Archive for September, 2010

So Near… Yet So Far!

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

Well, despite London Transport doing their best, and the weather being a bit damp towards the end I managed to finish my 20K on Sunday in just over the 2 and a half hour target I set myself. I think maybe if I hadn’t queued for the loo I might even have beaten it! I was advised to do plenty of stretching and cooling down after the run as well as soaking in a bath for a good while once I got home, and this seems to have helped with any stiffness that I would otherwise have been feeling.

The weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse as Summer leaves and Autumn sets in, it certainly seems to be dull and grey every time I look out of the window at the moment. Of course we have a few gadgets to try and help you feel a bit better about the worsening conditions. We’ll all be digging our Twilight Umbrellas out from the cupboards so we can twinkle our way to work in the rain.

When you find the wind whipping about your ears, and threatening to freeze them off you could always equip our Earmuff Headphones, or the iHat to keep you out of the cold. You could even pipe in some tropical sounding music from your MP3 player, close your eyes and try to convince yourself you’re actually on a tropical island rather than waiting for a bus in the cold!

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The Weekend Is Upon Us Once More

Friday, September 24th, 2010

Another weekend is upon us here at Gadgets Towers, which can only mean one thing, it’s time for us to sit back and relax! Or it least it would be if I wasn’t taking part in a 20k run on Sunday… I’m targeting anything under 2 hours 30 minutes as this is my first 20k, and I think this is a good sort of target to aim for.

In other news we’ve just had a parcel full of some of our new, and coming soon gadgets dropped off by a nice delivery driver here at the towers. Its a bit late to be doing an awful lot with them today, but we’ll certainly be giving them a road test next week and will let you know what they are like!

So all that’s really left is for me to say I hope you all have a great weekend, make sure you join us back here next week for the low-down on our new products, like the Roadsweeper Desk Vac!

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Love Is In The Air…..

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

Valentines Day may be a good few months away, five in fact, but Love is in the air here at Gadgets Towers. Now I don’t mean that anyone here at Gadgets Towers is particularly ‘loved up’ or anything like that, but merely that earlier in the week I was tasked with getting pages up for our new range of Love Hearts themed products that we are expecting soon.

That’s right, in order to make sure we’ve got enough gifts to cater for all those couples out there over the Christmas period I’ve had to put my sentimental head on and get writing. I’m sure you’ve all been there at one point or another, money’s tight so you both have a chat and decide you “won’t do gifts” this year, but invariably you both go out and get a little something for the other, and we think that the Love Hearts range is just perfect for things like that.

We will soon be stocking a Love Hearts Cappuccino Set, Tea For One set, and the adorable Egg Cups And Cosies. All of them are officially licensed and feature Love Hearts with classic phrases that you are all sure to remember.

Of course it goes without saying that my favourite out of these new gifts is the Tea For One Set, it’s the perfect gadget to help keep me supplied with a hot cuppa at all times.

As well as these new gift ideas we do still have our popular Silver Love Heart and plenty of other gift ideas too.

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Nite Glowrings Back At Gadgets.co.uk!

Friday, September 17th, 2010

I’m quite excited today, because we’ve just got one of my favourite gadgets back in stock! It’s something that we haven’t had for a long time, and not something I use very often, but when I have needed it it’s been invaluable. I’m talking about the Nite Glowring.

One of these handy little devices has been attached to my keys for the last few years, and has helped me on numerous occasions. While it is say here on my desk now it looks like a, rather pointless, plain piece of plastic, just adding extra bulk to my keys, but as soon as you start to take it into a more dimly lit environment you see its usefulness.

You see, the Nite Glowring glows brighter the darker it is, so on occasions when I have dropped my keys in a garden, or somewhere else at night, they have been easy to find, illuminated by the glow from the Glowring. I’ve also found it to be handy when getting home late when its dark, and need a little light to select the correct key from my bunch, as well as get it in the front door, not to mention when fumbling around my tent for something on one of my festival trips.

