One of the standout piece of consumer electronics I have discovered over the past few years is the Ooma phone system. The system brings an unusual business model to the business of phone service. Instead of charging a monthly fee Ooma sells the hardware that connects to your high-speed internet service and then lets you have your phone service for free. Sure they sell a number of useful accessories and there are some value-adding services to which you can subscribe (Ooma Premier is one of them and is totally worth the price) but you don’t HAVE to do so to get the value out of an Ooma system. Here’s our review of the Ooma Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the big surprises for me tonight at the Pepcom Holiday Spectacular! (we’ll have much more from this event over the next few days) was the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet. The ThinkPad Tablet is the first tablet specifically designed for business settings. It has some great features, feels great in the hand and it has one more KILLER FEATURE that I’ll reveal at the end of the post. First, here’s what Lenovo has to say about their latest and greatest offering. ThinkPad Tablet Brings Android to Business: The ThinkPad Tablet combines the superior media and entertainment experience of the IdeaPad Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Do you have a dehumidifier in your basement? If so, you probably put it there to protect your home from water damage, right? Well, if you own a Goldstar or Comfort-Aire dehumidifier, you need to check your model number, because you may have put yourself at risk for something even worse — fire damage. The recalled dehumidifiers were sold at The Home Depot, Walmart, Ace Hardware, Do It Best, Orgill Inc., and other retailers nationwide from January 2007 through June 2008 for between $140 and $150. They were manufactured in China. The dehumidifiers were first recalled in December 2009 following eleven incidents, including four significant fires. Since that time, the company has received sixteen additional incident reports Continue reading on Gear Diary …

   Holy cow … we have been hearing about them eventually being available for some time, and now they are here! SanDisk has just sent notice that they have 64GB microSDXC and 64GB SDXC cards available for purchase now. Yes, you are going to pay an arm and a leg for them, but their prices don’t come anywhere near some of the ridiculous sums many of us have paid in the past! [Like the 5GB PCMCIA drive that I paid over $500 for back in 2002! Oy.] If you are a photographer, then you’ll want to take a look at the 64GB SDXC; this card… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This is pure speculation on various sites and as noted by Francis, but there is a rumor that at either 2PM or 5PM EST today, more HP TouchPads will be available on QVC and/or TigerDirect. QVC Homepage TigerDirect Homepage In the past few days both sites have had limited supplies that have sold out almost immediately and have appeared as bundles with accessories for ~$200. So … we have no idea if this is real or not – but if you are like us and looking for a cheap TouchPad, this might work … certainly worth checking if you have the chance! Let us know in the comments… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve written about WritePad in the past, noting how useful it was for taking notes on the iPad. I’ve actually used it quite a bit in meetings at work and folks are usually blown away by its ability to capture my handwriting and convert it into text. One of the critical elements of successful handwriting recognition is the dictionary used by the program; no matter how good your handwriting is, if WritePad cannot find a word to match it, you’re out of luck. PhatWare, the makers of WritePad, recently released an update that enhances the software’s dictionary. The update now allows users to import new words to the dictionary from the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

 I love hearing about devices that follow through with updates to the next version of an operating system, because — let’s face it — there have been many over the years that didn’t. US Cellular users with an HTC Merge, now it is your turn. Today the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) update is available, and this is how you can get information about how to get it on your device: Customers can visit http://www.uscellular.com/android/software.html where they will find information explaining the new features and an installation guide that explains the process and allows customers to upgrade. via US Cellular PR Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Look, I’ve been using a digital calendar exclusively since I bought the HP95LX back more than 20 years ago. I was never the type to carry a DayRunner or other planner, but I had great multi-purpose cases for my Newton, HP200LX, and Palm/Pocket PC devices. So I was bemused at my answer when Dan came to the Gear Diary crew and asked: Do any of you know ANYONE who uses a paper calendar? I ask because my amexcard wrote to offer me a “free” desk and pocket calendar and before I rant I wanted to check if i am offbase. I mean, I assume their clients are fairly sophisticated and use… smartphones. No? My… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

