Decide what to buy: the Reevoo.com blog

Today’s Green Piece looks at three products that will keep your house warm, save you energy and provide you with some veggies.

First up - Using your own waste to heat your house? Sound wrong? Well the Logmaker, despite the dodgy name, can be used to compress waste such as wood chippings, tea bags, olive stones and shredded junk mail and turn it all into a log for your fire. The logs will burn for between 10 minutes and an hour, depending on what you put in them. You can also add the remains of scented candles, cinnamon sticks, lavender or a few drops of scented oils to make your logs smell lovely too.

Not a bad use for all the things that normally end up in landfill sites. They’re currently £24.99 +p&p.

Talking of logs, this next product is a grow-your-own-mushroom log. It comes with spores inside it already. All you need to do is keep it moist in a shady spot to magically grow 2-3 harvests a year. Not only do you save money on mushrooms from the supermarket, you’ll also be saving the environment from the extra packaging and possible air miles. At £25, I think it’s a great investment.

Finally, there’s the Leaf Lamp. It’s made from 95% recyclable and 37% recycled materials and has a 100,000 hour life-span – that’s 100 times longer than normal lights. It also claims to use only 40% of the energy used with energy saving bulbs.

But this light doesn’t just save energy. It’s touch sensitive so you can touch it on and off and set and memorise your own intensity and warmth of light settings. Although this lamp is cool in more ways than one – the LEDs stay cool to allow further adjustment – it is £349. Bit steep for a lamp but when you way up life-span and energy-saving, it might just make it worth it.

Something to giggle about on this grey Friday…

"When I put it on the ground and sit on it, it doesn’t fly. I have tried all the magic words that I have ever heard of, and even made up some of my own, but without success. I even applied for permission to land at heathrow’s Terminal 5, but they said there was a blanket ban on them. Shall Icontact my M.P.?" Double 10.5 Tog Duvet

"Instructions could have been clearer (but I am a woman)" Caramel Blind

"They provide cute little rubber stoppers to stick on to stand-off posts so they don’t mark your wall. Hullo!! What about the many holes…in the wall?! Throw these away or feed them to the cat..!" B-Tech BT8422 Bracket

"After feeding with ‘baby food’ takes a lot of cleaning and you have to shake it! Not a good thing to show your toddler to do with a baby" Baby Born Boy With Magic Eyes

"Whoever designed the keypad wants his head boiling" Nokia N82

Casio has decided that we all need a bit of big screen love in our cameras so their new EXILIM EX-Z150 comes with a whopping three inch LCD display. Pretty out of the ordinary for a low-end model. But if you thought the huge screen would create a clumpy camera, you’d be wrong - it’s only 20.1-mm, tapering down to 18.9-mm and it’s slim and stylish exterior comes in silver, black, red, pink and bright green.

To add to the goodies, they’ve also packed in:
- 8.1 megapixels
- 4x optical zoom
- CCD-shift image stabilisation
- 28-mm wide angle lens
- 17.9MB built in memory
- face detection function

If that wasn’t enough, you can use SDHCs, SDs, MultiMediacards and MultiMediaCardplus memory cards. There’s also ‘YouTube mode’ which is a setting that will give you 640 x 480 quality at 30fps (frames per second) for up to 10 minutes at a time.

We’re not sure when the EXILIM EX-Z150 will be available, or how much it will be but we’ll let you know when we do.

If you want to look through other Casio reviews, you can read them all here.

[Far East Gizmos]

Hi Everyone,

We’ve entered a gadget competition this week to discover the best gadget. This week we’ve entered the bendy tripods we featured last week.

We’d be extra grateful if you could vote for us. Bendy tripods reallly are the best!

The competition is being held over on Coolest Gadgets. All you need to do is click on the circle next to ‘Bendy tripods’ in the voting section, under all of the gadgets in the running.

Thanks!

DWTB team

More reviews from shoppers to make you giggle…

"Humane and easy to use, you can safely deposit them out of the window…where the drop will kill them" Spider Catcher

"I aimed the gun down the garden but ended up splatting my wifes washing. Very popular" Paintball Shotgun

"Little disappointed at the range of accompanying singalongs - just felt they could have tried harder to sing their square plastic hearts out" Cubees

"it is so wonderful it has changed my life and I have now decided to abandon my family take up scientology, move to canada and live as a woman in the future" Belkin iPod audio cable

"lots of fun for everyone (well maybe not the neighbours!)" Karaoke Duets DVD Video

Following on from our fun iPod docks post, we’ve got a cracking set of iPod skins and cases for you today.

