On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to the Office Worker/My Inner-Child:

What takes six D sized batteries, is about as stealth as Roseanne Barr at an all-you-can-eat buffet, will simultaneously have you live your childhood Rambo/Predator/Commando/Unreal Tournament dream/fetish and will make your other office mates jealous with envy while ducking your soft yet automatic wrath?

Nerf N-Strike Vulcan EBF-25 Blaster. That’s what. Go out, buy one, and truly understand that you are holding in your hand a belt driven, fully automatic soft-shelled weapon of least destruction. But it enables your ability to fill that almost closet postal service level rage and releases it in a soft enough to never cause bodily harm - eyes and crotch shots still need to be avoided - but hard enough to make your presence known - back of the head shots satisfy like no other. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a day late with this one due to some unforeseen issues, so Monday will have the #3 and #2 last second gift guide offerings.  Sorry for that guys.

With that said…

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to the Scent Aficionado:

If your idea of a cologne is Axe body spray, it’s time to graduate to something less offensive and more intimate. Prada Infusion D’Homme is a very clean, close-clinging scent that smells very fresh, almost like good, french milled soap with a hint of incense and citrus. And once sprayed on, it dies down to a point where if you hug a woman, or get close enough to make contact, you’ll be smelled gently; not something that announces your presence like some of the more bright, loud colognes out there right now.

The only drawback though, you’d better be a confident man with the ability to be “sophisticated” - holding out your pinky finger while eating a Big Mac does count - to pull this scent off. There’s a bit of a hint of iris in the scent too. So think of it as you’re the nice, sophisticated man with a clean scent… that had a run-in with a fresh cut bouquet of flowers. It’s not overly flowery, but it’s there. Read the rest of this entry »

And on the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to the Dental Hygienist:

Ever brush your teeth so hard that you see “pink in the sink”? Do you sometimes brush your teeth too quickly and in under 10 minutes get that not-so-fresh feeling again? Not everybody brushes their teeth properly. Too hard, too fast, too little… you get the idea. It’s not all about bad breath but more about proper dental health. Enter the Oral-B Triumph 9900 with SmartGuide.

If anything, I’m the type that brushes for far too long and far too hard. I don’t mean to do it, but with my current toothbrush, I just felt like I was not getting clean enough. After a brief read - I mean, c’mon, the thing has a wireless remote display - and making a neat little spot for it on my sink, I gave it a quick whirl. Read the rest of this entry »

‘Tis the season to… backup and synchronize? There’s nothing like coming home and finding out that your machine will not start up, that you’ve lost some files because of a bad file copy between locations or worse, hard drive failure. Been there, done that… kicked a hole in the wall.

Now, I back up my files from my main machine to a hard drive that has a network connection.

But every now-and-then, I also tend to have files on my other machine’s hard drive that aren’t the same as my networked hard drive or my main machine. It’d be nice to have a way to synchronize the files and let me know which file is newer while I’m manually doing my backup.

And to throw in that I might take some files to work with me on my 16gb USB thumb drive… I might have up to four different versions of the same project or file(s) and if I switch to my other machines, I might be making more work than necessary. Enter Siber Systems Inc. GoodSync and Scooter Software, Inc. Beyond Compare. Read the rest of this entry »

And on the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to the Music Lover:

I’ve already written about the Mint Digital Music Station 220 here before at RTL; it remains one of my favorite little things ever. It can dock and charge up your Apple iPod or iPhone while playing tunes that are on it. And if you’re anything like me, you probably have a sizable MP3 collection that resides on your main PC.

You’re in luck. With the Mint USB wireless transmitter, you can listen to whatever streams on your PC directly on the Mint 220 up to 45 feet away via their Mint Di-Fi™ technology - which means honestly that your music will stream over the air without any loss of quality whatsoever. Read the rest of this entry »

And on the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to the Computer User:

Combined with marathon gaming sessions and many hours of Adobe Photoshop, a good, comfortable mouse is definitely something that’s on each and every geek’s list at one time or another. Enter the Microsoft Blue Track Explorer Mouse. And Microsoft delivered a blue LED (yummy!) enabled mouse that can track movement on just about any surface. Table top, glass, your flannel shirt, that week old pizza slice… it’s all game for the new blue LED tracking dubbed BlueTrack™.

Yeah, I bet Bill Gates thought of that one by himself. Read the rest of this entry »

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to the Environmentalist:

The KOR ONE - all caps like MF DOOM - is a BPA-free hydration vessel. Yes, hydration vessel.

Don’t you dare call it a mere “water bottle”.

Currently on sale at KOR ONE’s website and Amazon.com, this $29.99 hydration vessel is stylish enough to make you stand out, yet environmental friendly enough to show that you care - less water bottles in the landfill is a very good thing ya’ll. Read the rest of this entry »

And on the the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to the Sneaker Addict:

A pair of Nike Zoom Potro PrizeFlight Premiums. With these, you’ll be guaranteed a stylish separation from the crowd of Nike Air Force One and other sneaker head shoe mainstays. With a full-length Nike Air Zoom insole and a very form fitting and well-padded interior, these possibly could be the most comfortable casual sneakers in a long time. And as a limited edition sneaker, they’re somewhat hard to find… Read the rest of this entry »

And on the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to the Urban Cowboy:

Fancy yourself an rhinestone cowboy, ready to stomp the streets like you have a vendetta against rustlers but the lack of tumbleweeds and a stetson hat is stopping you from getting your spaghetti western fantasy on?

