Technology & Gadget Blog

It’s that time again folks — the Fall Home Show is in town! It’s being held from October 1st-4th at the Better Living Centre, Exhibition Place, Toronto, and I will definitely be there. But wait… I’ve also got 10 pairs of tickets to give away! Here’s what you won’t want to miss at this year’s show:

* 250 + retailers
* Save at the Home + Style Studio Tour
* Free advice at Destination Renovation by BILD
* Decor consultations at What’s Your Design Dilemma?
* Entertaining and Renovation on The Planning Stage by Lowe’s
* Tech Style with ConnectPro by Future Shop
* Wine & Spirits in the Modern Living Lounge
* Bryan Baeumler and other experts at the HGTV Workshop Series

So, how do you win? Just leave a comment telling me why you want to attend and I’ll choose my 10 favourite responses! Don’t forget to include your email address so I can notify you if you’re chosen as a winner.  For more information, visit fallhomeshow.com.

Contest closes September 28, 2009 at 12pm EST. Open to all residents of Canada, except those in Quebec. Not open to any Transcontinental Media employees, their families, or any other persons with whom they reside.

A few months ago, I got a My Passport Essential hard drive from Western Digital, and now I’m paying it forward. One lucky reader will win the Essential’s super cool older brother, the My Passport Elite 500 GB hard drive. I just recently blogged about this sexy device that backs up your precious photos and music, so I’m pretty excited to be able to give one away. Besides the fact that it packs a crazy amount of data (500 GB… that’s about 100,000 photos or 125,000 songs), the My Passport Elite is pretty darn petite — it’s half an inch thick and less than 5 inches long.

To enter, just leave a comment below letting me know how this cream of the crop hard drive will make your tech world easier. Be original, because the best comment will win. Good luck to all!

*Prize value: $150 US. Contest closes August 31st, 2009. Open to all residents of Canada, except those in Quebec. Not open to any Transcontinental Media employees, their families, or any other persons with whom they reside.*

***This contest is now closed. Congratulations to Megan Sauer who created an incredible rendition of ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ theme song, replacing the words with why she should win the My Passport Elite.***

I’ve had to keep my mouth shut about this product for so long, and it’s actually been painful. From the time I witnessed its supercool features until about 5 minutes ago, I’ve been bursting at the seams wanting to spread my love. Here we go…

From the creators of the Flip video camera comes the superslim, incredibly chic Flip Mino. The size of a pocket digital camera, the Flip Mino takes a-ma-zing crystal clear video footage that is stored on internal data, waiting to be uploaded onto your computer through a flip-out USB key. This fab-fabby-fabulous camera’s software comes with all the trimmings as well, allowing you to edit footage, create still images and send videos through a private link to avoid massive e-mail files (or upload directly to YouTube, for all those attention-seekers).

I am over-the-moon obsessed with my Flip Mino and now, I want to give you a chance to win one for yourself! All you have to do to enter to win is leave a comment below telling me what cool things you would shoot with your Flip Mino, and I’ll pick the best comment as the winner.

Good luck, fellow techies!

*Contest closes June 30th, 2009. Open to all residents of Canada, except those in Quebec. Not open to any Transcontinental Media employees, their families, or any other persons with whom they reside.*

The Crest Oral-B Pulsonic contest has come to a close, and your responses have been great! I wish I could give all of you the prize packs, but unfortunately, I only have three.

The winners with the best comments are:
- Tracy Murray from Courtice

- Seema Persaud from Markham

- Chantal Hebert from Ottawa

Congrats to those who won, thanks to all who entered, and keep checking back for more fab contests and a chance to win cool tech goodies!

To view the original contest post with the winning responses, click here.

It’s a fight to the finish line – at least, in my head it is. Who will win the coveted award of downloading the billionth Apple iPhone/iPod application? The stakes are high with this one, as the winner gets a $10,000 US iTunes giftcard, an iPod Touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro. With swag like that up for grabs, I am determined to win, and have been downloading apps like crazy for the past few days. The internet is abuzz with dates on when the tally will hit a billion, the favourite being April 23rd (follow the countdown on the Apple website).

To get you on the road to the grand prize, here are a few of my fave apps:

Tweetie: One of the most popular Twitter apps. Allows you to use all of the conveniences of web-based Twitter on your iPhone/iPod Touch. ($2.99)

Camera Zoom: The answer to your iPhone camera’s prayers. This app is only $.99 and gives yo 4x digital zoom on your phone’s camera. When zooming, it looks a bit blurry, but focuses automatically when you hit the capture button.

