The holidays are approaching. It will soon be time…

To trim the tree…

To light the menorah…

To trick out your iPhone or iPod touch…

We’re here to help with that last one. Details soon…

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, you may be spending copious amounts of time with the family.  After you’ve polished off that second — or sixth – helping of turkey, watched the last of the football games on television, and heard all of Uncle Tommy’s old college fraternity stories, you may want to get out of the house for a while.  Why not go enjoy a movie?  The holiday season will have more than a few flicks that you can take in with the family…and guess what?  You can use one of our favorite BlackBerry apps, Poynt, to take care of all the hard work.

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image courtesy of my-pc-nerd

My heat broke a few weeks ago; luckily it wasn’t too cold in New Jersey and the heating company fixed it quickly. After worrying about keeping everyone alive in the house warm, I did worry about what would happen to the various electronics. Fortuitously, Drive Savers has released a list of tips on how to keep your electronics from getting frostbite.

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A few weeks back I finally broke down and got a MiFi.  Yeah, you’ve certainly read plenty about the  mobile hotspot device.  I got to put the MiFi to the test over the last few weeks.  While I own a separate 3G aircard, and have tethered my BlackBerry using Tetherberry to frequently to surf when a good (free ) wireless hotspot was not available, I have to say…the MiFi is all that! In fact, I hear Judie’s got one on the way — so you know it’s good.

So, what do I like about it?  During my week-long trip last week the MiFi proved itself to be the best gear in my bag. That is no exaggeration.  I had the MiFi in my bag and was able to connect and stay on top of work (and posts!) no matter where I was.  Venture out of the hotel?  No problem.  I wasn’t scouring for a coffee shop or checking for an open (and unsecure) network.  I was able to enjoy some sight-seeing one afternoon and still able to respond to critical emails — while enjoying a break and taking in the scenery of the San Francisco bay.  Back at the conference, when many attendees were lamenting the constant drops from the WiFi provided by the hotel (that they had to pay for, no less) — I was able to help a few fellow participants by letting them hop on my MiFi connection.

Since up to 5 device connections can be used simultaneously, the MiFi was able to get a few other people out of a bind.  Plus, when my other carrier data connection (cough) was a bit spotty in areas, I found using the MiFi as my hotspot provided a steady, fast, and reliable way to ensure I was always online via my laptop, Bold, or iPhone.  Sure, there’s a 5GB cap (and the service is not cheap with the $60 monthly service fee …plus taxes) — but the MiFi has certainly replaced my 3G aircard.    Being able to just throw it in a bag (or my jacket pocket) and surf or respond to email from any location was, really, pure bliss.  If the MiFi started running out of juice — I would get about 4 or so hours out of it before needing to recharge — I would simply plug it up to my laptop via the micro-USB cable.  Sure, I couldn’t share the connection if it was plugged in to the laptop, but the MiFi would charge and let me surf in tethering mode.

This MiFi is definitely a keeper

One of the cool things about the new Nintendo DSi is the DSiWare feature that allows you to run apps and expand the functionality. As I mentioned in my ‘After a While’ Review, so far I have been largely underwhelmed with the releases, but it looks like things are starting to pick up! Read on for more details! Continue Reading

The folks at Truphone are giving everyone in the US another reason to be thankful over Thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving Day, November 26, from midday through midnight (GMT) (translation: EST- 7am-7pm, CST-6am-6pm), MST-  5am to 5pm, and PST- 4am-4pm) ,  people can make free phone calls using their Truphone application.

From their web site:

Truphone is a free VOIP application that runs on iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, Nokia, and Blackberry handsets.   Click here to download the application.

via Geek.com

How many times have you called someone from your mobile phone instead of sending an email because you didn’t want a “paper trail?”  Maybe because you didn’t want an email to be forwarded on because the information was confidential.  Perhaps the message you chose to conduct over a direct phone call from your mobile contained key product or shipping dates.  Perhaps the information was a bit more sensitive. We’ve all likely done it at one point or another — picked up the phone instead of pressing “send” on an email because we believe it’s more direct; and, frankly, we often believe it is more secure.

Last week I posted an update on Cellcrypt, a company who specializes in securing voice traffic on mobile phones through their unique peer-to-peer device application.  Cellcrypt had just released it’s application for the latest Bold 9700, Curve 8900, and BlackBerry Pearl devices.  My original take was, just a bit, tongue-in-cheek.  It seemed a bit of a niche product, securing mobile to mobile voice calls.  Well, last week I got the chance to sit down with Kathleen Peters, Cellcrypt’s General Manager for North & South America, and got an eye-opening view of the Cellcrypt solution.

