Gear Bits | Gear Diary

Xbox 360 Thoughts from an Open Source Guy

I know! I know! How could I, an Open Source guy, send my money to Microsoft by purchasing an Xbox? Well, when my family is concerned, I need to consider them when purchasing tech. My son wanted an Xbox, so Santa got him one this year — no matter what Dad thinks. So, here are my thoughts about the Xbox system as a whole, from the perspective of an open source guy. Updates Updates Updates I swear my son was about ready to bust when it took HOURS to get the updates installed. It’s not that there were so many,…

Gear Bits

Keep Your Data Safe in 2013 with Dropbox’s Packrat Feature

From now until 2013, we’re taking a look at some New Year’s Resolutions and Gear Diary ways to help keep them. New Year Resolution: Protect Your Data in 2013 This is one of those lessons you learn, forget, and then learn again once a data-loss disaster strikes. Here’s my story, and why DropBox’s PackRat feature is my new best friend. I have spent the last year on and off creating an interactive iBook that can be used by all my Bar Mitzvah students to help them study toward becoming a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. The iBook has the prayers the…

Gear Bits

Content is Everything – My Mom’s Thoughts on Netflix

As I have been in Knoxville, TN visiting my folks this holiday season, I have had the opportunity to show my parents Netflix on a TV. I have not one, but two devices with me that can stream Netflix to a TV. My Roku 2XS and my son’s new Xbox. One afternoon I was flipping through the Netflix app on the Xbox looking for something to watch, and lo and behold my Mom said one thing: How can they expect me to pay for this when everything is so old? Boom. There’s the problem. Every streaming service I showed her…

Crowdfunding, Gear Bits

Whooz? Are a Huge Hit at My House

On Christmas morning, as packages from under the tree were divided into piles and then opened, I got what would turn out to be one of my biggest Christmas surprises: the best gift was something I had stuck into the girls’ new Jon Hart bags, almost as an afterthought — Whooz iPhone and iPad Character Sets! Kev’s youngest daughter stopped everything to start installing a set on her iPad charger, and Kev’s oldest daughter was right there with her. Let me back up for just a moment. Everyone in my house has an iPhone or an iPad (or both), and…

Gear Bits

Bluebird Lets You Add Cash to Your Account at Any Walmart

Last week we begin a series of review posts regarding the new joint venture between Walmart and American Express. Bluebird is a system that allows you to have a card with minimal or no transaction fees coupled with the convenience of a debit card backed by all of the protection offered by American Express. The first post was a brief overview of the bluebird system. (Read the post.) The second post went a bit more deeply into the features Bluebird offers and the specifics that make this card unique. (Read the post.) In this third sponsored post, we’ll begin looking…

Gear Bits

Record Numbers of Devices Activated on Christmas, iPad and Amazon Tablets Big Winners

It is not terribly surprising that oodles of new devices were opened up and activated on Christmas morning – in fact, we had three new iPhone 5 activations in our house alone! The site Flurry.com tracks and estimates the daily activations of iOS and Android devices, and is reporting that more than 17 million activations took place on December 25th alone. As it is, 4 million combined smartphones and tablets is a HUGE number – and that is happening every day! Now think that on Christmas there were more than 4 TIMES that many activations … insane! But wait –…

Gear Bits

Monitor2Go and iPad 3, a Gear Diary Video Look

A year and a half ago, I had the opportunity to review an incredibly useful mobile device that quickly and easily doubles your screen real-estate. The FieldMonitorPro is a large screen that, right out of the box, extends your computer to give you additional screen space or allows someone/s to look at your computer screen without having to crowd in next to you. It is terrific for on-the-go demonstrations. While reviewing the device, I was covering an Apple keynote and found my MacBook air to be too small for watching the video, checking feeds, and writing the post. I pulled…

Gear Bits, How to Do It Yourself!

Raspberry Pi Hacked to Allow Siri to Open Your Garage Door

What a world we live in – We now have computers that fit in our pockets, gorgeous televisions that are 1″ thick, and a dude who skydived from the edge of space. Continuing along that vein, now you can program your credit card sized computer, otherwise known as the Raspberry Pi, to open your garage door for you using Siri’s voice commands on your iPhone. Seriously. RaspberryPi.org forum user “DarkTherapy” was able to code his Raspberry Pi saying he used “SiriProxy running on the Raspberry Pi, along with wiring Pi to access the Pi’s GPIO pins and turn a relay…

Gear Bits

Doctors Look at the REAL Damage Done to the Crooks in Home Alone!

This is just a fun one – Home Alone is set at Christmas, making it a classic for the season. As everyone knows Macaulay Culkin gets left behind as his extended family takes a big trip, and takes on home invaders Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci. What starts as a tale of a kid who is overlooked and is a bit of a screw-up who can’t seem to figure out a way to fit in ends up as a story about growth and self-discovery. But as anyone who has seen it knows, Stern and Pesci take a load of abuse…

Gear Bits, Health and Fitness

‘This is One Serving’ Holiday Party Snack Edition

Remember how we posted about a cool article at the Greatist that broke down the traditional Thanksgiving meal by showing the approximate size of a single serving of our favorite dishes? Well, for many of us the entire month of December seems like one long binge-fest of appetizers, cookie-swaps, pass-a-pot luncheons, and so on. So naturally the folks at the Greatist have come up with a NEW visual guide to remind you of just how badly you are overeating at those holiday events. Here is a sample: Egg Nog Serving Size Equivalent: A three-ounce espresso cup 143 calories, 6 grams…

Editorials, Gear Bits

Parents, Check Out These 12 Myths of Protecting Your Kids Online

This holiday season millions of kids will be getting an iPhone, iPad, Android phone or tablet, Kindle Fire, Nook and so on … and maybe a few will get a traditional PC or Mac. One of the first things they will do with it is get online. Maybe just for email, but if they are under 30 probably not. For most kids getting online involves Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr and so on … but also web chat areas, Homestuck and other fandoms, and so on. Bottom line – kids are used to an always-online world … and predators are adapting…

Gear Bits

Set Top Boxes, a Gear Chat

Over the years writing for Gear Diary, we often have chats behind the scenes about all sorts of issues. Some are private and will never see the light of day, but many times what is said ends up in a long string of comments that would make a great post. This one all started by a gift I received from a friend — a brand new Roku 2 XS — which I love a lot. I posted in our back channel about it, and off we went. Joel: Received a Roku 2 XS from a friend of mine. Best thing ever. First…

Gear Bits

All Those Junk Emails Are No Accident!

