™ No, I don’t travel with quite that much stuff; close, though (Image courtesy of The Tech Journal) So it used to be that I had to travel basically every week–my job was in California, but my home is in Austin, so I did an awful lot of flying around.  After a while, it got to the point where it was practically automatic, and I didn’t give much thought to the things I did to make traveling easier. Recently, however, after a 5 month hiatus, I had to make a business trip, and I’m finding that some of the gear that I got to ease my way makes things much easier.  If you yourself are a road warrior, a technogypsy, a traveling nerd, then maybe some of these hints can help you out, too.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

So someone knocks on the door, right?  You want to see who the heck it is, without giving away the fact that, well, you’re checking them out.  (This isn’t an issue at my house–there’s simply too much glass around the door to hide.)  Maybe you even have one of those fisheye lens peephole viewer things.  Which is okay, I guess, but this is the digital age, and maybe you can do better, don’t you think?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Once you graduate college or high school and start moseying out into the real world, you start to notice: finding dates is hard.  You are no longer surrounded by potential partners just your own age; you’re surrounded by, well, everybody.  Including old pharts like yours truly.  So how do you find a partner?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

In my dreams, the way it works is this:  you have a card that you carry, which contains all your medical record information (encrypted, of course).  You back up this information on your system at home, and when you go into a new doctor’s office, instead of spending 15 minutes filling out a whole bunch of forms that are identical to the forms you’ve filled out before, you just hand them your card, they zip it through a card reader, you enter your PIN code, and bango, they have the info.  No need for forms, and you have access to your medical records whenever you need them.  In my dreams. But some people are at least making some decent first steps in that kind of direction.  Like MotherKnows:… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When I was in College–back before the most recent ice age–computer graphics were juuuuust really getting started.  If you look at the graphics of “Project Genesis” in Star Trek II, you’ll see what was, for then, the top-of-the-line:  graphics that were programmed in UNIX on a big ol’ VAX, and then run out on a Cray SuperComputer.  I mean, that was smokin’ for 1982.  Really! Nowadays?  Now, PC are powerful enough that you can render complicated underwater scenes . . . in games.  You young whippersnappers don’t know how good you have it!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Puzzle games are some of my favorites, particularly puzzle games that have an anachronistic, steampunk, Myst-like sensibility.  Good ones are few and far between, unfortunately, and it’s not like Broderbund is  cranking out iOS ports of the various Myst sequels in HD anyway, if you know what I mean.  So when I see game in this category, it does intrigue me:… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I don’t know why, but I find goofy racing games addicting.  Mario Karts, MicroQuad (on my lost, lamented Tapwave Zodiac), CroMag Rally, Sonic Racing . . . I just like ‘em.  I don’t like those realistic ones, where you get to zoom around in the latest Bugatti or Königsegg or Aston Martin–I like the goofy cartoony ones.  Don’t ask me why. Not unlike KartRider Rush:… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Steve Jobs passed away several months ago now, and the burst of news at the event, followed by the (just days later) release of Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson, has pretty much abated.  So what possible news could Jobs be making now, from beyond the grave?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

You know what sucks?  Yes, that too; but what I was thinking of was when you’re sleeping, I mean really deep in there, having an awesome dream, the kind in vivid technicolor with an awesome soundtrack, and maybe costarring Brad Pitt and Scarlett Johansson, with a guest cameo by your deceased Dad playing an ass-kickin’ Navy Seal (well, he was in the Navy!), and whammo! the alarm goes off!  Now you’re never going to know whether Bruce Willis, with your Dad’s help, managed to save Halle Barry!  Damn! Well, as you might expect, there’s tech help.  What is that, you ask?  Well . . .… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As the official Old Phart of Gear Diary, I get to do that crabby “I remember when” stuff, because, well, because, that’s why!  And in this case, “I remember when” they used to have a Concentration game show on TV, and I’m barely old enough to remember when it was played with cards that some poor schmuck on the set had to flip around by hand, like the scoreboard at Fenway.  It was the low-tech era, kids! Well, we’re a loooooooong way away from those days; now you can get a computerized, high-def version on your iPad.  And “for a limited time”, this particular version of Concentration, called Instamory, is free:… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When you look at an iPad, one of the first things that comes to mind (after, “Cool!  Want!”) is, “How awesome when you have to do portable stuff!”  In fact, if you go into your local Apple store you will see a bunch of the Apple concierges trotting around with their iPads, checking people in, looking up product stock information, getting prices, and a whole bunch of other things. I have been waiting for the iPad to achieve greater market penetration in the Enterprise area (which, if you’re not in the tech biz world, mean, “Them really big customers like General Motors or The New York Stock Exchange”).  As we get more networked, people–especially IT people, but really anyone–need a more portable computing solution.  I can’t tell you the number of times at my previous company where I saw people carting around their laptops, lid open, balanced on one arm.  Man did they need an iPad! So the question is, if you’re carting your iPad around a lot, how do you keep it secure, how do you hang on to it more easily? How do you insure it doesn’t  get stolen? SecurityLocker for the iPad thinks they have an answer:… [...]

I love my iPad; I mean, I really love it.  If I could figure out a way to get it to completely replace my laptop, I would do it.  I use it to watch movies, read books, follow my Twitter feed, and lots of other things.  As a nerd– and this is no exaggeration– it’s the kind of device I’ve been waiting for most of my nerdy, computer-geek life. It does have some issues, though, one of which is that, after a while, you do get tired of holding the durn thing up.  It’s not that it’s so heavy but, like reading a book on the beach, eventually your hands get fatigued and you feel the need for a break.  Sure, it’s okay to rest the iPad on your stomach while reading but that doesn’t work well when you are, for example, watching movies and TV shows.  Sometimes, you just want to clamp the iPad in place and relax while using it hands-free. Arkon has just the accessory to make this happen. The Tablet Table Mount is a  universal tablet holder that is designed to work with many different tablets. Of course, I only have an iPad 1 so that’s what I [...]

America is a hodgepodge of people from all over the world, with a correspondingly big mix of religions, celebratory days, and religious holidays.  But we’re Americans, so we kinda invented a few cultural things as we went along, some secular holidays that everyone-no matter your nation of origin, your creed, your color, your gender, your sexual orientation, or whatever–you can enjoy along with everyone else in the country.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Valentines day is coming (believe it or not), and yes, you can go with one of the classics for that special person in your life:  chocolate, chocolates, flowers, jewelry, or more chocolate.  But if your sweetie is a geek, maybe what you need is something a bit more . . . nerdly.  Something that shows you acknowledge that which both makes him or her special.  Something that speaks to their inner geek. Unsurprisingly in this, the Age o’ the Geek, there are web sites (hey: geeks invented the web, after all!) and sections of web sites that cater to exactly that need.  Like ThinkGeek, which has a whole bunch of geek stuff for that nerd in your Continue reading on Gear Diary …

General Sherman (the tree, not the guy who marched from Atlanta to the sea) Despite what you may think, “going green” and thinking about the environment and the future are not new things.  There is the story–possibly apocryphal–about the New College at Oxford planting oaks to replace the beams in the Great Hall . . . several hundred years later, when they (inevitably) became beetle-infested.  Teddy Roosevelt was thinking green when he designated huge swaths of the United States National Parks, to be preserved for everyone.  Johnny Appleseed is an American legend for planting a zillion trees, and many nations around the world celebrate Arbor Day by planting trees. Now we have a lot… Continue reading on Gear Diary …