Long gone is the time when you had to have the hi-fi up full blast from the living room just to hear a whisper of your favourite tunes from the garden. With summer now in full flow, the back garden is the place to be for social gatherings of friends and you are going to need your tunes out the back to keep the party vibe going (and to annoy the neighbours).

So now is the time to invest in a proper little gadget for the summer and they don’t come much better than this Outdoor Wireless Speaker. It works by simply plugging your iPod, computer or any other sound-spiller that you have into the mains-transmitter (which is provided of course) then lugging your speaker out to the garden and your mains transmitter will stream all your tunes over wirelessly, voila! Easy peasy. What’s even better is all the volume controls, bass and what not are all on the speaker so you don’t have to run back inside to change the volume when old Mrs McLintoch next door tells you to pipe down (not that you would listen to her anyway).

As an added bonus this already funky looking speaker gets even funkier when night falls with its added cool blue light. It won’t illuminate an entire garden but it is definitely a snazzy little thing and will have your more drunk friends Oooh’n and Ahhh’n in its presence.

OK so Euro 2008 may be over and all you football fans will be sad to see the back of it but don’t fear, the new Premier League season is on the way and we have the best little product to get you right in the mood for it, as long as you are an Arsenal or Manchester United fan that is. It could be the wackiest product to ever feature on the GottaHave blog but for the football fan it is an instant classic!

Believe it or not it is a Grow Your Own Pitch kit in the form of a mini little Emirates or Old Trafford. Now straight off the bat i thought “Grow your pitch? Doesn’t this make it just grass in a tin?” Well technically it is but this is no mere grass. Apparently, the grass used for top flight Premier League games is grown using special special seeds that can take up to 15 years to develop. Who knew huh? So i suppose this makes them sort of the “Magic Beans” of football. Whatever these wonder seeds are the same ones that are used by top flight teams are supplied in the Grow Your Own Pitch kit so you really will have a little piece of the Emirates or Old Trafford in your front room.

As well as coming with “Magic Beans” the Grow Your Own Pitch kit comes with soil, full instructions on how to be a miniature groundsman, plastic pitch and an image of your chosen stadium to put behind the goal. What a completely barmy but equally genius little gift!

Is there anything that the Apple iPod can’t do? I thought i had seen all of the accessories, tools, docks and what not to go along with the world’s favourite MP3 Player but yet again i have came across something new. This time it is in the form of an alarm clock but in a cross between both the new and old age it comes in a rather cool retro look. It is the Retro iPod Alarm Clock.

As soon as you pop your iPod into this Alarm Clock/iPod Dock it immediately sets itself to clock mode so you can select whatever tune, playlist or podcast you want to wake you up, yes playlist option is there for all you deeper than deep sleepers out there. It even features a snooze function so you can attempt to drift back into that dream you didn’t want to be wakened from before the next attack of beats pounds your ear drums.

If you turn it over to the back it has a dial that you can use to change the volume, which is perfect for Sunday’s when you don’t really want to get up. You can just set the volume to low and not get up then blame the Alarm Clock for not waking you! Or if you do actually want to get up but can’t normally, then simply turn it all the way up to DANGER DANGER ! Ear Drums May Explode Mode.

A regular occurrence when using gizmo’s such as iPod’s and mobile phones as your alarm in the morning is that they run out of charge in the middle of the night. The Retro iPod Alarm Clock will also charge your iPod while it is sitting on its perch so that you never miss a meeting, a squash game or a family event (bad news if you enjoy missing family events).

With a range of colours to choose from in Classic White, Black and Pink it is suitable for both male and female and will look cool on anyones bed-side dresser.

We have already covered a nifty little gadget similar to this in the past in the Solio Solar Charger but this little “beaut” has now replaced that as our favourite portable gizmo charger. Solar power is boring now and wind power is the new fad amongst tree-huggers and with the HY Mini Wind Turbine you can have your very own little tree hugging wind turbine sitting in your pocket so your media goodies never have to die on you again.

