2011

CES: SanDisk Meeting

Events, News

CES: SanDisk Meeting

By now you have likely seen that at CES, SanDisk announced their amazing new 128GB Compact Flash Card, a size that still boggles my mind. Available later this quarter for a MSRP of $1499.99, this card isn’t for the feint-hearted. But when you consider that it wasn’t too long ago that a 5GB PCMCIA card retailed for $500 plus, the realization is staggering that this amount of memory is available in something so small. While meeting with SanDisk, I had the opportunity to take a look at their new CRUZER Slider which along with other features also has “error-proof insertion”,…

Amazon Releases 'Deals' App to Track Gold Box and Lightning Deals

News

Amazon Releases ‘Deals’ App to Track Gold Box and Lightning Deals

Do you check Amazon more or less daily for their great Gold Box or Lightning deals? Me too! But way too may times I have been away from my laptop when I knew a deal was going on and missed out. So I was thrilled when I saw today that Amazon had created a small app to help track their daily deals! Here is their description: Stay up-to-date with Amazon Gold Box Deals wherever you go and never miss another deal. Amazon Deals for iPhone lets you check availability of current offers, schedule reminders, and purchase Lightning Deals and Gold…

No Picture

Editorials, Events, News

CES: Nuance’s Technology Is EVERYWHERE! (And That’s a Good Thing)

A while we were at CES last week I had a chance to meet with a number of the people who I email and speak with regularly from Nuance. Nuance is the leading company developing voice to text technology; they’re the company that has given us of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, Dragon Dictation for iOS devices and Dragon for Mac (the application I’m using to write this post). There were a few bits of important news that came out from Nuance over the course of the week. Nuance T9 Trace + Android = Happy Samsung Galaxy Tab User The first day we…

CES 2011: Sonos Wants to Give You Access to All the World's Music

Events, News

CES 2011: Sonos Wants to Give You Access to All the World’s Music

You make high-end, expensive audio components for household use and the world falls apart financially–what do you do? If you are a company like Sonos the answer is clear–you stay true to your mission and continue to make the best possible devices for in home music streaming. Clearly this approach worked. In the last year the company’s business doubled. Yes, the world is still in financial turmoil the company with relatively high-priced audio components was able to double their business. Clearly people like what they’re offering. I have long been an admirer of Sonos audio components. The high-end audio company…

VinniBag Review

Reviews, Travel

VinniBag Review

I am not a wine connoisseur at all.  However, back in the day I was into drinking good beers.  I remember one trip where I visited a Rock Bottom Brewery restaurant where I had some of the best beer I have ever tasted.  They had beer that I could have taken home in bottles, but because I flew into Denver and was flying out the next day, I could not take any home with me.  If I had the VinniBag it would have been a piece of cake! VinniBag is a wine bottle-shaped bag that has a few interesting features.  First, it…

PSP Game Review: CLADUN: This is an RPG

Game Diary, Reviews

PSP Game Review: CLADUN: This is an RPG

I am just going to warn you in advance … some of the text of this review will make you wonder if I messed up at the end with my positive recommendation. No – the rating is correct: CLADUN: This is an RPG is a game with plenty of flaws … but one that offers a great overall experience in spite of those flaws, and is very much worth buying. The Hype: Cladun is a retro style dungeon crawler game. Players can create their own main character from scratch using a graphics editor and the dungeons that you will be…

The Future of Indie Authors and Publishing

eBooks

The Future of Indie Authors and Publishing

Teleread shared some very interesting tidbits the other day about independent authors and their sales numbers. J. A. Konrath is often the voice of independent authors, as he famously broke free from his publisher and is now thriving through self-publishing and seeing his ebook sales fly through the roof. But he’s not alone. In fact, there are 25 authors listed who sold 2500+ ebooks in the month of December! Granted, these numbers are including the lucrative and extremely skewed Christmas season, but still — some of those authors sold 30k or even 100k in one month! Those are impressive sales…

IoSafe Has Got My Back; Do They Have Yours?

Gear Bits

IoSafe Has Got My Back; Do They Have Yours?

Freshly arrived back from CES, I found waiting for me an IoSafe 1TB fireproof, waterproof, and — as has been demonstrated multiple times by this site (and many others) — a virtually indestructible SoloPRO Desktop External Hard Drive. I’m looking forward to setting up this beast and putting it to work protecting my data. Knowing that any files, pictures, movies and music stored on it will be kept safe — even if something unimaginable and catastrophic should happen to Kev’s and my home — gives me a peace of mind that is hard to describe. Check out the IoSafe site,…

MeeGo 1.1 Review

Reviews

MeeGo 1.1 Review

It’s been a little while since Intel and Nokia came together to merge Moblin and Maemo together to create the MeeGo project.  Moblin started out as a project by Intel and the Linux Foundation to produce a Linux-based OS, interface and application stack for mobile internet devices.  In February of 2009, they merged with the Maemo project that was used by Nokia in the Nseries tablets like the N770, N800, N810 and the N900 smartphone.  Intel was nice enough to send me a Lenovo S10-3t convertible netbook with MeeGo preloaded so I could get a look at the state of MeeGo in version 1.1….

