Happy New Year - My 2006 Resolution
I want to wish all of you loyal Gizmo Ranch readers a very Happy New Year, and hope that your year will be safe and prosperous.
I’ve made a resolution to do at least two podcasts a month for The Gizmo Ranch. To be honest with you, I got quite burned out podcasting earlier this year because I was doing two a week AND hosting a number of them through my Podbus.com service. However, I’m back in the mood to do more podcasts, so I figure doing two a month here and two a month for CacheCaster.com, I’ll only be doing one a week. Many of those podcasts will replace written reviews - instead, you’ll just listen to me pontificating about new products and services.
Steve
PRESS RELEASE: Astraware's Annual Hogmanay Party!
THE MIDLANDS, UK - December 29th, 2005 - It’s almost New Year and so it’s time for Astraware’s Annual Hogmanay Party and you’re all invited! Bring Your Own PDA!
From Friday 30th December for 14 days we’ll be offering a different product each day with at least 50% off! Whether you’re a fan of action games, puzzles or word games we guarantee there’s something for everyone. Check back to the Astraware site at http://www.astraware.com every day at 8.00am GMT to see what the new discount title is!
Club Astraware members can still earn points - even on the Hogmanay games - which count towards discounts on future purchases. If you’re not already a member, why not sign up now? It’s free to join and only takes a couple of minutes - and you could earn 2500 points just for joining! Simply visit http://www.astraware.com/club to find out more!
(Editor’s note: What’s Hogmanay? According to the Wikipedia, it is the Scots word for the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. One tradition of Hogmanay is the singing of Auld Lang Syne!)
VITO ActiveTrace to feel the real sport
VITO Technology announces its firstling in sports oriented software
December 26 – VITO Technology is proud to present its brand-new product VITO ActiveTrace. ActiveTrace is a Pocket PC/Smartphone program with GPS navigation support for all gadgeteers who happen to have aspiration for sport. Even if you are far from going in for sport you can’t help feeling like a real sportsman with all the possibilities VITO ActiveTrace provides.
ActiveTrace is specially designed to watch your sports progress. There are several sports activities that are best for training with VITO ActiveTrace:
° running
° roller-skating
° biking
° cycling
° mountain skiing
° cross-country skiing
° snowboarding
ActiveTrace records your track while you are performing any of these activities and keeps all the necessary statistics with your achievements, such as max/min speed, altitude, average speed, acceleration, overall time, distance, calories burnt and some other activity dependant stats.
With VITO ActiveTrace you get the total control over your training performance. Use it to record your tracks and have all the necessary stats displayed on-line while a track is being recorded. This information is carefully saved for further references and thorough investigation after you finished recording your track. You can always find out your speed and altitude at a certain track point.
VITO ActiveTrace is especially useful for going in for sport (or just for a walk) with your friends. At any point of your trip you can exchange your coordinates with friends via sms messages instead of wasting time on looking for each other.
User friendly interface provides you with a convenient way of managing this info; there are several view modes available in VITO ActiveTrace. They are designed to bring forward different aspects of your activity and give you more specific information:
Trips view allows you to switch between different trips, record new ones and perform all the general actions like renaming or deleting your tracks, etc.
Track view displays your track and allows you to navigate along your track, zoom in/out, set pushpins. It also displays your friends’ coordinates as set pushpins or as moving pushpins if you wish.
Statistics view displays your training results and can also switch to the track view to show the exact point on the track where you achieved for instance max speed.
Altitude and speed views graphically represent the altitude and the speed of your trip.
VITO ActiveTrace supports major windows mobile powered Pocket PCs and Smartphones (WM 5.0 compatible). It is available as an executable or zipped file and as a .cab archive for over-the-air download. Trial version is available for free download; full version can be purchased for $29.99 at the web site www.ActiveTrace.com. Volume discounts are available. For additional product information, visit www.activetrace.com.
VITO Technology ltd. is known for its high-tech products in the field of Pocket PC, Palm, and Symbian software, navigation and custom projects. Introduced in the present article VITO ActiveTrace is a sports oriented program for recording tracks, storing trip statistics, and exchanging coordinates.
A Merry Christmas from the Gizmo Ranch!
I’d like to wish all the friends of the Gizmo Ranch a very Merry Christmas! I was happy to see some new gadgets under MY tree - a Garmin GPSMAP 60cs GPS receiver and a really nice new watch to replace my MSN Direct Smart Watches. And of course I still have a pile of goodies to review, so that’s almost like having another present to play with.