The mini turbine generates power in order to charge up the on-board battery and is small enough that you can take it anywhere with you. It is ideal for cycling with and other fast paced activities or simply running around the garden holding it in the air, whatever floats your boat. It comes with a load of interchangeable adapters so you can plug it into numerous devices including iPods, Mobile Phones, Digital Cameras, PDA’s and loads more of your electronic treats. Just in case you live in the least breezy town in Britain you can also charge the battery via mains but it is way more fun to attach it to your bicycle and go cycling down hills all day.

Home movies are great fun aren’t they. Whether it’s a Christmas, a birthday or something a little less celebratory like your mate Steve doing the drunk pants on head dance, we all love to have those moments captured on video to share and re-live. Quite often though these moments pass us by and we don’t capture them because our damn video camera’s are so bloomin complicated that by the time we actually whip them out, get them switched on and have to fiddle about with settings, Steve has put his pants back on and is sitting rather angelically next to his girlfriend again.

What we need is a no nonsense, simple to use, sharp, stylish, convenient, cheap, good quality video camera that you can just whip out and press start. Now that sounds rather demanding when put like that but the Flip Digital Video Camera meets all of those demands and is a limbo dancing world champion low of a price at £99.95.

The Flip Digital Video Camera is so simple that it is literally just a case of pressing the button with “on” written on it then pressing the other button with “start” on it. With 2GB of memory you will have plenty of filming time and with a sharp 640 x 480 pixels resolution in MPG4 format you are not sacrificing video quality. You don’t have to worry about farcing around with stuff like focus and what not either. With a 2x automatic zoom your only job is to stand and point. Perhaps the most convenient little feature of all though is that it comes with a sweet little USB plug that flips out of the side. So there isn’t even any need for cables or any other uploading garbage, you just plug your Flip Video Camera in and away you go! At £99.95 this is bloody good value.

Most of the drinking games that you see out there mostly consist of a couple of shot glasses, a piece of carboard perhaps with a little Twister-like spindle attached and a few cards with silly questions. Rarely do wee ever see a drinking game to buy in shops that comes with it’s very own table or court i suppose would be a more fun way to describe it. Let me introduce you to the drinkers take on the classic Ping Pong game…Beer Pong!

Ping Pong is already pretty daft as it is so when you add beer to the equation you can just imagine the possibilities. Although there is no official Beer Pong rulebook that i know of, the gist of the game seems to be that you are to set up your beer cups on your side of the table and try and bounce a ping pong ball into one of your opponents cups. Should you land your ball in your opponents sweet amber nectar then they are forced to guzzle down the cup contents. Whoever tanks all their cups first is the loser! Sounds better than boring old regular Ping Pong to me. College students all over will want to start up their own Beer Pong leagues. I just hope they let me play!

We all love our kids but those times when we need them to pipe down and behave the most, are the times when all they want to do is run around causing havoc. For example. Sitting at the Airport when you are going on your family holiday for the summer. Trying to keep children who are excited about their holiday amused inside a boring Airport Terminal is no easy feat and can be pretty stressful at times. What if i told you that their suitcase could save the day and provide them with endless Airport amusement? You’d think i was barking but with Trunki yours kids won’t be barking, they will be moo’ing their way around the Terminal.

Trunki is a ride-on suitcase for kids that is colourful, fun and very stable. It features wheels, steering ‘horn’ grips and a contoured saddle for your childs comfort and safety. Although Trunki is extremely fun that doesn’t mean that child safety has been comprimised. The award-winning case features secure catches, soft rubber rims to prevent fingers getting chopped off and a sturdy towing starp for you to hold onto just incase they try to make a quick getaway on their Trunki. The 18L capacity also means that there is plenty of room for toys, books or whatever your kid’s choice of goodies are plus it is hand luggage approved so their is no need to check it with the rest of your luggage.

So this will actually be my last blog post here on Gotta Have. It’s been an enjoyable 6 months and I hope you have enjoyed reading the stories almost as much as I’ve enjoyed putting them out there. As a final blog post I just thought I’d give you a top 3 run-down of my own personal opinion of the must have gadgets. And yes these are three gadgets which I personally own and couldn’t do without.

