Is it even possible to have everything? Of course not. But it is possible to have a happy home, well-balanced kids, a loving spouse, and the proper tools to keep things running smoothly or to at least enable an occasional escape when everything gets crazy. The Holiday season has officially begun, and we have a few gift suggestions that can help take the stress out of finding something special for the women we love. Happy Shopping! =) Keurig Mini Plus Personal Brewer Whether she likes tea, coffee or hot cocoa, she’ll be able to brew up a fresh cup with a minimum of effort. And with brewers available in red, black, platinum, green and… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Virtual City Playground is a great way to enjoy a city building experience in a free-to-play setting without restrictive missions to follow. To celebrate Halloween G5 has issued a special update that I have found really cool in playing so far, so I wanted to share. Here are the contents: Halloween content for 37 buildings in the game (35 decorations and 2 special Halloween buildings) Post screenshots of your city on Facebook Get daily investment points for checking into the game Daily quests – so you always have something to do in the game 35 new scenario quests 10 new decorations and buildings As you might notice, there is only one Halloween-specific… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We took a look at the PowerBag Messenger the other day. It combines an incredibly well-designed, strongly constructed bag with the ability to recharge your devices on the go. On almost all counts it thoroughly impresses. And at under $140, it is not much more than a 6000mAh external battery would be on its own. That makes it a great deal in my opinion. The company makes a number of other designs and they were kind enough to also send a PowerBag backpack as well as the messenger. Since the power aspect of the backpack is the same as it is with the messenger bag, I thought we might take a look at the backpack on… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

So a few years ago, I felt like I wanted to start playing music again (I’m a pianist, but due to some nerve damage I lost feeling in my left forefinger and thumb), and went ahead and bought myself a resonator guitar, thinking I’d play either dobro or slide style.  And like a lot of folks with good guitar-playing intentions, I got some books and some tapes and set to, only to fail. Well honestly, I can’t help but think that if I had an app like Ultimate-Guitar’s Tab Pro, I might have had more success and wouldn’t have ended up selling my guitar on eBay.  (You never know, though.)  But that’s me; what about you?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last week we FINALLY got the action-RPG game Dungeon Defenders. Originally the PC version was supposed to come out and have the iPad ‘first wave’ version as a fun mini-companion … but Here is the news from Steam: The Dungeon Defenders Halloween Character and Mission Packs are now available on Steam for FREE! You can get the Halloween Character pack and the Mission pack to add on to your Dungeon Defenders game. If you don’t have the game already, you can grab it here for $14.99. Amazon.com has Dungeon Defenders on sale for $11.99! Dungeon Defenders is a Steamworks game, so no matter where you… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’m a huge fan of the application TextExpander. It is, in fact, one of the key Mac utilities I cannot do without. TE offers a good deal of power but the primary reason I use it is that it allows me to create text shortcuts that have saved me a great deal of typing. For example, instead typing in Gear Diary’s URL constantly I simply type “ggear”. Less than a second later TE converts that combination into “www.geardiary.com”. That’s five characters instead of seventeen. It is even more helpful when using HTML code in a post. For example “llike” yields “What I Like: ” at the end of a review. TE is also good if… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This weekend HP sent out the notice above, pretty much killing off any hope that they will have another massive ‘fire sale’ blowout like they did two months ago. Here is what it says: Making sure customers have a positive experience when they purchase our products is a priority for us. In some cases, limited inventory makes it challenging to fulfill all customer orders. As you signed up for updates on the HP TouchPad, we wanted you to know that we are officially out of stock. Some retailers will have some stock available, but our online inventory is depleted. There are two possible interpretations of this: that after filling all of the back-orders Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’m a sucker for indie games – they are made by developers who have a vision for a type of game that THEY would love to play … but nobody is making. I also love the recent trend for ‘indie bundles’. We started with the ‘Humble Indie Bundle’, and now we have a new one: Indie Royale. Here are the basics: – There are four games included in the bundle. – There is a ‘Buy It Now’ button that will allow you to buy for the minimum current price. – If you choose to pay MORE than minimum, you will help lower the price for future buyers. – You immediately get keys to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! So … once again we have a single game that dominates everything else. That game is Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, the latest entry in the PS3-exclusive action-adventure franchise. There are some other big games, such as the strategy sequel GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, which is a reboot of the Nintendo 64 game widely regarded as the game that showed that the FPS genre could work on consoles. There are other interesting releases like The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, as well as Sonic Generations, as well as some others. Every platform has something worth checking this week… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

AT&T is bound and determined to tease those of us who don’t live in major markets with their 4G LTE speeds and the phones that can handle them; today HTC has announced the new HTC Vivid. Thanks to the dual core 1.2 GHz processor, browsing the web, listening to music, and downloading apps is a snap on the brilliant 4.5 inch qHD display, allowing you to do more – faster. [You can] multitask efficiently—browse the web while streaming video to your TV wirelessly, with zero wait time and no buffering. The AT&T 4G LTE service will launch Nov. 6 in Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Indianapolis and Athens, Georgia. AT&T offers the only smartphones that are able to utilize Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I got a text message from my husband, Kevin, on Tuesday last week, saying that he had lost his wedding ring while working at the ranch. He’d been digging post holes to rebuild a section of fence that had been damaged during our April Fool’s Day fire, and while he was on his knees flinging the final few rocks from inside the hole, his platinum wedding band had flown off. The rock he threw hit a tree about 15 feet away, and he figured that the ring had taken a similar trajectory. Kev had already spent two hours searching, part of it on his hands and knees. The area where he had been working is composed of what we refer… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

  We start the week with a Gear Deal on the 15.6″ Dell XPS 15z Ultra-slim Laptop. It is now available and starts at $942.99. With this deal you will get $100 off. That brings the price down to just $842.99 and it will ship for free. The 15z laptop weighs 5.54lbs and is less than an inch thick. It has an anodized aluminum case, a backlit chiclet keyboard, and a magnesium alloy palmrest. The computer is powered by a 2nd Generation Intel Core i5/ i7 “Sandy Bridge” processor, has up to 8GB RAM, has a 750GB that spins at 7200RPM Hard Drive and includes 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M discrete graphics with Optimus. It also… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’m not going to lie. I got teary as I read it Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to another weekend of insane game deals! I am sure I’m getting jaded – it seems with each week I am unimpressed by the list of hundreds of games at 50% off or more and have a hard time grabbing five favorites … but when I dig in I still realize how awesome the deals are! I am focusing my lists more on the deals of 75% off or more to keep things manageable … but still have some that are >50% off – but that is my lower limit! I am continuing my ‘top 5 weekend deals’ section where I grab my favorite 5 deals of the week and provide… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the iPhone-related questions I have been asked my frequently in the last two weeks is this - ”I have the iPhone 4. Is Siri reason enough for me to upgrade to the iPhone 4S?” Let me offer a few thoughts and then, hopefully, any of you who have the iPhone 4S will chime in with your opinions. If you have the iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS, it is a no-brainer. Your contract is up, so now a discounted phone is likely available; the 3G and 3GS — while still excellent phones — are completely outclassed by the iPhone 4S. I know, however, that is a copout, since the question is not whether the iPhone… Continue reading on Gear Diary …