News & Features | Gear Diary

Forks Go Connected with HAPILABS HAPIfork

CES 2013 is ready to kick into gear. Judie and Kevin arrive late today. Carly will be here Tuesday. This is my 4th CES and we’ll be busier than I can ever recall. That’s a good thing. I’m especially looking forward to wandering the show floor as there are always some unexpected treasures. I do not, however, expect this to be one of them. The HAPILABS team will be showing their new HAPIfork, the world’s first connected fork that helps you lose weight by eating at the right time and at the right pace. Yes, the world’s first ever connected…

News & Features

Wilson Electronics’ New Sleek 4G Signal Booster Will Keep Your Connection Solid

If you are on the road a lot, then you know all about what it’s like to have your cellular signal act in a less than reliable manner. Watching your 4G/LTE signal drop down to zilch, then slide over to EDGE, 3G and then ultimately climb back to 4G — depending upon where you area, even though the areas are shown to have 4G coverage — is just part of using a mobile phone these days. . The same thing can happen when you are in a car, truck, boat, or any other moving vehicle. One way to combat this…

Gear Bits, News & Features

Goodbye Spin Magazine After 27 Years

Last summer, after BuzzMedia bought Spin Magazine, it announced it was cancelling the November / December issue as part of a ‘brand evaluation’. Well … over the holidays we learned that print was NOT in fact part of the ‘moving forward’ plan, and the magazine has been killed off in favor of focusing on online efforts. Interestingly, as shown at the top, the magazine is giving out Car & Driver magazine as a replacement for current subscribers. I was intrigued as to why we were suddenly getting Car & Driver again (I had gotten a free subscription in the past that…

News & Features

Mobile Fun Samsung Galaxy S III Extended Battery Kit

If you have a smartphone other than one of the Droid Maxx devices, chances are you wish it had better battery life. And as they get more and more powerful we do more and more – so any gains in power efficiency are lost by greater usage! There are battery cases available that fully cover your device and change the appearance and certain enhance the size and weight. But what MobileFun is offering is a replacement battery that adds nearly 50% to your battery capacity (from 2100mAh to 3000mAh) yet only increases the thickness by attaching directly as a replacement…

News & Features

Café Cup Review

I love my Keurig coffee maker. It’s my morning companion and has been for many years. Sometimes, though, I have coffee I want to try that is not available as a Keurig K-cup. While Keurig offers up an adapter that lets you use any ground coffee in a Keurig machine, my experience with it is not all too positive. Every time I’ve used it the reusable K-Cup leaks water all over the place. It is better than the wasteful K-Cups that are used once and then thrown in the trash or, more accurately, they would be if they worked. Sadly… they don’t….

News & Features

Canonical Outs New Ubuntu for Phones

The New Year has barely begun, but there’s something BIG going on at Ubuntu’s parent company, Canonical! Today Canonical has announced a version of Ubuntu for Mobile phones. According to Canonical, Ubuntu for Mobile Phones should have this on hardware to demonstrate at CES 2013. Canonical says that the SDK has everything developers need. The interface certainly looks nice, but they have not announced hardware vendors or carriers yet. A phone OS without hardware is pretty useless. They say they are in talks, but they said that when they outed Ubuntu TV at CES last year, and there STILL isn’t a hardware vendor…

Events, News & Features

Bracketron Accessories Get You and Your Gear Mobile in 2013

If you resolved to “get outside more often”, Bracketron can help. At CES 2013 the company will be revealing a line of Outdoor Sports Mobile Accessories that includes the latest line of water-resistant sport cases. Among the new offerings are a Sport Case with Belt Clip that “shields your device from sweat, rain and the elements and allows full touchscreen control for phone calls, texts and emails”. The case comes in black and camouflage, and it will make for a great review as part of Coach’s Gear Diary Outdoors series! The company is also offering a Sport Case with Strap Mount….

News & Features

Best Gear Surprises of 2012

As 2012 comes to an end I thought I might take a quick look at a couple of specific gadgets that surprised and delighted me over the past year. So here a quick list of my personal “Best Gear Surprises of 2012”. MacBook Pro with Retina Display The biggest change in my gear this past year came in the form of the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. I loved using and carrying my MacBook Air but the pull of a retina display-equipped laptop was too much. I bit. So did Judie. In fact, there was a bit of back and…

News & Features

2012, the Year the Netbook Died, a Eulogy

It’s been widely reported over the web that Acer and Asus are pulling out of the netbook market as of today effectively ending the netbook as a viable platform. It says a great deal when Asus, who practically invented the netbook, has said they are done. I write not to bury the netbook but to praise it for what it was: a great and cheap way to get things done on the web. I remember the very first netbook, the Asus EeePC 701. It wasn’t the most powerful thing out there. It had a 900 MHz Celeron, 7 inch screen…

Game Diary, News & Features

Need For Speed Most Wanted DLC Released, Ultimate Speed Pack

Still need some speed? Electronic Arts delivers in impressive fashion with the Ultimate Speed Pack, which is available for download on $9.99 at PlayStation Store (PS3) and Origin (PC), and for 800 Microsoft points on Xbox Live Marketplace (Xbox 360). This Need For Speed Most Wanted downloadable content (DLC) includes 70 new “speed-themed” milestones and five amazing exclusive cars – Hennessey Venom GT Spyder, Pagani Nonla R, McLaren F1 LM, Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse, Lambourgini Aventador J. Players also get 25 challenge events for each of these five cars. Players can also nab this DLC pack and Time Saver…

