Gear Bits

How Fast Do You Need to Run to Be a Secret Service Agent?

I was a teenager during the Clinton administration, so I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to the news, but I do remember hearing about the President’s habit of running a few times a week. From what I understood, it wasn’t uncommon for Presidents to run to stay in shape and deal with stress, but it never occurred to me what a Secret Service issue it was! According to former Agent Dan Emmett, they had a hard time finding agents who could protect the President while he was out running: Clinton jogged about three days a week, for no…

Gear Bits

1983, an LP by Chris King and a Kickstarter Project

We have covered several Kickstarter projects here at Gear Diary ranging from the Kammock Roo to ASL Tunes for the deaf to new 3D Glasses. Kickstarter is a website that is used as “a new way to find and follow creativity.” Basically, an artist, writer, inventor etc… can fund new projects through the help of anyone who feels inclined to donate to the cause. Most projects do offer packages donors will receive according to the amount they pledge. The capital must be promised before time runs out or the project will not be funded. This is actually a project for…

Gear Bits

Wood Boring Worms Look Like Tiny Evil Aliens

Kev was splitting wood today, when he stopped to bring me something he’d found. To back up for a moment, if you have a wood-burning stove then you may have noticed how certain woods — in this case, mesquite — can have these weird “tunnels” bored through them. I had never given what caused them a second thought … until today.

Gear Bits

Amber Tamblyn Punks Tyrese Gibson and Reminds Us to Know Who We Are Emailing!

Last Friday as I was working at my desk I got a message over Microsoft Lync asking me to join in a conference call. That happens on occasion, but when I opened Lync to reply, I realized I didn’t know a single person mentioned. My name isn’t exactly unique particularly with the way our company assigns email addresses, so I replied simply with my name, organization and the project I am on … and within a few seconds he said ‘oops wrong person’. This morning I loved seeing Dan’s PSA on how to avoid being an online idiot, so I…

Gear Bits

NSA Turns to Android as Foundation of Super-Secure Phones

Open Source software and operating systems have positive and negative attributes, but one major positive is the ability to completely customize the solution to meet your needs. And according to an article at SC Magazine, that is EXACTLY what the NSA is doing. Before this solution, NSA employees: would previously need to “speak in code” if using a commercial mobile device to discuss classified information. The initial plan was to cobble together a string of off-the-shelf solutions to come up with a total secure package … and not surprisingly that was a disaster. But switching to using Android as an…

Events, Gear Bits

Get Your iBling On With this Gold-Plated iPad

The 64GB 3G iPad runs $830 new. That’s certainly not inexpensive but, at least in my humble opinion, it is worth every penny. But what if you didn’t want your iPad to look like every other iPad and you had money to burn? Judie found the answer in the airport yesterday as she arrived in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress.

Gear Bits, News & Features

Adobe Brings a Better-Than-Ever Photoshop Touch to the iPad 2

Like many techies, I have been using my iPad for almost 2 years, and if you ask me ‘what do you use it for?’ … I would reply ‘just about everything’. And as of today that is getting enhanced as Adobe is bringing Photoshop Touch to the iPad 2! From their press release: Adobe Photoshop Touch offers core Photoshop features, as well as new capabilities for creating and sharing in an app custom-built for tablets. The app is a central component of Adobe Touch Apps, a family of six intuitive touch screen applications, inspired by Adobe Creative Suite software. iPad…

Gear Bits

Jimmy Kimmel Introduces The Trailer for ‘Movie: The Movie:”

In his post-Oscar show, Jimmy Kimmel bemoans how at the Oscars most of the movies only represent one genre at a time, so if you want more you need to watch a bunch of movies. He then goes on to say how he has realized his dreams of creating the most epic motion picture ever … and introduces us to ‘Movie: The Movie’. Take a look!

Gear Bits, Music Diary

George Harrison iPad App Tests How Much You Will Pay for Nostalgia and Guitar Info

Had you heard that George Harrison had an iPad app launching this week? I have been anticipating it for a while, knowing that aside from music there would be loads of context and history about his guitars and what he used for which song and so on. Cool info for a music geek, in other words. But today when it launched, the $10 price made me pause for a bit before buying. Recently we have seen apps from Jimi Hendrix and Sting, both of which were free, as well as Rock and Jazz histories which are ~$5 each. The Sting…

Gear Bits, Music Diary

Paris Hilton Releases New Music Video to Make You Appreciate the Greatness of Rebecca Black

… or, at least that is how it seems. Paris Hilton had a amazingly dreadful album a few years ago that made people realize that no amount of money can buy you talent, and apparently it also can’t buy good enough taste in producers or songwriters to put together something reasonable. Welcome to 2012 and the new release from Paris Hilton just a couple weeks after the one year anniversary of Rebecca Black’s Friday. And while many call that song the worst ever … this one makes Friday look like genius. The song is bad enough, but the video is…

Gear Bits, News & Features

Flowchart Helps You Decide If You Should Send That Email (Hint: No)

