September 2011

iPad Accessory Review: Just Mobile Horizon iPad Wall Mounting System

We’ve taken a look at a number of different accessories from Just Mobile. Among them have been the AluPen, the XStand, the Gum Plus and the UpStand. All have impressed us and remain in use by one of us here at Gear Diary. Their newest product, the Just Mobile Horizon, is the Just Mobile take on the iPad wall mount. It looks great, does its job and, overall, impresses. Let’s take a closer look. From JustMobile: The high-style wall mount for iPad: Just Mobile Horizon™ is the minimalist wall mount for iPad and iPad 2, designed by the award-winning…

Music Diary

Music Diary Songs of Note: I Was Doin’ Alright

What a way to go out … one of the classic bebop players, and the first tenor player of note in the genre, Dexter Gordon was also nominated for an Academy Award as an actor for the 1986 movie ‘Round Midnight’ that told a semi-fictitious tale of a jazz musician based on the lives of Lester Young and Bud Powell (and to an extent Gordon himself!). He died a few years later, riding out his deteriorating health on a wave of fan support and a feeling of being beloved by the entire jazz community. Yet for much of his career,…

Editorials

Dear Networks, We Don’t WANT to Pirate Your Shows!

Last week Doug wrote about how the push by the movie studios to have consumers feel forced to buy retail DVDs by delaying physical rental availability and making the streaming rental system convoluted and inconsistent is likely backfiring by pushing customers in the wrong direction. This weekend my family had a show we wanted to watch – Ghost Hunters from SyFy. We had just heard that the show was going to focus on the historic Reed Homestead in Townsend, Massachusetts. That just happens to be within a mile of where we used to live for 15 years until we moved…

Reviews

The Sceptre 24″ E246BD-FHD LED HDTV / Monitor with DVD Player Review

When we built our house, for various reasons we decided not to put a TV in every room; we installed one 55″ LED VIZIO on the wall in the living room with all the home theater options, and we called it good. Well, sometimes the best laid plans don’t quite work out. Over time, we realized that it would be handy to have a second television as backup, so that the girls could pop in a DVD when we were watching something “boring” like the San Diego Chargers and Texas football games, or the Tour de France. Because this second…

Reviews

Review: iFrogz Legion Earbuds and iFrogz Split

Sometimes all you need is a set of headphones. No microphone integrated and no bells and whistles except great looks. The Legion ear buds from iFrogz fit the bill really nicely. By the way, the name Legion comes from the X-men character. Will the earbuds fit the name? Let’s find out. When I first saw these, the look of them reminded me of a turbine or something you might find on the death star. I loved the look of these buds with the chrome and light blue coloring being eye-catching without being in your face. They are also available in…

Reviews

Music Sleep Timer for iPhone/Touch

The past month I have been revitalizing my love for music by using MOG music subscription service. In fact, I have spent more time listening to music in that time than I probably listened to more music than the prior year. While laying down for bed recently, I told my wife that I used to love to cue up my favorite mix tape cassette and fall asleep while listening. The cassette would always stop when it reached the end. My iPhone does not do that! When I broke that news to her she replied, “you don’t have an app that…

Music Diary, News

Music Diary Notes: As Spotify Reminds Us … $0.04 Is Infinitely More than $0.00

There was considerable coverage of the content of the ‘What an artist makes’ article I did last week, with Digital Music News kicking it off, and Gizmodo and others getting in on the same action. The focus of the article was to show just how much the band would make from their album based on a variety of listening choices, from streaming through buying vinyl. The obvious fact is that the greater the cost and lower the overhead … the more the band made. One message that some have been spreading for a few years is that an outcome of…

Gear Bits, Travel

FaceTime and iOS Impresses Halfway Across the Globe

(Image courtesy of Apple) The world is a big place. At the turn of the century trying to visit loved ones who lived halfway across the world took months. Now, we can fly from one side of the globe to the other in less than a day. And even when we aren’t physically technology enables us to feel as if we are. I was reminded of this when FaceTime and iOS brought me closer to my wife AND saved us money in the process. My wife and I live in the midwest, but she is from Thailand. She is visiting her…

News, Reviews

Review: iFrogz Vertex Headphones with Mic

The folks at iFrogz were kind enough to send me a set of their brand new Vertex line of headphones to check out. Will they sounds as good as they look? Follow along for a detailed look at all the features of the Vertex Headphones. It used to be that if you wanted a wired set of headphones with a mic, you were stuck using in ear or ear bud designs. Several manufactures have started adding a microphone to headphones that are not ear buds now that it’s far more common to use your phone as a music device. The…

Music Diary, Reviews

Music Diary Review: Jimi Hendrix – ‘Winterland 5 CD Box Set (Amazon.com Exclusive)’ (2011, Rock)

Jimi Hendrix – ‘Winterland 5 CD Box Set’ For anyone who has ever played or aspired to play the guitar in the last half century, Jimi Hendrix must surely place on the short list of influences and inspirations. Regardless of what you think about his lifestyle, drug use, or even the music of that era, there is really little debate about the raw talent and visionary approach Hendrix had as a guitarist. But guitar talent alone is not enough to carry a career – and self-destructive behavior certainly never helps! So Hendrix had a great run between 1967-1968 … and…

Reviews

iPhone and iPad App Review: AmpKit 1.2

I became excited when IOS apps started utilizing guitar functions. We can tune our guitars, look up tabs, learn new licks and even play them through our devices. Basically, your iPhone or iPad can make you a mobile musician or studio with little equipment to carry. Peavey teamed up with Agile Partners and brought us AmpKit which basically turned an IOS device into an amp modeler, multi-effects processor and pocket recording studio. I reviewed the initial release here a little over a year ago. This Tuesday, Agile Partners kicked up the already awesome application with the 1.2 release. I was…