If you got a fun gizmo for Christmas, let’s hear about it!
Top 50 Gadgets of the Past 50 Years
Fellow gadget geeks - take a look at PC World’s take on the top 50 gadgets of the last 50 years.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123950,00.asp
This is a great list! What’s fun is how many of these items I’ve owned throughout my lifetime (since I’m near 50, I’ve had a lot of ‘em!). I never did get a Rex (#33), but I did have every iteration of Newton MessagePad, helped a friend solder together a MITS Altair 8800 (#24) in college, and have written a popular book about the iPod (#2).
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
I’m currently reading The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey. It’s all about the 26th president and a trip he took after an unsuccessful attempt at an unprecedented third term as president. Author Candice Millard, a former National Geographic staff writer, does a phenomenal job in her first book.
TR decided that he needed to go on an expedition to cheer himself up. He, son Kermit and a large retinue of other would-be explorers soon found themselves in the heart of Brazil, attempting to become the first people to travel down the “River of Doubt”. This river, a previously unexplored tributary of the Amazon, presented the team with almost insurmountable obstacles. Roosevelt himself became so ill at one point that it was not expected that he would last another day. He and most of the members of the expedition DID live to see the end of the journey, only to find some nay-sayers back at home in the States who didn’t believe he had actually completed the rigorous journey - not unlike the idiots out there who don’t believe that the Apollo missions ever landed on the Moon.
You can Buy this book
Christmas Gizmos Part 19
If you haven’t purchased all of your Christmas gifts by now, chances are very good that you’re too late. However, it’s not too early to start thinking about what gifts to get yourself if you end up with too many ugly sweaters or other items that just didn’t hit your main nerve.
This year’s fun geek watch is the Fossil Abacus AU5005 Wrist PDA with Palm OS. It’s a Palm OS PDA in a watch! And the price is extremely good as well - only $49.99. That has to be the least expensive PDA on the market! It’s certainly more useful than the MSN Direct Smart Watches that Fossil sold last Christmas, and it will bring a happy face to just about any gizmo geek.
Gmail Mobile
I have a LOT of Gmail accounts. When Google first announced the service I set up one account to serve as a spam filter for a traditional POP account I had. That worked so well that I set up a number of other accounts. It’s always bugged me that I couldn’t get to those from a PDA or phone. Until now, that is! Gmail is now available on pocket devices. All you need to do is point your mobile device to http://m.gmail.com and you’re greeted with a screen that looks like this:
That’s it! The next step is to use your Gmail account name and password, and you’ll be up and running in no time at all. While this screenshot shows Gmail on a Windows Mobile device, I’ve used it successfully on my Treo 650 and on several Sprint / Nextel devices that I’m testing. Any Gmail user with a mobile device should use this - it’s free and it works!
Christmas Gizmos Part 18
It’s certainly getting “down to the wire” - Christmas is on Sunday and it’s Wednesday already. Never fear, there are still a lot of Christmas goodies available! You won’t be able to get an iPod shuffle, however - they’re apparently sold out until after New Year’s, which tells me that Apple is probably going to replace the shuffle with a 1 GB nano at MacWorld Expo. The nano, on the other hand, is being produced at the phenomenal rate of 100,000 per day to meet demand!
Today’s gizmo is NOT for Mac users, since this company has decided to create its product for Windows PCs and Windows Mobile devices only. It’s the Slingbox, a device that looks a lot like a large silver candy bar and is designed for TV junkies. What you do is hook all of your various goodies into the Slingbox - your cable TV or satellite feed, your DVR, etc… - and then connect it to the Internet. It then feeds your TV stream over the Internet to anywhere you may be! Want to watch your favorite soaps from the comfort of your office? No problem! How about viewing your stash of pR0n from a hotel room while you’re on a business trip? If you have a PC or network-connected Windows Mobile device with you, you’re set.
The best thing about the Slingbox is how easy it is to set up. The second best thing about it is that it works! It will stream your shows anywhere there’s an Internet connection and it does it well. You even get an on-screen virtual remote control that is identical in looks and function to the one you normally use to run your home devices. You also don’t need to pay for this service since it’s just redirecting your cable/satellite feed and you’ve already paid for that. C’mon - you know you want one! And if you order quickly you can have it arrive at your house before Christmas Day!
