Articles by Zek

Quick Google Tip — Multiple Account Sign-in

Several months ago, Gear Diary’s email switched to Google Apps. As a result, I learned about a pretty neat Google trick — multiple account sign-in. Effectively, it lets me be logged in at my primary email address on one tab and have my Gear Diary email opened and signed in on a separate tab. Helpful, but not earth-shattering. However, in the last few weeks, I’ve had two different people flip out with excitement when I taught them this trick, mainly because their schools and businesses have switched to Google Apps. Both of them thought they were stuck signing in and…

eBooks, Editorials

Borders Is Dead, and Are eBooks to Blame?

As you may remember, back in February Borders filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This, in theory, would have let them reorganize, deal with their debts, and potentially walk away leaner, meaner, and ready to throw down against B&N, Amazon, and the rising ebook threat. In theory. The reality has turned out to be much, much sadder, as Borders will be liquidated, all 11,000 or so employees will be laid off, and a once-powerful bookstore will be a footnote in history. Needless to say, I’m very sad to see this occur, but I’m also not surprised. This was a long time…

News & Features, Reviews

A Gear Diary Quick Tour of Chromebook

It is easy to forget in the flood of Android tablets that Google has another operating system in their quiver-Chrome OS. It has been maligned as “too late” and dismissed as just another netbook option, but it is so much more. If your primary work is in the cloud, especially Google services, and you’re looking for a fast computing option with great battery life, hold off on that tablet purchase. First, watch my quick Chrome OS overview video, then consider this: for $499 you can have a Chromebook with WiFi and 3G. Plus Verizon and Google will throw in MB…

News & Features

eMags and Censorship: Where Do We Draw the Line?

It is not a secret that Apple is notoriously strict about “adult content” on the App Store, but a quick search over the weekend showed that Apple’s reach may go beyond just apps and into the catalogs of content providers as well. And since our findings indicate the same content is unavailable on a new Android app, does that indicate that self-censoring to avoid blockage on iOS devices is resulting in entire categories of material being unavailable on mobile devices? Zinio, the e-magazine company, sells subscriptions to Playboy on their website. But you can’t find Playboy in the…

Gear Bits, News & Features

Scientists Create Implantable Memory, or the Dollhouse Cometh

I recently came across a brief news item about “memory jello”, essentially electronic components that can be placed in the human brain. Hopefully, these have non-nefarious uses, such as assisting people with brain injuries to recover, but if you watched the short-lived “Dollhouse” series, you would likely walk away with a different impression. Dollhouse was a show that took the concept of implantable memory to a whole new level. In it, “Actives” were people whose brains had been wiped clean, and could be “rented” by someone with the right amount of money. The rented “Active” had memories implanted to fit…

Gear Bits, News & Features

Androids in SPAAAAAACE!

image courtesy Brighthand When the alien invaders arrive, they’ll no doubt swing by the International Space Station for a quick rest stop before invading Earth. Let’s hope they’re fans of open source software and not iOS fans since they’ll find Samsung Nexus S phones powering several satellites there. According to Brighthand: SPHERES were created by a group of undergraduate students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in conjunction with the Department of Defense and NASA, in 1999. Present on the International Space Station since 2006, SPHERES are individual satellites self-contained with propulsion, power, navigation and computing. Each SPHERE was designed with an…

eBooks, News & Features

Dual-Boot Your Nook Color the Easy Way

Maybe you’ve heard here on Gear Diary that the NOOKcolor makes an excellent Android tablet. If you’re feeling confined by the stock operating system on the nook, even with its new app offerings, there’s always the option of trying a full Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) installation. However, this requires not only a bit of time and patience but a level of comfort with creating either a bootable SD card or <gulp> reflashing the internal NOOK memory. If you go with plan B, well, you’re a brave soul who doesn’t need B&N’s NOOK interface at all. But the stock NOOK reader is…

Editorials

RIP Rock Radio in NYC!

