Happy New Year fellow Geeks!
Thank you for a most excellent 2006 and hopefully for an even better 2007! The Geeks have planned out an exciting New Year starting this month with new bloggers and blogs coming on board the Geeks network and our extensive coverage of CES while we're there from the beginning through the end not to mention MacWorld the week after. This should be a fun month!
Amazon Prime has been an absolute time saver over the past six months. In the past I would weigh the monetary and time costs of shipping verses just going to the store and buying. Also, Christmas shopping could take days and time away from work or family. With Amazon Prime I now do most of my shopping and get free 2 day shipping (which can be upgraded to 1 day shipping for $3.99). I was able to do the majority of my Christmas shopping late night so I didn't have to interfere with work or family time.
As a subscriber of Amazon Prime I highly recommend it as your $79 will be saved in one Christmas season alone.
Also, I just ordered a microphone for use on my Video iPod which I need before I leave for CES on Friday. This order alone would've cost over $20 of shipping to upgrade to 2 day (which is free through Prime).
The top New Year's Resolution "the Geeks" picked to help you with is to spend more time with family and friends. Life has become more and more hectic and people always feel like they are on the go and can't slow down for family and friends except for a couple holidays a year. Because of this, many people resolve to create a better balance in their life which means opening up time for family and friends.
The first gizmo we decided to feature will help create time as the Roomba Discovery (or any of the vacuuming robots) take no time at all to setup but will vacuum a room or two for you freeing you up to fulfill your resolution!
The last gadget "the Geeks" picked for helping to become fit is Sharper Image's Glass Scale and Body Fat Monitor. The popular Glass Scale has been improved with the ability to estimate body-fat percentage of the total weight using accurate (semi-accurate) bioelelectic impedance analysis. The scale has an internal computer with body-composition analyzer to store data for up to 10 users.
Finally, the scale looks quite chic with the large blue backlit LCD providing easy-to-see digital weight readout plus the proportion of water and body fat. This scale is much more about becoming fit than simply watching your weight.
Most fitness buffs find that exercising outdoors provides the change of scenery necessary to keep the workout interesting. But without modern exercise equipment like treadmills, stationary bikes or elliptical trainers, it can be difficult to determine exact distance, pace, and heart rate throughout an exercise session. Push yourself to your personal best with the Forerunner 305 GPS Personal Trainer, which continuously monitors your heart rate, speed, distance, pace and calories burned so you can train smarter and more effectively. With its built-in high-sensitivity GPS receiver, the waterproof Forerunner 305 Personal Trainer tracks your every move and comes with software to provide a detailed post-workout analysis on your PC.
One of the most popular New Year's Resolutions people make is to become physically fit in the New Year. If you have ever create New Year's Resolutions, "becoming fit" had to have been on your list at some point in your life.
The first gadget we picked to help you become fit is the Bowflex SelectTech 552 Dumbbells. These dumbbells are brilliantly designed to take up less space and provide weights from 2.5 pounds up to 52.5 pounds with the turn of a dial. If you don't like clutter but want to work out with dumbbells at home, these are a must.
The Bio Trainer assists your in your quest to lose weight by monitoring your activity during the day and tracking the calories exerted. With a built-in motion sensor and tri-axis accelerometer, the Bio Trainer is a patented clip-on weight-loss aid that measures calories burned and overall physical activity based on every movement the human body makes.
This Tri-Axis Accelerometer Technology was developed under grant awards issued by the U. S. National Institutes of Health to help promote exercise and weight loss and has been featured in numerous medical studies. Tri-Axis Accelerometer Technology measures physical activity based on the inertial movements of your body weight unlike a pedometer that simply measure steps taken.
An essential tool in any balanced dieting plan is a food scale. Ideal for the health-conscious eater, Escali Cibo Nutritional Food Scale is a digital scale with a smart weighing system inside. This diet scale has easy-to-use features to display nutritional values, including calories, carbohydrates, fat and protein, for 999 food items, including ingredients and beverages.
While the scale itself will not help you lose weight, hopefully it will help you learn portion control.
We've covered several New Year's Resolutions so far (increasing personal productivity, learn something new, save money, work on addictions) but now "the Geeks" are tackling "losing weight".
As an example, our first Gizmo of the Day helps calm the cravings of someone with a taste for a particular flavor. This is one huge step closer to food that tastes great but won't contribute to the fast slide towards death: Flavor Sprays! Just spray the flavor onto whatever you're eating to add that spray's flavor to the food. For example, let's say you want chocolate covered something, without ruining yesterday's hour at the gym or your latest attempt at dieting, then you could take some rice cakes and spray on the Chocolate Fudge spray or perhaps the Banana Split spray. The flavor sprays contain zero calories, zero fat, zero cholesterol, zero carbohydrates and are FDA-approved. Flavor Sprays are the creation of New York City Chef David Burke.
Comleting the trifecta of addictions that many seek to cure themselves off in the New Year is gambling. There aren't a whole lot of gadgets short of something to electrically shock you that can help curb your gambling problem, but there are a slew of books that you can read. We'll feature just a few of these, but feel free to search Amazon
John Eades, a recovering addict himself, wrote a book on the problem as well as how to recover. Read on for more books.