Archive for November, 2008

Blondes Have More Fun

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

Wandering around the internet looking for gift ideas for female friends and family members I stumbled across the simply ingenious ‘Keyboard For Blondes’. This follows the trend of taking a normal everyday item, and making it pink so it appeals to the section of the female (and indeed male) population, who have to own something ‘because’ it is pink. Having said that, this particular item at least does have some added novelty value in that a lot of the keys have had ‘Blonde friendly’ pictures or descriptions added to them. Replacing various buttons such as the ‘F’ keys with the ‘Useless Key’, the ‘Return’ key has become the ‘YES! I want it!’ key, and Caps Lock is known as ‘WARNING! Size XXL Letters!’

To defend myself none of the people I envisage possibly buying this for would need the new key descriptions, as they are all perfectly adept at using a normal keyboard, even knowing what most of the Useless Key’s do. However they do fall into the category of wanting anything that is pink. As an alternative to this more novel version there is of course the Pink Usb Flexible Portable Rubber Keyboard that we stock at Gadgets.co.uk which I think would be a better option for those on the go, or maybe with not quite the right sense of humour for the Keyboard for Blondes.

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Nintendo DSi – Want please!

Friday, November 21st, 2008

Well, the Nintendo DSi has been released and having read the first review I found here I still want one now! I am an unashamed Nintendo fan, and I love the way they concentrate on making things fun, and dare to be different to everything else out there, and this review has not dampened my enthusiasm to get my hands on a DSi, if anything with it’s two camera’s and microphone for enhanced online play, and capability to download games and demos, as well as a welcome SD memory Card slot (albeit at the expense of the GBA slot) it has increased it.


So earlier this week I set on into the wilderness of the internet trying to locate a lovely company that would nicely ship me a Japanese import DSi, and while there are plenty of companies willing to send me one (for the right price of course), I have come across a minor snag.


For those of you who don’t know previous incarnations of both the Nintendo DS and the Gameboy, unlike the home consoles, are not region locked. So a console purchased in the US can quite happily run games from Japan or Europe, and the other way round. Unfortunately due, apparently, to the location specific software Nintendo will be installing on the DSi to allow it to download games and other things, like the Wii, the DSi will be region locked.


This being the case if I were to invest in a Japanese region DSi I would need to also import all my games, and as much as I would really love to get one before just about anyone else, I really can’t justify the extra expenditure involved. On the one hand I can understand this decision on Nintendo’s part, and to be fair to them they are one of the better publishers for releasing consoles and games worldwide. On the other hand I have been spoiled by the freedom to import Gameboy and DS titles to avoid prolonged waits for titles such as Professor Layton and The Curious Village.


My only other option is hoping that some enterprising individual out there will engineer some sort of region unlocking device akin to the Free Loader although from this understand this needs to be updated as often as the software on the system itself.

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iBlock iPod Speaker Review

Friday, November 21st, 2008

I’m sure everyone agrees when I say that the iPod is revolutionary! We at gadgets towers think it’s definitely up there with sliced bread, mobile phones, Internet and for some (like myself) hair straighteners. Once you have them you just can’t imagine life before them!
Thing is with greatness, it tends to be followed by dodgy extra additions and ‘add ons’ until you just lose interest. The iPod is no different I fear, however I was glad to have come across what is commonly known as a diamond in the rough. This little gem is the iBlock iPod Speaker.
So here we go…..
Having first looked at the iBlock iPod Speakers, I thought even though it looks sleek in black and stylish in white what else can such a small speaker offer, it can’t be that great, can it? Well I can assure you for the size it packs a decent sound and I was happily surprised to have something even I can use over the weekend. Just attach to the bottom of your iPod and press play, its really that simple.
I found it really handy as I just took it in every room when getting ready i.e bathroom doing make up, bedroom singing in the mirror (you know the usual!) without having to worry about tangling wires and plug sockets. It also has an “active bass system” which is what makes it project sound well (learn something everyday don’t you!)
Its definitely best for a singleton like myself or a couple of the girls getting ready for a big night out… No parties going on with this little thing but all in all its good value for money. A great nifty and funky attachment that should be added to any iPod accessory wish list.

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Hello!

Friday, November 14th, 2008

May I just start with the traditional method of introducing myself. My name is Clare and I am the newest member to the gadgets.co.uk team. Whilst sitting here on the usual chocolate and biscuit scoffing Friday afternoon I seem to have had one of my very rare blonde, but, bright spark ideas.

Never having been a gadgets boff myself, when it comes to technology I am of the simple variety. I have little or no comprehension of slang or lingo, and wouldn’t know a megapixel from a megabyte.

Now back to my recent epiphany….it has occurred to me that surely I am not the only person in town of this caliber to visit our website. Well fear no more for I am now making it my new vocation to change this by bringing you my personal opinion about the newest gadgets and gizmos in the exciting world of gadgets.co.uk.  So in the risk of being different I end this blog with the less traditional method of introducing myself……….

