5 posts tagged “toaster”

From the makers of the popular Gorillapod (Episode 151), the Zivio Boom by Joby is another bluetooth headset, in an already crowded market in Dick's words, but with a few neat features.  It has a boom mic at the end of a telescoping retractable flexible metal extension to bend it towards your mouth, with noise cancellation.  It has interchangeable earbuds in different sizes (mushroom or scoop shape) to fit your ears.  The earbud sits on a "ball and socket joint" which can tilt and rotate to give you the best comfort.  An optional earloop can be purchased, which attaches to the Zivio magnetically, to give you extra stability.


There are big tactile + and - buttons for volume adjustments, and pressing both at the same time mute or unmute the mic.  Tap the big round button at the top to answer a call, hold it down to hang up and perform other functions with this button.  The Zivio comes with a USB cable and an AC adapter,  You can charge the Zivio via USB or an AC outlet.  The AC adapter has 2 USB ports, so you can charge another USB device (such as your phone) at the same time.  And overall, it has a sleek look and design - as sleek as a Borg could possibly look.

Condemner Reports
Dick explains the hoops Consumer Reports has to jump through these days to give a full, responsible, and up-to-date review.  Leo reads the publication religiously and still sticks to Consumer Reports' shampoo recommendation, even though Jennifer continues to pooh-pooh Pert Shampoo.  Dick also confirms Bad Channelz's query from the Chatroom that he wrote Mad's satire pieces Condemner Reports.  And mazzingmazz from the Chatroom likes Dick's report, and has ordered one before the end of the recording session.

Audible Appreciation
Mr Foolish decided to check out Audible after listening to one Daily Giz Wiz episode in one of his ever-growing sleepless nights and was instantly hooked.  He also likes the occasional freebies from Audible.  Now he can't wait to read the books.

Helluva of a Town
Learn about the local geography of New York City, how Madison and Amsterdam Avenues intersect, or not, the Bronx and the Battery, and hear a performance of "New York, New York", the one from Bernstein's "On The Town".


Listen to Episode 769
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Having mercilessly mocked Dick's recommendation of the CompUSA External HDD Enclosure in Episode 67, Leo suffered the embarrassment of not only having the original recording of that episode itself accidentally erased, but also having one or more of his web servers died on him, once in October 2006 (see Episode 179 and his blog post for Friday 13th 2006), and more recently on 19 September 2008 (see his recent blog post).  Both occasions on a Friday.  The first time it was a hard drive failure, and recently, it was a RAID 5 controller failure, with loss of certain data which had not been backed up.  This was despite his constant reminders to his audience to back up, on his radio show.  By the way, the GizWizLive video has been lost (which had nothing to do with the RAID 5 controller failure).

Will Leo learn his lesson?  Let's hope that today's TTTT gadget will help him do so.  The Thermaltake Blacx SATA HDD Docking Station has a function similar to the common external hdd enclosure, or a previous TTTT gadget the NewerTech Universal Drive Adapter (Episode 267).  The major difference is, it is even more convenient.  You just slide the HDD into the slot of the docking station (SATA connection facing down), as you would a slice of bread into a toaster, and connect the dock to the computer via USB or eSATA.  Leo has the model ST0005U which has both forms of connections (the latter enabling full SATA speed), while the other Blacx models N0028USU and N0029USU only have a USB connection (the latter working as a USB hub as well).  Ideal for people who have a number of external HDDs to work with constantly.  Works with both 2.5" and 3.5" SATA hdds.

Another Small Car
Leo finally has a letter to read.  Regular correspondent Mark Sukoenig tells Leo that user satisfaction for the Smart Car has not been great, and reminds Leo of an even smaller car in the 1950's, the BMW Isetta, with a link to a YouTube video.



Listen to Episode 667
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This time, it's Leo's turn to do a "What's In the Box?" routine, and Dick's turn to guess what it is.  It's Ziszor, a portable, hand-held shredder.  It runs on 4 AA batteries, comes with 4 Ziszor catcher bags, and you shred your paper trail right into the bag.  Ziszor's slogan is, Don't let your mail be your trail.  But as Leo demonstrates, it can't shred Colleen's credit card, though it will shred your English spelling into oblivion.



A Wireless Toaster
Karen Toast Conger, of ToastFloats, used to work for WatchGuard, a network security devices company.  As a parting gift, she was given a very special toaster.  Her colleagues bought her a Cuisinart toaster, took it apart, and put a WatchGuard Firebox X Edge wireless router into it.  A wireless router, security device, and a toaster.

Listen to Episode 557
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Neuros produced the MPEG4 Recorder 2 for converting videos into MPEG4 for playback on portable devices such as the iPod and PSP (Episode 49).  It has now come up with the Neuros OSD (OSD standing for Open Source Device, Linux-based) with far more functionalities.  It is a video recorder for all your videos, and a bit of a media centre.

It makes use of the analogue hole to transfer the input video into digital form, on to your choice of external storage (such as a USB hdd, flash drive, memory cards or NAS).  Hook up the Neuros OSD between your video source and the TV (using RCA jacks), connect your storage to the Neuros OSD, and start recording into MPEG4.  You have a choice of 2 resolutions: 320x240 at 30fps for playback on portable devices, and 640x480 at 30fps for playback on TV and PC.


It is also a very capable playback device for audio, video and still photo, supporting many media formats, including mpeg4, mov, wmv, flv, avi (including Dvix and Xvid), mp3, ogg vorbis, wma, flac, jpg, bmp and gif.  You can choose your playback source from an USB-connected storage, or any memory card in the built-in card reader (supporting most major memory cards), or from any networked source via the ethernet port (such as your NAS or even the internet).


Its firmware is upgradable, and the software includes built-in automatic software update capability.  Because the device is based on open source software, Neuros also encourages open development of additional features for the OSD.  Comes with a remote control, an IR Blaster, and RCA cables (European models include SCART adapters).

Automatic Podcast Generator
Dick and Leo lament the missed opportunity of getting a push-button automatic podcast generator, while Leo was away in Tasmania, from Ludwik Trammer, DGW's official statistician, database compiler, RSS feeder, general factotum and all-round nice guy.

Missing Feature
Girl Geek Myra Joyce (who wrote in in Episode 495) referred to the letter read in Episode 526 about the Canon Pixma iP4300.  To her disappointment, the CD-label printing capability is enabled only in models shipped outside of the US (which could be enabled for US models but only with some dismantling and reassembly of the printer).

The Ultimate Toaster
Leo has come up with an idea for the ultimate toaster.  It can print any image you want on your toast.  A toast before it's even made and one destined for the Gadget Warehouse.

Listen to Episode 546
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Giant Cheques
Leo has received giant cheques from Visa and T-Mobile.  He's going to the bank now and then straight off to Mexico, beyond the jurisdiction.  Dick will be here after the holidays, but we're not sure about Leo.


Listen to Episode 219
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