With dark miserable January days upon us we can be excused for allowing our minds to wonder, picturing ourselves on a white sandy beach with a cocktail in one hand and a good book in the other. When we finally take the plunge and book our yearly break we need to make sure we have the tools at hand to make our travels as relaxed as possible.

From the best in entertainment to those little gadgets that make life easier; here are a list of some of the must have gadgets to make your holiday run as smoothly as possible.

CallUma Tag’n’Traq

Now there is no worse a feeling than being stood at the baggage carousel at the airport anxiously waiting for your luggage to appear. At first you’re calm, but when half an hour has passed and the crowds have dispersed and all that seems to be circling the carousel are a buggy and a few questionable boxes you start to panic. Now I have never been unlucky enough to have lost my luggage whilst travelling (touch wood) but I was once the last one to be reunited with my bag when travelling with a party of 20 and it was certainly nerve wracking.There’s no way to avoid the stress that it would undoubtedly cause if your baggage were to go missing but the CallUma Tag’n’Traq can help to put your find at ease a little.

Simply attach one of the tags to your luggage with your unique tracking number and if your luggage doesn’t turn up call CallUma with the number and they will do the rest, keeping you updated via text or email as to where your bag has got to. A great way to keep your mind at rest that if your luggage were to go missing it will be back with you as quickly as possible.

Wi-Fi finder

We’ve all been there, we’ve just stumbled across the best view we have ever seen or we happen to be at the most exciting tourist attraction and we are desperate to share this (show off) to all our Facebook and Twitter followers. But overseas in an unfamiliar place it can be difficult to know where we can get Wi-Fi. With the Wi-Fi finder you just point and click this little gadget and a series of LEDs will tell you where your nearest Wi-Fi hotspot is. Perfect AND easy to use.

Sony Bloggie 3D camera

When we go away we want to be able to capture the images we’ve seen in the best way possible so we can re-visit them again as many times as we want when we get home. The Sony Bloggie 3D camera allows us to capture images and view them back in 3D – what could make you feel more like you were back in your holiday paradise than watching it back in 3D?!

The light-weight pocket size camera has two screens and offers dynamic 1920×1080 3D HD video, you can even view your videos back immediately in 3D without the need for 3D glasses.

The camera also has the capability to take videos and still photographs in 2D should you prefer and is a must have for those who want to remember and share their holiday in as much detail as possible.

Top Tip

If you are planning on going away this year with these or any other travel gadgets, make sure you take out an adequate travel insurance policy. There’s nothing worse than facing a hefty loss if any of your more expensive possessions were to be lost or stolen whilst you were away. Price comparison sites such as MoneySupermarket.com can help you find a great deal on your travel insurance so it doesn’t have to cost the earth to protect your favourite holiday gadgets.

Today’s tech-connected kids live in a high-definition world. They are bombarded by sound from music players, game consoles, tablets and in-vehicle entertainment systems. Studies show that overexposure to loud sounds leads to hearing damage seen later in life. Parents can take steps to help their kids hear for a lifetime with Etymotic’s ETY·Kids™ Safe-Listening Earphones for Apple products. The ETY·Kids3 headset features three-button control and a mic designed for use with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Sound heard through ETY·Kids earphones will not exceed safe levels, so parents can rest easy. Even at the maximum volume setting on portable players, kids can listen safely for up to four hours per day. ETY·Kids earphones also block out background noise, and provide high-definition sound quality so kids will be able to hear every detail, and won’t complain that the volume is too low.

ETY∙Kids are available in two versions – the ETY·Kids3, a three-button control headset with mic designed to work with Apple products, and the ETY·Kids5 universal earphone that works with any portable device.

The ETY·Kids3 headset will feature AWARENESS! for Etymotic, an app that “listens” to users’ surroundings and mixes any noise louder than normal background sounds directly into the earphones, so kids can hear traffic, announcements or any other important sounds while they are listening. Both products provide clear, high-definition speech and music reproduction and come with kid-friendly eartips to ensure a seal that blocks outside sound.

Pricing and availability – ETY Kids 5 –  £59,  ETY Kids 3  - UK pricing and availability is to be confirmed.

Two thirds of us will excitedly unwrap a gleaming new gadget on 25th December, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. It’s been a bumper year for big technology launches from Nokia’s Lumia 800 Windows phone to the beautifully retro Fujifilm Finepix X100 camera, but as all sharp eyed tech fans will know, it’s Apple’s competitor-trouncing line up of iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and the incredibly slim MacBook Air which have topped Santa’s wish lists for 2011.

So, for all these new Apple converts, how do you make the leap from Windows to iOS with minimum effort? And how do you transfer your beloved pictures, videos and content over from your battered PC to your nifty new iPad?

