I’ve started a kind of green and power saving theme, which isn’t a bad thing I suppose. Writing about the credit crunch has also become somewhat of a habit. Today I’m going to write about Solar powered fairy lights. I know we haven’t had much of a summer to make much use of these under a canopy, but they still have their uses. They’re ideal if you want all year round lights somewhere, but not the cost.

The Solar powered fairy lights come with a remote control unit too, which will allow you to control what mode they are in.
There are 6 different modes in total: constant, fast flash, slow flash, fast flicker, chasing and combo. Which is enough for any of your indoor or outdoor events. Hang them on the tree in the garden and make it look stunning all year round.

Setting up the Solar powered fairy lights couldn’t be easier. Place the solar panel where it will get the best exposure to sunlight and string the lights where you want them. The battery is waterproof obviously and a five hour charge will give you eight hours worth of light.

Conserving energy has never been so stylish and they’re cheap as chips, get the Solar powered fairy lights from £29.95 now.

The Eco Button is one of those gadgets that you never knew existed. It’s a simple way of helping you save energy, and better still, save money. And we all want to save money these days with the credit crunch.

The Eco Button is simple to install and use too, all you have to do is plug it in to an available USB port, download the software and you’re ready to go. It is a clever gadget too. The Eco Button will make sure that your computer only uses the power it needs, which can be as little as 1.8 watts. That’s pretty amazing. It does that by intelligently closing down functions that don’t need to be running.

Costing under £15.00, the Eco Button is really a gadget that people who normally put their machines into stand-by mode often really do need. For your initial investment the Eco Button can save you up to £50 a year. It’ll pay for itself in the first year.

The Eco Button will work on any PC with a free USB port, a minimum of 256Kb of memory, and 5Mb of free disk space.

Efficient, green and a money saver - you can’t go wrong. Get yours now.

I recently discovered this great little gadget whilst I was searching for ways to charge my mobile phone when I was away from a power source. The Freeloader Solar Charger meets all my needs, and then some. By far it is one of the best gadgets that I’ve written about. It’ll charge my mobile with no problems at all. It will actually power a mobile for 44 hours. But that’s not why I love the Freeloader Solar Charger. Not only will it power the largest list of mobile phones that I have ever seen, but also iPods, PSPs, PDAs, digital cameras and GPS systems. The list is truly phenomenal.

I quite like walking in the mountains around my home town, and having a device like the Freeloader Solar Charger is an absolute must. Having the power available when you want it is a joy. I can strap it to my backpack as I walk and let the sun charge the internal batteries.To fully charge the internal battery of the Freeloader Solar Charger takes about 8 hours, or 3 hours if you use the USB cable, which is supplied.

Costing just under £30, this gadget will pay for itself many, many times over. And it’s not going to add any substantial weight to your hiking kit at 185 grams, but it’s unfair of me to say that this item is only useful if you enjoy walking. The Freeloader Solar Charger should be in every home.

I highly recommend that you get one of these today. You’ll wonder how you ever survived without it.

Continuing with my theme of back to school, an essential piece of equipment that every student needs in secondary school is a calculator. The Casio Scientific Calculator is by far one of the best valued scientific calculators available. With a price tag that’s just shy of £11.50 you can’t really go wrong. I like bringing gadgets and equipment that I think are good value for money to your attention. Hopefully I’m succeeding in this task.

The Casio Scientific Calculator has a whole host of functions that you’d expect from a scientific calculator, plus more! In total it has 300 functions, which is a lot. It has true algebraic logic, standard deviation, sin/cos/tan, hyperbolics, polar/rectangular conversions, linear regression, permutation and combination, brackets, random numbers, square, factorial, angle units (DEG/RAD/GRA), fractions… the list goes on…

What I like about this calculator is that it has it’s own hard case that slides over the buttons and screen, making it ideal for the busy student who just throws things into their bag… it gives great protection, and piece of mind for you. Another great thing about the Casio Scientific Calculator is the dual power functionality, it has both battery and solar power which makes it exceptional value for money. You won’t be replacing the battery every couple of months with this one.

Students really do need a calculator for school, college or university because maths plays a big part in all three institutions. So why not go for one that you know will perform well and has an attractive price tag. Come September, the Casio Scientific Calculator will be in my arsenal.

I think it’s always a wise move to buy good protection for your most expensive gadgets. Especially if that gadget happens to be an iPod touch. It’s not a gadget that you buy and put in the corner of the room or place neatly on your desk. If you’re like me, you’re constantly picking it up, putting it in your pocket and putting it back down again. As you may or may not know, the iPod touch has a metal body - it’s shiny and scratch free when you take it out of the box. I’d like for mine to stay that way.

So how do you protect it? Well, my suggestion would be for you to buy a silicone sleeve case for it. The one I’d go for on PriceGrabber is the Belkin iPod Touch Silicone SLVE and, at less than £10 you can’t go wrong.
Under ten pounds to protect a prized piece of technology isn’t much. You’ll be glad you did. Once that metal casing starts to get scratched there’s not much you can do to restore it. OK, it might make the iPod touch a bit thicker, but it’s going to protect it really well from knocks, bumps and heaven forbid, a drop. It’s made of tough silicone, so it has a bit of give in it. Enough to protect the iPod from an accidental dropping.

