Zek | Gear Diary

When Did Bed Shopping Get So Complex?

Sarah and I just bought a new mattress. This would not normally be news, but it was quite the shocker to discover just how complex buying a mattress has become. The last time I had to shop for a bed, I called 1-800-Mattress and bought the cheapest one they could quickly deliver. It was quick and it was simple. No longer. Now there are mattresses in every possible firmness, material, and price — except cheap. Honestly, I wanted to avoid the whole thing as long as possible, but Friday night our old bed struck back. I rolled over, and then…

News & Features

Buying an iPhone, Despite Verizon’s Best Efforts!

Dan’s wife Elana was not the only Gear Diary spouse to give in to the iPhone pressure this weekend-Sarah replaced her HTC Incredible with a 16GB 4S! However, the Verizon salesman betrayed his Android fanboy colors during our sales experience. You see, the salesman approached us and asked Sarah what she was looking to purchase. She said she was looking to replace her phone with an iPhone, and when he found out she was moving from Android to iOS, he proceeded to give her the hard sell. First, he informed her in a very condescending tone that “Android is different…

Gear Bits

Stay Cool as Temps Rise!

Monday is a big day for many runners. It’s the 116th annual Boston Marathon (the oldest marathon in the world!), which is always an exciting event. I love following Boston, even though I don’t have a shot at qualifying to run it unless they let me race with a rocket strapped to my legs. This year is going to be very unusual though, and it serves as a good reminder to always adjust as temperatures rise quickly in this warm spring. See, Boston starts at 11am, and this Monday it looks like it is going to be a bit warm….

eBooks, Editorials

What’s Next for eBooks after the DoJ Settlement?

Today was a big, big day for eBook fans! The Department of Justice agreed with everyone who has been screaming for three years that the “agency model” was unfair, anti-competitive and anti-consumer. They settled with several publishers, though Apple and Macmillan are still fighting the DoJ in court. So, what did the settlement today do? And how will it impact the future of ebooks? Read on for my thoughts! The Settlement: I am going to defer to Wired here, as they quickly had an excellent breakdown of what the settlement states: Terminate its current contracts with Apple within seven days…

eBooks

Department of Justice Sues Apple and Several Publishers over eBook Prices

Huge ebook news this morning! The US Department of Justice has officially filed anti-trust lawsuits against Apple and Hachette Books, as well as some sort of legal action against MacMillan, Harper Collins, and Penguin. All of these charges are related to the Agency Model, where prices are set by the publisher and discounts at the retail level are disallowed. I am not surprised that it has come to this. All the publishers were very insistent they did not do anything wrong, and that it was purely coincidence that all of them developed the same exact pricing plan at the same…

Editorials

Ashley Judd Eviscerates the Gossip Industry

Gossip can be a very cruel phenomenon. There is reality, and then there is the truth according to viral videos, Facebook, Us Weekly, and the E! Network. Just this past weekend Sarah and I were in the grocery store, and she commented that the headlines screaming from the checkout magazines were just out of control and invasive. Did it really matter whether Kim Kardashian cheated on her (soon to be ex) husband? Do we really need to know the second Prince William and his wife get pregnant? So it makes me very happy to see a different kind of article…

eBooks

Google Books Plans to Drop Independent Bookstores

Google books has never been a major player. They have a few fringe ebook readers, and they do have a few apps, but even on Android Google books is outclassed dramatically by the competition. I am very vocal about how much I dislike iBooks, but at least Apple packs the app full of features to give people incentive to try it. Google Books is so generic there is almost no reason to use it. Their biggest claim to fame was powering various independent bookstore’s ebooks, and Google has decided to end that program. According to Publisher’s Weekly: On Tuesday representatives…

Gear Bits

Americans Love Their Half Marathons!

It is no secret that I like running, and apparently, I am not alone! Running in the USA has looked at half marathon statistics for 2011, and the results are very interesting. Despite record levels of obesity in America, we are also seeing a push towards more fitness — just look at the popularity of apps and gadgets that track how far you walk, run or bike, or how many exercise themed apps are out there! And apparently, the half-marathon is the most popular distance! On the one hand, I am not surprised. Halfs are my favorite race distance too….

Events

Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE Event

I had the pleasure tonight of attending Sprint’s EVO 4G launch, their newest flagship phone. It runs Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with a huge 4.7in screen and all the usual bells and whistles we have come to expect from a high-end Android phone (1.5ghz Qualcomm processor, 1GB of RAM, NFC, a 2000mAh battery!) But this phone is special. Not only does it have a 720p screen, it has Beats Audio and something called HD Voice, which I think has the potential to truly be a killer feature. What is it? And why did it blow me away beyond anything…

Gear Bits

The Cure for a Bad Day

I had a bad day today. Nothing terrible, but it started with a dog that popped out of nowhere to harass me during my run, continued with me nearly falling over trying to avoid the dog, followed up with severe traffic on my way to work, and of course, computer problems in the office. Plus my ankle is a bit sore from the dog incident. Poor Sarah has gotten the bulk of my complaints about today, and when I got home from work she presented me with this list from Buzzfeed, “Thirteen Simple Steps To Get You Through A Rough…

