Even people who like cooking sometimes encounter such a situation when the process itself seems to be pretty boring. But as you know you should be at least in a satisfactory mood to prepare a decent meal. To help you solve this problem Chinese designer Zhu Fei invented a very strange gun. His gadget is a spice gun that helps you make the process of cooking funnier and more interesting. Thus, this gun fires with special bullets that are filled with spice. Using an air bag that compresses when the trigger is pressed, the Spice Gun allows for the bottom of the seasoning bottle to be hit by the handspike, blasting seasoning all over your food. Moreover there is a small button designed to change the bullet. (Read the full post about ‘Spice gun’…)

       Photo: shane o mac/Flickr Starting today, the Apple Store online is offering several new deals on refurbished Macs, and the price difference is good enough that it could force off your mind even the nastiest image of their previous life. Refurbished items are usually those that are returned for any number of reasons (hmm . . .), are tested by the manufacturer, and work like new, but often have an aesthetic dink or two. Among the deals are the newest aluminum iMac 24" PC for $1,900 (17% of regular price), and a $1,450 MacBook Pro 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (almost 30% off), both with 24-hour free shipping and the Leopard OS. Check out the rest of the deals on their refurbished item page right here. (Read the full post about ‘Refurbished Apple Gear is Cheaper and Ripe For the Taking’…)

A new website is helping not-for-profit agencies get the word out and connecting them with media partners, sponsors and most importantly, potential donors and members. The website is called good2gether and it uses Web 2.0 technology to help give nonprofit companies more visibility on the Internet at high-traffic websites for no cost.

The site was founded by Gregory McHale, an entrepreneur already familiar with helping nonprofits and according to McHale, “good2gether was born of my realization that nonprofit Web sites aren’t reaching enough people to meet their needs, and that young, tech-savvy Americans don’t respond to traditional outreach efforts—they expect to find and connect with causes online.”

good2gether helps to spread the word by using a widget called “connect2cause” that is setup on a media partner’s websites.

(Read the full post about ‘good2gether connects people, sponsors and media to nonprofits’…)

iRiver will be releasing the E100 portable media player in Europe next week, bringing the following to the table :- 2.4″ 262k color display at 320 x 240 resolution microSD memory card slot FM radio with recording Video playback Line-in connectivity A pair of 1W speakers Support for MP3, WMA, OGG, ASF and FLAC audio formats Support for MPEG-4, WMV9 and XviD video formatsThe iRiver E100 will be available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities which retail for 79€ , 99€ and 129€, respectively. (Read the full post about ‘iRiver E100 To Hit Europe’…)

Say you’ve always wanted a parrot but could not be bothered to take proper care of it - here’s a solution staring right at you in the face. Thanks to the wonders of a USB port, this USB Parrot is capable of speaking up a bunch of random phrases which are picked up in passing whenever a certain phrase is repeated often enough. Those wings aren’t just for show, they are mechanical in order to add to the reality. All you need to do is plug in the USB Parrot and you’re good to go. This nifty little gadget retails for approximately $39 and will probably get too irritating after a while that you might force it to walk the plank. (Read the full post about ‘USB Parrot A Hoot’…)

Philips has filed a patent application for electrical wallpaper. The paper contains evenly spaced stripes of conductive material, alternately carrying the live and return parts of a circuit. Lamps and other devices have pins spaced to match the stripes, which are then pushed through the insulating paper to contact the strips. Because the spacing matches, it is impossible to short the circuit. Thus it is a lot easier to move lights around the wall without rewiring.It’s not entirely clear exactly what Philips is patenting here. It doesn’t look like the actual idea of under-paper wiring, as the document admits that Different electrical contact systems are already existing which are basing on a plurality of conductive stripes being arranged underneath the wallpaper.So it could just be a small technical detail about the implementation. (Read the full post about ‘Philips Patents Electric Wallpaper’…)

Posted Feb 29th 2008 7:12AM by Ryan BlockFiled under: cellphones, WirelessAssuming Sprint can make it — and that’s starting to seem like kind of a big if these days — CEO Dan Hesse made some comments about the coming 4G revolution, including one auspicious hint about dual-mode CDMA / WiMAX devices this later year for XOHM. It’s almost an exciting enough concept for us to forget that even if these devices were forthcoming in 2008, they’d still only be for one of the soft launch markets, and would probably start as a data cards — not phones. (Read the full post about ‘Sprint to launch dual-mode CDMA / WiMAX devices this year?’…)

Freshome has managed to hunt down a bunch of bookshelves - 30, to be exact, that will definitely provide you with a better idea on how to furnish your newly purchased home. After all, reading is the gateway to a world of knowledge, and it makes perfect sense to stock up your home with books instead of spending all your free time in front of the TV. The Equation Bookshelf that you see on the right plays on the idea of dividing things in priority order, allowing you to lump all the books that you need immediately together or more important ones between a parentheses. I guess nothing still beats the boring but effective Dewey decimal system though. (Read the full post about ‘Bookshelf ideas for the home’…)

If the concept design for the paper weighing scale designed by Duck Image Studio sees the light of day, then I will no longer have to worry if someone else is looking down at the embarassingly high figures on my scale while I am standing on it. Ask how? Because the paper weighing scale is different from other weighing scales – it is inconspicuous, almost like paper, and can be placed anywhere in the house as it is ultra-thin and flexible. The figures are depicted via large numerals flashed on an e-paper display – easy enough to let you steal a sly glance as you are walking down the hallway, for example. And you can leave the paper scale out on the floor through the day since it is waterproof and easy to clean. (Read the full post about ‘Paper weighing scale is a featherweight’…)

One thing that sets ipod owners apart from generic brand buyers is that they are prepared to pay for smart design and good engineering. So why do so many iPod accessory makers ship ugly tat, deluding themselves that it will sell to a self-selected, tasteful audience?

Exhibit A: The Eos. A pretty neat product, the Eos is a a wireless speaker system for the iPod. You dock your mp3 player in the base station and from there tunes are beamed around the house via a proprietary GigaWave wireless network. The base station and one extra stereo speaker cost $250 and further units can be added for $130 a pop.

(Read the full post about ‘Eos Wireless iPod Speakers Are Smart But Ugly’…)