My eldest son had a birthday recently, receiving numerous presents. This in and of itself is not unusual, but there was an aspect to one of those presents that triggered a revelation of sorts for me. Before I delve into that, let me preface it with a disclaimer: I currently own no Apple products. Zip. Nada. Zero. In the realm of cell phones, I’m partial to Android. I love the customizability of it, the screen widgets, and how I can choose to integrate it with my PCs. My son, not yet a cell phone user, owns an iPod. Consequently, towards his birthday he wanted some accessories for it. A quick trip to the internet revealed… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Point 1: As much as I love my iPhone using it as a phone isn’t all that comfortable. As a result, even when I’m not on the go, I will often use a headset, wired or Bluetooth, when using my iPhone for a call. In other words, if I use my iPhone a headset is a must. Point 2: iOS 5 .0 isn’t giving me the battery life that I am used to and need. That may change with the next iOS update but for the time being it is an issue with which I need to deal. That means I need to charge my phone more often than ever. In other words, if… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It seems that while there were loads of good and bad things that happened in the U.S. in 2011 just like any year, it also seemed that some of the things that have been brewing since 9/11 in terms of squelched public opinion and the after-effects of the recession and growing income and power disparity came to a head in a way that was shocking. There were joys and tragedies across the world, but for this montage I selected only things from within our borders, and set it to the song ‘This is not America’ by David Bowie and the Pat Metheny group. It was the main song from the movie ‘The Falcon and… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I remember seeing my first guitar synthesizer vividly – it was the late 70′s in Junior High and the instrument was a fragile and finicky Arp Avatar that allowed a special pickup on a standard guitar to play through the synth. Later I had the chance to actually play with an early Roland GR-300 that Pat Metheny famously used on his Offramp album. Of course, now that the iPad houses full-on studios more powerful than those recording most pop music in the 80′s, it makes sense we now have a guitar synth app! Let’s take a quick look! The Hype: *****Special Introductory Price! 60% off (until January 14, 2012)!***** Say… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

William & Kate’s first post-wedding kiss The Guardian UK’s Flickr stream has a gallery of curated photos commemorating the events of 2011 through vignettes made of LEGO blocks. Some of them are quite imaginative, and I suspect that you might enjoy them as much as I did …… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I love the JawBone Jambox that I purchased a few weeks ago. It came on vacation with me and was quite handy to have around. I like it even more now that I discovered Jawbone’s MyTalk portal. It let me set up the button on the device to activate Siri, and it also let me change the voice used for notifications on the device. Here’s a look at some of the options … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Is there anything more pure and telling of the holiday spirit than tapping out a 200A service on a wonderfully gaudy light show synchronized to the song ‘Equinox’ by Skrillex? No … I didn’t think so. And no, this is NOT my house, despite how my younger son wanted to hook up the music and take a trip to Wal-Mart to buy a few thousand more strands of lights … Source: Buzzfeed Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Want to see the all-new 2013 Ford Fusion sedan? Ford has an app for that. The automaker has released iOS and Android smartphone and device apps to tease the eventual unveil of the vehicle that will occur in the app simultaneously as it does on stage at two stellar events. The 2013 Ford Fusion (which has been named the official car of CES 2012) will be unveiled at both the North American International Auto Show in Detroit next month as well as the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. These are two of the biggest shows held in the U.S. each year and Ford has been utilizing CES more and more each year as technology in vehicles has progressed.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of GigaOm We’re pleased to give you a bit o’ notice that GD friend Clinton Finch has penned–okay, not penned; tapped out on his keyboard–“An Open Letter to Windows Phone Developers”, encouraging them to update their apps.  Well, “encourage” is probably too weak a word, but you get the idea. Now, I’m unlikely to buy a Windows Phone–I’m really, really happy with my iPhone, I’ve made a considerable investment in the Apple app ecosystem, and (to be blunt) my previous experience with a phone running Windows Mobile was . . . um . . . unpleasant.  Yeah, that’s the word!  But I honestly want Windows Phones to succeed because… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to another weekend of insane game deals for you to enjoy! First off, if you haven’t been checking out Steam and GamersGate on a daily basis … DO IT! 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 direct links! For these games I select based on how good the game is as well as how sweet the deal – but each week there are great games at fantastic discounts! And as always thanks to the crew at Deals4Downloads for their help finding everything. But the biggest thing of the week is that rather than their normal deal, GetGames is doing a bundle! Called ‘littleBIGBunch’, it includes Frozen Synapse, Explodemon, Serious Sam Double D, New Star Soccer and Munch’s Odyssey … and you can choose how much to pay and how to divide the proceeds. Head here to check it out! TOP 5 WEEKEND DEALS! A Farewell to Dragons for $2.00, Save [...]

Hanukkah, the Jewish Festical of Lights, begins next week. In preparation for this I put together a roundup of Hanukkah apps for our local New Jersey Jewish News. A version of what follows was published today… History of Hanukkah If you are looking for an iPhone app that explains what Hanukkah is and why we celebrate, this is for you. The text itself is drawn from Wikipedia but the app does a nice job of gathering the information, organizing it and adding some nice images as well. I especially appreciate the fact that it is clear about the origins of the legend of the oil and the fact that… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I am an admitted fanboy of the Gothic franchise, with Gothic 2 listing near the very top of my ‘all time favorites’ list of games. It had been a while since I replayed Gothic 3 to any extent, so when Good Old Games added it to their lineup a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t help but buy it … for the fourth time! I have the DVD version sitting somewhere, and have bought it on both Steam and Direct2Drive to get the full Gothic Collection digitally (at the time each only had a subset). Gothic 3 is a game that was met with pretty serious disappointment due to extreme resource requirements… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Ochion Jewell – First Suite for Quartet Ochion Jewell – First Suite for Quartet As I have stated again and again, one thing I love about doing music reviews for Gear Diary is that it allows me to listen to and share great music by artists you might not hear about otherwise – but who really deserve the attention. Early this spring I specifically highlighted several of these recordings, including a release by bassist Sam Trapchak. So then Sam Trapchak tells a friend of his who has released a new CD to get in touch with me. As is always the case, I check out his website… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you watch FOX News, aside from being statistically underinformed about actual events (and I suppose OVER-informed about … something?), you would think that the pepper spray that has gained notoriety from the spate of ‘police state’ actions this fall is simply a ‘food product’. But how many food products do YOU know that Amnesty International labels as ‘cruel, inhuman and tantamount to torture’? I didn’t think so … anyway, here is an interesting look at the new cologne being applied to ‘smelly protestors’ everywhere …… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Back in 2006 when The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion launched, while most were drawn in by the hype and PR overload I was one of few that saw the major flaws in the game. Bethesda used all of those flaws as marketing tools to talk about how much they had improved things in making expansions, Fallout 3 … and now Skyrim. The difference? Skyrim DESERVES the hype. And the massive sales – yesterday Bethesda sent me a press release underscoring the massive success of Skyrim: 10 million units shipped and the fastest selling game ever on the Steam PC gaming store.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …