Monthly Archives: October 2008

Gadgets October 22, 2008 posted by

Satmap Active 10 Sports GPS – ninja satnav is hard as nails, and twice as bolshy

The Satmap Active10 Sports GPS is not for you whiny, weedy car drivers, oh no. We’re talking a waterproof, shock proof rugged, 2900mAh Lithium Polymer battery miser of a satellite navigation device which will guide you up the side of Mount WallaWalla and down again before breakfast without breaking wind. Yep, the Sherpa Tensing of handhelds, this. 3.5 inch screen and SD card map storage covering all the important dangerous places you’ll want to go on a Sunday afternoon. As long as they’re…

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Gadgets October 22, 2008 posted by

USB Warmer Mouse Pad – global warming? Meet Mr Credit Crunch

This USB Warmer Pad is just the thing for our new energy conscious, credit crunch capped lifestyle. Turn down the thermostat, stick your handy pandys into the fleece lined, USB powered warmer and you’ll be toasty as you work that mortgage spreadsheet to death trying to find a way out. Available in two nauseatingly cheery designs and priced at a budget friendly $14.50.  Winter is coming!! Is it too chilly to use mouse when working in such a cold weather…

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Gadgets October 22, 2008 posted by

Talking Fly Swatter – get those pesky pests buzzing with laughter, why doncha?

Talking Fly Swatter. Not sure about you, but we just love the sound of wise-cracking mirth as we hunt down and exterminate them nasty flies in our locale. Hasta La Vista! Die Sucker! 2 Points! It’s wonderful stuff. Not sure Mr Bluebottle shares our joy though. Ah well… $19.99.  Don’t get mad about flies, mosquitos, and other airborn pests. Just GET ‘EM with this wisecracking fly swatter that grounds them first and then really lets them have it. Each hit…

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Gadgets October 22, 2008 posted by

Waves iGTR Portable Amplifier – rock out in private and spare the neighbours. Please…

The Waves iGTR Portable Amplifier is designed to solve the rising problem of neighbourhood vandalism and torture, by giving aspiring rockers a way to ‘get down, man’ to their own sounds without disturbing the peace. Just stick your Fender axe into one end, an iPod into the other, a set of headphones on your noggin and off you go. Crank it up to 11 – man, that’s a tired old joke, eh? – and let rip. I have a feeling that…

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Bookmark This! October 22, 2008 posted by

Learn Chinese Characters – freeware program lets you learn the language from the comfort of your own servant’s quarters

Learn Chinese Characters. Not that we want to suggest anything, of course, but now may be a good time to think about downloading this little freeware program to brush up on the old Chinese lingo a bit. Just in case the credit crunch doesn’t pan out as expected, know what we mean?  LCC (Learn Chinese Characters) is a multimedia program which lets you learn it by yourself. For each character entry, it gives the English definitions, Pinyin and Zhuyin annotations, cross…

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Bookmark This! October 22, 2008 posted by

Kuler – Adobe’s colour theme creator and community offers real value

Kuler is a free color theme designer which combines an easy to use editor with some nice community features like voting and rankings. It’s not overly ambitious, but offers real value if you’re a web designer looking for ideas or inspiration. It also hooks directly into the Adobe Creative Suite design tool set, which makes it a real boon for professionals. Worth a look.  Discover Adobe Kuler — the web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project….

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Cool Web Apps & Sites October 22, 2008 posted by

Moviestorm – find some direction

Moviestorm is a do-it-yourself package for creating 3D animated CGI movies. The free starter kit kicks you off with the movie creation studio, some generic people, sets and props. Build your sets, furnish and light them and start reliving your fave scenes from movies or strike out and be the director you’ve always wanted. You have full control over your virtual studio, put people and props wherever you like, record lines for your characters to deliver or if you prefer…

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Moviestorm – find some direction
cool tech October 21, 2008 posted by

