For today, we have a gadget that’s innovative, small, 2-in-1 and is related to fire. In other words - perfect.

Well, maybe not. My evaluation may have been influenced by the inner pyro (most of my friends say that it’s actually an outer pyro - well, they are allowed their opinion, though I don’t have to respect it). Still, i love this little gadget. A jet ligther with an inbuilt clock. what’s not to like?

The lighter’s corpus is designed to look like polished bronze. Looks elegant, and at the same time, not tacky (though I personally would prefer something a bit brighter. Still, I don’t have a reason to complain). There’s a spring on the “hinges” of the lid, therefore the lid is kept tightly shut or open and doesn’t wobble - and taken into account the fact that this lighter can be used upside down, it is really a welcomed feature - you wouldn’t want your lid getting into the way of fire everytime you try to light a candle.

As for the clock, it is nothing special (you weren’t expecting a Swiss made mechanism I hope?), but it does the job - you set the time, it ticks and shows the time. The design of the clock is either non-intrusive or elegant - depends on your taste. However, I’m certain that noone would complain about it.

The lighter itself burns with a strong, green flame and the appropriate jet-engine-like sound (A word about the pictures - they don’t show the flame - neither me nor my camera are good enough to capture it). In truth, the green will wear off with time, and be replaced with classical blue jet flame. In the case of my lighter, it has already begun, however, it took two weeks of extremely heavy usage to get there (no, i wasn’t trying to get rid of the green - I just felt the urge to set a lot of things aflame). The overall construction is quite sturdy, so I don’t have any complaints about it. Also, you don’t need to carry any tools for refilling - no unscrewing or anything. Though you will need something like a screwdriver (I prefer using a knife - a lot easier) to adjust the flame height.

A word of caution if you’ve never used a jet lighter - the jet flame is hottest just above the tip of the visual part. Be careful - if you burn yourself, it will be with a 1300 degrees Celsius hot flame.

Also, to keep your lighter working longer, use only purified butane. Preferably one that’s been purified 3 times or so. One of the more common brands is Supaflame. If you don’t have a better choice (for example, I don’t - there are no other brands of purified butane within a radius of 60 kilometers), I have tested it and can confirm that it is good enough for jet lighters.

Never be tempted to use unpurified butane (filtered butane is also usually far from being sufficient), as it will clog your lighter after a single refill - I did that mistake with my first jet lighter.

Like what you’ve read so far? Well, in addition to that, the lighter is actually pretty cheap. It’s 4.74$ from DealExtreme.

Well people, we all know that you know a thing or two about technology. How about music?

Regardless of your answer, you should like this musical gadget. I bet that 99% of you (or people in general actually) haven’t heard of something like this in their lives, never mind actually seeing one. I myself have only seen such an instrument once in my life - albeit a homemade one (with a below average playability - you try playing by poking at pencil-made dots).

Fortunately, our prayers have been answered - we got a professionally manufactured version of this retro instrument (meaning no pencil dots). Invented in 1967 (40 years ago) this wacky idea for an instrument is making a comeback thanks to people from IWOOT.

Right, I’m getting too far ahead of myself. Most of you probably still don’t know what’s a stylophone. A stylophone is an instrument that makes sounds based on the position of a special pen on a pad of the stylophone (different positions result in different resistance to currency - yeah, I sort of saw the plans for that homemade monstrosity I mentioned earlier).

I’ve got to add that even though trying to play the homemade stylophone was frustrating, it was still an amusing way to occupy myself. A quality stylophone should be a pure pleasure to play.

By the way, this stylophone is a bit different from it’s predecessors. You can plug in your mp3 player to it and play along to your songs (after all, we do live in the age of mp3’s - this was to be expected, and I say it’s a pretty good idea).

The Stylophone is £14.99 (Approx USD $26.98) at IWantOneOfThose

We humans are naturally lazy species (and I’m sad to say but I’m example of it too…oh well). that’s a good thing though - our laziness powers the development of technologies - we are too lazy to do some work, so we invent something to do that work for us. Example: we were too lazy to get up from the sofa and switch the channel, so we invented the remote control.

Here’s another example. In the good old days (way before I was even born) parents who didn’t trust their teenagers and their dates with their cars would spend the whole evening stalking them. They would never give the benefit of a doubt for a young adult (I’d estimate that in 75% of the cases that’s a good thing, but it still is disrespectful.).

But today even the overbearing nuisances AKA parents are lazy. Why spend the whole evening as a stalker when you can just hide a GPS tracker in the car and get all the reports about your kids’ behaviour.

Well, most of the teenagers today can hardly be trusted to cook themselves lunch without burning down the house (just exaggerating, no need to worry), but for some others it’s unfair. 16 to 21 years (don’t think you can get a drivers’ license earlier regardless of where you live) of being a good kid, and then not being trusted…

Ah well, “all is fair in love and war”, and this is war. If you don’t have an hour or two to search for the bug in the car, you can just block the signal with this little gadget. Just plug it into the cigarette lighter socket and it will scramble all frequencies used by GPS devices. Later just think of a realistic story why cellphones interfere with the signal (which probably was the reason the GPS stopped working after your first turn, right?), and if your parents are not too tech-savvy, they will buy this.

