Hi Tech Gadgets Review

Not long ago I was doing my part to be green so I was taking the bus to work, one of the major downsides to mass transit is the loss of privacy.  On one particular evening there was a guy who received a cell phone call and answered it, which isn’t that unusual.  But what drives me crazy is when someone feels the need to talk three times as loud as they normally would.  Seriously, do we all need to hear what you have to say?  Fortunately, that particular time another rider, in a not so nice tone and language, told him to be quite.

The entire time he was talking I was wishing I had one of those cell phone blockers, also known as cell phone jammers.  I would have loved a cellphone jammers, turning that thing on and watching him drop his call.  To be honest, I might like to have it so I can be proactive and just randomly jam people for kicks.  Imagine having one of those when you are with a buddy who is on an important business call, you keep jamming him, all the while he’s about ready to pop a vein in his forehead!  Good times!

If you are considering a cell phone jammer think about a few things, often walls or even the antenna being blocked inside a purse can keep it from working.  That may frustrate some people who want to keep it completely concealed.  Something else is the range, a few are as low as a 12 meter radius while others have a much stronger signal.  If you are looking for one to carry with you and want something portable you can find 12 meter range products for under $100, while 25 meter range go for less than $200.  If you own a store, or work in a library as an example you may want to consider a mountable version that offers greater range.  Whatever your need there is a cell phone blocker product that will work for you.

For recommendations take a look at the Mobile Phone Signal Jammer – High Powered Cellphone Jammer that works within 20 meters that only jams cell phones and nothing else.  It’s portable and only slightly larger than a standard iPod.  If you are looking for something with greater range and you have the ability to mount it consider the High Powered Phone Blocker Shield that has a 75 meter radius.  Either one of these would be considered a popular gift for a high school teacher in need of a cellphone blocker.

Hi my name is Tab.  I say it like you would at an alcoholic’s anonymous meeting, and in my mind I hear a group of people saying, “Hi Tab”.  I go on to talk about my own personal addiction, hoping that I can gain some level of hope while not really having any desire to change.  “I’m here because my family says I have a problem”.

It all started back in 1989 when a co-worker had a Mac Plus and brought it to work.  I had no idea really what it would do or why I needed it, I only knew that I needed it.  I drove from Seattle to Portland to buy it so I didn’t need to pay sales tax.  I had made sure that I purchase the external floppy drive, which was about 4 or 5 dollars as I remember because I needed to be able to copy and transfer data easily.  I had no idea what that meant at the time, only that I needed that too!  Later, I decided that I couldn’t handle the transferring of data so I purchased a 20 MB hard drive that was about the size of a shoe box and clipped onto the back of my computer.  With amazement my friends looked at it in wonderment exclaiming there was no way I would ever need that much storage space.

I also purchased a carrying case which allowed my computer to be “transportable” so I could use it while in hotel rooms on business travel.  I had become the master of spreadsheets and voiced that I no longer needed manila folders!  All was fine until I discovered a little thing called AOL, this allowed me to communicate to the world.  Back in the day AOL charged by the hour, not monthly.  I had bills that were $150 a month cranking out data on a 2.4K modem I had picked up.  And you didn’t need the World Wide Web because AOL had everything anyone could possibly ever need contained within its imaginary walls.

To my amazement there was life outside of my Mac Plus, I discovered a car phone!  This was a cool phone that came in a bag that looked like a purse that allowed me to plug it into my cigarette lighter and make calls.  I carried that around with me for fear someone might steal it from my car, it looked like a man purse.  But the first person to say something would have to deal with me pulling out the phone like John Wayne pulling out a revolver.  Meer men would fear me.  Add another $150 a month to my growing list of gadget bills.

Here I am today 20 years later, I know longer use a Mac and have transformed myself to the life of PC (for better or worse) and carry my iPhone around.

I say to the group as I finish my comments, “I don’t have a problem; my laptop next to my bed isn’t an umbilical cord.  I can leave it at the office whenever I want”.

Little children often play the ‘what if” game, ‘what if’ there was only one girl left on the planet and you had to marry her in order for civilization to live who would you choose?  Let’s take a look at the gadgets we have and try and play a similar ‘what if’ game.  If you had to choose one gadget or mode of modern technology, which would you choose?  This little exercise (after all we are adults now, so it’s no longer a game) would generate debates from many people each with their own reasoning.

I venture that some people might say their HDTV, laptop or cell phone.  The interesting thing about technical gadgets is that functionality and feature rich are things that companies and consumers tend to look for.  HDTV or TVs in general are really one dimensional.  You still need other gadgets to make them reach their full usefulness, such as DVRs, Blu Ray, cable boxes, etc.  As a stand alone product it misses the mark.  Your desktop or laptop computer really adds functionality and features in well, so you can do work, watch TV programs, surf the Internet and many other things.  So in my humble opinion this is the better choice by far of the two.  The third option and in my opinion is a fully functional cell phone.

Cell phones not only allow you to talk, but you can run work applications on them, check email, play games, watch TV, track your position, monitor your children and many, many other things.  But not only is the product feature rich, it’s reliable and small.

So for me, if I was playing the children’s game ‘what if’ I would definitely choose the cell phone.  Somehow it doesn’t seem nearly as difficult to come clean with this as it did for me when I was a kid and had to come clean with the object of my affection.