On this week’s Gadget Show Jason’s top 5 dealt with a number of ways you could enhance, advance and improve your tech life. Here were his top five tech tips:

5. Q-Waves Wireless USB AV Kit

The Q-Waves Wireless USB AV Kit costs around £85 and it sends a video stream of whatever your laptop or PC is showing you to your TV, essentially turning your TV into a wireless monitor. You can use it for watching things like Sky Player, BBC iPlayer and other media on your TV in high quality.

4. Vitamin D Video

This is free software which essentially allows you to turn your webcam into a home security system. It recognises when people come in or go out of a door for example, and emails you when they do.

3. Mobile Air Mouse Pro

This nifty little app for your iPhone or iPod Touch essentially turns your iPod into an advanced trackpad, or wireless mouse with which you can control your PC or Mac.

2. Earphone Cable Fold

Wrap the cord around your hand leaving the jack hanging a little. Pinch the middle to form a bow and wrap the remaining cord around, pushing the jack through the middle and pulling it tight. Hey Presto – no more annoyingly tangled earphones.

1. Tinfoil Wi-Fi Booster

Another free tip from Jason. There is nothing more annoying than losing your wi-fi signal halfway through an online gaming session, but you can use this tip to solve the problem. Get some tinfoil, Make it rectangular and place it next to your router, so that it can reflect signal from your wireless router towards the room with your wireless laptop, gaming console etc. You will find that the signal is automatically boosted. A great tip, and it’s free!

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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The Eye-Fi (not I-fi) SD card was the second of this week’s Something for the Weekend gadgets. The Eye-Fi is a wireless SD card which means that it transmits pictures from your camera to your PC wirelessly and instantly using the bundled software. No more need for cables connecting your camera to your PC. Simply pre-load your PC with the Eye-Fi software.

Get an Eye-Fi wireless SD card as seen on Something for the Weekend

Discuss Something for the Weekend gadgets in our forum

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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On this week’s The Gadget Show the presenters with the help of Keith Chegwin ‘Cheggers’ and funnyman Joe Pasquale looked at cheap laptops to find out what the best one under £400 was.

Top prize went to this:

The Samsung R519 laptop was deemed to be the best cheap laptop due to it’s fantastic value for money, 250 GB hard drive, good intel processor and classy looks. Gadget Show presenter waxed lyrical over the Samsung R519.

Get a Samsung R519 laptop as seen on The Gadget Show

Discuss The Gadget Show and cheap laptops in our forum

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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The U Record Music Converter was the first of this week’s Something for the Weekend gadgets. Ella Williamson explained that the ION uRecord Music Converter was essentially an archiving system meaning that you can store all your old LPs on your portable MP3 player and PC/laptop. Simply hook up your turntable to a PC or Mac using the U Record device, and the integrated software converts the music from analogue into digital in real time.

Even the authentic crackles are transferred to the finished digital track. The U Record by ION is around £50.

Get an ION uRecord Music Converter as seen on Something for the Weekend here

Discuss Something for the Weekend gadgets in our forum

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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During Gadget Show presenter Jon Bentley’s feature on Vlogging, or video blogging, he tested several web cams. The Philips SPC1330NC Pro webcam was given 4 G’s, higher than both other webcams tested. Jon said that the Philips webcam’s sound and picture quality was by far the best of the 3.

You can get a Philips SPC1330NC Pro Webcam as seen on The Gadget Show for around £63 here

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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The Dell Adamo laptop was the first of this week’s Something for the Weekend gadgets. Resident gadget expert Seema Palmer explained that this Dell laptop is billed as the world’s thinnest and hence most portable laptop, at just 0.65 inches. This is thinner than the Mac Book Air which is 0.76 inches.

The Dell Adamo laptop range is well specced with a 1.2Ghz processor, 2 GB of RAM, 128 GB hard drive and a 13.4″ WLED display. It’s pretty too, with a two tone black aluminium finish (also available in silver) and large keys for such a portable laptop.

The Dell Adamo laptop as seen on Something for the Weekend is available for around £1700 and you can pick one up from PC World here

Your thoughts on the Dell Adamo Laptop? Let us know in our forum

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Ortis tested routers on The Gadget Show this week to come up with his top 5. Here were the results:

5) D-Link DIR-685

The D-Link Router is unique. Aswell as a decent performance, it incorporates a hard drive bay and a 3.2 inch LCD screen for photos or video.

4) DrayTek Vigor 2820

This DrayTek router does everything working on either cable or ADSL broadband and offers business level security settings, important if you work at home for instance.

3) Netgear WNR3500

The Netgear is a reasonable priced router at around £120. It is also a very fast router.

