Articles by Zek

Breaking the TV Habit

My fiancée and I watch a fair amount of television. It’s not the ONLY thing we do, but we tend to leave it on a great deal in the background during the evenings. In the summer, there’s not much we really follow, but somehow the TV still ends up on around 7:30, 8pm and stays on until around 10. So we’ve decided to go cold turkey. Just for one week, to see if we’re more productive if we’re not being distracted by reality TV and bad sitcoms. It also means we’re going to force ourselves avoid crashing out on our…

eBooks, Editorials

Is Borders Destined for Failure?

Oh Borders. I don’t want to wish failure on any entity, especially a company that taught me a great deal, but sadly, the Borders eBook strategy is going to fail. Spectacularly. I just don’t see how they’ll overcome the Amazon/B&N/Apple juggernauts with such scattered, messy, and honestly lackluster set of offerings. Head over to Borders’ site, and check out their ebook readers page. Be sure to look at their ebook comparison chart. In case Borders caught on to how bad it is and has removed it, here’s a screenshot: Hint to Borders-If your “comparison chart” illustrates how much better spec’d…

News & Features

Beware of Counterfeit Vibram Five Fingers!

Image courtesy Birthday Shoes It isn’t just ebook scammers you have to watch for on the internet! If you’ve been paying attention to Judie and Larry’s Couch to 5k Series, you may have caught that Judie runs in Vibram Five Finger Sprints. Recently I picked up a pair of Vibram Five Finger KSO’s at my local EMS, and I think Larry has a pair too…so we’re clearly big fans of toe-shoes here at Gear Diary. Now, if you’ve looked into ordering VFF’s recently, you may have noticed many sizes and styles are backordered. Vibram has had a hard time keeping…

News & Features

Palm’s Legacy

By now you’ve probably heard the news that PALM is officially part of Hewlett-Packard. If you, like many of us, started with a Palm OS device before moving on to smartphones, it’s a bittersweet ending. On the one hand, no one wanted to see Palm die, even after their slow circling of the drain for years. On the other hand, it’s an open question how Palm will do as part of HP, and whether WebOS will resurface or be absorbed into an HP Printer. One of the original Palm-people, Donna Dubinsky, wants to remind people there’s always been something special…

eBooks, News & Features

Falling eBook Reader Prices!

Think Amazon and Barnes and Noble are the only ones slashing prices? Well, it looks like a few players in the ebook market have caught up with the new paradigm, though it’s debatable what changes will actually help them. Here are a few of the big drops we’ve seen so far: Sony Readers: Pocket Edition: From $169 to $149 Touch Edition: From $199 to $169 Daily Edition: From $349 to $299 Pocketbook Series: Pocketbook 360: From $239 to $199 Pocketbook 301: From $279 to $219 Pocketbook 302: From $339 to $279 Just for comparison, again, here are the prices on…

News & Features

Buy a Flying Car…for the Price of a Small House!

If the jetpack I told you about isn’t really your speed, what about a flying car? It’s called the Transition Roadable Aircraft, and it will run you around $194,000 (plus your pilot’s license!) What’s amazing is that this isn’t really a traditional “flying car”, at least not in the DeLorean sense. Instead, it’s more like a plane that can fold up and drive home. Might be tough to use it in your everyday life, unless you have an extra-large driveway at home. Supposedly, it’s going to be a fairly versatile plane-car (plar? clane?): Going from plane to car “takes about…

eBooks, News & Features

RIP Fictionwise?

Looks like Fictionwise is becoming more obsolete by the day. During the spring they discontinued their membership program in the face of the agency pricing changes. Now it looks like “micropay rebates”, the last bastion of their old system, is being discontinued. Micropay rebates were essentially an incentive program to shop at Fictionwise on an ongoing basis. You earned the rebate credits for books you purchased and could apply them towards other transactions on the site. Effectively, the rebates significantly lowered the overall cost of buying through Fictionwise, even if the individual items were not cheaper. Specifically, Fictionwise says: Until…

Reviews

Kindle for Android Review

Finally, Android Kindle fans can rejoice! Today Amazon announced Kindle for Android, and it’s live and free in the Android Marketplace. Is it worthwhile, either as a companion to a Kindle or as your primary ebook source on your smartphone? Read on for my quick review and find out! First off, the app is fast. After the initial setup, I selected a book to download to my Droid and it not only downloaded extremely quickly but opened at the place where was I last reading on my Kindle. It’s a minor thing but I like that the book opens as…

eBooks, Editorials

Attrition in the eBook Ranks!

It’s been an interesting week in ebook-land. We’ve seen the opening shots of a price war, and the beginnings of what may prove to be many players dropping from the ebook market. It’s an exciting time to be an ebook fan, so read on for more details and exciting news! First, in case you missed it earlier this week, B&N attempted to gain the upper hand in the ebook world with a twofold strategy. First, they announced a WiFi-only nook for $149, effectively out doing Borders Kobo Reader, and then they dropped the price of the famous original nook to…

News & Features

Huawei S7: A Non-Crappy Android Tablet?

It’s almost too good to be true. After months and months of mediocre tablets with resistive touchscreens and underpowered processors running outdated versions of Android, Huawei is potentially stepping up and saving us all. Supposedly, the S7 will have a speedy 728mhz Snapdragon, Android 2.1 and (drumroll please) a CAPACITIVE TOUCHSCREEN!!! Finally, someone is releasing an Android tablet that will function as well as Android phones. Expansys will be selling them for around $345 in the USA, and while that’s steep compared to an iPad, it’s reasonable if you want a 7-inch Android tablet. Frankly, if you really want one,…

News & Features

Get Ready to Fly to Work with Your Jetpack!

