Name: Tynan
Location: Somewhere on the globe

I sold it all. The rack with 8 rackmount servers in it, the four robomowers, the two extra laptops, the projector, home theater PC, and the stereo system. Huge bags full of every cable and adapter ever made (in triplicate) were thrown into the trash.

When the dust settled I was left with nothing to my name other than a small school sized backpack and its contents. And it was with this bag and a good friend that I set out to travel around the world indefinitely.

But gadgeteer roots die hard. Inside the unassuming backpack were the results of months of research, reading reviews, and product testing. My friend Todd and I had assembled the ultimate collection of electronics, gadgets, and gear to cover our daily work as well as any possible contingency that may come up.

Here’s what we brought:

The Laptop: Lenovo X61 Tablet PC

The X61 Tablet PC is the best tablet available on the market. The 12″ screen packs a 1400×1050 resolution, which is better than most 19+” monitors. I do all of my work on the laptop, so it’s important to have a lot of workspace.

The tablet feature is extremely useful for the faxes I inevitably have to send, and the forms that need to be filled out (quick tip: if you don’t have a tablet, scan your signature before going on a trip).

I’m always partial to Thinkpads anyway. The build quality is higher than any other laptop I’ve used (and I’ve used a lot…), and I love the eraser like TrackPoint. Now that I’m used to it I actually greatly prefer it over a regular mouse (thus the Mogo got sold before I left).

The laptop has a fingerprint reader and I’ve encrypted my files so that if it gets stolen on the road I don’t have to worry. I use Super Flexible File Synchronizer to synchronize my important files every night automatically.

Bonus: I use the new Lenovo slim 90W AC/DC adapter. It’s very thin and works in airplanes and rental cars, as well as the more standard home outlets.

The Phone: Nokia E90

Once again, the Nokia was mainly chosen because of its resolution. The inside screen is 800×352 which makes it easy to look at maps with the built in Nokia Maps, use SlovoEd to translate things, or view web pages.

The Nokia has a built in GPS which takes a little longer to lock than a regular automotive GPS, but once it’s locked it works just as well. Nokia provides maps of most areas of the world for free with navigation available at a reasonable rate.

Perhaps the best thing about the E90 is that it supports VOIP calls, so I can call back to the US for under 2 cents per minute whenever I’m near wifi.

The Watch: Suunto X9mi

Sometimes the phone runs out of batteries, or gets left at home by accident. The Suunto X9mi is the best (possibly the only) watch with built in GPS navigation. Other GPS watches will tell you your speed and distance, but the Suunto X9mi has the additional function of navigating to waypoints.

That means that we use the watches as odometers when we run, but then we also use it to find our favorite restaurants. Here in Tokyo they don’t really have addresses, so we rely completely on the E90 and these watches.

The watch also has a bunch of other features like an altimeter (I used it for skydiving), a barometer, a stopwatch, and a thermometer.

The Camera: Epson R-D1S

I would give a kidney (or a kid if I had any) before I gave up this camera. It’s a digital rangefinder, which is a type of camera that most people have never heard of. It’s manual focus, manual aperture, manual ISO, and no zoom. But, it’s WAY smaller (half the size in volume) of even a small SLR, but it has the same exact sensor as an SLR and uses high quality Leica lenses.

Here are the pictures I’ve taken with it on the trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22377643@N08/

The Video Camera: JVC GZ-HD7

I carry the digital camera and my friend carries this video camera. Despite being relatively tiny it records in full HD at 1920x1080i and stores it all on a built in 60gb drive. That means that when we go on little side trips we don’t need to worry about offloading video or taking a bunch of tapes.

The one downside to this camera is that the anti-shake isn’t great, but the incredible image quality makes up for it.

The Media Player: Creative ZEN 16gb

I wish I had the 32gb, but it wasn’t out when we left on the trip. The ZEN is the best player around. I’ve always hated ipods with the stupid scroll wheels and form-over-function priorities.

This player gets 52 hours of audio playback, sounds fantastic, weighs next to nothing, and has a good screen for watching TV shows. It has real buttons with tactile feedback so you can change the song while it’s in your jacket pocket or while you’re driving.

Capacity can be expanded with an SD card and it charges with a tiny little USB cable that’s also used to transfer songs. Perfect for traveling.

The Headphones: Etymotic Research ER-4S

I’ve heard that the Shure headphones rival or even beat the Etys, but I’ve had these for ten years now and they’ve never let me down. Getting perfect sound from a speaker system costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The equivalent fidelity (minus the thumping bass, of course) can be achieved for just a few hundred dollars with the Etymotic Research headphones.

Forget BOSE noise cancellation headphones with mediocre quality. These troopers actually block MORE sound just by insulating you from it. Sometimes I leave them in to sleep on the plane even if I’m not listening to music.

The Plug Converter: APC INPA

Like most people, perhaps even you, I never really cared about plug converters. They were clunky collections of plastic adapters that fit clumsily in a cloth bag. Not anymore. The APC INPA is a brilliant piece of design that combines every possible plug you’d need into a very small package.

It’s two ways, as well. You can plug a Russian cord into a Taiwanese socket just as easily as you can plug a Taiwanese cord into a Russian socket.

The Flashlight: Arc-AAA Premium

Want a bright flashlight that is barely bigger than the battery that powers it? I haven’t found anything better than this. Well, except for the new one they came out with after I left that’s 20% brighter. Man, I wish I had that one.

I used this when the shower light went out in a Tokyo apartment we rented as well as when I was running laps around a deserted island at night to exercise. Whenever I hold it I’m awed by how bright it is.

That’s about all the gear we have, other than chargers. We’ve been on the road (skies?) for two and a half months now and haven’t missed anything we left behind, other than the people.

To read more about our trip, go to www.lifenomadic.com. I also have a site where I recommend the very best gear in the world at www.bestintheland.com.

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Tynan originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 26, 2008 at 8:30 pm.

Name: Livy Lee
Location: Singapore

Hi, I am Livy from Singapore. I am a female gadget lover and none of my female friends share the same interests with me.

I started buying electronic stuffs in year 2003 November, I got myself a brand new Tungsten T3 and at that time it was the latest model by PalmOne. Since then, I entered the fantastic world of Palm. I started to shop for other accessories for my Tungsten T3, such as a wireless keyboard, a Palm PowerToGo, a Krusell leathercase, etc. But these were not enough, after a month, I rushed out to buy another hot Pocket PC of that year, an iPaq h2210 (aka h2215) to experience a different operating system.

Later, out of curiosity, I bought myself some OS4 Palm devices to play with the DA utilities and Hacks, as we all know, these little DAs were more usable in Palm OS4 than OS5 devices. When I saw some good offerings, I would BUY (and regret later). This is a list of PDAs that I had owned previously:

- Two Tungsten T3
- iPaq h2210
- Sony CLIE SJ30
- Sony CLIE TJ37
- Sony CLIE TG50
- Handspring Treo90
- Tapwave Zodiac 2 (128MB)
- Two Tungsten C
- Tungsten T2
- Sony CLIE SJ33
- Palm m500
- Handspring Treo180

- HandEra 330
- Zire 71
- Acer s10 (Palm OS4)
- Asus MyPal A716
- PalmOne Treo600
- Acer n30 (PPC)
- Two Treo650
- Dell X50v

Currently, I have only Treo 650 (my everyday device), Tungsten C, Acer n30 PPC and Acer s10 monochrome palm. I felt so guilty to own many PDAs so I sold off the rest. For my Treo 650, I am using Seidio Silicone case, Seidio 2400mAh battery, Seidio 2-in-1 headset and a Brando workshop sync-charge cable.

Besides my love for PDAs (mainly Palm), I like Apple computer. I am using a 20-inch iMac (2.16GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo) as my primary desktop computer. With this, I have a 300 gb 3.5″ portable hard disk to store music albums and hook it up to a Squeezebox 3. I also own 12-inch iBook (1.3GHz) with 80gb hard disk installed, a 14-inch Toshiba Satellite 2400 laptop that I used mainly in school, together with a 30gb portable hard disk (an original hard disk extracted from my iBook) full of music mainly encoded in FLAC and ALAC.

Another gadget that I am obsessed with is headphone. I use my headphones to listen music everyday and it is always by my side with few full-sized headphones at home and some in-ear-monitors on the go. I started off this hobby not long ago in July 2005, with a Little Dot II budget tube amplifier, a Sennheiser HD650 and a budget NAD C521BEE CD Player. Since then, I am hooked and changed my interest from PDA over to headphones. The upgraditis bugs bite me very hard:

Headphones I had owned and gone are:
- Grado GS1000 (Statement series)
- Sennheiser HD650
- Beyerdynamic DT880 (pre-2006)
- DT990 (current flagship) Grado SR-60
- Alessandro MS2i
- Audio Technica ATH-CM5
- ATH-FC7
- Shure E4C
- Etymotics ER6i

The headphone amplifiers that I had owned and gone:
- Little Dot II
- Aperhead 47 (A47)
- Original Master
- HeadRoom Total Bithead (2005)
- Emmeline SR-71
- Minified PINT
- Xiangsheng 708B
- EarMax Pro

The sources I had owned and gone:
- NAD C521 BEE
- 3rd gen 15gb iPod
- 1st gen 1gb iPod shuffle
- Panasonic SX-280
- Cyrus CD7

So what are my current possession in this head-fi hobby? Below is the list:

Headphone inventory:
- Grado PS-1 (professional series)
- Grado RS-1 (Reference series)
- Alessandro MS-Pro (Music series Pro)
- Audio Technica ATH-W5000 “Raffinato” (made from high quality Japanese Ebony wood, Shimma-kokutan)
- Sennheiser HD600 (stock cable)
- AKG K501
- Koss KSC-75
- Sennheiser MX500
- Etymotics ER-4S
- Shure E5C
- Westone ES2 (custom in-ear-monitor)

Headphone amplifier
- PS Audio GCHA
- Corda HA-2 MKII
- PA2V2

Sources inventory
- CEC TL51XR CDP (as my transport)
- Bel Canto DAC3 (DAC/Preamp)
- Slim devices Squeezebox 3 (network music player)
- Consonance 1.1 CDP (seldom use)
- 4th gen 20gb iPod
- Panasonic SL-CT720 Portable CDP

Tweaks, Interconnects, and Power-related
- DH Jumbo cones
- Solid Tech Feet of Silence
- Blacksand violet Z1 power cords
- PS Audio Duet Power Center
- Kimber Silver Streaks
- Zu Oxyfuel

I also own a multimedia Aego M speakers for evening music listening, sometime I just want to sit back and relax. Now currently eyeing on the Bel canto M300 mono blocks and the AVI Duo loudspeakers. Sorry about my wallet

Besides these PDAs, apple computers and headphones, I also love my Sony PSP (black). This is my everyday gadget on the go.

A friend of mine had made this comment on me: “You are the only person I know who has changes gadgets so regularly, be it guy or gal…”, so, got some idea now? =)

At last, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people involved in The Gadgeteer, for keeping up the good work. This is the Best Gadget website I have seen with good reviews and news. I enjoy reading them, thank you!

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Livy Lee originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 21, 2007 at 7:11 pm.

