When we did the Kindle2 review, one of the few things that Dan, Doug and Kerry griped about was the device’s pasty white front. I didn’t really mind the slightly off-white color, but when I purchased the Kindle DX I decided it needed a bit of personalization. Since I don’t yet have a case for the oversized ereader, I thought it would be fun to give it dash of protective color; I purchased a DecalGirl skin.
A couple of months ago, I was given a box containing a treasure like no other. Inside were the remains of two pocket watches; both were in terrible shape, and both were obviously old. Since they came from my uncle’s widow, I knew that they were somehow related to my family, but there was no further information. One of these pocket watches would yield a most amazing discovery, the other is still a mystery. When I opened the box I was given, this large Waltham pocket watch was the first thing I saw. It was in pitiful shape, having no…
I do not have a green thumb, but through much trial and error over the years I have compiled a list of plants I can keep alive. I have also learned that there are some, that when I see them seemingly thriving and beckoning to me at the store…no matter how good they look, I should just keep on walking. When dealing with indoor plants, I know that I do best with ones that can handle diffused light and weekly watering; since I love blooming flowers, I tend to buy orchids. Outdoor plants must be able to handle direct sun,…
Not long after I received this rather benign looking kit containing a 125mW Green Laser Pointer and a pair of Laser Protective Goggles from SKYlasers, I started really paying attention to all of the reports regarding people with lasers – red and the stronger green, interfering with pilots flying passenger airplanes. In February 2009, there were already 148 reported incidents of laser attacks, and just last week a plane arriving at Sea-Tac was lasered no less than 20 times. What’s the big deal? Well to start, shining a high powered laser at a plane creates the possibility of messing with…
HP and Microsoft sent me an HP Pavilion dv2-1199us Entertainment PC to try out. Once I got past the fact that the model number is a mouthful, I couldn’t help but notice how lovely this moonlight white computer is – both in appearance and specifications. The exterior is described as a “magnesium-aluminum-alloy case in a white imprint finish,” but that barely describes it; the look is stunning. The touch pad is a mirrored surface, and it runs Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit). The dv2 has a bunch of bells and whistles…both in the hardware and in…
I couldn’t resist; I put in my order and received an Amazon Kindle DX. 😛 Some of the more obvious differences between the two devices are that the DX has a ~9.5″ screen, while the 2 has a ~5.8″ screen; the DX measures 10.4″ tall x 7.2″ wide x 0.38″ thick, and the 2 measures 8″ tall x 5.3″ wide x 0.36″ thick; and the DX can hold ~3500 books while the 2 can hold ~1500. The keyboards are a bit different, there are no buttons on the DX’s left side, and hmmm – just watch! The full review will…
[Editor’s note: This is a joint review by Judie and Julie that will be appearing simultaneously on Gear Diary and The Gadgeteer. Judie’s comments will be in black, and Julie’s will be in blue italics.] Like many who own an Amazon Kindle or Kindle2, Julie and I have grown to greatly enjoy the convenience of carrying our current and future reading material on our own “virtual bookshelves.” The question of how to keep our Kindles protected was one that we had to answer fairly early on, seeing as Amazon did not include any cover with our pricey new readers. I…
This weekend was spent attending Kevin’s family reunion, David, one of his cousins, smoked a couple of pork shoulders. Instead of using a knife and fork to pull the pork, he was using these bear paws meat handlers claw things… I’d never seen them before, but they looked like something that would be indispensable to anyone who grills.
I love to cook, and I love to use fresh herbs from my little garden, but I don’t particularly enjoy the monotony of chopping fresh herbs into uniform bits. That’s why I am especially enjoying the set of Herb Scissors that Useful Things sent me.
Some of you may recall me talking about living in Taiwan when I was a child. One of the necessary skills that I learned, that I can still recall, was how to eat with chopsticks. This has come in quite handy as an adult, because I’ve grown very fond of eating sushi. 😉 Those who haven’t mastered fashioning two pointy sticks into their fork and spoon – whether because they don’t have the patience or they don’t have the dexterity – will understandably get a huge kick out of the Clothespin Chopsticks from Useful Things.
