2011

Apple’s 4GB Problem

Last night I was greeted with yet another iOS update when I hooked up my iPod Touch, so as usual I let iTunes go ahead and update. It was also updating some of my apps, so I checked the progress. As usual, the update was > 600MB. Later I hooked up my iPad 2 … same thing – another 600+ MB download. Then this morning I went to sync up my original iPad. That’s right – another 600+ MB download! So now I have downloaded nearly 2GB of data for my three iOS devices – must be some pretty important…

News & Features

Apple Employees and the Trevor Project Send the Message that “It Gets Better”

This past fall a student at Rutgers University here in New Jersey walked up on a bridge and proceeded to jump off. He had been outed as a homosexual by a cruel prank that put his sharing affection with another male student up on the web. He was humiliated. Things were so bad that he could not see a time when things would be better. He was wrong, they would have been, but his field of vision had become so narrow that all he wanted was to stop the pain in that moment. So he jumped off the bridge. That…

News & Features

Verbatim Offers Digital Data Storage and Backup Solutions This Tax Season

Death and Taxes – oh how we hear that phrase overused, and for my purposes here I plead guilty. Fortunately I am here to talk about the latter and not the former. Our friends over at Verbatim, maker of digital data storage and backup products, want loyal US taxpayers (or at least tax filers) to remember to back up all your data. Recent springtime storms across the center of the country bring that suggestion even more to light as this will be one less thing to worry about when Mother Nature turns nasty and you are faced with putting your…

News & Features

Walking the Dinosaur at School!

My school was never this cool! Take a look at what happened when a T-Rex (driven by its fantastic puppet-master) arrived at a Sydney, Australia school. The looks on the kids’ faces when the dino roars at them are priceless … but what’s really cool is how it takes a moment to realize how the puppeteer is working the puppet, but even then — the T-Rex is so lifelike, you can easily forget it’s not some kind of digitalized movie extra. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HFf3ZWNF6EY JWZ via Boing Boing

Editorials

BlackBerry PlayBook First Impressions

First impressions mean a lot when you are talking about technology. No, it does not sell a device or keep you using it, but it does make the difference when you’re considering a purchase in the first place. Given that many of the initial reviews are less than stellar, I wasn’t sure what my first impression of the BlackBerry PlayBook would be. That noted, I just had the chance to have my hands on one for a few minutes, and my first impressions are actually quite good. I have always liked the size of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and this…

Reviews

Review: BlueAnt S3 Compact BlueTooth Speakerphone

One of the more interesting Bluetooth accessory manufacturers that I’ve encountered over the last year is BlueAnt. I wasn’t all that familiar with the company until the fall, but they have been making some impressive moves with regard to product design and innovation, and I’ve been quite impressed with their offerings. Currently their portfolio includes car speakerphones, the S3 and S4, with the S3 being the lower end of the two. Lower end does not, however, mean “not awesome”, since both speakerphones have impressed me quite a bit. Today we are going to look at the S3 and then follow-up…

Music Diary

Music Diary Flashback: In 2001 the Music Industry Thought They Could ‘Make MP3 Obsolete’

Despite growing up in the era of the LP and 8-track tape, in many ways it is hard to remember a time since the dawn of the digital era before the MP3 was a legitimately purchasable format. Sure we all remember the Napster days with fairly rampant piracy made easier by the rise in broadband adoption, but there was a fixation on those downloading files illegally over the internet due to the newness and general fascination with all things ‘net’ related back then. It seemed that even then the RIAA was simply scapegoating piracy way out of proportion with what…

eBooks

Is B&N’s Future a Digital One?

Now that Borders has one and a half feet in the grave, all eyes are on what B&N will do now. It seems like opinion is split between believing B&N will be ok and predictions that Borders fall is a precursor to the same fate at B&N. Fortune thinks the answer is simple: Kill off the bookstore business and go all digital. Specifically, here’s what Fortune thinks: The road ahead for Barnes & Noble will prove tough. Few brick and mortar companies have successfully negotiated the choppy waters to safe digital harbors. But Barnes & Noble, unlike Borders, has one…

News & Features

Earth Day Gadget: Belkin Conserve Valet

Earth Day is coming up! What better way to support mother earth than to save a bit of power when charging your devices? At least that is what Belkin must have been thinking when they released the new Belkin Conserve Valet. The Conserve Valet is a 4 port charging station that has a unique ability. It detects when an attached USB device is charged up and when detected, it shuts down the power to the port. This helps us conserve at least a little bit of power; it also lets you manage those many cords with some built-in cord management….

Reviews, Vehicles & Gear

2011 Volkswagen Grand Caravan … or is it the Chrysler Routan?

Oops! … I did it again. I played with your heart. Got lost in the game. As the Brittany Spears song lyrics above suggest, someone “did it again.” Volkswagen. Once again they raise my ire as they deliver a minivan model “imported from Detroit” … literally. I am speaking of the Routan/Grand Caravan. When they first launched Routan a few years back I expressed in words that my opinion of the brand slapping their badge on someone else’s work was not winning any accolades from me. To be fair, this is a very good minivan and ALL the credit goes…

Editorials, Game Diary

Gear Games Viewpoint: The Two Sides of DRM

If you have Dragon Age: Origins with loads of DLC like I do and have tried to play in the past week, one of four thing has happened: * You have been unable to use your DLC, and therefore unable to play your saved games. * You were offline and had no issues. * You bought a retail copy but have a ‘cracked’ executable and have had no issues. * You pirated the game and DLC and have had no issues. We’ll return to that list in a second, but yes – for nearly a week PC (and Mac) gamers…

