A few weeks ago, I was in the market for a set of headphones to use with my Ipod. The budget was about £20, I just wanted anything I could plug in and listen to my music. I was pleasantly suprised to see that play.com had an offer for the Jabra BT620S Bluetooth Stereo Headphones With iPod Bluetooth Adaptor A125S for an astonishing £17.99. (play.com no longer sell the set, only the headphones, however, the headphones and adapter are available on amazon.co.uk)

And when my new toy arrived, boy was I pleased. Apart from the fact that I could listen to music wirelessly, I could also pause, play and change the volume from the headset, which I thought was pretty cool. And the sound was really, really good, something I took for granted until I had to use the earphones that came with the Ipod when I needed to charge the units.

But then, I had to go for a walk around the office, and that was when I realised the main problem with this kit.

And that problem is the A125S adapter that plugs into the Ipod. There are two main problems with this unit, so let me take them one at a time.

1. The unit does not ‘lock’ into the Ipod, as the port it connects to is used for a few other things, and was not designed that way. So if you have your Ipod in your pocket, and you’re walking around, it’s moving constantly, and every now and then, it slips out of place. I’ve tried my trouser pockets, jacket pockets, and breat pockets, and it’s the same everytime, the unit does not stay in place, and the music cuts out a bit too much for my liking. I’ve found that the only way to keep it steady is to walk with the Ipod and the adapter in your hand. Which is ok for a walk around the office, but not for a commute on a packed tube train.
2. The unit itself is super fragile. Taking it home everyday from work involved keeping it in my backpack. I tried my best to keep it away from stuff that could damage it, but about 2 weeks after I bought it, only one ear was working on the headphones, because the adapter was damaged. Fortunately, Jabra technical support is top class, and the unit was replaced for me within a week, very impressive. Now, I leave it in the office, and don’t take it around too much.

So if you’re in the office, you can leave the unit on your table and work, go round and talk to your teamates and use these headphones. Or if you’re doing housework, you can leave your Ipod in one place in the room, and move around listening to music. But once you are on the move, these headphones are not for you. I’m on the lookout for another set of headphones to use at home, something cheap, but quality, any ideas?

With several video files on my PC, figuring out a way to watch them has been an issue for my family for a while now. One option was to watch them on the PC itself, which we did for a while, but once I got married, two of us crowding round the PC screen wasn’t exactly comfortable. So I went out and got a DVD player that could platy Divx files (I got mine ages ago for under £20, but this one is available now for £37.99).

Anyway, this involved burning DVDs all the time. A discussion with a work colleague last year, and I discovered the world of network media players. I bought two, a wired media player, and a wireless one.

The ‘Freecom era’ was a very interesting one:

• The wireless and wired players have several differences. The wired player seems to have older firmware. The wireless one is much easier to use.
• The wireless player has DVI and component connections for high definition playback.
• Both of these player suffer from one major problems, the remote controls are super flaky. While they were both under warranty, I collected a total of 8 replacement remotes for both of them. Today, I do not have a single working remote control. (This might have something to do with having a baby in the house, but all my other remotes are still working perfectly).

Anyway, I think I may have discovered the best way to stream media now. And it was sitting in the living room all along. The playstation 3 is a very good media player, so good, I’m seriously considering buying a second one to use exclusively as a media player for the bedroom.

To set up the Playstation to stream, you need to have a media player running on your PC, the easiest way of doing this is to use Windows Media player. There’s a very good guide on how to set it up here.

However, the very best software that I’ve found is TVersity, and it’s absolutely free. TVersity not only allows you to stream media already on your PC, but you can also stream videos on youtube, and internet video feeds straight to your TV. It plays almost every kind of media you can think off, and unlike media player, seems to be a lot more reliable. There’s a great guide on how to set it up on the PS3 here. And it not only works with the PS3, it works with any UPnP / DLNA Devices, including:

• The Xbox 360
• The DirecTV HR20
• The Sony Vaio VGP-MR100U
• The DLink DSM 320/320R/320RD
• The DLink DSM 510/520 (firmware 1.02 or higher, older firmware versions are identified as DSM 320)
• The Philips Streamium SL300i/SL400i/MX6000i
• The Roku Soundbridge M500/M1000/M2000
• The Philips SLA5500/5520
• The Omnifi DMS1
• The Nokia 770 or N800/810 Internet Tablet via Media Streamer add-on from Nokia or via the Canola Media Player
• LobsterTunes