Take a classic song from more than 30 years ago that gets more airplay today than most pop music, and mix it up with snips from decades of classic movies, and what do you get? Something absolutely brilliant! Check it out! Source: Buzzfeed
Dan’s wife Elana was not the only Gear Diary spouse to give in to the iPhone pressure this weekend-Sarah replaced her HTC Incredible with a 16GB 4S! However, the Verizon salesman betrayed his Android fanboy colors during our sales experience. You see, the salesman approached us and asked Sarah what she was looking to purchase. She said she was looking to replace her phone with an iPhone, and when he found out she was moving from Android to iOS, he proceeded to give her the hard sell. First, he informed her in a very condescending tone that “Android is different…
When Apple ran into issues with the iPhone 4 and “Antennagate”, even Consumer Reports refusal to recommend the phone didn’t slow down the adoption rate of the device. It sold, and it sold well. Now it looks like Nokia and Microsoft may be having the same bit of luck. Sure there were some initial issues with the Lumia 900 and connectivity. Issues like… For some, it just would not connect*. However that doesn’t seem to have slowed the popularity of the phone. A quick look at AT&T Wireless’ smartphone offerings shows the device out of stock. I can only imagine…
To Judie, Kevin, Sarah and the entire family from all of us at Gear Diary… Congratulations on the Birth of Kathleen Rebecca! Judie, may your granddaughter have years of health, happiness and… of course… GEAR!! (Like that was even a question)
Nokia undoubtably regretted having used the “Beta Test” theme for its initial rollout of the Lumia 900. After all, while the Lumia 900 IS a terrific phone it has had its initial bumps in the road. The biggest issue? Some new Lumia 900 purchasers found that the phone would lose, or never acquire, a data connection. That is a big issue for a smartphone that is all about connectivity. No doubt the executives at Nokia, and Microsoft, executives who have doubled down on this partnership, took a deep breath and did their best to not panic. Then Nokia did something…
How often do you see a full 2.5-minute commercial that even as it is obviously selling a brand, makes you stop and fully engage in the story? Well, this new commercial for Nike featuring two lovers who find themselves across the country and missing one another is cute, endearing, and hilarious. It is a great story … and well worth watching and sharing! Here is the description: Nike and W+K Portland put a romantic twist on running, with this 2:30 video about two lovers running across to country to see each other, directed by Rattling Stick’s Ringan Ledwidge. Promoting the…
Where to set my phone when I drive? That seems to be a problem I often have. Lately, I tend to just lay it in my lap which usually sends it crashing to the floor board after each stop. If I am not connected to the auxiliary cord, it often goes forgotten and crashes to the pavement when I hop out of the vehicle. I have tried setting my phone in the cup holder and in other places but just cannot seem to find anywhere that works well. A flexible dock that keeps my phone in a convenient position to…
When I first picked up my Nokia Lumia 900 Monday morning, both the AT&T store reps and I were perplexed why my phone could initially make phone calls but data functionality was, well, nonfunctional for a few hours. We eventually swapped out a SIM card and later the phone was able to function normally, so we initially thought it might just be a registration issue with the new device on AT&T’s network. However, news began to circulate that many users were experiencing a similar problem. Now, just two days after the semi-official (well, it was supposed to launch on Easter…
I absolutely hate carrying items in my pockets. This probably stems from the fact that I spend most of my time on sports fields and courts, but keys and wallets are usually not with me while I work. Unfortunately, I am connected to my iPhone like a vital organ, so I have become used to always carrying it with me. This habit finds me in situations where I forget to grab some cash or my debit card, and I get stuck borrowing a few bucks or waiting until I get back to my wallet. There are solutions that turn an…
This past Sunday, my brother was visiting; he and my wife and I went for a long bike ride, taking a path around the local mall along the way … and noting that everything was closed. Because it was Easter. It just also happened to be the launch day of the Nokia Lumia 900, the de facto flagship phone of the entire Windows Phone line-up. There have been articles questioning the wisdom of an Easter launch, but none more pointed than the one from the New York Times: AT&T said last month that when Nokia’s new Lumia 900 phone went…
Lady Gaga has made quite a career as a Madonna clone, something that the Queen of Pop was fine to tolerate until she decided it was time to kick-start her music career again this year. At that point, emboldened by a general opinion that Gaga was a similar but lesser product than her, Madonna earlier this year referred to Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ as ‘reductive’ – an accurate but nonetheless scathing term … especially in an age where computers with sophisticated software can dissect songs so easily to show their origins and similarities. Now, just one week after claiming the…
