Gadge

"Oregon Scientific WMR-100 Professional Weather Station"

2008-05-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

The "Oregon Scientific WMR-100 Professional Weather Station" is available from Amazon for £169.67.

This was the weather station that the Gadget Show liked.

To read more and order it if you want to click on the link below.

Please note that the information above is correct at the time of writing but that both
price and availability may change at Amazon.

Liked The Airzooka best

2008-05-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

...on this weeks Gadget Show. Here's a fairly comprehensive list of what else they had on - where there is a link - it is a link to the item at Amazon.

The two phones were the Nokia - N82 and the LG KU990 Viewty Sim Free Mobile Phone - Black.
The three televisions were the Samsung PS5OQ97HDX and the Philips 47PFL5522D - 47" Widescreen HD Ready LCD TV - With Freeview
(the price for this telly at Amazon is way higher than the price shown on the Gadget show - not sure why. The prices in Amazon New and Used section were lower but still over £1000).
The third telly was the LT-47DV8BJ.
The night vision goggles were the Cobra Optics Storm Pro and the The Yukon Tracker NVG 1X24
The top 5 office toys were the Airzooka Air Gun, the Fireball Gun, Thumbs Up Fake Brick, the Firebrand Elasticband Gun and Toy Crossbow.
The sat navs. were the TomTom ONE v3 Great Britain and the Magellan RoadMate 1200 Great Britain & Ireland

Finally there was the Dirtsurfer Flexi-deck 20 Inch Pro.

Hope that was of some help.

The Irish Independent reviews the Sony Walkman NWZ-A816

2008-01-10T06:15:00.000-08:00

..and they liked it - you can read the review here.

There are also a lot of positive reviews of the Sony Walkman NWZ-A816 at the link below (and at the time of writing it is on sale)

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I'm going to stick with my Ipod though - I have had a few difficulties with it - but I probably now love it more than I love some members of my own family.

I do, however, really like the Sony Walk man ad.

The Celestron Nexstar 6 SE. A Recommendation.

2008-01-06T09:04:00.000-08:00

Today's Sunday Times' In Gear Section reviews telescopes and the one they gave a 5 star (top) rating to is the CELESTRON NEXSTAR 6 SE and you can read more about it here:

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The Times' article was entitled "Reach For The Stars From Your Backyard", which is a fair enough title - though we call our backyard our back garden, but whatever you call it the fact is that if you live in London, as I did for about 10 years before moving to Cambridge, or any other large city the light pollution makes star gazing difficult.

My wife and I once went to Arizona to visit some relatives who live in Tuscon and one night whilst driving across the desert we stopped the car, got out and stared at a night sky that was so big that it made me feel small and slightly scared in a way that was different to how I sometimes felt small and slightly scared whilst in North London.

So that view of the Arizona night sky caught my imagination - but not as much as the view of the night sky we had whilst once on holiday in Turkey. The holiday was a last minute booking via teletext (which I reckon is still the best and cheapest way of booking last minute holidays) for a week in a place called Karaagac. It was a small resort in the mountains that rise up from the sea in the south western corner of Turkey.

Here is a photo of the view:

The whole place was fantastic, just a few stone cottages, a small restaurant and bar, a pool, a few wild tortoises and very little else. It was the kind of place where you could just feel all that was tiresome and bothersome and irritating just fall away.

By the pool there was a telescope. I think it was a fairly basic one but the views through it of the full moon in the clear sky were extraordinary, and this time I didn't feel small and a little scared - maybe because I'd drunk too much Turkish lager - but I just felt exactly how you'd imagine a slightly drunk bloke halfway up a Turkish mountain staring at the moon would feel.

(If you can't imagine it - and if you can bothered just make something up)

The effect this view had on my wife is quite easy to explain - inspired by the mysteries of the Universe she decided to quit her job in IT, go back to university and become a scientist. Her mentor in this was a friend of ours who had a doctorate in chemistry and who was an amateur astronomer. We would meet him in a pub by the canal that runs under Caledonian Road in North London and we would sit in the pub garden and as dusk fell he would point out the constellations and the planets, before getting quite animated about the importance of physics (I think he saw chemistry as a branch of physics).

My wife did intend to study physics - but somewhere along the line she changed her mind and instead of looking up at the sky she started looking down at the ground - and decided to become a geolgist.

Anyway I rang my chemist friend up today and I asked him about the telescope and he said that it was a very good one for beginners and seeing as he knows more about astronomy than anyone I know that is good enough for me.

Gadgets for Indoor Plants.