People often ask me about my Glowring, and the first fun fact I like to tell them is that it is in fact radio-active. The gaseous tritium held inside the laser sealed tube is very slightly radioactive, and the glow of the Nite Glowring comes from this reacting with the Phosphor coating the tube. Of course the Glowring is sealed inside the plastic tube, so there is no risk of exposure. The same method of lighting is even used for emergency lighting in environments where illumination may be required with total power loss.

The Nite Glowrings are brilliant for keeping handy and attached to things that you may need to find in the dark, I’ve found it comes in handy for lots of little things, and I wouldn’t have my keys without one now.

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And Now For Something Completely Different…

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

Another new week here at Gadgets Towers, and another trade show for Mandy to go to looking for great new gadgets for us to stock. As she touched on last week you ought to keep an eye on our Coming Soon section over the coming days and weeks as new products will be appearing nearly every day!

One of the products that has caught my eye, and imagination, is the Nun Chuck Catapult. I’m a massive Monty Python fan, and I love their off the wall sense of humour so this particular gadget has me giggling already at the possibilities. As I’ve said in the product description I can see the only suitable target for these sailing sisters to be something ridiculous such as a bowl of Custard. If you’ve ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail you’ll no doubt remember the animated transition with several Monks springboarding from some lettering, and this is just the sort of fun I can imagine these Nuns having.

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What a week..

Friday, September 10th, 2010

This week has been a manic one for me. The first half of the week I attended the Autumn Fair in Birmingham at the NEC. My aim was to find top Christmas products, meet new suppliers and touch base with existing ones. All in all it was very tiring however I think I managed it!

Having placed lots of orders at the show that means we have loads of new products that I’m really excited about, arriving in the next couple of months. So for the last couple of days I’ve be sorting out all the info and making sure Dirk has all he needs to get the products live on the site. You can see some of them already in our coming soon section however we’ll also be telling you more about them over the next couple of weeks, along with more details on those killer Christmas lines.

Some of you will be pleased to know that I also finally managed to finish off my ninja this week, hurrah! Unlike a real ninja he has a few minor flaws, one of his legs is shorter than the other (I missed three rows) he also has a shorter arm as well, not sure how that happened. Oh and he hasn’t got a headband yet as I ran out of wool, oops. Sadly due to these flaws he’s been rejected by the ninja clan so has instead been recruited to the Gadgets team and is now known as Nige the Ninja.

Nige

Today being his first day on the job like all newbie’s his first mission was to infiltrate the kitchen and make tea for the team. I’m happy to say it was a success so I’m sure he’ll have a long and happy life here at the tower. Of course he will be making the odd appearance on the blog and I’ll keep you updated on any further important missions he embarks on.

That’s it from me this week, have a great weekend!

M x

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Google Launches Google Instant

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Yesterday at The San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art Google held the launch of its new ‘Google Instant‘ service. The idea behind Google Instant is to pre-empt the searcher and provide the results of their search before they have finished typing, thus giving them their search results faster.

Google Instant takes what you have already typed, and provides you with a set of search terms that it believes are the most likely things that you are searching for. For example of you enter just the letter ‘A’ and press nothing else the search bar moves to the top of the page, and displays a list of search results as well as a drop down box containing what it considers the most likely search terms given the one letter you have entered. Understandably these results are big names such as AOL, Amazon, and Apple. Entering one letter isn’t the best way to find what you are looking for, but it gives you an idea as to how the new system functions.

I have tried several different partial searches for popular terms, and also some terms that I would have thought were not so popular. The results were always very quick, and on some of my more obscure searches I did need to type in near enough the whole term, but sure enough as I looked back at the screen from my keyboard there were all the search results already displayed for me.

I’m not sure how much time it will save me personally, but during testing Google have calculated that it saves users between 2 and five seconds per search, and they estimate that across all their users this could equate to 11 hours every second! Google Instant is currently only available on Google.com, unless you are logged in to a Google account, but will be rolled out to all locations over the coming weeksand months.

