Travel Accessory

Link: Foodie Kits

foodie kits

These Mobile Foodie Kits are portable boxes with selections of spices and condiments for those who cannot do without them, wherever they go. Available are Survival Kit, Mexican Essentials, Indian Essentials and Thai Essentials.

Gizneyland Guest

This week’s Gizneyland guest is Frank Watson, who is at AKC doing research on American pedigree dogs. Leo is proud to announce that Ozzy is a pedigree Papillon.

Leo’s New Diet

Leo has a new provider, but his weight has plateaued, thanks to all the goodies sent in by fans, including lots of Hamantaschen.

Lick To Answer

Tim Hopkins has found a new way to answer a call on his iPhone. He licks it, rather than taking the other alternatives that people have found out, such as Korean frozen sausages and cheese sticks.

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Early Location-Based Services Gadgets

Link: Ultradata Systems

Dick’s Gadget Warehouse

Ultradata Road Whiz and Golf Guide

Ultradata Systems was ahead of its time in the mid-90s, with products such as the Greensfinder (or Golf Guide), which would tell you where the nearest golf course was, and the Road Whiz, which would tell you where the nearest auto-related services were, like restaurants and petrol stations.  Now with GPS and smartphones around, these products look distinctly out of date. But they’re still selling the Road Rage Relief.

TWiT Cottage East

Leo has been thinking about having a morning show done from the East Coast.  That project is now taking shape.  TWiT will have a studio in New York, with SquareSpace making space for TWiT from their new SOHO office.

Gadget Warehouse Finder

Listening to Episode 1030, Jeff Pinn from Rochester decided to follow Leo’s directions to Dick’s Gadget Warehouse.  Jeff is familiar with New York but couldn’t quite visualise the warehouse’s location.  Google 360 didn’t help.  Dick explains that the warehouse is inside Sofia Brothers Warehouse at the corner of 83rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.  For more details, see Episode 850.

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Laptop Stand with Speakers

Link: Logitech

Logitech LapDesk N700

A laptop stand from Logitech, the LapDesk N700 comes with a cooling fan and built-in speakers, with volume controls right on the stand itself.

For a previously covered laptop stand, see Episode 457, the LapWorks Futura.

Disney Smellitzer

The Paint Pourri in Episode 1020 reminds Daryl Holmquist of Disneyland’s scent emulator which produces scents and smells reminiscent of that particular part of Disney World.  Daryl refers to it as the Smellolizer, but apparently the name is Smellitzer, and the technology involved has been patented by Disney.  Perhaps one day DGW listener Ricky Brigante can write about it on his Inside the Magic blog.

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Puppets

Link: Folkmanis

Folkmanis Puppets

At the Toy Fair, Dick saw these puppets made by Folkmanis.  There is a huge variety of them, from finger puppets, hand puppets to two-hand puppets.  All adorable – as featured on Episode 1000 of Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show.

You can see how Dick, with the help of “stage-hand” Dennis Wunderlin, demonstrate the puppets in the video below – courtesy of Team ODTV at odtv.me.

Turn On the Buzz

Leo has been welcoming Google Buzz with open arms, as he does with most things new, but even Dick finds it rather appealing, because every time he turns it on, he gets a bunch more followers.  Follow Dick from his Google Profile page.

Giz Wiz Gadget Involved in Scandal

John Toben from Marietta, Georgia, faithful listener since Episode 1, reports the top story of the day in the Atlanta Paper.  An airport manager was at a meeting negotiating with Delta Airlines.  He accidentally left his Livescribe Pulse Smartpen (Episode 653) behind, with the recorder turned on.  Delta was pulsing with rage after they found out.  You can read the story on ajc.com.

Funny how, 18 months after Dick first talked about the gadget, it’s suddenly come back to the fore again, most recently in Episode 1030.

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Gadgets Recycler

Link: Gazelle

gazelle.com

This week, Leo has no gadgets at all, and decides to talk about a website (which is a new sponsor on MacBreak Weekly), that is called gazelle.com.  It will buy old gadgets from you for cash, including cellphones, laptops, digital cameras, camcorders, gaming consoles etc.  Find out on the website how much you will get, and they’ll even pay for the shipping, and send you a box for you to post the gadget in.

Is someone trying to compete with Dick’s Gadget Warehouse?

ZipShot Tripod

J A Gate has a suggestion for Leo’s camera gear: a very light-weight tripod called the ZipShot Tripod, by Tamrac.

ZipShot Tripod

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Illuminated Tweezers

Link: Amazon

Tweeza-Lite

A pair of tweezers with an LED light to illuminate the target, that’s Tweeza-Lite.

Gizneyland Guest

Lighting expert Pat Grosswendt of Litepanels is in Dick’s studio for this week’s recording.

DGW in its Fifth Year

Last week the Daily Giz Wiz marched into its 5th year.  Episode 1 was released on 20 February 2006.  It all started one day when Leo was at the Hudson Hotel in New York with Dick …  See also Episode 99.

Illuminated Key Cap

Leo met someone in the neighbourhood the other day who invented a key cap that illuminates the key-hole, although it may not have been the same gadget as the Nanolite (Episode 996).

