GadgetSpeak Articles
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Recently it could be said that I have been pampering my face as it has been introduced to a shaver more suited to the A-list clientele.
I can remember my paternal grandfather shaving with a cut-throat razor. This was not a task that I ever contemplated undertaking myself. That is using a cut-throat razor and not the actual shaving part which occurred naturally with the passing of time. Starting with a safety razor (sometimes referred to as a "wet shave"), I have progressed through several electric shavers from various manufacturers.
Do you wake up with a start when your alarm goes off? If you were in a deep sleep this can often make you grumpy and even tired all day. This could well be the solution.
Philips are now a leader in things for health benefits. I have been using this for three weeks now and I certainly feel better for it. It is 29cm tall, 18cm wide and 12cm deep. The majority of the unit - all bar the bottom 8cm - is a white cover for the light - a screw in 100watt bulb - but this is not just any light. The ability to dim lights has been around for years normally operated by a switch.
Programs can come to your attention through different routes. I came across this one purely by accident when working on another project.
While Windows and many of its applications have the facility to keep records of your activities either through a recent document list feature or presented in a History Log neither method allows easy access to the relevant data. This is especially true when your current location is the desktop rather than the relevant application. In this case you will be required to fire up the application to get at the data.
This is a mono laser (all in one) AIO product that is neat, compact and virtually silent. In fact when I first saw it I could not believe it was a AIO because it was so small.
It is 39x32x15cm and that includes the slight protrusion at the back for the power lead. You will need a few centimetres of space above to lift the lid to place items on the flatbed. You need to allow space in front for pages to come out and also access to the small paper tray at the base. When you first switch on there is no great whirring and churning noises, in fact the only way you know it's on is a blue light.
Please do not be put off by the title, the Dummies Series is very informative, well written and easy to understand. Best of all for anyone new to a subject there is a good glossary to explain any strange words. Here Windows Vista and Web Sites, after reading these you will certainly be less of a dummy.
Windows Vista For Dummies This is 438 pages of information to help you get the best out of Microsoft Vista. However there is an extra as well as the book you also get a DVD that covers everything in the book and has some bonus features. The bonus features are ten aggravations about Windows Vista and more importantly how to fix them. Special tips for laptop owners and 'Printing your work'.
It is entirely appropriate that a software product designed to let you create a website should be available for purchase via the Internet. That is the case with Incomedia Website X5 title.
Website X5 is available either as the Evolution or Compact version. Both titles offer WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) functionality but the latter version does not provide access to the HTML code that is created by the software. This review is based on the Compact version which is aimed at the home user.
For reasons best known to Acer they launched these new notebooks on Maundy Thursday in the UK when I am told the same presentation was done seven days ago in New York.
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A total of eight new notebooks aimed at the home market and for the first timer from Acer there are fingerprint readers on consumer products. Two entirely new screen sizes 16inch and 18.4inch, these are so the 16:10 ratio on earlier offerings can be changed to suit the current DVD's and TV that want 16:9. All have variety of NVIDIA graphics cards with 512MB of RAM plus extra shared RAM.
Taking your ZENV MP3 player on a car ride can be a musical entertaining experience that can be enhanced by some additional equipment.
The popularity of various portable music players, whether of the iPod or different MP3 models, has resulted in an increase in the range of accessories developed for such products. Normally developers of these accessories tend to produce items specifically for the iPod range or those suitable for use with any MP3 player whatever the brand.
Puzzles can relax and frustrate you in equal measures especially when time is involved.
I have to admit that puzzle games, especially those that involve some form of colour matching, are among my favourite types of relaxing activities on the computer. Although if you could see the look of concentration on my face and some of the words being emitted when mistakes made, you might doubt the relaxing aspect but never the challenge faced or the enjoyment gained.
This is a very thin and very capable digital camera. I am however not sure why the name makes it sound like a secret project, maybe if the name was something more friendly.
At 132grams it is light and at 9x6x1.5cm easily small enough to fit in a pocket or purse. When it's 3x optical zoom lens is fully extended it adds another 2cm to the width. This is a 7.2mega pixel offering and according to some camera manufacturers this would almost be sub entry level, however I can assure you size is not everything.
You know you are in for a variety of visual treats when the Polaroid gang are in town showing off the latest range of products (and that doesnt include the strong rumour that Kylie was in the immediate vicinity).