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Eco Car Runs On Gas

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

A convertible VW Beetle has become the first car in the UK to be converted to run on, well, poo. The contents of 1.1 million households loos in the Bath and Bristol area ends up at the Wessex water treatment plant in Avonmouth. After removing the sewage from the water, it is treated and stored until it starts to produce methane gas. This is then bottled, and the tanks of gas are then able to run the specially converted car.

The reporter who test drives the vehicle says it runs just as well as a car powered by petrol, and with no smelly emissions as you might imagine. Although the mechanics of converting a car is simple, very similar to converting one to run on LPG in fact, excrement energy is unlikely to replace crude oil at any time in the near future. The main reason being that even commandeering all the waste produced by the nation you would only be able to produce enough methane to power around 148,000 cars, which is less than 1 percent of the 31 million that are on UK roads.

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Anyone for a lolly?

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

You may remember last week I was quite excited about some new products arriving, I must admit I’ve had a few nightmares with the ninja, which I’ll save for another day. So I’ve put him aside for the moment in favour of the Zoku Quick Pop Ice Lolly Maker. The sun is shining at last and its definitely lolly weather.

Having had the base bit in the freezer for the last couple of days (although it only needs to be for 24 hours) it was time to try it out. I popped to the local shop where I picked up three different types of juice, apple, tropical fruits and apple and raspberry. You don’t have to use juice you can use pretty much anything really as long as it contains sugar and isn’t carbonated.

Zoku

The instructions were pretty simple, just insert the provided sticks into the base and then fill to just below the line. Being me I miss read that bit and filled to the line, which wasn’t a major problem it just took a little while longer to freeze. I’d say they took about 10 to 12 mins instead of the 7 to 9 suggested however I was still pretty amazed by how fast it was. The results were solid lollies, I had expected them to be slightly slushy but they were rock hard and tasted delicious. I left one on the side and it took a good 30 mins before it started to go soft and melt.

Yesterday I made just plain all one colour lollies but today I thought I’d have a go at making stripy lollies. It’s still very easy to do however it does take slightly longer as you have to freeze each layer separately before you can add the next. I’m really pleased with the results, what do you think?

lolly

As we’re predicted to have good weather I’ll be taking the Zoku home tonight and testing it out further this weekend, I think I might try making some with a different centre or some using a smoothie, the possibilities are endless and will certainly keep me busy for quite some time I think!! As always I’ll let you know how I get on.

Have a good weekend!!

M x

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But All We Know Is…. He’s Called The Stig.

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Well, I’m settling back into the swing of things here at Gadgets Towers after my lengthy holiday, and although it’s great being back, I won’t pretend that I wouldn’t rather be in a sunny field listening to music, dipping my feet in the pool by a sunny villa in Spain, or racing a Go-Kart round a track at breakneck speed and doing rather well at it! In fact I’ve often had people asking me what I would do if I wasn’t here at Gadgets Towers and now I think I know. Seeing as Ben Collins has unveiled himself as the Stig, following my Go-Karting exploits in Nottingham the other week I don’t think I’d do a half bad job of it.

I made a journey to the cinema last week upon my return from Reading to see Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I had seen the trailer and was instantly intrigued, I thought it looked a film that somehow captured the feel of Viewtiful Joe, a game originally released on the Nintendo Gamecube. I purposely avoided reading or watching anything about it, admittedly not that hard when in a field, so that I knew very little apart from the basic concept of Scott Pilgrim having to defeat the seven evil exes of Ramona Flowers.

I left the cinema some 2 hours or later amazed. If you haven’t seen this yet, I urge you to go and watch it. Sure there is homage to plenty of classic video games in there that the nerds like myself will pick up on, and experience an extra layer of humour from, but there is a great film there to enjoy for everyone else as well. It gets across how complicated a new relationship can be, whilst mixing in some ridiculous action sequences using a Batman (I’m thinking of the Adam West 1960′s series) ‘comic book’ style.

In some more Gadget related news, it’s the Autumn Fair next week so I’m sure we’ll have loads of great new and exciting gadgets to tell you about that will hopefully be with us very soon!

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