All the way through college I never drank coffee. I tried once or twice but I just couldn't convince myself it was worth it.

When I started working full time (7am to 5pm) that changed. While I still don't drink hot coffee I find it absolutely necessary to have an iced-coffee every morning. Of course that creates a lot of problems.

I have not found a good way to make iced-coffee using hot brewing methods. Brew a pot of coffee - through it in the fridge and invariably you're unhappy. Buying an iced coffee every morning is even more trouble partly because of the money involved and partly because I end up buying a donut (or two) to go with it.

If you figure $4 a morning (for coffee, breakfast and a tip) times 365 days that's over $1400 a year at Dunkin Donuts!

I realized this just recently and immediately cringed at the wasted money. The good thing is it got me looking for a new way to fuel my morning coffee fix. What I found is called "Cold Brewed Coffee" and it's an incredible money saver for hot and cold coffee drinkers alike.

The system I bought (Toddy Cafe Cold Brew Coffee System) is extremely easy to use and makes a more consistent cup of coffee than any of my local Dunkin Donuts. If you're a coffee drinker looking to save money this year be sure to check it out!

As I mentioned earlier this week I finally broke down and bought a new cell phone. My Samsung SCH a930 arrived yesterday and was one heck of a surprise. While I've only made a few calls so far I've been playing around with it a lot and am quite impressed.

Being the geek that I am one of my first priorities was to grab a data cable and Sandisk Micro SD 2 GB card so I could get some audio, video and images onto the phone. Thanks to an old Lifehacker post I also came across BitPim, an open source Personal Information Manager, that makes syncing just about everything VERY simple.

So far I've added custom wallpaper, updated my addresses through my Laptop (rather than through the keypad) and even played around with some of the calendar.One of the best features here is the ability to move pictures to and from your cell without worrying about sending pix messages or trying to text them. It's a great way to save on those extra charges.

If you're looking to backup your cell and want an easy open source solution check out BitPim. You can see a list of supported phones here.

TechCrunch has a great article up today, with an included tool, that discusses downloading video from YouTube and playback on an iPod. As a non-iPod guy I thought I'd tweak their guide a tad to help you get your dl'd videos running on a PSP.

To get started you really only need two things: a downloaded YouTube Video and conversion software. For downloading the video I'll yield to the TechCrunch article, as stated earlier they include a tool for downloading the video and also list a few other options. Personally I use the VideoDownloader extension for Firefox.

For conversion I recommend SUPER the Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer. It's free, small, and very easy to use. To get videos ready for the PSP simply start up SUPER and select the appropriate format.

For the PSP you can select either the pre-defined "Sony PSP" setting or the "MP4" one. Just make sure that if you go with "MP4" you change the "Output Video Codec" to "MPEG-4."

Give SUPER a few minutes (or longer depending on the video size) and you're good to go.

One of the curses of being an early-adopter is not having enough money to adopt everything you want early. As Gadzooki points out you can often save alot of money by just waiting awhile.

Take Shadow of the Colossus for example. When the game was first released, roughly one year ago, it was a full priced PS2 title. Today, you can grab it on Amazon for $19.99. The same is true for Dragon Quest VIII which is now bargain priced. Just by waiting a few months the money that could have spent on two of these games wil now buy four bargain titles.

The concept suggested by Gadzooki travels over to consoles as well. First off there was the price drop on the Nintendo DS. Nintendo also is notorious for releasing newer versions of their console as soon as a month or two after initial release. Waiting a couple months could net you a black console over a white, a brighter screen, or even a small console (see the GBA vs. GBA SP). There are even rumors floating around that the new XBox360 will not only sport a better processor but a cheaper price and potential bundle setup.

Waiting a while also gives you some pretty solid recon on games, consoles, and gadgets. Early Nano buyers complained about easily scrached cases. XP when it first launched was buggy and broken, and even games like Lego Star Wars The Original Trilogy for the DS proved to be far less developed than versions for other consoles. Let us not forget the XBox360 ring of death that even yours truly has experienced.

For early adopters its a double edged sword. Yeah, it's great to be able to show off new gadgets or get in on the ground level of a console. Instant gratification though is not something that has ever proven to be the best.

Gadzooki's article claims to help you save $1000 per video game console through a few simple rules. If you think you can practice temperance or just want to save some cash, head over to the site and give it a read.

Earlier this week I got my hands on GamePark Holdings' GP2X personal entertainment player. For those not familiar, the GP2X is a Linux-based audio, video, and gaming device aimed at homebrew development. What that essentially means is that the GP2X, while meant to primarily be a gaming console, is a cheapish personal media player with a few extra bells and whistles.

Now, don't think that it's Linux in a handheld because it ain't - Linux developers, though, should feel at home with game and application development.

Chances are you're asking yourself where this stands in relation to the DS or PSP. Right off the bat I can tell you that while the GP2X is pretty close in size to the original GBA, it's closest rival would be the PSP. With the built in media player, picture viewer, MP3 player and text reader it hits a few bases where the DS is lacking. Unfortunately, with its lack of Internet connectivity, smaller screen and much smaller game library it doesn't quite meet up with either of the more popular mainstream gaming consoles.

So - what makes the GP2X worthwhile? First off, the GP2X can read SD memory cards up to 4gb. Unlike the PSP, with its demanding filestructure pre-reqs, you can place images, music, or videos ANYWHERE on the card for later viewing. There's also an eBook utility which allows you to view text files and eBooks if you don't mind reading off an electronic device.

As you can see the menu system is pretty straight forward. Under each of the sections (except "Settings") you get the ability to browse the GP2Xs onboard 64MB memory or the SD card. Just browse to your file and you're set to go.

With compatibility you're looking at a couple of different format types. Music wise you can play OGG and MP3, for Videos you've got MPEG, XVid and Divx encoded AVI files, and for images you've got GIF, JPEG and PNG. While you can't play songs off your iTunes or Napster library without stripping the DRM you can play burned CDs (hint hint) and most videos.

The other great GP2X feature is the community. Between the extensive Wiki and the file archive you can track down software and games. The GP2X also runs emulators which allows ROM collectors to take their games on the go. If you've got a good collection of MAME roms you'll love this. If you've got other types of roms your emulator is probably supported too which is nice.

Priced at $179.99 through Lik-Sang it's not cheap but worth it in the end - especially for emulator fans. If you've picked one up already, or you're thinking about getting one, stay tuned. Over the next few weeks I plan on including some reviews of GP2X specific software. I also hope to put in a few tutorials on video encoding to make life a bit easier for beginners.

If you've got any questions or would like me to cover something specific please let me know.