Freebies

	Napster FREE 30 Day Trial and 12 MP3 Downloads to Keep for FREE! Fancy downloading some of those cheesy Christmas music tracks to get you in the festive move or maybe you just need to update your music collection? Well, download 12 of your favourite MP3s for free as well receiving a 30 Day Trial absolutely free! Read the full post on Gaj-It.com here To go straight to this exclusive offer, click on the link here!
	Free Humyo Online Storage Home Service or Humyo FREE for 30 Days Business trial – No Credit Details Required! With the new year round the corner, we will all be making our new years resolution shortly. One for every business is backing up data so it does not become the victim of data loss or corruption so why not start early before you break up for the festive season and try out Humyo’s FREE 30 Day Trial. It is easy and hassle free to sign up and what’s more is that you won’t even need to enter your credit card details to take advantage of this free trial! Read the full post on Gaj-It.com here To go straight to this exclusive offer click on the link here.
	FREE Sim Cards on a Range of Networks Offering Great Deals and Discounts! No doubt during and after the holidays there will be lots to share with your families and friends, but that does mean a hefty phone bill. So why take advantage of some free sim card offers from a range of networks. You’ll probably be thinking how this can help you with your phone bill? Well these phone companies often run deals such as free calls and text to anyone on their network, as well discounts on movies and restaurants, so you’ll have twice as much minutes, texts, deals and offers to choose from with your free sims. Read the full post on Gaj-It.com here To go straight to this exclusive offers – Orange, T-Mobile, 3 network, Tesco, O2, Vodaphone
	FREE 30 Day Unlimited DVD Rental from LoveFilm and Blockbuster Whether you’re wanting to veg out on the sofa this holiday season to watch your favourite flicks or you are looking to entertain friends and family then what better way to do this by trying out LoveFilm’s 30 Day Unlimited DVD Rental for FREE or Blockbuster’s 1 Months Free Rentals Online and Instore. Simply sign up and start receiving your favourite movies in a jiffy. Read the full post on localukdeals.com-  here. To go straight to this exclusive offers - LoveFilm, BlockBuster, Tesco
	Free Game Rental Trials from a Range of Companies If you’ve already completed all of the laps possible on Gran Turismo 3 or you’ve reached the stage where you just can’t stand to kill another manji in Resident Evil 5, then you need a new game. If you’re one of the many on a new mission to cut-back on your spendings though, this may pose a problem. Luckily, we’ve scoured a range of different sites to bring you the latest free trials on games rental! Read the full post on Gaj-It.com here. To go straight to this exclusive offers - LoveFilm, BlockBuster, Tesco
	40 FREE Digital Prints from Photobox! No doubt the digital camera will be out this Christmas and New Year to capture those precious moments to add to your album. Before you start spending money on getting these photo printed, take advantage of Photobox’s offer to receive 40 digital prints absolutely FREE when you join up for FREE to Photobox’s Online Photo Service. To go straight to view this exclusive offer, click here.

Earn some money

Recycle your Old Mobile and Earn Money So you make have been one of them lucky people to get a new phone for Christmas, but what can you do with your old phone? Instead of chucking it in the bin why not earn some money as well as becoming a little bit more green concious for the new year by recycling your old phone and getting cash for it. Before your start scouring the net to find a list of possible sites, why not check out our exclusive list of top mobile recycling sites and start earning money straight away! Read the full post on Gaj-It.com here. To go straight to this exclusive offers - Fonebank, Mobile Phone X-change, Sell Old Mobile

Recycle Your Gadget and Earn MoneyThis Christmas it might not only be your mobile phone which has been given an upgrade by one of your generous loved ones, but also your other prized gadget possessions such as your MP3 Player, iPod and digital camera. Ditch these old gadgets and earn some money using 02 Recycle. To find out more about this money earning offer, click here

Round-up of the competitions

Competitions and Freebie List! Best Things in Life are Absolutely FREE this Christmas! is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Firebox (£99.95)

Star Wars Force Trainer is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Overview

With such a hectic lifestyle, it is sometimes very difficult to enjoy some of lifes little pleasures. As a gadget geek I don’t know about you but as sad as it might sound my PC has become more than just a place for me to type my documents. As well as this it has become a hub to watch videos, browse the web and play games so it is not surprising that technology manufacturers, like LG are using this change in user pattern experience to their advantage and offering users like us a better viewing experience on our PCs. The latest addition to LG’s W53 range is the LG W2353 monitor.

