On this page are all the Gadgets and Gizmos from The Daily Giz Wiz for February, 2008!
The Daily Giz Wiz, Week of February 25, 2008 DGW----Monday, February 25th , Netcast 511
Before I went to the Miami International Boat Show, I stopped in the Jungle! Jungle Island, that is! I went down to Miami a day earlyfor the International Boat Show. That gave me a chance to check out Jungle Island. It was originally known as Parrot Jungle and it’s now in a move convenient location, right on the Macarthur Causeway between Miami and Miami Beach. There are three shows which are all included in the admission price of under $28. I saw all three and found them to be fun and informative. There’s Winged Wonders, a parrot/bird show, Tale of the Tiger, a show about tigers and other jungle animals, and the snake/reptile show where you learn that snakes are aren’t that bad. It actually did make me feel a touch better about snakes. The MCs are informative, and the park is not too big so you’re overwhelmed. It’s about 36 acres and I spend about 3 and ½ hours there. The park is divided into interesting locations like Everglades, Flamingo Lake and the Petting Barn. There’s even a small waterfall.It sounds touristy, but feeding the baby goats a bottle turned out to be great fun and just cost a dollar. And thanks to Brigitte Grosjean, for taking time from her busy day to introduce me to some of the colorful animals. If you’re visiting Florida be sure to check out www.jungleisland.com
And now on to the Miami International Boat Show and the most unusual gadget I found!
If you didn't hear the Netcast, before you scroll down, think about this: What do you think "The Little Bootie Box" would be used for? ----- Got your answer? Okay, now you can continue! The Little Bootie Box It’s not really for the general consumer, but it is perfect for medical facilities, hospitals, beauty salons, computer clean rooms, model homes, etc. The Little Bootie Boxcan help maintain a germ free, professional environment.Its a hassle free foot covering device. Just put one foot in the Little Bootie Box and push down. In a second your foot is fitted with a plastic bootie. Do the other foot and you’re ready to walk on parquet floors, white carpeting, etc. The company says it meets and exceeds health codes. At the boat show, some manufacturer’s were using this before people boarded brand new boats to look around. If you have white carpeting maybe you should have one near the front door for guests to use. And if you show up at the airport in sandals and Security makes you take them off, I bet you'd appreciate it if the Government had a Little Bottie Box standing by. The Little Bootie Box is $99.00. And 96 Plastic Bootie Covers is $21. www.littlebootiebox.com Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw511 TTTT ---February 26the Netcast 512 Today’s Turn The Table Tuesday is not bad, especially if you do still photography. It’s the Photo Studio In A Box Classic. I haven’t used one, but here’s info Leo sent me from their website: PHOTO STUDIO IN A BOX Classic is the first & only complete photo studio for under $150.00. This kit contains everything needed to take professional studio quality images...soft lighting diffusion box, lights, backgrounds & camera stand, all in one package with carrying handle! The PHOTO STUDIO IN A BOX is hundreds of dollars less than competing products and without any sacrifice to quality! With the growth in Internet auctions and online catalogs, the PHOTO SUTDIO IN A BOX is the easy solution to great photos. Light weight and easy to set up table top design, the soft light box utilizes a specially woven, heat resistant, 100% nylon fiber mesh diffuser, which delivers uniform illumination while eliminating harsh shadows and reflective glare. Folds up for convenient storage and travel. Set up size: 16” x 16” x 16”. It includes a dual sided, blue/grey, non reflective polyester fabric background provides for contrast with either dark or light objects, as well as creates an infinite field of depth. And there are two, studio quality, high output 2800K Tungsten lamps for excellent & even color temperature and clarity. Retractable legs allow for hand held use. 8 inch height with 8 ft. power cord. 110v/50w, UL listed. And finally there’s a fully adjustable, high quality, aluminum and steel camera stand eliminates jitters and blurs commonly experienced with hand held shots. Large legs with skid reduction pads keeps stand firmly in place. Neck height ranges from 10” with extension up to 18”.$120.00 www.americanrecorder.com Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw512