Name: Nelson Pereira
Location: Portugal

Hi! My name is Nelson Pereira and I’m 27. I live in Portugal near Porto(Port wine anyone?). I’m a swim teacher and a Network engineering student. In my (very rare) free time I like to do some photography. You can see some older pictures here: http://community.webshots.com/user/glitchmaker. Now let’s speak of gadgets. To me gadgets are like toys, and boy, how I like to play. Every time I see a new gadget I have two questions in mind. 1) Can I afford it and 2) What excuse do I need to give myself to buy it. With that said my list of gadgets is long (but not much):

Lets start with computers:
Compaq presario CDTV 528 running SuSE Linux (donated to me)
Toshiba Satellite 1710 CDT (6 year and still kiking, my first laptop)
Dell OptiPlex GX240 with LG Flatron 1510 touch screen (serving as MythTV media center)
Apple PowerBook 12” G4 1.5 Ghz
Generic AMD 2400+ with a Samsung 959 NF 19” CTR (this where I type)

PDA’s:
HP Jornada 720
Palm Tungsten T
Apple Newton MessagePad
Matsucom OnHandPC
Xircom RexPro (to use with the Jornada)

Media Players:
Welltech mp3 alarm Clock
Apple Ipod 20Gb 3rd Gen (the gorgeous)
Nano ripoff 512mb
SMC Wireless audio Adapter

Portable game Consoles:
Nintendo Gameboy pocket
Nintendo Gameboy Advance
Sony Playstation Portable

Random gadgets:
Belkin Anywhere Power Inverter
Magellan GPS 320
Polar S625X training Computer
Tivoli Audio Model one (the best radio (my) money can buy)
Bluespoon AX Bluetooth headset (earset)
SonyEricsson V800 Mobile Phone
MacFer 5 Led Lamp (everybody loves LEDs)
ColdHeat Soldering Iron
Wifi Detector
Minolta Dimage Z1

Hope you enjoy my little list of gadgets. I still don’t have a laser pointer because I want a green or blue one…:P But gadgets means nothing if do not do anything more with the other. Always try to think you can do for other and no the opposite. So I send the best regards to everybody from sunny Portugal and as we say here: Até Breve! (see you soon).

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Nelson Pereira originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 17, 2007 at 2:09 pm.

Name: Richard Raborn MD
Location: Boynton Beach, Florida

I am a 55 year old Internist in Boynton Beach Florida, a volunteer Medical Director at Caridad Center, and am in private practice with MDVIP, and am Chief of Staff at Bethesda Memorial Hospital

I have had a longtime interest in computers in medicine. My first business computer was by Bas-Med which was put out of business by Medic+. After all that hassle, I thought there must be better and easier ways to get information about patients to doctors and insurance companies. I wanted to use a device that made sense. I am a Star Trek fan. Handheld devices make sense! I have always been an early adopter of technology. I started using an early Palm to send prescrptions directly to phamacies that were legible thru Ephysician (now out of business). I have used phones such as the Samsung Que which was also Palm based. Later I purchased a Clio running Win CE and with wireless technology to use in the office. Now I have a Treo 700p and a Fujitsu tablet PC to run mdtablet software.

I lead the medical staff efforts to improve PDA use in the hospital, to improve patient safety, improve physician / nurse communication and save everyone time. The Seimens PDA access works fine with a Treo 700w. We gave out 10 Palm T/X devices as attendance rewards for meetings which came loaded with all the local info to work well in the Bethesda Hospital System. Now we are teaching medical students from the University of Miami and Nova Southeastern University. PDA club meetings have been held. These activities have restored some of the joy in medicine for me. I own an IQue GPS that I have barely used. JAMA Tyler Chin interviewed me for two articles. One on PDA use and another on Holter monitors and computers.

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Richard Raborn MD originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 16, 2006 at 6:36 pm.

Name: Cosimo Bernicchi
Location: Empoli, Italy

My name is Cosimo, I’m 21 years old and I am from Empoli, a little city near Florence in the magnific Tuscany, Italy!! I’m in love with every electronic thing and all my money is spent in computer and electronic stuff!

At the moment I’m a student, I’m studing as nurse at the univertsiy of Florence, and when I’m not studing or play with my “electronic babies” you can find me on ambulance service of my town where I work as a volunteer!

This is the list of my gadgets:

Athlon 64 3200+ 1,5gb Ram, 300gb SATA 2 Maxtor HardDisk, Dual Ati X1800 512 in Crossfire
A brand new macbook 2ghz with 1 gb of ram, suffering of the discolarition problem, already two top case changed!
Nokia 6680 Umts mobilephone
Mio 168 with Tom Tom 5 with one gb Sd card
Hp rx3715
Hp photosmart 335
Wacom 2 Graphic Tablet
Benq 17″ lcd Monitor
Benq Flatbed Scanner (i love Benq)
Fujifilm Finepix a350 with 512mb Xd Card
Logitech Force Feedback Joystick
Microsoft Sidewinder 2 Usb Gamepad
Sony Ericsson z1010
Apple ipod Nano 2gb
Ipod Shuffle 512mb
Canon s500 printer

These are all my actual “toys for big boys” but I have owned many many other toys which I sold to buy the new ones: Psion revo plus, Zaurus sl 5500, Medion md ppc250, Hp Jornada 548

I’ve many passion, medicine, cats, sci-fi (Star Trek, Stargate sg1, Stargate Atlantis), photography, cars, food (of course… I’m Italian ) girls (the biggest one!)

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Read about Featured Gadgeteer – Cosimo Bernicchi originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 18, 2006 at 5:47 pm.

Name: Kerry Woo
Location: Nashville, TN

Greetings from Nashville, Tennessee where the weather is great and the people are friendly! I’m Kerry and yes, I am a gadgeteer. My friends think because of my Asian roots that it is my cultural duty to perpetuate the Asian stereotype with gadgets in hand, which I don’t deny… just visit Las Vegas during a Consumer Electronics Show. For me it is almost like having a Roots experience. I’ve graduated from anything with a power cord attached to wireless and battery powered gadgets.

So in no particular order, I’ll do my best to recall the more significant gadgets in my life. My insurance agent has the full inventory listing, so I won’t bother listing everything.
Back in the sixties, as a young boy with a morning paper route, the necessities included a Philco transistor radio, butane fueled hand warmers, company issued oversized canvas bag to carry newspapers and scoring a grocery store shopping cart to deliver the Sunday papers in. With my savings, I purchased a small b/w RCA TV!

While in high school in Richmond, Virginia, technical classes were offered for three hours/credits for two years to accommodate those who wanted to pursue a non-academic, trade oriented direction. As an aspiring commercial artist, the graphic arts class blew me away! “Are you telling me that I can have 100 copies of my original artwork!?!” Cameras, light tables, printing presses, Linotype hot type machines, drafting tools, letterpresses… I knew my destiny as a gadgeteer was sealed.

My first PC was a Vic Commodore 20. I use to spend hours typing in code from magazines just to come up with a simple math addition program. My son Gary did learn to add and subtract with this basic program. I was fortunate to work at a computer store when the Apple Macintosh was introduced and for $2500, I got myself the 128K Mac, ImageWriter printer and later financed a $5700 LaserWriter Plus which I was able to parlay into a small graphic design firm while riding the momentum as a early adopter of desktop publishing. The kids at age 4 and newborn each received a Mac for Christmas. I still have them and may retrofit them as an aquarium.

This present day, I been through multiple Windows PCs – a HP Pavilion, Systemax, Dells, other HPs… but last year I got a bad case of blue screen of death reboots sickness and fell instantly in love at the Apple store with a nice iMac G5 20” screen with 500 gig of hard drive space and 1.5 of memory and JBL speakers. Yes, I’ve come full circle.

It’s networked with a bundle of NetGear “Home Digital Makeover” stuff that I won at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show to a Xerox laser printer and the Windows PC and Dell laptop via a RangeMax Wireless Router. I’ll get around to using the NetGear Storage Central unit soon; although the Digital Music Player that wirelessly plays music from the PC through the stereo digitally skips a lot.

I’m a big Palm guy, totally blessed with working in the software end of the business with a original Palm Pilot (cracked screen and all), Sony, Zodiacs, Tungsten E and now a Treo 650 and LifeDrive. I’m having a blast using a Bluetooth tomtom Navigator for an “I’ll never have to stop and ask for directions” GPS software on the Treo.

Of course like any gadgeteer, I have a three big boxes of cables, CAT 5 cable, plugs, connectors and old cell phones with busted screens stored in the attic. You just never know when a need might arise for eight power cords!
Besides all of the other stuff like VCRs, DVDs, surround sound stereo, big 36” TV for NFL football and my favorite – DirecTV; there are shelves of VHS tapes, DVDs, 8000 mint condition phonograph records filed A to Z plus my Netflix, Flickr accounts and Napster on the PC. I’ve fallen in love with my Kodak EasyShare Z730 camera, which is a fun gadget to complement my blog (shameless promotion: http://www.wonderdawg777.blogspot.com ) The film based Minolta camera is dormant along with my Sony Camcorder.

Gadgets come and go in a circular fashion – these days it’s all about the upgrade! Having been in the music business and seen the evolution of 8 tracks to cassettes to CDs and the Sony Walkman reborn as the iPod, it simply amazes me how all ages from young to very old have embraced technology. Even my 80-year-old mother in law has ditched the VHS for a DVD player…
Here’s a revelation for me – these electronic gadgets are wonderful, but I’m telling you power tools is pure nirvana! Delta table saws, compound miter saws, cordless drills, Bosch jigsaws and all of the accessories like clamps and levels allow one to build bookshelves and desks to house of the gadgets acquired over the years! Norm Abrams, master carpenter from The New Yankee Workshop is the king of power tools.

All of this stuff is great — but it’s just stuff. If a gadget will help you stay in touch, blog, share photos, foster great personal relationships, build furniture and be a handyman to serve as a helping hand to someone in need, then in the end, it’s all good.

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Read about Featured Gadgeteer – Kerry Woo originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 25, 2006 at 6:34 pm.

Name: Jim Latimer
Location: West Berlin, New Jersey

Gadgets… look in the dictionary and my picture is next to the
definition. I sometimes say that as long as I keep my hat on, the
propeller from the top of my head won’t show too much.

I’ve been a science and gadget geek for as long as I can
remember… Trekkie in high school back in the 70′s,
meteorology/oceanography major in college, and now a HS physics
teacher for 18 years. It’s just a life that screams gadgets. It’s
just in my genes (or gear bag as the case may be).

Current Gadget list:

Palm TX
HP Pavilion ZV5410
IBM a21m
Kodak Z650
Nikon Coolpix 5600
Canon ZR300 digital camcorder
2nd gen 10gb iPod
1gb iPod shuffle
Verizon/Samsung a950
1gb PNY flash drice and other USB flash drives too numerous to
count
2 desktop computers w/wireless network to the laptops and wireless
print servers
Maxpedition Thermite versipack (as a camera bag)
Targus messenger laptop case
Colorado Special Ops sling bag (for everything else)

And I know that the Gadgeteer gene exists, because my 14 year
old son has it too… he’s the inheritor of my hand-me-down gadgets
(Palm T3, T2, m505; 3com Audrey; Olympus Camedia Zoom 4000; IBM
560; Ninos and Velos and Mobilons; Startacs and other cell
phones�anything else I outgrow and
discard).

But seriously, my gadget fetish (can I say that?) has its
purpose in keeping my life organized. As a teacher, my grades,
tests, letters and everything else resides on the laptop. I really
don’t know how I would be able to teach as effectively as I do
without the computer and internet. Online and software simulations
have become a major part of my physics course to help bring the
concepts to life. My Palm keeps my school/Scoutmaster/personal life
from conflicting too much, and the cell phone keeps me in touch
when I’m at a meeting or back in the woods with my scout troop. And
the digital camera has become a great tool for school projects,
scouting events and family memories.

My wife… she just doesn’t understand. I’ve tried to get her
into a Palm several times… she prefers paper and pencil calendars
and notes. She does like the internet and the digital camera, and
she loves her 4th gen iPod, but that�s as far
as she goes. She�s tolerant as long as the
cost doesn’t get too high. But at least I’ve got my son to carry on
the tradition!!!