It’s a sad day for rock fans in the New York/New Jersey area. 101.9RXP, the only rock station in the area, is going off-air as of tonight. They’ll still exist in website form, but that doesn’t do much good for those of us who relied on RXP to control road rage during rush hour. I’m bitterly disappointed. Honestly, I am not a huge music person, and mainly listen when I’m in the car driving to and from work. However, I really, really, really hate pop music. The only genre I generally enjoy is rock and left to my own devices…

eBooks

Google Takes First Steps Towards Attacking Amazon

Looks like Google Books is taking some tentative steps towards being more than just a hobby. The folks at Google have fired a shot across the bow of Amazon, B&N, and Kobo by partnering with iRiver to offer an ebook reader with integrated Google Books access. According to the Google Blog: We built the Google eBooks platform to be open to all publishers, retailers and manufacturers. Manufacturers like iRiver can use Google Books APIs and services to connect their devices to the full Google eBooks catalog for out-of-the-box access to a complete ebookstore. You can also store your personal ebooks…

News & Features

Google Maps’ Unfortunate Mistake

Google Maps is not infallible. It’s been known to give wonky directions, as Sarah and I learned on Sunday when Google Maps mistakenly thought McCarren Park in Brooklyn was in Manhattan. Luckily we caught the mistake before we got completely lost. However, that’s nothing compared to the Google Maps fail for one NJ neighborhood, where they’ve mistakenly indicated the state park entrance is someone’s driveway. According to NJ.com: Since 1987, Gneiding and her husband Michael Brady have lived in one of three log homes found at the end of a quarter-mile long driveway in Clinton Township. The homes back Round…

Events, How to Do It Yourself!

Red Bull “Creation” Event — the Official Gear Diary Report

If the apocalypse comes, I want to spend it with the teams who competed in the Red Bull Creation event. They were given 72 hours and a pile of junk, along with the mission to illustrate “Energy in Motion”. Any scraps were fair game, from metal to electronics to slabs of wood, and the creations were just astounding. What they created was absolute brilliance, from hamster wheels to see-saws, and did I mention they did it in 3 days? If you left me in a room with a pile of junk and Red Bull, you’d come back to find a…

Editorials

Google Needs a “Parents” Button

My parents are reasonably technologically competent. They’re not big geeks, but my dad has an iPhone and my mom has both a Blackberry and an iPad, so they generally are self-sufficient when it comes to computers. However, what should have been a simple installation of Google Earth on their aging Dell set off a chain of unexpected consequences, all because they’ve been conditioned to trust Google and not question instructions. Apparently, when you install Google Earth on a Windows PC, Google asks to install Chrome as well. No biggie, except that in her “just click-through because Google said it…

Gear Bits

The Circle of Technological Life, or, RIP Kindle 1

(while not actually our bedroom, a pretty close approximation) This is the conversation that used to go on in my house a few years ago: Me: Hey Sarah, would you like me to buy you a Kindle? Sarah: No, I don’t need one, look, I have all these books piled up on my nightstand. This is the conversation that went on earlier this year: Me: Hey Sarah, would you like me to buy you a Kindle? Sarah: No, I don’t need one, but can I borrow your old Kindle once in a while? This was the conversation a few weeks…

News & Features

Battery Died on Your iPhone? Play Angry Birds in Real Life!

Admit it, you’ve drained your smartphone battery more than once playing Angry Birds. It’s so hard to leave a level without 3 stars, and the next thing you know you’re blowing past the low battery warnings and then “poof”, no more Angry Birds for you. Well, that was the bad old days of technology, before you could buy your very own “Angry Birds” toy set. Yes, thanks to the good folks at Think Geek, you can build your own live-action Angry Birds game. Even cooler, it’s a multiplayer game. Play as the pigs and try to outsmart your birdbrained opponent,…

