Editorials

Editorials May 28, 2012

Open Letter to Verizon: When Silence Is a Bad Thing

Dear Verizon, First, before I go on, let me say that I am pretty pleased with my Galaxy Nexus. I want to say this before I go into this short, but justified, rant. I say this because what I am about to say may be considered negative towards the device itself. That’s not the case. It’s a great device even with some of the issues I have. Verizon, my issue is squarely with you. Since the release of Android 4.0.4, it’s been swirling around the Android blogs and forums about when this version will, if ever, get to the users…

Editorials May 26, 2012

Gear Chat: What Do You Want in iOS 6.0?

Last week I asked a simple question to our team. The question- iOS Users- What features would you like to see in iOS 6.0? (Android users- This is a serious question so please spare me the “Android does that blah blah blah…”) My list- I want a simple way to access key settings like Bluetooth without having to dig down into menus. I want sound/notification profiles that are time or geography-dependant. i.e., I get to work and the device goes to silent I want an automatic folder or two that grabs “frequently launched apps” and makes them accessible. Chris:…

Editorials May 23, 2012

Microsoft Windows 8 RT: Really, Microsoft? Have You Learned Nothing?

I’m an iPad user (I write many of my posts on an iPad these days), and I have a big interest in tablets and tablet technology. Lately, I’ve been reading a bit about Windows 8 and the new “RT” version for is specifically for tablets. By the way, for those that don’t know “RT” stands for runtime. There’s a bit of a buzz around the fact that MS is going to enter an arena dominated by Apple (iOS) and Android-based apps like the Kindle Fire. There seems to be a belief that MS can (and might) make a huge mark…

Crowdfunding, Editorials May 22, 2012

Is Kickstarter Limiting Hardware Projects Because of the Pebble’s Unprecedented Success?

We love Kickstarter; Dan and I (along with others on the Gear Diary team) have backed many projects, and we are always on the look out for new ones. That is, of course, why we started Kickstart This! We love the way that Kickstarter helps inventors and artists get funding so that their products and projects will be available to the public. As anyone who has backed a project on Kickstarter likely knows, “every project is independently crafted, put to all-or-nothing funding,and supported by friends, fans, and the public in return for rewards.” While Kickstarter gives these projects a place…

Editorials May 18, 2012

Me on a Windows Phone? The “Hot” Place Must Have Frozen Over (sort of)!

I’ve been considering something for a while now. Something that, for me, was almost unthinkable even a short time ago. But now I want to mix things up a bit and try something new. So after some internal debate, I’ve decided to try a new smartphone platform. Although the Android platform never offered anything that I found to be compelling in terms of end-user experience, Windows Phone has intrigued me since it’s debut with its completely different user interface paradigm. So I decided that I would follow Judie and Dan’s positive forays into the Windows Phone world, and I’d…

Editorials May 13, 2012

Growing Pains and other Idiocy

If, based upon the title of this post and the image I used, you thought I was going to go on some rant about Kirk Cameron’s opinions on a host of issues, think again. (I have, however, made clear on numerous occasions that he and I could not disagree more, especially about the issue of marriage equality.) No, I’m speaking about growing pains and idiocy of the Apple kind. Elana and I arrived for dinner with my parents a bit early so I hit the Apple Store at the Short Hills Mall while we waited for them. I used to…

Editorials May 10, 2012

Mophie and Customer Service “Done Right”

I had a bad purchase experience recently that came to a conclusion this week. I purchased a Mophie Juice Pack Plus from a vendor on Amazon. I noticed that the build quality wasn’t quite as nicely done as other Mophie units I had, but I figured it was just a manufacturing variation or maybe it was just that this was a different model than the others I had. I didn’t think all that much about it. After a few weeks, the USB connector started to act up. I couldn’t get the cable to stay in and charge. Very annoying. Finally, it…

Editorials May 10, 2012

Will You Abandon Hulu if They Force a Cable Contract?

One of the great tools if you are looking to ‘cut the cord’ and lose your Cable or Satellite TV contract is Hulu. For $7.99 a month you get access to loads of great shows on a 24-hour delay. My family loves Revenge, for instance, but seldom wants to be up until 11PM in order to watch it. Other shows such as Castle or Person of Interest just never seem to work with our schedule. So we depend on Hulu+ on our Roku every week to keep us up to date. For my family Hulu+ is a convenience. You see,…

Editorials, Game Diary May 5, 2012

Apparently ‘Indie Bundles’ Are Now Big Enough That EA Feels the Need to Ruin Them!

Could you imagine seeing Walmart advertising themselves as a ‘mom & pop shop’? You would laugh yourself to tears – sort of how Barnes & Noble tried to play that they were a ‘local bookshop’ back in the 80s and 90s as they rapidly killed off the REAL local bookstore. Well … now the trend is coming to gaming. Over the last few years the ‘indie’ game has come to earn a very special place for gamers. Created by a very small company – often one or two people – these games satisfy a niche that is underserved by the…

Editorials May 4, 2012

Comparing Carrier Numbers to NPD May Call BS on Android Market Share Claims

The NPD attempts to track market share for smartphones (amongst other things). And given that manufacturers don’t really want to tell anyone exactly how many devices were sold (heck, Samsung now just talks in percentages!), I think they do an admirable job. They are joined by other groups such as comScore and IDC, and each publishes quarterly estimates of how everyone is doing in the smartphone market. For a while now I have stated my issues with Tablet market share numbers. First off, Samsung used inflated numbers for their Galaxy Tab … then they stopped reporting numbers at all. Other…