2) Sitecom Gaming Router 300N XR

The Sitecom is designed for gaming as the name suggests. Gadget Show presenter Ortis found it super quick to set up and great for streaming.

1) D-Link DIR-825

The D-Link DIR-825 stole the crown of best router on The Gadget Show, thanks to its effective offering of 2 routers in 1, one for gaming and one for normal surfing, though it did take a short while to set up. You can buy a D-Link DIR-825 as seen on The Gadget Show HERE

Discuss The Gadget Show in our forum

(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Which is better – Spotify or iTunes? Gadget Show presenters Jason and Gail tested both of the music giants to decide which was best. The first test was finding and playing the songs in the quickest possible time. Spotify won this test by a considerable margin, whilst the quality of the downloaded iTunes music was better.

The second test was all about music on the move. Jason and Gail headed outside to attempt to listen to a tune. Spotify lost this test, because it uses p2p streaming Spotify won’t work offline, although there are plans for a version that can be used on phones. With iTunes you can quickly and easily transfer your music onto an iPod which means your music library can travel with you on the go without the need for an internet connection.

Music sharing was the next test. Jason explained that Spotify assigns each track or playlist a unique web address that you can cut and paste and send to your mates in an email for free. Alternatively you can use a site like ShareMyPlaylists.com to upload your own unique playlist, and listen to playlists from other users.

iTunes, as Gail explained, is also pretty handy when it comes to music sharing. iTunes Genius gathers information about what iTunes users are listening to, and then generates a playlist according to what they like. Simply click the Genius button with a track selected and Genius will create a playlist along the lines of that track, incorporating songs in a similar genre/style.

Finally, music choice was explored. iTunes have over 10 million tracks which can all be downloaded and transferred to iPod. Pretty much every record label is licensed. Spotify on the other hand doesn’t have as wide a selection. There are glaring omissions such as the Oasis and Beatles back catalogues. However, Spotify are beginning to get exclusives and previews. The new U2 album for instance was available on Spotify a week before anywhere else.

Overall, the Gadget Show contest between Spotify and iTunes ended up a draw.  Both are excellent music resources, both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Spotify or iTunes – which do YOU think is better? Discuss in our forum

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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The Eco Button was the second of this week’s Something for the Weekend gadgets. Seema Palmer said that the eco button is an energy saving gadget for computers. It’s a bright green visual aid – simply push the big green button every time you leave your PC and the Eco Button will put your PC on standby, saving the environment and saving you money in the process. Click any key or the power button on your PC to resume power.

The software bundled with the Eco Button then displays on your PC exactly how much money you’ve saved, since your last visit and also ‘all time’. It shows how much you’ve saved the planet too, so great if you’re an eco-warrior.

You can get an Eco Button as seen on Something for the Weekend here

Discuss the Eco-Button and other Something for the Weekend gadgets in our forum – CLICK HERE

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Need a gadget to fool your mates on April Fools Day? Look no further than the top 5 April Fools gadgets as seen on The Gadget Show last night, as described by new Gadget Show presenter Gail Porter. Here are the top 5 April Fool Gadgets from 5 to 1:

5) GotchaBox

The Gotchabox is a prank that could be used for April Fools, Christmas or any birthday. Gotchabox is a range of spoof gift boxes displaying outlandish and hilarious gadget presents that don’t really exist, like the USB toaster or the Kleen Stride Personal Debris Removal Systems.

4) RC Fart Machine

The Fart Machine is an almost age old April Fools prank, but the RC fart machine brings this prank into the digital age, without the need to blow up a whoopee cushion.

Click here to buy an RC Fart Machine as seen on The Gadget Show

3) Phantom Keystroker

The Phantom Keystroker came in at number 3 on the Gadget Show’s top 5 April Fools Gadgets. It looks like an ordinary USB memory stick, but simply plug it into the USB port of your intended prank victim, and it will play havoc with their computer keyboard, randomly alternating between Caps Lock for instance, and periodically inserting strange text.

2) Boss Voice Transformer VT-1

The Boss Voice Transformer is a telephone voice transformer, a vocal effects unit which processes your voice and allows you to change its pitch and frequency enabling you to sound just like the opposite sex.

1) Electric Shock Pen

The Electric Shock Pen is about as simple as april fools gadgets get. Simply leave the pen lying around, or hand it to a colleague to use. When they press the top of the pen it delivers a mild but alarming electric shock, guaranteed to have you in stitches and them not wanting to borrow any more pens from you.

Click here to buy an Electric Shock Pen as seen on The Gadget Show

(5 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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