An electric wine opener is exactly as the name implies, an electronic version of the manual wine opener we all know. The Oster 4207 Electric Wine Opener package comes with a foil cutter for removing seals, a cradle to recharge the product and of course, the electronic wine opener unit itself.

So, how exactly does the Oster Electronic Wine Opener work? First you use the included external foil cutter to remove the seal on the bottle. Then you place the bottom of the electric wine opener on the mouth of the bottle. You apply a bit of pressure so the opener sinks in, then press and hold a button to activate the motors. About 3 seconds later you remove the electric wine opener and you are done. A full charge will let you open approximately 30 bottles of wine.

In our tests the Oster 4207 Electronic Wine Opener performed well. It was capable of drilling into corks made out of cork oak as well as those made out of compressed cork chips with barely any effort at all. The manual stated that the unit might have issues with small corks or plastic corks, however we did not find that to be the case. We were capable of removing small and plastic corks as well as regular sized corks without a problem. But note, just because we did not have an issue in our tests does not mean you will not have an issue. Remember: different companies use different types of plastics, your results might vary.

As for the ergonomics, we were a bit disappointed at the size of the unit. Though the wine opener is slim and attractive, it is also very tall -- roughly the size of a bottle of wine -- hardly something you can take with you on the go without it adding much bulk. If you are short on counter space, keep this in mind as this is a unit you will want to display on your kitchen counter.

The question is thus, who could use an electric wine opener? For the every day wine drinker this product is certainly useful. It will save you time and needless effort each time you open a savory bottle of wine. The unit will also look cool on your counter space (provided you have space). And if you own a business where wine is served daily, the electronic wine opener is also a wise recommendation. In the end the Oster 4207 Electronic Wine Opener does what it is set out to do and it does it well: it lets you open wine bottles faster and easier.

My wife keeps clamoring for the Simplehuman grocery bag holder every time we visit Bed Bath and Beyond. It's easy to see why, right now we store our grocery bags in a much larger plastic bag. We have a ton of bags in there and the bulk is taking a huge toll in our closet space because all the plastic bags expand.

The Simplehuman Grocery Bag Holder compresses the bags (about 30 total) so they take up less space. You feed the gadget through the top opening and pull them out through the front holder.

We're hoping to bring you a full review of the Simplehuman Grocery Bag holder soon.

Create your own ice sculptures with Lego Ice Cube Trays (or Ice Brick Tray as Lego calls it). The ice cube trays are made entirely of silicone so unlike traditional plastic ice cube trays, they will take a lot more punishment. And punishment they will take when you have kids (yeah Dad counts as a kid too) in the house. Each one of the Lego Ice Cube Trays lets you make 10 ice bricks at a time, so you will be need a lot of of these trays if you want to make crazy ice sculptures. Still, Lego came up with a pretty clever idea.

You can get your dirty little hands on it directly from the Lego store.

The Mio Digiwalker C310X by Mio Technology Limited is a bit of an anomaly in the world of GPS. It is jam-packed with features typically found in units at twice its price. But with all the features come a bit of confusion as you don't quite know what to do with the unit when you initially turn it on, specially if you've never used a GPS in your life. But after about one hour of getting to know your new toy, you'll begin to see why the Mio Digiwalker C310X is hands down one of the best GPS values on the market.

In the package you will find the GPS holder, windshield mount, car charger, USB cable, application CD and map DVD (containing maps of the entire US including Hawaii and Alaska), and of course, the C310X itself -- basically everything you need to take this sucker on the road.

THE HARDWARE
One of the best things about the Mio Digiwalker C310X is the unit's portability. Many of the current GPS we've seen on the market are clunky beasts -- even from the major GPS manufacturers. The Tom Tom One, considered one of the more portable GPS units around is actually less portable that the C310X because it has a rounded hump on the back of the unit that adds depth. The Mio C310X is only 0.78 inches deep and weighs only 6 ounces making it easy to carry around in your pocket or purse. The battery life is also quite significant capable of keeping this unit alive for up to 5 hours after a single charge. The 3.5 TFT display is vibrant and sports a touch screen and and up to 65k colors.

THE PERFORMANCE
I was shocked to see how well this GPS performed. As keyed in your destination, the information would almost immediately be narrowed down and calculations of routes and distances was done at significant speeds. I was surprised that the system took just under thirty seconds to calculate a route between Miami to San Francisco. Nice. As for accuracy, the Mio C310 was very reliable, leading us to the right location throughout our tests.

THE FEATURES
One of the features many GPS manufacturers tout is the ability for their GPS unit to call out the name of the street you are supposed to make your next turn. That feature is missing in the C310X. At first we felt that the lack of the "text-to-speech" feature would be detrimental, but in real-world use, we liked the way the Mio Digiwalker C310X works best. The C310X will command you to "take your next right at 100 yards" making it easier to identify exactly which street you should make your next turn. This is particularly useful when the street signs are missing or hidden from driver view. We like the way it works so much in fact, that we recommend all GPS manufacturers make the "text-to-speech" feature optional in all their future units.