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Read about Featured Gadgeteer – Jim Latimer originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 31, 2006 at 8:00 am.

Name: Torsten Kathke
Location: Munich, Germany

My name is Torsten, and I have a problem. Too many have suffered
around me, and it is time I come forward and admit it. I am a
gadgeteer. I have been called one publicly, and I must repent. The
gadgets I use are many. In listing them I will be frank and
complete, neither omit nor embellish. And I hope some of you will
feel a little better for not being as bad as me. While others might
be worse, and to those I say: Come forward yourself. You will feel
better. Plus, there’s cake at Gadgeteers Anonymous meetings.

Over the course of these past years, I have found it necessary
to acquire, in no particular order, the following:

* A PowerBook 12″, which I told myself would assisst me in the
day to day as a student.

* An iPod Shuffle, because I am just a student but still
appreciate the whiteness of its headphones. Those things break,
like, all the time tho. So I got a Nano, I needed new headphones. I
told myself. (Yes group, I realize the error of my ways.)

* An AirportExpress because I have a passionate dislike of
cables. My therapist advises against more gadgets on the grounds of
this condition, but I cannot bring myself to stop.

* A Nokia 6230 cellphone, which was picked mostly for its
gadgetarian value, not for capability to sync with the above
PowerBook, which at first did not work. It has, however, worked
beautifully ever since a surprise software update made it possible.
I also still have my first cellphone, a Motorola cd930. Also a
7089. And two backup Nokias, both purchased after the predecessors
had either been stolen or dropped by me into the shallow end of a
port-a- potty. The 3200 that suffered said fate has continued to
work after the misadventure, but I think I still smell some minty
disinfectant on it. The fact alone that I would reach into a
port-a-potty to rescue a gadget speaks volumes of my digital
depravity. Oh, the stolen phone was a Nokia 3650. Bought for much
money back when it was cool. That one day in spring when I though
it was cool, anyway.

* The famed HTC Universal (in its guise as T-Mobile’s MDA Pro),
which still does not sync with the PowerBook. It makes pretending
to be productive while on the road sooo much easier though. Apart
from that, a great device in theory, but in practice a glorified
Moleskine (I have one of those too. Do I need to mention this?)
that I hardly ever use. Like reading on it though. And listening to
Audible books. And sometimes writing things. Okay, I do use it.
Nevermind.

* Two SanDisk Cruzers. Those old ones that accept SD cards.
Because I have many SD cards. Well, three anyway.

* One SanDisk Cruzer Titanium 512. The original, accept no
substitutes. No cap to lose, weird sliding mechanism that does not
always slide so well. What’s with that?

* A Fuji S5600/S5200. For the taking of the pictures. (Hence,
alas, duh, not pictured.)

* A Logitech USB Headset. Which I thought would be used a lot.
Turns out I don’t have that many friends. It is a vicious circle,
for I seek consolation in gadgetry.

* That thing in the basement that I don’t know what it is and
why I have it, but I refuse to give it up. Plus, it came with
cables. Lots of cables.

* Bags. Bags first brought me to this site. Bags in all shapes
and sizes to hold all kinds of present, future and erstwhile
gadgets. I’ve been wanting to write erstwhile for a while. An
erstwhile. I am still on the prowl for my one perfect bag that
holds all the gadgetry the day requires. No such luck, so keep
a-reviewing gadgeteers!

* Old stuff. A Zip Drive. Remember when we all thought those
were somehow the thing of the future? A PenCam, the oldest,
crappiest one they made. Still works as a webcam tho. Gotta give it
up for crappy plastic things that still work after six years. More
stuff. Old stuff.

Thank you group. On second thought… I’m going home. Need to
charge up some batteries.

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Torsten Kathke originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 26, 2006 at 11:09 am.

Name: Kin Yu
Location: Hong Kong

Hong Kong, to me and a lot of my neighbors here, is a microcosm
of all that is hectic and stressful. Americans would most likely
compare it to New York. Having lived and worked in Washington DC
and traveling extensively to New York, I can only say that Hong
Kong is possibly a tad faster paced than New York. In many ways,
this is really what drives my love and need for gadgets. I’ve been
a gadget freak or gear head from quite some time. If it was a
hobby, it would be expensive, but I rationalize it this way: I need
to have the right tools to get the job done.

Most of my friends are also gadget freaks and we share a similar
problem – getting the new gear without incurring the wrath of our
wives. Our collective belief is that the smaller the better since
these will likely slip under the radar screen.

Without much ado, here’s the laundry list:

Handhelds
QTek 9100 (love the keyboard for texting and emails)
Motorola RAZR V3
Huawei 636 – free 3G trial phone from the local phone company with
3,000 minutes a month, plus all the free video calls with my
7-year-old son (only 300,000 of us in Hong Kong are using this for
the next 6 months – fair disclosure, I used to work for the local
phone company)
O2 Mini with an Eagletec SDIO WiFi card
iPaq 2215 with Socket CF WLAN card
Jabra BT800 bluetooth headset used with all the PCs and PDAs.

PCs
Thinkpad T43
Thinkpad X41 (not the tablet)
AOpen XCcube 65 (2,8 GHz with 1 GB ram)
Konica-Minolta DL2300 Color Laser
HP Photosmart 7150 and 7200 (slow, but the photo quality is
superb)
Dell 24″ flat panel display (best investment yet)
Cambridge Soundworks 4.1 speakers (5+ years old, but haven’t found
anything better for the price and/or size)
Buffalo Linkstation 250 GB network drive
Buffalo Drivestation 250 GB USB disk
Assorted external USB drives – totaling 1 terabyte (mostly for
family videos and photos)

Others
5G iPod 30 GB
iPod Shuffle
Nikon D100 and assorted lenses
Canon ixus 430 – 4 megapixel camera

Sitting on the shelves throughout the house
Thinkpad 600X – serving as a webcam
Panasonic BL-C10 IPCam
Neuston Virtuoso MC-500 media player

Things my children have inherited
iPaq 3850 – used as a PDA and an MP3 player
ECS EZ Buddie pc with Buzz Lightyear mouse
G3 iMac 450 MHz with DVD

Some may call it an obsession, but as I stated up top, my
principle is to use the right tools to do the right job. My love
affair with gadgets began a long time ago, but really gained steam
about 10 years ago. By luck, I was given additional
responsibilities at work which meant carrying two titles at the
same salary. With two jobs, my schedule was crazy – crazy to the
point where my secretary couldn’t keep up with updating my
calendar. Thankfully, I had a Palm Pilot and it was something that
was catching on in our company of 15,000. It was a thrill the first
time a colleague and I beamed meeting schedules to each other via
the Palm Pilot. It was an even bigger thrill to just plug it back
into the cradle on my desk and my secretary would be able to see
what I was up to. This really allowed her to let my boss know where
I was when he called. That hectic period of my life fully converted
me into a gear head since I’m a believer that these gadgets are
tools which help to make my life easier and more enjoyable (the
frustrations of resets aside).

Even though I worked for the local phone company, I was never a
big user of mobile (or cellular as North Americans call them)
phones. I was a fixed line guy. However, having started my own
business in recent years, I have come to be heavily dependent on
wireless communications. I no longer have a fixed line for my
business, but I have two mobile phones. My faxes arrive through
eFax and Skype (installed on all my notebooks and PDAs) has been
(to quote former FCC Commissioner Michael Powell) “a gift from
God”. Even with a combined 2,400 minutes on my two main mobiles, my
son, my wife and my business associates seem to be able eat up the
minutes in no time flat.

At home and in my little office, I am completely WiFi enabled.
This is especially necessary at home since we live in an apartment
(very few houses here) which is not conducive to running wires
since every wall is a thick supporting wall unlike the wooden
frames of most homes in North America. Practically speaking, few
people would run Cat 5 cable through their homes in Hong Kong
unless they happen to be renovating their homes. To get full access
at home, I run a pair of Buffalo wireless routers with the second
one acting as an extension. This allows me to check emails and surf
from the comfort of my bed.

Some of my friends have asked me why I bother with all this
stuff. The answer to me has been simple. My eldest son, Nicholas,
and I used to lie in bed just before his bedtime and watch movie
trailers off the net (there were bedtime stories too). Today, his
younger brother, Kevin who’s 2, enjoys the same. It’s quality time.
This is really what it boils down to, the ability to do these
things whenever and wherever I happen to be.

My wife? She just keeps rolling her eyes. Of course, she does
that with her new Motorola SLVR L7 with MP3s loaded on to the
transflash card. I’m sure she’ll get around to enjoying it once she
figures out the Motorola menu system.

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Kin Yu originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 14, 2006 at 1:57 pm.

Name: Gregory Guida
Location: British Channel Islands

I started being interested by gadgets more than thirty years ago
when the first electronic products appeared. I remember going to
school with the first electronic pen watch, pen calculator (stolen
from me by a classmate, an event I haven’t got over yet),
programmable calculator (a Texas Instrument TI58) and the first LED
watches. My first computer was an Apple II+ with 16KB of RAM to
which I eventually added disk drives and an Epson FX80 printer
before changing it to a Macintosh 512K circa 1984. It then evolved
into a Mac II, Mac IIfx, Powermac 8500, G3, G4 400, G4 450 and G4
2×976 to which I added the first 20″ LCD, soon changed to a 23″. I
am now working on a G5 2×2.5 with the fabulous 30″ Cinema Screen.
Beside these, I have a “desktop lamp” iMac 20″ which I use for
video production and a few G4 act as servers for my home automation
system (10 Macs and 2 PCs around the house in total).

On the portable front, My first machine was a Toshiba T1000
(DOS, monochrome not backlit LCD, 1 floppy) then a Powerbook 100,
280c, G3 230, G4 Titanium and now, an AiBook 1GHz. I also use some
sort of Compaq for the aviation programs that only run on Windows
XP.

I still have all those computers to which I added some
collectibles from the 70s and 80s, a total of about 120 machines
plus about 30 calculators and hand held computers of the same era.
I also have a small collection of “function” watches, including the
Seiko Watchman and the beautiful Porsche Design Compass Watches. I
now wear a Breitling Emergency with the built in 121.5MHz built-in
ELT.

The collection of course extend to video games, especially
portable ones and I have accumulated all the Game boy models
(except the virtual boy which I am still looking for) as well as a
selection of Sega and Atari hand held plus some Japanese oddities
such as the Wonderswan.

On the PDA front, I started in 1980 with the pocket computers
Sharp PC1200, then 1500, 1600 (with its tiny floppies and A4
tracer), 1250 and 1350, a Casio PF-8000 in 83 (a remarkable machine
for its time with an area you could draw letters on with your
finger) then a Sharp IQ7000, 8000, 9000, ExpertPad PI-700 (an Apple
Newton made by Sharp), Newton 2000, Atari Portfolio, Casio
Cassiopea E115, Toshiba E570, Palm V, Sony Clie T625, Sony Clie
NR70V, Palm Tungsten, Sony Clie UX50, Palm Tungsten 3 (I bought a 5
but was disappointed by the poor quality and lack of microphone so
gave it away, I looked at the LifeDrive, too big, too slow, too
late and at the Tungsten X, same problems as the 5 and now am not
sure what to upgrade too. I have lost too much hair over Pocket PCs
to want to go back to them).