2008-01-05T11:46:00.000-08:00

This is not really my area of expertise as I tend to kill plants with a swaggering, though thoroughly unintentional ease. However I saw these indoor plant gadgets in today's Telegraph and was most taken by them - especially the Smeg Home Garden because it really is quite beautiful and clever - though at £900 it is beautiful, clever and expensive. (If you click on the photo it will take to the Smeg Catalogue and you can see how much cleverness your £900 will get you)

My wife does like gardening - and she does spend a huge amount of time growing herbs - which are then devoured by the vast oregano, thyme and basil gorged slug army that live in our garden. So, because I'd much rather have homegrown oregano with my pasta than the freeze dried stuff you get from Tescos, the gadget that the Telegraph recommended that I liked the most was the Aero Grow. I know you can grow herbs in traditional pots - but every time we try we tend to kill them - so this could be the solution.

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The Telegraph also recommended the self watering plant tray, and I'm not sure if the one in the above advert is the type they were writing about - but it does look pretty useful if you live in a flat (or are forgetful). I've also added the self watering stone pots because they got a good review and I thought they looked pretty nice.

The Telegraph also suggested the Streamgarden - which I thought looked like something out of a British Sci-Fi show from the seventies. You can read more about it here.
They also recommended the Plantpal watering system - and their homepage is here.

Finally the first two books about indoor gardening in the advert below both have good reviews - and the third has a brilliantly odd title. (Why 37 plants? Surely there must be more than 37 idiot proof plants that I could grow.)

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The Canon Digital IXUS 70. An Independent Review.

2008-01-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas my wife decided that she wanted a new compact digital camera. Usually when it comes to buying gadgets it is usually me that makes the decisions and I straight away suggested the Sony DSC - T200 as it tended to come out top in most surveys that I had read.

But my wife ignored me totally. She made a list of criteria that the camera had to meet, did her own research and came back with this camera.

What she was after was a camera that was small enough to fit into a handbag or pocket, a camera that had a reasonable zoom, a decent mega pixel image quality and a camera that had a short shutter lag.

... and it had to be reasonably priced

And this camera ticked all the boxes. Hopefully as the photo shows the camera is ultra compact - my wife is a geologist and she wanted something small that would not be too bulky for her field trips and this was dead easy to tuck away in her rucksack. It also fits easily into her handbag or my jacket pocket. It really is about as bulky as an average mobile phone. The 7.1 mega pixel quality is more than enough for what we use it for, and the zoom is a 3X optical zoom - which means that as it zooms in there is no discernible loss of quality, (and if you need more "zoom" you can use the digital zoom feature to get that little bit extra).

Where we disagreed over her choice was over the question of shutter lag (the time between pressing the shutter button and the image being captured). Shutter lag is a problem with digital cameras and if like us you have a small child who has much better things to do than sit still it is important to get a camera with a short shutter lag. The Canon IXUS 70 has a shutter lag of about 0.32 of a second which is not too bad - but that is without the flash. With the flash this time became a second - which I think is rather high.

My suggested camera - the Sony DSC T200 has very quick shutter lag - (0.15 seconds) and with the flash this only went up to 0.48 seconds. However it is also a lot more expensive being about £230 - where as the Canon Ixus 70 is £125.

It is worth pointing out that the Canon Ixus 70 does has a nice LCD viewfinder, and it has that clever feature of flicking photos round from landscape to portrait in the viewfinder when you tilt the camera up (which is kind of what the iphone does - so that was a nice bonus because I can't imagine myself ever getting an iphone). We have also been really impressed with the camera's quality at recording videos and we have found the controls very easy to use.

In conclusion I think that the Canon Ixus 70 is a great camera for the price - but if you can afford the extra £100 then the Sony DSC T200 is a better compact digital. However for a real bargain it may be worth getting the Canon Ixus 75 - a camera that has received very good reviews, with all the great features of the Canon Ixus 70 but with some improvements in picture quality. It does tend to get very good reviews. At the time of me writing this it is currently on sale at Amazon for under £140.

Please note that if you do buy the Canon Ixus 70 then you'll need to get a memory disk - (my wife recommends a 2 GB SanDisk) and a camera case. All the prices quoted above may change and whilst I think that my facts are all correct you should double check by reading the manufacturers specifications.

Hope you found this useful.

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Sound ASleep ipod - mp3 player Pillow. An Independent Review

2008-01-02T11:43:00.000-08:00

I bought one of these pillows for my sister for Christmas and she seemed to be delighted with it. It's a pretty simple device - you plug the cable into your Ipod/Mp3 player with the cable which comes attached to the pillow (shown below) and you can hear the music through the pillow.

The sound quality was pretty good - (certainly better than the RadioShack Pillow Speaker which I own, and which I think sounds tinny). Your whole pillow acts as a pair of headphones and whilst the volume remains low - the sound is clear. It's perfect if you want to lie in bed and listen to music, whilst resting or reading, without using the earphones on your ipod. It's also quiet enough not to disturb anyone else in bed.

The reason why my sister liked it was because she has a 4 month old baby and she is now able to listen to music (or podcasts or even television shows) lying in bed in a way that does not disturb her baby, and because she does not need earphones she can still hear him.

It's also a very comfortable pillow and it is very reasonably priced.

