It’s one of those months again, where we have a Friday the 13th. So in honor of this superstition, I have a few tech horror stories.

What I gathered for you is not bad stories, they are bad products. The kind of products that give you more nightmares than you care to deal with. Two stories of which came off of the internet, and the last one from me.

It’s a long post, so you’ll have to read after the jump.

Pegasus Cynalynx
Set-top box media centers have become a hit in the last year or so. Pegasus is trying to get themselves in the game, but not very well with their Cynalynx.

What was Pegasus thinking, for instance, when it chose to charge the public a whopping $400 ($100 more than Apple TV and Medigate’s MG-350HD) for a media extender that barely works? Nothing is more emasculating than not being able to properly install a complex multimedia home entertainment device and the Cynalynx serves up frustration in droves.

Don’t buy this: The Cynalynx is so frustrating to set up, it could make a grown man cry.

RCA Opal
Nothing is worse than an a horrible looking portable media device. The Opal stands up (or sits down, as the case may be) to this name.

When a company touts a portable media player for its “feminine flair and ease-of-use”, making it “ideal for Mom”, you can probably bet on two things: Dad will hate it and it’ll lack almost any extra features. RCA’s blue-and-white Opal (neither feminine nor masculine, just ugly) manages to make good on both of these qualities. Even worse, this flash MP3 player also defies its own marketing tactics by shipping with a user interface that is breathtakingly convoluted and hard to use.

Don’t buy this: You don’t want anything named Opal or with opal in it. What you seek is a player with FM radio and a decent display…not to be found here.

Ambicom Wireless Bluetooth Printer Kit
This is a product which I had a bad experience with. What I was looking for was a cheap solution to wirelessly network my printer to my two computers. The kit includes a Bluetooth Print Server, and an adapter for your computer.

What I found was a very cheaply made server, some not so great software, and god-awful tech support. In fact, the software they included doesn’t work – at all! The other huge problem was with the passkey. When it’s a device like a mouse or a printer, it uses an empty passkey. Well, Ambicom decided not to. In fact, it doesn’t tell you what the passkey is. This product is guaranteed to upset you Patrick Norton style.

Don’t buy this: While bluetooth printing may be nice, get someting better with a brand name. Either a D-Link printer server, or an Apple Airport Express if you have a Mac on your system. Just, please, don’t buy this.

So there you go, three products to avoid entirely. Have any products that you just hated? Be sure to leave a comment.

Don’t Buy These Gadgets [PC World]