At number 3 it’s the XB360, my number one choice when it comes to Gaming. Sure 2008 could be an interesting time for the PS3, but for me the XB360 is still where it’s at. The range of games, the superior online functions and the upcoming IPTV mean that this is still the console to buy if you want it all. Oh and with the rumoured BluRay addition you really could have it all by the end of the year.

At number 2 and only recently moved from the top spot, is the SlingBox.  It was around this time 2 years ago, when travelling on business to Boston (and by doing so missing the FA Cup final match between Liverpool and West Ham) that I realised I needed something that allowed me to watch live TV. As if by magic I heard over the next few days of the SlingBox and within 2 weeks I had my very own. I use this not only when travelling, but also when at home and perhaps wanting to watch some TV out in the garden. This device was, up until 1 week ago my favourite gadget.

At number 1, and this has only just taken this place, it’s my brand new iMac.  All I have to say is why did it take me so long to make the switch. This thing is just pure sweetness and light. Of course one of the main reasons why I left it until now to make the switch was my need for gaming on the PC. Now of course I do most of my gaming on my various consoles, however last night I actually installed WoW on the iMac. It blew me away ! One of my other main passions is photography and the 24″ screen of the iMac is just perfect for this.

So there you have it - my top 3 gadgets (at the moment that is - 3G iPhone anyone)

And that’s about it from me. Hope you have enjoyed the past 6 months. I’m off to let my credit card cool down a little before moving into the second half of 2008 and all the gadget goodness that will bring.

So with spring well and truly upon it’s easy to see the dramatic change in the landscape outdoors. You get a real sense of the rising temperatures when you take a closer look at some of the creepy crawlers that are emerging from their winter hide-aways. It’s at times like this that if you are into your photography at all you may want to consider a macro lens. A macro lens will open up a whole new world of photography, and even subjects which perhaps looking dull and uninteresting using a normal lens will come alive under the treatment of a true macro lens.

If you are considering a macro lens then you could do a lot worse than looking at the Sigma 105mm (this one is for the Canon mount) The 105mm zoom is particularly useful if you are interested in taking shots of bugs, especially those such as dragonflies which are easily spooked (remember when positioned on a digital SLR body this 105mm will actually become closer to 160mm). A maximum aperture of f/2.8 will allow for greater control over your close ups without having to always resort to using a tripod.

I find autofocus on a lot of macro lenses to be notoriously slow but most reviews show this one to be useable under normal circumstances and although not silent, it is not so loud as to be annoying (again useful when you are trying to get a shot without scaring your subject away) I’ve also held this lens myself and it’s lower price perhaps hides the fact that this is an extremely well put together bit of kit, feeling quite solid in ones hand.

If you are considering getting into macro photography, and I for one would recommend it, for the upcoming warmer months then this would be my lens of choice.

So I know the summer is almost upon us and we should be thinking about things to do outside, but given the track record of the UK weather over the past couple of years it may be a good idea to stock up on some movies to pass the time as you wait for the showers to clear. In the past few weeks there have been some fantastic releases, and if you didn’t get a chance to catch them at the cinema first time around, then you may want to consider picking them up on Bluray disk.

First of how about I am Legend.  The tale of one mans fight for survival in a deserted New York. Will Smith plays the part of a sole survivor in this famous American city after a plague has wiped out most of man-kind leaving any survivors as blood thirsty zombies. Unlike some of the Zombie films of the past these guys can get around at top speeds which makes for some great action sequences. Personally I think these were some of the best zombie special effects to date and I for one can’t wait to see them in High Def.

I can also highly recommend Enchanted, which in my opinion is another winner from Disney which will be a sure fire hit for kids of all ages. I actually watched this on a flight during my recent trip and even though it was on a small screen with terrible audio I highly enjoyed it. I can’t wait to see it again, this time with the Bluray treatment.

Finally another disk I can’t wait to get my hands on is 3:10 to Yuma,  a gritty story of a small-time rancher who desperate for money agrees to hold a captured outlaw who’s awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. If you are even the slightest bit interested in Westerns then you will want to pick this one up - it’s fantastic.