Gear Bits

Gear Bits June 17, 2013

The Atari 800XL, My First Computer

Everyone can recall their first car, a first school, and a first phone, but today I am going to reminisce about how I first got started into computing. In 1986 my brother and I received our first computer as a gift; that computer was the Atari 800XL. Back then there were many players vying for home computing supremacy. IBM may have ruled the office with the IBM PC, and Apple may have ruled some homes and schools with the Apple II, but in most of my friends homes back in the day it was one of two computers: you were…

Gear Bits June 17, 2013

It Pays to Chat with Customer Service!

When we moved into our new house, we made a very unfortunate discovery. Our box spring didn’t fit up the stairs. My brother-in-law was kind enough to build us a platform bed frame for our mattress, but it still left us very low to the ground. Sarah finally got fed up last week, and I agreed to look into split box springs. I was about to give up, or buy a crappy build-it-yourself box spring from Amazon, when I happened to get a pop-up while browsing 1-800-Mattress, asking if I wanted to chat with a representative … and I am…

Gear Bits June 16, 2013

Can You Remember Your First Ever Order from Amazon?

Do you order items from Amazon? If so, do you remember your very first order ever? I couldn’t have told you on a bet, but the other day I found out that it is possible to look back and see every order that you’ve ever made. If you sign into your account and go to Your Account/Your Orders, you’ll see your orders from the past six months. But if you go into the drop down menu on the upper right corner, you’ll have the option to go back to the very first year you ordered, and once in, you can easily navigate to…

Gear Bits June 15, 2013

Spock Squared Makes Everything Funnier

I very, very, very rarely notice car commercials. And they never influence me on what sort of car I’d like to drive. But despite them being way out of our price range, I totally want an Audi after seeing this Young Spock/Old Spock commercial, spotted by our friends at Mighty Mega: Is that not the most awesome, geektastic commercial of all time? I can’t tell what made me laugh harder-the “Wrath of Khan” bit or the part where Leonard Nimoy sang bits of his infamous Bilbo Baggins song. And now a bit of trivia after you’re done laughing: Do you…

Gear Bits, How to Do It Yourself! June 11, 2013

Clean Up iTunes with ‘Show EXACT Duplicate Items’ Command

If you are like me, and you have been dumping music into iTunes for over a decade across multiple computers and mobile devices, chances are you have imported the same music more than once. And perhaps you did it once from CD and another time from a backup after altering MP3 tags (I used to love having song numbers preceding the title). However it happened, chances are that you have duplicate music spread out in your iTunes library. In theory iTunes has a ‘Show Duplicate Items’ menu selection under the View menu. I say ‘in theory’ because what gets labelled…

Game Diary, Gear Bits, News & Features June 7, 2013

Deus Ex: The Fall Announced, Bringing Classic Franchise to iOS Devices!

The history of the Deus Ex goes back to the PC-only release of the 2000 cyberpunk story-based action-RPG shooter hybrid from Warren Spector and ION Storm (a PS2 port came in 2002). To say that the game was groundbreaking doesn’t begin to cover it … the combination of elements from various genres were each done extremely well – so shooter fans loved it, RPG fans loved it, adventure-story fans loved it, graphics fans loved it and so on. In fact:

Gear Bits, Music Diary, News & Features June 7, 2013

Check Out the New Nine Inch Nails Song ‘Come Back Haunted’

Nine Inch Nails is back! Trent Reznor’s ‘band’ (he is the only official member) has been making industrial rock for 25 years now, and each release has had something of interest. Most reknowned for their work in the 1990s such as ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ and ‘Downward Spiral’, Reznor also created the music and effects for the classic video game Quake, which earned them the honor of having their logo emblazoned on ammo crates in that and later entries of the franchise. Back in 2008 they released Ghosts I–IV and The Slip, both as free downloads before going up for standard…

Gear Bits June 4, 2013

Nokia Lumia 928 Windows Phone Music Controls – Little Features Make a Big Difference

I am really loving my new Lumia 928. Now that I am past the initial phase of learning Windows Phone and adjusting to a larger phone, I am starting to notice little ways that Windows Phone 8 makes life easier. The biggest standout for me, above and beyond any other, is how it handles music controls. Every morning and evening I stream Pandora on my way home from work. On the iPhone, it was easy to flip to a different song by just double clicking the home button and pulling up the music controls while the iPhone was locked. I…

Gear Bits May 30, 2013

Nokia Lumia 928 First Impressions

Last week I expressed my boredom with my iPhone, and took a leap of faith by ordering a Nokia Lumia 928. It arrived last night (darn holiday weekend got in the way of FedEx delivering my phone faster!); now that I’ve had 24 hours to get the basics of the phone down, I thought I’d share some initial thoughts.

Gear Bits May 28, 2013

Analysts Say Sony Should Get a REAL Job … In Life Insurance!

If you had to guess where most of Sony’s profits over the last decade have come from, what would you say? Would you say electronics, even knowing how the giant has struggled in that area. Perhaps you would guess music and movies, as they have had some great successes in both areas. Chances are you would NOT have guessed Insurance or Financial Services! But according to an article at the New York Times, Insurance and Financial Services are EXACTLY what Sony should be doing if it wants to maximize profitability. Over the last decade: – Life insurance has been its…

Game Diary, Gear Bits May 24, 2013

Buy GRID 2: Mono Edition – The Most Expensive Video Game Ever

NOTE: This collaborative article was co-written with our special correspondent Wayne Beck. Got $190,000 laying around? Then you can make history and purchase GRID 2: Mono Edition, which includes an actual 170mph BAC Mono supercar in exclusive GRID 2 livery, BAC factory tour, branded racing helmet and race suit, and a PlayStation 3 console. Note: Terms and conditions apply. The standard edition of GRID 2 will release on Tuesday, May 28. This one lucky buyer will appear in the next Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition as the “Most Expensive Video Game Commercially Available – Special Edition”. The GRID 2: Mono…

