I thought of sharing with all,  travel gadgets that I used allot during my trips and also the gadgets that I wish to add in my list. 

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 Archos GMINI 120

  This is one of my favorite gadget, rugged, strong, 20GB mp3 player with Voice Recorder and most importantly  CompactFlash card adapter, so that I can transfer my Cam photos into  its disk on the go.

Setting up the Archos Gmini 120 is simple. Once you've connected it to a PC's or Mac's USB 1.1/2.0 port, the computer will recognize the player as a removable drive. As with most plug-and-play models,

The Gmini 120 really shines in the recording department, capturing line-in, S/PDIF, and voice input directly to MP3. The available bit rates range from the low-quality 32Kbps to 192Kbps, which beats CD audio. Plus, you can type in a recording's title, artist, and album using the rocker controls

On the Cons side, its big, heavy and control buttons are bit crude and old fashioned. May be I bought it 2 yrs back so I am feeling it outdated. Ipod could be a better option, but there is a difference between $130 for this and $250 for same spec Ipod. 

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  Belkin FM Transmitter - Tunecast II 

 I found it very interesting while on long drives. I use it to transmit songs from Archos GMinito to FM of my car

                        Transmits on FM channels 88.1MHz-107.9MHz ,  Memorizes up to 4 FM frequencies, Powers on and off automatically,  Features low-battery LED indicator ,                                                  Includes DC cable for optional battery-free operation (only works with the Belkin F8V7067-APL Mobile Power Cord for 3G iPod)                         ,  Includes 2 "AAA" batteries so you can play your music anywhere                         ,  Operating Range: 10-30 ft. (a distance of 10 ft. or less will minimize interference and provide the strongest signal),  Audio Frequency Range: 50Hz to 15kHz

 It also includes a power cord for cigratte lighter socket in the car so that you get unintterupted transmission during long drives. There are some rules to set the right frequency for transmitter so that the voice quality is clear

I bought it for $58 from amazon.com.  

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   OMIZ Stereo Bluetooth MP3 Headset 

 I fell in love with this gadget when I first saw in the Dam Square Shopping area in Amsterdam. But I found it very costly there in the showroom, 340 Euros. Too costly..But I was very much eager to buy this product. So I did some research and found one seller in ebay.com , selling it for $125. That was a cheap deal, so I ordered it there and then.

This fantastic headset combines an MP3 Player with a Bluetooth headset! The OMIZ MP3 Headset is also an FM radio and connects with a host of other Bluetooth devices allowing quality wireless communication. The headset accepts MMC and SD memory cards up to a maximum of 1GB. The headset has buttons for on/off, making or receiving calls and volume control

At one charge it can run for 8-10 hours continuously. Also I tested its bluetooth feature with Nokia 6270 and works very well. In case I recieve call, it pause the running song and beeps for incoming call to recieve.

Unfortunately you do not get any SD card with it  so I bought one 512 MB SD card with it. 

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 Camelion Fast Chager and 2600 Mah Rechargable batteries

 This is the most essential gadget for any traveller. Camelion fast charger works really fast and charges the 2600mah battery in just 1 hour. It charges bot AAA and AA baterries. LED indicate battery charging status. It also comes with the Cigratte lighter cadapter cord so that batteries can be charged while you are driving. I mostly forget to charge the batteries before trip, but charge it while I driving. From car power it charges full battery in 2 hours.

I bought it from bazee.com, now ebay.in for 1200 Rs. which included one fast charger, car adapter and four 2000 Mah AA size batteries.

 

 

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   La Crosse G-55 Digital Altimeter/Compass Watch

I have just ordered this watch from Amazon.com so can not give you the exact feedback. For long time I was looking for a watch which have features like Altimeter, Barometer, thermometer, electric compass etc. I found this watch very cheap $65 against those from HiGear and Sunntos $150-$200.

Following are some of its features : 

Digital Time & Date, Altimeter Mode - History Graph, Barometer Mode - History Graph, Compass Mode,  Chronograph Mode, 100 Lap Memory, Temperature Display, Current Forecast, Dual Time Mode, Countdown Timer, EL Backlight, Water Resistant: Up to 30 feet 

 

 

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  IBM ThinkPad T42

 Being an office laptop Itake a least care about this machine , and that has proved it strength and toughness. I always liked its standard IBM kind black color. But the 14" screen is very small. It has inbuilt wireless card but of on 11mbps speed. keys are good and can bear tough handling. I have p4 1.7 ghz , which is almost outdated now a days. battery backup is worst in its class and there are many other problems in this machine. The hinges are very weak and I have one side broken currently.

