Software Samplers

Your much awaited travel plans will be greatly enhanced if you are well equipped with the appropriate travel gadgets. I have compiled a list of some gadgets that are sure to fill the down time and enhance the wow time!

1. iPods; Bringing an iPod loaded up with a variety of your favorite music can add a personal touch to an unfamiliar territory. It can be comforting and this comfort extends to helping an individual relax at night. Many people have slight to moderate difficulty sleeping in strange places. Also, iPod speakers are very small, portable and wireless and can allow you to play your music in your room, at the beach or by the pool, etc. An iPod arm band is another stylish accessory that will prove useful.

2. An Electronics Hammock; This gadget compliments any of your small gadgets that need charging. This Hammock is positioned right below an outlet by fastening to the plug itself and holds your electronic product to ensure that it does not dangle precariously or lay on the ground at risk of getting wet or stepped on.

3. Indestructible Travel Cases; Keeping your electronic gadgets with you at all times and also keeping them safe and dry is easier than ever before with the waterproof and crushproof Pelican Micro Case Series of cases. There’s even a purge valve to equalize the pressure!

4. Nintendo DS, Gameboy, Playstation portable; These three products are all hand held game consoles. Although marketed for adolescents, many adults also own and play these game consoles. There are hundreds of games to choose from and the DS has features such as PictoChat and 2 player capabilities. These features enable more than one user who has their own console to be partaking in the same activity or game. These players are connected wirelessly through a system to system wireless connection. Therefore, the 2 player feature only requires one of the players to actually have the game inserted into their DS. PictoChat allows for simple input of keyboard text and written text/drawings to be exchanged by up to 16 people.

5. Educational Computer Software; Educational computer software is great for children when they have some downtime either in the hotel, car or in the airplane. This activity is engaging and playful as well as intellectual. Bringing your laptop along is obviously required. WiFi is available at most hotels and a number of restaurants and travel service areas. Using the WiFi connection will enable you to check weather, get directions and phone numbers and look up local attractions.

6. The 150-Country Auto-Detecting Travel Adapter and Converter: A lightweight, compact device that automatically detects incoming voltage, converts it to 120-volt AC power, and provides plug adaptation for over 150 countries throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas and Caribbean, and Australia. The plug configures to fit a variety of international sockets, and it has a built-in USB port that allows you to leave chargers for cell phones, digital cameras, iPods, and other devices at home. The device also allows simultaneous AC and USB connection to charge two devices at once.

7. Voltaic Backpack; Voltaic backpack is a solar powered backpack. This sleek accessory will power every one of your gadgets (save your laptop) as long as there’s daylight. It is also a stylish bag to carry while on any trip. Specifics include;

• 4 Watts of Solar Power: From three tough, light weight, waterproof solar panels

• 4-6 hours of direct sunlight produce enough charge to fully charge a typical cell phone

• Battery Included: 4,400mAh at 3.6 volts Li-Ion battery pack with 3 voltage settings to store solar power

• When not in the sun, the battery can be charged using the AC travel charger or DC car charger making it just as useful on the grid as off

• 11 standard adaptors for easy connections to common cell phones and universal plugs

• Includes a car charger socket and USB adaptor so you can always use a standard charger for your device

• Note: It is not designed to charge laptops, it will however charge cell phones, sat phones, PDAs, GPSs, iPods, cameras and most other handheld electronics

Technology allows us to enhance our much awaited travel plans by arming us with very cool gadgets. I am sure the items on the list that I have compiled will enhance your vacation!

Open source gadgets mean any software whose source code is made available for use or modification for users or developers.

The advantages of the open source gadgets are evident: since everyone can modify the source they are improved continually by software communities and the vast majority of open source programs are free.
Being free is a huge advantage sometimes you, the computer owner want to do simple, one job, like editing a document or a picture, and you don’t want to spend a small fortune doing it, so the free open source programs are your best friends.