The new offerings feature digital photo frames; digital cameras for all ages; LCD TVs; a portable photo printer; and a PMP (Portable Media Player). First up are a couple of digital photo frames that both feature a black bezel. The XSU-0770S is a 7-inch model with a contrast ratio of 250:1, brightness of 300cd/m and a 480 x 234-pixel resolution.
How good is your typing? Do you wish you could touch type instead of the one-fingered search and spear technique? Do you suffer from RSI? This article reviews some of the alternatives out there to make your life easier
No matter how quickly I learn to type there is an undeniable pleasure in writing long hand. It's not that I'm an old fuddy duddy but I get more tuned in with my brain this way. Since graphic designers took to their Macs and wielded a Wacom stylus, handwriting recognition software has offered some interesting possibilities. Not being tied to your laptop and being able to write more intuitively is a great plus.
This is a sleek low slung AIO (All In One) unit that without the black front may have just passed the lounge police. However it still is a rather nice unit that does everything rather well.
It is 43x34x15cm the last figure the height increases by 17cm when A4 paper is in the tray at the rear of the unit. The scanner lid opens landscape front to back and to the right of the lid are the only controls a total of eight buttons and some LED's including a simple 1 to 9 counter for copies. You can of course copy either in colour or black without the PC being turned on or even connected to the unit.
When conventional medicines fail to help you may often look to other things like herbs to solve the problems. Here I explore a few of the alternatives.
Pelargonium I could just about spell this plant, but not being a gardener I would be unlikely to recognise it. However I heard about it while I had a stinking cold. The box states that you should take one tablet three times a day for ten days (30 in the box) but not if you are pregnant or breast feeding. By day six my cold was almost over but I completed the course.
The paperless office may be an urban myth but tools are available to convert paper documents into editable digital content.
Whether approaching document creation from either the spoken word or existing paper documents, Nuance has tools that could help when it comes to producing editable text.
There are two 605 models, the 30GB version I saw and a 20GB version that comes with several Harry Potter films pre installed.
It is 12x8x1.5cm and weights 230 grams, the screen is 9.5x5.7cm. The top of the unit has an on/off button and another to switch the output from the screen to a TV. The left side has three pin hole LED's to confirm activity and an earbud socket. Two proprietary connectors are on the base. This leaves the right side of the front where there is a column of six cream buttons.
Now up to version 10, Easy Media Creator Suite really expands the concept of a suite with over 40 applications gathered together in a single package.
I can still remember the product's original incarnation as a one-trick CD-burning application. However technology, processor speeds and hard disk storage capacity have moved on greatly since those days that we tend to look at through rose-tinted glasses. Now Easy Media Creator Suite sets out to tackle every task you could possibly conceive regarding your digital music, images and video content.
Anything Johnny Depp can do, so can you as you enter the world of an online pirate adventure of vast proportions.
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Pirates are sometimes portrayed as romantic or comic characters (Pirates of the immediately springs to mind) when the reality was that murder, looting and rape were the orders of the day with these scavengers of the high seas. Pirates of the offers to let you "Rule the oceans, seize the land, and forge a legend" in a multiplayer online game that is set in the of 1720.
This is the latest in the excellent Ixus digital camera range, in August 2006 the Ixus 700 won the rarely awarded 5x5 award. Does this latest offering live up to this rarely awarded accolade.
Like all of the Ixus range it is small at 9x6x2cm the last figure the width doubles when the 3.8 to 1 optical zoom lens is fully extended. This is very solidly constructed unit so it weights 120grams. The base has the optional tripod screw, and cover that hides the li-ion battery and also where you would insert any SD/MMC card. The right side has a very solid anchor point for a wrist strap. On the face is the 4.6 to 17.
Perhaps it was not love at first sight but a Polaroid LCD HD ready unit quickly took over my living room in the role of providing my viewing pleasure.
The times, according to Bob Dylan, are "a-changing" This 60's observation by the American folk singing currently rings true with the one-eyed monster that has taken up residence in most living rooms. I am referring, of course, to the television set and the changes that are being brought about by the combination of LCD technology and the forth-coming switch-over to digital rather than analogue broadcasting.
