Editorials

Are eBooks Hitting a Critical Mass?

I recently read the book “Too Big to Fail“. In it, there’s a discussion of the treasury department’s “Break the Glass” plan. Essentially, they had a few analysts put together a “what if the whole world melted down at once” thought experiment, so they could be prepared for the very worst case scenario. As it turns out, they used that paper as a very loose blueprint for many of the actions taken in the latter half of 2008. I sincerely hope the publishing industry has a similar plan in place because it’s looking like they might need it. “The Girl…


LeaseTrader.com app picks leads to ‘Wheels of Summer’

From the good folks at LeaseTrader.com came an e-mail announcing their picks for the top car leasing apps for smartphones. While I personally have not explored the depths of the auto lease, I know it is a choice many consumers have made. Not to kill their thunder, I got to wondering that with summer upon us, and folks turning their attention to vacations, what about those of us just looking for a temporary detour from the reality of the daily drive. You know, a very VERY short-term lease.


MyPadMedia: The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth!

Judie purchased access to myPadMedia yesterday. After a few minutes of exploring the site, one thing became very clear: I owe myPadMedia a huge apology. See, several weeks ago I mistakenly called myPadMedia a “scam”. This implied they were engaged in a business that doesn’t deliver books legally; as it turns out, that’s technically not true. If you purchase the $49.95 membership, you will have access to legal content, but the delivery process has basically been stolen from another site. So clearly I was mistaken, and as it turns out I was just one word off. myPadMedia isn’t a scam…


MyPadMedia’s Secret Exposed!

After a recent escalation of the tensions between myPadMedia and Gear Diary, Judie bought access to find out what the real story is behind this company. We will have a full report later today, but here’s the biggest bombshell: MyPadMedia is selling you access to the free eBook site Feedbooks. Yes, you read that right! But you can access myPadMedia’s “catalog” of ebooks for free, and without paying their ridiculous $49.95 fee, by heading to Feedbooks.com, a wonderful free website of self-published and public domain works. Even better? Feedbooks didn’t authorize this! This morning we had a very enlightening email…


We Rule…Just a Money Grab?!?

Courtesy of Steve Wampler The first day I had an ipad, my kiddos were super excited and demanded that I get some games. Of course I had to listen!  After a few hours of Plants vs Zombies, they wanted more. Translation, I needed to find a new game for them to play. I remembered hearing about the game We Rule on a podcast so we took a look. The boys were instantly hooked! We Rule might best be described as farmville on steroids. You farm your crops and the more you raise the better things go. You add businesses, houses and…


Amazon and Barnes and Noble… Take Down Those Walls

I saw a Barnes and Noble nook in the flesh for the first time this week. (I bought one when released but sold it without opening the box.) I was impressed. Seriously, I loved the hardware and could definitely see myself using one. The only problem is… I have a huge number of books that I purchased through Amazon and Kindle books won’t work on the nook (and nook books won’t work on the Kindle.) Currently if you have books that you purchased through one but a new eReader that you would love to buy comes out on the other…


Wait … YOU Had The App Made … and it is Just for ME, to Give ME Free Stuff?!?!

A long time ago I signed up on the Verve Music site in order to gain access to some ‘exclusive’ John Coltrane content. Since 2003 I have gotten more or less weekly emails from them, generally throw-aways promoting whomever was new, but with some occasional gems. Fairly typical for a music publisher and nothing obnoxious enough to make me unsubscribe. The last several months, however, have been a nearly daily stream of emails related to American Idol Season 5 runner-up Katharine McPhee and her latest recording “Unbroken”. Verve has been absolutely punishing my inbox with pseudo-personalized emails pushing me to…


Who Needs an eBook Editor?

(I want to live here.) Welcome to yet another State of the eBook! First of all, the results of last week’s poll are in. Apparently, most of you are bigger ebook fans, with the vast majority voting for “eBooks first!/What’s a paper book?” Guess it isn’t TOO surprising, considering the subject of this column… This week, the big ebook news was that Barnes and Noble debuted “PubIt!”, their self-publishing arm. This brings them into direct competition with Amazon, as well as smaller companies Smashwords and Feedbooks, plus the vanity paper book publishers looking to break into the ebook markets. Basically,…


C25K Week 2: Get On The Bus

There’s nothing like peer pressure to get you motivated.  Last week I told you that after hearing my plan to start the C25K program and write about it for the site both Judie and Dan eagerly joined in too.  Dan’s still on the sidelines with his wrist injury but Judie and I are plugging along, despite Judie battling illness and getting ready for her wedding! Well after seeing my week one article even more members of the Gear Diary staff decided they wanted in on the fun as well.  Starting this week with week one of the C25K were Travis,…


Orbino – What a Difference a Year Makes!

