I’ve been intrigued by the Amazon Kindle for a while now, but haven’t yet bought myself ’round to getting my hands on one. So when I stumbled upon the COOL-ER eBook Reader my interest was renewed in these gadgets.

I’m a big fan of reading and can often be found in my local library searching out autobiographies (I’m currently reading “Dear Fatty” - Dawn French’s one) and Colin Forbes books.

So what is it that keeps bringing me back to these devices? I’m not quite sure to be honest. I think it may be the portability of them compared to an actual physical book. But saying that, it’s nice to hold a real book and turn pages. The anticipation of what’s going to happen on the next page drives me on to read more.

So, back to the COOL-ER eBook Reader. This eBook Reader is apparently set to become the iPod of the eBook world according to some. The COOL-ER eBook Reader’s ability to store between 500 - 800 novels may be something to do with this.

Not only is it paper thin (excuse the pun), but it extremely lightweight too. The 6″ screen is comparable to looking at an actual page of a book and because it uses e-ink it’s pretty easy to read, even in direct sunlight. Putting eBooks on the COOL-ER eBook Reader is as simple as downloading, dragging and dropping.

The COOL-ER eBook Reader battery will charge in about three hours and is good for 8000 page turns. If you leave the COOL-ER eBook Reader unattended for whatever reason, it’ll shut itself down to save battery life. The COOL-ER eBook Reader is available in 8 different colours and a price tag of just under £190. Will this be the device that will finally get eBook readers to the masses? We can only wait and see.

Now this is something that I really, really want. It reminds me of a toy I used to have as a child called “Big Trak”. The “Big Trak” was a sort of futuristic tank that you programmed to move around your home by pressing a keypad on the top of it.

Things have definitely moved on from then (it was about 20 years ago!) and I think of the Rovio as a sort of sibling to the Big Trak. They look kind of similar too. But the Rovio is much more advanced obviously. The technology is better these days. Heck, the Internet didn’t even exist!!

So the Rovio has a pretty hefty price tag to go along with it’s great features. £250 is steep for a “toy” robot. But you do get a lot of bang for your buck. It’s not like it’s some sort of simple radio controlled car.

The Rovio has a built in webcam and microphone and is WiFi enabled. You can control it from anywhere in the world with almost any device that is web enabled. It has three wheels that allows for greater movement and built in GPS. Having the built in GPS allows the Rovio to go to any location at the click of a button (I’m wondering if it can climb stairs?).

Obviously the Rovio runs on batteries and it’s intelligent enough to know when it needs to recharge and will find it’s docking station in order to do so. I’m absolutely drooling over this new gadget and it’s going to be difficult to resist temptation and get a hold of one. I will obviously be using PriceGrabber when I give in.

I seem to have an obsession with buying Western Digital Drives. This will be the fourth one that I have. I don’t know what it is about them that I like so much. The Western Digital MyBook that I have has served me well for over two years now, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to quit any time soon.

I have two passport drives too, which I use to transfer various files related to my studies and other work. I like to keep things separated, so that I don’t get confused as to what I’m doing. All my Western Digital Passport drives are different colours for that reason.

I’m now about to purchase a new one and I’ve decided to go with a 500Gb White Western Digital Passport this time. I chose white because I’m going to be using it as a Time Machine for the MacBook. I considered getting a Time Capsule, but the funds don’t stretch that far at the moment and I don’t want to use my credit card to get it.

The thing about Western Digital drives is that they are so quiet when you use them. I’m sat in a room with the MyBook and one of the Passport drives plugged in to the MacBook and I can’t hear any of them. The only sound I can hear is the rain hitting the window as I write, which is nice.

The 500Gb should give me more than enough space to Backup the MacBook safely. I’ve not found a drive that I like more than the Western Digital range yet, but if you have any recommendations on any that are as quiet or reliable as these, then please let me know by commenting on this post.

Whilst I was looking at the bolt-on packages that O2 have available to me as a customer, I came across their “family bolt-on” which allows one person to pay £7.50 a month but up to 5 people can benefit from the one bolt-on. This led me to the O2 Joggler.

The O2 Joggler is an organiser for the whole family, but rather than things being written down on post-it notes and stuck everywhere, this is digital. It means that everything can be kept in one location that’s easy to access by the whole family.

The O2 Joggler connects to your WiFi network (or through an ethernet cable (supplied) if you don’t have WiFi) to get all the latest news and weather reports for you. The O2 Joggler has been designed to be easy to use for the whole family so that nobody misses out on anything, and there are loads of things that the Joggler can do.

O2 have Apps available for the Joggler that allow it to do various things: there’s a calendar to help organise the family appointments and memorable dates, you can share photos, music and videos, play games and as I mentioned earlier, get the latest news and weather reports.