Wednesday, February 27th Netcast 513 A Phone That Does More Than More Calls! The TeleSpy looks like a normal "Slimline" telephone, but the manufacturer modified the interior electronics to include a motion sensor. When this passive infrared sensor detects changes in the room's heat signature due to occupant motion the silent alarm is triggered.Simply enter any telephone number you choose (cell phones work great) and turn the motion sensor switch "on" and it’s armed. If an intruder is detected, the TeleSpy instantly calls the number you dialed in.Upon answering that call, you are able to "listen in" to the sounds in the monitored area via the amplified microphone.The listening period is about 30 seconds, then the TeleSpy disconnects and instantly re-arms to detect again. The TeleSpy allows you to decide, from a safe location, "Friend or Foe."Friendly intrusions include allowable visits from family or friends, scheduled employees or roommates.In the event of an actual break-in, a call to the Police would be treated as a "verified" Burglary In Progress and be handled with the highest priority. The Telespy operates from any phone line, requires no installation, and is completely portable.$79.95 -- Click on the "Special" button to bring up the lower price. http://www.telespy.biz/ Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw513 Thursday, February 28th,Netcast 514 A Very Special Daily Giz Wiz! Thanks to MAXTOR One Touch
Nathan Papadopulos, one of our friends over at Maxtor (Now part of Seagate) asked if Leo and I wanted to do a special Leap Year Daily Giz Wiz.He suggested that people should use the extra leap year day as a time to back up all their files. And he offered us three Maxtor drives as giveaways. Since I already use a Maxtor One Touch Mini and feel backing up is very important, I said to Nathan" Let’s not use backing up as a thing to do on that extra Leap Year Day, but to do very often." He was fine with that, so here’s info on the Maxtor One Touch Storage solutions. that you have a chance to win.
Maxtor One Touch 4 Plus gives you everything you need to get started enjoying the speed, capacity, and peace of mind of backing up everything you have. This external hard drive is preloaded with software. There’s Maxtor SafetyDrill recovery CD / Backup and OneTouch Manager software applications. It can use USB 2.0 cable or the fasterFireWire 400 cable. It’s also supplied with an external AC power supply. Not only does the OneTouch 4 Plus provide backups, data storage, and protection for your files, it also protects your entire computer system in case of disaster. To prepare in case of a system crash or virus attack, the Maxtor SafetyDrill feature automatically creates a snapshot of the entire contents of your PC’s hard drive which can be readily booted for an easy and complete recovery. For PC and Mac computer users. I found a 750 GB unit for under $200.But we’re giving away one of the brand new One TB units.Yes, that’s a Maxtor One Touch 4 Plus Terabyte Storage Solution!
The 80 GB OneTouch 4 Mini Portable USB 2.0 Hard Drive from Maxtor is a high-capacity drive in a tiny package. The drive features an interface that allows it to be connected via USB 2.0, an 8 MB data buffer, and a rotation speed of 5400 rpm. The drive is bus-powered and weighs less than six ounces, making it a truly portable solution for adding storage capacity to your mobile computer.80 GB of capacity allows for storage of approximately 6 hours of uncompressed DV digital video, the equivalent of 17 4.7 GB DVD video discs, or up to 10,000 MP3 files. USB 2.0 Interface/Compact Size /The drive's 4.9 x 0.6 x 3.2" form factor and six ounce weight make it truly portable, allowing you to take it with you wherever you go. I use the 80 GB version, but available capacities: include 80 GB, 120 GB, 160 GB, and 250 GBPrices start at under $80 for the 80 GB. In addition to the one Terabyte unit, Maxtor is giving away two OneTouch 4 Mini 250 GB USB 2.0 Hard Drives.