One of my hobbies is house automation and I laid down more than
3000 meters of wire in my house in Scotland. Each room would
receive a bundle of Sat Coaxial, Ant Coaxial, Loudspeakers,
Telephone, Alarm and the essential Cat6 Ethernet. These all went to
a small room where I centralised the services: telephone exchange,
fax server, computer based answering machine, weather station, X10
controller, music and video servers, web and email servers and
HiFi/Home Cinema remote. Some of the Cat6 were dedicated to IP
video cameras (6 in total) and the whole interface was web based so
I could access and control all these from anywhere in the world.
Now I am faced with the daunting task of starting the wiring from
scratch (but on the other hand, I only have to lay Ethernet cables
since everything nowadays can run on them including the fabulous
Sonos system I use now).

Below, the house network being assembled in Scotland: 24
Ethernet clients, 20 telephone extensions, 60 X10 terminals, 6 IP
cameras, 3 MP3 network players, 1 EyeHome network player, Alarm
system, SlinkE home cinema interface, Phlink Mac based answering
machine, the Mac built-in network fax, a QMS 3100 Network Colour
Laser printer

I have always been interested in photography so have had a long
range of cameras and having turned professional recently my kit is
pretty up to date. I started with a Zenit E (a very poor russian
SLR), went on to a few point and shoot, then a Canon AE1, Minolta
7000, 700i, 9xi, and finally 9 with a nice selection of lenses. For
underwater use I bought a Nikonos 5 and, later a Nikonos RS with
all accessories and lenses (which I managed to drown on its first
dive!). I had the first Canon Ixus (Elph) APS, then a Powershot Pro
70, the Digital Ixus, Ixus II, 700 and 750. Then, having waited so
long for Minolta to do a Digital SLR, I bought a Canon 10D then an
EOS 1DsII and all the lenses necessary for Wildlife Photography. I
have a couple of telescopes, a portable ETX90 and a static LX90
with which I intended to do astronomy photography but haven’t come
around to it yet (not much of a sky in Scotland).

Doing both aviation and boating, I was fascinated by GPS as soon
as it became available so I bought the first one, a Sony Pyxis.
This impractical behemoth was soon replaced by a stream of Garmins
ending in 12cx, eTrex, eTrex Vista and eTrex Vista c. For aviation
purposes, I used first a Garmin 190 then a 196. I didn’t go further
as those handhelds are not very useful flying IFR and I have two
GNS430 on my panel.

I also have a weakness for walkie-talkies and have about 10
pairs, including the fabulous XACT wrist watch and the still
unsurpassed Alinco DJ-C5T (VHF and UHF transceivers). I have been
fairly reasonable with mobiles phones, starting with the first
Motorola DynaTac and changing 11 or 12 times until today’s Sony
K700i. I did get a Motorola 9505 Iridium SatPhone which I love to
death even if I only use it once or twice a year while on
expedition (cellular reaches almost everywhere nowadays).

Finally, I have three Aibos: ERS 110, 210 and 7 and heard with
dismay that Sony just stopped development on them. I might start
collecting them soon.

I am also a petrolhead and have accumulated a few sport and
classic cars, none, unfortunately, with outlandish kit. I don’t see
it happening in the near future, but I would love to rebuild a four
wheel drive (a Toyota Amazon) “expedition” style with all possible
gadgets and/or an old limo (a RR Phantom 5 preferably) with a built
in home theatre. Maybe someday.

I prepared the picture below for the Scott eVest web site. It
shows the vest loaded with all the kit on the right. Remarkably, it
all fits well but the computer in the back pocket is quite
vulnerable (don’t sit!). While I would probably not wear everything
on me, this selection is my normal travelling gear and was prepared
for a round the world trip I did in 2004. Notable items include the
Yoshinaga titanium flask (brilliant but not easy to find outside of
Japan), the Titanium Thermos (superb but very expensive), the Zeiss
5×10 pen monocular (small and light, the perfect alternative to
binoculars), the Fisher Space Pen (everybody should have one), the
Buck Knives BuckTool (unfortunately discontinued, the best of the
Leatherman style pocket tools by far), the Motorola 9505 Iridium
Phone (call home from the North Pole), a pair of pocket Sony Noise
Reduction earphones (essential in noisy aeroplanes) and the Petzl
Zipka Head Torch (easily the most practical and versatile light in
the World). The little grey and blue thingy is the smallest
electric shaver I could find, but I am still looking.

Today, I would add my Sony PSP, iPod and about 50 pounds of
Canon camera equipment.

I skipped over the video, HiFi, walkmen and all the nice
trekking and climbing gadgets but I hope the above makes me a bona
fide Gadgeteer!

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Gregory Guida originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 6, 2006 at 6:18 pm.

Name: Alan Ng
Location: Singapore

Hi! I’m Alan from Singapore. I’m 21 years old now. First, I have to say that I’m a gadget freak. My primal obsession with gadgets has made me spend lots of money on them. (Sometimes my mom nags me for that.) Currently on my inventory list, I have gadgets from big to small. They are mostly on my table in my room or lying somewhere in my room.

My workbench

Currently on my workbench, I place my frequently used gadgets on it. The list is pretty long.

Philips HDD070 2GB Mp3 player
NEC N600i i-mode Handphone (3G)-The clamshell phone
V3 BTH3 Bluetooth earpiece
Nokia 6021
HP PSC 1210
Panasonic RP-HJE50 earphone
External 20GB HDD
Samsung TS-H552U DVD writer in external casing
Sony Clié PEG-TG50
Timex 585 Heart rate monitor
Fossil Big Tic Watch (With matrix style animation)
Belkin 7 port USB 2.0 Hub
Altec Lansing 221 2.1 channel speakers
IBM Thinkpad R40
Microsoft S+arck mouse
Linksys 802.11B PCMCIA Adapter

My other gadgets:

Thomson Alcatel Speedtouch 570 wireless ADSL router (Not in picture)
Sony Cybershot DSC-T5 (Not in picture-I use it to take the shot above!)
Iomega Zip 100 drive

My love for gadgets started way back in around year 2000 when I was 16 years old. I just started working part time after I finish my school leaving exam and as I will be going on to a tertiary institute to further my studies, I thought that something to help me organize myself will be useful. So I looked around and a PDA seems to do the job well. So I got my first gadget, the Sony Clié PEG-S300. I was one of the pioneer user of this PDA in Singapore. It is really useful and it has helped me to keep my schedule and contacts in order. Sometimes, it entertains me as well with games that I have downloaded from the net. It lasted me for years before it retires.

The PEG-S300-First Clié by Sony

After the PEG-S300, I also play with many other PDAs. Some of the models I have owned previously include the Ipaq 3870 and Toshiba e310. Basically I play with PDAs that run on Microsoft Pocket PC and Palm OS. I also do development of software for PPC in my leisure time using Microsoft Visual Studio.net. Eventually, I changed to a Sony PDA again. This time, the PEG-TG50. It is still serving me well and it is part of my bluetooth personal area network. I call it my mini brain.

Another major asset I have is my trusty laptop. Currently I am using an IBM thinkpad R40. It is currently 3 years old and it is still working well except for its battery which is dead basically. It is my main brain and I use it to surf the web at home on my 802.11B wireless network. Other than surfing the web with it, I also use it for development purpose, entertainment (Music/video etc), synchronising with my PDA and working on projects during my tertiary days. Previously I use a Toshiba Satellite 3000 that lasted me for only 2 years.

Another gadget that I am obsessed with is handphone. I use it everyday and it is always by my side. I started off as a handphone user when I was about 15 years old. Back then, I use an Ericsson 628. (My goodness, that is a dinosaur now!) Few years later I upgraded to a Nokia 8210. Subsequently, I upgraded to an Ericsson T39 with Bluetooth. But as phones get better and better, I find myself caught in this endless chase of technology. I begin to change to phones like Sony Ericsson T310, Sony Ericsson K508i and eventually the Nokia 6021 that I am using now. The Nokia 6021 is an excellent no frails phone. It has Bluetooth, Infra-red, color screen, polyphonic and no camera. I am very happy with it. But recently, a telecommunication service provider in Singapore brought in i-mode from japan and they invite users to participate in the trial. The gadgeteer in me tells me to jump at this opportunity. (I love to be an early adopter.) Therefore I register for the trial and I am selected. They offer me a trial phone for free for this trial and I selected the NEC N600i 3G mobile phone. I have just received this phone not long ago and I am enjoying it so far. Surfing the net on it is fast and i-mode contents are great.

Basically, I love technology and I enjoy the convenience that technology brings. Therefore I will continue to hunt for more gadgets that will help me in my life. Of course, the gadgeteer website is a place where I visit very often to help me with my gadget hunt!

Feel free to drop by at my blog.

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Alan Ng originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 27, 2006 at 2:01 pm.

Name: Ruth Bygrave
Location: Ipswich, UK

My Gadgetary Life…

…is a bizarre combination of thrift and extravagance.

On the one hand, I’ve only just gone this year from a succession of nameless mongrel PC clones to a pedigree box (Dell); on the other hand, I’m the only person I know with 32mb of memory in my wristwatch on the principle that it might be useful and I know where it is.

Most of the gadgets I try out and don’t like enough get ploughed back into e-bay. Most of my PDAs (Zire 71, Tungsten T and iPaq 2210) were perfectly competent devices that I didn’t use enough to justify keeping them. I loved pretty LIT e-books–but I can read ordinary PDB e-books on a less good screen with tons more battery life. I liked having videos in DivX on my handheld, but it took ages to get them right, and I use audio a lot more than video. None of them were actually bad, but nor did I miss them when they’d gone.

Conversely, if I ever mislay my current mp3 player for a few hours I’m tearing my hair out and checking under the cat or any likely cushions. My boyfriend tends to get annoyed at the fact that what my current mp3 player is changes rather frequently, but even he has to admit that it does get very heavily used.

Also, I try to make my gadgets look cute, ordinary or personalised as much as possible, to minimise the likelihood of them getting nicked. My Neo keyboard is festooned with cat stickers, because I like cats, and because anything to discourage the thing looking like an expesnive laptop is OK by me.

Here is a picture of the Neo keyboard festooned with cat stickers, being pawed by my beautiful white ‘laptop’ of the furry kind. I’m not good at self-portraits, and this is a gadgetty picture

If I described all the gadgets I’d tried in a long list, that would probably end up sort of boring. Instead, I’ll put down my off-the-cuff reactions to the memorably good or bad ones, with the caveat that this is personal opinion, and how:

TEN TRIUMPHS AND TURKEYS

TRIUMPH: Microwriter keyboard. A wonder of ergonomics after which I hated being dragged kicking and screaming towards Qwerty.
TRIUMPH: Neo keyboard. Designed to be thrown about by small children and keep working.
TRIUMPH: iPod mini. Hate the embarrassing fashion-bling angle, love the extras and configurability.
TRIUMPH: MS Comfort Keyboard. Comfortable ergonomic design without being a split keyboard.
TRIUMPH: Macally Syncbox. For when you really need a standalone USB host in your pocket.

TURKEY: Frogpad Bluetooth Keyboard. Astounding combination of hardware innovation and software ineptitude. Also actually almost gave me RSI where Qwerty had failed.
TURKEY: MS Comfort Mouse. Horribly sensitive to RF interference
TURKEY: Microwriter Agenda keyboard. From the sublime to the ridiculous.
TURKEY: Panasonic SV-SD05 SD mp3 player cum headphones. Excellent idea crippled by brain-dead proprietary software, transcoding, and a painfully-slow USB card reader which had to be used instead of the USB 2.0 one I already had.

TURKEY: WATCH THIS SPACE
(Damn, can’t think of a last turkey. The ROKR would probably be it, because I believe what I’ve read about it, but I haven’t experienced its putative turkeytude for myself)

My current obsession is setting up a blog/podcast for audiobook fans, because I couldn’t find an enthusiast’s site for reviews and reactions already there and I had a really good idea for a title.

