Ecoped Hybrid 45e

Well I bought this electric scooter about a month ago and it is great to ride around town.  To be classed as a hybrid you have to have the pedals installed.  I can't stand the pedals so they are stored under the seat.

Wal-Mart Canada sells them for $999.99, but not every store carries them.

No license or insureance is required since this can only go 35 km/h.  You can drive it anywhere a bicycle is allowed, which means no highway driving where bikes are not allowed.  You are not supposed to drive it in the rain because of electrical wiring could be damaged.

You can lock the steering and also the back wheel.  There is storage under the seat and also a carrier on the back.  There are 2 mirrors (I can't get mine to stay tight), horn, blinkers and front and rear brakes.

Top speed is around 35 km/h and can ride about 60 km per charge depending on the terrain.  This is a great little commuter bike to get you around town and for myself to and from work.

A Skype Alternative

Here is a free alternative to Skype, it is called ooVoo and it can be found at www.oovoo.com

I find the video and the sound much better than Skype.

• You can have face to face conversations with up to 3 people, or upgrade to be able to chat with up to 6 people.
  
• Smooth video displayed in 3D with clear sound.
  
• If no one answers the call, leave a voice, video or text message.
  
• Send files and text messages during the video conversation.
  
• Choose your own ringtone
• View call history (missed calls, incoming calls, etc.)
• Add video effects to your video calls.
• Call Non-ooVoo Friends by sending them a "video call link" through email or instant message to a friend who isn't on ooVoo yet.

You have the option to make calls to land lines/cell phones to U.S and Canada numbers, but it will cost you a fee each month.  $5.00 a month for 500 minutes of phone calls and unlimited 3-way video calls.  $15.00 a month for unlimited (3000 minutes of phone calls and unlimited 6 way video calls.

Now I know there are lots of programs already, like Skype, AIM, MSN, Yahoo and Google, but I find this one the best.  The one bad thing is you can't get an incoming number like you can in Skype (but not in Canada), and when you call someone it shows up as a weird number 0000500000.

This is available on both Windows and Mac, here are the system requirements:

Windows:
Pentium 4 1 Ghz w/ 256MB of Ram
20 MB Hard disk space
Webcam and headset (or built in mic and speakers)

Broadband Connection (Cable or DSL)
Windows 2000, XP, or Vista

Macintosh:

Power Mac G5 (1Ghz) or Intel Mac with 256 MB of Ram

20 MB Hard disk space

Mac compatible Webcam and headset

Broadband connection

Tiger, Leopard (OSX 10.4 and up)

Give this program a try and you will see how great it really is.

Thanks for stopping by, and until next time.

www.oovoo.com

Oosah online file storage

Well this is my first blog under the new name MrGadget-Guy, but it will far from my last.  This first post isn't really a gadget, but you can use to enhance your gadgets.

I have been testing an online storage site called Oosah and it can be found at www.Oosah.com Now this is very different from other online storage sites and the one big difference is it is FREE!  Some free sites give you something like 50 Mb of space, but today what can you really store in that little space?  

Oosah is giving you 1 Terabyte of space!  Most people only have about a 200 Gig hard drive at home so they have no hope in hell ever filling 1 TB of space.  Myself I have a 1 TB external hard drive, and a couple of 250 MB external hard drives and my laptop has 320 Gb hard drive.

With Oosah you can store photos, music and videos.  Once these are stored you can access them from any computer, or mobile phone or device that can connect to the internet anywhere in the world.  You can do this because you don't download anything from Oosah.  You upload your music, videos or photos from your computer to your Oosah account and from there you can listen or view your photos and videos.

You can also share your photos that you have uploaded.  To share a photo in your collection, you highlight the photo and you will see a drop down arrow, and choose share.  From here you enter the person's email address.  You can also embed them in your blog or website.  You can also listen or share your podcast and listen to them in Windows Media Player or Winamp.  When this first came out you could share you music, but the folks at Oosah didn't want to get any flack from the music industry and now have disabled that feature.

Oosah says you can view and play all you media in any browser, but I have had difficulty uploading my mp3s using Google Chrome browser.  I have trouble connecting to the server.

A note about mp3s, you can't upload DRM protected version of MP3s.  I guess these are the ones you get from the ITunes store.

I have an Ipod Touch 8Gig version.  Since I have lots of music already stored on Oosah, all I require is a wi-fi connection and I can listen to all the music I want.  Works the same with the Iphone, but with that you can use your data plan or use wi-fi.

I travel a lot and I always bring my laptop and Ipod Touch with me.  If I have internet in my hotel room, I log onto the Oosah site and now I have all my music at the touch of my finger.

I store all my photos on Google's Picasa site, but I will send them all over to Oosah.  Oosah has the option to upload RAW format, but converts it over to jpeg since not everyone can view the RAW format.  Picasa does this also.  I was uploading to Flicker, but I found I could only upload so many photos a day.

Also with Oosah you can have control over your Facebook, Flicker, YouTube and Picasa.  You can upload your photos directly to these web sites directly from Oosah.

Give Oosah a try and let me know how you like it.

Until next time.