For years I kept a kitchen timer on the back of my stove. Yes, the stove had a built-in timer, but it never failed that I would be cooking multiple dishes that each needed timing; hence the extra gadget. Now that I no longer have a stove with a back on it, I no longer have an out of the way place to keep my extra timer. Why not on the side of the refrigerator? Say hello to the Magnetic Rotary Kitchen Timer, available from Useful Things.
Here’s a doo-dad that James Bond might appreciate and use: the LaCie iamaKey. Available in 4 or 8GB sizes, this tiny flash memory drive is neatly camouflaged as a key. To further the illusion, the iamaKey comes complete with a weighty slipring and fob.
Spring is here, and along with the rains and milder days have come droves of moths, gnats, flies, mosquitoes, june bugs, mayflies, scorpions, spiders and every other weird bug that will scramble in when someone accidentally leaves the screen door open for longer than a second. I live in the country so I might have a few more bugs on my list than you would, but I know that you “city dwellers” have to deal with some of the same. I was recently on the Home Improvements website looking for some heat register deflectors and recycling bins, and I saw…
One of the more exciting announcements to come from Mobile World Congress was that HTC would be releasing the Touch Diamond2 and TouchPro2 as followups to their preceding namesakes. Neither is technically available in the US – not just yet anyway, but as luck would have it, HTC was kind enough to loan me a European version of the Diamond2.
I live as close to the middle of nowhere as possible, and that’s how I like it. For nearly as far as the eye can see my view consists of trees, hills…and more trees and hills. I can just make out the sound of the highway if I listen carefully, but there are days when I don’t even notice it anymore. Instead I enjoy the sounds of birds chirping, wind chimes, a visiting hummingbird’s wing thrum, and always a wind in the trees which sounds suspiciously like being at the ocean when I close my eyes. Our home in an…
Cats make great pets because they don’t require a lot of attention like dogs do. Just give them a bowl of food and a pan of litter, and they can pretty much take care of themselves. The only downside to having an indoor kitty is that we humans have to clean their ‘toilet’ for them. Not fun…
It’s not every day that I get to unbox an $8000 mobile phone…oh heck, who am I trying to kid?! Up until a few days ago, I could honestly say that I had never unboxed any device that cost so much. But through a twisting series of events, starting with my friend (and fellow gadget magpie) Drew purchasing a Vertu Ascent Ti at full retail price last summer (and eventually moving on from it), I now have one in my possession. Needless to say, the Vertu Ascent Ti a pretty big upgrade from the other two Vertus I have written about…
I usually keep my thoughts of economic doom and gloom to myself, but John Starkweather posted a link to this on Facebook, and I had to share. Chris Wilson of Slate has posted an interactive map of where jobs have been gained and lost across the country since January 2006. The map’s dates start with January 2007, and when each button is pressed they show respective losses or gains for each month throughout the previous year. Only counties with a gain or loss of 250+ are represented by a red or blue dot. Using the Labor Department’s local area unemployment…
No, this rectangular black box is not the monolith from 2001; it’s the LaCie Little Disk, and it’s the latest addition to my gear bag.
It looks like we can chalk up Ugobe, makers of the lovable Pleo Robot, as one more victim of the poor economy and the ongoing credit crunch. Evidently, it was never a matter of whether there were enough people buying the personable robots, because Ugobe defintiely had the orders. The problem came when the companies who ordered shipments could not pay Ugobe, because their credit was frozen or denied. As a result, Ugobe has had to lay off 20 employees and declare Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. Owners of existing Pleosaurs are understandably a bit freaked out. This just in from Robert…
I usually keep my MacBook Air nekkid as a jaybird because I love its skinny form factor, but the scratches I’ve begun to notice appearing on its metal shell have been causing me a bit of consternation lately. In an effort to keep my svelte beauty’s skin unblemished, I agreed to give the Speck Products See Thru Slim Hard Shell Case for MacBook Air a try.