If you were to look back to 2007 to find the PSP ‘Game of the Year’ lists, on many sites you would find Final Fantasy Tactics: The War Of The Lions on the top 10. I included it in a round-up review, noting: If you played Final Fantasy Tactics on the Playstation, there is really no reason to get this updated port. Oh, except for the all-new CGI cutscenes, and the new translation of the dialogue and text. Yes, and the extra areas you can find and new jobs such as the legendary Onion Knight, and of course the characters you can find by fully Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It used to be so simple to categorize so-called ‘casual games’. Trivial time wasters, like a Match-3 puzzler like Bejeweled, or other fun little games like Zuma or Peggle. Or there were hidden object games or puzzles that would last a couple of hours. But suddenly we have a game where we need to gather resources, build and upgrade bases, stave off invading forces, meet objectives from quest-givers and time constraints … and suddenly you realize that Jack of All Tribes is NOT your ordinary casual game! The Hype: Travel to the past with Jack and rule a prehistoric tribe in this fun time management game with puzzle elements! Help fellow… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy photobucket) As you may remember, back in February Borders filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This in theory would have let them reorganize, deal with their debts, and potentially walk away leaner, meaner, and ready to throw down against B&N, Amazon, and the rising ebook threat. In theory. The reality has turned out to be much, much sadder, as Borders will be liquidated, all 11,000 or so employees will be laid off, and a once-powerful bookstore will be a footnote in history. Needless to say, I’m very sad to see this occur, but I’m also not surprised. This was a long time coming and was not just the result of… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you depend on Livescribe Desktop on your Mac from day to day, they have some advice: don’t upgrade to Lion … yet! Here is what they are saying: Livescribe Software Notice Regarding Mac OS X Lion The current version of Livescribe Desktop 2.7.2 is not completely compatible with Apple’s new Mac OS upgrade (Lion) that will be available to the public this month. We are working hard to complete an update to the Livescribe Desktop that will address this issue and plan to have it available for customers within the next few weeks. Until this software update is available, we recommend that you do not upgrade your Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today’s Gear Deal brings us the refreshed Dell Studio XPS 9100 Core i7-930 2.8GHz Quad-core Desktop. Our Gear Sponsor found this desktop with prices starts at $799.99. Better still, for a limited time, the high-end model with 9GB RAM, a 1GB video card and more is on sale for an extra 25% off! The base configuration features 6GB of Tri-channel DDR3 1333MHz memory, a 1TB Hard Drive, a 16X DVD+/-RW, a GeForce G310 512MB GDDR3, a Multimedia Keyboard and Optical Mouse, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS and more. And if you need more “umph” you can upgrade it to a Core i7-980X Extreme CPU, 24GB DDR3, ATI Radeon HD5970 2GB GDDR5, up to 24GB… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you read the site regularly you know that I am a Sonos convert and am telling everyone I can about the wireless home audio system. I love it. In fact, I had the review system in my home for just a day before I went and bought my own system. This past weekend I had a chance to show it to Judie and Carly and they were likewise impressed. It is truly one of the best tech expenses I have made in recent history. On Monday I had a chance to meet with Sonos and get an early look at their latest release the Sonos PLAY:3. The PLAY:3 is being announced and released… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

My phone often goes through many types of cases and protection. My only must have is that they do not make it feel large and clunky. Basically, I usually am not terribly particular. This is not the same for my iPad. The iPad just seems to deserve something more. Not only careful protection, but also style. The gorgeous design just seems to earn the right to be protected by something with matching design and quality. I also have grown to love portfolio style cases since they cover the large screen and bring me piece of mind. I recently began using the monCarbone iPad Portfolio which sports beautiful design, quality, protection and carbon fiber. Who… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It is easy to forget in the flood of Android tablets that Google has another operating system in their quiver-Chrome OS. It has been maligned as “too late” and dismissed as just another netbook option, but it is so much more. If your primary work is in the cloud, especially Google services, and you’re looking for a fast computing