This nifty gadget is only $80.00 (with FREE worldwide shipping) at DealExtreme.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” These words, said on July 20, 1969 by Neil Armstrong became one of the best known phrases in history. What’s more, a lot of people actually know where and on what occasion it was said. I still think it would have sounded better if he had said something along the lines of “What? I thought this was supposed to be made of cheese…”.

Well, he probably chose his own phrase just because he wasn’t particularly hungry. And that is all thanks to the great minds in NASA, who have thought of rations that can last for 50 years without refrigeration, AKA “Astronaut food” (yeah, thanks guys. Now we have something utterly meaningless in history textbooks. A good joke would be far more useful - laughing is good for everyone.).

Well, as much as I would like to see hunger-driven ramblings in the textbooks, I’ve got to admit that the concept of space food is great. It’s mainly the same food, just deprived of any moisture or air inside it (i.e. made unfit for bacteria to live in). Don’t think it’s still as tasty after all of that, but who cares - it’s cool, wouldn’t you agree?

And now you have a chance to try some of that food yourself. It can be Bananas, Strawberries or Neapolitan Ice-Cream. Perfect for a long camping trip (I mean, it IS very unlikely that you have a space shuttle in your garage, so you won’t probably use it for what it was originally intended to be used for), or just as a rare treat at a party (better tell them what you’re serving in advance, or your lack of cooking skills will be quickly known through out the neighborhood).

A pack of food costs £2.95 (approximately USD $5.31) at IWantOneOfThose.

Say, all you gadget lovers, what words are most common in gadget names?

Any ideas? Well, let me share my view. It’s ‘USB’, ‘LED’ and last but not least, ‘x in 1′.

So, for today, we have a 2 in 1 type Globe, even if it’s name is quite deceiving (atleast for me).

Even though the picture makes it (sort of) clear for me, let me explain this to those of you that don’t get this (the picture could certainly be more detailed).

At day time, this is a simple globe with a political map on it (meaning it shows countries and cities), along with some natural features (that being lakes and maybe more significant mountains). Pretty usefull for geography students to have, and pretty interesting to look at from time to time even if you aren’t one.

However, by night it turns into an illuminated map of 88 constellations with their names - cool huh? Just the thing for the budding astronomer of the house. Astronomy is fairly simple if you have the right motivation (for me it’s lasers - managed to locate the north star and the little bear (or whatever it’s called in english) in about 3 minutes when I got a green laser - with about 15.9 years of failure to do so before).

The globe itself is 21cm wide and 31cm high - big enough to earn respectful looks and at the same time it should fit on your table.

The Earth and Constellation Globe is £49.95 (approximately $89.91) at boysstuff.

Do you remember the last time when you were camping out? Your whole body is bitten by mosquitoes, it itches and keeps you from falling asleep. And then you hear that buzzing, and know that one of those blood sucking menaces is planning an attack on you. So frustrating…

(Well, that may not be the case for some of you - some of us (my sister, for example) are gifted with repulsive blood that parasites despise. I, however, am a real treat to them - even repellents can’t keep them away. Arghh…)

In any case, I believe that you know someone who has experienced this. So if you’re cruel, you’ll definitely enjoy this gadget - The Mosquito Prankster. As soon as the lights are out, this gadget starts buzzing - just like a mosquito. This will get your prankees shaking in fear. But as soon as they turn on the lights, the buzzing stops. They’ll think that the bug has left and turn off the lights off again - and the little nuisance will come back with the darkness.

Granted, this artificial buzzing isn’t perfect. I had this gadget used on me, and I recognized that it was a fake, and found it without a problem. Same could be told for my buddy. But the thing is, we have hearing superior to most people’s (we checked for that - and now we brag about it on every chance we have). Others were totally fooled by the fake sounds.

WARNING: people can get quite angry if they are unable to sleep because of the buzzing. If they find out who did it, they usually seek revenge. (When my bunch was pranked, they behaved quite peacefully - mainly because the three tallest of the bunch (me, my buddy with the strong hearing and an another one who just slept through the buzzing) were playing peacemakers (As in: “start a fight and we will kill you”)).

The Mosquito Prankster is £4.99 ($8.98) from boystuff.

Everyone who likes custom-made (as in especially for you) stuff, raise your hand. Did you? - ’cause I did. I love that stuff - well, within reason, of course - 10$ are not worth a picture on my credit card, that barely ever leaves my wallet, and never longer than for a minute. Still, it’s fun having something that has ‘your touch’ on it, wouldn’t you agree?

So, for today, I’m writing a review of a website that specializes in custom buttons (you know, the badges with a needle at their backside for pinning it on clothes/bags/etc.).