The site A Book in Both Ears is now up and stumbling. There are only a few pages up so far, and one podcast, (and one amazingly cute feline pin-up picture…), but it’s on its way.

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Ruth Bygrave originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 29, 2005 at 6:16 pm.

Name: Shayne Waters
Location: Syracuse, NY

My birthday was in September, and every year I have this little routine I go through with my mother as far as what I want as a gift. It usually goes something like:

“What do you want for your birthday this year?” …

And then me responding with a shrug and an “I don’t know”.

See, I can never think of what I want, mostly because I never know what I want, and I don’t really want people spending money on me anyway. So, after a great deal of pestering, I just told her to get me an iPod Shuffle.

So, on the big day, I open my package, and low and behold, instead of a Shuffle, I find an iPod nano. Unexpected to be sure, and I certainly was certainly pleasantly surprised. I charged it up, loaded on some music, and went skipping down the street basking in the glory of my new shiny black nano.

In the midst of my skipping and basking, I stopped at a coffee house to get a cup and read the paper, lovingly setting my new nano on the table where I could admire it. While I’m sitting there, a stunningly beautiful woman wearing a perfectly tailored suit (way way WAY out of my class) walks up to my table and says:

“Would you mind if I touch your thing?”

I arched an eyebrow, trying to be all cool and nonchalant, I say:

“By all means.”

I’m thinking, Dear Penthouse… (I never thought those letters were true! ) Then she reaches down, picks up my nano and says:

“Yours is the smallest I’ve ever seen.”

Ouch! My ego!

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Shayne Waters originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 23, 2005 at 11:07 am.

Name: Mitchell Oke
Location: Australia

First of all, I would like to congratulate Julie and Judie for their fantastic site. My interest in gizmos and gadgets has kept me coming to your site daily (or every two days) for the last 3 years.

I love new toys. Being 16, the toys I like aren’t the cheapest things to buy, but I have managed to gather myself quite a good collection over the years, much of which has been updated in that time.

I got my first laptop when I was 10. It was an old Toshiba 200CDS with a P100, 2Gb HDD, 40Mb RAM and a CD drive. When my dad gave it to me, it was running Windows 95, at 16 colours. About 3 days after I had it, I had it running Windows 98SE, at 16-bit colour, and its was great!! I bought myself a 56k (superfast!!) PCMCIA modem, and I had that for almost two years.

I managed to sell that laptop for AU$800!

After that, I decided that I wanted some more power, more HDD space and a better screen. That passive matrix display was painful after a while. The contrast slider was a waste of time . So, I looked around (I am 12), mostly online, and I found a great deal on my second laptop. It was a Toshiba 2750DVD, with a PIII 600Mhz (with that special MMX Tech.!), 64Mb RAM, 6Gb HDD, DVD-ROM and builtin modem. It also had a beautiful Active Matrix screen, which killed my old 200CDS in comparison. Part of the deal included a free upgrade to 128Mb RAM and a free Toshiba case. I managed to convince my parents to just give me money for that birthday, and with the money I had save, the money from the old lappy and my birthday money I was just able to afford it.

While I had that lappy, I upgraded it to 192MB RAM, Windows XP Home and added a USB 10/100 Network adaptor. I had setup my dads desktop to share the internet over our wired network, and it was great!! My friends (who barely knew how to use a computer) were sooo jealous!

After about a year, I got the urge again for something new. That is when I started to look at Dell. I waited a few months, and finally found a great deal on the Inspiron 5100, with a P4 2.8Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 60GB HDD (what a boost from 6GB!!), CDRW/DVD, 15″ XGA screen and XP Home. When I got it, this thing was a beast. It was sooo fast! I could run XP at a normal speed (unlike on the PIII 600), and I also got into video editing. This new found ability helped me make the money to buy some of the other gadgets I have today.

Now 13, I bought myself a PC Card WiFi (for my i5100) and a Wireless Router, and hooked it into my existing wired network. I was wireless!! I could surf from anywhere in my house, without any long extension cables. It was soooo cool! My dad was so impressed with it that he decided to pay for half the router and buy himself a WiFi card too. I had the i5100 for a year and a half before once again I started looking for my next lappy……

I had been quite happy with my Dell, and with the money I earned from my video editing, and what I got for the i5100, I decided on a Dell Inspiron 8600. I packed this one to the brim with as much as I could afford. It has a P-M 1.5Ghz, 512Mb RAM (later upped to 1Gb), 60GB HDD (later upped to 80GB), 15.4″ WSXGA+ 1680×1050 screen, 128Mb ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro Turbo CDRW/DVD, WiFi and BT, and XP Home. I was so excited about this laptop, as it was better than any other computer that me, my parents or my school had!!! The screen is absolutely gorgeous, and now it year 11 at school it is great for Software Design in VB6. All that widescreen!

I haven’t also had my laptops, I have also had some PDAs. I have had (in order) a Palm V, Jornada 545, Dell Axim X5, Palm m100 (briefly), iPAQ 1930, iPAQ 2210, iPAQ 4355 (Damn good PDA!) and my current device an XDA II Mini. I also had a Nokia 8210, N-Gage and T610 (which was replaced with the XDA Mini).

I also have a stack of other electronic stuff including:
Sony PSP with 512MB MS Duo and several games
Casio EX-57z 5.0MP Digicam
160Gb and 200Gb Maxtor Ext. HDDs
60Gb Ext. HDD
Logitech MX900 BT Mouse
Several Card Readers
Two 1Gb SD Cards
External LG DVD+/-RW/RAM Burner
Modular Battery for my i8600
Sandisk SD WiFi Card (for XDA Mini)
Logitech R-20 2.1 Speaker System
256MB MP3 Player

So that is my current stash of gadgets, all bought myself, and I’ve just turned 16!! Do I qualify as being a gadgeteer?

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Read about Featured Gadgeteer – Mitchell Oke originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 13, 2005 at 2:47 pm.

Name: Rodrigo Bezares
Location: Mexico City

My name is Rodrigo Bezares, I’m 19 and I’m from Mexico City.

My story as a gadgeteer began some years ago, when I saw a Sony Clie
NR70V featured in a Magazine, and after I read all the things that
device could do, I bought it, and since I bought it, I totally fell in
love with gadgets.

Then I began to buy more and more gadgets, the pda’s I’ve own are:
Clie NR70V, Clie TG50, pa1mOne Tungsten T, pa1mOne Tungsten T3,
pa1mOne Zire 71, Clie UX50, iPaq rx3715, iPaq h4150.

I was interesed not only in pda’s of course, so I bought a 40 gb 3rd
gen iPod and I began to buy some cellphones, for example the Startac
(do u remember it?!), and then, when SonyEricsson T68i hit the market,
I bought it and now I’m “married” with SonyEricsson (hehehe) they are
pretty phones full of technology…and every year when my carrier plan
ends, I always ask for the newest SonyEricsson phone.

I have some other “gadgets”, for example, the bluetake bluetooth
adapter for wireless printing, which is very helpful because I do not
have to turn on the pc for printing my documents or homeworks, with
that adapter I can make my homeworks and print them directly from my
actual pda (iPaq h4150).

I have had problems with my girlfriends beacuse of this addiction,
why? because they really get jealous ’cause everyday I carry my
gadgets with me and they always tell me: “Oh Rod, why don’t you marry
with one of your gadgets, you love them more than me!!!”

In my school, I’m called “the computer guy” because I always have a
technological solution for every problem.

I was a staff member of pdamexico.net (the number one mexican source
for pda’s and technology) and I liked it a lot, but there was a
problem and I quit, a sad thing….

I like to go to the malls and see the technology departments of every
store and then I save money for the gagdet I liked the most of all the
stores.

My mother and my father always are telling me that being the way I am
is bad (gadget addict) because I spend my money on gadgets instead of
spending it in clothes or in the movies, etc,… but I don’t think so
hehehe…

Well, I have to go, the school is waiting for me….

In conclusion, gadgets are the best thing in this life!!!!….. (joking) :-b

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Read about Featured Gadgeteer – Rodrigo Bezares originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 2, 2005 at 7:19 pm.

Name: Ellis DeGuzman
Location: New Jersey

Gadgets are my life. It’s kinda sad, actually, thinking about the
things I’ve done for my gadgets, but I would have to say that it’s all
worth it . How did my gadget obsession start? Well, it’s a long
story, but I’ll tell it anyway.

It all started when I was eleven years old. I’ve been interested in
computers for some time now – fixing and building my own. However, I
was watching ZDTV one day (ah, the good ol’ days), and I saw this
really cool device, the Handspring Visor. I think it was on Fresh
Gear, when Jim Lauderback and Sumi Das were showing the newest mobile
devices. I was amazed when I saw it…it was just the thing I needed!
My school district had been giving out these “planners” where the kids
could write down their homework assignments, but I never liked it.
However, this device that I saw, the Handspring Visor, looked like it
was the ultimate device I needed to actually get organized in school.
However, it was expensive – $199! I didn’t have the money! But…my
parents saw it as an opportunity to finally get me organized, so they
thought it was worth the $199 + s/h (we ordered it straight from
Handspring), and we got it.

Since that time, I’ve had six PDAs total – Handspring Visor 2MB,
Handspring Visor Deluxe (Blue!), Palm VIIx (I won this in a contest),
Handspring Visor Prism, Sony Clie NR70, and finally, my trusty palmOne
Tungsten|T3. PDAs just became my life; since my first one, I couldn’t
stop “collecting”! I loved how they advanced, and I was amazed to see
just how fast they were becoming! My T|T3 is faster than one of my
computers in school!

With my “collecting”, I also started getting involved in all the
various Palm OS forums out there. One forum that stands out, however,
would have to be PocketLoft.com, where I became Editor-In-Chief (after
the former EIC resigned). I loved to stay up-to-date in the latest
news with PDAs, and with that love sparked my passion for keeping
others up-to-date with the news (and reviews), and helping them with
whatever problem they may be having with their device. However, ever
since PocketLoft closed (sadly), I moved on over to the Daily Gadget,
where I am now the Technology Reporter. School has gotten to the best
of me, however, and I haven’t been able to keep up with all the news,
but hopefully I’ll get back on track soon. If you frequent these Palm
OS forums, you’ll probably know me as “edeab220″ – my famous code-name
. In addition, I’ve also become Webmaster over at PalmForums.org -
another Palm OS device forum.

In addition to PDAs, cell phones are also my passion. I’ve only owned
two (Visor Phone and a Nokia 3650), but if you talk to anyone that I
am in regular contact in, you’ll see just how much of a cell phone
freak that I am. I can name any cell phone that you show me, along
with the model number and the carrier that you’re on. You may think
I’m bluffing, but it’s true – every cell phone that I’ve seen in
school or at a store/mall, I’ve been able to name. Too bad I can’t get
a new cell phone – I don’t have the money to get one.

This might not sound like much, but considering that all this has
happened in five years (I’m 16 now), you might change your mind.
What’s next for me? I’m not sure yet, but I hope it’s something good
.

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Read about Featured Gadgeteer – Ellis DeGuzman originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 4, 2005 at 7:47 pm.

Name: Michael M.
Location: New York, New York

I think I’ve got a problem.

I’m waiting for the day that my loved ones invite me to a sparsely decorated hotel conference room to confront me about that problem.

I have a gadget problem, and it’s gonna take a whole lot more than some hackneyed intervention to get me to stop. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that I’m jamming the whole thing into a 350 square foot studio apartment with two inhabitants in midtown Manhattan.

I dream of convergence, where all my little minions speak to each other in the same language; every whim fulfilled instantaneously by a nodal network that bends and balances to turn my human input into tangible satisfaction.