Christmas Gizmos Part 17
If you happen to be one of the three or four people in the western hemisphere who doesn’t have a TiVo or some other sort of DVR, it’s time to correct that oversight. With this baby, you’ll be able to record up to 140 hours of your favorite programming in full digital glory. Of course, you’ll also need to get a TiVo subscription…
Mmmmmm…Fine Corinthian Leather!
I recently got an iPod nano magnet flipper case from Sena Cases, and I like it! I’ve been worried about the screen and case getting scratched since I was just throwing the nano into my pocket, and the Sena case was perfect. It’s black leather to compliment my black nano, and it has openings in all the right places to allow access to the click wheel, the headphone jack and the hold switch. To top it off, it’s a heck of a bargain at $35.99. Here are a couple of pics I took with my Treo to show you just how nice this case is:
I liked this design better than their $26.99 LeatherSkin since it covers the click wheel when closed. The other model would be more sleek, but I’m all for as much protection as I can get on my devices! One really nice touch is that these come in a nice red felt bag tucked inside a box, so they’re perfect for a gift.
ListPro 4.1 Released by Ilium Software
ListPro 4.1 Upgrade
We’ve just released ListPro 4.1, for Pocket PCs, Palm Powered Handhelds, Smartphones, and Windows PCs. ListPro 4.1 adds:
* Simplified List Creation
* Strike-Thru Completed Items
* Expanded Calculations
* New “Find All” Function
* Improved Printing
* More Support for Windows Mobile 5.0 Devices
* Better Support for the Palm Treo
* Complete Support for any Screen Size or Shape
* And many other Usability Improvements
Free Upgrades
If you bought ListPro 4.0 from us at any time, the upgrade to version 4.1 is free, on the same platform(s) for which you bought ListPro 4.0. Here’s how to get it:
* If you have the unlock codes we sent you with your ListPro 4.0 purchase, they will work with ListPro 4.1. Just download the trial version and install it over your current ListPro version, and use your ListPro 4.0 unlock codes to unlock the 30-day trial. If you have any problems with them, just let us know and we’ll get you working again.
* If you already unlocked a trial version of ListPro 4.0, the 4.1 version will unlock automatically. Just download the trial version and install it over your current ListPro version. It should be unlocked automatically. If it isn’t, just fill out this form and we’ll send you new codes.
* We’ll be sending new codes to all registered users of ListPro 4.0 by mid-January. We’ll update this page when the emails are complete. If you can’t wait, just download and install the trial version. Your new unlocking information should reach you by the time the 30 days expires. If you have a problem with the upgrade, or need codes right away, just let us know.
When Complaining Helps…
It appears that my griping about Microsoft’s Mobius conference might have had a good effect. All of us Mobians received a note that basically said that Microsoft is going to try to have more than one event per year in order to try to “spread the wealth” - hopefully a sign that the smaller websites like The Gizmo Ranch won’t be left out in the future. They’re also making a commitment to providing more equipment and software for reviews and giveaways. Microsoft DID provide a couple of devices earlier this year for us to give away, and that was helpful in launching our revised website. But still, three years without physically attending the conference is a little ridiculous…
Christmas Gizmos Part 16
CHRISTMAS GIZMOS
Give the gift of life.
Do you know someone who has heart disease and could have a heart attack any time? If so, the Philips HeartStart Home Automated External Defibrillator could be the perfect gift. It’s not cheap, but it can save a life by taking someone through the steps of using “the paddles” to restart a heart. You’ve probably seen similar Automated External Defibrillators on aircraft and in public venues; now you can have one at home. If a loved relative or friend has had a heart attack and is at risk of having another one, this gift can literally make the difference between life and death.
Christmas Gizmos Part 15
OK, I’m not a gaming junkie. In fact, I received an Xbox for free a few years ago and it has been collecting dust near the TV. But looking at some of the games for the new Xbox 360 console has made me wonder if I ought to buy one.
The set featured here is the complete “Premium” console bundle containing the Premium Console, a 20GB hard drive, 2 wireless controllers, plug ‘n play charge kit, Xbox Live headset, HDTV and Ethernet cables, the Xbox 360 Media Remote Control and (last but not least) the Kameo: Elements of Power game. Putting this underneath someone’s Christmas Tree is going to make them VERY happy indeed!
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Joy of Tech!
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MacLevelTen