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US Cellular Samsung Galaxy S3 Jelly Bean Update Now Available

When the Samsung Galaxy S3 arrived it had Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as the operating system. Since the release, Android Jelly Bean 4.1 launched with the Nexus 7, and more recently 4.2 Jelly Bean also arrived. While Ice Cream Sandwich had loads of great features, Jelly Bean was a smaller update – but what it brought were refinements and loads of under-the-hood updates that once used become essential. Over the last month all of the US carriers have rolled out Jelly Bean 4.1 for the Galaxy S3 … and as of yesterday US Cellular has the update available as…

News & Features

Pocket Informant Continues to Shine and Adds New Updates and Bug Fixes

I am about to head to my first CES experience in just a few short weeks, and already I have learned something very important: the schedule is an absolute beast. Everyone wants to meet, there are only a few short days, and juggling all those commitments is going to be rough. Luckily, I am not leaning on the anemic iOS calendar to handle all this, but I have the always amazing Pocket Informant to help me out! There are a few reasons why I recommend Pocket Informant as a more robust calendar and tasks option. One, it’s far, far easier…

News & Features

Pique your [P]Interest

Did you know that if you run out of AA batteries, you can use AAA ones and fill the gap with foil? Did you know adding baking powder into your baby’s bath can help relieve diaper rash? Do you want to learn how to make homemade gel ice packs? Do you want a recipe for garlic cheese bread? Do you enjoy looking at cute pictures of fluffy animals? Are you interested in learning how to make an eternity scarf? These are just a few things that Pinterest has to offer. Pinterest is like Facebook, Twitter, and Evernote all in one…

Game Diary, News & Features

Bike Baron on iOS Gets an Update and a Sale Price!

Remember my Minigore 2: Zombies post where I told you that Bike Baron is one of my favorite games on iOS, ever? Well, it was just updated to version 3.0 and it got even better! Bike Baron is in the “physics motorcycle race” genre. Did I just make that up? There are four buttons: Left, Right, Stop, Go. You lean back and forth and use the gas and brakes to make your way through over 100 different levels and 300 challenges. The premise is simple, the game itself, is not. Once you get into the Hard and Extreme levels, the…

News & Features

New Wheel of Fortune App for iOS and Android Launched to Help Celebrate 30th Wheel of Fortune Season!

“WHEEL…OF…FORTUNE!” Whenever I hear that phrase, I start to salivate a bit. Yes, I’m sure there are a lot of brows creasing as they read that second sentence, but bear with me, as it was the result of inadvertent Pavlovian conditioning. Back in the late 20th century, when I was but a college student, the local radio station would play an NPR segment followed by the audio broadcast of Wheel of Fortune from a local TV station. Due to my schedule proctoring organic chemistry labs, the timing of these two broadcasts generally coincided with my dinner. I’d often eat in…

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…

News & Features

The iPad Smart Case – Smart Protection for Your iPad Tablet

Photo courtesy of Apple.com The iPad Smart Case is a great way to protect your iPad without the added weight and bulk of other cases. Similar to the original iPad Smart Cover, the iPad Smart Case contains a magnet that automatically wakes the iPad upon opening and puts it to sleep when closing, helping to preserve your battery power. It can be configured to hold the iPad low to the desk to write emails or work on presentations or more upright to view movies and video clips. Transforming the cover into the stand takes some practice, as the flaps don’t…

News & Features

Could This Be the Alternative to CAPTCHA That You Never Knew You Wanted?

You know those human verification challenges that pop up when you try to buy a ticket on Ticketmaster or complete some sort of online registration form? The ones that show you the image of scrambled text and you have to decipher the secret code in order to continue. They are all over the web, and they can be seriously annoying. Sometimes, the code is impossible to figure out because the image is too blurred. Sometimes, the challenge includes a character that doesn’t even exist on your keyboard! They often take multiple attempts and it’s been said that these challenges can…

Game Diary, News & Features

Deepworld Is Available for iOS now!

Hello again iPad gaming fans, I’m here to give you a quick tip; kind of like when your doctor tells you that you should exercise more often. Check out Deepworld, out now on the iTunes for free. It’s a 2D minecraft-type sandbox MMO game that focuses a lot on its hand-drawn art and a cool steampunk vibe. Also, did I mention that the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world? Its true. You mine different kinds of ore blocks in order to build various items like doors, chairs, lanterns, and many, many more, all of which help you to survive…

News & Features

Twelve South Releases the BookBook for iPad mini

I love my iPad mini. I love my Twelve South BookBook. Now I can bring my favorite tablet together with one of my favorite tablet accessories thanks to the new Twelve South BookBook for iPad mini. Here’s the news in the company’s own words. Twelve South is proud to introduce the latest BookBook volume – BookBook for iPad mini. Conceived exclusively for the smallest iPad, BookBook for iPad mini is a compact, genuine leather case that discreetly protects iPad mini from dings, scratches and sometimes even theft. New features include a spine that allows users to hold their iPad mini…

Gear Bits, News & Features

It Has Now Been 25 Years Since the ‘Red Square Landing’

Could you imagine if tomorrow a small single-engine plane landed on the White House lawn? Well, imagine a German teen landing on Red Square at the heart of Soviet Moscow. For those of us old enough to remember, it was stunning. Stunning that he did it … and stunning that he wasn’t shot on sight. In 1987 a West German teenager shocked the world, by flying through Soviet air defences to land a Cessna aeroplane in Red Square. He was jailed for more than a year – but a quarter of a century later, he has no regrets. Here are…