Keychain Spy Camera

When Dick talked about the Keychain Spy Camera in Episode 1029, he had mislaid the email from the listener who told him about it.  That was Chuck Lohr, and you can find his review at chucklohr.com/808/.  The technology inside, a hacker friend of Chuck’s has found out, may well be part of a cellphone package from China.  Chuck is slightly worried about Leo’s order, as even for an inexpensive little gadget like this, there are knock-offs and some are not as good as others.

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Vintage Computer

Link: PC Museum    Tweeting VIC-20

Dick’s Gadget Warehouse

Commodore VIC-20 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Released in January 1981, the Commodore VIC-20 had, according to Dick, 8 KB RAM, running on a 1 MHz processor, with a 16 colours display output (which you just hooked up to your TV).  It was the first computer that sold more than 1 million units.

If you still have a VIC-20 that works, you can go to pcmuseum.ca to get a program which lets you tweet from the VIC-20.

PowerGenix

Peter Costello bought a set of PowerGenix Nickel Zinc batteries after listening to Episode 1021.  He wanted to know if the batteries could be used with a solar charger but was advised by PowerGenix that at the moment, it’s best to use the batteries with the PowerGenix charger.

GizWiz Garb

Dick is wearing a Dick’s Gadget Warehouse T-Shirt from GizWizGarb, a site run by Sue McAllister of ColorSpotPrinting, selling GizWiz-themed merchandise.  You can also get the link from Dick’s site.

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Puzzle-Solving Game

Link: Rubik’s Slide

Rubik's Slide

Techno Source made the Rubik’s TouchCube (Episode 776) last year. This year at Toy Fair, they have a new product, Rubik’s Slide. Instead of having 6 faces, the Slide has only one, and you have to solve puzzles using the coloured squares. It also has a voice that tells you your best score.

The Dark Side of Dick DeBartolo

Dick was usually a sweet kid, but he remembers that when he was about 12, he was making snowballs when saw a short old lady walking very slowly down the block, staring at Dick all the time, and he said to her, “OK, lady, start running.” Dick sat down on the snow and was in hysterics. Dick still doesn’t know what possessed him to do that.

New Stuff from Wild Planet

Dick promises to talk about some new stuff from Wild Planet in due course.

TechnoComedy

In Episode 1023, Leo talked about using scanned cheques on the iPhone to make deposits with the USAA. Roger Harmon from Tucson, who last wrote in Episode 921 asking for a recommendation for an FM transmitter, writes in to say that now the app is available on Android as well. Roger is a big fan, and loves the technocomedy.

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Pet Tweeting Device

Link: Amazon

Puppy Tweets

We’ve had the TwitterPeek (Episode 958), a device dedicated to tweeting, and the Withings Scale (Episode 997) that tweets Leo’s weight. It’s only a matter of time when our pets catch up, and here’s the device for it. From the recent Toy Fair, Puppy Tweets is Mattel’s (or Radica’s) foray into the Twitter market, for your pets. Attached to a dog’s collar, it’s a plastic tag or pendant that detects your pet’s movement or barking and sends out one of 500 preset tweets to your pet’s own Twitter page, using WiFi via your computer. More canned tweets will be available.

Ctrl-Z

In Episode 1018, Dick and Leo talked about undoing one’s life using Command-Z, or Ctrl-Alt-Del. A number of listeners responded, and Daryl Holmquist from San Jose (who offered Dick and Leo a ride in his Tesla when Dick last visited Petaluma: see Episode 892) was one of them. Daryl tells Dick that they should check out NBC’s video podcast called Ctrl, starring Tony Hale and Steve Howey, available on iTunes and Hulu.

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Egg Separator / Brown Sugar Softener

Link: ednasceramictreasures.webs.com

Turn-The-Tables-Tuesday

Up Chuck and Sugar Lobster

Two weeks ago, fans Steve and Stephanie from Nova Scotia made a special effort to go to the TWiT Cottage, on a Monday, in order to watch the recording of the Daily Giz Wiz.  Stephanie’s mother, Edna Meisner (from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia), who is herself a listener of the show, makes a collection of hand-crafted items including the two featured today, which she gave Leo.

The Up Chuck is a bulbous cup painted with the face of a doll, with an opening where the smiling lips of the doll should be.  It’s an egg separator.  The Sugar Lobster, or Brown Sugar Softener, after being soaked in water for 15 minutes, will keep your jar of brown sugar from hardening.  After a few months, repeat the process.

These are beautifully crafted, charming and whimsical hand-made items, and together with the gift was a note to Leo which he forgot to read during the show.  In the video excerpts below (video courtesy of odtv.me), you can see Leo unbox the Up Chuck and the Sugar Lobster, and listen to Edna’s message to Leo.

Best Investment Ever

David Eckhardt heard Dick and Leo talk about Pixar and Jobs in the Kilosode.  David notes that Steve Jobs, who bought Pixar from George Lucas and later sold some of his shares to Disney, made one of the best ever investments.  Over about 20 years, for every $1, he made $350.

Update

Since the recording, Dick has communicated with Edna, and got more information about her creations, pricing and shipping. Do read up on Dick’s post on today’s show. Edna wasn’t expecting Leo to talk about her products on the show but has now, with the help of friends, set up her own website. Check it out.

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