Editorials

Capitalism Versus the Independent Bookstore

Seattle Mystery Bookshop created quite the tempest in a teapot this past week. They’re a small independent bookstore in, you guessed it, Seattle. Seattle is also the home of Amazon.com, and it’s clear from SMB’s attitude that they are not happy to have Bezos and Company in their backyard. In fact, Seattle Mystery Bookshop so thoroughly hates Amazon.com that they refuse to carry books or handle author signings by Amazon-published authors. Why? Because Amazon is a Big Evil Corporation. To best illustrate this debate, you need to start with the email exchange between the bookshop and the unnamed author. The…

eBooks, Reviews

The Oberon Large eReader Sleeve Case Review

When I took the Oberon eReader Sleeve out of its packaging, Sarah exclaimed: “That’s not a case, it’s a work of art!” It is a work of art, but it’s also a very functional sleeve case that fits Kindle 2s, NOOKcolors, NOOKs, and any similarly sized eBook readers. From Oberon Designs: For those that like to use their E Reader without a cover, we’ve designed the Oberon E Reader Sleeve with extreme portability in mind. Lighter and thinner than our E Reader Corner Cover, our sleeve fits easily into a purse, backpack or briefcase. Our sleeve is leather lined and…

eBooks, Editorials

eBooks Are Not the Same as Music and Movies

Forbes today had a blog post that made me smack my face in consternation. First of all, it was clearly written by someone who has zero grasp of the publishing world, but more importantly, it ignored several more realistic issues in ebooks that need to be addressed first. What was the author’s argument that had me foaming at the mouth? Read on… Last December, Iwrote about an ebook killer app waiting to be built, and that I wanted for Christmas. I didn’t get it. But, with Apple’s introduction of iTunes Match, there’s a glimmer of hope that Apple (or Amazon or Google) could build my…

Gear Bits

And You Thought Veggie Burgers Were Weird…

I’m a huge fan of the television show “True Blood”. The show is set in a world like ours, except the Japanese have perfected artificial blood, which has prompted vampires to “come out of the coffin”. In real life, though, the Japanese haven’t invented fake blood; they’ve turned poop into food! No, this is not a joke. According to Fox News: Japanese scientist Mitsuyuki Ikeda from the Okayama Laboratory certainly doesn’t believe in human waste. He thinks that’s perfectly good protein you’re sending out to sea, and he’s found a way to extract it, mix it with steak sauce and create…

eBooks, Editorials

How to Spot an eBook Scam, or, How to Avoid MyPadMedia, TheReadingSite, and Their Friends

Around this time last year, the Gear Diary team tussled with the folks at MyPadMedia. They were less than thrilled with us blowing open their scam of $50 for “unlimited” eBooks that turned out to be free eBooks from Feedbooks and other sites. Unfortunately, either MyPadMedia or their cohorts have managed to spawn again, this time with “The Reading Site”, which sounds and looks suspiciously similar. Pay us up front, we promise you unlimited eBooks, and if you’re a website who wants to be an affiliate there’s a super fat paycheck for you. However, without even paying for the site…

eBooks, Editorials

The Danger of eBook Digital Rights Management

The most common complaints surrounding ebooks are probably digital rights management related. Either books aren’t cross-platform compatible, or there are arguments of fragmentation, and the biggest boogeyman of all fears that someone could flip a switch and deauthorize an entire library. That’s precisely what happened to one unlucky Teleread contributor. Douglas Cootey explains: My iPhone wouldn’t let me authorize any new apps that utilized Adobe’s DRM. I had run out of the allotted authorizations. By March of this year, I began to contact Adobe to fix the situation, but each web case was “withdrawn”, which is to say “dismissed without solving”. I called tech…

eBooks, Editorials

Wired Misses the Point on eBooks

Oh Wired. For a magazine based around technology, they really, really, missed the point in their latest article on ebooks. It’s chock full of ignorant statements and petty complaints, which is pretty disappointing. Not only did they spread misinformation and confusion, there are genuine drawbacks to ebooks that could (and should) have been addressed instead. Read on for Wired’s take, my rebuttal, and my list of eBook drawbacks instead. Wired says: 1) An unfinished e-book isn’t a constant reminder to finish reading it. My take: If you need a half-finished book to taunt you to finish it, you’re not reading the…

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