The number one complaint I hear from new adopters of the latest God Phones is the problem they have with dropped calls. Battery life issues can often be fixed with firmware updates, but when you’re out of range, you’re out of luck.

In an attempt to help address this problem, the folks at ARC Wireless Solutions have released the latest version of the Freedom Blade wireless signal booster for PDAs, cell phones and laptop wireless access cards.

More info after the jump.

Continue Reading

My girlfriend and I eat a lot of spinach. [ed. note-this is my official entry into the 2008 "Most Unexpected Opening Sentence in a Tech Review" competition.]

We joined a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, last year and receive a bushel of whatever is fresh off the farm every week from spring until fall. A side effect of this is the fact that until the succulent peppers and tomatoes start to ripen in July we often find ourselves buried under mountains of greens-chard, kale, collards, spinach and the like. We’ve learned to blanch them, sautée them, bake them and eat them raw in salads.

It also means that my girlfriend spends a lot of time checking her teeth for hangers. For years, we had a secret routine where she would turn to me and say with a big smile, “How’s your grandmother?” The correct answer is always, of course, “Deceased.” But the question is actually a cue for me to check her teeth and respond either “fine” or “she’s having a little trouble” and point to the corresponding part of my own grillwork where there might be an offending stray bit of greenery. An aside-When you’re pointing to your own face to let someone else know that they have a sesame seed in their teeth or maybe a stray bit of nacho cheese in the corner of their mustache, do you point to the same side or the mirror image? Just curious.

Anyhoo, it looks like technology has put me out of another job. Because my girlfriend doesn’t need to inquire about the health of my dead relatives anymore. I’ve been replaced by The Echo Mirrored Screen Protector.

Continue Reading

You wouldn’t know it by my lunchtime eating habits (now where shall I get my lo mein today?), but my girlfriend and I like to consider ourselves as at least pseudo-gourmet chefs. And let me tell you, it’s hard work to whip up mess of Pseudos without overcooking them. Especially if you have to keep track of multiple burners and an oven.

Luckily, Tuscan Concepts and your local Target Store have teamed up to help solve that particular problem. The fix is after the jump.
Continue Reading

As we see a convergence of media formats, everyone is looking for solutions to carry their content on the road with them. One of the drawbacks I see of micro PC’s and MacBook airs is their unsuitability to play dvds to entertain me while I’m traveling. Yeah, I’m selfish that way.

Toast 9 Titanium – Burn. Watch. Listen. Share.

Roxio, the makers of Toast have evolved their product to respond to the needs of Mac and iPhone users who desire access to many different formats of video across various platforms. Read what they have to say below:

Continue Reading

If you know anything about me, you know I’m lazy. L-a-a-a-a-z-y. Brush my teeth while standing at the urinal watching SportsCenter lazy. I prefer to call myself a multi-tasker.

So I was impressed when I found out from the good people at www.tekzen.net that they’ve come up with another alternative for people like myself who don’t want to go to the trouble of typing in long url’s into their blog posts and Twitter Tweets. The product was developed by a friend of mine, Jackson Miller. True to his mission, Jackson has shortened his professional name to “Jaxn.” You gotta like his consistency of message.

So what makes urlzen.com better than the leader in the concatenation space, tinyurl.com? Find out after the jump:

Continue Reading

Every now and again, the GearDiary team gets a press release that leads to a round of “No way that’ll ever work!” emails being tossed around our “reply all” circle. Then invariably, I’ll be the one to volunteer to try it. Maybe it’s just the dreamer in me. My little world is full of butterflies and unicorns, too.

And it takes a dreamer to believe in a product like a telescope adapter for an iPhone. Especially when you read the claims on the website of its features:

- makes the super wide angel
- the larger luminous flux
- the higher visual acuteness
- good for color reduction
- detachable from the crystal case
- 6X optical Zooming

Now I don’t know if it makes angels wider or reduces color, and I’m pretty sure I don’t know what luminous flux is, but I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if the darned thing doesn’t work!

Continue Reading

I bought my girlfriend an iPhone for Christmas and ever since we’ve been trying to find the perfect case for her. I tested several different models from the good people at pdair.com, always a “go-to” source for iPhone swag.

Specifically, we looked at:

The black leather flip case

The pink leather flip case with snap

Continue Reading

With the approach of the 3-day Memorial Day weekend that unofficially kicks off summer, I figured it would be a good time to take a peek at a tool to encourage some of us pasty-white technophiles out into the actual outdoors. Although my legs have often been described as “cadaverous,” I realize that I probably need to break down and put on some shorts and get some fresh air for a change.

But when I’m in the great outdoors, I don’t want to be totally disconnected from the grid and I want to know where I’m going. Enter the Universal Bike Mount Holder for iPhone / iPod / PDA / GPS from USB Fever.

Continue Reading

Something strange is happening to me. I was having lunch with a friend last week when he suddenly looked up from his plate and said, “I just realized that you drove up to meet me at a vegetarian restaurant driving your new hybrid car with your bicycle on a trunk rack on the back. Who are you and what have you done with my beer-drinking buddy, Chris?!”

Sure, part of my attitude change has come from the upward spiral of fuel costs. I just couldn’t afford to drive a Tahoe anymore so I traded it in on a Camry. I really think that the Greening of America is getting to me. I’m not a fanatic about it, and I don’t know what my carbon footprint is. But when I encounter a choice between doing something that is more socially responsible than the same old, same old, it’s becoming more natural (no pun intended) to take the greener option.

The folks at CREDO Mobile are trying to make it easier to go green with regard to your telecommunications. So if you’re a lazy environmentalist like me, take a look at their latest developments along with an update to my review of the CREDO Solio Charger after the jump.

Continue Reading

I’m no Apple-basher. Sure, I use a Dell at work and an HP laptop at home, but my girlfriend is on Apple laptop number three in the past four years, and I went to college near Cupertino in the second half of the 1980’s. If you went to Stanford, you just accepted that you were supposed to pay three grand for a Mac SE and an Imagewriter. So I did.

iPod devotee? Yup, that’s me too. At last count there were four different models in my household, and iTunes should send me a Christmas card.

But there’s one thing that most people won’t admit for fear of waking the sleeping Jobs-Bear. So I’ll acknowledge the elephant in the room. Brace yourself fanboys (and fangirlz.)

The earbuds that come with all Apple products stink.

There, I said it. They are uncomfortable. They don’t fit in most human-sized ears. They fall out when you’re exercising, jogging or even walking. They hurt after thirty minutes of use, and they probably excessively damage your hearing because you have to turn them up so loud to get any bass response at all.

Remember those four iPods I own? I’ve purchased at least twice that many aftermarket headphones in an effort to improve my listening experience. You can’t swing a dead cat around my house without tangling Tabby’s claws in a set of white earbuds tangling themselves up on some random flat surface in my office.

But the good people at Comply have come up with a way to improve the fidelity quality of the iPod aural without completely abandoning the phones that Steve built. Behold, the Whoomp! Earbud Enhancers.

Continue Reading