Wolfgang’s Vault is the name that entrepreneur Bill Sagan gave Bill Graham’s immense archives of rock memorabilia after he purchased them.  Graham, who died in 1991, was a rock promoter and responsible for the Fillmore auditoriums.

Wolfgang’s Vault has been streaming these shows for quite a while.  (See Larry’s review of the Wolfgang’s Vault iPhone app.)  Now, for the first time, those shows are being made available for download.  In an event being called “Cracking the Vault,” the WV folks are releasing recordings of shows in both high-quality 256k mp3 and lossless CD-quality FLAC format.

Among the wide range of artists whose concert recordings are included in the archives are Aretha Franklin, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Blue Oyster Cult, Bonnie Raitt, Boz Scaggs, Cheap Trick, Dolly Parton, Eddie Money, Fleetwood Mac, Grateful Dead, Hall & Oates, J. Geils Band, James Taylor, Jefferson Airplane, Linda Ronstadt, Little Feat, Marshall Crenshaw, Meat Loaf, Men At Work, Miles Davis, Santana, The Doobie Brothers, Ramones, and The Tubes.

You can find the Wolfgang’s Vault download page here.

Actually, make that “Living With Motorola Droids.”  Yes, Droids, plural.  My initial intention was to post my first impressions of the Motorola Droid after just a few days with it.  However, the first Droid that I picked up started locking up and spontaneously resetting itself on the first day I had it, and it continued to do so two or three times per day.  A few times it wouldn’t power on at all, and I had to pull the battery in order to get it to restart.  The upside, if there is one, is that none of the resets seemed to result in any data loss.

I tried uninstalling the few programs and widgets that I initially installed, thinking that perhaps one of them wasn’t working well with Android 2.0, but that didn’t eliminate the problem.  Next, I tried a factory reset.  Still didn’t solve the problem.  After checking a the forums on a few Android sites, it was apparent that a few other new Droid owners were experiencing the same problem.  So, I took the Droid back and exchanged it for another unit, which so far seems to be behaving just fine.  After this disappointing start, things got much better. Continue Reading

In my office, I have two guest chairs that face my desk.  My laptop sits on a stand on my desk so that it’s facing me but not viewable by anyone sitting in the guest chairs.  The only problem is that I often have coworkers in my office, talking about a file or participating in a Live Meeting.  When that happens, I either take the computer off the stand and position it where we both can see it, or my coworker has to move a chair around and sit beside me behind the desk. If only someone made a solution for that.  I dunno, a stand that… swivels.  Yeah, that’s it, a swiveling stand.

Oh wait, there is one.  The Swivel Notebook Stand from LapWorks spins 360° using steel ball bearings and has seven position settings so you can position your notebook at the proper height for you.  It also features a built-in low noise cooling fan and a 4-port USB hub. The stand comes in black and has a six-month warranty.  It’s regularly priced at $79.95, but is currently on sale for $69.95.  Enter coupon code FREESHIP at checkout to get free shipping on orders over $60.

If you have more Wiimotes than you have chargers, then Thrustmaster has your back.  A PC and game console accessory maker, Thrustmaster has released two new chargers that will accommodate multiple Wii Remotes at the same time, the T-Charge Stand Contactless + NW and the T-Charge Quattro+ NW.  Both chargers are powered by the Wii Console’s USB port.

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Stereo Bluetooth is a great innovation for the freedom it grants from cables.  I was quite pleased when Apple finally added stereo Bluetooth functionality to the iPhone.  Not that being connected to a headphone cable is a huge problem, but it’s nice to be able to set my iPhone on my desk while listening to music, and still be able to move around my office without needing to pick up the iPhone and carry it with me if I’m just moving a few steps to get something off a shelf.

Mobile Action understands the appeal of eliminating wires. Their new Voiis Stereo Wireless Music Gateway adds stereo Bluetooth capabilities to home stereo and computer systems.  It has both transmitting and receiving capabilities, so you can use it to stream music from your home stereo to a pair of Bluetooth headphones, or you can use it to receive music streamed from a Bluetooth-enabled device, such as an iPhone, and play it over your home system without needing a dock.

The folks at Mobile Action were kind enough to send us a review unit.  Keep reading for our evaluation.

