Travel Gear

SCOTTEVEST SeV Sport Coat Review

When I first heard that SCOTTEVEST was releasing a sport coat, I didn’t know what to think. I did, however, know that I wanted one. There’s no big surprise there, considering the fact that I wear something from the company pretty much each and every day. I’m grateful to SeV’s Scott Jordan for giving me the opportunity to review one of their new SeV sport coats! I have worn the review sample at various times for the last 2 1/2 weeks. I’ve worn it with jeans and boots one day and with dress pants and a tie another. I did…

Reviews, Travel

VinniBag Review

I am not a wine connoisseur at all. However, back in the day I was into drinking good beers. I remember one trip where I visited a Rock Bottom Brewery restaurant where I had some of the best beer I have ever tasted. They had beer that I could have taken home in bottles, but because I flew into Denver and was flying out the next day, I could not take any home with me. If I had the VinniBag it would have been a piece of cake! VinniBag is a wine bottle-shaped bag that has a few interesting features. First, it…

Editorials, Travel

The Five Stages of Smartphone Withdrawal

Regular readers of Gear Diary may remember I got married earlier this month. We just returned from our honeymoon, a fabulous week on beautiful San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. It’s absolutely gorgeous; white sandy beaches, sun, drinks, food…what more do you need? Well, in my case, the one thing missing from the island (and the one thing that had Sarah practically doing cartwheels of joy) was the distinct lack of internet service. Yes, I had to go an entire week without a smartphone. Just like the five stages of grief, I went through five stages of connectivity withdrawal. It’s…

News, Travel

Skooba Gear Introduces Their New Ultralight Bag Collection, Techlife

Get ready for something special from Skooba Design! They are in the process of rolling out Techlife, a collection of sporty, casual, and Ultra-super-seriously-lightweight bags. Shown above is the Techlife Digital Daypack, which will retail for $99.95. According to Michael Hess, this collection includes … Updated versions of our iPad/Netbook bag and neo-skin, a slick new backpack in 2 sizes, a compact laptop messenger (for MacBook 13 and similar), a slim laptop case, and my personal favorite “big story,” which is… drum roll… The Weekend Warrior Duffel [$119.95] — nothing else like it on the market. A solution for “single-bag,…

News, Travel

Balanzza Intros Mini Luggage Scale to Help Avoid Added Luggage Fees

Airline luggage fees have been on my mind this week ever since I spoke to Scott Jordan about his dealing’s with Delta Sky magazine. (Heck, Scott even announced a new product, the Carry-On Coat to take things to the next level.) The fees for bags and extra weight keep growing and the free allotments keep diminishing. In a travel environment like this it is more important than ever to make sure your luggage doesn’t go over the weight limit. A new product makes it easier than ever. The Balanzza Mini, the lightest digital scale in the market, weighs less than…

News, Travel

TravelTeq’s TRIP Will Pack You, Seat You, Carry You and Rock You

… and it will cost you. 😉 Nothing is more tiring than the journey anymore; getting to airports hours early, waiting in long lines, being herded like cattle through security only to find that there are no seats left for your oversold flight at the already over-packed gate … ugh! But the ends justify the means, right? And whether it is for vacation or business, we continue to endure the pitfalls of modern day travel. With that in mind, I found this product interesting when it landed in my email this morning; the TRIP is a carry-on suitcase that carries…

News, Travel

Delta to SCOTTEVEST- “Sorry but Carry-On Revenue > Ad Revenue in Delta Sky Magazine”

Ever wonder if those fees airlines are now charging for carry-on items actually bring in serious revenue? Well, thanks to Scott Jordan and SCOTTEVEST we now know the answer — they bring in TONS of cash. Turns out that while SCOTTEVEST clothing appears in the SkyMall Magazine in the pouch in front of each seat on each Delta flight, a recent ad the travel and gadget clothing company wanted to run that reminded people they can beat the ridiculous new carry-on baggage fees with the right garment hit a bit too close to Delta’s pocketbook. Delta rejected the full-page ad,…

News, Travel

An Exclusive First Look at the Newest SCOTTEVEST Women’s Items: the Women’s Lightweight Vest and the Go2 Jacket

You know how you can see the most gorgeous ball gown on a hanger, and while you’re able to appreciate the materials used and the workmanship that went into the garment, there’s just no way to know how fabulous it could look until you finally put it on? That’s kind of how I felt when I opened a package containing prototypes of the two new Fall 2010 SCOTTEVEST women’s products — the Lightweight Vest (in a large) and the Go2 Jacket (in medium). I received a box containing both products in early July. I was told up front that the garments…

News, Travel

An Exclusive Look at the SCOTTEVEST Fall 2010 Men’s Line; Much Ado About Something

I know that you all have been chomping at the bit to get more info on the upcoming SCOTTEVEST Men’s Fall coats, and guess what? In July I received a box full of them! I only had a few days to check them out and try them on, but that was long enough to know that this will not only be a very good fall season for women who have been waiting for their new SeV styles, but it will also be a very good SeV season for men as well. The designs that I received were just about finalized, but there…

Reviews

Gear vs Gear- Zagg Z-Buds, Apple’s In-Ear headphones, and Etymotic HF2 headphones

Pictured from left to right; Apples white In Ear Headphones (IEH), red Zagg Z-Buds, and the blue Etymotic HF2 buds. I’ve owned a pair of Zagg Z-Buds for about 1.5 years now and they had been my earbud of choice until I won two new sets of buds from Gear Diary last winter. (Thanks so much, Gear Diary!) Now that I’ve had several months to use them all, I’m prepared to give you all a brief review of all 3; Zagg Z-Buds, Apple’s In-Ear headphones (IEH), and Etymotic HF2 headphones. All of these were tested for the first half of…

Reviews

ShirtsMyWay – Custom Shirts Designed and Ordered From Home Review

A few years ago I lost a good bit of weight thanks to the South Beach Diet. From a health perspective it was good. From a wardrobe perspective however… well that was a different story. Suddenly none of my suits fit. It was the same story with my dress shirts, and replacing them was going to be an expensive proposition. I happened to mention my need to go shopping to a co-worker, and she told me that her father gets all of his clothes custom-made and often for far less than he would if he were shopping “off the rack”….

