fun & gadgets

ZapTag - USB wristband

The ZapTag USB wristband, as well as being a cool portable data storage device, allows you to store key personal and medical details.

The device comes with free software so you can key in important medical information such as blood group, allergies and medical conditions.

Should the unthinkable happen whilst you are on the slopes, medics can plug the device into their computer so they can know what treatments they can, or possibly more importantly, can’t use.

The ZapTag comes in two data sizes: 256 and 512 mega byte, giving plenty room for carrying photos and music files, and for added security, the data can be encrypted with blowfish data encryption.

The ZapTag is made of rubber, so is robust and water resistant, suitable for most sports and adrenalin junkies.

Available from ZapTag.

Coolest mouse around - the TVR Street Mouse

The coolest mouse around. The Novelty Gift Company have teamed up with TVR to produce what must be the coolenst mouse ever. The Tuscan Street Mouse is a realistic licensed replica of TVR’s supercar.

The TVR Tuscan sports alloy style wheels, tinted windows and working blue LED headlights.  

The TVR Tuscan is a high quality, 800 dpi mouse with two buttons, and a scroll wheel to ensure easy navigation around your PC.

Available in cherry red or silver.

NAS Network attached disk storage for home or small office networks

Having had a hard disk failure I decided it was time to invest in some network based storage. I have settled on this NAS.Server. It connects directly to my broadband router and allows anyone on the network to access the drive. It makes keeping two copies of my data online easier so that if one disk fails I still have the data on the other.

This NAS Server is SAMBA complient, so allows connections from Windows, Mac and Linux machines. It also has a built in FTP server which can be set to be accessed through the Internet making your files available, should you need them, from anywhere you can get an Internet connection.

I bought mine empty and added a 80 gig drive, not huge, but should keep me going for a while.

1 Terabyte drives on the way

This week, both Hitachi and Seagate announced that they will add a 1 terabyte drive to their hard drive ranges. Imagine that! 1000 gigs of space … sure makes the 26 gigs on my laptop seem so very small. 

Hitachi will add the 7K1000 to its Deskstar range; limited numbers are expected to be available in the shops this quarter.  Seagate will add the terabyte drive to its Barracuda range and is expected to ship before the Hitachi drive.

 So what can you store on a disk this size? Well that’s enough space for more than 300,000 6-megapixel images, 250,000 MP3s or 1000 hours of video.