Enter Tank Theory’s Dungeon Belt Buckle.

This solid brass belt buckle can fully fulfill your western fantasy. It’s a solid piece of metal that’s bound to get you noticed and has enough intricate detail to invite the friendliest of eyeballs to your lower region like you know you always wanted. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you feel it?

The stress of finding that gift for your favorite geek person in your life and don’t want to be trampled at the local stores during the Christmas rush? Well, RTL* to the rescue with the 12 days of Christmas Geek Gift Guide for the Last Minute Shopper!

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to the iPhone3G lover that has everything already:

A Vaja ivolution Top Special Edition iPhone3G Case in special Renato leather in the unusual color name of Carchofa. What could be seen as just a bunch of fancy words to describe an all Argentinian, quality hand-made cow-hide leather case that downright looks better than most any darn thing that any other iPhone owner can pull out while in line at your Starbucks. Imagine their lust over your hand-made leather case that is darker than a venti frappuchino but lighter than Wesley Snipes. It arrives in a rather unassuming white box with glossy “Vaja” embossed on the box.

Much like the other Vaja cases that come in limited editions, they carry a premium price - this one costs $120.00 USD. But you’ll be the one iPhone3G owner that sticks out from the rest of the pack. But the good thing, Vaja has some on hand… so they’re ready to ship the moment you pay for them and no need to wait. Read the rest of this entry »

I had gotten my first MagicJack USB VoIP device on July, 19 2007. After one small business trip, it somehow stopped working but the guys over at MagicJack replaced it without question last October. So my “one year review” truly started in October, 19 2007.

A year later, I have gone from Windows 2003 Server SP2 to Windows Vista SP1 - I know, I know… it still sucks - switched professions and cities, and I still am using the same replacement MagicJack device. I’ve even pumped in about $50 into making overseas calls while on-the-go - the rates are “competitive” to most countries… but honestly still a disappointment to some other countries compared to other VoIP options.
Read the rest of this entry »

Although I have a Caribbean background that fully supports my love for Rum, I’m no stranger to Tequila. But I’ll be honest, just most any type of tequila was used in our Margaritas and Tequila Sunrises. And by “any type of tequila”, I mean truly any type of Jose Cuervo or Pancho Villa Tequila this stuff could strip paint would do. That is until I found Sauza’s Tres Generaciones which still had that - which I thought was - vintage Tequila “bite” and taste. I have enjoyed Tres Generaciones, Three Generations in Español - thinking that it was pretty much one of the best I could find and afford.

Wrong. Enter Maestro Dobel’s Diamond Tequila. It’s definitely on the upper end of what most casual drinkers could call affordable at $75.00 a bottle, but I have Cognacs and Single Malt Scotch in my “collection” that cost easily near double that. Those are the ones I bring out when the good friends and company come by and share while talking about world events, sports, stocks, gadgets, or most anything else while trying to feign sophistication.

As mentioned here previously on Remove The Labels, Maestro Dobel is a hand made. From the cultivation of the Blue Agave to the blending to even the labeling of the very nicely crafted bottles which combine metal and rubber for the bung to the weighted metal and rubber bottoms with a very angular cut, a play on the “diamond” no doubt, clear glass bottle, the whole initial experience just screams premium.
Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to the kind folks at Dymo, they sent along a Dymo DiscPainter for review. I decided to take my time, get to know the printer, compare it to my other disc labeling hardware like my internal LightScribe drive in PC, Avery Ink Jet disc labels, and of course my all-time favorite disc labeling “tool”… my trusty Sharpie permanent marker that I’ve been using for years.

After over a week of rigorously using the Dymo DiscPainter… I have a new favorite.

Read the rest of this entry »

Seriously… I was just talking to a friend about an idea just like this where the copper plate over the heatpipes in most heatsinks seem to cover the most effective portion of the CPU cooler, the heatpipes (!!) while I was helping him build his own machine:

“Today we are looking at a product from Sunbeamtech, the parent company of Tuniq, maker of the popular Tuniq CPU coolers. Our sample today is called the Core-Contact Freezer and I think everyone reading this is going to look at the biggest feature of the CCF and wonder why they didn’t think of it first. I know I did.

The Core-Contact Freezer features four 8mm heatpipes that contact the CPU’s Integrated Heat Surface (IHS) directly. This was accomplished by flattening the round pipe at the contact area with the CPU. The result is eliminating the copper plate between the CPU and heatpipes and in theory removing an extra surface for heat to travel through at a key area.”

Read more over at Tweaktown.

I’m a horrible person. I truly am. I have about 10 (if not more) stories that I have yet to publish on stuff ranging from SMC at Interop in Las Vegas to upcoming releases by Sonance, Sennheiser, Via, Dell, Asus, among others.

But for the last two weeks, I’ve been traveling for business without a laptop and posting via the iPhone is definitely not fun.

Updates and more regular gadget news is upcoming. I promise