If like me, you don’t get to the pub much, here’s a gadget you might want to take a look at. The danger of serving drinks at home is that you can end up pouring large measures without realising. Ask the Butler to do it for you! The Bar Butler is great for serving the right measure. It dispenses exactly one and a half shots with a simple upward push, so you can serve proper professionally measured beverages with the help of your very own butler. Ok, he won’t see your guests in and take their coats, but with a Bar Butler you can make sure everyone has a drink when you have friends over.

Don’t hide your sprits away at the back of a dusty cupboard. You’ll forget how long they’ve been there and will end up throwing them away (well, maybe not!) I’ve displayed our bottles of Vodka, Gin and Jack Daniels (kept in purely for dinner parties of course!) in this home bar gadget, so now we can help ourselves to our favourite tipple whenever we like and see when a bottle needs replacing. The Bar Butler has 4 spring-loaded receptacles to hold bottles of various sizes up to 1 litre, a leak proof dispenser and a resolving stand for easy drink selection. It’s really easy to use, so I’m hoping to become a whiz at mixing drinks (I’m thinking Tom Cruise in Cocktail!)

The only drawback I’ve found with this gadget is you have to provide the alcohol!

Sudoku, the highly addictive numbers game, is fast becoming the most talked about puzzle game in the world.  Whether you’ve so far escaped the Sudoku phenomenon (where have you been!), or you’re already hooked, you might be interested to hear about the touch screen version.  Carol Vorderman, the mathematical mastermind on the television show, ’Countdown’, is a self-confessed Sudoku ‘addict’ and she’s not the only one.  All over the country, people are quickly becoming hooked on this baffling numbers game.  If you’re one of the many who find it hard to stop playing, how about Sudoku to go?

As I opened my chilled bottle of chardonnay the other evening I was once again impressed by the simple 3 way action that released the cork (I should get out more often!).  If like me you struggle to open a bottle of wine with a traditional corkscrew and aren’t exactly friendly with a Waiter’s Friend then let me share my thoughts on my fantastic corkscrew.  It makes easy work of any wine bottle with no fear of half the cork being left behind.  Ok, it may not be as compact as other bottle openers or corkscrews, but I’d opt for this corkscrew every time!  Mine comes with a handy foil cutter which is a nice little extra.  The Corkscrew itself has two handles which clamp around the neck of the bottle, then you push the handle down, pull back and the cork is out!  Push down, pull back again and the cork comes off the corkscrew ready to open the next bottle.  We all have our preferences when it comes to kitchen gadgets, but this is definitely my favourite - it may not have the sophistication of a Waiter’s Friend, but it works like magic and gets my wine open at super-quick speed, so that’s good enough for me!  Anyway, I can assure you, if you saw me struggling with a bottle and a Waiter’s Friend the word to spring to mind would not be ’sophisticated!’  I’d be interested to hear about other time saving gadgets to add to my kitchen utensils.

I’ve just returned from a family holiday in Cornwall and I have realised what a great invention memory cards are!  It makes you appreciate how much we take things for granted these days when technology moves on at a rapid pace. 

So there we were, in a beautiful location with our children and our friends, marvelling at the stunning scenery. Not only did we marvel at it, we snapped it and caught it all on camera.  It would be fair to say we were ’snap happy’ which led to a conversation on the beach about the ‘olden days’ of photography (pre-digital!).  We laughed as we recalled the days when you packed your camera and a 24 exposure film (36 if you wanted to take loads of pics!) and then you returned from holiday, dropped the film off at the developers and waited eagerly for a few days until your holiday pictures were ready to collect.  What an anti-climax it used to be!  If you had the wrong composition, someone had closed their eyes as the flash went off or someone had walked into view at the crucial moment, you wouldn’t know about it until you picked up your photos. So, you see, this is why I was suddenly so impressed by the capability of a tiny little memory card to store so many precious memories.  The drawback now, of course, is quite often the pictures don’t make it into an albumn!

What are your thoughts on travel hairdryers? Ok, they may fit conveniently into your lugguage when you’re going away on holiday, but can something so small really dry and tame your locks to any worthwhile effect? I’m talking in particular about a tiny fold-way hair dryer (11.2cm x 11.9cm x 3.5cm) I’ve come across which is so diddy that the plug is almost as big as the gadget itself.  If you’re constantly on the go and fed up of lugging around your bulky hairdryer then I think this handheld gadget could be of interest.  Or maybe you like to go off to festivals or on camping trips but don’t fully embrace the experience when it comes to getting down and dirty. Imagine, then a hairdryer that would fit easily alongside the wet wipes in your backpack.  Yes, but here’s the drawback - the travel hairdryer I’m talking about needs to be plugged into the mains so what are you to do in a tent? Ok, so it comes into it’s own if you’re staying somewhere with power sockets, but let’s face it, if you’re travelling in this country, you’ll probably just throw your usual dryer into the car and if you’re jetting off somewhere then you’ll probably have to pack travel adaptors which surely defeats the object - or does it?  You’ll still be saving space in your case with this mini marvel.

They don’t make telephones like they used to.  I often feel nostalgic for the old rotary dial handset we used have when I was little, yet like most people these days, I love the modern technology that enables us to carry on conversations on the move.  Imagine my delight upon discovering you can now combine the two!  The Pokia is a modern day retro phone!  It has a genuine old-school handset (it even has a traditional curly cable!) wired to work with any mobile phone (adaptors are available from most mobile phone shops).

With both business and personal lives growing more dependant on electronic communication over the Internet, the value of the Wireless Router and LAN Adaptor can’t be disputed, so, I’m currently asking myself, why don’t I have one?  I use my PC for freelance work, and it would be fair to say I access the Internet most days.  I love the fact I can communicate instantly, keep up with the latest news, the weather, make travel plans and, most importantly, shop!  It’s fair to say that sometimes I don’t want to log off from the Internet connection in case I miss an urgent email or an eBAy bargain!

I recently found out about a great invention called a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) Switch. I used this hardware device at my last job to allow a single keyboard, video monitor and mouse to control more than one computer at the same time.  I was able to control two computers with one screen and Hot Key Control enabled me to switch ports easily using simple keyboard commands, so I could control which computer I used.