Articles by Zek

It Pays to Chat with Customer Service!

When we moved into our new house, we made a very unfortunate discovery. Our box spring didn’t fit up the stairs. My brother-in-law was kind enough to build us a platform bed frame for our mattress, but it still left us very low to the ground. Sarah finally got fed up last week, and I agreed to look into split box springs. I was about to give up, or buy a crappy build-it-yourself box spring from Amazon, when I happened to get a pop-up while browsing 1-800-Mattress, asking if I wanted to chat with a representative … and I am…

Reviews

Ampjacket for iPhone 4S Review

The iPhone has some amazing multimedia features, but you need headphones, a Bluetooth speaker, or some other sort of stereo system to really appreciate them. The built-in speaker is ok, but nothing mind-blowing. What if you need a sound boost, but don’t want to lug around a full speaker system? The Ampjacket aims to deliver boosted sound in an iPhone case, but does it live up to the promise? The Ampjacket is a simple case made of a soft plastic material. Inserting the iPhone is simple, and the Ampjacket is quite protective with a slight lip around the edge for…

Gear Bits

Spock Squared Makes Everything Funnier

I very, very, very rarely notice car commercials. And they never influence me on what sort of car I’d like to drive. But despite them being way out of our price range, I totally want an Audi after seeing this Young Spock/Old Spock commercial, spotted by our friends at Mighty Mega: Is that not the most awesome, geektastic commercial of all time? I can’t tell what made me laugh harder-the “Wrath of Khan” bit or the part where Leonard Nimoy sang bits of his infamous Bilbo Baggins song. And now a bit of trivia after you’re done laughing: Do you…

News & Features

Moxtra Updates with an Android App, Google Drive, and More!

I reviewed Moxtra about a month ago, and was very impressed with this digital binder/scrapbook app. It loos great and makes it easy to organize and collaborate on all sorts of projects. At the time, my biggest complaint was that I couldn’t easily get documents and web clips to Moxtra without stopping in Dropbox or Box first. Moxtra was just updated to add Google Drive, and a web browser for clipping, plus an Android app! I took a quick look at the update; does it impress as much as the original?

Reviews

2Day Tasks App for Windows Phone Review

When I made the switch to Windows Phone, I had to start replacing my various “go-to” apps. Chief among them was a decent lightweight to-do manager. Something more robust than, say, “Reminders” on the iPhone, but it didn’t need to be a full-blown Getting Things Done organization system. I poked around Windowsphone.com, and noticed 2Day had a number of positive reviews. This has quickly become my favorite new productivity app; it is simple to use, with tons of customizable task options. Read on to learn more! 2Day follows the Windows Phone “Metro” interface, meaning you can swipe back and forth…

Reviews

Ooma Telo VoIP System Review – Functions Like a Landline While Saving You Money

We pay a fair chunk of change for our family cell phone plan each month. As a result, we opted not to add a landline when we moved into our new home. However, we had the opportunity to test out the Ooma Telo VoIP system, and it might just swing us into believing in having a dedicated line for the house. How does it work, and why is it persuading us? Read on to find out!

Reviews

Eton ZoneGuard Weather Alert Clock Radio Review

Many times when we discuss Eton we refer to their excellent line of outdoor-focused emergency radios, with flashlights, phone chargers, and solar panels all built-in so you can be in touch no matter what is happening in the world. Eton doesn’t just want you to be on top of the weather when you are out in it, they want you to be able to track “climate events” from the safety of your own home. And while we all have smartphones and a ridiculous number of weather apps at our disposal, Eton offers the ZoneGuard Weather Alert Clock Radio, a stand-alone…

Gear Bits

Nokia Lumia 928 Windows Phone Music Controls – Little Features Make a Big Difference

I am really loving my new Lumia 928. Now that I am past the initial phase of learning Windows Phone and adjusting to a larger phone, I am starting to notice little ways that Windows Phone 8 makes life easier. The biggest standout for me, above and beyond any other, is how it handles music controls. Every morning and evening I stream Pandora on my way home from work. On the iPhone, it was easy to flip to a different song by just double clicking the home button and pulling up the music controls while the iPhone was locked. I…

Reviews

Battery for Windows Phone Review

I am having fun setting up my new Lumia 928, and part of that is getting to know new apps and settings. On my iPhone I had my battery percentage listed in the status bar, but that’s not an options in Windows Phone. Luckily, I stumbled across a great utility app, aptly called “Battery”, that provides a Live Tile of my percentage battery life left, plus a whole slew of other useful data settings and shortcuts!

Gear Bits

Nokia Lumia 928 First Impressions

Last week I expressed my boredom with my iPhone, and took a leap of faith by ordering a Nokia Lumia 928. It arrived last night (darn holiday weekend got in the way of FedEx delivering my phone faster!); now that I’ve had 24 hours to get the basics of the phone down, I thought I’d share some initial thoughts.

Health and Fitness, Reviews

Lems Shoes Primal 2 Review

I love sneakers. Even before I became a runner, I vastly preferred sneakers over any other footwear. It still makes me sad that my office is business formal, and the first thing I do when I get home is shuck my work shoes and slip into sneakers. So I take my sneakers very seriously, and when I say that the Lems Primal 2’s I’ve been testing for the past week are some of the best sneakers I’ve ever worn, that’s praise I don’t give lightly. What makes these shoes so great isn’t any one thing, but a combination of things….