As you might have read here, Dan is entered into the ‘Biggest Influencer’ contest at Zinio. Each day (well, 24 hour period) you can enter a new vote at Zinio and help him win the vote and by doing so gain a $2500 donation to the Foundation Beyond Belief Charity! Great cause, great way to help out – and all you need to do is click a link! And now we are into the final week – so this is a reminder to hop on to Zinio every day this week and support Dan! Here are his details: Here Is…
Soon after launching the Android version of the ultra-popular social photo sharing site, Instagram has just sold to Facebook for a cool $1 billion! Here are some details from the New York Times: Facebook has acquired Instagram, the popular photo-sharing application, for about $1 billion in cash and stock, the company said Monday. In a Facebook post, the company’s chief, Mark Zuckerberg, said he planned to build Instagram independently from the social network, allowing users to post on other social networks, follow users not on Facebook and opt out of sharing on Facebook. And from Instagram the following statement: When…
For so many magazines, unless you kept a copy for your archives the past is gone. Countless magazines and publishers have struggled and gone under in the internet era, and particularly in the latest economic downturn. So it is great when you find an online archive … and even better when it is a legitimate one set up by someone with a great history in the industry! Cynthia from Cyndustries has set up an online archive for Synapse magazine. Synapse was one of the big electronic magazines of the late 70s, though it faded away much sooner than Keyboard or…
I love what Google does to have fun; just look at their April Fools stuff from this year. But now they have what may be the best Easter Egg ever! Just Google the Following and the egg you see above will be revealed. Google this(or just click it): 1.2+(sqrt(1-(sqrt(x^2+y^2))^2) + 1 – x^2-y^2) * (sin (10000 * (x*3+y/5+7))+1/4) from -1.6 to 1.6 I just hope someone spent their 20 percent time on this. Hopefully they start spending some of it on Android, too. Happy Easter!
It’s always interesting to see which celebrities will put their name on a particular product, but it’s even more interesting when a celebrity decides that rather than put his name on a product, he’ll just create his own company. That’s what 50 did; he is the CEO of SMS Audio, and every product they produce is designed so that his “fans [can] hear my music the way it was intended – the way it was mastered in the studio.” Well, then. – Professionally tuned 11mm driver – Crystal clear sound – Ergonomically designed- Apple® control mic with volume control – Reinforced…
If you ask a statistician with an iPad what app they would love, chances are you would hear ‘a mobile version of R, Minitab or JMP’. We know the folks at R have wanted to do so, but their command-driven interface and GNU license are at odds with Apple policy. And while there is nothing forthcoming from Minitab (who don’t even have a Mac version), today we got a new and powerful tool for interactive data analysis on the iPad – JMP Graph Builder. Here is the basic description: Analysis on the go. Graphs at your fingertips. JMP Graph Builder…
GE’s X400 digital camera is now available. It brings power and performance at an incredibly affordable price that is below $130. It has a 2.7″ LCD screen, a 15X optical zoom, a 27mm wide-angle lens and offers an impressive 14 megapixels. The camera also offers over 20 unique shooting modes and a “high dynamic range, which adjusts light exposure for more detail in both light and dark scenes”. Optical image stabilization is also present, helping to reduce blur and get you the best pictures possible. As Paul Meyhoefer, vice president of marketing and product planning, notes, We have seen phenomenal…
Hard to believe that the meme that is Nyan Cat is only one year old today! It is a sign of the fast-moving times that these things go from nothing to everywhere to nothing again so quickly! Here are the basics from Wikipedia: Nyan Cat is the name of a YouTube video uploaded in April 2011, which became an Internet meme. The video merged a Japanese pop song with an animated cartoon cat with the body of a Pop-Tart, flying through space, and leaving a rainbow trail behind it. The video ranked at number 5 on the list of most…
I have been thinking about setting up some sort of wireless camera at my house to help monitor my home’s security. There’s a new one that will let my wife and I check in on our house at any time, right from our phones. DropcamHD promises easy setup and loads of features that makes it a really cool option. DropcamHD has a cloud based DVR and many features that may make it nice not just for security, but for other uses like monitoring your baby’s room. Oh, and they also say that DropcamHD is the smallest camera of its type…
I have always been a big fan of filmmaker David Lynch, from Eraserhead to Blue Velvet to Twin Peaks and beyond, his imaginative visual style and remarkable storytelling has always been compelling. Recently he released an album called Crazy Clown Time, and now we have a music video for the title track – directed by Lynch himself of course! It contains semi-blocked nudity and loads of bizarre imagery. Enjoy.