I've tried several heart-rate monitoring watches with varying (but low!) levels of success
in the past. This time it's the turn of Suunto with their T1 watch.
In common with other similar devices the Suunto gives you two elements - the watch itself and a separate heart rate monitor that straps around your chest for when you train. The monitored heart rate is wirelessly communicated with the watch, which provides the user interface. The watch comes with an 'interesting' strap arrangement. This has a metal clasp attached to the plastic strap.
This is a multi function unit (MFU) as it has a fax and it also has a wireless phone unit attached to the side. I remember reviewing many units with phones attached but never a wireless one.
It is 36x39x18cm with the phone and it's socket adding 8cm to the 39cm width. The power lead fits at the rear of the left side well behind the phone so needs to further space, note I said power lead as there is no external power brick. The USB cable fits inside the unit and exits at the rear on the right side.
A true wireless keyboard, small in size and your only loss is the numeric keypad, it also has the possibility of being a mouse substitute as it has a rollball and mouse keys, ideal for use with a media centre type PC.
The FK-760 - sold by Gizoo details at the end - is available according to the box in Black or Silver or Red I was sent the more normal Black. However for lounge use the other colours might get a look in. This is the same model I looked at first close to 18 months ago. Once I reviewed it several people said that the one they were selling was different well it's now back in stock and indeed at less money.
While it may be small and eminently portable, Fujitsus latest external hard disk does not stint on capacity.
As a market leading manufacturer of various types of hard disk drives, you do tend to sit up and take particular notice when Fujitsu Europe announces the availability of the world's highest capacity 2.5-inch external hard disk drive. This travel-ready device is appropriately named the HandyDrive. I say appropriately not only because of its size (22 x 82 x 141.
Here I am looking at two mice different in shape and connections. The first from Logitech the VX Nano that has a tiny wireless connector. The second from Kensington that takes shape to the extreme the SlimBlade Trackball mouse.
Logitech VX Nano This is a small (described as for a notebook) mouse, however the real surprise is the transmitter that fits in an USB port it's so small that it fits in the base of the mouse so you just plug it in when you wish to work. So the dimensions the mouse is a maximum of 9x6x3cm with the front edge reducing the 3cm thickness to only a single centimetre.
So you think you are a business expert. Just how would you cope when running an establishment in a current growth industry.
Prisons are becoming over-crowded. As a result those convicted of various crimes and offences are being released before their sentences have run their course. Perhaps this is the appropriate time to hone up your skills at prison construction and management just in case you are called in to help. To this end you could use a title such as Prison Tycoon 3 from GSP.
While purchasing antivirus software is optional, it is not an option you should ignore.
Anybody visiting the BitDefender stand during a computer exhibition will have no trouble realising that the company (Softwin) behind the product lives and breathes protection. Whether it is its give-aways, such as sun block and prophylactics, or its various products, protection is the name of the game. The Softwin has recently released new versions of its BitDefender software including BitDefender Antivirus 2008.
While this may look like just another All In One it does have the odd surprise of two. Certainly the silver grey top and black for everything else is unlikely to pass the lounge police unless he/she is of the Goff persuasion.
The Epson RX585 all-in-one printer is 43x43x19cm but once you put paper in the tray (vertical at the back) this adds 14cm to the last figure the height. Installation is reasonable although it does have several (linked) parts and once started just make a cup of coffee and look in on it a few times.
The computer mouse continues to evolve in various ways. Take, for example, a new mouse from Kensington.
As part of its new product line-up, Kensington has released its SlimBlade Presenter Mouse. As you might suppose from its title, this mouse looks as if it has been on a diet to achieve its slim-line figure. However the cut-back in size has not resulted in any reduction in the functionality of this mouse as will become clear a little later. Apart from its height, this almost flat mouse is fairly standard with its other dimensions as it measures 92 x 57 x 14mm.
All the bits on this unit are designed for the smaller home, from the one litre dust container to the overall height, this unit still an upright is designed smaller.
Size everything the lack of it in this Dyson cleaner. It is 108cm to the top of the handle when extended. 28cm wide and 32cm from front to back at the base this is less than 20cm at the dust receptor and only 3cm at the skinny handle. Like all Dyson cleaners it goes through a cycle for every part, they have specific machines that test each part giving it years of wear in a very short time by almost constant action.
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