I’m almost there.

I’ve spent the last few years putting things together, finding the best matches and making a system work. And while politics and economic competition have made it a relatively challenging task, I have managed to building a system to make this small space an efficient end point for information, entertainment, work, and convenience.

Additionally, I’ve set up the system so that components of the information, entertainment, work and convenience can be picked up and taken into the world outside…

So without further posturing, I present FUTUREDOME!

As I mentioned before, space in my place is limited, so I’ve divided things into three “zones.”

First Zone: The Desk

I’ve got a Mac Sawtooth G4 that’s well past five years, but I’ve upgraded it enough to keep it running smoothly and have it up to the standards of the business I’m in. Over the years, I’ve upgraded the original 450 MHz processor to a 1 GHz, the memory to 512 MB, the GPU from an ATI Rage Pro 128 to an ATI Radeon 9800, the DVD-ROM to a DVD±RW DL, and added Firewire and USB 2.0 ports and an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 sound card via the PCI.

On the monitor front, I have a 22” Cinema Display as old as the computer and an S-Video cable that goes from the graphics card to the TV (more on that later!).

Firewire:
- Six port Belkin hub
- 40GB 3G Apple iPod, with upgraded battery
- Three LaCie D2 120 GB hard drives for personal projects
- Formac Studio Digitizer With TV Tuner; leads in from the receiver on the stereo, so I can capture just about anything I play though my stereo system. I keep it unplugged most of the time, though, because it interferes with the other FireWire video devices, and Formac refuses to upgrade the software to address these issues. Jerks.
- Any two LaCie D2 drives from the main company I work for; when I fill up one and finish a project, I take it out of the mix, and they send me another one.
- Sony DSR-11 DVCam VTR, also from work.
- Apple iSight webcam, mounted on top of a MacMice SightFlex (looks great on one side of the monitor and the MicFlex on the other side).

USB 1.1

On the desk:

- Two 7-port hubs and one 4-port hub, stacked, living behind the monitor serve as the main junction for all the connections
- Logitech Cordless MX Duo Keyboard (the mouse has been taken out of the mix in lieu of an upgrade)
- Logitech Cordless MX1000 Mouse (said upgrade)
- D-Link Bluetooth Transciever
- Contour ShuttlePro
- M-Audio Oxygen8 Two-Octave keystation
- Wacom Graphire Tablet
- HP 2410 Scanner/Printer/Copier
- Keyspan Digital Media Remote
- MacMice MixFlex Microphone
- Griffin Technology iMic (for easy access “front” connections)
- Griffin Technology PowerMate (with a cool little hack that makes it pulse when new e-mail arrives)
- Sony Memory Stick Pro/Duo/CF Reader
- Dymo LabelWriter 330
- One floating cable to make connections with devices that aren’t tied down

A cable feeds around the room and under my bed to another 4-port hub:

- Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman Trackball (for using the TV as a monitor)
- Logitech RumblePad wireless controller (to play games on the TV)
- One extension cable, just in case

USB 2.0:
- Sony T1 5.0 MP camera
- Sony Memory Stick Pro Reader

Audio:

- Built-in audio jack feeds to a pair of Sony TMR-RF960R wireless headphones
- Analog audio from the Revolution feeds to a JBL Invader 4.1 speaker set
- Digital audio from the Revolution feeds to the stereo

Also living on the desk:
- Sony Clié UX50, which syncs via WiFi
- Sony Ericsson S710a, which syncs via Bluetooth
- Sony Ericsson CS-25 Speakerphone/Charger

Second Zone: The “Home Theatre”

- Sony KFWE610 60” Rear-Projection LCD HDTV
- Sony PS-LX350H Turntable
- Sony STR-DE995B 5.1 Receiver
- Sony DVP-NC685V 5-Disc DVD/SACD Carousel
- Sony MXD-D40 CD/Minidisc Deck
- Sony TC-WE675 Dual Cassette Deck
- JVC HR-S5902 S-VHS Deck
- Sony PlayStation 2 (with Ethernet attachment)
- Microsoft XBox
- Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000HD PVR (Time Warner)
- Inday RGB4X-R Component Video Switcher (routes the DVD Player, XBox, and PS2)
- Inday DA4X-R Digital Audio Switcher (handles the audio for said devices)
- Netgear four-port Ethernet router (Mac, PS2 Online, XBox Live)
- Toshiba cable modem

Third Zone: The Bed

- Oregon Scientific RRM968PA Atomic Projection Clock/Radio
- Sony PSP
- Intec DockIt (Where the PSP Lives)
- Nintendo DS
- Dragon Cyclone Charger Stand (very cool charging device for the DS)
- Logitech Cordless XBox Live Headset
- Logitech MobilePro Bluetooth Headset
- Sony Ericsson CS-20 Speakerphone/Charger
- Sony SRS-Z1 Active Speakers (connects to the radio and one floating cable to connect to PSP or DS)
- Two Logitech Cordless Precision XBox controllers
- Two Logitech Cordless Action PS2 Controllers
- Harmony Remote 768 (to rule them all!)
- Apple Bluetooth Keyboard
- Girlfriend’s 20 GB iPod, Clie N710 and Samsung phone
- Previously mentioned Logitech Trackman and RumblePad

Various odds and ends:
- Sony F717 5.1 MP Camera
- Sony PD-150 DVCam Camera
- Canon A1 Digital Hi8 Camera (busted, bad power source, but “on display”)
- Kodak 16mm Cartridge Loader Camera (late fifties)
- Bell & Howell 16mm Camera (late sixties)
- Keystone 8mm Camera (late fifties)
- Emdeko/Mansfield 8mm camera (mid sixties)
- Rovere 16 Cartridge Loader Camera (mid fifties)
- Sony ECM-959A Stereo Microphone
- Audio Technica AT835B Shotgun Microphone
- Sony MZR3 Minidisc Recorder
- Sony MZ-EP11 Minidisc Player
- Griffin iTrip
- Belkin Digital Camera Connector For iPod
- Various Tripods, booms, batteries, cables, headsets, monkeys, cases, etc.

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Read about Featured Gadgeteer – Michael M originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 20, 2005 at 3:21 pm.

Name: Terry Pan
Location: Hong Kong

I am a copywriter in a full-service ad agency.

My gadget story is a bit unlike the past gadgeteers. It’s about a process to
find out the BEST gadget that fits my need. Once I find a gadget good enough (at
least for a certain period), I will stop the searching process in that category.
Yet, I’m too often to start another search in some other category.

The 1st interested category is digital camera. It was my 1st year in university,
I was creating my website and badly want fast photos. The first one I got was
Kodak DC265, then it’s a roster of 14 digital cameras (and why I changed the
previous cam):

*for the ones still in my home

1. Kodak DC265 (for the website)
2. Canon Digital IXUS (it’s smaller than DC265)
3. Canon Powershot G1 (it have more functions)
4. Canon Digital IXUS v (it’s smaller than G1)
5. Canon Powershot G2 (I want more functions)
6. Kodak mc3* (a MP3 with CF slot? Cool)
7. Minolta DiMAGE 7i (I love the 28-200mm lens!)
8. Minolta DiMAGE 7Hi (Black looks much cooler)
9. Sanyo DSC-MZ3 (One cam doesn’t fit all situations… I need a cam that
fits my jeans’ pocket… what? This one can record 640 x 480 movie too?)
10. Minolta DiMAGE A1* (Anti-shake, excellent build and all, this is THE
one!)
11. Ricoh Caplio RX (MZ3 is not wide enough… I should keep 3 cams… one
for serious use, one for jeans, and one use like a DV)
12. Sanyo Xacti J4 (RX’s photo quality not good… and J4 looks beautiful
and small)
13. Ricoh Caplio R1* (well, I still love the wide angle)
14. Pentax Optio MX4* (movie movie… 1GB for 1 hour movie? 10x zoom? And
that cheap???)

Still when I was in university, I hang out with more friends, have more stuffs
to do and more classes and… I need a PDA! It’s the 2nd category:

1. Palm IIIx (it fits my pocket sooooo well)
2. Sony CLIE T-600 (IIIx was dead… and the Sony blue looks so cool)
3. Dell Axim X5 (really hard to change from Palm… but as a copywriter, I
need a convenient typewriter that supports MS Word)
4. HP iPAQ H2210 Chinese (I cannot find a keyboard for Axim…)
5. HP iPAQ H2215 English* (the first one was dead, I changed the ROM to
the Chinese one)

After switching to the current company, I found the desktop PC was ridiculous…
Pentium 266MHz for 2004? The 3rd category is notebook:

1. Samsung Q10 (PIIIM-933, 640MB RAM, 30GB HDD, DVD-ROM)
2. Dell Inspiron 700m* (I need a small notebook to handle so many media
files for work)

Now I am thinking about a HDD MP3 player, of course it’s also for work and for
play.

As you can see, I do not have many gadgets at one time. Yes you can buy many,
but you cannot USE too many. I am not just a collector anyway. I use my own
money to buy the gadgets and wish they work faithfully for me. ?

Other gadgets I am using everyday:

Sony Ericsson T630
Sennheiser MX200 Earphone
HP iPAQ Foldable Keyboard (really nice)
CF Radio, CF LAN
Lowepro Camera Bags
My home desktop PC

Yet, I always wish there’s one gadget can handle multiple tasks gracefully.

My website: http://hkwalker.net

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Terry Pan originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 20, 2005 at 12:00 am.

Name: Mike Oetting
Location: Kansas City

I suppose it all started nearly 10 years ago in 1996 with the launch of the Palm
1000. I remember reading the press leading up to the launch of this product, and
I was hooked. I thought it was the first PDA which seemed to have a fair amount
of functionality, offered the possibility of 3rd party development yet was
inexpensive enough to be a reasonable choice for the average person. I bought
one shortly before it was announced, and before Comp-USA even had them in stock.
Since that time, I have been captivated by gadgets of all types. For some
reason, I derive great joy in researching them, testing them, purchasing them
and recommending them to others based on their individual needs and desires. The
Gadgeteer site has been helpful to me over the years as I explored this hobby.

My gadgets have included PDA’s, digital cameras, music reproduction equipment,
computer hardware and many single-purpose devices too numerous to mention. I
thought I’d provide a list of my eight favorite gadgets (in terms of how useful
and enjoyable they were at the time of purchase). They include inexpensive items
that could fit in most budgets, to those which are difficult to justify on
price. They are listed below in reverse order of merit:

Palm V: I’ve had a number of PDA’s over the years on the Palm and Pocket PC
platforms, including products made by Palm, Toshiba and Compaq. I think that
this particular product had the best form-factor of any of them. It was truly
pocket sized and surprisingly thin. Of course it was hampered by a monochrome
screen, but that was fairly common in those days. The battery lasted forever and
it felt great in the hand.

7) Oregon Scientific BAR338 CableFree Thermometer/Weather Forecaster with
ExactSet™ Projection Clock:
I love this gadget. Perhaps it’s the height of laziness, but there’s something
rather compelling about being able to see the time and temperature in the
morning without even having to turn your head 90 degrees. This device offers a
lot of flexibility in the projected image, including focus, rotation etc. This
is not true of some of their lower-price projection clocks.

http://www2.oregonscientific.com/catalog/1_2_402.asp

6) Etymotic ER-4P MicroPro Earphones:
Wow. With the right music source, these earphones really bring detail in music
to life. They are not unlike the B&W (manufacturer of highly accurate
loudspeakers) of headphones — very analytical and adding little color to the
sound. If what you’re listening to is poorly recorded, you will be able to tell.
But the plus side is – you will hear things in your favorite songs that you may
never have heard before. I highly recommend these for frequent travelers (they
isolate you nearly completely from outside sound) and for audiophiles on the go.
I suggest getting the ER4P along with a converter cable which effectively makes
an ER4S. The difference is that the 4P sounds arguably better with no additional
amplification, and the 4S sounds superior when you add a headphone amp. The ER4
series is described at the Etymotic Site:

http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er4.asp. A great place to find general
information and discussion about headphones and headphone amplification is
http://www.headfi.org/.