Before you head out to buy your next car, you might want to find out if your bank will float you a loan for your very own jetpack. Businessweek reported recently that Martin Aircraft has developed a viable jetpack that runs on premium gasoline! All we need is the FAA to clear commuters to use these instead of cars, and the roads will be far, far clearer. Even more amazing, Martin Aircraft is hoping to sell the jetpacks for $86,000! Yes, that’s a completely insane price for a jetpack, but it makes them potentially marketable, instead of “so expensive they’re…

News & Features

Skyfire Web Browser Gets an Update!

I love the Skyfire browser. If you aren’t fortunate enough to be running Android 2.2 (aka Froyo), Skyfire is your best bet for web video on the go and your only option for flash video. It’s also a very handy browser to have around in general, with the ability to swap between mobile, desktop and iPhone browsing. Best of all, it’s remarkably flexible and runs equally well on my Droid and on the Camangi Webstation. If you’re familiar with Skyfire from the Windows Mobile days, you may remember that everything went through their servers. With the Android version, only the…

Reviews

Camangi Webstation Update: The Good, the Neutral and the Ugly

The Camangi Webstation has been updated again! I’m starting to think I might be one of five people still using this device, but it is steadily improving with each software release. I have been using the update for the last few days, so read on for my thoughts so far! The Good: The biggest change here is that (finally!) Camangi has given users the option of a plain homescreen. You can finally turn off the skin they were using with scrolling icons, which is great. I was using home replacements, which suck down valuable (and scarce) memory. Being able to…

Reviews

Lenovo A63 Desktop Computer Review

I could sum up this entire review in one word (Whoosh!), but I think Lenovo would not be happy. Nor would you, since you clicked through to a review intending to find out more about a product, and not just that’s it’s very fast. So let’s get started in on the Lenovo A63 desktop and what makes it so impressive that it left me with “whoosh” as my description! First of all, a bit of a disclaimer: I am geeky, but not great with hardware. I know how it works, I know how to troubleshoot the basics, but I’m…

eBooks, Reviews

Kobo Android App Review

The Kobo Android app is finally out! It is the first major bookstore besides eReader to have an app for the Android platform, and it offers some major advantages, as well as some serious drawbacks. Read on for my review! First of all, there’s some benefits to Kobo’s system. They believe your book should be available wherever you are, on whatever platform you’re using. So similar to Whispersync, you can start a book on your smartphone and continue it on your computer or another device like the iPad. Unfortunately, at this time the Kobo Reader does not have any sync…

Editorials

Why Does AT&T’s Android Crippling Matter?

Android Central is reporting that the HTC Aria will be getting a bit of a lobotomy. You see, AT&T apparently hates the idea of sideloading apps. Sideloading means you can add apps that are not part of the regular Android marketplace through over the air download or via the USB cable on your computer. It’s for installing beta software, or software that’s only distributed through a developer’s site, and many of these are not as obscure as you’d think… Just to give you a few examples, I was away on a business trip last week. While I was there, I…

eBooks, Editorials

Will eBooks Rise from Borders Ashes?

(underlying image courtesy Unwitting Wit) Teleread featured an interesting article today from Laura Dawson, a publishing consultant. She believes that Borders is going to die, and the loss of a major bookstore chain will trigger more ebook adoption. It’s an interesting theory and it has merits, but I also think there are some reasons why it isn’t perfect. For starters, here’s a sample conversation from when I helped close the Framingham, MA Borders store back in 2005: Customer: Wow, I am so upset you guys are closing! I shop here all the time! (In my head): If you shopped here…

Editorials

Does Android Need Custom Skins?

News has been leaking out over the last few days about the new Motorola Droid phones. They sound amazing, with high-end specs like a 4.3-inch screen, 8-megapixel camera, even HDMI out. Unfortunately, it looks like Moto is also going to be slapping MotoBlur on these phones, and that’s a huge disappointment for me. It’s not that I think stock Android is the greatest thing since sliced bread. To be honest, it’s far too plain for me. But I fix that with home replacements. I’ve tried several and for now have settled on LauncherPro. It’s simple, it’s customizable, it doesn’t slow…

Reviews

Belkin Dualfit Armband As a Droid Case

Since there are no specific Droid armbands, I had to get creative to find a way to carry my bulky phone while I run. A bit of google-fu led to some posts over on Droid Forums about iPhone and iPod Touch cases holding the Droid reasonably well. I’ve been using a Belkin Dualfit for the last few weeks. How does it stack up as a Droid case? Read on to find out! First of all, the Droid is a heavy phone. It’s fine when you’re carrying it in a pocket, but on your arm, you definitely notice the weight right…

eBooks, Editorials

MyPadMedia Just Won’t Quit

We’ve warned, exposed, and ranted about myPadMedia, but they just won’t stay down! The latest from them shows they’re just getting more brazen as this saga continues. First, I received this email from manybooks.net over the weekend: Hi Carly, I’ve just read your article exposing myPadMedia’s mis-use of Feedbooks.com, and I think they’re doing the same thing to manybooks.net If you still have an account with myPadMedia would you mind logging in to see if that is the case? I had a few emails from folks yesterday asking for refunds, and if I’ve guessed correctly then I may have blocked…

News & Features

Wall Street Journal Fans the Flames of Malicious App Paranoia

Know how you can tell smartphones and app stores are truly mainstream? No, it’s not because my mother just bought a Blackberry! It’s because the Wall Street Journal is writing articles on apps, and that <gasp> malicious apps have been creeping into the smartphone space. I am being a bit tongue in cheek; the Wall Street Journal is, as always, fairly even and conservative in their tone: As smartphones and the applications that run on them take off, businesses and consumers are beginning to confront a budding dark side of the wireless Web. Online stores run by Apple Inc., Google…

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