Another feature we loved was the ability to create an itinerary. This means you can add different points of interest or addresses to your trip before you head out and there is no need for you to touch the device again. Should you want to make changes to your itinerary, you can easily remove, add or edit with a couple of simple on-screen button presses.

You can also make changes to your trip on the fly. If you want to avoid tolls, take the shortest route or avoid highways, the Mio Digiwalker C310X has plenty of options that let you do so. And since recalculations are done so fast in this unit, it is easy to go from one to another to see which route you like best.

The Mio C310X also comes pre-loaded with POIs (points of interest) which can be easily accessed through the menu system. In a trip to Orlando we put this feature to the test and it performed extremely well. We were able to pull-up a list of movie theaters around our then current location along with the theater's phone number. One phone call later and we were able to get the movie times. One simple route-to location button push and in a matter of seconds we were on our way. Sadly we did not find a way to add or edit our own points of interest to the GPS. Another let down was that the system would not allow us to select more than two favorites. The unit unnecessarily restricts you to home and work with no option to add any extra favorite locations. For example, it would have been useful to add my parent's house as a favorite since a lot of road trips start there. We are not sure if Mio will provide Mio owners with an update to allow us to add more information to the device via a download upgrade in the future.

Another problem we had with the C310X was that the unit asks that you enter the current date and time each time the unit runs out of batteries. We are not entirely sure why it does this, but it makes no sense that the information could not be stored in the unit's internal memory.

AN MP3 PLAYER TOO?
The Mio Digiwalker C310X also comes with an MP3 player. Though not required or necessary, it can be useful if you still do not have a propper MP3 player of your own. The MP3s are played from the SD card slot if you have an SD card preloaded with MP3s in the unit. The player is solid enough, with lots of options and as good as a sound quality you will get via the speaker that comes with the system. The graphic interface though is a bit clunky specially if you have thick fingers -- you'll have trouble select the correct song from the list more times than you would like.

Lastly, the C310X supports up to 16 languages including English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian along with a variety of different voices so just about anyone should be able to use this machine.

OUR VERDICT
If you are in the market for a GPS this system is loaded with features you find in more expensive GPS units, at a more affordable price. Not only that, but the unit is ultra-portable, extremely accurate, and well crafted. With features like those, the Mio Digiwalker C310X is just easy for us to highly recommend.

The most annoying thing about using a food processor is having to clean the permanent bowl between ingredients. Although you can technically use the same bowl for the same recipe (you are putting the food in the same place), sometimes when you are working on different dishes at the same time, it would be useful to slice or shred, then switch the bowl to another bowl without having to clean up anything. Enter the Hamilton Beach change-a-bowl.

The Hamilton Beach change-a-bowl (model 70800H) allows you to insert Gladware 6 cup bowls into the permanent bowl, shred or slice, and on you go to the next ingredient. This makes food preparation much quicker and cleaning up even easier.

Though we haven't taken this product through its paces at our labs, and thus can't fully recommend it, the Hamilton Beach change-a-bowl takes a unique approach to food preparation. And for that, it gets our kudos.

I'll start off by saying that this is as budget of a an espresso machine as you are gonna get. The Mr. Coffee Steam Espresso and Cappuccino Maker (Model ECM150) retails for about $29.99 at most retail outlets, and as such, feels rather cheap. But inside the cheap components something great brews.

I gotta say that this machine is rather odd. The first week of use the unit produced barely-warm espresso. It was actually quite disappointing. One of the best things about espresso (or Cuban coffee) is the hot frothy deep-tasting goodness that comes with the rich-aroma. This machine just didn't quite get there. There is no doubt anyone would get the, I should have spent twenty-dollars more blues. And then something strange happened.

The machine started brewing hot, amazingly-delicious espresso, one after another, after another. We used a variety of Cuban coffee to test out this machine and time and time again it produced the best tasting espresso we've had a in while.

However, as a budget machine there are a few glaring flaws. The biggest flaw being how long it takes for the machine to brew coffee. It took nearly 3 minutes for the machine to brew 2 cups, while an older, budget model of Salton was capable of brewing the same amount at twice the speed. This can make brewing coffee in the morning a serious test of your patience.

On top of that, some of the parts feel cheap to the touch. The carafe (decanter) handle feels like cheap plastic and the glass as if it can break easily. The brew basket also feels cheap, but it is actually quite sturdy. The filter and brew basket have yet to stick together as is typical of these machines, so it makes clean up for that piece particularly easy.

At $29.99 Mr. Coffee Steam Espresso and Cappuccino Maker feels rather cheap and it produced unexpected results through its initial batches. Its slow pace can make it a bit tough on those who need coffee fast in the early morning. However, the machine brews great tasting espresso, something not typically seen with machines at this price. And for that reason alone, Mr. Coffee Steam Espresso and Cappuccino Maker surprises every time. If you are on a budget and just want great-tasting espresso, this is the espresso machine to get.

