After purchasing a bright shiny phone, I don’t leave it naked  too long.  I receive as much pleasure from purchasing the case as I do from purchase of the phone.  In my opinion, the case needs to protect the phone and maintain all the button functions; if it can add to the coolness of the phone, the case is a winner.  Otter Box has just released a case for the BlackBerry Curve that does all three.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When I have a hard time getting motivated to work out, a new pairs of running shoes or a new gadget will help me get out the door.  Sometimes,  just the desire to use my gadgets helps me workout.  I have my iPod but my latest gadget is a Garmin watch that I use to track mileage and calories burned. What I miss is that I didn’t buy the Garmin with a heart rate monitor.  During my competitive days, I really got into measuring my pulse rate.  Measuring your pulse rate helps you measure the intensity of your workout. I became quite fanatical about knowing what my resting pulse, my exercise rate etc.  I had one of the original pulse monitors that you stuck your finger into, then the monitor that clipped onto your earlobe and then all the ones with chest straps. However, you really could never use them in the pool.  The way they transmitted never worked in water.  But, now there is a solution for those that swim. Finish has just released the AquaPulse Heart Rate monitor for those that like to measure pulse submerged. Finis “AquaPulse” Heart Rate Monitor Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As a communication medium – email has  had rapid adoption has become a communication standard.  Statistics, extrapolations and counting by Radicati Group from August 2008 estimate the number of emails sent per day (in 2008) to be around 210 billion.  183 billion messages per day means more than 2 million emails are sent every second. About 70% to 72% of them might be spam and viruses. The genuine emails are sent by around 1.3 billion email users. Since we all use email, you would think we could all practice a little etiquette in our email.  After all, we don’t let children just pick up the phone without teaching them some few basic manners… “Hello” is always a good way to start a phone conversation.  However, for e-mail, I don’t think we’ve come that far. I recently read  Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, a new book by David Shipley  and Will Schwalbe. photo courtesy of Amazon Continue reading on Gear Diary …