Editorials | Gear Diary

I Reviewed It and Still Use It: Flipside 2X Wallet Edition (News, Too!!)

We reviewed the Flipside 2X wallet last fall. It is an unusual wallet that is made from hard plastic, offers limited storage and has RFID shielding so the evil people trying to steal your information right from your credit cards without even touching them. Our conclusion? What I Like: Keeps you organized; keeps cards in place until you want them; opens with the tap of a button; cards slide out easily; prevents “wallet creep”; offers RFID theft protect What Needs Improvement: Nothing really comes to mind other than the fact that it would be great if they offered two models…

Editorials

To iPad or Not to iPad?

It’s simply the latest variation of that popular topic: is your [thing] better than my [thing], or is it the other way ’round? Wine, or beer? Ford or GM? Tastes great, or less filling? Mac or PC? “Firefly” or “Buffy”? (“Firefly”, dammit!) Yesterday, your faithful Gear Diary team was hashing over the topic of iPad, or Android tablet. As you might expect with a collection of Appleheads, PC mavens, UNIX and Linux folks, and all the rest, it got heated, involved, and nerdly. It started with a friendly discussion between Francis and Joel as to which device Joel might…

Editorials

Not Everyone is Ready to “Think Different” or Even to “Think Smart”

There’s an old story about three blind men. One grabbed an elephant’s trunk and thought it was a snake. One grabbed a leg and thought it was a tree trunk. Another grabbed… Oh you get the idea. The bottom line is, when you look at only one piece of anything you are not going to see clearly… Or correctly. Yet time and again decisions get made upon this small-picture limited-think. Here’s yet another example. A post over on Cult of Mac today offers the following. Here’s an idea: let’s cut Apple in half. Sure, the company is the most profitable on the…

Editorials

When Is Facebook Worth More Than Your Job?

Facebook is great in many ways. You can communicate with friends, share pictures, and vent your feelings. But be careful what you say if your rant is about your employer! As more cases appear where people are fired for complaining about work on social media, there’s more precedent for what is and is not ok! Forbes has two scenarios, along with explanations of what has and has not been protected in past legal battles. Scenario one: Pop quiz, hotshot. You’re a manager at a BMW dealership. One day, someone drives one of your luxury cars into a pond. One of…

Editorials, Game Diary

In Case You Had Forgotten WHY You Hate GameStop

I have made a rather big deal about the release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution this week, and in the few hours I have had to play it so far – it is clear we finally have a true follow-up to one of the greatest video games of all time. As I have gone to an ‘all digital’ gaming world, I had pre-ordered it through Green Man Gaming, and since the game is SteamWorks based I was able to add the game to my Steam account and have it fully pre-loaded when it was released! For those who bought the…

Editorials, Music Diary

Music Diary Notes: RIM’s BBM Music Poses the Question: Perhaps Late is NOT Better than Never?

Imagine if back in 2006 someone told you that RIM was offering a music plan for the Blackberry that would allow you to get 50 songs per month, share them with all of your friends who also have a Blackberry, unlimited and on-demand. And that it would have cost $5 a month! You would likely have lamented that you couldn’t also get them on your PC or iPod … but would otherwise been pretty thrilled and signed up immediately! This was the time before the iPhone, before Spotify and Slacker, and when RIM ruled the enterprise phone market. This was…

Editorials

No Matter How You Slice It, HP/Palm are Three Time Losers …

Today on Google + I saw the following post from Francis: We’re writing to inform you that your order XXX-XXXXXX-XXXXX from onSale has been canceled because the item(s) you purchased were out of stock. Please return and place your order again at a later time. When I returned to my desk I checked my email … and of course I had the same thing waiting. The ‘item’, of course, was the HP TouchPad – recently discontinued and then put on fire sale clearance by HP for $99/$149 for the 16 & 32GB models. These emails are amongst the literally tens…

Editorials

Invasion of the Super-Cookies!

A few weeks ago it came to light that Spotify was using a special type of tracking cookie. Of course, once caught with their hand in … um, the cookie jar (sorry!), Spotify said they would suspend the use of the Kissmetrics cookie technology. But as Digital Music News notes, it is a bit late for the tens of millions of users worldwide who have used Spotify already! Spotify is already managing this like a crisis. According to research just published by researchers at UC Berkeley, Spotify has been using a cookie that cannot be deleted, still tracks if the…

Editorials

Adventures in Customer Service: Apple = Awesome

Only a card-carrying fanboy would entitle a post something like this right? Maybe, but read the post, and tell me how many companies would have done what I witnessed a short time ago. I just had to make an emergency stop at my local Apple store. I did something stupid with my iPhone (no I won’t go in to detail), and despite it being out of warranty they immediately fixed it for nothing. They had every right to charge me but they didn’t. Love Apple! That, however, isn’t the reason for this post. This is! While I was waiting, there…

eBooks, Editorials

Designing a Good eBook Reader

Winnie the Pooh iBook on the iPad–not bad, but could be soooo much better With the explosive growth of the eBook market, one would think that the design of eBook reader apps would, by now, be well-advanced. Lots of cool options, good readability, and all kinds of thought put into their design. One would be wrong. Initial background info: I have been writing information to be distributed online for nearly 20 years now–since 1992, to be exact. This is my life, my work, my calling–it is more than an avocation. I think about the best way to deliver information online all…

Editorials

How Dismal Are HP TouchPad Sales? Woot Sold 612 … THAT is How Bad!