I had to start with the iFrogz Tadpole iPod Case, which is meant to be for children but I was semi-tempted. It’s bright and extra shock absorbent so that you don’t have to worry about little ones (or slightly larger ones), dropping them. It also means that you’ll never lose it in your handbag…It’s 100% coated silicon so that it repels dust and lint.  This is compatible with 30, 60 or 80GB iPod Classics and will set you back £24.99.

If you’re a more stylish individual, may I suggest this leather case for your Classic? Toro’s Treo leather case has a clear plastic screen protector so that you never lose sight of your music and a rotating belt clip that (I didn’t write this bit) “lets you experiment the best fit to look as snazzy as possible”.  They’re £12.99 and come in pink and brown leather.

If you like a patterned case, there’s bunch of cool cases called Gelaskins. They come in different sizes for different types of iPod. This one is the Red Robot design but you can be as bold or as understated as you like because there are loads of different designs. This 2nd Generation Nano case is £9.99 and available over at iPod World.

For flashy types, the Griffin Technology disko is the case for you. As well as the protective, tough polycarbonate shell, the LEDs flash and swirl away in motion-activated light sequences. Forget disco balls, this can control a party all on its own. They’re £16.95 from MacHeaven.

For the cautious amongst you, why not keep your iPod from thieves by disguising it as a…hymn book? The case is designed for 30, 60 and 80GB Classics but if you have any other make that’s about the same size, it should work for them too.  For £15,’cherishing’ your music has never been so easy. (sorry).

If you’re debating over whether or not to get an iPod or another brand of player, you can read the MP3 player reviews to help you decide. If you’re set on getting an iPod, check out all of the iPod reviews so that you can find the best one for you.

This Green Piece is made up of three totally different products to help you on your way to green living.

A couple of weeks ago, we gave you the stapleless stapler and today we’ve got something else for the office - recycled paper biros. They’re 59p from Ecotopia and made from de-inked consumer waste paper.

Next up is a product that will save you money on detergent and machine repairs. The Anti-Lime Scale Ball is a multi-field magnetic ball that prevents the deposition and precipitation of calcium carbonate (lime scale) in your washing machine or dishwasher. According to The Green Store, lime scale “leaves clothes tacky and dishes less than shiny” and we all know that it “clogs up the heating coils in your machines”, so you could save some serious money by investing £4.99 in one of these balls. By using less detergents, you’re also cutting down on the amount of chemicals you use and the amount of plastic packaging.

Finally, we’ve got something to green-up your bike. Green Oil Chain Lube is great for your bike and much better for the environment as it doesn’t contain any solids like wax, graphite, plastic or Teflon. That means it’s non-irritant and non-hazardous. Bikegoo says that it’s “Super green, super effective. Really good stuff”. It’s £5.20 from the Green Oil Shop.

Boys, we’ve found you the ultimate tool for summer. Now that barbeques are in full swing, chances are you’re getting frustrated at having too many tools to carry and nowhere to keep them? Do you wish someone would just get on with it and create a barbeque tool belt? Well, all your wishes have come true.

The Grillslinger Barbeque Tool System has come to aid men across the land with its fire retardant coating, its stainless steel tools and its fully adjustable waist band. Women will marvel at men equipped with its Grill Knife, Speed Tongs and Pro Flipper as they effortlessly create mouth-watering dishes in front of crowds from far and wide.

Well…if it all goes wrong, at least you’ll look hunky in the belt. All girls love a man with a good set of tools.

The waistband adjusts from 30 to 60 inches so if you’re pushing more than 60, you might have to lay off the bangers for a while.

So how much is this piece of barbequing heaven? A mere £49.99 from the Gadget Shop. Worth it just for the compliments.

If you’re looking for a barbeque, take a look at the barbeque reviews to help you decide what to buy.

News just in that those clever chaps over at Pioneer have managed to produce the first 16-layer optical disk with a whopping 400GB capacity. Each layer adds 25GB to this spectacular plastic sandwich. Unfortunately they’re are read-only at the moment but they’ve all got their heads down to develop recordable versions.

If you’re wondering whether these disks will be compatible with existing Blu-ray gear, Pioneer insist they will. These prototypes will be on show on 13th July at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage 2008 in Hawaii, so we’ll hopefully know more then. We’ll keep you posted.

[CrunchGear]

"the big button dropped off after a couple of days, glue technology obviously not having reached the point in Taiwan where it can be successfully used to stick things together" HTC Touch Dual

"Reversing the doors turned out to be an absolute lesson in self control and anger management" Hotpoint FF187E

"Doesn’t come with a free Nigela Lawson clone : /" LG MS1944JL

"Not overly keen on the ‘jolly’ little jingle it plays when it has finished" SAMSUNG WF7604NAW