News & Features

R.I.P. Jazz Violinist Billy Bang and Video Game Pioneer Jerry Lawson

Overnight I heard about two deaths in different areas I follow, and I wanted to celebrate the lives of these two under-appreciated talents in the game hardware and jazz music fields. Jerry Lawson People doing designs for video game hardware or software are seldom recognized – in fact, since the systems became so complex in the 80’s that no single person can claim a design as their own, it tends to be the visionary leaders who get recognized. But in the 1970s things were different, you had Atari and Fairchild, and inside of them you had guys like Alan Alcorn,…

Reviews

The Swingline Stack-and-Shred Cross Cut Shredder Review

This is my husband’s and my pile of things that needed to be shredded; it started in a drawer, was moved to a shelf, and eventually ended up in a bag under our bed. What’s in it? Everything from those “convenience” checks that credit card companies seem to think we can’t live without, to credit card applications that simply need a signature and mail-back to be approved, to health insurance settlement statements, to all those bit of paper that have numbers, names, addresses and other information that get scribbled down when we are trying to be efficient. Why were we…

Game Diary, Reviews

iAssociate 2 Review

When iAssociate came out on the IOS, I played through it and enjoyed the game. Some of my students recently asked if I was playing iAssociate2. I had not been playing and decided to download the free application. The next thing I know, I am trying to figure out word associations literally every spare moment I have. In fact, the game has become somewhat of an infatuation with the students. It is not rare to be sitting in class or walking down the hall and hearing “What is a 7 letter word that goes with crazy, insane and mad?” I…

News & Features

Today Marks the Sesquicentennial of the Start of the U. S. Civil War

The U. S. Civil War was the bloodiest conflict to ever occur on the lands of the United States that addressed several issues regarding Federal authority versus States rights, but ultimately came down to a single issue: slavery. Today marks the day that the war began as Confederate troops fired on a Union garrison at Fort Sumter. There is a great historical recounting of events here: On April 10, 1861, Brig. Gen. Beauregard, in command of the provisional Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the Union garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Garrison commander Anderson…

Reviews

Retrospective Review: Revisting WebOS and the Palm Pixi Plus

With the upcoming HP WebOS tablet and Pre 3 smartphone featuring great-looking features such as touch-sync, it is interesting to take another back at WebOS as it exists today. Recently I came upon a nearly free deal for a no-contract 8GB Palm Pixi Plus which I was easily able to activate on Verizon to test. I used the Pixi as my sole phone for two weeks, enough to develop some things I loved about the phone and WebOS … and some things I didn’t like so much! The Hype: The thinnest Palm mobile phone yet, the Palm Pixi Plus for…

News & Features

Random Cool Stuff: George Takei Ringtone Supports Old Globe Theater

George Takei rose to fame as Sulu on the original Star Trek. His facial and vocal expressions are classics, and his work on behalf of a number of organizations and causes has kept him in the public goodwill ever since. Now he is helping to raise money for the Old Globe Theater As he says on his Twitter feed: My “OhMyyy” ringtone is out like a senator in a bathroom stall. Benefits @TheOldGlobe #TheLoadinDownload Source: George Takei Twitter

Game Diary, Reviews

PC Game Review: Magicka

Humor is something we see way too little of in games – it seems every new release is dark and gritty and full of epic seriousness. Not so with Magicka, a game that looks like a classic RPG but plays more like an action-adventure – and takes nothing seriously from start to end! But does it end up like the great TellTale adventure games, or the unfortunate Bard’s Tale remake? Let’s take a look and find out! The Hype: Magicka is a satirical action-adventure game set in a rich fantasy world based on Norse mythology. The player assumes the role…

Reviews

iPad App Review: Swapsies

I am slowly warming up to having my two boys, ages 3 and 6 use my iPad. It is not that they cannot understand how it works, but that I see all of the things they tear up and choose for my gear not to be one of those items. The iPad has proven to be a wonderful tool for children with the number of learning apps and games. I recently had the opportunity to review Swapsies using my sons as my trusty sidekick reviewers. Let’s see what they thought. Swapsies is a matching game app for kids three years…

Gear Bits, News & Features

Going Once, Going Twice, Start Your Engine: the 1970 Lancia Stratospheric HF

There are cars and then THERE ARE CARS! This 1970 Lancia Stratos HF is a CAR! This 1970 Lancia Stratos HF “Zero” was the predecessor to the Lamborghini Countach, a car that made an appearance just a year later. The wedge-body shape is as sleek as anything you have ever seen and the car was so low to the ground that you got into it by opening the windshield and climbing in. The car was fully restored in 2000 and is up for auction. It falls under the category of “if you have to ask what the bidding starts at…

Editorials

How to Win the Tablet War Against the iPad? It’s Not Even a Battle, I’m Afraid

Brandon over on Just Another iPhone Blog has a provocative post up today entitled “How to Win the Tablet War Against the iPad”. The simple answer to the title is: sell a Wi-Fi Samsung Galaxy Tab for just $349.99. That’s a full $150 less than you can get an iPad 2 for. Both have 16 GB of storage. Both are only Wi-Fi enabled. One costs $150 less. Brandon makes some good arguments about why this is the right strategy. His core point, So, this is how you win the war. You build a solid device and you sell it at…

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