For this we have a solution. And guess what? It’s a gadget. You never would have guessed that, would you now? This one’s called Game Dr. Game Timer. Hook it up with any device of your choice and the device switches itself off after exactly the amount of time you specify.

It’s totally safe and kid-proof, a locking mechanism ensures your kids don’t tamper with it!

Buy this for about £15.00 on Thinkgeek.

Link? Here. http://www.thinkgeek.com/geek-kids/1-3-years/c31f/

I like the caption the Thinkgeek page has.
It goes like, “When you want your kids to build character, not characters”. Relevant, no? 

Be safe xx

The NES is a gaming console of the 1980’s and for geeks who aren’t  teenagers, the word NES brings back fond memories. If you’ve spent time on the NES you’d know what I mean! Times have changed, but thoughts of playing vintage video games on a NES brings tears to one’s eyes. (At least to an emotional geek like me… *sniffle*)

It’s very hard to find a NES emulator let alone a NES today. If you’ve searched and been disappointed, don’t fret you’re one of many, many people. But we’ve done it, yes, found an emulator for the NES! And to think it was on Thinkgeek!

Costs about £30.00 and comes included with a wireless light pen and batteries and cables! Wicked.

Here’s the link.

If I was supposed to talk about COD 6, I could ramble on for hours, but that’s not what we do here. (At least, not yet!)
Infinity Ward released a special edition of COD 6 called the Prestige Edition, one that comes included with a cool pair of working Night Vision Goggles! So you see where we’re going with this now?

For a (considerable) price you can buy the prestige edition and own a pair of brand new Night Vision Goggles.

There’s a small hitch though. Because the number of prestige editions released was quite limited and it has been a few months since COD 6 came out, you might have some difficulty laying your hands on one of these. And what does a geek do when she wants something? One word. Ebay!

Here’s an active link.
Otherwise search for modern warfare goggles on ebay. Bound to be something always!

Remember Gordon Freeman, the physicist from MIT?
Of course you do.
Remember in the game how he’s attacked by headcrabs?
Er..almost every two minutes? Yeah so the point here is, that on shelling out a small amount of cash, you get to own these headcrabs too!
And no they aren’t real…(What were you thinking?! You don’t have guns and stuff to kill them, do you now?) These are in fact replicas, which you can wear about as hats.
How cool is that?
Just think of how much fun you’ll have scaring your geek friends. And they’re nice and comfy to wear too.(We think)

Unlike headcrabs which’re said to add little ‘buddies’ to your head, there’s no such scare with a head crab hat, so you’re perfectly safe !
Go ahead and order yourself one of these from Amazon for about £13.00.
Come on!
You know you want to!

My work here today is done.

I’m going to be beginning things here in a very conventional manner, by  defining Open Source.
Generically speaking, open source is anything for  which the source code is made available free of cost to whoever might want to access it. Applied to say for example a brewery, the concept of open  source would be like the recipe of the most popular drink it makes.

For now, we’ll be talking about open source software exclusively. There are quite a few benefits to using open source.
For example: -

1. A large community, in other words a massive fan following. People get to  meet each other in forums, talk stuff out and discuss various issues (technical issues, to be more precise). Good open source software usually has the  backing of much more than just a few people.
2. Open source provides a golden opportunity to developers to interact with other developers. They can easily seek help on issues regarding the software in question, a pool of experts if you like, at one place.
3. It’s free. Once you provide the source code, there’s hardly anything left to ask to be paid for. Free software is downloaded everyday by millions of  people around the world. Generally very good substitutes to paid software. For example, Firefox, open source, is the 2nd most widely used browser today.

But then come to think of it, why doesn’t everybody go for open source software? Let’s have a look at a few potential cons.

• Could be unreliable. Could cause crashes and stuff that you might not want to happen to your computer.
• Lack of proper support. You’re dependent on the open  source community for support, you might not get the help you need.
• Nobody’s answerable. Who do you think you could hols responsible for free software.
• Compatibility issues. How many games do you think are Linux  compatible?

To summarize, even though open source can have a few  disadvantages, there’s hardly any harm in trying it out.
A major reason being  that it’s free, if you have trouble you can always switch to a paid alternative, if not well and good.
Open source also helps you get acclimatised to whatever it is that you’re trying to do and is a very good place to start learning  something new.

What kind of movies does a geek like me watch?
Let’s see,

- Star Wars,
- Star Trek (pretty much everything with a star in its name, well maybe not Stardust ),
- Back to the Future,
- The Lord of the Rings,

just to name a few.
Since we have just the one post left for the week, (tomorrow’s Opinion Day, yay! (Hey! That rhymes…)) I’ve got to choose one and after a draw of lots, I’ve decided on The Lord of the Rings.(Nah, I’m just a big fan of Tolkien)

The first thing that comes to mind when we talk about Lord of the Rings  memorabilia are .. rings… but hell, everyone has covered off that!

So, what’s next – swords (Yippee! , and if you think I’m high today because of so many exclamations, you’re wrong).

