The iTrip is a pretty simple device. The idea is that you plug one end into your car cigarette lighter socket and the other into the earphone jack of your MP3 player, replacing your car radio with the soothing sounds of your own music collection playing through FM radio.

It’s just that simple. Just plug it in and find a frequency where you hear only static. You’ll get better results if you find one that has some neighboring frequencies with static. Then use the + or - buttons to tune your MP3 player to the same frequency. Just like that your player has replaced your car radio.

Back in the early days of the computer if you needed to carry data files with you from one machine to the other you used floppy discs. The floppy gave way to the CD and DVD as a method for moving files form one computer to another and taking data with you on the road. As those methods became a paid for computer users, a new type of storage device emerged — the flash drive.

Today flash drives can be used for all sorts of things form backing up data from your computer to carrying files with you from desk to desk or office to office. The flash drive is growing in capacity, but with the majority of flash drives using USB they aren’t growing in performance much.

The guys over at Boy Genius have managed to get their hands on a BlackBerry 9630 before the official launch and have a pretty comprehensive review. The device that they’ve been playing with isn’t a final release, so there are bound to be a few bugs that get fixed.

They say that you can literally think of the BlackBerry 9630 as a BlackBerry Storm with a QWERTY keyboard. The device seems pretty solid and it looks like Verizon has a winner. The one big downside that is pretty obvious is that the phone lacks Wi-Fi.

Anyone who owns a TV, knows how to read, or listens to the radio knows that the global economy sucks today and will continue to be poor for most of 2009 and possibly into 2010 depending on whom you listen to. That means that all sorts of retailers are having a hard time with many of the largest electronics and computer firms announcing major losses and layoffs.

Despite the poor economy one sector of the computer market is continuing to grow impressively is the netbook market. The reason for the continued growth of the netbook market is simple — the machines are cheap. The average netbook sells for under $400 and offers portability and battery life that makes working on the road less of a chore for many users.

A while back we told you about the iFlyz iPhone holder, designed to hold your iPhone during long flights. It’s a great idea for sure, but you have to question the whole suction cup idea. You don’t want to trust your expensive gadget to a suction cup.

That’s where the In Your Face iPhone holder comes in. It does pretty much the same thing, for the same price, just in a much safer way as there is no suction cup involved. Instead it uses a much stronger spring-loaded iPhone clamp. I’m happy to report that it does it’s job well and has multiple uses while you keep your hands free.

The folks over at OtterBox, protectors of gadgets for the active and accident-prone, gave us a chance to try out one of their defensive products to see just how well it holds up. In this case, OtterBox sent us a protective case for the Blackberry Curve, a device I have with me day in and day out.

Since the case from OtterBox is protecting something I own and depend on daily, we did not put it through the usual drops, dunks and vodka-proof trials that we would normally do. But, despite this we can tell you that this case blows away any other protective case we’ve had our hands on, for any mobile device.

The Clarion MiND appears to be a GPS navigation device at heart, but expanded into a special type of mobile internet hybrid device packed with connectivity and applications bringing dangerously close to a mobile PC, but just not quite. The mobile device has many addition features such as an internet browser, YouTube viewer, media player, file storage, weather, news, maps and of course navigation but runs its own type of hard-wired OS that leaves little for customizations.

The MiND is basically a small mobile computer running on an 800 MHz Intel Atom processor with 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage (with an additional MicroSD card slot) and connects to the world via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and of course GPS. It also houses a couple of USB ports for connecting and transferring data, a headphone jack, speaker and docking port for an included dash mounting kit.

We’ve covered our share of cheap crap gadgets ’round these parts, but sometimes what looks like a cheap gadget can surprise you. Like this Tripod MP3 speaker for instance. Yeah, iPod/MP3 speakers are a dime a dozen, but they aren’t all created equal. I picked up one of these Tripod speakers because although my laptop has great sound, it could be louder, so I figured I would take a chance on this one.

The design is cool because it pumps the music in three directions. And as far as loudness, it doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it’s surprisingly loud and I haven’t had any sound problems at all, like crackling etc. Just attach your MP3 player via the headphone jack, plug it into your USB port and you’re good to go.

Back in October we told you about this cool looking retro speaker that sports Star Trek looks and gives you 3 gadgets in one. Speaker, 4 USB ports, and a clock. We had a chance to check one out in person recently. The good news is that it looks just as awesomely Trek in person. The design is really cool and you can easily see this on the set of the original Star Trek.