Overall its a strong product, but you might like to see some other brand as well.

 

 

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Nikon Coolpix 2100

One of my oldest  and most used travel companion, this nikon digi cam is best of its class. You may call it outdated now with 2 megapixel and 3x optical zoom, but let me tell you that all the photographs that I have in my albums are from this small machine.

Also it has a very handy size and extremely compact in size.

The Coolpix 2100 features both a real-image optical viewfinder and a 1.5-inch color LCD monitor. The camera's 3x, 4.7-14.1mm zoom lens (equivalent to a 38-114mm lens on a 35mm camera) offers maximum apertures from f/2.6 to f/4.7, depending on the zoom setting. Turning on the camera triggers the shutter-like lens cover to open, and the lens to extend forward a little less than half an inch. In addition to 3x optical zoom, the Coolpix 2100 offers a maximum 4x digital zoom, which lets you "zoom" in even closer, though it simply enlarges the center pixels of the CCD and thus results in lower image quality. The 2.0-megapixel CCD produces good-resolution images, suitable enough for printing to 5x7 inches with good detail, as well as lower-resolution images for sending via email or for printing as 4x6-inch snapshots.

 

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Panasonic NV GS17

Its a mini DV camcorder with amazing 24x optical zoom and 800x digital zoom. It supports both PAL and NTSC and comes with many peripheral cords, battery charger but aghast no remote . Video quality taken from the cam is real good, but the picture is not that good. Also Tape to digital conversion reduces the quality alot because low 0.8 mega pix sensor resolution.

I bought it from Media Mart, Amsterdam for 300 Euros. Had to buy the carry bag seperately. Bought the PCIMCIA adapter for converting from tape to digital.

 

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Yesterday I purchased the Netgear wireless Router (802.11g, 54mbps ,2.4Ghz, 100mts range) from Nehru Place. Me and Vineet( My Friend) did a good research on price and brand from some shops. We inquired for Router with Modem and Without modem and following are the brands and price offered by different shops:

1. Buffalo (Without Modem - 2750 Rs) (With Modem - 3800 Rs)
2. Dlink (Without Modem - 2400 Rs) (With Modem - 4200 Rs)
3. Linksys (Without Modem - 2700 Rs) (With Modem - 4500 Rs)
4. Netgear (Without Modem - 2700 Rs) (With Modem - 3800 Rs)

I was looking for wireless router with modem because airtel provided me the ADSL modem on rent for 45 Rs per month and I was thinking of removing it. But it was not worth spending extra 1500-2000 just for additional modem. So we decided for only router with no modem. As th prices above were looking bit high to us, we decided to go to a known shop of friend. And he managed to fetch us Netgear for just 1900/- Rs. Thats a cool deal. Vineet also purchased PCIMCI Wireless network card for his old laptop.

At home I configured it successfully after 3rd attempt, though it was not that tough, just required some workarounds. Unfortunately my laptop has and wireless adapter which support only 802.11b which is just 11mbps range. But no probs because my INTERNET speed is max 2 mbps so I can live it.

So far I am happy with this router...looks cool and helpful without wires

Lately I have been doing alot of search for the open source Image Gallery maker which AJAX load of Images. There are quite alot on the net and I found the following very interesting:

1. Thickbox 2.1.1
2. Lightbox
3. Greybox
4. tweenbox
5. jquery.litebox
6. Hoverbox

out of all these I found Thickbox 2.1.1 very interesting. Its a plugin to JQuery  which is fast, concise, JavaScript Library that simplifies how to traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to web pages.

Thickbox can be used to open a modal window with content from a DIV, IFrame, New Page, or Image Gallery.

I have planned to take the Airtel 2mbps broadband connection at 754 Rs per month rental, I hope it will atleast give me 1 mbps which is the best you can get on broadband.

This will help me to work at home and also do some site hobby work at faster speed :-)

I call this couple a brave heart and adventurous. Driving from UK to India is no joke when you are doing it all alone and on Honda Civic. I always dream to do such drive. But its like you need some push to convert your dreams into reality. Three months on roads is no child's play. I am following there blog regulary (A road trip from UK to India...), may be that will give me a push to my pending Leh/Kargil drive :-).

Today I launched my own blog and I moved on from blogspot. Having my own blog site provides me alot of flexibilty to add and remove things as per my wish. Also I decided to create my own blog code, instead of using some open source or freeware. And believe me, this whole blog site is just one page with all the features. I will be adding the RSS/ATOM  feed to blog soon.