Now when I write about LG I almost can’t help using the word ‘stylish’ as they always seem to produce some fantastically styled products and the LG W2353 doesn’t disappoint in that department. Touting a modern and sleek black exterior, it will definitely make your viewing experience that little bit more special knowing that your staring at a very sexy screen. As well as proving to hit high marks in the looks department it also behaves elegantly using live sensors which make the buttons glow as your fingers approach the monitor.

We got to try out the 23 inch model, which is packed with a whole host of award winning features such as LG’s new “SMART” technology, full HD at 1080p, 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution and an ultra fast 2ms response time, so let’s see how it performed in our technology test drive…

Review

When I first had a look at the monitor, at a massive 23″, it came as no surprise that when I sat my previous 17″ monitor against this one,  mine looked extremely petite compared to this giant. Encased in a sleek, curved, glossy black exterior, the only quibble I did have with this monitor was that it isn’t as easily wall mountable compared to the other new monitors, but that aside I don’t think that’s a major issue for most people.

Set Up

This monitor like most is very easy to set-up, all you have to do is plug it in using a HDMI, DVI or VGA port and you can use it to tap into its full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080px) capability, as long as your graphics card supports this of course. If you want to use some of the extra features which give you access to manage profiles, preferences and various other settings then you can install the additional software that’s provided.

Features

Once set-up, it’s easy to use using LG’s F-engine technology, which allows the user to quickly switch between different display modes. There’s a host of default settings, one for movies, sports, internet, games etc. The monitor does come with an innovative piece of technology known as its SMART technology which makes the monitor ideal for everyday use.

The goal of LG’s “SMART” technology on the W53 Series is to provide top picture quality and a comfortable viewing experience whilst also reducing eyestrain during extended use. This is mainly achieved with the, Auto Bright, Live Sensor and Time Controls.

One of my favourite features which sets it apart from the rest of the other monitors on the market is its ergonomically designed Auto Bright function. It cleverly measures the brightness of ambient light and creates a comfortable brightness level that transpires a clear image without causing eye strain.

Other features within the SMART technology includes a Live Sensor function, in which the LED lights up everytime a presence is felt close to the buttons. Another useful feature has got to be the alarm clock. With time control option of OFF/1HOUR/2 HOURS, this would be great for someone like me who never takes regular breaks so a prompt like this could definitely help.

Sometimes when I watch videos from the web I can’t help getting irritated with low resolution images and pixels being distorted when the clips are viewed on a full screen as well as the annoying adverts that are pasted around the web page. Just like a movie theatre, the LG W253 Cinema Mode creates an ideal environment for viewing video clips posted online by dimming the areas around the video and helping you to focus on what you are watching.

The monitor will be available from between £149 – £160 in the UK.

The Gaj-It Verdict:

Design: 9.5/10
Usability: 9/10
Features: 8/10
Value: 10/10

We Say:

Our verdict gives this a definite sleek and stylish technology stamp of approval. With a whole host of ‘SMART’ features without my favourite being the Auto Bright function. When it comes to price this gadget definitely hold a good price compared to some of its competitors on the market and is an added bonus for geeks like me who are need of user inspired monitors when we are using our PC.

Stylish LG W2353 Monitor, Easy On The Eyes is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Due to this a few people have asked me recently, what technology should I use in order to create my (dynamic) website? Well I faced that not so long ago myself. Anybody wishing to create a dynamic or database driven website is presented with two main stream choices, PHP or ASP.NET. So how do they compare and which should I use?

Whether you want to develop the next cool social networking site or develop a custom website for your business you will need to choose which technology you will use. Two of the most popular web site development technologies are Microsoft’s ASP.NET and the open source scripting language called PHP.