5) SLIMP3 (reviewed here by Julie)

http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/slimp3-review.html. This small box with a
bright display caught my attention when I was looking for a way to play my
iTunes library on my home stereo system. When I learned that music could be
streamed from my Mac to a network device which connected to my stereo, I was
elated. I placed my order, and when it arrived, I was pretty excited. I suppose
it had to do with being able to listen to the bulk of my music without getting
up to change discs. It wasn’t until I moved away to attend graduate school that
its value really became clear. Rather than carting boxes and boxes of discs and
transporting them across the county, I could just pack my Mac and my SLIMP3 and
be done with it. The newest version of this product, known as the Squeezebox,
offers a wireless connection, which could be invaluable to a WiFi household.
http://www.slimdevices.com/

4) Palm Portable Keyboard: I have noted a specific model in this case, but this
entry really applies to the whole category of portable keyboards for PDA’s. I’ve
owned three different keyboards over the years, and while I have found them to
be very useful from time to time, they weren’t really essential until graduate
school. Rather than take notes in my admittedly poor handwriting, or deal with
the bulk or lousy battery life of a notebook computer, I found that the
combination of my Palm Portable Keyboard and Palm Zire 71 PDA was pretty much
ideal. I could quickly type notes on the full-sized keyboard, running into
problems only when graphs and charts were displayed. Once I synchronized with my
PC at home, I could rest easy with the knowledge that I didn’t have to worry
about dropping a notebook on campus and losing my semester’s work. I highly
recommend a portable keyboard to all students and frequent notetakers.

http://www.palmone.com/us/products/accessories/keyboard/ For more
information on how personal electronic devices can enhance learning in a
university environment, please see a site, entitled Gadgets in Higher Education
which I created in support of class devoted to Literacy in the Information Age.
http://www.oetting.org/491/.

3) Garmin GPSmap 60c: This was my third GPS device. There’s something sort of
comforting about knowing absolutes. Like clocks synchronized with atomic time
servers to tell you exactly what time it is within a fraction of a second, GPS
units provide the same sort of reliable information. You get to know exactly
(actually within 10-15 feet or so) where you are on the earth. This information
is only of limited value when you are only presented with a set of latitude and
longitude coordinates, but in the case of a color mapping GPS like the Garmin
GPSmap 60c, this information can really be useful. This is one of the better
multi-purpose units out there, feeling equally for hiking off-road, or for
street directions. The color display is bright and clear, and requires no
backlight under typical daylight conditions.

http://www.garmin.com/products/gpsmap60c/
Perhaps the best site to help you decide which GPS to buy is by Joe MeHaffey:
http://gpsinformation.net/

2) Princeton Tec Aurora: This 3-LED headlamp is really excellent. I use it
around the house when connecting cables on the back of the TV, when looking
through boxes in dimly lit rooms, while scanning the carpet for a dropped screw
and for any number of other situations where a normal flashlight might be
normally used. The freedom that a head-mounted flashlight offers is significant.
You have two free hands instead of one, which makes a significant difference in
many tasks. The Princeton Tec model which I have is based on LED, rather than
incandescent light. This means that it will burn longer and cooler than the
technology which older headlamps used. I load mine up with rechargeable NiMH AAA
batteries, and say goodbye to the never-ending stream of alkalines.

http://www.princetontec.com/outdoor_aurora.html

1) Apple iPod: My initial foray into high-capacity (hard drive based) portable
music players was the Creative Nomad Jukebox. At the time, I thought it was
pretty decent, offering 6GB of storage in a portable-cd-player-sized package.
When I was watching the live webcast of the MacWorld Keynote Address on October
23, 2001, Steve Jobs caught my attention in a big way. He unveiled the iPod,
which was an order of magnitude smaller than my Nomad Jukebox and undeniably
more elegant. I placed my order the same day, put my Jukebox on eBay, and have
been a happy camper ever since. The iPod completely blew the Jukebox away in
terms of user interface, industrial design and sound quality. While it was
smaller in capacity at 5GB vs. 6GB for the Nomad Jukebox, I felt it was a small
price to pay for such high-quality portable sound. For me, there’s no other
choice. If you do portable music, and you have the cash, you simply must have an
iPod. The interface really IS that much better. More iPod information can be
found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#First_generation

Many of these gadgets are still available in one form or another today. If your
needs are anything like mine, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of my
favorites.

Brief Bio: A recent graduate of library school at the University of Illinois, I
currently live in the Kansas City area. I’ve worked as a Web Manager and as a
Human Resource Management Consultant prior to entering librarianship. My
interests include photography, reading, travel and personal electronic devices
(obviously).
 

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Mike Oetting originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 27, 2005 at 12:00 am.

Name: Terence Wong
Location: Sydney, Australia

This picture is of me and a Sentinel from The Matrix exhibit at Warner
Bros Movie World in Queensland, Australia.

A common misconception is that people who work in IT are all nerds. In fact, in
my line of work as an Enterprise Java developer, I have met some of the most
un-nerdy people (or, you can read that to mean there are a lot of closet nerds).

I on the other hand, am proud of my nerdiness! A good example is my recent
acquisition of a Binary blue LED watch. I know that people who have seen me use
it are secretly jealous that I can tell the time from a sequence of on-and-off
LEDs! Never mind that it’s annoying to work out the time when I’m half-asleep or
in a hurry…

Although I work daily on systems that run on large business servers, my true
love in computing is at the other end of the spectrum in handheld computing.
Ever since I was young I always dreamed of having a mini computer I could take
with me wherever I went. I could not afford an Apple Newton as a university
student, so When the US Robotics Palm Pilot came out, I knew I had to have one!

The success of the Palm Pilot in kick starting the handheld industry fueled my
obsession with handheld computing and has seen me owning the following devices
within the last seven years: Franklin Rex PRO, Psion Series 5, 3Com Palm III,
3Com Palm V, Casio E100, Diamond Mako (rebadged Psion Revo+), Sony CLIÉ N760,
Toshiba e310, Palm Zire 71. I can’t even estimate how much money I have spent on
these things, as I also acquired the habit of accessorizing my gadgets with
protective cases, replacement styli, keyboards, etc.!

As you can see, I have dabbled with a few of the popular handheld OSes, but
PalmOS has always been what I go back to. People used to tell me that I should
get commission from Palm as I have influenced quite a few people who weren’t
looking for one to buy a Palm. My current PDA is a Sony CLIÉ NX80V which I enjoy
for the large screen and reasonable 1 mega pixel camera.

So a lot of you will probably be pointing out that the market for handheld
devices is shrinking. I think that this is very sad, but acknowledge that it
makes sense for most people to have a mobile phone with PIM capabilities
instead. Some day I am hoping that I will have room to start a museum of
handheld computing so that people can laugh when they see what we all carry
around with us.

I have recently become a Mac convert, and my daily driver is now a white Apple
iBook G4 12" which I have named Pegasus, the winged horse Bellerophon rode into
battle in ancient Greek mythology. Coupled with that I have an Archos Multimedia
Jukebox 20GB and Sennheiser PX200 headphones which I highly recommend.

Do not get me started on all of the mobile phones I’ve owned!

I would also like to add that I have been a long time reader/lurker of The
Gadgeteer website for over six years, since back in the days when it was just
Julie. I still remember getting a reply by email from Julie years ago and
thinking "WOW! I’ve actually communicated with a gadget GURU!". I think that
Julie and Judie do a fantastic job and are to be commended. Thank you guys!

Live Long and Prosper (yes, a lot of IT nerds like Star Trek!).

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Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Terence Wong originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 4, 2005 at 12:00 am.

Name: Druce Macfarlane
Location: San Mateo, California

Hi, my name is Druce, and I am a Gadgetoholic.

It all started shortly after High School, when I had some extra spending money,
and decided to spend it on computers. All kinds of computers. I had everything
from a home made PC, to a CP/M-based S100 system and a Dec PDP11/34a (geez, just
dated myself there).

I had my addiction under control, until HP released the HP LX95. There had been
other PDAs, but this one engaged me. Then came Palm and Windows CE.
Then PocketPC. It wouldn’t be bad if I could just settle on one, but I have to
try everything now.

At some point, I just decided to let go, and give my addiction a budget.
Some people go to the Theater, some people have extensive wardrobes. I buy
gadgets.

My current stash includes my Treo 650 (my current uber-gadget), which replaced
my Treo 600, which replaced my 300 and aging Rio 500 MP3 player. I also have an
Ipaq 3900, which alternates between running PocketPC and Linux.
Why did I install Linux on my Ipaq? Because I could. It is all part of the
addiction.

My house used to be fully wired with Cat5, until I moved, giving my the excuse
to go fully wireless (802.11a/b/g). Why all three? Because I could.
There is no logic to this.

I have a Sun/Cobalt RaQ that I use as a file and VPN server. Actually, I mainly
have it because it looks cool. On my desk, I have a IBM Thinkpad T42 notebook
computer.

I just got a Sipura VoIP/SIP unit, which I have been having wonderful early
adopter fun with.

Other gadgets include a Pioneer DVD-burning TiVo (which I have hacked, because I
could…), a 3Com Audrey (which I have also hacked, are you seeing a trend
yet?), a Kodak DX6330 camera with the printer/dock, and my most recent addition,
a Magellan Roadmate 700 GPS/Navigation unit (Which I haven’t hacked. Yet.) Then
there is my antiques collection. My Newton Messagepad 2100, my HP Omnigo 120, my
IBM Simon Cell phone (yes, IBM made a PDA cell phone), and my Motorola Envoy.

This doesn’t even begin to describe all of the secondary and tertiary
accessories that I have collected for my toys. All of the retractable
sync/charging cables, the styli, the storage. In fact, if you calculated the
cost of all of these items, you could really tell that it is the razor blades
that I am spending my money on.

They say, with any addiction, the first step is to admit that you have a problem
and that you are powerless against it. Alright, I think I can do that. The
second step is to want to change. This is where it all falls apart.

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Tagged: Article, Featured Gadgeteer

Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Druce Macfarlane originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 1, 2005 at 12:00 am.

Name: Dave Hawkins
Location: Reading, UK

I’ve always been interested in gadgets of all types and have worked my way through a wide range of personal organizers, PCs and communications devices in the past. Because of my particular circumstances I guess my requirements are slightly different from some people. During the day I work for the Government in an office based job, but in the evenings and at weekends I am a part time professional magician providing entertainment for corporate and private events around the country. The advertising for the business is entirely internet based – potential clients finding out about my business from my website

( www.david-hawkins.co.uk ) and all enquiries being handled via email. It also means that my schedule can sometimes be fairly hectic – juggling “day job” appointments as well as magic engagements. The main gadget that runs all this is my trusty Palm Tungsten T3. I’ve owned several Palms in the past (and had a quick foray into the world of the iPaq) but found the T3 to be the most reliable and suitable for my needs. Loads of 3rd party software loaded (just started playing Bejewelled 3) but mainly use Datebook, eWallet, ListPro, and the standard Palm apps for contacts and memos. I would normally upgrade straight away when a new Palm is announced, but hearing lots of issues concerning the T5 has left me a bit dubious that it would be a wise move. However my T3 has a few slight problems (a screen alignment issue and very scratched Graffiti area) so I’ve decided to buy a new T3 whilst waiting for the OS6 devices to come along. Along with the Palm I carry with me daily a Sony Ericsson K700i phone which spends loads of its time hooked up to the Palm via Bluetooth to check email and internet browse. I also send tons of texts via the SMS application on the Palm. Composing a text on the Palm is SO much easier than using the phone keypad. I’ve seriously thought of getting a Blackberry instead – but not yet made a decision. The other gadget I couldn’t live without is my portable GPS receiver (Navman ICN 650). Since my magic shows can be all over the country I rely totally on GPS to get me there and back with minimum stress. It actually makes complicated journeys enjoyable and I can’t even contemplate driving a car without a GPS unit (incidentally it doesn’t really class as a gadget but my wonderful new car – BMW 120i is truly hi tech and has loads of “toys” to make driving easier and enjoyable).