Reviews

iPhone / iPad Game Review: Tesla Wars HD

Tower defense games come in a wide variety of sizes, styles and approaches, but in general they all involve keeping enemies at one end from getting to your base at the other end. Games like Fieldrunners and Plants vs. Zombies and Defense Grid: The Awakening are great games that exemplify the breadth of the genre – and the various apps stores, casual game sites and digital download houses are filled with generic clones of those games. Now we have a game that takes a different approach – and works surprisingly well! Let’s take a look. The Hype: Tesla Wars is…

Music Diary, News

Music Diary Notes: Survey Says – Ownership Remains Supreme!

Recently eMusic contracted Insight Research Group to try to get a sense of consumer feelings about music ownership. After all, bloggers like myself are constantly crowing about MOG and Slacker and Rdio and Pandora and Spotify and … well, you get the picture. Turns out, while there is plenty of interest in streaming …when it comes to money, people want to actually OWN their content. This is good news for folks like iTunes, Amazon and eMusic … and not so great for all the streaming companies I have mentioned. Here are the conclusions: Study results show that purchasing ‘music to…

Editorials

My First Experience With a 3D Phone: LG Thrill

One of my students excitedly hurried into my classroom the other day, exclaiming that I had to see her new phone. Kids show me their new gadgets everyday, but this was obviously something special since the other students were just as excited. When she presented it to me she just exclaimed, “3D!” In her hand was one of the newest Android handsets from LG to sport 3D technology. The LG Thrill is exclusive to ATT and can be purchased for $99. The hardware seemed nice and was similar to other Android phones I have played with, but I really just…

News

HTC Rhyme Introduced with a Family of Integrated Accessories and Sleek Good Looks

I can’t even find it in myself to be annoyed that HTC has introduced a phone that is so obviously aimed at women; if they had just colored it plum and called it good, I would have been livid. But no. The HTC Rhyme is a phone that I would have considered carrying anyway … and the bonus is that it just happens to be a lovely plum color. From the unique plum color that draws on the inspiration from HTC’s designers to specific apps, wallpapers, and ringtones created for the HTC Rhyme, HTC Sense’s presence is seen throughout. Hardware design is taken a…

Reviews

Bluetooth Headset Review: Jabra Sport Bluetooth Headphones

I’m sitting on an old-fashioned rocking chair on the porch of an inn in Martha’s Vineyard with a cup of coffee. The air is a bit brisk but the sun is shining and there is a nice breeze. It is about as close to a perfect fall morning as you are going to get. My iPad has served me well as my Sunday New York Times for the past hour or so and now I am writing this post. And the scene is made close to perfect by a soundtrack provided by Pandora. (I’m listening to a custom station I…

News

The Return of Layaway?

About five years ago Wal-mart decided it was no longer going to offer layaway plans. What is layaway? Layaway works by you walking in to the store, picking what you want and going back to a layaway counter and putting a down payment on it. You then have a certain amount of time to pay it off then take it home. If you don’t pay it off, it goes back on the sales floor and you get your money refunded minus a service charge. The great ting is you don’t pay any interest like you do with credit cards….

News

Review: iFrogz Timbrepro Headphones with Mic

I have always loved iFrogz unique headphone designs. They are always eye-catching and usually sound pretty good to boot. They aren’t top of the line, but they are far from the worst I have ever tried. That’s why I jumped at the chance to get a set of the new iFrogz Timbrepro Headphones sent to me for a review. The general design of these is very much like some of the other headphones iFrogz has in their line that include the inline microphone for iPhone, Android and any phone that accepts a 3.5 mm jack. Where they differ are in two different design points….

Music Diary, Reviews

Music Diary Review: Levin-Torn-White (2011, Rock)

Levin-Torn-White It seems like the last year has seem loads of new releases from classic artists in the so-called ‘prog rock’ arena – the dreary Asia recording ‘Omega’, the over-produced ‘Emotion and Commotion’ from Jeff Beck, and more recently the Yes recording ‘Fly From Here’. At the same time, writing about Bill Bruford’s autobiography and discovering King Crimson’s ‘Absent Lovers recording has brought the music of that Crimson era to the fore in my mind. So it was with marked enthusiasm – yet some reserve – that I checked out the new recording from three legends of rock: Tony Levin,…

Reviews

GPSRunningWatch for Android Review

Running is a pretty simple sport. All you need is a pair of shoes, a good pair of shorts, and a cheap watch. All the extra bells and whistles are optional (and really, even shoes and watch are optional — just don’t run naked, as police tend to frown on that.) But there are always ways for technology to creep in, and GPS watches such as Garmin’s Forerunner are near-staples in the running community. For those of us who don’t want a small computer on our wrists, or who carry a smartphone anyway on a run, there are apps that…

News

Keep QuikClot on Hand, and You May Save a Life

QuikClot is an emergency wound dressing loaded with blood clotting agents. You can go to YouTube and watch some extremely graphic training videos of QuikClot in action, but I suggest that you not do so if you have a weak stomach. If you are able to handle the graphic images, I’m sure that you’ll agree the results are pretty impressive. I had never heard about QuikClot until I stumbled on a recent Lifehacker post, “How to Survive a Gunshot Wound.” Yikes. QuikClot is the consumer version of a Z-Medica product that has long been used by the military, law enforcement and emergency medical…

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