To enter the game, just email me with one sentence:I want a Maxtor OneTouch to back up _____________.(You fill in the blank.)We’ll pick three entries and send them on to Maxtor and they’ll send out the drives. The cut off date is March 15th. And we'll announce the three winners on the Daily GizWiz and this website the following week.And as usual, with everything on the Daily GizWiz, shipping is only to the US and Canada. Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw514 Friday, February 29th 515 BACK TO THE WAREHOUSE FRIDAY! Jacob, a Daily GizWiz listener, sent me info on a gadget he thought was perfect for the Gadget Warehouse. When I read about it, I couldn’t believe the specs for the Honeywell H319 Pedestal Kitchen Computer. A computer that weighed over 100 pounds and did almost nothing --- All for just a touch more than $10,000! Here’s the great info from our friends over at www.old-computers.com. This odd-looking and almost laughable computer was released by Honeywell under the official name H316 Pedestal Model, but was featured on the cover of a Nieman-Marcus catalog under its more commonly-known name, the "Kitchen Computer". The Kitchen Computer is most likely where the classic recipe storage cliché originated, as this was the primary use advertised for the Kitchen Computer. In fact, storing recipes was about all the Kitchen Computer was capable of doing. The recipes were programmed into the computer and it would store them for you. In other words, it was an electronic recipe storage box, nothing more. Supposedly it was quite a chore to program recipes into the Kitchen Computer, mainly because it took about two weeks to learn how to program the thing. However, the Kitchen Computer was shipped with some recipes already programmed into it. When one thinks of computer hardware, they often think of a monitor or a keyboard or a printer. Well, the Kitchen Computer has perhaps the oddest piece of "hardware" I have ever heard of -- a cutting board! This oddity was most likely added so the food could be prepared right there without having to walk away from the recipe display, considering the Kitchen Computer isn't as portable as a good old-fashioned cookbook (It weighed a staggering 150 pounds). Other specifications for this system include 4KB magnetic core memory (Expandable to 16KB) and a system clock speed of 2.5MHz. I was not able to find any information about the display, but I imagine it has to be some kind of text display (Who'd want to read recipes using LEDs and binary code?). I also could not find any information about the CPU, or whatever the 60s version of a CPU was. This system is so obscure I had a quite difficult time finding detailed specifications for it. Supposedly the H316/Kitchen Computer is based on the DDP-516 (Also made by Honeywell), so perhaps some of the specifications are similar. However I couldn't find any way to verify that. The Kitchen Computer was obviously geared towards housewives who loved to cook. However any housewives who wanted one of these had to shell out A LOT of green, considering the Kitchen Computer sold for $10,600 when it was first introduced (You could buy about four new cars for that much money in 1965!). This price tag included the built-in recipes mentioned earlier, and also included a cookbook and an apron! Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw515 Don’t forget, today is the Last chance for the What The Heck Is It (WTHII) game. Scroll to the bottom of the opening page for all the details. We gave up to 3 dozen copies, so you have a good chance to win one! It's at the bottom of this page: www.gizwiz.biz
The Daily Giz Wiz, Week of February 18th, 2008 Monday, February 18thNetcast 506
From Energizer, The DUO Charger. (READ UPDATE BELOW - 3/9/2010)
This is pretty clever. Put the Duo Charger in your pocket, in a camera or computer bag and you have a mini, very useful charger for AA and AAA NiMH batteries. The Duo is available in your choice of green, red, or blue. And this I like, although you don’t really need it, you can download a neat little program from the Energizer website that let’s you track the charger's progress right on your computer screen. It knows what the charger is doing because it’s drawing the power to charge the batteries from one of the USB ports. You’ll see a picture representing the batteries in the device and a timer that counts down to the time they’re fully charged. The DUO charger retails for $13.99 (but I’ve already seen it for under $12 by doing a web search. In the package is the charger, an AC to USB adapter, which you can use to charge other USB devices and two Energizer AAA 900 NiMH batteries. Someone at Amazon didn’t check the USB Duo Charger copy after they cut pasted it. Read the first two lines of copy about the Duo Charger… Product Features Composite & S-Video Input Cable Charges Through The Usb & Wall Outlet 3 Colors Available http://shmyl.com/aalpson
2/9/2010 Update from long time Giz Wiz fan, Opher B:
Hello Dick and Leo - I think you'll want to report to your listeners that "According to researchers at US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team), software that accompanies the Energizer DUO USB battery charger contains a Trojan horse that gives hackers total access to a Windows PC."
According to Giz Wiz Search, you discussed the Energizer DUO USB on show # 506.
