Gear Bits

PSA: If You Are a Verizon Wireless Customer, Check Your Privacy Settings!

Gear Bits

PSA: If You Are a Verizon Wireless Customer, Check Your Privacy Settings!

Whenever a wireless carrier discusses your private information, you can be sure of one thing: they are trying to squeeze more money out of you by leveraging your information, but know that if they don’t give you an opt-out they will have regulators breathing down their necks. So … this week we get an email from Verizon Wireless. What information are they storing? Mobile Usage Information: • Addresses of websites you visit when using our wireless service. These data strings (or URLs) may include search terms you have used • Location of your device (“Location Information”) • App and device…

Amazon: It May Be Easy, but It's a Risk

Gear Bits

Amazon: It May Be Easy, but It’s a Risk

Now that Amazon is shipping the Kindle Fire, I got to thinking: what if you gift the Fire or any other Kindle?  Well, if you do, make sure you do what Laptopmag.com says in their post and keep YOUR Kindle account safe.  After I read this, I did some more thinking: What if someone stole your shiny new Kindle off of your porch? If this happens, then that thief has access to ALL of your books and can purchase books on your account.  This is bad.  This is very bad.  Gear Diary’s own Michael Anderson and Dan Cohen are both trying out the Kindle Fire,…

Author's Guild Challenges Amazon Prime Lending Library

eBooks, Gear Bits

Author’s Guild Challenges Amazon Prime Lending Library

Uh oh…looks like Amazon’s Lending Library for Prime subscribers has a slight snag-they may not be legally allowed to offer them. The “big six” publishers wanted nothing to do with the program, which isn’t surprising, but Amazon has amassed almost 5,000 titles from smaller houses. Amazon is basically treating each “loan” of a book as a sale of that book, and paying the publishers accordingly. Clearly, Amazon believes this is within their contract rights, but the Author’s Guild is arguing it doesn’t count as a sale and should be a separate contract item. Specifically, here’s the meat of the Guild’s…

Uncommon Goods' Face Mug Is Truly One of the Coolest Mugs Ever!

Gear Bits

Uncommon Goods’ Face Mug Is Truly One of the Coolest Mugs Ever!

There’s not much to say, other than that owning this ceramic mug would be an absolute pleasure. Imagine the envious looks you would get in the office if this were sitting on your desk; imagine the fun you could have if you left this mug sitting on the break room counter, only to came back 10 minutes later to find different things sitting in between its lips. A stapler? Why not. Some rubber bands? Okay. Hey — not my sandwich! You can get your Face Mug at Uncommon Goods for $18. Order me one too, while you’re at it ……

Had Enough of Fruit Ninja? Now You Can Actually BE a Samurai for a Day

Gear Bits

Had Enough of Fruit Ninja? Now You Can Actually BE a Samurai for a Day

Have you ever wanted to be a samurai for a day? No? Me either but apparently our friend Ali over on Chip Chick did and, thanks to LivingSocial, she recently had a chance to do just that. As Ali explains, Have you ever wanted to go whitewater rafting? How about shoot guns and enjoying some tequila afterwards? Or maybe just be a Samurai for the day? Well LivingSocial helps bring people together to share, save or have out of the box experiences just like these. Unlike Groupon, LivingSocial is so much more than a place to come to save money…

Avoid 'Old Meme Embarrassment' with 'Is It Old?'

Gear Bits

Avoid ‘Old Meme Embarrassment’ with ‘Is It Old?’

You have just been sent a LOLCat or ‘All Your Base’ by someone who honestly has no idea that EVERYONE online saw them five years ago or more, and are wondering HOW do you let them know gently that it is ancient. Well, now you can just let them know about IsItOld, a site that will check out how many times the site has been tweeted about – and how long ago it was first tweeted.

Nuance Releases Dragon Express; Just Don't Call It Dragon for Mac Light

Gear Bits

Nuance Releases Dragon Express; Just Don’t Call It Dragon for Mac Light

Yesterday Nuance released Dragon Express in the Mac App Store. At an introductory price of $49, the application is a less expensive way to get Nuance’s voice-to-text transcription on your Mac than the $200 Dragon for Mac. (It only runs on OS X Lion and if you haven’t upgraded to it you should.) It would be easy to think of Dragon Express as Dragon for Mac Light and, on one level that is what it is but, after using it yesterday, it strikes me as more of a port of Nuance’s Dragon Dictation iOS app. Just as the iOS app…

A Quick Peek at the Aligata Nude Beauty Medium Travel Bag

Gear Bits, Travel

A Quick Peek at the Aligata Nude Beauty Medium Travel Bag

  It wasn’t too long ago that I reviewed the Aligata Nude Beauty Big Weekend Bag, and they have just sent their newest offering — the Nude Beauty Medium Travel Bag. I’ll have a full review up after I’ve had some time to actually USE the bag and change its color from the nearly white Nude Beauty to a natural honey patina. But in the meantime, I just had to tell you all about it because it is something that I know would be an appreciated holiday gift for your special someone … The interior sports a waterproof lining, a key fob,…

iPad on TV: Covert iAffairs

Gear Bits

iPad on TV: Covert iAffairs

It’s been a while since we looked at the increasingly prevalent role the iPad plays in today’s media but tonight’s Covert Affairs put the iPad so very “front and center” that we had to post… Annie Walker is on a mission when her sister places a “call” to her. “Ring, Ring Ring” goes Annie’s iPad. She answers and the conversation ensues. But wait one second… they’re using Skype??? Say what? Seriously Annie? Skype? Sure it works well enough but for my money I’ll always take FaceTime over Skype. The connection FaceTime offers is no less than amazing and since both…

Siri and Evernote Sitting in a Tree...