True, whatever we’ve done this week so far just looks like stuff in movies, but hell, these swords are real. ( Be  careful with them..we refuse to take any responsibility for whatever you  might do with these)

These swords are built from stainless steel and come with a corrosion resistance warranty. Available are longswords like Isildur’s Narsil, and Aragorn’s Anduril(something technically not possible, both being the same), and daggers like Sam’s or Frodo’s Sting.

A tad expensive at about £ 170 for the sword, these are available from Entertainment Earth. Link? Here

Well, we’ve been focusing on gadgets from movies for the past couple days,  (something that you’d have noticed, we’re sure…) and we came upon this.
And the fact that we’re as geeky as it gets and no reference to movies is complete without a tribute to the Star Wars movies, is something that make this all the more mandatory to put up… (Like we need to justify ourselves.. )

Here’s the deal. Simply put, a trash can in the form of…R2D2! (An incredible way to geekify trash no?) Comes in two models, office size and desktop. The  office size is a lifelike replica of R2D2. You press R2’s foot and his dome opens up. A removable interior can with handle makes trash removal easy.

A word of caution though, this looks so cool, you just might find yourself generating extra trash to put in it. Not necessarily a very good thing…

This is priced at about £ 24 – £ 40 and is available from cutie gadgets.

Here, the link is. 
(Can hardly resist that whenever a reference to Star Wars is made! )

A fitting tribute to vintage horror movies, this pair of a shower curtain and a bath mat should really appeal to you. Especially if you’ve seen slasher  movies with shower scenes (what comes to mind almost immediately is Hitchcock’s Psycho).

The curtain has blood stains that looks like somebody’s dragged their bloody (literally) hand across it. The bath mat too has its own share of impressive looking blood stains. (Look at the picture, could be a tad disturbing, not for the faint of heart!) For people who’re into technicalities, the curtain’s made of 100% polyester and the bath mat from acrylic fibres. Also included are a set of shower curtain hooks.

Think of the possibilities, this could be a decent accessory for a practical joke or even a fun gift. For example a friend comes to stay over and goes to take a shower, this could really spook him/her out!

What if he doesn’t say anything? That would be a bit more than a little  scary….

This is priced at about £12.00 and is available from Thinkgeek.com.

Well, not literally of course (What were you thinking?!).
Considering our focus on gadgets related to movies this week, thought we’d begin with a Spielberg movie and talk about this collector’s item.
This is a lighter, but in the shape of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s heart from the
Terminator movies. Looks strikingly identical to the fuel cells present in the T-800 terminator models.

This is made of die cast metal and is Chromium plated, something that ensures corrosion resistance . It comes with a metal Terminator Salvation collector’s tin and is a very neat replica of the nuclear cell we mentioned. The fuel used is butane. (Something that you’ll have to find for yourself – doesn’t come with it!)

A must have for all Terminator fans, irrespective of whether you smoke or not! This is priced at about £11.00 and is available from Thinkgeek.com.

Here’s the link.

The market for smart phones, and to be precise, phones above a particular price range, is dominated by Apple’s iPhone. You could say what you want to  in favour of the Blackberries, the Android phones and such, but it is still the iPhone that commands the market, and in terms of sales, is way above
the rest.

This is not something unexpected, considering the brand image Apple
has in comparison to say HTC for the Android phones (new to market, relatively) or considering how superior Apple Hardware generally is.
For example, when people heard that the Macbook Pro was actually carved out one single piece of aluminium, they were surprised. (Pleasantly so).

People have a certain expectation from Apple as a brand and the general consensus is  they’ve lived up to it, at least as far as the iPhone is concerned. And not to be underestimated in any way  is the iPhone OS’ (Operating System) contribution to this success.
The iPhone OS, Apple’s crown jewel is the result of working around Mobile OS’ for years. (Apple launched the Newton, a PDA, decades back).

How about we do a 5 point analysis for why, as of today, the iPhone OS
is better, hands down than other smart phone OS’? (You’re welcome to argue the point in the comments section )

Ready?
Here goes…

1. Better touch support than the Android.
   A good reason why this could be due to the better touch screen that the iPhone has. Capacitive touch screens, like the one the iPhone has, is generally way better than the Resistive touch screen most other touch phones have.
   (to read more about the iPhone screen, please pop across to “How Stuff Works” – they’ve got a great breakdown of the technology)
2. Extensive availability of Applications.
   Apple’s App store has a host of applications that suits all.
   This kind of variety is absent for the Android, however as the Android spends more time in the market this is likely to change.
   (Rumour has it that having pulled some 5,000 applications deemed “explicit”, Apple may be adding them back to the list with an”Explicit” warning. Quite why they didn’t do that in the first place, I’ve no sodding idea. Knee-jerk, anyone?)
3. Peer – to – Peer Bluetooth
   The Android does not support peer to peer Bluetooth connectivity,
   while the iPhone does.
4. File Sharing
   File sharing is possible on the Android only via third party
   applications. The iPhone needs no such interference.
5. Search Facility
   The iPhone 3.0 will feature a phone wide search facility, something
   the Android does not have.

To say the least, it will be interesting to see how this battle turns out in the coming couple of years or so. All the more so when the iPhone 3.0 and the Cupcake are officially released.
Keep watching this space!