As soon as you power it up, the one thing that hits you is how bright the LED lights are. Blindingly bright. Almost annoyingly so. It will bother some people, while others won’t mind, since having a good looking hub on your desk is the trade-off. The lights do make it look more Sci-Fi if you have that kind of decor. The clock is pretty cool. No problems there. And as a hub it does it’s job.

Reviewing a technology gadget is usually is fair amount of work anyway, but trying out the FiTrainer from iTami turned out to be a little more than I had bargained for. The FiTrainer is essentially a customizable, virtual fitness coach with direct access to your current level of exertion and your ears.

The device is essentially a pair of somewhat-large headphones with a built in heart-rate monitor, music and voice prompts to continuously keep you in the “right” zone for your workout. Users enter in the type of workout and their age and then start exercising. The voice inside the headset guides you through the rest.

A common gift people will give themselves for the holiday season is a new phone. With broadband networks getting faster by the minute, a phone that is smart enough to handle surfing the internet, getting email, supporting IM’s and taking pictures becomes more and more attractive. This holiday season we had the opportunity to take a look at a couple of Palm’s smartphones, and in particular we spent some time with the new Olive-colored Palm Centro.

If you’re in the market for your first smartphone or you’re just looking for something that’s slick and easy to use with broadband access you will be well-served to take a look at the Palm Centro. Palm has been getting some mixed reviews lately when placed against some of the latest in smartphone technology such as RIM’s Blackberry or Apple’s iPhone, but we found the Centro to be a refreshing and fun device, and at just the right price.

Anyone in the market for a small MP3 player should definitely take a hard look at the Sansa Clip from Sandisk before making a purchase. Comparable in size to the iPod Shuffle, the Sansa Clip packs in more features and now more storage giving some significant bang for your buck.

The most significant item for us on this particular MP3 player was the storage capacity. This little device now comes with the ability to pack as much as 8GB of music which is really a lot of songs. Connect it to your computer through the included USB cable and quickly transfer music or even use the device as mass storage to go. Also as we had mentioned when the 8GB Clip first came out, the clip provides 4x the storage of the iPod Shuffle for just a small more in price. But the storage is not all you get.

As I am sure you are all aware, Verizon Wireless is launching the much-anticipated BlackBerry Storm tomorrow. This device is RIM’s first delve into a touchscreen mobile phone and swing at taking some of the market share away from Apple and the iPhone. We had a chance to get our hands on the Storm on the eve of the launch day and had some fun playing with the touchscreen and its unique clicking technology.

Obviously the most interesting part of the Storm is the single big button of a screen so we’ll just cut to the chase. The touchscreen in general works as you would expect, sensing your touch on the glass and allowing you to scroll through things like lists, menus and across maps. What’s different about the touchscreen on the BlackBerry Storm which sets it apart from other touchscreen phones is that the glass display is like a single large, mechanical button.

We got a chance to get our hands on Griffin’s new Simplifi desktop device recently and we feel they really got the name right on this one. The Simplifi is a small Swiss Army Knife of accessories packed into a smooth silver box that adds some convenience and maybe even a touch of sophistication to your desk.

For starters, the device is a dock and charger for your Apple iPhone and/or iPod. It has the docking port right on top and comes with little plastic adapters to custom fit every iPod ever made with a docking port. However, if you happen to have the iPhone 3G you might want to check the box for a 3G sticker. The original product does not come with a 3G port adapter (not that you necessarily need it for the dock to …

If you’re looking for an affordable MP3 player, the Sansa Fuze is a nice slim device that feels high-quality in your hands. It’s available in several color options. The device sounds good too, offers a ton of features for the price, just $80, $100, and $120 for the 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB models. The Sansa Fuze is not new by any means, but it holds it’s own thanks to the great price, easy interface, and a bunch of features. It even has an expansion slot that accepts micro SDHC cards.

Some features include: an FM tuner, Rhapsody DNA integration, photo, video, and a voice recorder. The scroll wheel makes navigation a real joy. I really couldn’t find anything to complain about with this player. The battery life is very good whether you are watching videos or listening to tunes. If you plan on buying a music player this Christmas, the SanDisk Sansa Fuze is the way to go. Drop the small amount of dough required and drop it in a stocking.