Urbanspoon: Not sure where to go for dinner? Let this app decide. Your device’s GPS finds your location and Urbanspoon will randomly suggest a place to eat and give you contact details. You can also manually search within their database.

Remote: I love this app for those lazy Sundays when I don’t want to get off the couch to change the music on my iMac. Remote allows you to control your iTunes music and playlists on your computer directly from your iPhone or iPod touch. Best part? It’s free!

Who Has The Biggest Brain?: This is my fave game to play while riding the subway in the morning. The perfect way to exercise the brain, this game tests your skills in 4 segments (analytics, math, memory, visual processing) and analyzes your brain size based on how well you scored combined with how fast you worked. ($.99)

Follow me on Twitter! twitter.com/Tech_Style

One of the things I love about writing a blog is trying out new products and having the opportunity to share what I like about them. Want to know what I love even more? Being able to give those products away!

From now until the end of April, I’m giving away 3 Crest Oral-B “Power Your Smile” prize packs, which include the new Pulsonic electric toothbrush and other teeth cleaning goodies ($90 value per prize pack).

I’ve always been hesitant of electric toothbrushes because I find them to be quite rough on my sensitive teeth, but I am now a changed woman! I tried out the Pulsonic and not only did it have a ’sensitive’ speed, but it also left my teeth feeling like I just got them polished at the dentist.

Here  are some more neat features:

~ 27,000 gentle sonic vibrations per minute

~ features a 2-minute timer for recommended brushing time; 30 second intervals for each quadrant of your mouth

~ helps to whiten teeth in 2 weeks by getting rid of 94% of surface stains

Want to win one of these prize packs? All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below letting me know your favourite part of the Tech Style blog, whether it’s posts on pretty laptop cases, Tech-free Fridays, or giveaways like this one. I’ll pick the best 3 comments at the end of the month to determine the winners. Good luck!

*Contest closes April 30th, 2009. Open to all residents of Canada, except those in Quebec. Not open to any Transcontinental Media employees, their families, or any other persons with whom they reside.*

Follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/Tech_Style

After a month of reading your wonderful entries, the two winners of the Microsoft Zune mp3 contest have been chosen!

Christina Buczek of Etobicoke, Ont. let us know how using a piece technology in ways other than its main intention has made things easier for her family:

My daughter is profoundly autistic and is developmentally delayed. She can easily be overwhelmed by too much stimulation. She helped us find a great device for helping her to handle drives in a car. She has a small hand held device called a Game Boy Advance by Nintendo. It is quite small and easily held in one hand. The controls are also very simple and were easily mastered by my daughter. She doesn’t play games on this device, but instead watches short cartoon episodes. For a short time Nintendo put cartoons on the Gameboy Advance cartridges. The cartridges are made of sturdy plastic and are not easily destroyed — also an important feature for us! Our daughter uses the device as a form of “white noise” so that she isn’t overwhelmed by the stimulation around her. It has been an absolute godsend for us.

Bob Maher from Victoria, B.C., gave examples of how technology has had an enormous effect on his everyday living:

Technology has made my life easier whether it’s the ability to take photos on my digital camera and e-mail later in the day to anywhere in the world or the ability to do my banking at home on the computer even when I’m sick. I use my cell phone to contact someone when I’m in a store or out in the woods. I can pick and choose what tunes to put on my mp3 player. I can record TV shows on my PVR and watch them later or burn them to a DVD. I can order books and DVDs online and have delivered to my apartment. I can obtain information off the internet within minutes. And that’s just the tip of the technological iceberg.
Congratulations to both winners and thanks to all who entered!
To view all entries, check out the original post. And for more info on the fab Zune player, visit Microsoft’s website.

(This contest is now closed. Thanks to all who entered!)

With all the MP3 players available today, it’s hard to choose which one is right for you. Look no further, because I’m giving you the opportunity to win one of two 4GB Microsoft Zune MP3 players with your zodiac sign graphically etched on the back!

I love the Zune player because it’s sleek and sexy and allows you to wirelessly share tracks with friends. It also holds all of your songs, videos and photos and features a built-in FM tuner. Basically, this sucker has it all.

All you need to do to win one of these super slim devices is leave a comment below telling me how technology has made your life easier. At the end of February, I’ll pick my fave two comments to determine the winner. Whether it’s heated flooring that keeps you toasty warm during the winter, or MP3 players like the Zune that make working out bearable for you, we want to know how a specific gadget (or technology in general) has simply made things, well, simple.

*Contest closes February 28th, 2009. Open to all residents of Canada, except those in Quebec. Not open to any Transcontinental Media employees, their families, or any other persons with whom they reside.*

Have a neat gadget you’d like me to feature? Shoot me an e-mail at