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Speck makes a number of products designed to protect your mobile valuables.  We here at Gear Diary have favorably reviewed several of their cases for iPods and smartphones, including one of my favorites, the CandyShell for iPhone.  Now, Speck introduces protection for your Western Digital Passport and other small portable hard drives.

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One of the items frequently included on iPhone owners’ wishlists is the ability to test an application and then upgrade to a full version if they like it.  This is relatively common on other platforms, but iPhone owners have been relegated to using “lite” apps, if the developer even chooses to make a lite version.  The problem with lite versions, though, is that if you upgrade to a full version, there generally isn’t any way to transfer any data you’ve entered into the lite version.

As of yesterday, however, the problem may have been solved.  Apple informed developers that it will now allow in-app purchases for free apps.   This opens the door for developers to allow in-app upgrades to full versions of their programs.  Apple has allowed in-app purchases for paid apps for a while now (allowing the user to buy other services or products through the app), but had not extended this ability to free versions.  For more information and a quick Q&A, check out TUAW’s article at the link below.

[via TUAW and 9to5 Mac]

If you’ve been paying attention to T-Mobile’s problems with Sidekick backups this week, it’s probably made you think at least a little bit about how you back up your own mobile data.  Of course, given the Sidekick’s problems, it’s also possible that you may be a little tentative about the cloud at the moment.

If you’re willing to give the cloud a chance, then Best Buy’s new venture may be of interest.  In conjunction with Dashwire, Best Buy is introducing its own cloud backup service, called mIQ.  mIQ works with Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian S60 operating systems.  The service goes active today (October 12), and you can sign up for a free account with 1 GB of storage.  If you purchase your phone at Best Buy, the blue shirts will install it on your phone in-store via Best Buy Mobile’s Walk Out Working program.

According to the mIQ website, “mIQ takes the content on your phone and automatically pushes it to a private account on the web. From that point on, what you do on the phone will instantly update on the web and what you do on the web will instantly update on your phone – without you having to ever think about it.” In addition to backing up contacts and calendar data, mIQ also includes enhanced text messaging, photo and video storage and organization, and connectivity to Facebook, FriendFeed, Flickr, and Twitter.

For more information, check out mIQ’s website.

This is one of those bits of news that bears repeating, particularly if you use online banking.  CNET is reporting about a new type of Trojan horse, known as URLZone, that is designed not to steal your login information for online banking sites, but rather to actually steal your money while you’re on the bank’s website.  URLZone is sophisticated enough that it calculates how much money to steal based on how much is in your account, then displays a false balance to the user so as not to arouse suspicion.

The Trojan is being distributed through emails, infected sites that carry the malware, or an Adobe PDF.   It exploits a hole in Firefox, Internet Explorer 6, IE7, IE8, and Opera running on Windows systems.  According to the firm that identified the Trojan horse, about 90,000 computers have visited sites with the malware, over 6,000 have been infected, and a few hundred have actually been used to steal the users’ money.

For more details, see CNET’s articles here and here.

[via CNET]

I have used database programs for quite a while to keep track of things like my music collection and favorite wines.  Sure, I could do that with a spreadsheet, but having the data organized in a database makes it easy to sort and view records. I’m relatively new to Bento, just picking it up with version 2, but found it very easy to learn and use. This week, FileMaker released Bento 3, a major update to their user-friendly database software for the Mac.

Bento 3 offers a number of new and improved features, which are largely directed toward incorporating graphics better and adding security options, including:

• iPhoto integration

• Grid View – view any library in the new Grid view to show a grid of images or thumbnail views of your forms

• Related data field – now with image thumbnails

• File List – now with image thumbnails

• Table view with media cell

• Simple list field type – add a freeform table to your forms for quick list tracking

• Library Folders – save space in your Libraries pane by grouping like libraries in a single folder

• Library Icons

• Image box – add a static image, such as a team logo, to any of your forms

• New security options

• Multi-user sharing – share your Bento libraries with up to 5 other Bento users on your local area network

• Group emailing – send one email to multiple recipients through Apple Mail with a few clicks

• Improved Theme Chooser

• New option to print blank forms

• Print a blank version of any form, great for surveys and sign up lists

• New option to copy forms within a library and between collections

• 10 new pre-designed templates

In addition, FileMaker released an update to their iPhone app this week to improve compatibility with the Bento 3 desktop software.

