A few of my friends and I are gadget obsessed and like to out-do each other – in fact we have what has become known as the “gadget of the month" (GotM) competition, although it’s neither held monthly nor a competition!! When any of us acquires a new gadget, we email each other in anticipation of adulation, but more often than not jealousy prevails and there is only grudging acceptance of the worthiness of being awarded “gadget of the month”, or GotM!
These gadgets can take the form of high-tech hardware, software or some other device. Some gadgets are completely impractical and useless like the and end up gathering dust in a cupboard. In other words, unworthy nominations to gadget of the month.
Others such as FileBox eXtender (quickly navigate Windows file directories), Anagram (semi-automated capture of contact or calendar details for Outlook) or Orange's SPV C500 mobile (soon to be replaced by the SPV C600) have real practical use, providing productivity or functional gains.
Periodically, I will share the worthy entries to our gadget of the month competition - and I know myself and my friends welcome your own personal entries too!
So having given you a teaser, onto my latest gadget of the month nomination...
I have a large music collection, numbering 500+ CDs most of which I have ripped to iTunes which allowed me to take my music collection to the US where I spent much of the last year. Now back in the UK, I find myself listening to music in my office on my laptop and have grown quite fond of iTunes' Party Shuffle feature which really invigorated my collection. But the only way to use this Party Shuffle feature on my hi-fi was to hook up my laptop via an audio cable to the amplifier. A pretty impractical solution for me and in my thirst for a neater technical solution I started to research possible gadgets which might meet the challenge...
There are a number of solutions enabling music to be played via a PC over a wireless network - all of them have pros and cons. The primary con currently is that no solution plays songs downloaded from any digital music store, thus restricting your choice of online music supplier. As a consequence, I plumped for the cheap but smart option of Apple's Airport Express with Airtunes. Costing £90, it has no remote control or display but integrates seamlessly with iTunes. It also doubles as a wireless router in its own right (useful for when travelling) and supports wireless printing.
As with all Apple products, it comes impeccably packaged. However, the instructions are brief to say the least and initially I had problems getting the Airport to connect to my Netgear wireless router. Taking a look on the web, it seemed a number of people had suffered from similar problems and after a couple of hours I was resigned to taking the device back to the store. As a last resort, I called Apple's technical support and was at first told it was very difficult to connect the Airport to a different manufacturer's wireless router. I was amazed this would be the case, especially given the advice in-store and information on the packaging. The support consultant redeemed himself when he advised that a newer version of the administration software was available on Apple's website. Having installed this updated software, I had the Airport attached to my network in minutes and music pumping from my B&W speakers - music to my ears!
Despite the initial teething problems, a worthy entry to "gadget of the month" and one I'd recommend to every music lover!
Comments