The season of giving is swiftly approaching. How about getting a head start by giving a laptop to a needy child. Your donation of $399 will give this gift, but you’ll also receive a laptop for yourself. The mission of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn […]
Give a laptop, get a laptop Read More
It’s strange, but in all the years that I’ve been using digital cameras, I find that I rarely print out my photos. I usually just copy them into a folder on my computer and look at them from time to time, or post some of them to my flickr account. Although I have a perfectly nice full-sized color printer (Canon Pixma iP6000D), I have always found it a pain to use for small 4×6 sized snapshot prints. That’s why I was curious when I was approached by Epson to review their PictureMate Dash PM 260 Personal Photo Lab photo printer. I wasn’t sure if this printer would make me excited to print photos, or if I would continue to snap and file as before.
Epson PictureMate Dash (PM 260) Portable Photo Lab Read More
Gadgeteer Spotlight articles are short informal interviews with some of this industry’s most influential and interesting people. Gain some insight and learn some interesting facts about the people behind some of our favorite gadgets, gizmos and gear.
Gadgeteer Spotlight on John Hindaly of Vaja Read More
I’ve been using the iPhone since the day I stood in line to buy one… During the time that followed, I’ve complained about its deficiencies, but kept right on using it. I truly think Apple used some kind of spray-on absorbing drug on the shell of the iPhone. There’s no other explanation for the reason
I finally removed the SIM from my iPhone and put it in the… Read More
Plantronics is one of the most active communication products manufacturers in the market today. One of their latest Bluetooth headsets is the Voyager 520. They were kind enough to send one to me to review. Let’s take a look.
Plantronics Voyager 520 Bluetooth Headset Read More
Nicola Harper of Acorn Studios sent me an email telling me about her geeky craft gifts. Check out her Geekware blog too. Fun stuff! Have you guys created anything similar, or re-purposed computer parts?
Great recycling idea for geeks Read More
How many social networking sites do you guys subscribe to and actually use on a regular basis? I subscribe to quite a few, but the main ones that come to mind are : http://youtube.com/user/juliethegadgeteer http://twitter.com/thegadgeteer/ http://flickr.com/photos/thegadgeteer/ http://gadgeteer.stumbleupon.com/ http://www.linkedin.com/ http://www.plaxo.com/ http://www.facebook.com/ The order I have listed these sites is pretty much my order of usage. I
Do you suffer from social networking overload? Read More
Are square speakers just not your thing? Then I have a “Made for iPod” speaker system just for you. It’s mStation’s Orb. Available in seven colors (White, Grey, Green, Blue, Red, Black and Pink) this bowling ball sized speaker has a fun look, but does it have a good sound? Let’s see…
mStation Orb 2.1 Stereo iPod Speaker Read More
Here’s another indoor remote controlled airplane for those of you that have problems controlling RC helicopters. This is the Aero Soarer from Takara Tomy. Brando sent one over for me to tear up. I mean play with. :o)
Takara Tomy Aero Soarer RC Airplane Read More
In the past 12 months, HobbyTron has
sent me several RC helicopters to review, but today I’m going to tell you about
something a little different. HobbyTron has a new offering; the Silverlit Palm-Z
RC airplane. Silverlit is the same
company that created the tiny PicooZ helicopter.
Silverlit Palm-Z Mini RC Indoor Airplane Read More
HobbyTron sells a lot of really cool RC flying and driving toys. They recently sent me the BladeRunner II. I was really surprised that they would trust me with another RC helicopter as I had totally destroyed the AH-64 Apache helicopter that they had sent me earlier in the year. After I had tried it, I was convinced that RC copters were just too hard to control. I’m happy to report that this is not the case with the Bladerunner II.
Bladerunner II RC Helicopter Read More
If you’re a fan of tiny RC (remote controlled) race cars, you’ll have a blast with the Q-Steer from Takara Tomy. Brando sent me the Mazda RX-8 version. He carries several car types including a Hummer, Subaru, Nissan and Toyota.
Takara Tomy Q-Steer RC Race Car Read More
The FedEx guy brought my Leopard Family Pack around 1pm today. I started the upgrade at 3:30pm and was playing with its features by 4:30pm or so. The upgrade was painless. It was almost completely automatic. The only user input that it asked for was the language, which hard drive to install to and after
I just upgraded my iMac to Leopard Read More
Fans of Palm smartphones and PDAs continue to wait as days, weeks, months and years drift by without a major update to their favorite mobile operating system. It’s not far from the truth when I say that the Palm operating system hasn’t changed all THAT much since it’s introduction back in the late 1990’s. It still has the same look and feel, which is both comforting and let’s face it, kinda boring. While the OS side of Palm remains the same, they have offered hardware updates on a semi-regular basis. The latest one in the stores is the Palm Centro. This is a CDMA EvDO smartphone running on the Sprint network. How does Palm’s most affordable (when purchased with a 2yr contract) smartphone stack up? Let’s find out…
Palm Centro Smartphone Review Read More
I recently posted a Gear Diary entry with ideas about a project to create an ultimate alarm clock. My plan (whenever I get time to actually work on it) is to use devices that I already own, like my iMac, some speakers, an Airport Express and a WiFi PDA or smartphone. This leads me to
Are you a gadget inventor? Read More
If you read the thread that I posted a few days ago about non-gadget hobbies, you might remember that I mentioned wanting to buy a ukulele. Well, I ordered one over the weekend from an eBay shop called Ukulele4U and it arrived today. It’s a beauty and I thought I would share some pics with
Check out my new analog audio device Read More
Earlier this year, Audioengine was
kind enough to send me a pair of their wonderful
A5
speakers to review. These speakers have turned out to be a favorite of mine
and still occupy space on my desk at Gadgeteer headquarters. Now Audioengine
have created another set of speakers for people that don’t want to devote as
much desktop space and money in order to own a great sounding pair of speakers.
The A2’s work great with both PCs, Macs and other audio devices. Let’s take a
closer look.
Audioengine A2 Desktop Speakers Read More
Ever since I posted my Chumby review last week, I’ve been thinking about features that I’d include in an ultimate alarm clock if I could have everything that I wanted. I had actually goofed around with an idea of creating a clock a year or two ago, but didn’t get very far. My whole idea
What features would your ultimate alarm clock include? Read More
There really hasn’t been much innovation in the modern wallet / billfold since its invention in the 1950’s. While wallets similar to what we know today have been in existence since the 17th century, it wasn’t until 50 years or so ago, that wallets with card slots were invented to accommodate a new form of currency called the credit card. These days we tend to carry around too many of these plastic cards, which causes our wallets to become way too thick for comfort. The folks at ALL-ETT have redesigned the ordinary billfold to be super thin, but with the same capacity for credit cards as the bum denting version you have in your pocket right now.
ALL-ETT World’s Thinnest Wallets Read More
My never ending quest to find the world’s coolest and most feature loaded clock recently led me to the chumby. What the heck is a chumby you ask? It’s a small touch screen device that functions as a clock and also displays information from the web such as news, stocks, photos and more by connecting to the internet via WiFi. At the time of this writing, the chumby is not yet selling to the public. I was lucky enough to get on a list to buy one of the first 50 units that were available. That means that it is possible that some features and hardware details may change in the production version of this product that should be available before the end of the year. With that said, let’s take a look at this cool little device.
chumby Internet Appliance / Clock Read More