Gear Bits, Health and Fitness May 24, 2013

Why I Don’t Run First Thing in the Morning

Yesterday afternoon we had a surprise softball game for Kev’s youngest at 5:30. We made it to dinner at 7, and we were home by 8. Since I hadn’t yet had time to get my run in, I thought I would go ahead and do it before it got too dark. I was almost to our back gate, a little over two miles into the run, and it was getting pretty dark. I saw a rattlesnake about 15 feet away, stretched out across the middle of the crushed limestone road. There was just enough daylight left that I felt safe getting…

Gear Bits May 23, 2013

World Tarot Week? World Tarot Day? What?!

Best I can tell, the people who use tarot cards are those who want to believe in the idea of pre-destiny, or that there is some mystical “if I do this, then that will occur” order to the universe — beyond simple cause and effect. It’s kind of sad, really, to imagine someone thinking that by spending time with a deck of decorated cards, they’d be able to figure out what makes them or their loved ones tick. Even sadder is that in most cases people will pay someone else good money in order to have these “insights” given to…

Gear Bits, How to Do It Yourself! May 23, 2013

Turn off iMessage Before Switching away from iOS

I ordered a new Lumia 928 yesterday, and am anxiously awaiting a shipping notification from Verizon. In the meantime, I am beginning to research this huge leap into a whole new platform. Microsoft has a very helpful website that gives you an idea of how to transfer your calendar, contacts, and email, as well as answers some frequently asked questions. All my contacts are in Gmail, and I have an Outlook.com account, so I am in good shape there. However, I did find a thread at the Apple support forums that raised a red flag-apparently switching operating systems without turning…

Gear Bits May 20, 2013

Sony NEX-6 Smart Remote Control in 90 Seconds

I upgraded my camera to the Sony NEX-6 today, and I am already loving it. At $899 for the body and lens kit, the NEX-6 is pricey. But for the size, speed, and image quality — it really can’t be beat. One of the new features on both the NEX-5r and the NEX-6 is built-in WiFi. This lets you add apps to your camera and do such things as send images from the camera directly to your smartphone or tablet. Another app-powered feature is the Smart Remote Control. This feature allows you to use your smartphone or tablet as a…

Gear Bits May 19, 2013

My Roku 3 Remote Saves the Day!

Gadgets have become packed with more and more features, many of which we end up forgetting about or just never use. When the Roku 3 was announced, we had an internal discussion at Gear Diary about how the headphone jack in the remote was a useless feature — who would hook up headphones to a remote to watch TV, when they could just plug headphones into a tablet and have the same private viewing experience? We use our Roku 3 all the time but never gave the headphone jack a thought, until today when I stumbled upon a situation where…

Gear Bits May 15, 2013

xkcd’s Interstellar Memes Graphic, or Stellar Distance Measured by Age of Pop Culture Phrases

I love xkcd.com. It’s a thought-provoking, often hilarious, sometimes sobering stick figure strip. The strip was conceived by Randall Monroe, who describes himself thusly: I’m just this guy, you know? I’m a CNU graduate with a degree in physics. Before starting xkcd, I worked on robots at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. As of June 2007 I live in Massachusetts. In my spare time I climb things, open strange doors, and go to goth clubs dressed as a frat guy so I can stand around and look terribly uncomfortable. At frat parties I do the same thing, but the…

Gear Bits May 13, 2013

Mitchell’s Gear, Spring 2013

We all have our selection of favorite gear; you know, the equipment we have that we actually keep with us on a regular basis. So spring seemed like a good time to take a renewed look at the gear various members of the GD team actually use. First up — from Gear Diary’s Australian Bureau — Mitchell Oke. My job takes me on the road a lot, so my laptop bag is never more than a few metres away, packed with all the gear that I might need when I’m out of the office.

Gear Bits May 8, 2013

TiVo’s Exclusively Terrible Offer

In 2006, I bought a TiVo Series 2. It was a great device, and it lasted me until mid-2011, when it finally stopped changing channels and went on strike. It retired to that great recycling center in the sky/the next town over, and we moved on to bigger and better electronics. TiVo however, sends me emails regularly offering us all sorts of deals to return. Today’s, though, is definitely the weirdest. Apparently TiVo blasted this offer to every former subscriber. They probably should have filtered it though, since as enticing as $6.99 a month TiVo service is, I am pretty…

Gear Bits May 8, 2013

HTC First Was Last and It’s Now Almost Free

A few weeks ago we got exclusive information that the HTC First was in big trouble. As we first reported, sales number for the first phone designed specifically for Facebook Home were close to nonexistent. Our inside information told us that the pre-order and first weekend sales numbers of the HTC First were less than 500 total units on the East Coast. In other words, the HTC First was all but dead on arrival. My conclusion at the time was that: I cannot begin to imagine what stock AT&T is currently holding of the device, but I have a pretty…

Gear Bits May 3, 2013

B&N “Innovates” by Becoming Yet Another Tablet Company

News broke today that Barnes and Noble is opening up the NOOK hardware to Google, adding Google Play to their NOOK HD and HD+ devices. Is this a canny move to capitalize on tablet demand, or a desperate grab for any port in a storm? Does this actually matter to the average buyer? As our own Mike Anderson asked, “Is abandoning their own ecosystem a desperate move?” I think this is great news for the ten bloggers who really love the NOOK HD hardware. Except for a few Android users who can re-download their apps across their phone and NOOK, the…

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