Sony, the news on the whole PSN outage has been fairly slow this week. Here are some of the things that have been going on: General status – PSN is up for online gaming, Qriocity is up for music, Basic account management is operational, but password change utilities remain down. PSN Store – despite many rumors of the store coming back online on May 24th … it didn’t. Sony is sticking to the ‘end of the month’, and only as an estimate. PSP Update – the first thing Sony did before reinstating any services Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of T-Mobile This year has been all about 4G. ’4G’ refers to the newest high-speed data transfer protocol used by cell phone carriers for smartphones. 4G coverage is spotty at best no matter which carrier your contract is with. Every carrier now has some form of 4G, and as we all know some are (for now) much better than others. The debate of ‘true’ 4G and LTE has been the talk of many flame wars but quite frankly it doesn’t matter to me what my carrier calls it as long as my speeds are fast. T-mobile announced in a press event on Monday night that they are going hot with HSPA+ in… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The debate between those who play action games with a mouse & keyboard and those who favor a console controller has raged ever since Halo hit the XBOX a decade ago. Each side claims their method is superior, but what is definitely true is that whichever one you tend to use will work best for you. I am a keyboard & mouse guy, but I have two teenage boys who are console diehards. So when we play games on the PC I am the master, whereas on the X360 I struggle to keep up. The folks at SplitFish have just the cure – the FRAGFX SHARK, coming soon for the XBOX 360… Continue reading on Gear Diary …