Recently eMusic contracted Insight Research Group to try to get a sense of consumer feelings about music ownership. After all, bloggers like myself are constantly crowing about MOG and Slacker and Rdio and Pandora and Spotify and … well, you get the picture. Turns out, while there is plenty of interest in streaming …when it comes to money, people want to actually OWN their content. This is good news for folks like iTunes, Amazon and eMusic … and not so great for all the streaming companies I have mentioned. Here are the conclusions: Study results show that purchasing ‘music to own’ remains the primary way to acquire music online. Streaming complements and Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Way back at the start of 2007 Square Enix brought us the GameBoy Advance (GBA) port of the classic Final Fantasy … and there was much rejoicing. Similarly, gamers were thrilled when the classic RPG Chrono Trigger came to the DS in 2008. Now … BOTH games are coming this week to the PSN (Playstation Network) as part of the PSOne Classics collection! From the Playstation Blog: Chrono Trigger – Living in the seemingly peaceful kingdom of Guardia in 1000 A.D., the child Crono was chosen by guardian spirits to save the world from ultimate devastation. Though Doomsday will not happen until the year 1999, the ancient seeds of destruction were planted long Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of my students excitedly hurried into my classroom the other day, exclaiming that I had to see her new phone. Kids show me their new gadgets everyday, but this was obviously something special since the other students were just as excited. When she presented it to me she just exclaimed, “3D!” In her hand was one of the newest Android handsets from LG to sport 3D technology. The LG Thrill is exclusive to ATT and can be purchased for $99. The hardware seemed nice and was similar to other Android phones I have played with, but I really just checked out the 3D features quickly. I shot a couple… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I can’t even find it in myself to be annoyed that HTC has introduced a phone that is so obviously aimed at women; if they had just colored it plum and called it good, I would have been livid. But no. The HTC Rhyme is a phone that I would have considered carrying anyway … and the bonus is that it just happens to be a lovely plum color. From the unique plum color that draws on the inspiration from HTC’s designers to specific apps, wallpapers, and ringtones created for the HTC Rhyme, HTC Sense’s presence is seen throughout. Hardware design is taken a step further with available accessories including a wireless Bluetooth headset, wireless charging dock which turns Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Carbonite. All opinions are 100% mine. It happens to everyone… once, or twice if you don’t learn your lesson the first time. You work on your computer for hours, slaving away on a major project only to have disaster strike. You not only lose the project you are working on, but you lose everything else stored on your computer. Massive hard drive failure — what could be worse? Fortunately you’ve been backing up to a local hard drive, so everything should be fine … right? Wrong. Turns out the backup drive wasn’t doing its job. Think this is a contrived situation? Think again, as we… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today’s Gear Deal brings us the Nikon COOLPIX P300 12.2 CMOS Digital Camera. The COOLPIX P300 has a 4.2x f/1.8 NIKKOR Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens and Shoots full HD 1080p Video. In addition, it features 4-way VR Image Stabilization System, has a 3″ Color Display and much more. Normally selling for $329.95, our Gear Sponsor gave us the heads up on a deal that will knock $100 off the price. That brings the final price down to just $229.95 and it will ship for free. Details and ordering can be done here. Gear Deal: Nikon Coolpix P300 12.2MP Digital Camera w/4.2x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom-NIKKOR Glass Lens via LogicBUY Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Okay, here is the next round of giveaways in our 5th Anniversary Giveaway Celebration. This time around we have five great iPad case/accessories to give away. There’s one from Case-Mate… One from Griffin… One from Speck… A whole system from Vogels… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We have winners in this round of the Gear Diary at 5 Giveaway extravaganza. This time around we were giving away The Aranez K-Leather case for iPad 2 (MSRP: $119.95) is made from real Kangaroo leather. it is just about as smooth and soft as you will EVER find. It feels like… Buttah! Here’s what they say about it: Presenting the world’s first iPad 2 Kangaroo Leather Case crafted by Aranez. This stylish case features genuine high-grade Australian kangaroo leather which is known to be the best performance leather in the world – it’s light and tough. When you Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’m sitting on an old-fashioned rocking chair on the porch of an inn in Martha’s Vineyard with a cup of coffee. The air is a bit brisk but the sun is shining and there is a nice breeze. It is about as close to a perfect fall morning as you are going to get. My iPad has served me well as my Sunday New York Times for the past hour or so and now I am writing this post. And the scene is made close to perfect by a soundtrack provided by Pandora. (I’m listening to a custom station I created using the group Conjure One as the jump off point.). I could be using… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

  About five years ago Wal-mart decided it was no longer going to offer layaway plans.  What is layaway?  Layaway works by you walking in to the store, picking what you want and going back to a layaway counter and putting a down payment on it.  You then have a certain amount of time to pay it off then take it home.  If you don’t pay it off, it goes back on the sales floor and you get your money refunded minus a service charge.  The great ting is you don’t pay any interest like you do with credit cards.  The downside for the store is if someone else wants to buy what you put in layaway, they can’t… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Photo courtesy of Woman’s Day The news from Netflix starts off with an “apology” from the Big Kahuna himself, Reed Hastings: It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing. Now okay, I just experienced a layoff, so I’m bound to be more cynical right now than is typical (and my default level of cynicism is pretty high, too), but that sounds like the opening of ” … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I had started reviewing the Tales of Monkey Island adventure games from TellTale Games back in late 2009, but never finished the series. They are wonderful fun adventures that were ported to the iPad last year in ‘HD’ format … and now TouchArcade has discovered that each of those episodes is on sale for $2.99 each in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day! Here are the links: Monkey Island Tales 1 HD – $6.99 → $2.99 Monkey Island Tales 2 HD – $6.99 → $2.99 Monkey Island Tales 3 HD – $6.99 → $2.99 Monkey Island Tales 4 HD – $6.99 → $2.99 Monkey Island Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I have always loved iFrogz unique headphone designs.  They are always eye-catching and usually sound pretty good to boot.  They aren’t top of the line, but they are far from the worst I have ever tried.  That’s why I jumped at the chance to get a set of the new iFrogz Timbrepro Headphones sent to me for a review. The general design of these is very much like some of the other headphones iFrogz has in their line that include the inline microphone for iPhone, Android and any phone that accepts a 3.5 mm jack.  Where they differ are in two different design points. First, the timbre in Timbrepro… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last week Doug wrote about how the push by the movie studios to have consumers feel forced to buy retail DVDs by delaying physical rental availability and making the streaming rental system convoluted and inconsistent is likely backfiring by pushing customers in the wrong direction. This weekend my family had a show we wanted to watch – Ghost Hunters from SyFy. We had just heard that the show was going to focus on the historic Reed Homestead in Townsend, Massachusetts. That just happens to be within a mile of where we used to live for 15 years until we moved to western NY in 2008. So we were interested… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Levin-Torn-White Levin-Torn-White It seems like the last year has seem loads of new releases from classic artists in the so-called ‘prog rock’ arena – the dreary Asia recording ‘Omega’, the over-produced ‘Emotion and Commotion’ from Jeff Beck, and more recently the Yes recording ‘Fly From Here’. At the same time, writing about Bill Bruford’s autobiography and discovering King Crimson’s ‘Absent Lovers recording has brought the music of that Crimson era to the fore in my mind. So it was with marked enthusiasm – yet some reserve – that I checked out the new recording from three legends of rock: Tony Levin, David Torn and Allan White. I had… Continue reading on Gear Diary …