So my advice to you if you’re planning on buying an iPod touch for yourself or as a gift. Buy the Belkin iPod Touch Silicone SLVE sleeve too. You’ll be glad you did.

Yesterday I wrote about the USB VHS Converter, which was a great gadget for converting VHS to Digital format.
Today I want to write about another really cool gadget along the same lines. The Plus Deck Cassette Converter converts audio cassettes into digital files.

Cassettes were great weren’t they? The good old days when everybody used to spend Sunday evening recording the Top 40 from the radio. Waiting patiently with your finger hovering over the pause button, ready to stop the tape when the DJ began to talk. Ahhh the memories….. I still have boxes full of these cassettes. They’re in the attic, taking up space. There are even cassettes of me and my brother and sisters playing and singing when we were small. Then there are all the cassettes of my mother winning umpteen competitions on the radio. All those memories stored on fragile cassette tapes.

With the Plus Deck Cassette Converter, I can put all of these precious moments on to my computer in MP3 format. After installing the Plus Deck Cassette Converter into a spare 5.25″ drive bay on your PC, it’s just a case of clicking a button and it will convert both sides of your tape for you. No longer will you have to worry about keeping all those cassettes in pristine condition. You can have them in glorious digital format. Being digital, it means that your memories will no longer be prone to degradation by time.

I know I say it a lot, but this is a must have piece of technology if only for saving your precious memories. And once in a digital format you can burn them to CDs to share with your family.

Wow! That’s what I said when I came across this lovely piece of gadgetry. And if you have shelves and shelves of video tapes, you should be going wow too!

Video cassettes have been around for a long time, almost 30 years in fact, so the USB VHS Converter has been a long time coming. The USB VHS Converter will let you convert those dusty, bulky, noisy cassettes into digital format. And according to the manufacturers, it’s idiot proof - which is good news for me
You just put the tape in the machine and let it do the rest. Not only will it convert your tapes into digital format, you can use it as a regular VHS player too. Just connect it up to your television using a scart lead.

I can see this being a huge hit with all those people who desperately want to get their precious memories converted to digital.
At present you have to send your tapes away, or invest in expensive equipment to do it yourself, but with this it’s a doddle, and at a price that isn’t going to break the bank. I’ve known some people to go to the trouble of buying a DVD Recorder and connecting all the cables between their VHS Recorder and DVD Recorder, only to find out that they’ve missed a vital step after going through hours of tape.

The solution is now a simple one. Get the USB VHS Converter. The only problem you’ll have after converting all your tapes to digital format is what to do with all the shelf space you’ve freed up.

In my opinion, the most sought after gadget at the moment is the iPhone 3G from Apple.

But what if you only want a portable music player?

Would you go for an iPod Touch, which has a load of extra features like internet browsing, email, downloadable apps and WiFi iTunes store, or would you go for an iPod Classic?

An iPod Classic gives better value for money if all you want to do is listen to music.
For an 80Gb version you’ll pay between £148 and £186 which is phenomenal value for the amount of storage you get.
80Gb will hold approximately 20,000 songs or 100 hours of video.
Yes, the iPod Classic also plays videos.
With a crisp and clear 2.5 inch backlit display, the iPod Classic is a must have gadget in anybody’s home.

Whether you’re going travelling or just want to listen to music on the move, it doesn’t get much better than an iPod Classic.
Sure there are other music players available, but not many can boast as much storage, battery life and style as an iPod.
And speaking of battery life, the iPod Classic comes in with an impressive 30 hours of music playback per charge and 5 hours of video playback.
To fully charge the battery takes 4 hours, but there’s a fast charge option which will charge 80% of the battery in 2 hours.

As I mentioned, if you’re going travelling and want a great music player that’s durable and robust, then you really shouldn’t look any further than an iPod Classic.
Planning on going to the beach this summer (when it arrives)? You’ll want to take some music with you right? What better way to carry your entire music library about?

At the end of the day, not only does the iPod Classic look good, but it feels good too.

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.

It seems the last few posts I’ve put up here have had something to do with the weather, or more specifically the lack of sunshine that we seem get in this country. Well never one to be put off by a small matter such as weather I thought I’d continue my little mini-theme looking at weather related items. There are a host of gadget goodies out there which come to life with a bit of solar energy.

For starters how about this solar powered, build it yourself, helicopter. Made of laser cut plywood this easy to put together flying machine has a solar powered rotor blade. I’d be interested to see how high you could get this somewhere like Dubai If flying isn’t your thing then how about this solar powered windmill. Now I make no promises that this will be your first step on the road to becoming a baker but it may make a nice garden feature.

Building not your thing? Well how about a bit of a gardener. Well it would seem the solar gurus have you covered here as well. Never let condensation or heat build up in your greenhouse again with this solar charged greenhouse vent. Again easy to install with no electrical wiring necessary. Got a pond? Well how about that finishing touch with some floating solar lights. These lights sound rather relaxing as they glow in a slowly changing cycle through all the colours of the rainbow.

Finally if cheese (apologies in advance to all you gnome fans out there) is your thing then how about a solar powered light-up gnome. Just the thing to deliver the final touch of, errr, class to anyones garden, just not mine please !

So there you have it. Just some of the solar related gadgets available on the market today. Again though I make no promises regarding sunshine hours available in the UK this coming summer should you invest in any of these items.