(image courtesy TLC) My morning routine during November and December is pretty simple; wake up, throw on warm clothes, grapple the dog into his leash, start our walk, and use my iPhone to begin the mass deletion of every “ONE DAY SALE” email that’s hit overnight. I don’t even read most of the subject lines, I just skim and delete. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what all those retailers don’t want…and there’s more to their strategy than just gunking up our inboxes. The Wall Street Journal has an utterly fascinating article on how email marketing works, and what retailers aim to accomplish…

Gear Bits

What Makes Bluebird from American Express and Walmart Different?

????? ‘Tis The Season to Spend Money, fah lah lah lah, lah lah lah lah… ????? The other day we brought word about Bluebird, a new joint initiative between American Express and Walmart. Bluebird lets you make direct deposits, pay bills online, deposit checks with your iPhone or Android device, set up Sub-Accounts, and more. As I noted in that first post, we were invited to open an account and try out the service. This is a sponsored series of posts, but the observations and experiences I’ll be documenting in the coming weeks are mine and mine alone. In this…

Gear Bits, Outdoors

Caching in on Fun

Has anyone ever told you to go take a hike? Have you considered actually doing it? Do you enjoy scavenger hunts? If you answered yes to these questions, then geocaching is for you! Geocaching is a scavenger hunt appropriate for adults or anyone who can follow a GPS. The basic premise is that somewhere out in the woods, someone hid a treasure chest (or geocache), and in that chest is a collection of random goods including anything ranging from a heart necklace to a plastic stegosaurus. The GPS coordinates will help you get to the area, and then it’s your…

Gear Bits, News & Features

Apple Releases iOS 6.0.2 Software Update to Fix iPhone 5, iPad Mini WiFi Bug

I wrote here about the iOS 6 WiFi bug that seemed particularly bad on the iPad Mini. Well, things haven’t improved, and many folks have been struggling with WiFi on their iPad Mini and iPhone 5 since release. For me, I managed to work around everything, but then last week suddenly I couldn’t connect to my home WiFi network but the rest of my vast sea of devices were fine. A couple of calls and the iPad Mini was in a box headed back to Apple … now I wonder if all I needed was this update. For the sake…

Gear Bits

American Express and Walmart Team Up to Create Bluebird

????? ‘Tis The Season to Spend Money, fah lah lah lah, lah lah lah lah… ????? What could be better than an entire season dedicated to separating you from your money? I’m kidding but still, this is the season when money seems to flow more heavily than usual. Having a safe, convenient and secure way to spend can be a huge help. It turns out that American Express and Walmart have teamed up to offer a way to do just that – Bluebird. Bluebird lets you make direct deposits, pay bills online, deposit checks with your iPhone or Android device,…

Game Diary, Gear Bits

First Dishonored DLC Released, Dunwall City Trials

Dunwall City Trials, the first official add-on pack for Dishonored, is available for download for $4.99 on PlayStation 3 and PC, and 400 Microsoft points on Xbox 360. This Dishonored DLC includes 10 challenge maps (normal difficulty) that will test and track action, stealth, puzzle and mobility skills. Players can also unlock six expert difficulty maps. Player performance is rated on a three star system where each star earned unlocks artwork in the gallery (44 total). Players can also check out their performance on online leaderboards or view the credits of the hard-working folks who created the DLC. New trophies and…

Gear Bits

Best Buy Tech Service Gone Awry; a GM’s Customer Service Saves the Day

I came home a few weeks ago to find my almost four year old Gateway desktop rig powered completely off. I tried turning it back on, only to find out that it had decided that it didn’t want to at all. That could only mean the power supply, since it had been on and working just fine a few hours before. Annoying yes, but fortunately, not insurmountable. It took me a couple of weeks to scrounge up the dough for the new power supply, since I wanted to get it directly from Gateway; I figured that I could probably follow…

Gear Bits

Truly Dedicated Christmas Decorations!

One of my favorite childhood traditions was when my family would drive around and check out Christmas lights. Being Jewish, we didn’t decorate our house with sparkly lights and blow up Santas, but we loved looking at all the houses that did. We would go out for a family dinner, and then instead of just heading home, we would drive around and debate the best and worst displays. I was all excited to get Sarah hooked on this tradition, and she informed me at dinner tonight that a shortcut to her office had yielded the mother lode. She promised the…

Gear Bits

The LED Lighting Cost Savings ‘Myth’ Addressed

You have heard the story by now – LED lighting is the ‘next new thing’ … just like you were supposed to change to (mercury containing) compact fluorescents a few years ago, now you should be switching over to LED lighting as pricing has dropped a bit. Right? Wrong! Well … it depends, really. Why not? Well, let’s look at some of the reasons you SHOULD change to LED lighting: instant-on, bright and clear lighting, small size, up to 25 year life, and high lumen efficiency per-watt. But it turns out that all of the great promotional stuff about cost…