Another thing that stands out about the O2 Juggler is its ability to send and receive text messages. A great feature to help keep your household ticking like clockwork. To do all of this, the Joggler is equipped with a touchscreen, and as a lot of you regular readers will know, I’m a bit of a fan of touchscreens.

I like the way that O2 are leading the way with these new and innovative gadgets. May it long continue.

I’ve been staying over at my girlfriends house a lot recently and she doesn’t have regular broadband yet. So, I use her Vodafone USB Mobile Broadband dongle to connect to the internet. I already have an O2 Mobile Broadband Dongle, which I’m very happy with, but I thought I’d give you my thoughts on the Vodafone USB Mobile Broadband Dongle and how it performs.

The dongle uses the Vodafone Mobile Network to connect you to the internet over the 3G network (if it’s available, or 2G if it isn’t) which carries data at up to 7.2 Mbit/s. This is great if you live in an area that’s been upgraded by Vodafone to 3G, but not so good if you live in a rural area like I do. We’ve started a campaign over on another website I contribute to, to try and get better 3G coverage for Wales. We’ll see what comes from that.

The Dongle comes with all the required software already on it, so there’s no need to carry around a seperate CD-ROM too. Having said that, if you own a Mac as I do then you’ll need a CD-ROM to install the software.

Once online the Vodafone USB Mobile Broadband Dongle works really well. From my experience it didn’t drop the signal once and I’m able to do all my writing work with it. Doing anything more than that seems to be a struggle. Obviously this is because I’m using the 2G network to do things rather than 3G.

I’m liking using the Dongle to be honest, but I would prefer landline based Broadband. Which is why, on the 30th of this month there’s going to be a BT line installed. Then it’s a case of choosing a provider for getting Broadband put on the line.

It’s always good to have a great machine to play back you favourite movies.And what better way to enjoy those movies than on this Panasonic DMP-BD30EG-K Blu-ray Player. This will keep the children (and adults) entertained whilst it’s pouring with rain outside.

Everything is going High Definition these days, so why not get a Panasonic DMP-BD30EG-K Blu-ray Player that will take full advantage of your HD Television?

The Panasonic DMP-BD30EG-K Blu-ray Player has a whole host of great features that make it stand out from the crowd. Here are a few of those specs for you to have a look over:

• Standard profile BD player
• 1080p/24p output
• Hollywood studio reference standard
• HDMI 1.3 with deep colour
• Viera link with seamless GUI support
• P4HD processor
• Standard profile 1.1
• Picture in picture
• SD card slot
• Playback AVCHD camcorder footage
• Playback HD 1920×1080 Jpeg+ slideshow with CD
• 7.1ch audio bitstream out via HDMI
• 5.1ch analogue out

The Panasonic DMP-BD30EG-K Blu-ray Player in my opinion really is a great piece of kit if you’re looking to buy, or upgrade from DVD, a new Blu-Ray device. Its ability to connect to other devices is also a huge plus point. As always, PriceGrabber has searched the internet for you and found the best possible price. So what are you waiting for, grab yours today.

Last week I decided that I’d like to start gaming again. I’ve not played any proper games for a long while now, although I do own a Nintendo DS. The gaming console of choice for me was the Sony PSP 3000.

Why the Sony PSP 3000 I hear you ask. Well, I had one of the original Sony PSP’s a long time ago and found it to be ideal for what I wanted. The Sony PSP 3000 has come a long way sine that original model came out.

For starters, the Sony PSP 3000 is thinner and lighter than ever before. This is great for gamers because you’ll be able to play longer without getting sore wrists. Although, having said that it’s not that much thinner. The Sony PSP 3000 now has a built in microphone and a better screen as part of the upgrade features. That built in microphone will allow you to use Skype or for online gaming. There’s a TV-Out socket on the Sony PSP 3000 too, which allows you to connect it up to almost any television set and play your games via that screen. You could, if you wanted to, use it to watch movies too.

The battery on the Sony PSP 3000 will allow you to play games for between 4 and 6 hours, or watch movies for between 4 to 5 hours. The battery life could be better, but it would see you through a long train or car journey quite easily. I’m pretty sure that there’s an in car charging kit available too.

Priced between £129.99 and £159.99 the Sony PSP 3000 is cheap enough for almost anybody these days. Don’t let the low price fool you into thinking that the Sony PSP 3000 doesn’t pack a punch, because it does. The graphics are crisp and sharp and playability is awsome. I’ve taken the Sony PSP 3000 with me on my travels and it really does help to pass the time. All I need now is for buses to provide power outlets to re-charge the battery.

I’ve just bought the Lexmark X5495 Multifunction Colour Ink-Jet Printer for myself and I have to say, I’m impressed with it.

I needed to get a scanner, but instead of going for a stand alone device, I decided that a multifunction device would be a better option in the long run. I know that I’ve posted about getting a Brother DCP-6690CW, which I still want, but at this time the Lexmark X5495 Multifunction Colour Ink-Jet Printer suits my needs.

