I am not a huge game player; I simply don’t have the patience I believe. Or perhaps it is because of a short stint in the late 90s as a game reviewer when you needed to know the ending to found out whether a game was crap or not and so you didn’t ‘play’ but scampered through with a cheat sheet thus saving about 100 hours of non-productive time. Or more.

I did play one that I remember vividly, called 7th Guest that was full of puzzles that slowly unlocked sections of the game to its ultimate ending. However I was stuck in a maze for so long I almost gave up until a well-meaning mate finally told me to ‘look at the carpet in the sitting room’ where the pattern turned out to be a map.

But I digress. Games and gaming neatly leads me into consoles and specifically the XBOX. Just recently I managed to snaffle a brand new one with the Kinect interface and I have to say I am impressed. Sure the gaming functions are pretty snazzy, but I wonder how long before we can control real applications in this way? Obviously not word processing, database or spreadsheet stuff, but things suited to such an interface.

Video editing immediately springs to mind a la Tom Cruise’s Minority Report. To me it seems such a natural fit. So do any mapping-type applications.

A quick ‘net search tells me there is development going on in this area, and of course there is the famous Microsoft Coffee Table concept.

The spoken word “interface” has been around for years, notably the Dragon systems and lately Siri from Apple (which I haven’t seen). But the pundits seem to think the watershed is going to be the new Windows 8 which reportedly has a Kinect –like system ready in the wings.

Bring it on! But I don’t think I’ll be switching to a tabletop keyboard anytime soon. Those hard, flat electronic things using light beams just have no feel.

And in a purely blatant plugging sort of way of which I am terribly ashamed, if you have a hankering for a gesture based remote control a la a magician’s wand, have a look at www.auscamonline.com for the Kymera. A fantastic Chrissy present I am told 

With just five weeks until 2011 draws to a close, it's time to review all those tech-related things you're yet to get done.

Remember how you started the year full of energy and enthusiasm? You had plans about how you'd streamline your work days, get rid of unnecessary processes, and be a more productive person, right? Did you make it? Maybe ... maybe not.

For those of us whose to-do lists are still bulging as we enter the start of the silly season, it might be worth contemplating some things we could to that will ensure we're ready to face 2012 head on.

Here are some suggestions:

* Bone up on cloud computing: It's been the hottest tech topic of the year and potentially touches every area of work. Take a little while to figure out how the cloud could make your work life more efficient

* Investigate teleworking: The technology is now mature and cost effective. Plan to reduce your travel and improve use of time in 2012.

* Embrace mobility: Sure, we're all carrying smart phones, tablets and notebooks, but are we making the most of them? Take an audit of the devices you carry and figure out whether the mix is right for your needs. Swapping one device for another could help boost productivity.

* Ease back on the social networking: Everyone likes to share things, but over-sharing can become a problem. Those photos of you at the office end-of-year party might just come back to haunt you in the cold, grey light of January.

So, has anything else made it onto your end-of-year to-do list yet?

Which gadgets deserve a place in your travel bag?

These days I’d say people are spending more time than ever working away from their desks - whether it be at a client’s premises, at a conference, on a plane or in a cafe. If you tend to travel you’re probably interested in gadgets that can also slip into something more comfortable after hours.

The rise of the mobile workforce has sparked a quest to find the perfect gadget for work and play. There’s no shortage of options, each trying to strike a balance between portability and usability. The choices can actually be a little overwhelming and this year I’ve looked at notebooks, netbooks, ultrabooks, smartphones, e-book readers and tablets. Along with these I've tested standalone QWERTY keyboards and even hybrid devices with detachable or slide-out keyboards (like the Asus Eee Pad Slider picture above). Each gadget has its strengths and weaknesses, so choosing the right one for you can be tricky.

As someone who writes for a living I place a strong emphasis on a good keyboard, which is probably why I’m still lugging around my 13-inch MacBook even though I’ve got Apple and Android tablets and smartphones at my disposal. I need a more shoulder-friendly mobile office than the MacBook but, despite all the options, I suspect my next portable computing device will be a MacBook Air. People who care less about the keyboard are probably more open to touchscreen alternatives.

Which gadgets are your essential travel companions for work and play?

I use Outlook 2011 in conjunction with a Gmail account, and sometimes the inbox stops syncing until I select that account's inbox rather than the unified inbox. That's decidedly inconvenient, and I've heard from others experiencing similar problems.

I don't have an answer, but I have come up with a workaround.

Create the following AppleScript

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
     sync inbox
end tell

and save it as Sync Inbox or whatever other name you see fit.

(I'd expect the single line version

tell application "Microsoft Outlook" to sync inbox

to work, but I'm in the habit of using tell blocks in case I need to add more statements later.)

Then in Outlook, create a new schedule (for consistency I called mine Sync Inbox) and set it as a repeating schedule that runs every five minutes (or whatever frequency you desire) with the action Run AppleScript Sync Inbox.scpt (or whatever you called your script).

That seems to keep my inbox synced, but if you can shed any light on the underlying problem I'd be pleased to hear from you.

I spent some hours in tech stores yesterday. Quite legitimately, I wasn’t spying or anything. Honest. I was trying to leave copies of the latest Auscam magazine at the camera/camcorder counters for the staff and or to sell/giveaway as they wished. For free too.

But my time in these stores, shall we say ‘The Big Four’ rather than name names, was an eye opener. Disturbing. Shocking even. And I learnt why these companies keep complaining about losing sales to on-line, web sites and the like. And it’s very, very complicated so please listen carefully.

Their staff doesn’t know how to sell.

I know! Scary isn’t it? Who would have thought?

Example One:

I stood at the counter for ten minutes with staff buzzing all around, a couple of them two arm’s lengths away from me the whole time before being served. Other customers came and went and I was utterly ignored until finally one assistant turned, saw me and said “Yeah man?”

Let me stress I had nothing and was doing nothing to suggest I was there other than to shop. I’d had a shower, cleaned my teeth, used deodorant and had my best trainers on and everything.

Example Two:

Same shop, same counter (while waiting). A customer walks up with two Lowepro camera bags and asked about one. The sales assistant said something like “… this is a good bag. I have one myself” as she tried to find the zipper location. (sigh). The customer then showed her the second and the instant retort without even a question was “… this one is more expensive of course…” They bought the “cheap” one.

Example Three:

Different store. Waited so far fifteen minutes at the camera/camcorder counter. The other side is for digital recorders, microphones and the like. There is one sales assistant there and the shop floor is crawling with them. A woman comes up to the one on the recorder counter and asks if they have a “tape” recorder / Dictaphone. She is advised they are no longer made. When she asks why, she is shown a Phillips Digital Recorder and assured it works exactly the same. When asked why this is better, the assistant replies “because it is digital.” When asked what that means, she is told “I’m not really sure”. The next question was “can I store recordings from it on my computer?” Reply; “I don’t know”. “Are they MP3?” “I don’t know”.

No sale.

I never did get served after twenty minutes so walked out, came back with the magazines and plonked them on the counter with a note.

Example Four:

Two young girls wanted to buy SD cards for their digital camera. They ask for the Verbatim brand and are told “we only have Sandisk in stock” and are then allowed to walk out.

No sale.

See what I mean? If you have never been in sales, you may not, but these simple, and as exact as I can remember, examples break every single basic rule of selling ever made. These are not sales staff! These are order taking staff.

In my time in the stores, I added up approximately $1000+ of missed opportunity but very easy sales.

It was interesting in going from store to store (they are all within 200 metres of each other) how many potential customers there were I had seen in previous stores, looking for something, but more importantly I’d suggest, looking for someone, anyone, to SELL them something!