option with great battery life, hold off on that tablet purchase. First watch my quick Chrome OS overview video, then consider this: for $499 you can have a Chromebook with wifi and 3G. Plus Verizon and Google will throw in 100mb of 3G free each month for TWO YEARS! Plus any add-on data starts at $20 prepaid for 1GB. That’s a lot cheaper than… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Imagine a fruit that could change the way food taste for the better but whose effects were only temporary. Imagine if Lemons and limes tasted sweet, pickles tasted like slightly salty cucumbers and more. That’s what Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum) does. The plant is native to West Africa and available in a number of forms. It is: an evergreen plant that produces small red berries which are produced for many months in a year. The seeds are about the size of coffee beans. The berry is sweet, and contains an active glycoprotein molecule called miraculin along with some carbohydrate chains. Miracle Fruit contains a glycoprotein called miraculin, which binds to the tongue’s taste buds when the Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It took a little bit longer than expected but Apple has finally approved the iOS application for Google’s new Google+ service. Here’s what the actual application has to say about itself: Google+ for mobile makes sharing the right things with the right people a lot simpler. Title lets you send superfast messages to the people you care about most. And no matter where you are, the steam let you stay in the loop about what your friends are sharing and where they’re checking in. Features: Circles let you share the right things with just the right people Stream is Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Discount site MacBundleBox has been putting together great deals on Mac apps for quite some time, but has always been working to branch out, as our coverage of their daily deals site back in 2009 indicates. Maintaining both daily deals and bundles must have been quite a challenge, especially as the Mac App Store becomes more and more useful to Mac owners. Now they are making a full break from bundles, and changing their name to reflect it! The new name is Get Dealy! Their site is clean and focused on the daily deal, and while the emphasis right now is on Mac apps, it seems pretty clear that they… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A few months ago a 13-year old girl named Rebecca Black became a YouTube sensation with ‘Friday’, a much-maligned but very catchy pop song that became a viral hit that garnered a massive amount of views but had more ‘dislikes’ than ‘likes’. People hated the irritating vocals, obnoxious use of Auto-Tune to cover very limited vocal skills, and shockingly awful lyrics … yet they couldn’t keep themselves from watching it over and over again! Well, it is almost four months later and after much drama involving rights struggles, report of parents looking to milk their 13-year old cash cow, and more … Rebecca Black is Back! Her new song is called… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I am really glad to see more and more “iOS app enhanced” devices being released. We’ve looked at a few clocks that offer tight integration with iPhone or iPad apps and now we are seeing a slew of new devices coming out. One of them, Withings Smart Blood Pressure Monitor uses your iOS device as the “brains” of a blood pressure monitoring system. I’ve been using it for the last week and a half and even had Judie, Carly and Elana take it for a spin. Here are some details and a video overview. From the Company: Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A lot has been said about the iPad and how suitable it could be for people who have never used a computer. Way back during the late 90′s there were many companies attempting to make an appliance computer. That is, a computer that doesn’t require the overhead of a Windows PC, Linux PC or a Mac. Netpliance tried and utterly failed with the iOpener, which was a darling of the hacker community back when a 180 MHz computer was considered acceptable. Other than the iPad and Google’s Chromebooks, others have also tried at bringing the appliance computer to reality; Telikin is trying to do just that with its attempt at bringing the Internet to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It is that time of year, when it is hard to get a productive meeting or interdisciplinary project or anything done … it is vacation time! People seem to either be in a panicked ‘nesting mode’ getting ready to go or exhausted to the point of uselessness after returning. Or, they spread their vacation around so liberally that they never seem fully engaged all summer long. Yet once we go on vacation it seems we all go through the same thought process – I was laughing about it with a colleague this morning, and then saw this comic at Neatorama. Enjoy! Source: PhD Comics via Neatorama Continue reading on Gear Diary …