Image Courtesy of Demotivation I recently remarked about how and why I didn’t buy a HP TouchPad during the recent mega-sale at Staples and elsewhere. As I mentioned then, Dan had also looked at the TouchPad when it was released and described it as “a bit too laggy for my taste”. Since then he posted about the upcoming AT&T 3G model with a faster processor, and said the main reason he didn’t get one during the big sale was his local store didn’t have any. My post also drew comments from others less than thrilled with the TouchPad. Turns out…

Editorials, News & Features

Yet Another Reason Why It Seems Android Users Love to Relive Their Windows Suffering

I have been an Android user since 2009, and have no intent on switching. But let’s be honest – in many ways the OS mirrors DOS and Windows. For example, on my original Droid, the split between the internal storage and SD card was absurd – I would have 14GB of memory on my SD card, but get ‘low memory’ warnings trying to install a 2MB app because nothing would let itself be installed in ‘HIMEM.SYS’. Another Windows-like behavior? The Add/Remove Control Panel – or, the ‘Manage Applications’ system item. This is the place you go to move apps to…

Editorials

Apple Moving into HDTV Market? Here’s a Great First Step

Last night I was a bit under the weather. I went in search of something to watch and came upon the new Starz/BBC series Strike Back on my iPad’s browser. A few taps of the screen and it was playing on my large Samsung HDTV. It was just another reminder of the way in which Apple’s technology can create a seamless ecosystem for work and entertainment. Then today Cult of Mac published a post entitled Could Apple Enter Sub-$1K Premium TV Market With A Real iTV? In it they write News that high-end TVs are nearing the sub $1,000 range…

Editorials

Smile, Facebook Is Watching You!

Three requests I encountered this summer: Scenario 1: Parents make a big purchase, and need to specifically instruct their children not to talk about it on Facebook. Scenario 2: A baby is born, and the new parents ask that no one posts pictures of the baby before they do. Scenario 3: A very private couple gets married, and guests are instructed not to tag or add photos on Facebook. What’s the theme here? If you guessed Facebook, you win! In each of these scenarios, it had to be explicitly stated that being present at someone else’s event, or tangentially related…

Editorials

Nightly Quiz….

So we are having dinner tonight and Elana, my NPR and talk radio-junkie wife, gives us one of the tidbits she learned while listening to NPR today. The question- “How many different languages are in use in the world at this moment.” I made my guess and my father-in-law thought I was way too high. (“You’re nuts.” were his exact works.) Well I wasn’t that far off. So I ask you… How many languages (not dialects but LANGUAGES) are in use today world wide? Don’t be lame and cheat by Googling it. JUST GUESS…

Editorials

Adventures in Customer Support: AT&T

Guess which Stooge is Doug in this little scenario It all began back in January . . . See, here’s the deal: for the kids’ “big holiday gift,” I got them both iPhone 4s. Alas, now you have to get limited data plans. But these are good kids, and I knew that if I got the lowest plan and threatened them with severe consequences–and then had to actually dole out punishment one time–they would stay on WiFi, not download games and music over the cell network, and otherwise avoid non-WiFi data. So yes, one month they both went over. I…

Editorials

In Apple We Trust

As you may have heard, Apple has surpassed Exxon to be the most valuable company in the world. This is hot on the heels of Apple having more money than the Federal government before the debt ceiling was raised. This indicates two things; one, the country needs some financial overhaul, and two, Apple is an unstoppable business machine. Clearly what we need to do is combine Apple and our currency! Forget the dollar, start counting in iPods instead! Surprisingly, these line up quite nicely: $1 bill=white Apple earbuds $5 bill=iPod Shuffle $10 bill=iPod Nano $20 bill=iPod Touch $50 bill=Wifi iPad…

eBooks, Editorials

When Is an eReader an Impulse Buy?

Amazon started selling the Kindle 3G With Special Offers (“Kindeal 3G) in May, for $164 – a drop of 25 from the full non-ad-supported version. Two weeks ago, they dropped that price further, to $139. This week, they have started selling the refurbished Kindle WiFi for $100 and the refurb Kindle 3G for $130. These are not ad-supported versions of the device, but the full versions that sell for $139 and $189 respectively, in their non-refurb models. This sure looks like the typical inventory-clearing moves of a manufacturer about to introduce a new model. The current generation was introduced right around one year ago, and speculation…

Editorials

Five Reasons I Didn’t Buy a HP TouchPad Last Weekend

As most tech-heads are aware, this past weekend HP ran a $100 off ‘instant coupon’ special on the HP TouchPad. In addition, certain retail shops ran additional $50 off specials and Staples even had a $100 off deal, meaning it was possible to get the 16GB version of the TouchPad for $299 – $349. I know many folks who simply couldn’t resist the price and went right out to grab one. Since I am a big Palm webOS fan as I indicated in my review of the Palm Pixi Plus, I certainly printed out the Staples coupon – yet I…

Editorials

Why I Hate Compact Florescent Lightbulbs

Okay, look: there’s no question that ordinary incandescent light bulbs are on the way out. Another few years, and they’re going to be as rare as candles. I’m okay with that; they’re a 150-year old technology, they put out most of their energy as heat rather than light, they’re inefficient. With more and more people crowding our poor planet, and more need to make the best of the resources we have, I can dig it. I’m okay with it. But I’m pretty convinced the CF light bulbs are not the way to go. Yes, they’re definitely more efficient. Other than…

Editorials

Plasticity and the Next Generation

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia) While reading Carly’s post about eBooks and Children, I was reminded of a discussion I had with my parents about technology and the ease with which children learn to use new devices and, conversely, the relative difficulty of the older generation to learn to use the same devices. One could fall back on the adage, “It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks” but this is both patronizing and overly simplistic. Personally, I like to analyze this “situation” by first examining children’s relationship with technology. I think that most people would agree that children’s ability to…