With the chocolate high fading it’s back to a full working week…

March 28, 2008 on 1:37 pm | In News | No Comments

Easter has been and gone, and if your house or office is anything like mine it will be littered with the remains of numerous Easter Eggs, and various other chocolate goodies. It doesn’t help that Mini Eggs and Crème Eggs are only produced for a limited period each year around Easter and are among my favourites. So towards the end of the first week back at work after the extended Bank Holiday weekend those mood improving chocolate fixes are coming to an end, and there’s a full working week awaiting round the corner to jump out and mug you.

So how can you improve your mood at work to make sure you make it to the weekend? By having amusing items on your desk of course!

Always set to raise a giggle should you have a pencil you need to sharpen is this great Cat’s Bum pencil sharpener, surely very little can come close to the “Meowing” sound emitted from kitty when you put your pencil where it was never intended? Or, as pencils are not overly common in the modern workplace how about this Buttstation Desktidy. A desktidy with spaces for your pens, notepad, tape dispenser, and when you lift up the little guy a space for paper clips in the ‘bowl’

Butt Station Desktidy

Should that not quite be to your sense of humour why not do some desk-ercise to release those feel good endorphins scientists are always telling us about with a USB Finger Dance Mat.

Perhaps you’re more the vindictive type, and would gain most amusement from firing a salvo of missiles at your office nemesis with the USB Webcam with Missile Launcher, though I would urge caution with your actual usage of this particular item! Ultra handy is it’s compatibility with MSN Messenger meaning with the aid of the webcam you can even operate it remotely from another computer entirely.

USB Missile Launcher with Webcam

Easter, a time for chocolate. And gadgets….?

March 19, 2008 on 1:52 pm | In News | No Comments

The Easter weekend is here. The two giveaways being the vast amounts of chocolate adorning every available shelf in just about every shop, and of course the excitement of most of the population at having a four day weekend.

Traditionally of course Easter is a religious festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. The Easter egg, as far as I am aware, became associated with the festival due to it’s linked symbolism with rebirth, then of course the Americans further commercialised this and added the Easter Bunny et al.

I have been scouring the Internet trying to locate some proper Easter themed gadgets, rather than just somewhat tenuous links with items remotely egg, or rabbit themed. First of all I was somewhat surprised by some of the religiously linked items , possibly the most worrying being theMiracle Jesus action figure. Unfortunately a lot of the religious items are not really suitable for those of us who aren’t regular church goers, and aside from these I was only able to find tenuously linked Rabbit and egg gadgets, such as the Easter Bunny Car Conversion kit, apparently a follow up to the bizarrely successful Reindeer Car Conversion Kit.  Thankfully this appears to only be available in America, and we can only hope this sort of thing doesn’t make the trip across the pond!

Bunny Car Kit

Not quite in keeping with the chocolate egg giving benevolence of the Easter Bunny, but appealing to me greatly due to my love of Monty Python are these Killer Rabbit Slippers. Sure to keep your feet warm, (especially welcome with the cold snap predicted for this weekend) and in my experience, likely to last about two days before the cat has ripped them into tiny fluffy white pieces.

Killer Bunny Slippers

So currently, unless you wants some egg shaped speakers, an Easter Bunny themed MP3 player, Plants that grow from eggs, or something similar you may be better off sticking with the chocolate eggs for this year at least.

The Insects Have Landed!

March 14, 2008 on 1:09 pm | In News | No Comments

With the arrival of the World Alive Net Insect Habitat Kits here at Gadgets Towers we have decided that this was a good opportunity for us to get some office companions. Looking at the three different sorts of insects we eventually decided upon the Stick Insects. One of us jumped online to order the eggs, and I went and did a little reading up on our little office companions to be.

 About two minutes into reading about these fascinating little creatures on wikipedia I had realised there was a lot more to them than I first envisaged.  For example there are no true males of this species as they reproduce by parthenogenesis.  After looking up many related terms that I needed more info on so that I could better understand the whole picture I was left with a much greater sense of wonder at these amazing little insects.  I would imagine that this would be the same if I started to research either the Ladybird, or Cabbage White butterfly should we have decided on either of those insects instead.

We selected an appropriate corner of the office, set up the pop-up habitat, and ordered our eggs. Once they arrived we put them into their new home, and they are due to hatch between 20th March and 20th May. I have tried to take some photo’s but unfortunately as the eggs are so small (about 2mm) they just look like small black dots.

Once the insects hatch we will provide updates as to their progress, and should be able to take some photo’s. Of course the World Alive Insect Kits are available from Gadgets.co.uk.

Robocopter Review

March 7, 2008 on 3:54 pm | In News | No Comments

Remote control helicopters are easily still one of the hottest gadgets about at the moment. It’s easy to see why, they are small, can be used indoors, they are cheap, and as long as they aren’t treated harshly they will last a long time. Also there is the fact that flying a remote control toy is much more fun, at least in my humble opinion, than driving a remote control car or similar around.

The Robocopter is one of the more interesting and different looking remote control flying toys we’ve had arrive here at Gadgets Towers. Although also available as a more traditional helicopter, the Robocopter itself is modelled to look like a robot with a sort of ‘helicopter pack’ attached to its’ back, as shown in the picture below.

Robocopter

I’ve been lucky enough to have a go with one of these and I must say I am impressed with how stable the flight is. There is very little erratic movement, unless of course you are erratic with the controls yourself. You do need a fairly open area, at least until you become more proficient, and due to the weight of the copter (only 12.5g) it’s indoor only. To give you an idea of how badly this is affected by any air movement I first tried using this in the office here at Gadgets Towers and was having problems maintaining control due to our air conditioning unit. The Robocopter also features a small sliding weight on the tail which controls the speed at which the copter travels forwards. The further forward the weight is the faster the copter goes. This is a great addition in the sense that the copter can be slowed down for novice pilots, and also so that you can be sure the trimmings are right at a slower more controlled velocity.

The Robocopter is an easy to pilot flyer, and while it won’t be whizzing around or performing any advanced aerobatics it’s great as an introduction to flying toys, and is sure to turn a few heads with it’s unique look, whilst the adjustable speed makes sure it has a bit more longevity to the basic experience. Of course the Robocopter is available at Gadgets.co.uk

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