These languages aren’t seen by users as they sit on the web server to dynamically generate the page based on what the website visitor is doing. The language can be used in conjunction with a database which actually stores all the information you’d like to display on your website.

When it comes to picking one technology over another there are always those who swear by one and rubbish the other. Which is the better desktop OS? Windows or OS X? Which is the better OS for my web server? Windows or Linux? Which is the best game console? PS3 or Xbox 360? We are all used to these kinds of debates

There is widespread debate among developers about the advantages and disadvantages of ASP.NET when compared to PHP. ASP.NET is Microsoft’s commercial web development technology that is exclusively for servers running Windows. PHP is an open source web development language which is best known when used with Linux, Apache and MySQL (together the combination is often referred to as LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP).

Both technologies are server side scripting languages which run on the web server (rather than in the web browser which is where languages like JavaScript are used). With these languages web pages are dynamically created as they are fetched from the web server and the language controls what and how the pages are displayed.

Because PHP is free to use and develop with, you don’t need any special tools to get up and running. The majority of server type Linux distributions (and some desktop ones) offer Apache (the web server), MySQL (the database) and PHP as part of the base installation. Running PHP is just a case of putting the code in the document root of the web server and it just works.

ASP.NET is only available for the Windows platform and to entice developers Microsoft give away the special ‘Express’ version of their software (including Visual Studio and SQL Server) which allows developers to start writing with ASP.NET without buying any additional software from Microsoft.

As with all new technologies getting the right IT training and help is essential to exploit the technology to the maximum. Microsoft has a certification known as the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer or MSCE (I hope my boss is reading this ;) ). Developers who have the relevant MSCE qualifications will be able to develop for ASP.NET with relative ease. PHP also has a certification called ZCE but I don’t know much about it myself.

Although not open source Microsoft do offer the Visual Studio Express IDE for free. The Visual Studio IDE is a professional application and it is the IDE that the majority of Windows developers use even for desktop applications. It has syntax highlighting, command completion and built in project organization. It also includes a good debugger which is something that PHP sorely misses.

There are lots of technical differences between PHP and ASP.NET but which one you choose will probably come down to 3 things:

1) Which technology does your hosting provider support.

2) Are you influenced by PHP being open source while ASP.NET is proprietary.

3) What skills do you, or your developers, already have (Windows or Linux? C or C#/Visual Basic? SQL Server or MySQL?).

Gaj-it.com uses PHP & MySQL however the website which I spoke of at the start of the article used ASP.net and SQL
Server. My choice was purely based on my knowledge of ASP.net however I will warn you ASP.net is generally very expensive to host but in my opinion much easier to develop in.  Would love you to share your thoughts if you’ve had to make this choice recently? or are wanting to develop a website and your a bit stuck.

image source (benhartonline.com)

Choosing the right technology to create your dynamic website – ASP.NET, PHP, MySQL, SQL server, the list goes on is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

If you don’t want to miss anything our new IP address is 208.131.138.31 and you can follow the instructions here to make sure your PC does goto the right place, you can follow the following steps here to point your PC to our new address http://www.modwest.com/help/kb8-52.html

In the meantime why not watch the dancing traffic director:

Gaj-It.com is moving – site maybe be unavailable is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Wanting to track my jog I quickly downloaded an app called GPS Lite from the appstore. I realised after the run that it wasn’t really what I was looking for, all it did was measure the distance between two points, (although once connected to a PC it does tell you more), I did however take some pictures whilst running using the app which you can see at the end.

As the GPS lite app failed to meet my needs  I decided that I’d go for another run this morning, and downloaded an app called Run Keeper. This App claimed to:

• See how far you run, walk, and ride.
• Track your speed, pace, and elevation.
• Record and map your routes using GPS.
• Share your fitness activities and progress with your friends.

Everything I wanted…Therefore, I downloaded it and put it to the test..The app was easy to use and I put the phone in my pocket whilst running, however, its recommended that you strap it on your arm.

After the jog I created an account on my iPhone and uploaded the jog details. I used my registration details on the RunKeeper website immediately after, which displayed the run I’d just uploaded. It overlays your run on Google maps and there is a graph below displaying the Speed Vs. Elevation, also by hovering over it shows you exactly where you are.

