My real goal in attending CES is to look for products and services that those of us that still use computers, will find helpful as we wind our way through the minefield of Microsoft and its Windows 8 Operating system. Unfortunately, we won’t find Microsoft on the show floor and despite the size of the show at a listed 2.2 million square feet (how about the size of 50 football fields); many of the companies I went looking for were elsewhere to be found. Antec took up the 17th floor of the Las Vegas Marriott hotel which is just a short walk away from the main entrance to the convention center; and many of the other companies I went looking for where in other hotel ballrooms and places. But no matter that I covered around 6 plus miles a day according to my iPhone health app; there were a lot of really cool things to see.

Luci is an inflatable solar lantern from MPOWERD, www.mpowerd.com It is simple, functional, attractive, and cool to boot. MPOWERD is a socially conscious award winning consumer product’s company founded by people that want to make a difference to people around the world that must live without electricity and light. They call it solving energy poverty. The Luci light is 4 inches high and a diameter of 5 inches collapses to a single inch and weighs just 2.6 ounces is shatterproof, waterproof rated, and floats and will last up to 10 years without every changing a battery. It retails for just $15 and will light it up for seven hours on a full charge.

Keeping in the Outdoor theme is the myCharge Military-Grade battery chargers for your smartphone, tablet, or GPS unit. I like this one as you can get 3.4A of charging power in a very convenient carry package with dual USB outlets and can be connected to a wall outlet or car adapter for recharging. Single unit model is $40 and the dual is $60. With their “Hyper-Charge” ™ technology, it will charge the device 30% faster than the Apple supplied charger. The “Rapid Recharge” ™ will recharge the unit up to four time faster than other chargers. http://mycharge.com/

Ok, speaking of outside. I couldn’t resist the idea of having breakfast cooked outside, especially after having put up with the hotel food, so when Lynx called about joining them, just had to do it. This is quite the departure for me as I have had the same Webber Kettle grill for decades and so don’t really know anything beyond my charcoal adventures in both the back yard and on our camping trips but I have to admit, this is hard to resist with voice activated input, a SmartGrill database of recipes and an electronic operating system to keep things cooking smoothly. I really didn’t realize that so much technology goes into the art of outdoor cooking. See them at www.lynxgrills.com

I like to travel and I spent most of September this past year in China seeing some wonderful sights. What I really could have used on that trip was the ChargerLeash. http://www.chargerleash.com for $35, you can get an incredible amount of peace of mind for your iPhone (and android devices) while traveling and not worry about leaving the charging and sync cord behind. To, me, even without the built in alarm to tell you when you have unplugged your device and have started to walk away, the cord is so well made that I would never worry about stripping the cable from the socket switch. I even picked up one for my daughter when she travels with me on some of our trips around the country. This stays in my travel bag.