  It may not be the bargain basement price of the HP Tablet but then again, Toshiba has not abandoned the Thrive way HP did their tablet. In addition, since it runs Android, the Toshiba Thrive has tons and tons of apps available. The Toshiba Thrive has a 10.1″ multi-touch 1280 x 800 display, Android 3.1 Honeycomb tablet OS, a 1GHz dual-core mobile processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM, HDMI, docking connector, Resolution+ and audio enhancement software, weight of 1.6lbs, full-sized USB, HDMI and SD card slots, and more. Normally the price starts at $429.99 but with this deal the 8GB version is $399.99 and it comes with a FREE accessories bundle Continue reading on Gear Diary …

At my friend’s wedding Friday night, Sarah spotted something different about the live band. They had stands for their sheet music, but no paper sheets…instead each member of the 9-piece band was rocking iPads! I didn’t get the chance to quiz them on their iPad use (they were a bit busy, what with playing music and all), though they did comment offhand that they really liked being so “technologically advanced” and that the iPads helped them immensely. What’s really cool is that this band is an incredibly diverse group of musicians. You… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of Tokyoflash Tokyoflash has been in full production mode this year and have yet to keep us waiting long for a new LED infused masterpiece. The latest addition to their large collection of tech savvy watches is the Kisai Night Vision LED Watch. This new design sports all the LED glory you’re used to along with the matte black stainless finish. The face is classic style hexagon shape with super easy to read outer ring of LED’s with the minutes and date showing as numerical characters in the center. The watch comes in 3 flavors of LED colors and as usual sports a 30 day rechargeable battery. This model also sports an adjustable wrist strap which… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Publisher JoWood, responsible for working with Piranha Bytes to bring us the classic Gothic 2, as well as other games, was acquired by Nordic Games recently. One concern when things like that happen is that sites like Good Old Games lose access to content. Fortunately that hasn’t happened – in fact, they have teamed up to offer a Nordic Games Mega-Deal – 70% off All Games, or 50% off Individual Games. Here are the details: Nordic Games is the new member of the GOG.com family, and now owns a decent number of games that were previously released on the service. We’re giving you a chance to get them with a 70% discount! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Have you seen the commercials for the Droid Bionic? As my kids put it “it doesn’t make me want the phone, but it sure is cool’! And the Verizon Wireless iPad commercial? Yawn! It there anyone who can make a commercial for a smartphone that is as interesting and compelling as Apple? Turns out their supplier/competitor/collaborator/arch-rival Samsung is doing a pretty good job. The new commercial is called “The Way We’re Wired” Unlike Apple, there is loads of mentions of tech specs, capabilities, and so on. But similar to Apple the point is to evoke positive feelings and then link them to a product. In this case, Samsung is… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last Tuesday I posted my review of the Mac version of Duke Nukem Forever, along with an offer to win one or more Steam keys playable on Mac or PC. We had an immediate winner, but as I mentioned we had the opportunity to get more codes if enough comments were entered. We barely crossed the threshold and I got FIVE more keys from the publisher … but I want MORE comments in order to complete the giveaway. So this is the last push – comment before 9PM on Friday September 16th to be entered to win the Steam code. Head on over to the review Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy Fotopedia) Sarah and I have had a busy summer, but the big finale was definitely this past week. We started out Labor Day weekend, where we headed to Virginia, before returning to New Jersey for a day and then heading to Maine for a friend’s wedding. Lots of travel, lots of packing, lots of gear. What did we learn? Read on to see our hard-earned lessons and tips! Technology: Let’s start with travel gear. I opted to travel light to VA since we were driving to Richmond, then Virginia Beach for a race, then back to Richmond and then finally home. So all I had with me then was my… Continue reading on Gear Diary …