A crafty piece of software called Parallels comes in handy here. Getting new tech to sync is much easier than dropping those extra Christmas pounds, with a little help from desktop virtualisation software.

Software such as Parallels Desktop 7 Switch to Mac edition helps when changing from a Windows laptop to Mac or iPad, by transporting files and programmes from one laptop to a Mac – it will even remember things like webpage favourites and book marks or your stored downloads. Rather than struggle to check your post-Christmas bank account on Safari, which many online banking sites don’t support, Parallels can create a virtual machine on your desktop so Internet Explorer can be used on a Mac.

Parallels is really simple to use and compatible with Mac’s, iPads, iPhones and the iPod Touch. The Parallels mobile app allows users to access everything on their Macbook remotely – that means films stored on your Macbook at work can be watched on the sofa at home and music libraries can be accessed wherever you are in the world. Perfect!

Simple to use this is a great gift for the golfing dad to help him finely tune his golf swing and ultimately improve his game. The Sensoglove is the first and only golf glove with built in sensors that measure your grip pressure when you are holding the club.

It helps you attain a smooth, consistent swing that delivers greater distance, enhanced precision and lower scores. It has a small 1.2 inch detachable digital monitor on top of the glove which analyses the pressure of your grip throughout every stage of your golf swing. You then get audio and visual feedback if you exceed your target level of grip pressure. Ideal for golfing fans at every level.

Available from www.sensoglove.com Price £50

Let’s face it most of us just love our Facebook and Twitter and what better present for a social networking addict than these ‘Like’ and’ Follow’ fleece cushions. These handcrafted cushions are emblazoned with either the word ‘Follow’ alongside a regulation ‘Add’ icon or with the globally recognised ‘Thumbs-up’ icon and its accompanying four-letter word ‘Like’. They are even filled with highly squishable polyester fibres, making them perfect for snuggling into after a hard day of tweeting utterly pointless 140 character status updates into your gizmo of choice!

Available from www.firebox.com Prices start at £24.99

Stuck for Valentine’s day ideas, then check out this ‘discreet’ USB gadget for all you laydeez out there. Perfectly designed to fit in your handbag – if only you could store data on it too then it would have everything covered!

The Lelo Mia is a Swedish-made rechargeable lipstick vibrator with 4 powerful stimulation modes. It’s designed to give up to 4 hours of intense pleasure between charges (yikes!) – and best of all it’s USB compatible so you can simply charge it on a computer. Not sure how that would look though if someone popped in for a cuppa and your vibe is charging next to your laptop!

Available on line for around £37

The Japanese electronics giants, known world-wide for their G-Shock watches, recently unveiled a new prototype watch with Bluetooth capability.

You could be forgiven for not wanting to be seen wearing it on your wrist given its current appearance but if you look at some of the funky G- shock watches this one may get better looking.

This Bluetooth 4.0 enabled bit of kit has been designed to connect to the users smartphone, giving them the ability to view alerts on their wrist, directly from their phone. As well as text and email notifications, the calendar function means that all the reminders saved on the user’s phone can be easily viewed at the touch of a button.

Arguably the best feature is that when a call comes through to your phone the user can simply pull back their sleeve, look at their watch and see who’s calling. But it goes on, calls can even be rejected/ignored at the touch of a button. All this could mean no more fumbling in your pockets, hurriedly trying to pull the phone out before the caller hangs up and definitely  no more feeling popular when your phone rings, only to pull it out and see that it was your Mum calling.

The watch also boasts an automatic time zone update, handy for frequent travellers, and Casio also revealed that they hope to add public transportation, fitness and GPS functions to the watch before its release.

They are aiming to have the watch in shops by late 2011/early 2012, adding that it won’t largely out price other Casio models, which is a pleasant surprise. The long wait will allow Casio to address the small display and, hopefully, make it a bit easier on the eye, whilst smartphones catch up in regards to the Bluetooth 4.0.

If you want to find out more about our guestblogger you can follow him on twitter @mattscott49

Relax, switch on your robotic vacuum cleaner, pop a delicious food pill and please enjoy my guest blog .

As a collector of vintage oddities, a genre that always tickles me is retro-futurism. That being the gadgets and lifestyle forward thinkers in the 1950’s saw for us modern women in the 2000’s and beyond.

Many predictions were spookily accurate, for example shopping via television, and video phones. Others like flying cars and the silvery foil fashion were a bit off the mark.

Here are my top 3 mid-century gadget predictions…

The Robot Butler

Back in the fifties the idea that housework could be completely banished by enslaving a Jetson’s style android housemaid, seemed like something only a decade or so away. The reality less sci-fi, but we do have dishwashers, washing machines and even Roomba robot-hoovers available, unlike our great-grandmothers.