Launch Kontrol – remote firework launcher saves fingers and lives

Launch Kontrol is a remote controlled firework launcher. The idea is you attach something called an ‘e-clip’ to the firework fuse, and trigger it remotely to heat the fuse to ignition from a range of 25 metres. No flames, no hands near gunpowder, no risk. It’s an interesting idea, especially since you can set five fireworks to go off in one sequence. The unit costs £19.99 and refill e-clips (they’re burnt up see?) are £10.00. Gunpowder treason and plot.  The…

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Gadgets October 21, 2008 posted by

Ray Gun Channel Changer – zap as you hop as you view

The Ray Gun Channel Changer promises to bring peace, harmony and unrivalled hilarity to your living room sofa. Point implement at television, press trigger and channel will change up or down. Or the volume will go up or down. Or something. Cue alien voice and leader joke. £9.95.  Fashioned to resemble a ray gun from some crummy old sci-fi B-movie, this comedy remote is ideal for all you space outlaws who have a love/hate relationship with the magic rectangle. Simply…

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Gadgets October 21, 2008 posted by

Magic Message Mirror – mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the safest of them all…?

The Magic Message Mirror or M30P looks like an ordinary wall mirror. But it’s connected to your home security system and should an event occur, like a door opening or someone coming up the driveway, it’ll sound off via a kind of weird English butler CGI effigy and vocal. It’s a strange but oddly interesting concept. The thing – Basil the Mirror – ships with 10 phrases, although the company claims that they have over 100 available for use. No word…

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cool tech October 21, 2008 posted by

Clipdiary – the free clipboard manager with history

Clipdiary is a free clipboard manager which saves all your clipboard contents in a database for future use. Which sounds like it could be pre-tty useful. Especially since I often wish I could retrieve URLs or street addresses which I’ve captured days earlier and lost. Oh and the times I’ve lost stuff because the application has hung. Hmm….I’ve just installed it, and we’ll see how it goes. I think it’ll be a keeper all right.  In most cases, that isn’t…

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but is it art? October 21, 2008 posted by

The Human Calendar – make your day the people way…

Heh, the Human Clock guy is back, this time with the Human Calendar which is, yep you’ve guessed it, a calendar made out of real people. True to form, it’s fun, lively and entertaining. Enjoy!  All of the “models” are various homogeneous friends of mine who happened to find themselves near my garage between April-July 2007. Granted, most were lured with beer, food, lodging, or in one case…meat. Nearly everyone is from Portland, Oregon with the occasional person from Saipan…

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Hacks & How to October 21, 2008 posted by

Mobile Broadband Roaming – how to grab fast Internet cheaply while travelling

I spent a few weeks wandering around Europe and Scandinavia this summer and learned a few things about catching mobile broadband access at the right kind of price which I thought I might share with you. First off, mobile broadband roaming is disgustingly expensive if you do it via the normal, use your own SIM card way. Data roaming prices are the 21st century form of piracy, and the sooner the authorities clamp down on it, the better. That said, there…

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Mobile Broadband Roaming – how to grab fast Internet cheaply while travelling
Gadgets October 21, 2008 posted by

SentrySafe Fireproof Databox – no fire in this hole

So you think your data’s safe eh? Got RAID equipped hard drives? Got sequential backup of your important stuff? Ok, so what if there’s a fire and it’s all destroyed? Have you got an offsite backup? Well don’t worry, Think Geek has got you covered with the SentrySafe Fireproof Databox … but before you click off thinking it’s just another fireproof bitbox, read on. As well as being able to hold 60 CDs or DVDs, having a 30 minute fireproof…

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SentrySafe Fireproof Databox – no fire in this hole
Gadgets October 20, 2008 posted by

Magnetic Air Car – so how well does it stick to the road, dude?

Update: the photos of the car used in this company’s official marketing material and web site, as well as in the article linked to below have been taken without permission from the site of Factory Five, a kit car maker from the US who produce a $19,990 GTM Supercar kit. You must draw your own conclusions! This Magnetic Air Car appears to be an absolute miracle of engineering. We’re talking a vehicle that will travel at 100 mph plus for…

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