Gear Bits

Siri and Evernote Sitting in a Tree…

Siri and Evernote work together beautifully, and all it takes is a little bit of preparation. In fact, if you use Evernote regularly, then you probably already have taken the steps you need to take to make it work. You see, each Evernote account comes with an email address that can be used to send notes by email. That’s the key. Here’s what you need to do. First, make Evernote a contact in your address book with your incoming Evernote email address. You can add the email by going into Evernote > Settings > Evernote email address. Launch Siri and say…

"Siri, Find Me T-Shirts Featuring You…"

Gear Bits

“Siri, Find Me T-Shirts Featuring You…”

The other day Mike went on a bit of a tear about Siri, its outage last week and loneliness. This from the guy who sent me information that a t-shirt featuring Siri was on sale at Tanga.com a few weeks ago. (Yes, Mike is a Siri-enabler!!) Seriously? Who is Siri-smitten enough to actually spend money (albeit discounted) on Siri garb? Well, me of course. 🙂 The shirt came today and it is awesome. Yes, Siri is already a cultural phenomena… and it is just the beginning.

Quickie Experience — Groupon Getaways

Gear Bits, Travel

Quickie Experience — Groupon Getaways

Recently Groupon began expanding their deal offerings to include travel options. Bed and Breakfasts, hotels, and other resorts are offering significant discounts in off-season times for Groupon customers. Sarah and I took advantage of one deal over the summer, and this past weekend finally were able to use it for a long weekend in Cape Cod. Would we try this again, and recommend the experience to our friends? Read on to find out! On the Groupon side, the experience was as simple as it always is. The deal unlocked, and Sarah shot me an email with it, suggesting it would…

Protect Your Private Parts with LapGuard

Gear Bits

Protect Your Private Parts with LapGuard

Ah life… so many things to worry about these days. Nuclear proliferation, the economy, global warming (errr climate change), earthquakes, how Duke Basketball will do this year and now this… laptop sterility. Yes, in addition to worrying about whether or not your cellphone is giving you a brain tumor you now need to worry about what your laptop is doing to your reproductive system. Why? Because “recent reporting suggests that radiation emitted from Wi-Fi enabled laptop computers may be harmful to your reproductive system” and this apparently holds true for men and women. That’s where Digital Innovations’ LapGuard comes in….

More Tips to Make Siri Work for You

Gear Bits

More Tips to Make Siri Work for You

The other day I was speaking to someone who had just gotten a new iPhone 4S. They love the phone but were complaining that Siri doesn’t seem to work very well. We spent a few minutes going over some of the Siri ins and outs and, would you believe, he now loves Siri. Because of that, I thought I would circle back and share a few more tips that can make Siri a more effective productivity tool. Talk to Me: As is the case with all voice recognition, you need to speak in a particular manner if you want Siri…

Stop Filling Out Medical Forms! NoMoreClipboard.com Is a Novel Solution for You to Maintain Your Health Records.

Gear Bits

Stop Filling Out Medical Forms! NoMoreClipboard.com Is a Novel Solution for You to Maintain Your Health Records.

  NoMoreClipboard.com A few years ago I started a Google Health account. I loved it. I had my entire medical history and medications in one place. Unfortunately Google Health is going away. So I started to search for a replacement. My criteria were as follows: Easy to use Can hold my medical record Can hold my current and past medications Can Print out a summary sheet of my medical history and medications Ability to add documentation from my medical providers Ability to give my medical providers limited access to my medical history Secure based off of Health Insurance Portability and…

Quick Impressions: Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket Speeds

Gear Bits

Quick Impressions: Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket Speeds

As a small town guy living in the Chicago area, there are a lot times when I get frustrated with the traffic, the density, and the general inconveniences that are necessarily associated with urban living. Then again, there are times like today, when I’m happy to be living in one of the larger metropolitan areas in the country because we tend to be among the first to get new technologies, such as AT&T’s new LTE network. At the moment, AT&T has two phones able to take advantage of the LTE network: the HTC Vivid and the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket….

Siri Outage Reveals Not Success or Failure ... But Loneliness

Gear Bits

Siri Outage Reveals Not Success or Failure … But Loneliness

Late last week one of the big features of the recently released iPhone 4S – Siri – suffered an outage, which was widely reported. Beyond that, there were those who took the outage to indicate either massive success … or massive failure on the part of Apple and the service. But I see something different … loneliness. If you look back to the very first few things people tested on the iPhone 4S with Siri, it was telling it they loved it. You can see it featured in this Gizmodo article from right after the launch. And here are just…

Jawbone UP First Impressions

Gear Bits

Jawbone UP First Impressions

Although it is only just being released this morning, I was able to pick up one of Jawbone’s new UP wrist bands yesterday (Jawbone UP). It truly is the height of “geek chic”, and whether or not it will be a passing fad waits to be seen. I wanted to share a few initial impressions of it but first let’s look at what it does and does not do. The UP is like a super-duper pedometer. It tracks your steps and can “challenge” you to do more. Or, if you set it at “X steps planned today”, it will tell you…

Twelve South PlugBug QuickLook

Gear Bits

Twelve South PlugBug QuickLook

We brought word of Twelve South‘s new PlugBug Mac/iPad accessory the other day. Within seconds of learning about the new product Judie and I had both ordered one. It is a great traveling companion if you have a Mac and an iPad or iPhone, so it seemed like a no-brainer. It is! Mine just came and, once again, I’m impressed with what Twelve South has done. Here’s a quick video look at the PlugBug. You can order yours for here on the company site for $34.99.