OK – thanks to all that entered to win one of the TWO FULL GAME CODES for the XBOX360 version of the original Darkness game!

Now that the contest is over, I have randomized the valid entries thanks to Random.org and …

The winners are …..

Isiah 59

Doug

You have 24 hours to send your email contact information to contests@geardiary.com and your game code will be sent via email.

Thanks again to the great folks at 2k Games, the developers of The Darkness and everyone who entered. Be sure to head to ‘Embrace the Darkness’

Amid an exciting Oscar season movie fans can get rewarded for their trivia prowess thanks to McDonald’s Redbox movie rental service and Scene It? Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

The only thing bigger today than extreme sports, is extreme sports videos. The internet is full of amazing video footage of talented and sometimes crazy people hitting the big trick or conquering a huge slope. We seem to have begun to video everything we do and it often produces some pretty entertaining footage. Myself and several buddies have begun filming our deer and turkey hunts, editing them into full episode, high definition presentations of our adventures. In fact, the ability to film my own hunts is something I have struggled with using my current set up. Dragging a tripod by myself out to a tree stand or ground blind is not always possible while… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

I love the whole idea of Kickstarter.  In case you aren’t familiar with it, Kickstarter is a web site and (for want of a better word) venture capital group, but the difference is they ask for donations, and fund the projects using those donations.  I think Wikipedia has a good description:

Kickstarter is an online threshold pledge system for funding creative projects. Kickstarter has funded a diverse array of endeavors, ranging from indie film and musicto journalism, solar energy technology and food-related projects.

I think this is an awesome idea, and it’s getting a lot of traction, and a lot of really interesting things are coming from it.  Like, for example (“He buried the lede!”) … Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

My hometown of Nashville, TN is full of stars, and not just the country music kind. It’s a little-known secret that lots of actors and musicians from other genres choose to live in the area because, in general, we Nashvillagers pretty much leave them alone when we see them out in public. Nicole Kidman shops all the time at my local Whole Foods and can dine in peace at the food bar with no fear of autograph hounds. Peter Frampton has become a gentleman farmer in a Nashville suburb, and ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit moved here from Columbus, OH to escape the ravenous Ohio State fans. One of the Black Keys just bought a house about… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

The European Union has finally stepped up to handle the biggest issue facing the economy today. It’s a long time coming, but someone is finally asking questions and looking for answers. Yes, the “agency model” for ebooks is finally being investigated! What, you thought I meant something else?

According to Businessweek, several publishers as well as Apple are listed in the investigation, but not Amazon. My guess is that since Amazon was not soliciting contracts for the agency model (they were forced into it after a very public battle) they’re not under the microscope. It will be interesting to see if Amazon or any other retailer besides Apple gets included in this as the investigation… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Image courtesy of Free Republic

Happy Veterans Day! But what does that really mean? Does it mean that everyone in uniform is a Veteran? Does it just mean another day off of work for some or some killer deals at the local Home Depot and Best Buy? The short of it is, that it’s a day to honor all those who have served. In my opinion there simply aren’t enough of those days in the year. Some may question what the criteria is to be an actual veteran, and I’m not fully sure myself what officially qualifies you in the eyes of the government. The way I see it, if someone has served or are still serving, then in my book they are qualified as one of our nation’s Veterans. The best was to thank a Veteran is simply to let them know you appreciate that sacrifices they made (or will make) for their country. So find yourself a Veteran today and let them know that their service is appreciated. 

Veterans day for me is more a sense of pride and a day the think about some of my past experience in the military. I reserve Memorial Day to remember and honor my fallen brothers and sisters, but keep Veterans Day to all the positive moments in my career. I have met and served with so many people who have changed my life for the better. I’ve made so many new friends and colleagues from all over the world that I probably would never have met if I were not part of the Army. I applaud all Veterans on this day and appreciate all the thanks I get from everyone during this day. It’s also nice that some business’s offer all sorts of discounted meals and purchases for all troops as well. The sense of pride I get from all the support is really what makes it all worth it to be a soldier. So I thank you America for all the support you give to our troops, most of the time that is all they need to keep doing what they do best, and that’s defending this great nation.