Back at home I have loads more gadgets to make life easier and more efficient. My PC is a Dell Notebook (9100 Inspiron) which is hooked up to a Iomega Portable 60 Gb hard drive for backups. Of course I have the obligatory printer (HP Laserjet) and Scanner (Canon) which enables me to manage my personal affairs and deal with all the requirements of the magic business. A subscription to the email based eFax service means that I can send and receive faxes via email, without the need for tying up a phone line with a fax machine.

A few other gadgets that I couldn’t live without – my Gameboy Advance SP is the perfect relaxation tool. I have a large number of games, and I’m currently nearing the end of Pokemon Fire Red. However I suspect I’ll be ordering a portable Playstation when they become available in the UK. I also have a 40 Gb iPod when I’m in the mood for music and a LG portable DVD player for watching films (and instructional magic DVDs) on the move. After working my way though several digital cameras, I’ve recently brought a Canon S70 digital compact (with a remote control and Ultrapod) – I’m more of a point and shoot guy so this is perfect – easy to use, compact to carry and produces great images. On a recent holiday to Orlando I ended up with around 1.5 Gb worth of photos in a week !!! I’ve been tempted by a digital video recorder but wonder if I’ll use it enough to make the purchase worthwhile.

Finally I have a few gadgets for personal care – not something that is often covered on Gadgeteer – but they definitely make my life easier. Firstly a Braun Activator shaver – produces an excellent close shave – but the best part is that when not in use the shaver is housed in a base unit which both recharges and cleans the shaver for next time – and leaves the room filled with a lovely lemony scent from the cleaning solution. I’ve used an electric toothbrush for years, but my dentist recently introduced me to the concept of power flossing. I’ve never had the patience to use floss, but now with my gorgeous Waterpik power flosser the operation is actually fun and, according to my dentist, my teeth have never been cleaner !

So that just about sums up the gadgets that currently make my life easier, more efficient and fun. Hope it’s been of some interest – don’t know if I’m the first Gadgeteer from the UK, but I’ll bet I’m the first magician !!!

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Tagged: Article, Featured Gadgeteer

Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Dave Hawkins originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 19, 2005 at 12:00 am.

Name: Curtis Hinson
Location: Texas, USA

I just read through a few of your Gadgeteer profiles and thought I fit your
profile. My first meetings with gadgets were back in the middle 80s when my
family got a Tandy computer with an 8088 in it. I had some experience with
electronics and programming as a kid so that fostered a joy in using technology
in creative and unusual ways.

I previously worked my way through part of college as a web developer, so having
computer parts and electronics sitting around led to me linking up all my
devices in one way or another, for surprisingly little money in many cases. I’ve
tended to find special deals to get parts cheap, or find windfalls from unwanted
parts or trades.

Here’s my setup:

My PC is a homebuilt system, Intel board with a P4 2.53 gig processor and 1 gig
DDR RAM. It has a 180 gig hard drive and a 40 gig drive. There’s a Samsung
Syncmaster 170MP multifunction display mounted on a lovely SpaceDEC extensible
monitor arm that is bolted through the computer desk. It has an
OrangeMicro/Jabra wireless Bluetooth headset, a Thrustmaster wheel and pedal
set, an HP psc 1210 All-in-one printer/scanner, and an X10 BOOM2000 wireless
video/audio control and transmission setup, etc. IE, I can play MP3s over my
living room stereo and control Winamp from an RF remote. The wireless
transmitter is set as my second monitor on XP, so I can view video files, Winamp
visualizations, Flash animations or whatever on the living room TV.
I have a Gyration remote RF keyboard and air/optical mouse in the living room,
so I can actually control the computer from there that way. I use a utility
called wndhop so I can hit a hotkey and flip windows from the PC into the living
room TV and back.

The PC also has a Smarthome Powerlinc USB X10 powerline interface and Mountain
Systems X10Net so it acts as a home automation controller. Most of my lights and
appliances including the air conditioner and the phone are on X10 modules so I
can control any device from any of the several remotes, my PDA, or over the
internet from anywhere. There’s a motion detector on the front door that turns
the lights on at night when I come in and announces visitors by voice from the
PC. When I exit the house, the computer will shut down all the lights and pause
Winamp. When I’m out of town I check in over the internet with remote admin
software to see if the motion detector has been triggered so it adds some
security to the house.

The computer also has software that watches the caller ID of incoming callers.
The ringers on the Uniden 5.8gig cordless handsets are turned off so the
computer can take over ringing. This way, if a caller I don’t want to talk to
calls, the computer won’t ring but sends the caller to voicemail, or if I really
don’t like a caller, I can set it to answer and instantly hangup without
sounding a ring tone. It also sounds custom waves that speak the names of the
callers for my favorite people. This software automatically saves its caller log
as an HTML file in a secure directory on the web server over the network, so I
can log in from anywhere and see who tried to call me. The software can also
stay silent during my sleeping hours or when I set it to sleep. (I plan to
interface that with X10 so I can mute my doorbell and silence phone calls and
set my Trillian status from a button on my remote.)

I have a headless homebuilt Redhat Linux server, an old AMD K62 500. It has a
Netgear Super G 624 wireless router/firewall and a DSL modem. It has it’s own
domain and serves email, web, a game server, and FTP. It has an old Tandy WP-2
portable word processor connected to the serial port as an admin terminal should
the network ever go down. I am also considering using my old Palm m500 PDA as a
status display for it as I found an LCD emulator for it. I took the circuit
board out of an old keyboard for the status lights, and the server runs software
that blinks one of the LEDs whenever email is on the server. Those LEDs are
mounted discreetly up on the wall. The server is protected by a one-hour APC UPS
unit and it current shows 120 days of uptime. It can get up to 46,000 hits a
month for the biblical studies resources on the website.

As far as mobile electronics go, I use a Canon Powershot S200 digital camera, a
128 meg USB flash drive, and a Palm Tungsten E. The Tungsten has a 1 gig
high-speed SD card in it loaded up with MP3s and books, and my car has a cradle
mounted on the dash for it along with a power adapter and an adapter to play the
sound through the car’s stereo system. I also use a wireless keyboard for it to
take notes in my classes. The PDA has remote control software so it can control
my house and most remote control devices.

Note of interest: I know former Gadgeteer Henry Kong personally from my time
spent in Asia. I spent most of my time as a web developer using my skills to
benefit churches and mission organizations in different countries. I left web
development to pursue theological degrees.
 

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Tagged: Article, Featured Gadgeteer

Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Curtis Hinson originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 17, 2004 at 12:00 am.

Name: Andrew N
Location: Australia

I�m 15, and a student in
Australia. I have a fairly good collection of gadgets and
computer hardware. My parents are programmers, so we have a lot of computers
around the house. Below is a pic of my desk, which as you can see is fairly
cluttered.

My first interest in technology was when I was about 3 or 4, and my parents
bought an Apple 2FX (that was a top-of-the-line computer back then). We then
upgraded to a Compaq with a 90 MHz Pentium, which we overclocked to 100 MHz.
Then to a Pentium 3 550 MHZ, a Pentium 4 1.5 GHz, and now my gaming machine, a
Pentium 4 2.6 GHz with a gig of ram. Computer building, tweaking and modding is
one of my main hobbies, alongside gadgetry.

My first interest in gadgets was about 3 years ago, when someone at school had a
cheap Casio organiser, and I was envious. So I saved up, and got a Palm M125. I
loved it, and I still use it occasionally.

My main PDA is a Viewsonic V37 for which I have a 64mb SD card; I also have a
Palm M125. I have a Panasonic GD 55 cell phone, and a Sony DSC 717 digital
camera. My latest gadget is my 40gig 4th generation iPod, which I bought last
week. I also have a Sony MZR 500 minidisc player, which I will now be retiring.
My favourite electronic item is my computer however, which I use to play games
and surf the net.

I also dabble in building electronic kits, and my other hobbies include RC cars,
airbrushing, swimming, hockey and playing the piano. I�ve been a big fan of the
gadgeteer ever since I read your review of the Palm M125, which convinced me to
buy it. I�m a gadgeteer, and it doesn�t
look like it�s going to change any time soon.

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Tagged: Article, Featured Gadgeteer

Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Andrew N originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 18, 2004 at 12:00 am.

Name: Evan Koblentz
Location: New Jersey

I’m 29, live in New Jersey, and I write about big-business computing
for a living (mostly for trade magazines.) I don’t have the most gadgets or the
priciest gadgets, just some of the coolest ones.

On the surface, my gadgets aren’t mind-blowing. The PDA I use everyday is a
PalmOne Treo 650; and I
sometimes take along a USB memory keychain, which has a biometric fingerprint
reader and a MP3 player built-in. I drive around in a Miata, which as far as I’m
concerned is just a bigger, more expensive gadget.

But what really distinguishes my Gadgeteer status is my collection of vintage
PDAs. I own every significant PDA built in the pre-Newton era. (I also was a
speaker on this topic at last year’s Vintage Computer Festival — see
www.vintage.org) Separately, I’m the editor
of Computer Collector, which is a free email newsletter (about 600 subscribers
right now) — see the intentionally primitive site at
news.computercollector.com.

Now, most people THINK they know about the history of PDAs, but I’m here to
declare that I spent the past three years studying this, using all of my skills
as a professional journalist. As I’ve come to understand the landscape,
following is a list of the most major PDA developments — and I do own all of
these.

* 1972: HP-35: First scientific calculator
* 1973: HP-45: First calculator with a timer
* 1974: HP-65: First programmable, first with removable storage (card reader)
* 1976: Casio CQ-1: First with an alarm and calendar feature
* 1976: Mattel Auto Race: First handheld electronic game
* 1977: TI-58, TI-59: First calculators with alphanumeric I/O
* 1978: Lexicon LK-3000 and Toshiba LC-836: First with organizer functions
* 1979: HP-41C: First with expansion ports
* 1979-1980: Matsushita and TRS "HHC" – first true handheld "computers"
* 1980: Casio PF-8000: First with character (handwriting) recognition
* 198(2/3): (various companies): First data wristwatches
* 1983: Casio PF-3000: First organizer with password protection
* 1984: Tandy PC-5 and others: First palm-sized HHC
* 1985: Casio FX7000G: First with graphing function
* 1986: HP-18C: First with infrared support
* 198(6/7): Casio IF-8000: First with multiple screen layers
* 198(7/8): Panasonic Personal Partner: First DOS clone clamshell
* 1988: HP-19B: First with multi-language OS
* 1990: Sony PalmTop, sold only in Japan has a GUI interface
* 1991: Psion Series 3
* 1994: IBM / BellSouth Simon, the first PDA/phone hybrid
So do I qualify?

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Tagged: Article, Featured Gadgeteer

Read About Featured Gadgeteer – Evan Koblentz originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 20, 2004 at 12:00 am.