The most of the open source gadgets were initially created for Linux owners, but in the last period of time more and more open source gadgets were developed for Windows. And in this article I’m going to tell you about the best gadgets for Windows users.
The free and open-source software that you should use are: web browsing – Mozilla Firefox, video player and video podcasting: Miro, instant messaging: Pidgin, e-mail – Mozilla Thunderbird, RSS: RSSOwl, peer-to-peer filesharing: Cabos, video player – Media Player Classic, DVD ripping and video conversion – Media Coder, word processing suites – OpenOffice.org, podcasting: Juice, sound recording: Audacity, photo editing Paint.NET, FTP – Filezilla.
I’m currently using: OpenOffice.org to write and manage documents, Filezilla for FTP connections, Paint.NET to work with graphics and Thunderbird to read and write emails.

Don’t aspect the open source gadgets to have as many features as the paid ones, after all you get them for free.
Well known are the open source Google Desktop Gadgets like: Google-battery (Never lose track of your power. Always tell you how much battery power is left) Google-calculator (Calculator gadget for Google Desktop), Google-cricket-news (Displays cricket news headlines and images), Google-cricket-videos (the same like the previous only it displays videos on your desktop), Google-desktop-sdk (Complete examples of using the Google Desktop Gadget APIs) Google-digital-clock (is one of my favorite desktop gadgets, it is obviously what it does: it shows time, but in a beautiful manner ),Google-flower-pot (It is a Virtual Flower Pot which will grow to full bloom right before your eyes if you give the flowers some water using your mouse like the old Tamagoci games), Google-moon-phase (Displays the moon’s current phase) and Google-timezone (Find what the time is in different locations).
For now the most used software’s are the paid ones, but the free open source ones come fast from behind. Each day communities of developers work on them for us to have a better experience and free programs.

Too often we think about gadgets like small devices made for us to have fun: mp3 players, cell phones, PDA’s, music players. So we forget about the ones made to help people and really change their life.

This article is about the gadgets that improve people life and aren’t so known as party and funny gadgets. I’m going to talk about the gadgets built for people with disabilities, devices that help this people to have a better life. The majority of these gadgets are made for the blinds so I will start with those.
Electronic eyes

This high-tech device recognizes the white stripes of a pedestrian crosswalk and reads traffic lights could tell a blind person when it’s safe to cross the street. The electronic eyes are being developed at Kyoto Institute of Technology.
Braille PDA’s and computers

The Braille Display allows blind users to use standard computers or PDA devices. The Braille gadgets use refreshable Braille displays, which raise small dots through holes in a flat surface to create Braille that refreshes as the user inputs commands. So a blind person will be able to play music, read books, take notes, making presentations or reviewing/editing documents.
PC with a screen reader

Screen readers access information displayed on computer monitors and interpret that information via text-to-speech output. This software must be used along with text to speech synthesizers to allow the blinds to use the computer easy.IBM offers Home Page Reader, special software to read and navigate Web pages for those who are blind.
Cell phone with Talks software

Talks software was created by Cingular Wireless. With it a blind person will have full access to the capabilities of the cell phone using only his voice.
Other usual gadgets for blinds are: Braille and talking clocks, Braille color-identification labels for clothing, tactile writing and signature guides, talking calculators and magnifiers.
For deaf persons there are several helpful gadgets which I will tell you about.

Portable amplifiers

These are small devices that can be easily carried and they are used to provide increased sound amplification.
Telecommunication devices

The telecommunication devices for deaf have typewriter keyboards, and the typed conversation appears either in a readout display or on paper.
Telecaption Adapters

The adapter is attached to television set. These enable viewers to read captions on their television screen.
Alerting gadgets

Now a deaf person can know when someone knocks at the door, when the baby is crying or the telephone is ringing. All these are possible because of the alerting systems. An alerting system for deaf will send a signal if: the baby is crying, the doorbell rings, telephone rings, the smoke alarm systems is on, the security alarms or the wake up alarm was started. The signal may be visual (a flashing light); auditory (an increase in amplification); or vibrotactile.
For the ones without hands or fingers there are some new gadgets designed to improve their life.
X-Finger

X-Finger is medical gadget replaces lost fingers created by Dan Didrick. X-Finger is a non-robotic prosthetic finger, or set of multiple fingers, with a full range of motion, including being able to curl like normal fingers.
The Bionic Hand

The Bionic Hand was created by David Gow. It is unique because thumb and fingers can move and grip just like a human hand and it is unique because it is uses patients mind and muscles control the movements.
So when you hear the word gadgets don’t think only to a device to have fun with, think about devices that improve people life, especially the ones with disabilities.