Reviews

Wordlock Locks- Choose Your Word, Secure Your Stuff – Review

This is my shed… This is my shed’s lock… This is me forgetting the lock’s combination for the 700th time… There has to be a better way… and thanks to Wordlock there is. Wordlock offers a variety of different combination locks that include padlocks, bike locks, luggage locks and more. What makes Wordlocks locks different is that they don’t use hard to remember number combinations to secure your property. Instead they use words combinations. Better still, to help insure that you don’t forget the combination you get to choose the combination and can change it at will….

Reviews

The LandAirSea TrackingKey Pro Micro GPS Tracking System Review

I’ve reviewed at least three different GPS Dataloggers. There were the two loggers from Qstarz which are okay and can perform the function very well, and then there was my favorite logger, the Visiontac VGPS-900. LandAirSea has brought out one that would probably be much easier to hide than the Qstarz since it is waterproof and has other features I will get to later. The LandAirSea TrackingKey Pro Micro comes with the tracker, a Mini-B USB Cable, the Past-Track Software and a manual. The tracker has only a power button and two LEDs which aren’t very bright. You could probably stick a…

Editorials

How I Lost Over 6 lbs On The iPad Diet

One of the unexpected benefits of starting to use the iPad in place of my MacBook is that it has made me feel far lighter than ever before. No, I don’t mean “lighter” in a “techno-geeky I’m so happy to be using this magical device…” way. No, I mean lighter as in “using the iPad means I carry a lot less in my bag”. In fact I can now carry a far lighter bag now thanks to the iPad. I set out to figure how much weight I had “dropped” and even I am surprised. Here is a quick, rundown…

News

Learn a Little Irish for Free!

As a fan of language learning, I just discovered something very cool. Through today, iPhone and iPod Touch users can download Byki’s Irish language app from the App Store for free! Normally, most of the Byki apps are $7.99, so this is an excellent way to see how Byki approaches vocabulary and phrase learning while putting on a little Irish! I have the Byki apps for a few different languages on my iPhone and computer. The Byki language apps are really good at helping you learn vocabulary and phrases from a wide variety of languages and now, for St….

Reviews

Review: Memorize Words for Spanish for iPhone

Sometimes applications are big and splashy and exciting. Sometimes they are quite, unassuming, and just do what they do very well. But it’s not often you run into applications that don’t even really present you with a startup splash screen before going into the actual program. Memorize Words for Spanish isn’t flashy, it goes right into the program with out announcing itself via a title screen, and its name isn’t particularly flashy or clever, but it clearly speaks to the thing that this application does – it helps you memorize Spanish words. I’ve looked at a lot of different language applications over the past…

How to Do It Yourself!

Travel Tips on a Snowy Day

I got back from San Francisco just in time to be snowed in here in New Jersey. It was the quickest trip to the West Coast that I have ever taken but it was actually the easiest. I don’t tend to do a tremendous amount of traveling. In an average year I’ll be on a plane four or six times maximum. I am, however, currently in the midst of an unusual period that has me flying quite a bit more than usual. In the last 3 1/2 weeks I have been on six different flights and I have another trip…

Gear Bits

Travel With The booq Taipan Lift

I am reviewing the booq Taipan Lift ($89.95 – $99.95) by using it during my quick trip to San Francisco for TeleNav’s Waypoint. It is a briefcase style laptop bag which, to be quite honest, isn’t my preference. (I tend to like messenger bags and backpacks.) Having just gone through airport security, however, I am totally sold on this bag for travel. There are, in fact, three specific design aspects of it that have already come in rather handy.

Reviews

PhoneSuit Primo “Made For iPod, Works w/iPhone” Battery Review

The iPhone has been great for the aftermarket battery business. I don’t know any power-user who does not carry at least one additional method of charging the device. I’ve tried, and been impressed by many. Most recently PhoneSuit sent me one of their Primo Micro Batteries to try out. The last product from PhoneSuit that I had the chance to review was the Mili. It had a design similar to the original Mophie Juice Pack. I liked it a lot and got a good bit of use out of it before giving it to a friend. The Primo takes a…

How to Do It Yourself!, Reviews

Staying Motivated: Learning a Language on a Budget, Week Six

photo credit: woodleywonderworks So you’ve been at this language learning thing for a while now and you find yourself losing interest – or getting too busy – or whatever the case may be! Now a few days or even weeks have gone by and you need to get yourself back into studying again. One of the most important things in learning a language is to keep working at it and using it. If you don’t, you will start to lose what you’ve learned already. So how do you keep yourself motivated? How do you keep things interesting? This week, I’ll…

Reviews

Scottevest Cotton Hoodie Review

The Cotton Hoodie from Scottevest has an MSRP of $70 and is available now. Now I know what you’re thinking — $70 is a little bit expensive for a cotton hoodie. And, in most cases you’re absolutely correct. A quick Google search for the garment yields a host of various offerings that are, for the most part significantly less than $70. Then again, those hoodies aren’t from Scottevest. Those hoodies don’t combine comfort with the kind of organizational system SEV is known for. So yes, this particular garment comes at a slight premium cost-wise but what you get for that…

« 1 … 16 17 18 19 20 »