I practically live on my MacBook Pro. All of my Gear Diary posts are done using it, most all of my internet browsing and I even use it full time at work instead of my supplied Windows machine. Some would say I love this computer since it is with me everywhere I go. There is one problem with the MacBook Pro. The speaker is terrible! It is too small and provides thin, weak audio quality. The machine is so beautiful, it is a shame that the audio quality is so poor. I have tried several options to improve the audio, all of which are not exactly mobile. As luck would have it, the folks… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

  I needed a car a few weeks ago. That opened the door to my getting some of the neat technology we have seen and reviewed here on the site built into the car. Here was the Gear Diary editors backroom chatter. Judie: Question: What color? Answer: black Question: 2 or 4 door? Answer: 4 door Carly: Question: 2 or all-wheel drive? Answer: all-wheel-drive – between where I live and what I do it is a necessity. Question: hybrid or standard? Answer: Unfortunately standard because hybrid all-wheel drives are rare and the all-wheel-drive kills the gas benefit of the hybrid Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Earlier this week in my list of iTunes App Store deals, I mentioned that Hero of Sparta 2 was ‘free for a limited time’. Turns out I was wrong – the update switched the game to a ‘free to play’ model full-up with ads! Those who had actually paid for the game were angered by the sudden appearance of an egregious amount of intrusive ads (I had to check it out myself … it was awful)! Fortunately after a couple of days of uproar, GameLoft has retreated. According to GameLoft’s Facebook page: “Gameloft wishes to apologize to the fans of Hero of Sparta 2 given the poor gaming experience, brought Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As if matching price with Google Music – but with a better selection, much better client, and overall completely superior music service – wasn’t enough … today Amazon’s MP3 Store is offering some of the best selling music of 2011 at $3.99 per album! Save on new albums by Coldplay, Rihanna, Drake, Daughtry, the Decemberists, Florence + the Machine, Mac Miller, Amy Winehouse, She & Him, and the Muppets, then listen immediately on your Kindle Fire, PC, Mac, iPad, or Android Phone with Amazon Cloud Player. You can instantly gift these or any MP3s from Amazon. Whether these are ‘the best’ or even the ‘best selling’ is questionable (I don’t think the ‘She… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Good news! You can now play Words With Friends on your NOOK Tablet. Bad news…it’ll cost you $2.99! Apparently there’s no free rides in the NOOK ecosystem, as many apps that are free with ads on bigger platforms cost a small amount on the NOOK. This is a trend we’ve seen in other “big” apps like Angry Birds, and I think it’s more likely to harm than help B&N in building a sustainable platform. Before I get into my logic, I want to make one thing clear-I have no problem with paying for apps, or with developers needing a way to make money. My issue is that B&N has an Android base to their tablet… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I love Siri. She takes care of me when I am too lazy to type, and she manages my calendar far better than I can. But am I too trusting of my patient, robotic assistant? Thats what the twisted minds of Rooster Teeth Productions thought when they designed this trailer, where Siri is sick of our dumb questions and teaches us all who is really in charge, slasher-film style! I might need to sleep with one eye open tonight… Via TiPB Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The amazing breadth of great music apps for the iPad is stunning – there are full-on DAWs (digital audio workstations), synthesizers, effects processors, compositional tools and more. One of the better tools for guitarists, Guitar Pro is getting a very rare price cut to $0.99 (the last drop was to $4.99!). So if you are a guitarist looking for a great interactive tool for your iPad or iPhone, grab this NOW! Here is the description: ★★★ EXCLUSIVE WINTER OFFER ★★★ From December 21 to 29, treat yourself to the Guitar Pro app Huge discount available ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ The Guitar Pro application allows all guitarists to enjoy the display, playback Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The other day Carly wrote a post about the lack of professionalism when using Text-spelling for business communication. It is a good post and one worth reading. (Find it here.) Here’s a related pet-peeve… companies intentionally misspelling words in order to be unique, cool or grab attention. Seriously, there are ways to spell things and… …there are ways not to spell things. I just finished a review of the Joy Factory’s Klick Desk Stand. It is a nice product but my spellcheck is pretty much hating the company right now. GAH!!!!!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’m not a huge fan of “augmented reality” apps, honestly.  I find it hard enough to walk and chew gum at the same time without holding up my iPhone and “augmenting” my reality.  Mundane reality is confusing enough for me already, honestly. But.  But, I have really enjoyed having augmented reality apps for things like star gazing, which you’re (hopefully) not doing while you’re walking around or driving or whatever anyway, right?  And one of the apps in that area that I’ve quite enjoyed is the Star Walk app.  Joseph and I were out walking the dogs one night, for example, and Joseph pointed to two steady lights low in the sky.  ”What’s that?”  ”They’re planets… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has a rather interesting history, and one that is completely and totally wrapped up in the commercial side of the Christmas holiday. It started as a picture book made as a giveaway for Montgomery Ward department store, and then a decade later was immortalized by Gene Autry in 1949 as one of the most popular Christmas songs ever made. The song and story became further engrained in popular culture when the Rankin/Bass stop-animation TV show debuted in 1964, and remains a holiday mainstay more than 45 years later! Seeking to help it cross into the digital app age, today Amazon is featuring of the biggest Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to another weekend of insane game deals for you to enjoy! Once again, 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. This week I am also going to start properly alphabetizing my list by store! But the biggest change this week is that based on some experiences that has caused me to do a full review of all of the digital download services, I am drastically reducing the number of sites I will cover. I simply won’t recommend or list deals from a site that forces onerous re-download terms [...]

Back in November we brought a pair of on-ear headphones to your attention that look great, sound good and don’t break the bank. At under $70 for each pair eskuché’s 33i and Control-i headphones are worth considering if you’ve been looking for a pair of on-ear headphones that include an in-line mic. We’ve had both of them here for the past few weeks and have used them to listen to a variety of music. In this lightening review we will take a quick look at both, give you some of the upsides and some of the potential downsides and then give you a chance to win each. So without further ado here Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Not too long ago, when you downloaded anything from the iTunes Store you were responsible for managing those files – if you lost your hard drive to a crash you were out of luck. When the iTunes App Store arrived, you were finally able to re-download apps you had already bought. iTunes in the Cloud changed things for music – suddenly you could just re-download anything you had purchased from the iTunes Music Store and Book Store as well as Apps. Most recently iTunes Match allows you to add ANYTHING to your music library to download anywhere. Back in August Apple started allowing re-downloads of TV shows as well, which opened… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you dock your iPhone you have discovered the challenge of finding the right case, one that provides enough protection but also fits into the charge/sync dock or speaker dock you use. Speck took a decidedly different approach to solving this issue with their CandyShell Flip by making it possible to protect your iPhone in a thick, shock absorbing CandyShell case AND charge/sync/dock without having to ever remove the case. It is a simple but effective design and may be the ideal case for you. Let’s take a look… From Speck: Dock your iPhone 4S or iPhone 4 Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The JawBone JamBox is one impressive device. It is a Bluetooth speaker, a speakerphone and one of the best gadgets of 2011! At $199 it isn’t inexpensive but it is a quality device that is well worth the money. Spar’s Zephyr line of speakers looks to step into the fray with the JamBox and one up it by including a backup battery that can charge your device on the go. They even got Wired to run a piece entitled “Like a JamBox, Only More Generous” despite the author never having heard one. So… Continue reading on Gear Diary …