Reviews

Review: Empower Laptop Power Adapter

1 Comment / Computers, Portable, Reviews / By /

Small electronics manufacturer, Jacobsparts, sent us one of their very own power adapters to test out. We tried out an Empower AC Adapter Model JA-90-CD on an HP G62 laptop over a few weeks.

The Empower are nicely priced replacements for OEM power adapters and feature long cables (12 ft total between the AC and DC sides), thick 3.5mm DC cord, thermistor based thermal protection temporarily powers down the adapter in the event of overheating, a self-resetting fuse that provides over-current protection and a ferrite core on the DC side. …

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Review: Smarthome Wireless Security IP Camera

4 Comments / Cameras and Photo, Gizmo of the Day, Home Automation, Reviews / By /

I recently tested out Smarthome’s Wireless Security IP Camera. This compact video camera can be set on a table or shelf or even mounted to a wall and controlled from your web browser or an INSTEON smartphone app.

Installation didn’t take more than 30 minutes, but could have been quicker if it did a better job of identifying the wireless AP.

It has a resolution of 640×480, and night vision up to 26 ft, and I wasn’t expecting the clarity in either day or night mode to be as good as it was. I thought it would be more grainy, and the infrared night vision is surprisingly clear. The video comes in at 30 fps and wasn’t so choppy to be annoying, although not quite TV-smooth.

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Review: OHSO Ultimate Travel Toothbrush Review

2 Comments / Reviews, Sports, Health & Fitness, Outdoors / By /

OHSO Ultimate Travel Toothbrush I have never been a fan of travel or disposable toothbrushes so when I came across OHSO’s “Ultimate Travel Toothbrush”, I had to give the toothbrush a try. I received a couple samples of this ultimate travel toothbrush to try and spent about a month with the product on several trips.

The OHSO toothbrush comes packaged with a toothbrush and an adapter to fill toothpaste in the base of the toothbrush. The toothbrush includes space in the handle to hold close to a week’s worth of toothpaste so, in theory, you do not need to bring toothpaste on your trip. The mechanism to perform the insertion of the toothpaste is really quite ingenious. First, you take the cap off the toothbrush then unscrew the toothbrush head and screw in an toothpaste adapter. Once the adapter is in place, you squeeze your standard toothpaste (provided your toothpaste has the standard packaging and is not different like Aquafresh’s Iso-Active toothpaste) into the base. When done filling the base, simply unscrew the adapter and screw the head back on and cap. To extract toothpaste for brushing, simply twist the bottom of the toothbrush.

To see what the Geeks thought about the OHSO Toothbrush, read one!
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Review: Able Planet Clear Harmony SI1000 Sport Earphones

2 Comments / Audio/Video, Home Theater, Portable, Reviews / By /

Able Planet SI1000Able Planet recently sent me a pair of their Clear Harmony SI1100 sport earphones featuring their LINX AUDIO technology to test out. These are in-ear earphones with a twist, they have rubber hooks or arms that rotate into place behind your ears to keep the earbuds in place. If you’ve ever worn plain in-ear cans, you’ll know they eventually wiggle out no matter how tightly or far in you shove them, especially if you’re doing something active.

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WaterField Design’s iPhone Hint Review

8 Comments / Phones, Reviews / By /

iPhone Hint WaterField Designs provided the Geeks with an iPhone Hint to play with and review. WaterField Designs is a boutique bag and case designer based in San Francisco, the mecca for cool and unique bag and case manufacturers. Founded by a bike messenger, WaterField Designs make bags for bagophiles and have exapanded to cases for everything from Kindles and iPads to iPhones, Macs and even Keyboards.

The iPhone Hint has been designed for those times where you really need to only have your phone, a Driver’s License and some Jacksons or Benjamins.
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Book Review: Cool Tools in the Kitchen

Gizmo of the Day, Home Automation, Reviews / By /

Blog becomes a book. Life imitates art. And so on. Cool Tools in the Kitchen is an ebook (ebook only that is) that was curated by Steven Leckart of Wired and Kevin Kelly of kk.org. While the entire book is drawn from the contents of the Cool Tools section of the blog, as the authors rightly pointed out, you would have to go searching through the site to find all of the best kitchen tools. For a few dollars instead, you can get this book.

While I’m a big fan of ebooks, I still grew up in an age without and really enjoy a well-assembled book with color photos and diagrams. For that reason, I was a bit disappointed with what was a fairly basic format, with no obvious attempt to enhance the original blog posts. On the other hand, this is only a $4 ebook! I shouldn’t complain too much.

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Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto 5 Color Multi Pen

Review: Geek pens: Tombow AirPress and Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto 5 Color Multi Pen

21 Comments / Miscellaneous, Portable, Reviews / By /

Specialty online store JetPens sent me a couple of their products to check out. Yes, pens, but they import many of their products from Japan and Germany, so you’ll be hard-pressed to find most of these stateside. And yes, even when it comes to something as mundane as writing, the Japanese and Europeans have some different ideas than we do.
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MicroLite

Review: MicroLite, Hands-Free Micro-Lighting

2 Comments / Miscellaneous, Reviews / By /

Have you ever needed someone else to hold a flashlight for you in a badly lit location, despite how bright the room may have been? (Think inside of a computer case.) Well, startup MicroLite Tech has a solution – their self-named MicroLite. It’s an approximately 1 cubic inch cube that stores a small LED light that is turned on when you press on the top of the unit and pop out the light.

MicroLite

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Book cover - Head First HTML5

Book Review: Head First HTML5 Programming

2 Comments / Books, Music and Movies, Reviews, Software / By /

Book cover - Head First HTML5Unless you’ve been under a rock the past 2 years or so, you’ll know that HTML5 is the next generation of the markup language that has been powering the Web since its inception. Tech publisher O’Reilly has been busy ensuring that they do their part to educate the Web developers and programmers of the world and they accordingly have a slew of books on HTML5, one of which is in their Head First series.

Head First HTML5 Programming is really that – a book about programming, specifically in JavaScript. It is expected that you already know HTML and CSS, and while some JavaScript would be good, it’s not a requirement. The book starts off with a quick intro to HTML5, but by page 20, you’ll already have seen some JavaScript code.

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KIMTECH* Touchscreen Cleaning Wipe

Review: Kimtech Touchscreen Cleaning Wipes

3 Comments / Computers, Gizmo of the Day, Phones, Portable, Reviews / By /

KIMTECH* Touchscreen Cleaning WipeThis is one product category that has tons of nondescript entrants, and for the most part, they all do the trick more or less, and that’s to wipe your gadget’s screen. Kimberly-Clark decided to try something a little different – make them dry, disposable and inexpensive.

The KIMTECH Touchscreen Cleaning Wipe are made especially for touchscreens, which we all seem to be adopting at a rapid rate. I tried out a sample and wasn’t disappointed. These come 10 to a pack, and while dry, they are soft, and had no fear of using it to wipe the screen on my iPad or smartphone.
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