Thanks for all the great ways to spend my money - they are more entertaining than Las Vegas, and usually more useful, too: I now have a collection of doorstops that my kids will sell to pay for college.
Opher Banarie Laguna Niguel, CA
Tuesday, February 19th Netcast 507
Turn The Table Tuesday. Leo comes up with a very inexpensive gadget with a very unusual name --- The Jerkstopper!It just might prove useful if you have a laptop computer. Here’s the info:
Technically it's a CRD (Cable Retention Device) designed to utilize any existing port (USB, RJ11 or RJ45) on a laptop computer as a stay or restraint to keep the very fragile AC power connector from being damaged. Repairs to this connector can range from $100 to $250 or more if repairable. The JerkStopper Cable Retention Device keeps you and others from causing costly damage to your Laptop Computer. JerkStopper fits all laptop computers equipped with either a RJ11 (modem), RJ45 (network) or a USB Port. Cost is under ten bucks --$ 9.95, pretty cheap compared to the potential $100 - $200 or more repair costs if you break your Laptop AC power connector. $ 9.95 plus shipping gets you 3 JerkStoppers. (1 each that will fit a USB, RJ45, or RJ11 port.) 1 year money back guarantee plus a metal Road Warrior Travel case. www.jerkstopper.com Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw507 Wednesday – Feb 20thNetcast 508 I Don’t Think You’ll Sleep Through the Alarm on this Clock! Wake and ShakeAlarm Clock. So you never sleep through an alarm again, this clock uses a strobe light, a vibration pad and high decibel sound to awake even the soundest of sleepers. The large wired vibrating pad can be placed under the mattress or pillow to provide an insistent buzz that works in tandem with your choice of several loud alarm tones (up to 95 dB) and a small strobe light. An invaluable aid for those with hearing loss, the clock can be used in vibrate-only mode and placed on one side of the bed, allowing one person to sleep while the other is gently awakened at the pre-selected time. The unit can also be attached to a phone jack to alert you to calls when the telephones ring may be hard to hear. The clock includes an easy-to-read oversized LC D display, and volume, tone, and vibration controls. $60.00 www.clearsounds.com. www.twit.tv/dgw508
If you are, or ever were a fan of
THE MATCH GAME
there are still some original Match Game questions available.
Thursday- February 21st Netcast 509 Newer Tech Bass Response Earbuds An easyway to make your MP3 player sound better is to replace the earbuds that came with your unit. For the most part manufacturer’s don’t spend a lot of money on the earbuds they pack with new MP3 players. They assume you probably already have a pair of your own, so why give you another “good” pair. On the other hand you don’t want to spend too much money on earbuds you carry everywhere and may lose. A perfect solution is NewerTech's Bass Response Earbuds. They utilize Insert-Passive Noise Reduction engineering, so these earbuds reduce noise an average of 42dB while boosting your audio soundtrack up to 10dB at higher frequencies. They let you enjoy the most comfortable, bass response, and volume level with less energy while keeping out unwanted and distracting ambient background noise. And the cost?Ready? Just $19.95. To my mind, and to my ears, this is an excellent value! http://www.newertech.com/products/ato2.php www.twit.tv/dgw509 Friday --- February 22nd, Netcast 510 A gift to the Gadget Warehouse from a DGW Listener! Gadget Magazine, March 1985 This 12 page magazine is packed with the wonders of gadgetry of 1985! We’ve come pretty far in the past 23 years. Check out the Sony CD player for $299.95. Inside there's a story about the “lightweight” Kodavision, video recorder.Just a touch under five pounds and about $1900! You could add a timer/tuner for just $300 more. And an AC converter for another $179! And how about the Canon PC-20 Copier, an “economy” home printer. The price? $1095.00!! And that's 23 year old money! Hear this Netcast:www.twit.tv/dgw510
Daily Giz Wiz for the Week of February 11th, 2008 Monday February 11th --Netcast 501
La Crosse Weather Direct
