Gravitational Pull: A blog about tech and other stuff.

  • Amazon: Follow Apple’s lead and don’t blow Kindle opportunity

    I think it’s fair to say I’ve been of the earliest, strongest and most prolific fans of Amazon’s fabulous electronic book reader, the Kindle, since the day they unveiled it, just about 14 months ago. I’ve defended the Kindle against reviews from people who’d never actually had one, iPhone fans who like to read their…

  • Making the transition to a Blackberry Curve

    Well, the two-year handcuffs on my Verizon-locked Treo 700p smartphone finally came off and it was time to reevaluate. The biggest downside to the Treo was its miniscule battery life, though its bulky weight was another serious bummer. My company pays for the phone so my replacement choices were fairly limited. Since my wife appears…

  • Better to choose form or function for new printer

    Where is fantasy bred, in the heart or in the head? -Willie Wonka (channeling The Merchant of Venice) My basic office printer, an HP Deskjet 6980, is having major problems seeing its ink cartridges and out-of-warranty repairs cost more than a new printer so…time for something new. As HP values ink more highly than gold,…

  • New York Times killing Times File – How to move your library

    Terrible news for those who love news today. I was reading a story about e-books in the New York Times this morning and I decided it was worth saving as a future reference. I clicked the little “save” button, as I’ve been doing for the past three years or so, to place a link to…

  • Last minute gift ideas for iPod owners and the gadget deprived

    Not much time left before the year-end holidays are upon us. Still stumped for the perfect little gift for your gadget-loving friends and relations? Here are a few suggestions based on things we actually bought and used this year around Casa GravitationalPull.net. Links below are mostly to manufacturers’ pages, but I’m sure you can find…

  • WordPress 2.7 is the best WordPress yet

    When WordPress 2.5 came out a few months ago, there was a lot to like but there was also a lot to not-so-like. The layout of key parts of the program, including the dashboard and the editing page for new posts, didn’t seem very well thought out. The overall design was visually noisy and distracting,…

  • Wow, those Fran’s Salted Caramels are good

    A little off-topic, but while doing some holiday gift shopping, I discovered this little box of delicious-looking Fran’s smoked salt caramels. I decided that before I got them for anybody as a gift, I’d better check and make sure they were tasty. Answer? YES. I’m calling this photograph “guilty as charged” for obvious reasons. p.s.…

  • Bluehost Internet hosting service eases upgrades with SimpleScripts

    I have generally good things to say about my web hosting service, Bluehost. They are very reliable, with uptime for my site of over 99.5% (at least since I started monitoring it in September using the free SiteUpTime service). Bluehost also offer lots of add-ons and free services, like high-end spam filtering and automatic installation…

  • Using Applescript to send articles to my Kindle

    I’m constantly finding new ways to use my Kindle e-book reader. Lately, I’ve found a way to save eye strain and trees when reading long magazine articles posted online. Instead of reading them on my laptop, and making my eyes watery and tired, or printing them out on a zillion pieces of paper, wasting all…

  • Which is smarter? An old-old phone or a new-new phone?

    Planning for a little office reshuffling and reorganzing, the mind of the gadget geek turns to gadgets, unsurprisingly. Ever since I got hooked on AMC’s Mad Men show, I’ve been remembering the visceral pleasure I used to get when I had an old-fashioned, multi-line phone on my desk in a long-ago newsroom. You remember them,…

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