2008

Why Walmart isn’t the place for Linux

A lot has been said this week about Walmart pulling the Everex gPC and Cloudbook from their stores. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has a interesting article on desktoplinux.com regarding his views. What it boils down to is the people who typically shop at WalMart are probably not even capable of determining what OS their computer is running. All they know is they bought the computer and then bought Quicken and couldn’t get it to run on the gPC.


Range Rover Sport Supercharged

“Range Rover Sport is a high-speed, performance-oriented luxury SUV,” Land Rover North America Executive Vice President Richard Beattie said. “As the best driver’s vehicle Land Rover has ever made, it is ideal for fast, comfortable long-distance driving and a fitting compliment to our award-winning Range Rover.”


MacBook Air Review

When Apple introduced the MacBook Air is created quite a stir, a laptop that is incredibly thin without culling things you want like a fast CPU, big screen and good keyboard. A lot of people are saying that it is too big to be an ultra portable, but in my opinion the Air manages to be compact, without cutting out the things you really need. I’ll start off by saying the Air looks great in it’s aluminium shell. Since buying my MacBook Pro laptops without a metal case feel a bit cheap, a feeling that the Air definitely doesn’t share….


The Samsung SGH-i620 Windows Mobile Smartphone Review, Part One

The first time I saw the Samsung i620 in the flesh was in the lobby of the Amsterdam Hilton last November. Derek Snyder had brought a white one to Mobius, and Vincent and I couldn’t wait to play with it! Vincent is one of those guys who always has a video camera glued to his hands, and before I knew it, we were shooting. Let me take a moment to say that one of the things I like most about V is that he doesn’t look at me like I’m an idiot when I get excited about a new device;…


The A-DATA Disney T703 Mickey USB Flash Drive Review

Were you a Disney Kid? I sure was. I grew up watching reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club…the original series. I didn’t think twice about the fact that the show was already 20 years old, or that it was in black and white, because up until second grade our TV was black and white anyway. I can still remember the show’s theme song, and I’ll bet that if you ever watched it, then you can too. Needless to say, for many people the familiar silhouette of Mickey’s big ears is ubiquitous with childhood, good times…and Donald Duck! A-DATA has introduced…


The Stereo Mini Portable Sound Box from USB Fever REVIEW

A couple of months back, I asked my LEGO friends Beetle and Maynard with their girlfriends Sunshine and Faith to check out the new Fingertip Mini Cube Speaker that Thomas at USB Fever sent from overseas. (see the review: Make Some Music) Sunshine: “We were looking for an upgrade to a dual speaker setup. It was then that Judie from GearDiary told us about the Stereo Mini Portable Sound Box from USB Fever. That Judie girl ROCKS, because it as exactly what we were looking for!” (L to R) Beetle, Maynard, Faith and Sunshine with the Stereo Mini Portable Sound…


The Wi-FX Boomchair Review

We are a gaming family in my house.  Whether it is the Leapster, the Gameboy, or the Nintendo Wii, we love to play video games.  Well, I suppose I should say that my five year old and I love to play video games.  My two year old just likes to chase us around with a spare controller, pushing inappropriate buttons at the wrong time  So, you can imagine how thrilled my whole family was when I had the opportunity to review the Wi-FX Boomchair from Lumisoft. [Image courtesy of Boomchair]


Hava Gold Review

With the Hava Gold, you can watch your TV, anywhere you can get an Internet connection.  Does the Hava Gold give you what you want, or does it provide a gilded experience?  Let’s take a quick look and see how it goes… Software Installation Installing the software went about as you thought it would. However, there were a couple of interesting steps that I’d like to take you through.  Before anything else happened, after inserting the software CD into the drive and clicking on the software installation link, the following graphic appeared: Hava Driver installation The start of the device…


The PDair Leather Case for the Sprint Mogul (PPC 6800) Review

Most of our frequent readers know that since I purchased the Sprint Mogul, I have been desperately seeking a good case for it.  I have tried out numerous different brands, which I have reviewed both here and at Just Another Mobile Monday.  Today, my quest lands me squarely in the hands of PDair, and their leather case.  The leather case comes in three varieties: Flip, Book, and Pouch.  We’ll call this part 1 of my PDair case review.  Part 2 will come sometime soon when I look at the PDair Aluminum Case.


Surviving the Nuclear Winter after an Atomic Server Crash, Part One

As you may have noticed, Gear Diary suffered a massive server crash on Saturday, March 1st. If you didn’t know it, then it is only a testament to how awesome the Gear Diary Team is, because we all immediately scrambled to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. Things aren’t quite there yet, and for better or worse they will never be quite the same again, but as usual I am getting ahead of myself… The night before everything happened, I had posted about my MacBook Pro order, and I had already started to receive informative post comments…


I Hate Spam and So Do You!