Making your button is actually quite easy and actually fun. On the homepage of the website you’ll see a flash-based editor waiting for you. Using it, you can select a background colour, put some text on, put on a symbol (you have 5 categories of symbols to choose from), or upload an image from your computer and use it as a part of the composition or stretch it to take the part of background. When you want to get rid of the element, just drag it off the badge.

The second step is to select a size (small or standard) and the quantity. If you look at the picture at the top (top parts of a man’s and a woman’s face) you’ll see that the man is holding a small pink badge with something that look like a rabbit, and the woman is holding a standard sized badge with a picture of landscape - just to give you an idea of the sizes.

After you’ve decided, you just press “Add to cart”, and the cart, shown on the right, updates itself. You can choose to edit the items in cart or remove them at any time. And the cart shows you the price of the badges and the complete price with the shipping.

If for some reason the website fails to identify which country you are from, there’s a bubble in the top right corner (it’s either blue or has a flag of some country on it). Click it and choose your country.

The buttons cost 1.5USD each, regardless of their size. The shipping prices also seem reasonable, so I’d say this is a pretty good deal. So, if you want some custom buttons for yourself or for family friends (hey, custom items make great gifts), go to fatstatement.

P.S. The website seems to have issues with Opera browsers (which happens to be my favourite browser) - the flash interface for designing your button doesn’t load. However, I was assured that this problem is already being dealt with. Just so you wouldn’t be surprised if you’re a Opera user.

How long has it been since your birthday? Try remembering the candles on your birthday cake and all the space they took. I remember that I’ve been annoyed by the sheer number of those ever since I was twelve - and every year there’s one more. Seriously, how can anyone take those little petty things seriously?

So, whenever something becomes no longer interesting, you do the first (somewhat)logical thing that comes to your mind - SUPERSIZE it.

Who cares about candles that are only a few centimetres each and burn down after 5 - 6 minutes. They are easily replaced by one, humongous candle, at a height of 25.5 centimetres that can burn for 24 hours.

Well, okay, so it’s not humongous, but it’s still big in comparison. Yet at the same time, it’s size won’t cause you any trouble when you try to blow it out and won’t require a fire extinguisher present.

The candle only comes in reddish-pink (like in a picture) with it’s glass stand and a presentation box, in case you want to give it to someone as a present. My only complaint is that I like blue better (or nearly every other color with the exception of brown and grey).

The candle is £14.95 (Approx USD $26.91) from IWantOneOfThose.

You know that old saying “Boys don’t grow up - only their toys get bigger (and more expensive)”. Well, even if it seems to be universal, it’s not. Sometimes their toys get smaller, and encased in stainless steel. And sometimes, those toys are priced quite reasonably (and other times, you may get the impression that it’s covered with silver and not steel, judging from the price).

And time from time, you can find a pretty sweet deal. Just like this camcorder.

Well, first, the style factor - this thing is awesome. Small, covered in steel - what more could you possibly wish for? (don’t answer that)

The camera itself is pretty good - DVD quality video, nice LCD screen, direct audio/video connection (means you can connect it to your TV), 64Mb inbuilt memory (not impressive) + SD cards up to 4Gb (Now this is better - but you’ll have to buy the card yourself). Has a flash, 8x digital zoom, and takes 5.4 MegaPixel pictures. Quite good, eh?

And you get the whole package for $199.99 - actually it’s a pretty good price, since other cameras of such quality cost atleast twice as much.

Too bad it’s not available yet (though it should be soon). Found at thinkgeek.

Do you know what can be just as frustrating as your cell phone’s battery dying at the most important moment (a solution for this can be found here)? I’ll tell you - suddenly loosing the connectivity with the carriers’ towers.

Let me start by telling a short story. It’s probably the most recent one that is significant (read: frustrating) enough to remember.

This was on June 29 (yes, this summer’s June 29). It was my friend’s birthday. All I wanted was to send him an e-mail with my wishes. Seems easy enough, right? Well, unfortunately, due to freak thunderstorms occurring every few days since the end of May, my connection was down (it was like that for the bigger part of June). And a bigger part of Internet cafes were suffering the same problem + a horde a students on vacation. So, I chose something that seemed most logical - using my cellphone.

It just so happens that I had to spend in a place with a poor connectivity, but still, somehow I managed to open a java application for Gmail and somehow typed a very creative letter (note to self - that application doesn’t have line breaks and messes up your formatting). And that wasn’t easy either - usually I prefer to make a call for anything that’s over 5 words.

And in the end, the plan failed, because I lost all connectivity, and I was only able to do that 4 days later. This sucks.

If you have these situations oftenly, you could certainly use the cellphone signal extender. Basically, it just strenghtens the signal from the towers (meaning it’s useless if there’s absolutely no signal). There are three models - 1st one works with carriers in 824 - 894 MHz diapason, 2nd works for 1850-1990 MHz diapason and the third can operate in both.

The prices are $249.99 for the single band models and $359.99 for the dual-band one. Found at thinkgeek.