We don’t have a particular day of the of the week when we open a package that arrives while we’re recording. But we decided that any day that the bell rings with a package delivery, we’ll make whatever is in the package the gadget of the day.This particular day the package arrived mid-broadcast, so Leo and I decided I would open it on the next Netcast. I opened it and inside was the La Crosse Technology Weather Direct Internet Powered, Satellite Assisted Weather Clock Radio! Wow, that’s long name. This gizmo does have lots of features! It wasn’t until after the program I looked at the unit more carefully. Although it looks exactly like the unit that will be sale, it was just a demo unit that really didn’t get and display the current weather. But here’s the info: It’s the model WA-1240U 4 DAY AUDIO WEATHER FORECASTER Forecast for 600 Cities Included / 4 Day Forecast w/ Daily Sky Condition Icons / Micro Forecast (Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night) / HI and LOW Daily Temperature Forecast /Indoor Temperature /Wireless Outdoor Temperature (Sensor Included) Time Sets Itself (Alarm with Snooze) /Stereo Sound /User Selectable Wake Up Tones / WEATHER DIRECT audio options include personalized audio greetings like this: “Hello John. It is 12:34 PM on June 10th. It will be partly sunny with a high of 80°F and a low of 69°F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. 10% chance of precipitation. The four day forecast indicates...”This unit can also read you your email! I should be on the market soon. Price will be about $150, but there will be models as low as $50. www.weatherdirect.com. Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw501 Tuesday,February 12thNetcast 502 It’s Turn The Table Tuesday and Leo comes with a gadget that he doesn’t have to be ashamed of! The Corsair Flash Voyager family of USB drives is durable, stylish, compact, and reliable, making them ideal for transporting MP3s, digital images, presentations and more. Leo got the 16 GB version, but I see from their website Corsair has a 32 GB version! Flash Voyager drives are fully Plug and Play with most operating systems and are backward compatible with USB 1.1. Flash Voyager is enclosed in the Corsair proprietary all-rubber housing boasting durable properties. Several reviews of the Flash Voyager products have demonstrated the ruggedness, durability, and reliability of the Flash Voyager family. The Flash Voyager has been shown laundered, baked, frozen, boiled, dropped, and even run over by a SUV in many third party reviews. After all the punishment it receives, the drive continues to work. Features Plug & Play functionality in Windows® Vista, XP, 2000, ME, Linux 2.4 and later, Mac OS 9, X and later Includes the True Crypt security application (Windows Vista/XP/2000 compatible only) allowing for a virtual encrypted drive using AES-256 encryption (not preloaded on 2GB models) Lanyard, USB cable.The best price I found online was here: http://www.shrinkmylink.com/lqjpson I have never purchased anything from this company so I can’t vouch for their service. www.cosair.com. Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw502 Wednesday, February 13thNetcast 503 –
A Neat Little Device for a Neat Little Price.
The Thirsty Light is an digital plant moisture sensor that blinks an LED to alert you that it’s time to water your potted plant. It is designed to be unobtrusive when left in the soil of a plant, where it continuously monitors conditions, testing the moisture level once per second. The company calls the circuit that drives the device, Drypoint. It can sense 5 different levels of dryness, causing the light to blink faster as the soil gets dryer, increasing the urgency of its call to action, until it reaches the fifth level, “completely dry”, which puts the device in standby mode to conserve electricity, emitting a double blink every 3 seconds. There is a low-battery mode as well: a slow triple blink. The Thirsty Light comes with a comprehensive and informative user and watering guide, and is backed by a 30 day manufacturer’s warranty. Price, under $10. If you have a lot of plants they offer a small discount for multiple units. www.thirstylight.com Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw503
Thursday, February 14thNetcast 504 – Valentine’s Day.
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Here’s a Digital Picture with a Lot of Features.
It’s the Coby DP-5588 - Deluxe 5.6" Digital Photo Frame with Clock. Normally I don’t like digital picture frames because they’re often expensive and very limited in what they can do. But this Coby digital frame is different. It’s also an MP3 Player, it can play video files and it even has built in speakers. And it’s an alarm clock too. Here are the details: 5.6" TFT LCD color display / Handsome wooden frame with analog clock. Displays JPEG image files /Plays MP3 and WMA audio files. Plays MPEG -1, -2, -4 (AVI, XviD) video files/ Photo slideshow mode with music. Calendar and clock with alarm timer / SD, MMC, MS, xD, and CF card slots/ Full-size USB port for use with flash memory drives /AV output for use with home theater systems / Integrated stereo speakers.And the price $100, but I found it at about $80 atJ&R Music.
