For the past month or so I have been blasting through a comparative review of “The Complete Idiots Guide to Music Theory” and “Music Theory for Dummies”. They are both excellent books and my review will be out soon. But in the meantime, I wanted to share a special offer from the publishers of The Complete Idiots Guides – from now until October 31st, get 50% off one regular priced order! One special note on something I encountered trying to make a purchase: “This coupon is not applicable toward eBook purchases.” Head to idiotsguides.com and upon checkout use the coupon code CIGBlog11 to get your discount! And remember – the offer expires… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Perhaps it was because I was using the Sony Vaio S-series laptop with its 15-hour battery, but I never really looked critically at the battery life on my 2011 15″ Macbook Pro. But recently I have been using it almost exclusively and have felt that I should be getting more hours between charges. My assumption – particularly how the fans would spin up even when I was doing nothing particularly challenging – was that there was something related to the graphics card. So I looked around and found that the dynamic switching on the graphics cards will often leave the system stuck using the discrete card when the integrated is more than enough (for… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When I was a teen, I was fascinated by cameras and camera lenses.  I used to go to the local Wentling camera store and just look at all the photo equipment.  I took a couple of photography classes and enjoyed the whole process, but it was mostly all those shiny pieces of metal, plastic, and glass that held my attention.  Precision engineering at its best, honestly. Now, I would almost certainly never buy one of these strap-on lenses for my iPhone, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking that they’re cool (if a little awkward looking), and they definitely feed the camera geek in me.  And those are just a few of USBFever’s offerings… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This month the world will cross over the 7 billion mark – more than 7 billion people alive at one time on the planet by estimates. That is an amazing number – when I was born 3.5 billion was a long way off, and even when I graduated high school we were nowhere near 5 billion. Yet in spite of dwindling fertility, global population growth continues unchecked. In ‘celebration’ of the milestone, SmartPlanet has put together a list of seven things to note about this population milestone: It took humans until 1800 for the world’s population to reach 1 billion. Now it only takes about 13 years to add another Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There are few things that split opinions and ignite heated debates like the Star Wars prequels, yet at least as visual storytelling they remain impressive achievements. LucasFilms has long been known to be bringing the movies back to theaters in 3D format, and now we have the first look! This weekend as one of the trailers before the (abysmal) Three Musketeers, viewers got to see the first trailer for the 3D re-release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The movie is slated to return to theaters in 3D on February 10th, 2012! Check out the trailer below! http://www.vimeo.com/30988295 Source: TheForce.net Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve always been a big believer in getting stuff for free.  I don’t know if it comes from having a stingy Dad, or from having to put myself through college and so not having a lot of spendable cash available or what, but I like free stuff.  Of course, if my observations are anything to go by, most people like free stuff. And if you’re one of those most people, this new contest by Olympus might catch your eye: the chance to win an autographed John Mayer special edition Martin guitar.  Now yeah, there’s “purchase necessary”; part of the contest is that you buy their LS-20M handheld HD video cam and make a video of an… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Smartphone maker HTC has unveiled a plan with cloud storage company Dropbox to give 5GB of free cloud storage to new HTC Android phone owners. According to reports, the deal is tied to phones using HTC’s new ‘Sense 3.5′ UI overlay. Drop Box gives users 2GB for free, so this is an extra 150% for free – plus HTC will pre-load the DropBox app on all new phones. This appears to be yet another reaction to Apple’s iCloud service, which offers 5GB free storage to anyone using an iOS 5 device. Microsoft offers 25GB of SkyDrive storage to Windows Phone users. As of right now the offer is limited to Android phones… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I have had the opportunity to review each generation of Sound iD’s Bluetooth headsets. The first was a small but excellent device and with each generation the devices have gotten better and better. Now the company is back with their Sound iD SIX Series headset and it looks great. Here’s what the company has to say about it: Sound ID redefines the Bluetooth experience with the new SIX. Destined to be your go-to headset, the SIX boasts a sleek look and more than one new audio trick, resulting in a true marriage of outstanding sound, true comfort and advanced technology. With innovative features such as VoiceMenu (which enhances traditional voice recognition) the Clear Carbon Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Camp Magic is one of those games I can immediately see an audience for – magic, simulation, simple on-the-go gameplay, and full social integration. The basis of the game is simple – you are running your own magic academy, called ‘Camp Magic’. The social aspects go beyond just posting pictures on Facebook and bragging on Twitter, as you can actually play along with others cooperatively or competitively through the game! Here are some details from Moga: San Francisco, CA, October 17, 2011 – iOS gamers around the world today can enter a world of magic, wizardry, spells and potions, right on their iOS device as Camp Magic, a new free to play game Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! So … there are far fewer games out this week than last week. And the reason is simple – we get one of those releases big enough that others schedule around it. That game is Battlefield 3, the latest entry in the multiplayer-focused shooter franchise. There are some other games, such as the strategy sequel Stronghold 3, which is a genre favorite for PC gamers and has been highly anticipated. There are other interesting releases like Disney Universe, as well as Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, as well as some others. Every platform has something worth checking this week -… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Halloween time is upon us. Here are even more select Halloween video game reviews from my review vault.

Just over two months ago HP created market hysteria by killing off the TouchPad tablet and then dropping the price for quick sell-off to $99 for the 16GB and $149 for the 32GB version. In a dazzling internet-breaking weekend, a variety of sites posted and quickly sold out of the TouchPad at those prices. All of which is nice history, but it is relevant because now we are starting to see some stock of the TouchPad trickling out to a few deals sites, Amazon.com and HP itself. All of this before the anticipated final rush of TouchPad inventory made to use up the final supplier inventories. This weekend the site DailySteals (synopsis… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

“Is Apple Inadvertently Making Piracy Easier than Ever?” That’s the question I posed to the rest of the GD Editors this morning. After all, I love my music, but Michael — well he is the music guy. Here was the full hypothetical I shared: Imagine there is a musical group whose songs you love. Now imagine they came out with an album, but it wasn’t released in the US. Problem is, none of the legal streaming music services seem to offer the album either. So what if, hypothetically speaking, you were to try the app MusicDownloader from the iTunes App Store. I mean, according the description it is completely legal right? Just look…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today’s Gear Deal is for the gamers among us. The Razer Black Widow Ultimate Mechanical Gaming Keyboard looks great and has some of the ket features that make it an excellent specialized keyboard. As the company explains, The Razer BlackWidow Ultimate takes you full speed into combat with a full-fledged mechanical key infrastructure delivering crisp, tactile feedback with every actuation. Bringing an entirely different feel and faster keystroke actuation to the table, this revolutionary fully backlit gaming keyboard is rounded off by its additional macro keys and unlimited on-the-fly macro recording. Normally $129.99, our Gear Sponsor has found it for just $95.99 and it will even ship for free. Gear Deal: Razer Black Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The 60 Minutes piece on Steve Jobs this evening was more than a bit interesting, and it gave some new insight into the man who created the amazing company that is Apple. Now the official biography is out. The easiest way to pick it up??? Through the Amazon Kindle Store [affiliate link], of course. If you read the book please make sure to share your thoughts with us below… Continue reading on Gear Diary …