Editorials, Vehicles & Gear May 3, 2012

How I Fell for a Muscle Car

This is the story of how a sensible, middle-aged guy fell from sensible car grace. Have mercy on me. Let me be honest right up front here: I am most assuredly not a “muscle car” fan. I was a nerd/geek/dork in high school (in spite of doing two sports–do you think being in Drama and the Computer Club had something to do with it?), and the guys who had, or wanted to have, muscle cars were the kind of guys would give guys like me wedgies, stuff us in lockers, turn us upside in trash cans, and all that kind…

Editorials, Game Diary May 3, 2012

Rock Band for iOS is Can… errm NOT Cancelled, Still Brings Up Critical Issue

I was just about finished writing up how sad indeed it was that a great game and one of the first semi-freemium business models (or at least with in-app add-ons) was coming to a close. EA, makers of Rock Band for iOS, had listed the game on their ‘end of support’ web site as going dark at the end of May. This naturally caused quite an uproar amongst gamers, even though most have moved onto the sequel, Rock Band Reloaded. But today there is word pretty much everywhere that EA is saying that the cancellation is ‘an error’. Here is…

Editorials May 1, 2012

Unintended Consequences of ‘Play’-ing Around!

Early this week I saw link to a couple of new music making apps for Android and wanted to check them out, so I clicked and … BLOCKED! That is right – suddenly I couldn’t access Google Play. I went ahead and asked one of our local IT folks and he said that in general their filters will block download sites, game and music digital download sites and so on, but similar to Amazon’s MP3 and video sites the Google site managed to make it through the filters due to the way the site evolved. But once the name changed…

Editorials April 27, 2012

An Open Letter to the PR Rep Pitching Political Books to Gear Diary

At Gear Diary, we get a lot of press releases and product pitches. Most of them are tech or gear related, and sometimes they are not. Most of the time these pitches are quickly processed, and we’ll quickly decide to either post on them or not. Yesterday we got an email that begged for a direct answer rather than a quick delete, which is why I am sharing my open letter to the pr person who thought that Gear Diary would be interested in the book “Restore The Future”. Fair warning: this will get political, so if you aren’t interested…

Editorials, How to Do It Yourself! April 26, 2012

Mobile Blogging in 2012; What a Difference!

I am headed into the city for a meeting on behalf of Gear Diary, and after I’m done, Elana and I are grabbing a quick dinner in Manhattan before we have a fund-raiser for an organization that supports services for those who are hearing-impaired. Were I going into the city for a full day of events in the past, I would have had to bring my MacBook air, my Canon G11, and some additional equipment that works with them in order to quickly write-up whatever I could in order to get it up on the site as quickly as possible….

Editorials, News & Features April 24, 2012

Monsanto, Already ‘Most Evil Company of 2011’, Buys Bee Research Company to Hide Ills

There are few insects as critical to just about every part of the ecological cycle as the bee. Some estimates say that one-third of naturally grown food requires pollination by bees, including most fruits, vegetables and nuts. Coffee, soy beans and cotton are all dependent on pollination by bees to increase yields. It is the start of a food chain that also sustains wild birds and animals. And yet in recent years the bee population has been in freefall, with reports stating that a decline of 90% or more has occurred over the last few decades. The reports are not…

Editorials April 23, 2012

Rock ‘n Roll Marathon’s New “Mascot” Proves to Be Divisive

I have run a few Rock n Roll sponsored races, and I don’t view them with the same enmity that some runners do. Yes, they are big, commercial parties, but they also (mostly) organize well-done races. I gave them a pass on their disastrous Rock n Roll Las Vegas race; they really ran that into the ground, but a few months later at Rock n Roll DC, I was extremely impressed with how smoothly everything went. However, I really have to question their judgment with their new Facebook mascot/campaign. As you can tell from the graphic above, their new campaign…

Editorials April 19, 2012

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…

Editorials, News & Features April 18, 2012

What to Do When You Lose 800k Customers? Change Your Spokesmodel’s Wardrobe!

Or at least that seems to be the approach T-Mobile is taking! After reporting that they managed to bleed more than 800,000 customers in the US alone during the fourth quarter of last year, T-Mobile is calling 2012 a ‘building year’, meaning they will continue to lose money and bleed customers, and that hopefully someone will care when they get a REAL LTE network in 2013. And apparently part of the building strategy is playing ‘dress up’ with spokesmodel Carly Foulkes. Check out the new commercial from T-Mobile: Here is the text: Time To Set The Record Straight. What do you…

Editorials April 18, 2012

Study Correlates Walmart Presence to Rise in Hate Groups

Whenever I see a study that talks about ‘correlation’ being bandied about in the press as ‘showing linkage’, I immediately don my ‘correlation does NOT mean causation’ hat! And in a new study noted at LiveScience, that is at least as true as usual. The study shows there is a significant correlation between number of Wal-Mart stores in a county and the number of hate groups. And as the number of stores have grown, so have the number of hate groups. Before I chime in, here is a bit of context about how things were done: The researchers used data…

Editorials, Music Diary, News & Features April 18, 2012

Musical Necrophilia Hits the Rap Era

It was only a matter of time before rap music started resorting to ‘Natalie Cole Syndrome’. Older performers such as the caricature ‘Snoop Doggy Dog’, the has-been Dr. Dre, and the self-parody Eminem who are seeking to show that they are hip and relevant — rather than out of touch middle-aged millionaires without a clue — have taken the EXACT SAME tactics as Cole when she sang ‘Unforgettable’ with her (late) father. I’m sure rap fans will deny it … but that is all just posturing. Sure, in typical rap fashion they inject language that shows their limited intellect and…

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