One last thing to note is to not forget our soldiers of the past. It’s too common today that all the credit goes to those serving in the recent Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Those who served in the World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, and Kuwait are and will always be remembered. Today we have so many groups and organizations that help the Iraq and Afghan Vets through whatever they need, so too often I see the older Vets not appreciated. So my special Thanks to all those who served in the past, present and future.… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

This isn’t tech-related, but I hope you will bear with me anyway.

I am so glad that, during my lifetime we have gone away from the accusations of “baby killer!” and the like that dominated the left-wing discourse in my early childhood, coming back to the place where the incredible sacrifices — physical, psychological, monetary, time, and sometimes their very lives — are honored and respected.  It took a long, long time to go from the horrors of Vietnam and the public reaction to that to the rapprochement that happened in the 80s (more or less); “Good soldier; bad war.”  The scars of that horrible experience are still healing, but as a military brat myself I… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Hey all, I wanted to give you a heads up that we are going to be experimenting with partial feeds for two weeks. Obviously if you usually come to the Gear Diary site to read our articles, you won’t notice anything different. Those who read us on RSS will notice a “(read more here…)”  tag at the bottom the now truncated posts.

I don’t particularly like partial feeds, but I need to see if using them takes care of  some of the anomalies that I’ve been noticing.

Thank you for your patience while we try to figure this out, and if you want to give me pros or cons for either partial or full feeds… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

If you follow any of my posts, you probably know, my two sons love gadgets and gear just like their dad. They come by this love honestly, but we are careful to limit their time with devices and closely watch how they use them. Anytime games or applications are developed specifically for their age group, we are happy to download. The boys get extra excited if the app can be based on a familiar subject or characters. When I let them know there was a Chuggington iPhone game, they were pumped. My youngest proceeded to give me a complete synopsis of the show and the fun all of the trains have. Below is the press release from the developers and the app looks like it will be perfect for children. Stay tuned for a review in the coming days aided by my two young helpers.

I love when applications continue to grow and update along with the maturity of the iPhone and iOS. With all of the location advances and search possibilities with Siri, those features have been front and center in today’s tech news. There are many options for such apps on the iPhone and one if my favorites that I use often is Loacalscope. I reviewed the initial version of the app here in March and have used it ever since. Localscope has gone through several updates with the most recent bringing integration with 11 popular GPS applications and the ability to speak 19 different languages. The fact that users do not have to depend exclusively… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

I have spent the majority of my life in stadiums. Some are big, some are small; in some I am a fan, in some was a player, and in some I am coaching. Bottom line is that I feel comfortable in a stadium. It is just who I am. My father went to high school in Houston, so while growing up we made many a trip to stay with my aunt who happened to live just a few miles from the Astrodome. By the time I was in Jr. High, I knew the dome like the back of my hand. We would come to town all summer and catch the Friday, Saturday and Sunday… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Just under a year ago I reviewed the Monsoon Vulkano Deluxe Pro which opened up my satellite to be viewable on my laptop and IOS devices. I was able to watch my own television programming from virtually anywhere, even changing channels and setting up programs to record. Watching Monday Night Football on my deck with the iPad and catching NCAA March Madness games while away from a television is awesome. While this technology is amazing and I fully believe that I should be able to watch the content I subscribe to anytime and anywhere, many of the content companies do not agree. The fight over management of our media is just getting underway… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

UPDATE 9:33pm CT 10/4/11: It was brought to our attention that the runner up, kismetconnect, had used more than one and possibly as many as 12 Disqus and Twitter accounts to enter our contest. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but while checking IP addresses it became abundantly clear that this had tried to defraud Gear Diary, and you — our readers. It is against Gear Diary policy to use more than one email address or user account to win a contest, and that policy is printed at the bottom of this page.

Contest and Giveaways: We retain the right to revoke prizes for contest winners whose profiles appear to use multiple

Gear Diary v1.0 circa 2006, courtesy of the WayBack Machine

Five years ago, I stepped off a virtual precipice and left the safety of my regular writing gig at The Gadgeteer to start my own personal blog, an idea that was born while riding on the back of an elephant in Thailand. With the help of Joel Evans, formerly of Geek.com and now with CronkSoftware.com, I learned how to work with Wordpress, a relatively new blogging platform that was totally different from the “Ruby on Rails” system I was used to.

My first Hello World post on Gear Diary ran late… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...