Update 04/02/11: This post was originally published with the title “Orbino – Great Leather Items, Zero Customer Service.” You can read why this title has been updated by clicking here. When I go to a fine restaurant I expect good food and excellent service. After all you expect better service at a five star Manhattan eatery than you do at Red Lobster. The same goes for a luxury retail store. If you go to Neiman Marcus you expect better service than, say, Sears. The same goes for on-line vendors although you would not know it from my recent dealing with…


Feuer Wear: Gear Made From Recycled Fire Hose

As a firefighter, when I came across this company I was immediately intrigued. Feuer Wear produces a wide range of products all from recycled fire hose.  Feuer is the German word for “fire.”  Their line includes bags, belts and wallets.  Each piece they produce has its individuality.  The hoses used in production come from actual fire companies where they spent countless hours in service.  Fire hose takes a beating.  It’s soaked, dragged, run over, covered in soot and exposed to extreme heat and fire.  Each hose is scrubbed clean and then cut to size.  But each hose retains it own…


OnStar Googles Volt

Photo courtesy GM While I don’t mean this as negative criticism of a recent press release, I do find the meat behind the message a bit premature for the masses and limited in range and use. And I thank them (sort of) for the revelation it led to. OnStar is announcing they will be at the Google I/O conference this week to debut and demonstrate new functionalities planned for an app that works with the upcoming Chevrolet Volt. Version 1.0 of the app will be released alongside the Volt this fall. And the app will apparently only work on Android…


MyPadMedia Strikes Back

I bet you thought my skeptical post about MyPadMedia would be the end of it. You’d be wrong. First, a bit of background. I did email MyPadMedia asking for information on how their service worked, and I received back a pitch to receive commissions if I became an affiliate. Still no explanation of exactly what your $49.99 will buy. Apparently, though, MyPadMedia did not like my post. Specifically, they requested the following to Judie: Geardiary.com, My name is Jonathan Crawford and I am the owner of myPadMedia.com I demand that you remove you article entitled “Buyer beware-MyPadMedia” immediately. Not only…


Happy 50th Birthday Laser…

Via cnet news. A post over on cnet News caught my eye this morning because it celebrated the 50th birthday of the LASER. The article begins Fifty years ago Saturday, a Hughes Labs researcher named Theodore Maiman changed the world. That day, Maiman became the first person on Earth to build a working laser, something that colleagues at a number of other companies and institutions had been feverishly trying to do for months or even years.? That’s right, it was just 50 years ago this Saturday that the Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation? or LASER was invented. That is a…


Some Thoughts on the Sprint EVO 4G … From an iPhone User

I had the opportunity to spend the last evening at Sprint’s special EVO event in Manhattan. The event formally introduced Sprint’s new powerhouse smartphone the EVO 4G. I also had a chance to get a good close look at the phone, play with it for a little while, and see some of their marketing people do a number of different demonstrations with it. The short version of this post — I’m pretty impressed by everything that this Android powered device can do. Sprint’s Dan Hesse kicked off the evening by introducing the EVO 4G and… in the process… took a…


Why Won’t iWork Work With iWork?

Image from YouTube After getting my iPad, one of the first things I did was to buy the three components of the iWork suite – Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. They cost $9.99 each on the App Store, and I honestly went into the purchase expecting that these apps would integrate nicely with the Mac desktop suite. I mean, $30 for the iPad version isn’t too much less than the $79 Apple charges for the full desktop version. I knew there would be compromises, to be sure. Printing would be gone, as would direct transfers of files and so on. I…


Does the iPad FINALLY Give Apple a Viable Gaming Platform?

Wait … WHAT?!?! I know what you’re saying: what about the 150 trillion games in the App Store? What about the massive growth in the sales of games for the iPod Touch that I talked about here? I know about all of that, but I still believe this: the iPod Touch business model as it exists today is not one that is sustainable for the game industry, and therefore the iPod Touch will NEVER be a viable ‘major tent-post platform’ based on that business model. OK, you have probably noticed I’m already starting to nuance my phrases in the first…


Kigo Footwear Takes Customer Service to Web 2.0

Every job I’ve had has been sales or customer oriented in some capacity, so I always geek out a bit at innovative ways to improve customer service. Today I came across a company that used Twitter very effectively to reach out and interact with me as a customer, and I wanted to share that story. I found out about Kigo Footwear on the Runner’s World forums and thought their “Kigo Shel” shoes sounded really cool. So I poked around their website and learned the company is as interesting as their shoes. They use recycled materials, and their whole business model is…


The Two Audiences for eBooks

It occurred to me after reading this editorial at Teleread that there are really two audiences for ebooks. There are the people who just want to read a book. They’re happy picking up their reader or iPad, opening a book, and just reading. Maybe they want some minor options like font sizes, but talk to them about specific fonts, background colors, backlight adjustments, dictionary lookups, etc., and they’re going to glaze over. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a measure of what the audience wants or is taking advantage of in their device or software. Then there’s the type…


Tech Bloggers Prove Obama Right Within Hours

Image from XARKAGANDA Did you hear? President Obama is threatening to regulate the tech industry in the name of ‘protecting democracy’! President Obama is putting technology on his ‘axis of evil’ list! President Obama is calling all new technology ‘dangerous diversions’! President Obama has declared war on technology! President Obama is warning of ‘iPad Perils’! Actually … none of that stuff is true – but I bet you have read something similar today in a hype-titled post at some tech blog coupled with some out-of-context portion of a speech given by the President to the graduating class of Hampton University….


A Tale of Three iPad Case Pre-Orders- The Good, The Good and the Ugly.

One of the interesting things that happens when you are an early adopter of some key new technology is that you not only get early looks at the device and some accessories, but you also get a chance to see how various businesses work with customers or… don’t, as the case may be. I recently had a chance to see how three different companies handled the pre-order process for their new iPad cases. Two impressed. One did not. Two I am eager to do business with. One I have no interest in dealing with ever again. Here is a look…