A Little History… A while back I took the plunge and made the shift from an iPhone to a Windows phone, first with a Nokia 900 and later with a 920. It was an interesting exercise. I learned a lot, discovered some new ways of working, and learned to make some compromises. I even learned that some things I thought…
I find myself doing far less talking on the phone these days. That is part of the reason I’ve pretty much dropped my use of landlines. At home and work I only use my cell phones or, at times, I use Line2 or Skype on my tablet or computer. I honestly cannot remember the last time I picked up my…
When Windows 8 was first coming out, I knew I wouldn’t like the Metro IU very much on a desktop computer and so I never even considered “upgrading” my desktop. A surprising set of circumstances brought me a Windows 8 tablet, and that was my first experience hands-on with the new OS. I can say that on a tablet computer…
I have something of a unique perspective on ChromeOS. See, one day in December 2010, I came home to find a mystery package on my doorstep from Google. It turned out the “Sure, I’d like to beta test a Chromebook” form I’d filled out netted me a CR-48, one of the original beta Chromebooks. So I’ve seen the operating system…
Microsoft’s sale of Windows 8 Pro for only $40 ends on Thursday. If you haven’t taken advantage of the sale, time is quickly running out! If you’ve purchased a Windows 8 (Sadly, not Windows RT) tablet, ultrabook or other computer and you attempt to upgrade directly through the “Add Features To Windows” function, you do not get this discount, and the Pro…
I’ve been working to recover from a major hard drive crash. Fortunately, I knew it was coming…those telltale crashes from nowhere and other glitchy warnings. I have what I thought was a pretty safe backup set up, and so I haven’t “lost” anything exactly. I got my backup drive up and running, but decided that I was going to take…
I know not everyone is enamored of the Windows Sidebar and Gadgets, but I use them all the time, on every computer I own. I like the CPU monitoring as well as Hard Disk monitoring, so that I can easily see at a glance if my computer is doing something in the background, or if it is really frozen and…
The Leap Motion Controller is small but powerful. It has yet to ship but, if it works as advertised, it will change computing forever. That’s not hyperbole. I mean, seriously, the Leap promises to let you scroll by simply waving your hands, use your finger as a gun while playing a first person shooter or draw by waving a pencil…
I am off to CES in just a few short days, and had originally planned to bring my long-in-the-tooth-but-still-going-strong Chromebook as a laptop solution. Then Gear Diary was invited to review the Toshiba Portege Z930 Ultrabook. The result? I will be blogging with a great deal more power and features during the show! We’ll have a full review soon, but I wanted to make sure to share my first…
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…
For those individuals like me who have just started using the latest Microsoft OS incarnation that is Windows 8 on their PCs, Slacker announced the official launch of their music service supporting Windows 8. The free Slacker app is designed such that it takes advantage of the new tiling and UI aspects of Windows 8, multitasking, and even the Share…
The global voice recognition in Apple’s new Mountain Lion operating system is already by far my favorite feature. It is incredibly fast, quite accurate (when I speak slowly and clearly in a quiet room), and it’s so easily accessed (you hit Fn twice) that it makes voice recognition something you don’t even need to think about before you start using…
If there is one line of products with which I have been totally enamored it is the Sonos system I purchased a bit over a year ago. To recall my experience with Sonos: I had long been interested in the company and their wireless audio system, but I had never actually seen or heard one in action. I reached out…
When I first migrated from Windows Mobile to Android, my Android phone had a lite version of Quickoffice pre-installed and as a result I became a frequent user of the software suite. Right now I have Quickoffice for Android, WebOS and iOS, to maintain a semblance of consistency across my multiple platforms, so I therefore took pause when I contemplated…
Most people who have been using PCs in the past decade or so have doubtless seen this image, the default background image on Microsoft Windows XP. “Bliss” it is called. I’ve always had a soft spot for this image, plus images like it for my desktops. To my mind there is something soothing about undulating fields of green grass under…
I’m an iPad user (I write many of my posts on an iPad these days), and I have a big interest in tablets and tablet technology. Lately, I’ve been reading a bit about Windows 8 and the new “RT” version for is specifically for tablets. By the way, for those that don’t know “RT” stands for runtime. There’s a bit…
Now I know what your thinking: why would I care about Windows 8? Well, even though I am a Linux guy and use it almost everywhere, I still have to use Windows on a daily basis for my job as well as supporting my wife and family as no matter what I say, I cannot get them to even try…
If you are like me, you enjoy taking occasional videos of sundry things, and if you are like me, you are hardly an expert. Far too often there is something going on at the drop of a hat that you would love to get on video, only to later discover on playback that the quality of the resulting video…
UPDATED with pictures from MWC ViewSonic just announced new 7″ and 10″ ViewPad tablets during Mobile World Congress. The ViewSonic tablets are “designed to fit into today’s mobile lifestyle. They are the perfect options for consumers to surf the web and interact with friends or for the mobile worker to enhance productivity whilst on the go.”
We’re back with the next edition of Gear Chat. This time out Mike is bringing us some gaming news and Thomas and I talk tablets, apps and iPad 3. Listen below or click here to download. Your browser does not support the audio element. Podcast Powered By Podbean
It has been over a year but Gear Chat is back and we’re talking tech. In this first episode Thomas and I talk about the Samsung Galaxy Note, the Series 7 Slate tablet and what configuration of Apple computing products is best. Future episodes will include Gaming and eBook segments and much more. We also want to hear from you!…