Articles by Zek

eBooks, Editorials July 22, 2010

Are e-textbooks the Next Big Market?

There’s no doubt that ebooks are taking market share from regular books, and the marketplace is getting very crowded with companies attempting to grab a slice of the action. e-Textbooks, on the other hand, have been a much tougher sell. The Kindle famously flamed out in various university trials, and it’s too early to tell if the iPad will be a success for studying. Still, it hasn’t stopped several companies from rolling out strategies to break into the textbook market. B&N has nookStudy, Macmillan has DynamicBooks, and now Engadget is reporting that Entourage (of the infamous dual-screened ebook reader) has…

Editorials July 21, 2010

The No-TV experiment Diary

Last week my fiancée and I set out to do a no-TV week, and here are my quick thoughts on how it went! Day 1: Not terrible. The worst withdrawal symptoms were right after work, when we would normally flop down on the couch until it was time to hit the gym and be tortured by the personal trainer. Instead, we cleaned the kitchen. And we ate dinner at the table, instead of on the couch (shocking) and were extremely productive! So far the biggest issue is that we may need to get a helmet for the dog. He keeps…

News & Features July 18, 2010

Does Your GPS Have a Tone, or Is It All in Your Head?

I have road rage issues. I tend to get very frustrated by traffic and being lost; unfortunately, I live in New Jersey and have what amounts to a completely inverted sense of direction. So it’s not uncommon to find myself stuck in traffic in a strange place while trying to calm my frustrations…and then the GPS pipes up with a “RECALCULATING” and suddenly I am plotting the highest point from which I can drop the evil beast of a device. Luckily, I am not alone. According to CNN, it’s fairly common to have a negative reaction to GPS-voice. Basically, while…

Editorials July 16, 2010

Fact Checking, Public Relations, and the Droid X Versus the iPhone

(image courtesy Newsrealblog) At Gear Diary, we receive a fair bit of unsolicited email pitching ideas. The originators of this email sent us such a boneheaded set of statements that I don’t feel it would be fair or right to post their names. However, I will post the five points they attempted to helpfully share, and why they are wrong…and let this be a lesson to any other public relations types out there-fact checking is your friend! The “helpful” email was trying to convince us why a Droid X was a worse choice than an iPhone: Five Reasons Not to…

Reviews July 15, 2010

Graffiti One Comes to Android!

If you were a Palm OS fan, you were probably a whiz with Graffiti, the shorthand text input system. In college, I took all my notes on my Palm M100, and I used Graffiti so much my pen and paper notes were in an unholy mix of print scrawl and Graffiti. So when I saw this morning that Access had released Graffiti (the famous, original, pre-lawsuit with Xerox version) for Android, I practically danced in my cubicle. It is everything I had hoped it would be and more! I was very skeptical at first since Graffiti is so stylus-based, but…

News & Features July 14, 2010

The Kindle’s Killer Wireless Feature: Google Maps?!?

One of the major advantages Amazon’s Kindle has over the nook is that the wireless feature is not limited to just downloading books. Unlike the nook, the Kindle can browse the web over its free built-in wireless. While it may not be the world’s greatest browsing experience, it’s still better than nothing at all! A Kindle World Blog has found ways to take it one step further than just Wikipedia on the fly…they have detailed instructions on how to access Google Maps mobile on your Kindle! While this wouldn’t take the place of GPS, it’s a pretty cool feature to…

eBooks, Editorials July 12, 2010

State of the eBook: Fight!

For this week’s “State of the eBook” I thought we should look at potential winners and losers in the ebook world. With competition and price wars getting fiercer, there’s a few major battles shaping up that may change the competitive landscape. One is (at this point) a slam dunk, while the others are subject to many variables. Without further ado, here are the matchups! Borders vs B&N B&N vs Amazon Amazon vs B&N and Spring Design Spring Design vs B&N Amazon, B&N, Spring Design and Borders vs the iPad Borders vs B&N Let’s start with what I think is just…

Editorials July 11, 2010

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 July 7, 2010

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 July 6, 2010

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 July 5, 2010

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 July 5, 2010

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 June 30, 2010

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 June 30, 2010

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 June 29, 2010

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 June 27, 2010

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 June 25, 2010

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 June 24, 2010

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 June 24, 2010

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 June 23, 2010

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 June 21, 2010

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…

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