Space Food

As man looked to the skies in the 1960s, the inventions necessary for space travel caught the imagination of many Earth-grounded dreamers. Food pills, much like the meal-in-a-gum in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory became a favourite.

This was a prediction that had stayed strictly astronautical come the turn of the millennium. The only taste us regular folks would get of this very high-flying lifestyle would be novelty bags of freeze-dried Space Strawberries, or a not so delicious portion of Moon Cheeze.

Even now some people just won’t let it go with talk of food replacement patches for soldiers .

Jetpacks

Every kid’s dream, and most adults too if they’d admit it. By now we should all be zooming off to work with our jetpacks strapped to our backs, right? Unfortunately the technology never ‘took-off’, (sorry), with prototypes being very tricky to manoeuvre. As funding dried up, this invention was placed back on the shelf.

Thanks to guest blogger Claire Smyth of  www.theworldofkitsch.com

Big Trak Junior

The more experienced gadget lovers may remember the original BigTrak, released in the 80’s, the classic retro gadget was re-released earlier this year and the Bigtrak Jr has followed. The Jr is a smaller version of the original, with all the same features as well as a few updates. 

Both models feature commands on the back that allow you to program it to work its way around your living room, garden, bedroom, or office. Where Bigtrak Jr differs, is the ability to store your favourite program to be run over and over again. The Bigtrak Jr will also take accessories, which are forthcoming.Bigtak Jr isn’t as power hungry as it’s big brother, it only takes three AA batteries instead.

The Bigtrak Jr is available now and retails for around £30.

E One Hair Removal Device

The E One is the first and only hair removal device using IPL (Intense Pulse Light) technology to gain a medical certificate for personal home use. IPL differs from laser hair removal in the way in which the light energy is produced. Whilst the laser emits a particular wavelength of light causing the heating of the follicle, IPL uses a flash lamp to produce light which is then filtered to create the same effect, the key benefit to this IPL being a much larger area can be covered by each pulse.

The E-One cleverly tailors the pulse emitted based on various factors such as gender, skin tone, hair type and then lets you chose the intensity based on experience and sensitivity.

According to E One ‘ After 10-12 treatments the skin should be completely hair-free, with only 1-2 treatments a year needed to maintain the smoothness’, it can take up to 7 days for the results to show. To use the device, you power it up and adjust the settings according to your personal requirements, pop on the glasses and then apply the device to the square of skin you need to remove the hair from, then bulb then flashes once and that area is treated.

After the first treatment it takes around a week for the hair to begin falling out. While this is happening you can either continue to shave regularly or just leave it. After around 4 weeks following the initial flashing the hairs that were missed (as our hairs grow at different rates) will begin showing. Ideally you should then do a touch-up session on these. This will leave the area smooth. Following this initial attack on the hairs it is then up to the individual to decide on the regularity and interval between sessions depending on the individuals hair growth – although for most people this would be every 6-8 weeks. By doing this, after 4 or 5 sessions, shaving becomes almost superfluous and after 10 treatments the area would be completely hair free.

The E One from E-SWIN is available in a variety of colours and retails for around £1,450.

John Daly’s Prostroke Golf

John Daly’s Prostroke Golf is a new golf game for consoles, it promises to deliver a realistic golfing experience, which will be particularly noticeable with the Playstation Move. The golf game market has been dominated by the EA Tiger Woods golf series for many years now, and this game offers much needed competition, adding features that may well become standard for this type of game.

One of the main selling points of the game is their trademark ProStroke control system, which is a first person view of the ball and club head. As with other console golf games, you have to play through a large part of the game to unlock the main character, so you won’t be able to play as John Daly immediately.

The game features commentary and 12 courses for you to practice your skills on, there is a challenge mode, which offers a series of trials presented by John Daly himself, as he takes players through the different disciplines of the game, from putting to approach play to the famous ‘Long John’ drive itself.

John Daly’s Prostroke Golf is available on Playstation Move now, and will be available on Xbox and Wii from 5th November. The game retails for around £35.

Boy meets Girl - sexy, gadget-crazy Victoria.

Girl meets Boy – Nigel, the loveable and very British, marketing manager from Philips.

Boy loves Girl. Girl doesn’t love Boy. Boy embarks on endless ways to impress Girl.

Launching today from Philips is a new online series ’Nigel and Victoria’ featuring product reviews, shot in a mock-documentary style.  Available on YouTube it is told in three and a half minute episodes and follows the off screen romance between Victoria, who reviews Philips products in a very personal honest way; and Nigel who just can’t help himself!   

This series is a first for Philips which aims to engage consumers with reviews about its products in a fun, entertaining way. It’s certainly different, click here to have a look http://www.youtube.com/nigelandvictoria