Here’s a product that has been around since 1968. What I didn’t release is that it’s in production almost 40 years years later. There have been several different models however. This history is from the eBay Bose Guide.
Series I----1968 to 1973, acoustic suspension Series II---1973 to 1976, acoustic suspension, improved high frequency response. Series III--1976 to 1978, Acoustic Matrix (ported cabinet--takes less amplifier power to drive to the same volume level) Drivers use 3 bolts. Series IV--1978 to 1983, Acoustic Matrix, improved high frequency response. Drivers use 3 bolts. Series V---1983 to 1988, Acoustic Matrix, better material used for the speaker drivers. Drivers use 3 bolts. Series VI--1988 to present, Acoustic Matrix, Drivers use 3 bolts. This is current production, as of January '08.
Price today: $1,398 for pair of Bose 901’s an active equalizer, plus shipping and sales tax.
There are several things that make the 901 series speakers so special. The unique Direct/Reflecting design of the speaker causes most (89%) of the sound produced to be directed to the rear of the cabinet, away from the seating position. This sound bounces off the back and side walls before reaching you. The use of nine identical 4 1/2 inch drivers, rather than the more traditional "big" woofer, "little" tweeter, and "just right" midrange cones is another design choice. Nine small drivers, acting in unison, have about the same air-moving capacity as a single large woofer and mid-sized midrange cone. On the other hand, it's tough to get a 4 1/2 inch driver to put out high frequencies. And so here is a trade-off. Using multiple, identical drivers allows Bose to totally eliminate a passive crossover network, but instead, a special, purpose-built Active Equalizer is needed to extend the frequency response of the speaker unit.
Mine were in the gadget warehouse, but then a friend was setting up a stereo system, so I gave them to him. It seemed better to have them back in action, rather than collecting dust in the gadget warehouse!
Gizmos are Good – The Packaging They Come In --- BAD!
Open It can help, big time! It’s two cutting devices in one so you’ll be able to open even the most indestructible plastic blister packs that almost all new small electronics are packaged in! My guess is you hate those anti-theft heavy duty plastic packages as much as I do! Well OpenIt says the nightmare of trying to get the contents out is over. OpenIt looks so much like pruning shears when I got a product sample in the mail,I put them aside. I thought I'd look at them in the Spring when people started thinking about gardening. But then at CES I heard someone talking about OpenIt and how quickly they could cut through heavy duty plastic shell packages. So I got home I took them out and tried them. The first you see is that the OpenIt is packaged in --- a plastic shell!But they were clever and there's a way to take them easily through the back of the package. Squeezing on the orange pliers handles allows you to cut your way through those thick shells. But wait, there's more! Built into the handles there's also a retractable box-cutter that's spring loaded so you won't accidentally cut in your excitement to open your latest gadget. And guess what -- that's still more! Built into the other handle is a mini screw driver so you can open the battery compartment of your new gadget. Pretty neat, especially the price. $10.95 and it comes in three other colors if you don't like orange. I like it because it makes it easy to spot under all the clutter on my workspace! http://www.enjoyzibra.com/openit/features.html Hear this Netcast www.twit.tv/dgw496 TTTT-Netcast 497 – February 5th
Leo come up with a real decent Turn The Table Tuesday!What’s Up With Him?Almost no one is sending me “ridicule Leo” emails!