Across the last two companies I have worked for the past 20 years, I have taken about 10 email etiquette courses and refreshers. There are loads of rules about whether or not to send, who to include, what to say and how to say it, and when to just step away from the computer and make human contact. Now we have a flow chart that will help any home or business user make that decision. And not surprisingly for anyone who has taken one of these corporate email classes … in most cases the answer is ‘NO’! Here is the…

Gear Bits, Music Diary

The Difference Between a Rock Guitarist and a Jazz Guitarist

This week on Facebook there are loads of those ‘what I do, what friends think I do, what my parents think I do …’ picture collages going around. Some are funny, some simply try too hard. There are always a bunch of comments which I can summarize to save you time: “haha … so true”. (you’re welcome) I caught this one on a guitar-centric site this week, and what was amazing was not so much the image, which is just another mildly amusing stereotype at play, but the discussion. If you look at the core of the image, there are…

Gear Bits

JayBird Bluetooth stereo headphones

I was checking out these JayBird Bluetooth stereo headphones on the company website and figured I would watch the promotional videos. The headphones look good too!

Gear Bits

When It Comes to Streaming Movie Purchases; Measure Twice, Cut Once

My father-in-law Mark is a contractor (yup, he is a Jewish carpenter) and he lives by the maxim “Measure Twice, Cut Once”. After all, once you cut a board there is no going back so it makes sense to double-check the before you saw. It is good advice when cutting wood, but it also applies if you have a subscription to Hulu+ or Netflix. Here’s why …

eBooks, Gear Bits

Kno, Cengage, and Why Digital Textbooks Are Failing

Digital textbooks are a bit like alchemy. Everyone wants to find the magic formula, but the experiments just come out as useless lumps, rather than shiny bits of gold. Even iBooks 2 has many skeptics, despite Apple’s deep pockets and impressive publishing contacts. But the best illustration of how tangled and inefficient the eTextbook market is can be seen in the fight between Cengage (a publisher) and Kno (one of the 49,000 services trying to cash in on digital learning).

Gear Bits, Reviews

Snowtrax 2 Slip-on Cleats Gave Me Plenty of Traction on Dicey, Icy Day

Admittedly, this winter for Ohio has been a bust where snow is concerned. However, living where I do winter inhabitants are occasionally bedeviled by ice storms or significant ice accumulation. Late January for me was one such episode where we received between 0.25″ to 0.5″ of ice accumulation and a dusting of freezing sleet. Walking in such weather on untreated or partially treated surfaces can be very tricky. Fortunately for me as a Christmas gift I received two pairs of Snowtrax 2 slip-on cleats that made all the difference on that treacherous day.

Gear Bits

Synthetik Park’s Wall Aquarium Is Eye-Level Gorgeous

Watch how my thought process goes … 1. We have a Beta fish named Brad; he lives in a goldfish bowl that sits on our credenza, and every chance she gets, our cat Avah likes to drink water from his bowl. She’s not trying to eat Brad, or at least we haven’t seen her try, but she seems to love his fish flavored water. This bothers me, because she has been known to lap his water down to less than half a bowl when we have been away. 2. In order to really see Brad I have to bend down,…

Gear Bits

SoundHound, the Awesome iOS App of the Day

I was driving in the car and a tune came on that was awesome. It wasn’t familiar and I wanted to make sure I could hear it again so… at the stop sign of course, I pulled out my iPad, fired up SoundHound, and I searched for the song.

Gear Bits

How Big is Big? How Small is Small? Find Out on The Scale of the Universe 2 Website

“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Yes, space IS big, but that is only one side of the coin of the known Universe—there are items known and believed to exist that are incredibly small. Cary and Michael Huang have created a fascinating web page, The Scale of the Universe 2 that permits the scientifically voyeuristic to view a large number of items in the Universe…

Gear Bits

A Quick Look at the Bones Link II iPhone Adapter

Sometimes it is the little things that make all the difference. That’s the case with the Bones Link II. Let me back up a bit. The other day I ordered a 16GB RAM upgrade from Crucial for my new iMac. At under $100 it was a great deal. When I went to check out I was offered the opportunity to buy the Bones Link II iPod/iPhone adapter at half price since I had purchased RAM. Normally it is $11.99 so at half that I figured why not and ordered one. The adapter is described this way … Here’s a great way to…

Gear Bits, Travel

Yes, I Can Hear You Now; Thanks to Vonage Mobile

This is a sponsored post, all opinions written here are mine. Make Calls, Save Money Have you tried Vonage’s new mobile app? It lets you make free calls to other people using the Vonage app. It lets you save 70% over the major mobile carriers and 30% over Skype’s rates. It works over WiFi, 3G and 4G wireless data networks worldwide, with WiFi being the most economical method of all. And it is simple. The interface is familiar, you can add calling credit right on the device itself themselves in increments of $4.99 and $9.99 and the call quality is…

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