I’ve just been interviewed by the lovely Nandini over at Born Rich as part of their new Geek of the Week series (I never knew I’d be geek of the week before doing the interview :rollseyes:).

If you’re interested in reading about why the gadget forumswere started or opinions on blog networking then trundle over to the full geeky interview.

For future interviews please speak to my agent :).

The official launch of our Gadget & Technology Forums exceeded my expectations yesterday, we got well over 100 new members who staggeringly made over 1,000 posts. It’s looking like being a very entertaining and knowledgeable meeting place. Though I’m not sure about some of the avatars (see above) :).

We are still adding prizes to the $1,000+ gadget give-away with the latest addition being a Bendi Board coutesy of Gadget Box, thank you very much.

I’d also like thank the following sites for wishing us a Happy Birthday and sharing their visitors with us:

• Gizmodo (thanks Travis)
• Shiny Shiny (thanks Star)
• Crunch Gear (thanks Blake and John)
• Thanks to any sites that we may of missed (please let us know if we did)

The final thank-yous must go to some of the new forum members who have contributed immensly. Big thanks to:

• amitpatel_3001
• azn1art
• Johan
• kadhal
• keith
• Mike
• Case
• Tim
• Colleen
• Scott
• Humm
• I could go on for a while but I’ll stop at 11

If you’ve not signed up at the forums please do, 139 geeks cannot be wrong :).

With the launch of the forums it’s been a very hectic day so I’ve only just found the time to write this, my 10 favourite gadgets from the past year. So in no particular order we have:

10 - LED Keyboard

This was probably the gadget that made me start Coolest Gadgets, it just looks so cool. Each key is it’s own little LCD screen which opens up a phenomenal list of uses.

The full keyboard is still not available to buy but you can get a 3 key version from Think Geek.
Read the rest of this entry »

Coolest Gadgets is one year old today. To celebrate our blogiversary (thanks Star) we have launched our own Technology and Gadget forums where members can chat and get advice about the latest in geek toys, gadgets and technology. Every active member in the forums has a chance to win various gadgets with the total prize pool totalling over $1,000.

In order to have a chance of winning a Wicked Laser, an 8″ LCD TV or one of the many other gadgets we have to give away, you’ll need to register in the forums, read the competition rules and drool over the prize list :).

I’m really looking forward to meet some of our readers around the forums and here’s to year 2 of Coolest Gadgets.

I will be doing a few more site news type posts today but normal gadget reporting will resume shortly

Due to a few technical problems with the back-end of the site we’ve updated the software running the site, which touch wood seems to of resolved all problems but if you encounter any oddities please let me know.

We’ve also added a past searches page so that we can see what people are interested in finding, which I’m sure will reveal some interesting keywords.

Finally we’ve now got an Arabic translation service, like the other languages it’s fully automated which means it’s far from perfect but good enough to get the general gist.

We do have some exciting changes, competitions and additions planned for CG over the next few weeks, so watch this space

Due to our increased traffic we have now moved Coolest Gadgets to it’s own dedicated server. Thanks to all our readers, story submitters and writers for making this upgrade necessary.

We’ve kept with the same host A Small Orange (no idea why they choose that name) who have given us outstanding support and service over the last year, they may not be the cheapest but we’ve found their excellent support second to none and well worth the money.

A massive thanks to Tim, Mack and all the support ataff at ASO who happily held my hand and made the migration as smooth as they could.

So if you’re looking for a host check them out and say we sent you.

I added a spam filter to our comments yesterday and since then we’ve blocked about 200 spam comments which is great. Whilst I was checking that no legit comments had been blocked I thought it may be a good idea to check the junk folder in Outlook!

I now humbly apologise to the 100 or so senders of valid emails over the last 3 months, unfortuantely dumb Outlook sorted them in my junk folder and dumb me didn’t check for 3 months. I’ve belatedly replied to many but if I missed you I do apologise so feel free to comment here or contact us and I promise that I will check.

Now off to investigate a proper spam filter that I’ll write about in our sister site SoftSift.

I hate spam though I now hate false positives even more!

Coolest gadgets are looking to recruit some new writers.

Essential characteristics of writers are:

• Keen technology and gadget follower
• You find the best stuff before all your friends
• Write like (or be) a native English speaker
• Wicked sense of humour
• Enjoy beer (or coffee if you’re a coder)

Hard cash is available for the right people, along with “sample” gadgets to review and the odd paid trade show trip.

If you think you’ve got what it takes please send us a sample of your work and a few sentences explaining why you’d like to join the CG team.