If you know anything about me, you know I’m lazy. L-a-a-a-a-z-y. Brush my teeth while standing at the urinal watching SportsCenter lazy. I prefer to call myself a multi-tasker.

So I was impressed when I found out from the good people at www.tekzen.net that they’ve come up with another alternative for people like myself who don’t want to go to the trouble of typing in long url’s into their blog posts and Twitter Tweets. The product was developed by a friend of mine, Jackson Miller. True to his mission, Jackson has shortened his professional name to “Jaxn.” You gotta like his consistency of message.

So what makes urlzen.com better than the leader in the concatenation space, tinyurl.com? Find out after the jump:

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If you haven’t gotten your entry for the X800 in yet, now is your chance!  The contest ends tonight.  If you haven’t yet, click the contest link at the top of the site, and tell me about your worst GPS nightmare.  Be creative, make me laugh, and you’re sure to have a great chance at winning!

Entries close tonight at 11:59:59. No entries after midnight will be accepted. The Gear Diary Team is going to pick the winner this weekend, so WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?

Good Luck!!!

As part of the Gear Diary team, part of what I try to do is wander the Internet looking for useful things to share. Lately, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend on the Internet - people presenting their personal opinions as if what they say is fact.

Let’s be clear - stating an opinion on the net is nothing new. Hey, I’m doing that right now! What seems to be happening with increasing frequency though, is that someone will make a statement online, others will pick it up and spread it, and before you know it people are repeating the original opinion as if it’s a hard fact; when, in fact it was really just someone’s opinion.

Rumor and opinion suddenly become fact, and it’s just wrong. Worse - it seems to be happening more and more.

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[Sorry about the delay on this, I’ve been a bit swamped recently]

As you all know I really liked the MacBook Air, because it had a gorgeous screen, top-notch keyboard and fantastic build quality all in an incredibly thin case.

Unfortunately those are the four things that bugged me during my testing on the Fujitsu P8010. The screen had pathetic viewing angles, look at it from any angle but dead on and it looked terrible. The keyboard wasn’t full sized, and took a bit of getting used to. The machine was thick, but it was so small that it wasn’t that great of an issue.

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I have had a fascination with all types of gadgets and gizmos since I was a child. One of my earliest gadget memories was a Christmas when I was given yet another doll, and my brother got the coolest toy robot in the world. It didn’t take me too long to convince him that he wanted to trade…really!

And thus, the monster was born.

I never expected to become a prolific writer, it just kind of happened. I got my start in late 1999 after answering a software reviewer request at the now defunct smaller.com. By mid 2000 I knew that I wanted my reviews to focus not only on software, but also on the PDA hardware which I found so fascinating.

I soon became an occasional reviewer at The Gadgeteer, back when it was a much smaller site - basically run single-handedly by its editor-in-chief, Julie Strietelmeier. Within six months I was Julie’s writing partner, and for the next six years I had the privilege of being part of something truly amazing. As part of our team, I made a direct contribution to the Gadgeteer’s enormous growth from a well regarded enthusiast’s site into a world-wide recognized authority on gadgets, gizmos and their accessories. Due to my work at the Gadgeteer, I have earned a solid reputation as a respected consumer reviewer.

However, I am first and foremost a gadget enthusiast as well as an actual consumer.

I’ve wasted more money than I care to recount on devices that promised performance which was never delivered, and I have had the pleasure of discovering little known gadgets that performed so well, I couldn’t wait to share my happy discovery.

I’ve always had topics which I wanted to write about that didn’t quite fit into the confines of the typical structured gadget review, so for five and a half years I kept a blog on The Gadgeteer called Judie’s Gear Diary, often telling people to “read about it in my gear diary”. Which is why it only seemed natural that when I considered starting my own site, I continued with the name Gear Diary.

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