Bento 3 is available for $49.00 from FileMaker’s website.  For existing Bento users, FileMaker is offering an instant upgrade rebate of $20 (offer expires January 28, 2010).

When it was first released earlier this year, DataViz’ Documents-To-Go iPhone application supported creation and editing of Word, but not Excel documents.  Anyone who purchased the application upon release paid a slightly discounted price, with promise that Excel editing was coming.

When I checked last night to see if there were any updates available for the applications on my iPhone, version 2.0 of Docs-To-Go was available, featuring Excel file editing.  Finally!

There are two flavors of Docs-To-Go:  with and without support for Exchange mail attachments.  Looking in the iTunes store this morning, the price for the applications has risen since I last checked.  Docs-To-Go with Exchange support is now $14.99 and without is $9.99 (up from $11.99 and $6.99, respectively).   Available here, in the iTunes store.

SPB’s Mobile Shell is one of my favorite Windows Mobile programs and one of the first things that I load on any new device. It’s like a launcher program on steroids, integrating contacts, weather information, and utilities into customizable screens.  SPB just announced the release of their latest version of Mobile Shell, version 3.5.  Among the updates in the new release are:

*–New widgets for tasks, a picture frame, Facebook status, Twitter status, birthdays reminders, four instant wireless switches (WiFi, Bluetooth, Flight Mode, and Phone Switch), internet search, operator’s name, date, and alarm

*–Updated to the contacts, wireless manager, and weather widgets 3D email and SMS viewer

*–Streamlined background change (with cropping and easy to view local gallery)

*–Current weather conditions (in addition to forecast) Improved 3D carousel design (e. g. added reflections)

*–Widget skin selection with preview and new skins for most widgets

*–Widget-based Professional home screen

*–Option to have only one home screen (lifestyle or professional)

*–Option to change the number of screens in lifestyle or professional layouts

*–Weather in Agenda view

*–Tactile feedback on tap-and-hold

*–Option to choose the default tab for Contacts and Launcher

*–Improved design of most dialogs (popup menus, settings, etc.)

*–Category filter in the contact list

*–Improved widget edit mode (widget can be dragged to other pages, recycle bin for easy delete etc.)

*–Color themes support on Windows Mobile 6.5

*–Integration with SPB Weather and SPB Traveler via widgets

*–Improved “Choose Shortcut” dialog box with similar look to SPB Menu

Mobile Shell 3.5 is available at SPB’s website for $29.95 ($14.97 if upgrading from version 2) or you can get it for 15% off at the Gear Diary Store, with the code GDFallTweets.

One of the things about the built-in calendar app on the iPhone that surprises me is that it lacks the ability to view more than one month at a time.  Sometimes it’s just handy to see several months – or a whole year – at once.  So when Zicron Software, a new software developer based in Scotland, offered Gear Diary the chance to evaluate their new iPhone app, Years, we agreed to take a look.

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PDAir has been making accessories for the mobile market since the early part of this decade.  They have offered accessories for an ever-growing lineup of devices, ranging from phones to media players to ebook readers.

Recently, PDAir released several new or updated models of cases for the iPhone 3GS and sent Gear Diary a couple of samples to review.  We were provided with the Vertical Pouch and the Sleeve Case in black leather.  (You can see their full line of iPhone 3GS cases and other iPhone accessories here.)  Both of the cases we were provided come in a variety of colors and with or without a belt clip.  Our samples were well made and the leather had a good feel to it.  The white stitching on black leather looked nice and the stitching on our samples was even.  Both cases came in nice boxes suitable for gift wrapping.

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Are you a Palm loyalist, still clutching your Centro, Treo, or T|X tightly in your fingers, not yet ready to surrender your trusted device, but perhaps looking for something to give your Palm OS device a little boost and add a little excitement?  If so, Handmark may just make your day.

Through its gaming group, Astraware, Handmark makes a great range of games for the Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry, iPhone, and PC platforms.  For a limited time, they are offering their Palm OS games at a 50% discount, including such well known titles as Tetris, Tradewinds 2, Bejeweled, Text Twist, GTS World Racing, and Astraware Casino.

To get your discount, use promo code PALM50 during checkout when shopping on the Astraware, Handmark, or Pocket Express websites.