Run Keeper Dashboard

Have a look for yourself at my run on the link below.

Gaj’s run up Calder and Hebble Canal on Run Keeper or click on this link http://www.runkeeper.com/pub/act/8qW8OJx6A0YfvXEeUDuk

I used the free version, and to be honest I think it was more than adequate for my needs but they do have a premium version too, which costs £5.99 and will remove all ads and allow audio cues too.

You can see its features in the video review of the app below.

Here are some images that I took using GPSLight last week.

Calder and Hebble Canal

Calder and Hebble Canal

RunKeeper a brilliant free iPhone app to monitor your fitness activities is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

I’ve been trying to access my gmail account all morning, and it appears that both my personal account and Gaj-it.com mail account are down. According to the BBC the service went offline at 0930 GMT with Google saying its was “working hard to resolve this problem”.

More than 113 million people use Google mail worldwide, according to comScore. In a statement, Google said “a number of users” were having problems with Google Mail.

This however has raised a bigger question for me, as I am already dependant on some of Google’s services what impact will it have on people/businesses when any of its services goes down. Already the lack of access to my mail has had a huge impact on me and I actually have to go unprepared to meetings (I know I should know better). The excuse “my email is down” probably isn’t going to wash either.

I do have to finish by saying Google should have proper resilience in place so this kind of event should never occur, why and how its happened may be revealed later. What are your thoughts, What impact do you think Google’s services being down will have on you? Have you lost confidence in Google?

Google Mail Down, Has this opened your eyes? is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

For those customers that are awaiting products to be delivered, you will be contacted in the next few weeks. Mark Firmin, joint administrator and KPMG restructuring partner via the BBC said,

“Empire Direct has been severely affected by the economic downturn and experienced a significant reduction in sales from the middle of last year.

“In addition, the business really suffered when credit insurers withdrew cover in October.

“Low stock levels and operating losses mean the business cannot continue to trade in administration.”

In the last few months we’ve seen other reputable retailers like Zavvi and Woolworths announce their withdrawal from the high street. This now raises how many more stores will be affected and won’t make it to the end of the year. Speculation that DSGi the owners of Dixons, PC World and Currys might not make it are also spreading as its facing the same challenges as Empire Direct. According to sources, Euler (DSGis’ Insurance company) they are pre-empting bad news and have cut the retailers credit insurance. If we hear news of DSGI’s closure it will add one big blow to UK confidence and will probably see a further dip in tech sales and rapid increase in other stores closing.

Lets hope things improve by the end of the year as it would be a real shame to see any more of our most trusted retailers vanish.

Another electrical retailer hits the rocks – Empire direct goes into administration is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

This competition is only exclusive to our newsletter subscribers so to be in with a chance to win these fantastic gadgets all you will have to do is sign up to our Gaj-it newsletter! Winners will be selected at random on Monday, so hurry and join our newsletter below to grab some more yule tide gadget goodies just before Christmas….Ho Ho Ho!

We also wanted to say thanks to Zath, and coolest gadgets, and game source for wishing us a happy birthday.

Wishing you a merry Gadget filled Christmas.

You can also find more details on our newsletter sign up page.

Competition: Last Chance to Win an R/C Ducatti and MP3 Player Watch before Christmas! is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

After my little test drive I can say that it was a lot of fun and can definitely see myself having one. The only problem is that the novelty may wear off and I could get bored quite easily. But before you sign this skateboard as a right off you might want to take a look at the Boom Borda 2 Advanced which can be used for some off-road stunts – if you dare that is!

So, if you’re a stock broker who just took early retirement then at £299.99 for the Boom Borda 2 and at £336.99 for the Boom Borda Advanced it may make a nice investment especially if you’ve decided to ditch the flashy car. For me personally, if it cost less and had a lighter battery I would definitely buy one, check out the video.

It was definitely a good laugh and cheers for the fantastic demo Rokitscience, if you’re interested in buying it then visit rokitscience.

MPH UK: Hands-On Boom Borda 2 Classic from Rokit Science is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com