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Gadgets galore...

Quick round up of some gadgets I've come across recently.

Sonorix Bluetooth Stereo Headphones (OBH-0110)
After finally getting vexed that my headphone cable had tied itselves into yet another mess of knots I started to look around for some wireless headphones and had the Creative Bluetooth headphones in mind. Some googling later had me on the Sonorix UK distributor website looking at the Sonorix OBH-0110 BT headphones. The A2DP & AVRCP profile support finally convinced me that these were for me. Although I don't have a Windows Mobile device with AKU2 (and therefore A2DP support) I will do soon.

First impressions - excellent. Why?

PC (USB) or headphone stereo jack connection to BT sender dongle. I can connect this to my iPod, leave it in my bag and listen to my music completely wirelessly. I can connect it to my laptop/pc and use it to listen to music and even control Windows Media player using the AVRCP profile (play, pause, next, prev song)
Simultaneously works as my mobile phones headset - so I'm listening to my iPod and a call comes in, the iPod is automatically muted and the phone call routed through to the headset. Once the call is finished the iPod (or whatever music source you were listening to) is re-engaged - awesome!
Crisp mobile phone conversations in stereo!
Great battery life - 2 days continuous use and still going strong on the first charge.
Lightweight and easy to store

A 5 star product!


Netgear SC-101 Storage Central
The answer to my backup/shared storage for my "digital home". I've not bought one as yet but based on the price and comments on the ebuyer site I will be once I move into my new house. Basically this is a hard drive enclosure you connect to your network (router via RJ-45), then all the pc's, laptops etc have access to the drives contained in it. You can add more of these devices as your storage needs grow. You must provide your own hard drives (or I'm sure you can buy some when you buy this) - from the comments it seems you need a specific type/spec of drive so do check this first (I think you just need fairly new "ATA-6" spec drives, do check though!).


Smart Home Show
If you are interested in home automation you've got to check out the Smart Home Show at the Birmingham NEC, March 2nd - 5th. There are daily seminars/tutorials on how to automate your house lighting, heating & security. I'll be there - probably on Saturday 4th. This is perfect timing as I REALLY want to put an X10/MCE/HAI solution into my new house and I know amost zero about X10/automation.

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