Hi, my name is Clare, and I’m your new GADGETS GIRL!

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“Don’t thank me. Thank the moon’s gravitational pull.”

Friday, November 14th, 2008

It seemed to be something of a staple of 80′s television series such as The A-Team, and MacGyver that at some point the heroes would be in a situation where they would need to make something to get them out of whatever predicament they were in.

In the case of The A-Team this usually consisted of them being locked in some sort of shed that had a rusty old car as well as some handy sheets of metal, a blow torch, and some sort of cobbled together automatic weapon in order for them to be able to build a kind of tank in which they could escape and save the day.


MacGyver on the other hand was a bit more inventive and used real science and items he would likely find lying around, although they were quick to put in that you’d have to be incredibly lucky for a lot of these fixes to work.


Hence when I saw this book I was quite excited to see what real everyday people just like me had managed to come up with. Unfortunately, at least judging by the review of the book here, it seems as if a lot of the fixes aren’t actually all that inventive, consisting of things such as the girl with the broken bikini who ‘MacGyvered’ it by using the incredibly inventive method of tying the snapped ends together. Me myself, the closest I think I’ve probably come to ‘MacGyvering’ anything is when I opened up my Guitar Hero controller and fixed it myself with only a screwdriver.


I guess all this book really gives us, apart from some readable and entertaining stories as well as a bit of a giggle, is a realisation of just how amazing people like Macgyver really are, (or at least would be if they weren’t fictional and backed up by a large of team of script writers and researchers) and how most of us simply pale in comparison to their ingenuity.



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Dedications what you need……

Friday, November 14th, 2008

If you want to be a record breaker. It’s not uncommon to find dedication in the world of gamers, whether it be queuing up to make sure you are one of the first to get the latest console, spending hours levelling up your World of Warcraft character, or similar. There are some feats that truly stand out however, such as the record for the high score on the game of Asteroids, set by Scott Safran of New Jersey in 1982, which has not yet been broken. This makes it also the longest standing record in video gaming according to the record keeping folks at Twin Galaxies.

The score of 41,336,440 points took three days, and was in fact only brought to a halt when the machine ceased to function so the final score could in fact have ended up being much higher. To give you some sort of scale for this achievement you get somewhere in the region of between 20 and 100 points for each successful shot on an asteroid with 200 and 1000 points for large and small saucers respectively. That’s a massive 41,337 shots just destroying small saucers which are fairly rare as it is!

If you have some spare time why not see how you fare on the flash version below?

Controls are:

  • Left + right arrows – rotate ship
  • Up arrow – thrust
  • Spacebar – Fire
  • Shift – Hyperspace
  • ‘P’ – Pause

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A useful iPhone app? Who’da thunk!

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Yes, it’s another post about the iPhone. I was browsing blogs this morning and came across a new iPhone app. The difference about this particular app is that I can see it actually being useful and not merely adding some sort of functionality that really the iPhone should have had at launch, and so in the spirit of equality I thought I ought to make a positive post about the iPhone.
The idea behind the application is simple enough, once activated it waits a few minutes and will then ring as if you are receiving a call from someone, which you can then answer and use to escape an awkward conversation, situation, or just that really annoying person you don’t have the heart to tell to just “Go Away!”. The only thing I’m not sure about is what would happen should you get a genuine phone call while using the app, I can only imagine you’d end up looking one of those saddo’s we’ve all seen at some point pretending to have an important business call on their phone only for it to commence blasting out some extremely loud and embarrassing ring tone in the middle of their ‘discussion’. The video below demonstrates the app, and the product page can be found here.


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Own your own Presidential Candidate

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

Apparently there’s some sort of vote going on over in America today, and it’s possibly something of a big deal. I only come to this conclusion because the four main protagonists in this particular vote have recently been made available as one-of-a-kind Cabbage Patch Kids.

Up for auction on Ebay since 30th October the auctions finish today at around 1pm GMT. Currently the Sarah Palin Kid is looking like getting the most with the bid standing at $10,000.00 as I write this, with Barack Obama next at $7,300.00. With John McCain and Joe Bidden bringing up the rear on about $2,500.00 and $2,000.00 respectively. This is a charity auction with 100% of the proceeds going to the Marine Toys For Tots charity, which through donations and support from its partners gives toys to needy children.

Coinciding handily with the 25th anniversary of the Cabbage Patch Doll these look like raising loads of money that will hopefully do a lot of good and bring smiles to the faces of many many children this Christmas. So here they are, in alphabetical order of surname to avoid being accused of any particular leanings or favouritism.

Joe Biden John McCain
Barack Obama Sarah Palin

If you want to keep up to date with the progress of the election you can follow it here through the Associated Press website.

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