Reviews

Mapi Cases Orion Case for iPhone Review

There are many, many cases available for the iPhone. Plastic in every form, color, and style. Bumpers, wallet-style, simple covers, and cases with stands built-in. Sometimes you want something a bit more classy, and that’s where leather cases make a great option. But what if you could combine the look and feel of a leather case with the flexibility of a case with a built-in stand? That’s where Mapi Cases Orion case shines! Is this the ultimate case for entertaining and professional iPhone use? Read on to find out! At first glance, the Orion looks like a simple leather case…

News & Features

Twitter Meets Toilet Humor with Sh-tter

Before I get into Sh-tter, the Twitter Toilet Paper (and yes, it is a real product!), I need to share a quick story. You see, this is not my first experience with novelty toilet paper. After college my friend made extra money by advertising moving services on Craigslist, and somehow a bunch of us got sucked into helping. One of our jobs was to pack a U-Haul for a grad student who was moving, and his biggest concern was packing the room full of “Sh*t-Be-Gone” toilet paper he was selling. It is the only time in my life someone has…

eBooks

Amazon Kindle Newsstand Versus Zinio on iPad

I took the plunge recently and bought a new iPad! One of the first things I looked into was Zinio, based on the exuberant reviews of the other Gear Diary editors. Then I realized I hardly read magazines. So while I peeked at a few prices and poked around, I didn’t really give digital magazines much thought. Today I was doing my usual Amazon Kindle browsing to find some new reading materials, and I stumbled on the price for “Running Times”, one of the magazines I had considered on Zinio. The price was $20/year on Zinio, but only $0.83 an…

Gear Bits

Revisiting the Original iPhone

(Original iPhone on the left, 4S on the right) I was doing some spring cleaning this weekend and came across a cool find — the original iPhone! I stood in line the day it came out and it was such a welcome change from my Treo 650! I remember being completely mesmerized by the screen and style at the time. Now, just a few short years later I was using its great-great grandchild and here was the original, the first, the groundbreaker. Of course, I had to charge it up and compare to my 4S! (original left, 4S right) What follows…

Gear Bits

Is This Revenge for “Frogger”?

It has been an animal-themed week at Gear Diary! First ferrets, then giant bunnies, now a killer frog… Want to know more about the angry frog? Just check out the video below! And does anyone know what game the frog was “playing”?

News & Features

Is This the End of Privacy?

Privacy on the Internet is a very slippery idea. We share information voluntarily, through Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and other social media. Information gets shared involuntarily through hacking, or by companies tracking our purchases and browsing habits to glean clues about how to make us their ideal customer. But Slate has an article today on a new way to learn about people online that is passive, technologically advanced, and nearly impossible to avoid: eye tracking using front-facing cameras. It sounds like the stuff out of paranoid science fiction, and right now it is. However, as Slate astutely points out, more and…

Gear Bits

The Bunny Rabbit of Your Nightmares

My coworker very excitedly called me to her desk today to show me pictures of a giant rabbit she saw in a pet store (and nearly purchased!) Apparently they are called “Flemish Giants” and can grow to be up to 50lbs! According to Wikipedia: Flemish Giants can be docile and tolerant of handling; frequent interaction with humans is a requirement for this to occur. Flemish Giants, like all rabbits, can become fearful, and sometimes violent, if handled incorrectly or irresponsibly. Their larger frame requires special attention paid to the spine alignment when handling a Flemish Giant, or any rabbit for…

News & Features

Your Ferret Doesn’t Want to Run!

Okay, maybe the headline is a bit misleading. You see, it is not that “your ferret doesn’t want to run!” as much as it is the fact that your ferret “won’t enjoy running”. Yes, researchers have determined that ferrets do not get the same “runners high” that humans and dogs get when they run. Now, this leads to a few questions: -Why did the researchers choose ferrets? Were ordinary house cats so disinterested in running that they didn’t even show up for the study? -How did researchers measure this? Did the ferrets run on little ferret-sized treadmills or normal human sized…

Gear Bits

Businessweek Looks at Absurd Slogan Trademarks

I love Bloomberg Businessweek because they have a sense of humor. They cover serious subjects, and then they run with the fun stuff but with a straight face. Hence their very amusing analysis of which catchphrases are trademarked and therefore off-limits (hint: apparently). Seriously. Check out their sample of what phrases have been legally protected: Barbarian Group: “It’s gonna be awesome” Great Clips: “It’s gonna be great” Amscan Holdings: “Who you gonna be?” Bank of New York Mellon: “We should talk” Physicians Mutual Insurance: “Maybe we should talk” STG Marketing: “Who’s got your stuff?” General Mills (GIS): “How do you…

Outdoors

GAIN Fitness for iOS Is Pocket-Sized Personal Training

Exercise. It’s something we all need to do, with the exception of those among us who are genetically gifted. But it is too easy to get caught in a rut, slogging through the same workouts each day. Or to avoid working out entirely because a meeting ran late, the car is in the shop, dinner needs to get made, or the moon isn’t full. There are a million ways to track the workout you didn’t do, but what about learning how to work out? That’s where GAIN Fitness comes in. It’s an app used in conjunction with a website that…

eBooks, News & Features

Einstein’s Life Goes Digital!

I was fascinated by Albert Einstein as a kid. I didn’t really grasp the details of his work, and to this day my grasp of physics is a bit shaky, but I still thought he was awesome. Call it nerd hero-worship. Learning more about what made him so awesome involves learning more about the man behind the math, and that’s why I am excited that the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is digitizing his correspondence and creating a portal where you can read and browse their archives. It’s certainly cheaper to read it online than hop a flight to Israel to…

Articles by Zek