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According to Proporta it’s a fact that your mobile phone has about 25,000 germs on its surface at any given time where as your toilet has only 47.

To help protect yourself against those nasty germs Proporta has developed a new iPhone case made from anti-microbial materials.  The silicone case, which is made from Steri-Touch material, comes in black with a gray interior.

The case is super light weight and adds little or no bulk to the overall feel of the phone.

The anti-microbial case, which comes with a lifetime warranty, is available for $20.95 by clicking here.

Watched the Google announcement yesterday?  Intrigued?  Well thanks to gdgt you can now download a VMware or VirtualBox Image of the Developer Preview of Chrome OS.  You must have an account on gdgt to get it, but once you sign on it’s a 331 MB download away.  Since this is a early version, expect bumps.  Gear Diary can’t be held responsible if it doesn’t work.  Thanks goes to Lifehacker for posting about this.  Go here to get the VM and try it out!

Office Mobile 2010 Beta has appeared in the Microsoft Marketplace. However, it will expire on April 5, 2010. It will uninstall any previous versions of Office Mobile as well, but if your device came pre-installed with Office Mobile, it will not be affected.

It seems that there are a couple of new features, particularly with Outlook. You will now be able to group messages to a contact, which will make your Inbox tidier.

Features:-

• View and edit your Microsoft® Office® documents with confidence.
• Stay connected to work from anywhere with SharePoint Workspace Mobile.
• Stay connected to work from anywhere with SharePoint Workspace Mobile.
• Use PowerPoint Mobile as a presentation aid.

It is available for download on Windows Marketplace for Mobile here.

With Project Dark now shown the light, we thought T-Mobile would be keeping things on the down-low for a bit until the new line of Christmas phones would be coming out.  Not so.

T-Mobile has launched a new program called T-Mobile Complete.  With T-Mobile Complete, interested folks can pick from four cell phones, including a Blackberry CUrve 8520, pick their plan, and away they go.  This is the first time we have seen a prepaid Balckberry from these guys.  Phones will start from $60 with plans starting from $50/month.

No information is up yet on T-Mobile’s web site, but it won’t take long for them to remedy that.

It will be interesting to see if buyers will take the gamble on T-Mobile, especially with all the buzz surrounding Verizon and the Droid.  T-Mobile definitely has an advantage with the best customer service rating of all the carriers, but will that give enough people cause to give them a try.

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This has been a while in coming … since the launch of the PSP Go I have been annoyed that many games are coming out on UMD but not on the PSN Store, and many that DO come out are a few days or even a couple of weeks later. Certainly none of them are on sale, whereas Amazon had the wonderful new Half Minute Hero for 1/3 off the other day! Of course, that game also took 2 weeks to transition from UMD to PSN after release. OK … but those are all third party games and Sony has to negotiate with publishers to get them to release digital copies.

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Its time once again for the Internet award season.  And what would we be without the Webby Awards.

From their web site: The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web’s infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 650-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.

This year, the Webbys’  have honored the top 10 Internet moments of the decade.  With so much to choose from, its amazing it was narrowed down to ten.

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As was mentioned here yesterday, today was the  big developer and press Google Chrome OS event.  Today was the day Google pulled back the curtain and let the blogsphere know about the mystery that is the new Chrome OS platform.

Early adopters and developers alike can grab a copy of the  source code today to play with.  It has been released as open source.  So, if you really really wanted,  you could build your own Chrome OS.  Those of us who don’t have those mad skillz we will have to wait until late 2010.  I am sensing it will be a Google Chrome OS Christmas next year.

So what is Chrome OS really?  Well, from what was said and shown at the event, this isnt your mother’s operating system. Continue Reading

I was at Best Buy looking for a laptop for one of my colleagues. She needs something powerful enough to create flyers, documents etc but also light enough to carry with ease. Good battery life was a must. An optical drive was not. The other requirement? It had to be inexpensive. In the end I picked up a Toshiba Satellite T135 for her. It weights under 4 pounds, is powerful enough to do everything she needs and was under $550.

Here’s a look…

The Toshiba Satellite T135 is available at Best Buy for $549.99.

What I Like: Thin, Light, Comfortable Keyboard, Decent Screen, Inexpensive

What Needs Improvement:The Trackpad buttons are hard to use