It scans, copies, prints and faxes. In addition to that, you can plug a whole host of memory cards in to it, which is great. I have SD cards and Sony Memory Sticks all over this place. I’ll list the exact cards it takes in a minute. I wanted to write about setting the Lexmark X5495 Multifunction Colour Ink-Jet Printer up on a MacBook, or at least my experiences with setting it up on the MacBook.

I installed the drivers for the Lexmark X5495 Multifunction Colour Ink-Jet Printer on to my MacBook as directed, but it wouldn’t work. It kept telling me that I hadn’t installed the printer on my laptop. I clearly had, so I decided to uninstall it and get the latest drivers from the Lexmark website. I started the whole process of installing the drivers for the Lexmark X5495 Multifunction Colour Ink-Jet Printer again. This time the printer installed, but I was getting an error about the colour tables not being installed correctly. I tried uninstalling and re-installing the drivers again with no luck.

I contacted the Lexmark support team via their UK website and through Live Chat. This was a new experience for me. I was talking to one of their technicians who tried to guide me through the process of finding out what was wrong with the installation, but he couldn’t sort it out either, so I was transferred to a Mac Technician who took over control of my MacBook and had a look at the problem remotely. This was fascinating to watch. Apparently I’d downloaded the wrong drivers and needed to get some other ones which he sent to me. This process took a little bit of time but wasn’t the usual kind of customer service I’ve received.

I have to highly commend the good people at the Lexmark Technical Support centre for their amazing effort in getting my Lexmark X5495 Multifunction Colour Ink-Jet Printer working properly on my MacBook. It now works flawlessly.

So, back to that list of cards that the Lexmark X5495 Multifunction Colour Ink-Jet Printer can handle:

• SmartMedia
• CompactFlash
• Memory Stick
• IBM MicroDrive
• MultiMediaCard (MMC)
• SD Memory Card
• xD Memory Card
• Memory Stick Pro

Quite an impressive list.
My experience with using the Lexmark X5495 Multifunction Colour Ink-Jet Printer are nothing but good up to now. I’ve successfully printed off documents and pictures and sent faxes. The quality of the output is pretty good too for what I want this particular printer to do.

I’m really happy with my Lexmark X5495 Multifunction Colour Ink-Jet Printer and I’m sure that if you get one, you will be too.

These light are great. The Mathmos Wind Lights is perfect if you need to light up your garden for a barbeque or a few drinks with friends. They’re great little gadgets, and they don’t cost the earth.

When you see these kind of lights usually they cost a fair bit more than the £10.95 that you can get them for by using PriceGrabber. They’re a real bargain to be honest.

So what are the Mathmos Wind Lights? It’s quite simple really, they’re LED lights that use wind to power them up. SO all you need is a light puff of wind to get these little beauties lit up.

The 6cm propellers power two LED bulbs, in red or blue, that will be enough to light up your garden path. You don’t need any batteries at all with the Mathmos Wind Lights because they’re powered by wind. How cool is that!

You can use the Mathmos Wind Lights wherever there’s wind really. No need for a battery or a power supply with the Mathmos Wind Lights. Just hook them up wherever you decide that you want light and watch as the wind makes them glow brightly.

As I said earlier, the Mathmos Wind Lights are only £10.95 if you go through PriceGrabber of course. Sadly, I don’t have a garden that’s big enough to justify buying these in bulk, but if you do they’re well worth the investiment. The Mathmos Wind Lights are obviously good for the environment as well as your pocket, so why not grab a few of these great gadgets.

This is a great gadget. The ECCO GPS Keychain is a must have if you are a bit forgetful. The ECCO GPS Keychain is the ideal solution if you have trouble remembering where you left your car or if you can’t find your hotel.

The ECCO GPS Keychain is a tiny GPS system that will help guide you and show you the way back to your desired destiniation. With the ECCO GPS Keychain you don’t hve to remember the small detail of where you left your car or, where you’re staying for the night. In fact the ECCO GPS Keychain is ideal for any situatuion where you have to find your way back to your original location.

With the ECCO GPS Keychain all you have to do is “lock in” your location on the ECCO GPS Keychain then, when you’re ready to return, follow the instructions on the screen to find your way back. Wht’s good with the ECCO GPS Keychain is that you can store three locations within the tiny device.

I’ve always found myself lost at one time or another, and the ECCO GPS Keychain sounds like the ideal solution for those situation. Obviously, I don’t want to tell everyone that I get lost on numerous occassions, but sometimes it’s good to have a device like the ECCO GPS Keychain to help you out of a sticky situation.

Available for as little as £69.95, the ECCO GPS Keychain is a great little gadget to have in your arsenal if you travel around or get lost a lot. Grab yours today!!