HTC EVO 4G Battery Review: Monaco Extended High Capacity 3500mAh

Reviews

HTC EVO 4G Battery Review: Monaco Extended High Capacity 3500mAh

When I first got my EVO 4G I was thrilled. I’ve become a big fan of the Android OS and have always held a special place in my heart for any hardware HTC produces. What immediately did not thrill me though was the EVO’s battery. In simplest terms, it sucked! I thought the battery on the iPhone 3Gs was bad, well the EVO’s is worse. After conditioning the battery and making some modifications to my phone’s settings I was able to greatly increase the amount of power I’m getting off each charge but on heavy usage days I’m unable to…

Toyota Appears Near Top of Both Brand Perception Survey and 'Most Hated Company' List

News

Toyota Appears Near Top of Both Brand Perception Survey and ‘Most Hated Company’ List

David Goodspeed writes amazing articles about cars and the automotive industry for Gear Diary, and I love reading them. Personally I am fairly utilitarian in my auto pursuits, but my statistician avocation makes me sit up and take notice when what looks like inherently contradictory data comes along. In this case it is Toyota and their public image. First off they find themselves along BP, airlines and others on the ’15 most hated companies’ list. Toyota had what could be described as a ‘rough’ 2010 in terms of public relations, to the point where the former leader of product quality…

Review: The Wikireader

Reviews

Review: The Wikireader

A while back the OpenMoko project created the goal of bringing out a Linux based smartphone called the Freerunner.  Then Google brought out what became the most successful Linux based operating system of all time, Android.  Well, needless to say, the writing was on the wall.  The clunky OpenMoko OS, with the behind the times hardware, was enough to make OpenMoko irrelevant in the smartphone arena.  Well, it seemed to be such a waste to throw out the work they did on the OS, so the next choice was to bring out another device.  This time, they didn’t even try…

NAIAS 2011: Day One and Only, Dawn of a new Detroit Auto Show

News, Vehicles & Gear

NAIAS 2011: Day One and Only, Dawn of a new Detroit Auto Show

Day one of the 2011 North American International Auto Show is going to be a very busy one, mainly because it is the only day that automakers will host press conferences. Given the congested nature of the day’s schedule I will break it down into several parts with a few brands already taking stage before many have had the opportunity to down their first cup of joe. Porsche, Chevy, Ford and Volkswagen lead off the morning.

2011 North American Car and Truck of the Year winners announced

News, Vehicles & Gear

2011 North American Car and Truck of the Year winners announced

The 2011 Ford Explorer has been named North American Truck of the Year at the 2011 North American International Auto Show in Detroit this morning. As a finalist it beat out the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango for top honors. In the North American Car of the Year competition, two of the three finalists are electric vehicles, although one does have a range extending gas engine on-board and this is what clinched it to make the Chevrolet Volt as the top car over the Nissan Leaf and Hyundai Sonata.

Ilium Software Launches eWallet GO! - Their First App for WP7

News

Ilium Software Launches eWallet GO! – Their First App for WP7

Well established mobile software companies are slowly rolling out apps for Windows Phone 7.  Ilium Software, a long-standing mobile software company, has just released its first WP7 app, eWallet GO! (the ! is theirs – not [necessarily] an indication of my excitement). eWallet is a secure information manager (password protector, etc.) that has been around for quite a few years, expanding to new platforms as they are introduced.  It’s an old favorite of many – I myself have used eWallet on several different platforms in the past. eWallet GO! offers over 30 card templates, ranging from credit cards to website…

The iPad in Action In Las Vegas!

Events, Gear Bits

The iPad in Action In Las Vegas!

This morning was my last morning in Vegas. Yes, CES is over. As I was checking out of the hotel I noticed something I had missed when I checked in on Monday. The simple LCD screens at the front desk aren’t screens at all. No, they are iPads that have been secured into the desks with a bezel wrapping around them. The only thing that gave them away as iPads was the telltale button that remained exposed at one side. The iPads were not being used as simple screens though. No, they were used to display the bill, interact with…

Review: GlowCrazy Glow-In-The-Dark Fun

Reviews

Review: GlowCrazy Glow-In-The-Dark Fun

Despite being a gear geek, I still want my kids to have activities for inside that are not on a television or video game system.  In their life, most of what they know come either of those ways.  We do play with Lego toys, slot car tracks and board games, but those get old to the boys.  What we need is something unique that seems magic.  Enter GlowCrazy which happens to be both unique and does seem like magic.  The good folks at GlowCrazy sent me and my boys a sample for review.  My boys play hard and are self…