Gear Bits, How to Do It Yourself!

Turn off iMessage Before Switching away from iOS

I ordered a new Lumia 928 yesterday, and am anxiously awaiting a shipping notification from Verizon. In the meantime, I am beginning to research this huge leap into a whole new platform. Microsoft has a very helpful website that gives you an idea of how to transfer your calendar, contacts, and email, as well as answers some frequently asked questions. All my contacts are in Gmail, and I have an Outlook.com account, so I am in good shape there. However, I did find a thread at the Apple support forums that raised a red flag-apparently switching operating systems without turning…

News & Features

Enervee Takes Comparison Shopping to a New, Energy Conscious Level

There are a million ways to shop by price online. You can sort lowest to highest, seek sale items, look for free shipping, and head to sites like eBay to try to get a better deal. There’s also plenty of places that will tell you how eco-friendly a device is, or will be over its lifetime. Enervee is looking to combine those metrics into one website that gives you a price, features, and environmental impact breakdown on major household appliances, so you can see what the true price of an item will be over its lifetime and whether you need…

Editorials

The iPhone Doldrums – I Think I’m Ready for Something Different

A bit less than two years ago, I excitedly drove to my nearby Verizon store to give up my Motorola Droid and jump ship over to an iPhone 4s. I was sure this would be a great match, and my days of smartphone-hopping were over. And they were, for quite a while. But over time I’ve grown frustrated, and the iPhone has begun to feel a bit stale. My main frustration has been with the battery life. My 4S started behaving atrociously about three months ago; I would routinely get under 8 hours of standby and maybe 5 hours of…

Gear Bits

My Roku 3 Remote Saves the Day!

Gadgets have become packed with more and more features, many of which we end up forgetting about or just never use. When the Roku 3 was announced, we had an internal discussion at Gear Diary about how the headphone jack in the remote was a useless feature — who would hook up headphones to a remote to watch TV, when they could just plug headphones into a tablet and have the same private viewing experience? We use our Roku 3 all the time but never gave the headphone jack a thought, until today when I stumbled upon a situation where…

Reviews

Moxtra for iOS Review – Moving Mountains of Info into Manageable Folders

I use my iPad for just about everything — notes, pictures, writing posts, browsing the web, etc. In many ways it is how I aggregate every bit of content I need, like, or want to reference. The iPad does all this for me on the hardware side, and I’ve been testing an app called Moxtra that does this for photos, documents, notes, and audio files. It can be standalone like a scrapbook or collaborative. How does it work, and how well does it work? Read on to find out! Moxtra organizes your content into “binders”, rather than folders or categories,…

Reviews

Windows 8 Start Menu Reviver Review

If you’ve read my review of the Toshiba Z930 Ultrabook, then you know two things: I loved the computer, and I hated Windows 8. Much of that animosity comes from the awful Start screen/Dashboard, which is obviously designed for touch interfaces and not mouses and keyboards. ReviverSoft thinks they can help people like me with their newest product, the Start Menu Reviver. Can it get me to accept Windows 8, or at least tolerate it? Read on to find out! Installing and setting up Start Menu Reviver is a snap. Once you download it, there’s a quick setup that remaps…

Reviews

Whiteboard Calendar Review

Put down your smartphone. I know you’re rushing to your favorite App Store, trying to figure out what a whiteboard calendar app is. You won’t find this on your phone or tablet. But it’s the greatest shared calendar solution that Sarah and I have tried. It is open enough that we can customize it endlessly, but also has great privacy settings depending upon the use environment. It also never needs a software update, reboot, or recharge. Yes, it is a simple, wall-mounted whiteboard. But it has done more to keep us organized than any Google Calendar or variant smartphone app!…

Gear Bits

TiVo’s Exclusively Terrible Offer

In 2006, I bought a TiVo Series 2. It was a great device, and it lasted me until mid-2011, when it finally stopped changing channels and went on strike. It retired to that great recycling center in the sky/the next town over, and we moved on to bigger and better electronics. TiVo however, sends me emails regularly offering us all sorts of deals to return. Today’s, though, is definitely the weirdest. Apparently TiVo blasted this offer to every former subscriber. They probably should have filtered it though, since as enticing as $6.99 a month TiVo service is, I am pretty…

Gear Bits

B&N “Innovates” by Becoming Yet Another Tablet Company

News broke today that Barnes and Noble is opening up the NOOK hardware to Google, adding Google Play to their NOOK HD and HD+ devices. Is this a canny move to capitalize on tablet demand, or a desperate grab for any port in a storm? Does this actually matter to the average buyer? As our own Mike Anderson asked, “Is abandoning their own ecosystem a desperate move?” I think this is great news for the ten bloggers who really love the NOOK HD hardware. Except for a few Android users who can re-download their apps across their phone and NOOK, the…

Gear Bits

GE’s Incredibly Creepy Matrix-Themed TV Ad

Apparently, GE’s ad people are living in the late 1990’s. I can’t judge them for this since my musical tastes are clinging tenuously to the earlier part of the same decade. However, I do question what they were thinking with their latest ad touting their medical equipment business. And since GE apparently bought all the daytime airtime and has been playing the ad non-stop on news channels, I’ve seen it many, many times, to the point where I can follow along with the script. Which gets creepier every time I watch it. Seems like someone saw a few random scenes…

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