Archive for the ‘gadgets’ Category
Holiday gadgets
Sunday, July 29th, 2007With the countdown to our holiday just days away it was time this weekend to do some pre-holiday gadget shopping. This year I made just 2 purchases and both of them are practical.
The first is an IOMega USB hard drive to backup the complete content of 2 PCs to ensure that even if there are any disasters while we are away they is no loss of data. That is currently running like crazy as the data from my desktop is being transferred across.
The second is slightly more fun. (more…)
Installing a satellite dish
Thursday, July 5th, 2007Well I was given a 90 cm satellite dish, LNB, 25 metres of coax cable, a Sky digibox and all the bits and pieces required to hold it all together.
Does it work?
Of course it does! (more…)
The universal remote control
Sunday, January 14th, 2007I don’t know about you but I received some great presents for Christmas. One of them I’d been meaning to buy for ages but I thought would make a nice easy present if I gave enough hints (you know what I really need…). Luckily I did receive it. Unluckily it is close to useless.
What I’m talking about is the so called universal remote control. You know when you’ve got a separate zapper for the TV, the video, the DVD, the digital box and potentially a few other devices too, you’re sat on the sofa relaxing, want to switch from this channel to that, adjust the volume or stop the film you’re watching and listen to a CD instead. Seems easy - except you can never find the right remote. So what a great device the universal remote contol should be, one remote to control everything.
But when you try and set it up you find that it’s anything but universal. I did manage to get it to talk to the video and the DVD player. But the TV? No. And the digital box? No. And I couldn’t do much with the devices it did talk to except switch them off, and what use is that?
I’m sure that if you have the right devices and the right universal remote control then everything works perfectly. But if you go for non-standard equipment like me, just don’t bother. It’s a bit like Esperanto, a nice idea but completely impractical - my advice is to chain your existing remotes to to the sofa instead.