His pick for today is The Eikon Digital Privacy Manager
Since I haven’t seen or used one, here’s info from Amazon where it’s available forunder $50. The Eikon Digital Privacy Manager combines the award-winning Eikon USB peripheral fingerprint reader with the same Protector Suite QL software currently shipping on millions of notebook PCs today. The Eikon Digital Privacy Manager offers any user with an existing PC the benefits of simple convenience and strong security provided by UPEK's unique biometric authentication technology, all with the simple swipe of their finger. The Eikon Digital Privacy Manager addresses the growing consumer market need for a simpler and more secure way to protect important personal information from threats such as phishing, password dictionary attacks and malicious software. Rather than using simple or redundant passwords on multiple sites, users can now choose complex passwords and let the Eikon Digital Privacy Manager remember them automatically! The Eikon Digital Privacy Manager leverages the same hardware and software from UPEK integrated into millions of laptops from the world's leading PC brands. The Eikon fingerprint reader won the prestigious Consumer Electronics Association (CES) Best of Innovations Award in 2007. The bundled Protector Suite QL software is compatible with Windows Vista, XP Home and Professional, 2003 and 2000 operating systems. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price: $54.99. Price at Amazon: $49.99.
Okay, now you can control your PC/TV wirelessly from the couch!
The new Logitech diNovo Mini is a palm-sized keyboard with media remote and ClickPad. Designed for people who have connected their PC to their TV, the highly compact, stylish diNovo Mini keyboard makes it easy to control PC entertainment from the sofa, bed, easy chair, etc. Both my Viewsonic monitors have the ability to hook a computer or a cable box to the display. For easy navigation, the diNovo Mini keyboard features backlighting and an innovative ClickPad, which can be used as a touch pad to point, scroll and click - or as a directional pad to navigate menus and make selections. The mini-keyboard uses Bluetooth 2.0 wireless technology for use from the sofa or anywhere in the living room, bedroom, dorm, etc. $150 includes a Bluetooth dongle for the computer. Yes, it’s PC only, not for the Mac.
Thursday, Feb. 7th, 499 Here’s WiFi Media Player from A Company You May Not Know. The Company is Haier and you might know them for their appliances. Well now they’ve entered the consumer electronic market and one of their first gizmos is their Ibiza WiFi Media Player.It’s a Linux-based, WiFi-enabled portable music player with some nice features. There’s a 2.5-inch color LCD screen with four buttons, one on each side. It may look techie to some, plain or nerdy to others. Music/Video wise it supports MPEG4, WMV, M4V, AVI, and H.264, and it offers wireless access to Rhapsody's streaming channels anywhere there's WiFi.You can easily save songs to the players' hard drive with one click. And yes! It supports a wireless Podcast directory, and it also offers support for AOL Wireless Video. Along with the integrated WiFi there’s also built in Bluetooth. It’s not inexpensive. The 30 GB unit is $330. A bit under $300 at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/ibiza-Rhapsody-H1A030S-Player-Silver/dp/B000XRQ2OS Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw499 Friday , Feb8th, It’s not only Back to the Warehouse Friday,
It’s the 500th Episode of The Daily Giz Wiz !!!! Have you ever heard of RainStick? The RainStick is an easy way to water plant that are in hard-to-reach places. And you don’t need ladders and you don’t need to connect a hose. The plastic RainStick tube is designed to be easily filled from either the sink tap or from a bucket. So it’s ideal for balcony gardeners who might not have access to a hose connection. The 32" length helps you reach hanging plants without using a stool and you don't have to worry about dragging a hose around to water just one plant. The RainStick is lightweight - only about 3.6 lb (1.63 kg) when full. Gardeners without too much strength who find watering cans or hoses too heavy or cumbersome to carry around will find it the ideal watering device. It also comes with a handy plastic holder that can be placed permanently on a wall or fence for convenient slip-on storage. Holds up to 4 cups (1000 ml) of water. Designed and made in Canada.This was to cost $20, but I can’t find it on the web anymore. I found it at the Garden and Outdoors Show about 5 years ago.Now if I only had some plants in the warehouse that needed watering! www.twit.tv/dgw500
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If you have any Daily GizWiz stories to share we'd love to hear them and maybe read them on the DGW, so email me. dick@gizwiz.biz. And/or If you have a favorite gadget of the past, tell us about that too!
This website is current only up to the end of April, 2009. My new website with everything from May 1st, 2009 forward is: www.gizwiz.biz.