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Sunday Times InGear Games of the Year

2007-12-16T07:43:00.000-08:00

Here are the Sunday Times InGear Games of the Year:

and here is a YouTube promo of Crysis:

here is a YouTube promo of Wario Ware, Smooth Moves:

and here is a YouTube promo of Project Gotham Racing 4

(Please note that Half-Life 2 is multi format - and that the link below is to the PS3 version.)

Here is a Half Life2: The Orange Box YouTube promo

Here is a World in Conflict YouTube promo

and here is a Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass YouTube promo

Amazon reckon you should be able to get your stuff by Christmas if you buy from them before the 18th (Standard Delivery), the 19th (First Class) or the 22nd (Express) - though, as in life generally - there are no absolute guarantees.

Today's Telegraph suggested these Presents for Petrolheads.

2007-12-15T10:48:00.000-08:00

..so I'll provide you with some links for those, for a book that was recommended in today's Times and I'll suggest a couple of my own.

In his Telegraph column James May recommended the Dyson DC16 for cleaning the car (which is a brilliant suggestion), The Times recommended "Chapman's Car Compendium" and I've added a Top Gear DVD - because it is easily my favourite programme on TV at the moment. I've also included Bruce Springsteen's new LP - because I've never meet anyone who likes cars a lot who doesn't like Broooce, and because I'm going to see him on Wednesday at the O2.

The Maplin Self Heating Gloves Are Available from here.

Booze Cruze and Crap Trumps are available from Amazon (as are the remote control Ferrari and the Clarkson book)

The Modnwld tee-shirts are available here:
The Pretty Taxing discs are available here:

Sega Rally is available from Amazon: (for Xbox, PS3, PSP and PC).

Hope it was useful - and because it's my blog and I can do what I want I'm going to post a YouTube video of Springsteen doing Thunder Road.

Navman S Series

2007-12-15T07:39:00.000-08:00

The "Navman S Sat Nav" series range from the S30 entry level Sat. Nav. to the high end S90i Sat. Nav.

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I'll try to point out some of the differences between the various models.

The S30 is a very nice entry level model that is not bad value at under £130. It's a good model for regular day to day use - (by families for example). It is straight forward to use, the verbal instructions are clear and precise and it comes with maps of Ireland and the UK

The S70 (£165) has a few more feature than the S30 - some of the main ones being that the screen is slightly larger, it has Western European maps and it has bluetooth. It is a useful model for people who regularly visit the continent - or who drive for a living.

The S90i (£235) is the high end model in the range and a lot of reviews have questioned whether the cost is worth it. It does come with a lifetime subscription to real-time traffic information and "voice to text" which can read out the road and place names as well as giving instructions. It's very good - but I'm not personally convinced it's good value.

Finally it is worth mentioning that the Navman series use TeleAtlas to provide the maps for their SatNavs. Some people are critical of TeleAtlas and argue that Navteq provide better maps, but in fairness there are just as many people that argue that TeleAtlas maps are better. My conclusion is there are some small flaws in both sets of maps and people's opinions are shaped by whichever system has let them down.

Higher end models in this range (the S70 and S90) have the NavPix- navigate to pictures feature - which is very clever - but I think that whether you like it or not depends somewhat on whether you regard your SatNav as a tool to do a job - or whether you like your gadgets to be clever.

Hope this was useful. Some of the reviews at Amazon do make interesting reading.

Here is their advert.

and here is another one.

Still time to shop online

2007-12-14T17:20:00.000-08:00

..and here are some of the best selling electronic goods - which should still be in stock

IMPERIAL WIRELESS AND LEISURE

These are Some of the Gadgets that were on this week's Gadget show

2007-12-12T07:22:00.001-08:00

..for those that did not catch their names. Hope it's useful.

Unfortunately the Pleo has sold out at Amazon (and pretty much everywhere else it seems). I think you can buy them on E-Bay - but they are from American dealers so as well as paying through the nose - you are going to have to be quick to get them shipped over here to the UK for Xmas. Also the Dr Who Talking Head thingy also comes as a Cyber Man.

And this is a round up of what they thought were the best televisions.

If you click on the links you can read reviews at the Amazon site - (Apologies if some of the products are out of stock)

Silverlit Picoo Z Sky Challenger- A review (of sorts)

2007-12-10T14:47:00.000-08:00

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This is not me and my family but I like this video of what you can do with a Picoo Z Toy Helicopter. A friend of mine has one (or at least his 6 year old has) and despite our combined age being about 80 we had great fun playing with it (it was certainly better than watching England lose to Croatia - the reason why I was round his house).

So clearly the helicopter was better entertainment than England under Steve McClaren. However tonight's "Gadget Show" on channel 5 featured the Silverlit Picoo Z Sky Challenger- which comes with two helicopters that can dog-fight each other and I reckon that would be more entertaining than England under two Steve McClarens - or maybe that should be half a Steve McClaren. I know what I mean - and if you don't then you can read another review at the Amazon page at the link above.