It doesn't get more basic than an ice cube tray. The most ice cube trays have advanced in their lifetime is going from plastic casing to a more durable silicone casing. So, imagine our surprise when we stumbled upon these quite igneous ice cube trays from iSi.

iSi calls them ORKA ice cube trays and like most newer ice cube trays, these guys are made out of silicone. So what the hell is the big deal? The ORKA ice cube trays have a unique flexible pad at the bottom that releases the ice cube from its oval-shaped prison without much stress. Thanks to this unique system, you can individually pop the ice cubes individually - no more wrestling with the ice cube tray to pop one ice cube off.

The ORKA ice cube trays also have a lid to prevent water from spilling everywhere and best of all, these guys can be easily stacked on top of one another thanks to the grooves on top of the lids.

Each tray retails for $9.99, and like most things now-a-days, come in different colors.

You just spent well over $2,000 for an HDTV with 720p/1080i/1080p resolutions. You took the television home and plugged in your upconverting DVD player to your HDTV expecting to be blown away by the clarity of high-definition television. But once you turned everything on, you are hardly impressed. What gives? Isn't the HD era supposed to display crystal-clear, drool-inducing imagery? Yes it does. But only if you have the right components.

You are one step closer. You already own an HDTV and an upconverting DVD player (make sure it has an HDMI input). However, you probably failed to invest in an HD cable. HD cables come in four popular flavors: Component, VGA, DVI, and HDMI. The most popular of these cables are Component and HDMI. But let's just keep things simple, because


ENTER HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface).
HDMI is an industry standard digital interface that supports both audio and video data components. What it really means is that an HDMI cable is capable of sending both a digital video and audio signal from your upconverting DVD player or DVR directly to your TV via one cable. The video and audio quality that is transmitted through this cable is absolutely astonishing. The colors will pop with life and the blacks will be black just like you imagined they would be when you bought your HDTV.

And that's the biggest difference. In fact, the television you just spent thousands of dollars on is worthless if that's the kind of connection you are using.


CABLES AND ELECTRONIC RETAILERS
Now that you know what kind of cable you need (check your television and DVD player to make sure it supports HDMI), you are going to need to buy one. Of course, the first place you think of are the major retail stores. STOP. - $100+ for a simple 3-foot cable. Talk about sticker shock.


THE INTERNET IS YOUR FRIEND
Do not pay the heavily marked-up retail prices for HDMI cables. You do not need 90-inch thick cables with gold-coating connections. HDMI carries a digital signal, so in cables under 100-feet, the signal will be excellent and the image quality drool-inducing and crystal-clear.

Get yourself HDMI cables through a company like Monoprice or if you must have a brand name HDMI cable, look online for HDMI cables from Philips. Make sure that the cables you are purchasing are certified by HDMI standards and you will be in a good place. and no matter how much money you paid.

GO GET EM TIGER!
Now that you are equipped with that knowledge, enjoy your $2,000+ dollar investment. You and your family has earned it.

No longer restricted to restrooms across the country, an affordable automatic soap dispenser for the home is now available via the Soap Genie from Sharper Image. Why would you need one of these for your home? For the same reasons you need them at public restrooms.

(1) It's economical - since the dollop is pre-determined, it reduces the unnecessary distribution of the liquid. This discourages individuals who go crazy pumping the soap dispensers for more liquid.

(2) It's sanitary - since dirty hands do not touch the dispenser, there is less risk of transferring any contaminants.

(3) Non-drip technology eliminates those pesky soap deposits on your kitchen or bath counter tops.

The Soap Genie automatic soap dispenser carries a full 24 ounces of liquid and it uses infrared technology to active the dollop while standing 8 inches tall.

Ok, so maybe it won't save the planet, but the Skystream 3.7 can reduce the amount of electricity you suck out the local utility every month. The Skystream 3.7 can generate about 1.8 KW of electricity which can power anywhere from 40% - 100% of your house. Of course, the number can vary significantly depending how much electricity you currently use and how much wind is in your area to that generate electricity.

Like other systems of this kind, the installation will work harmoniously with your existing power grid. So there will be no lapse of time where you will not be able to power your appliances. If the Skystream is not producing enough electricity, your local utility will pick up where the Skystream left off.

One huge disadvantage of owning a windmill is usually the sounds they generate. However, the Skystream was designed to be whisper quiet. The product operates at 45Db, which is about the humming sound a refrigerator makes.

Skystream, the company that developed the Skystream 3.7, recommends the following conditions in order to get the optimum results from the Skystream 3.7:

1. At least 10 MPH average wind speed (best results at 12 MPH or more)
2. Your property is at least .5 acre and has unobstructed views
3. The local zoning allows a structure that is at least 42' tall
4. Your local utility has an existing interconnection agreement for homeowners

Prices start at $1,800, without professional installation.