I Hate Spam! I hate it.  I  hate it.  I HATE IT!  And thus, concludes my review of Spam. Oh wait, no come back.  Just to clarify, I was not talking about the “delicious” faux lunchmeat in a can from Hormel.  Yeah, I love those guys too.  No, I meant the stuff on your computer.  I mean, well…look, I’ll tell you what I mean: I Hate Spam. Get Out of Debt Today. Avoid Bankruptcy. Save Thousands…The Professional Way! I Hate Spam! Prestigious gifts for only the dearest people! I Hate Spam! Low Cost Meds Viagra,Cialis.  No Perscription Needed.  You will…


GearChat: The Demise of Print Media and a Possible Reason for the Amazon Kindle

Once again, we invite you to eavesdrop on our email conversations… Wayne: R.I.P. … the Internet slays another print publication… Mitchell: I was a subscriber to PC World for about 5 years, and then I realised that I was paying for a magazine with content that I had read weeks earlier on the internet. It really is inevitable I suppose, tech magazines just can’t stay ahead of the game with online news sites getting information out hours after release. They have to wait a whole month… Clinton: This is the same problem that many tech magazines face. Granted, most have…


The Venturi Mini Review

Chris Spera called me the other day while I was driving my Alfa. We talked for a little bit, but then I finally had to admit that I was driving a stick shift in traffic, and holding my mobile phone to my left ear was a little bit tricky…since that was the hand I needed for the steering wheel, while my right hand was working the shift. He, of course, reminded me that they make headsets for that. I, of course, don’t really like wearing one. This review will focus on a compromise for people like me, those who don’t…


First Drive: Lexus LX 570

In my haste to bring you the exciting news about the upcoming IS-F luxury sports car from Lexus, I nearly overlooked the fact that we were in the Mobile Bay area recently to get our first impressions of another new vehicle from Toyota’s luxury division, the LX 570.


DYMO DiscPainter Review

CD Printing at home has been around for several years now, negating the need for sticky labels that make the disc so thick that it won’t fit in a laptop drive properly. Dymo, famous for their many label-making solutions, have entered the market with the DiscPainter, a stand-alone CD and DVD label printer that prints directly onto blank discs in around 60 seconds. In the box is the DiscPainter, a quick-start guide, registration card, ink cartridge, 3 blank printable discs, AC adapter (110-240V, works anywhere in the world) and surprisingly a USB cord. Seems these days the vital link between…


VIA Artigo Review

We’ve all seen the mini PCs like Lenovo’s Thinkcenter Desktops and Dell’s small desktops. We’ve also seen other PCs about the size of a external CD rom. Now, we have one that’s about half that size. VIA had brought out the Artigo Builders Kit. The motherboard on the Artigo is about the size of a credit card but is about as thick as a stack of credit cards. The whole PC is designed to fit in the same slot as your desktop’s DVD drive. You can take multiples of these and install them in a standard desktop case; it is…


My Car PC

When I bought my new car in September 2007 I knew I would be keeping it for a few years, so I decided that I was going to take the plunge, and build a Car PC like those that I had read about on the MP3Car.com forums. The computer would replace the standard audio system, and add MP3 playback, video, GPS, GPS tracking and internet access to my car After months of dreaming about such a setup my Car PC is finally installed. I’ve had the computer on my desk for over 3 mths now but time and money kinda…


The Toshiba Qosmio Review: Better, Stronger, Faster Than Anything You Have Seen Before

[Note: This is the second part of my look at the Toshiba Qosmio.  For my unboxing and initial impressions, take a look at Part 1] When I first started looking at the Qosmio laptop, I thought I was going to have a panic attack.  There were just so many different features here.  How was I possibly going to discuss them all?  Was I in over my head?  In fact, I came close to wondering whether I should have asked for it at all.  Yikes!  Talk about a crisis of confidence.  Luckily, I had a chance to discuss this with Judie,…


The Targus 17″ Trademark II Overnight Roller Review

When Sarah and I traveled to Amsterdam, I was trying to travel with the lightest gear possible, so I brought along my HP TX1327 which easily fit into a sleeve inside my carry on. But when I went to CES, I wanted to bring the laptop I most enjoy writing on – the Toshiba X205. Now here’s the thing: the X205 is a 17? beast, and I knew that it wasn’t a laptop I would be toting on the floor or bringing to meetings; I just wanted my laptop in the hotel room, waiting for me at night when I…


The USB Fever iPhone Aluminum Case Review

Perhaps leather cases just aren’t your style – maybe because you want added drop protection without adding too much bulk, or maybe because you just happen to enjoy hard-edged industrial design. Well for whatever reason, when you want tougher than leather and clear cases aren’t going to cut it, the best option is a metal case such as this one by USB Fever, their iPhone Aluminum Case.


AT&T Palm Centro Review

Last fall, the Palm Centro was launched in the U.S. on the Sprint network. Judie did a review of it and covered everything from the unboxing to her impressions of the device. Rather than repeat covering the basics of this device, I’m going to recommend that you take a look at her review here and here for a basic overview of using the Centro.