Best Gadget

Not to steal Specialist's thunder in "What do you carry around everyday monster topic up above..."

But..

What's the Neat-est gadget y'all got?

Things I have that I love:

My Arc AAA and Arc LE. Phenomenal lights.

My Leatherman Micra. Just great to carry around. Not too big.

My Fisher Space Pen: Bullet Style. Chrome. Amazing.

My Zeiss Monocular: Great to have in the car. 8 or 16X. Cheap on Ebay too.

My Trick Vials: Well, that's what I call 'em. My GF used to work for a perfume house. She had all these empty vials of perfume. I emptied 'em, coated 'em in 2 coats of heat shrink. Now, I keep a set in the car and a set in my toilet/travel bag with:

1) Febreeze : To get rid of odors
2) Aftershave: Just because
3) Shaving Oil: Great to travel with. No messy foam in the case
4) Lighter Fluid : Good Sunglass Cleaner
5) Isopropyl: Both for stain removal
6) Zap Stain Remover: As above
7) Liquid Styptic: For cuts
8) Bactine: You never know

All are rubber banded together with a stick on label (Heat shrink is clear)

Saved my bacon more than once.

PS: The Ispropyl gets lipstick out of collars, too.

Oh: And a bottle of liquid paper. I always cut myself shaving and have a blood spot on my white Shirt. LP covers it nicely. (Try it!)

Does it have to be something you carry? I have a spiffy fan and stereo in my room...Fan has an IR remote and the stereo has a cool display, flips up and down at the touch of a button. I have other cool gadgets too but those 2 spring to mind.

Not many foo-foo gadgets around here. Let's see what I've got that isn't directly related to flashlight testing.

1: Green laser pointer. Probably the most unique and hard to find (read: expen$ive) gaget-type item I now have.
2: A CD walkman with anti-skip read-ahead thingie.
3: Boogie Lights LED message board.
4: A clear acrylic wall clock with a round CCFT "neon" tube inside it.
5: A coin-operated Satan's Hollow arcade video game.
6: Two plasma ball lamps, one broken.

I think that's about it. My VCR is an ordinary 4-head monophonic model, and I don't even know what a DVD looks like. My stereo system is a $79 CD/cassette/AM/FM boom box, the microwave & dishwasher are so old they use an electromechanical dial, and the TV is a plain, ordinary 4:3 tube-type 32" Philips/Magnavox. Nothing fancy there.

I have one of those fancy-pants ionic breeze air cleaners, but after awhile it emits the smell of old cat pee, rather than keeping it on the collector where it belongs. So I no longer use it.

As for the truly unusual (but non-gadget article), I have several unusual LED lighting devices, a collection of 325 antique telephone insulators, a decorative planter made out of a commode, and a pair of pet rats.

Craig...not trying to snub or snob you but I have one of those CD Walkmans too with a really cool inline backlit LCD remote. It's cool.

and Craig...you forgot to mention the Prometric system and your wheelchair! Still have the backlit LED keyboard??

Hmm, gadgets...well, I'm a gadget lover from way back, so hard to decide where to start.

For sheer fun and coolness factor it's hard to go past a green laser pointer. Really turns heads when you shine that one around..

I really like stuff which combines functions into one unit - why buy two things if you can get a single gadget which does them both.
That's why I like my Olympus DM-1 MP3 player/voice recorder. Uses smart media, and you can just download MP3s from your PC to listen to an hour or 2 of music. Or you can switch it to voice recorder mode and record up to about 44 hours of voice. It even has a built in speaker so you can actually play back without headphones.

Then there's my Gerber Legend multi-tool. I love this thing - non slip handles, and a really good design.

Lots of others, but these are some of my favourites..Trouble is whenever I see something that makes me think "Wow, that looks useful" I end up wanting it..

At the moment I'm looking for a pair of good quality, compact binoculars actually. Preferably with good bright lenses which perform well in low-light conditions. Any suggestions appreciated..

Graham

I have a gadget that I found many years ago, that is soo great, and has saved my butt from having to go into work many many times!

It is a device, that plugs into a phone line (dedicated if you are serious about this), and into an outlet as an extension plug.

Now, you plug whatever you want into this device, and when you need to turn off and back on this product, you call this device, and let the phone ring for "X" number of times. If you are worried about accidential phone calls, you can program it for two rins, followed by 8 rings, followed by two rings, within a two minute period.

I use this to re-boot some mission critical and communication pc's, should they get hung up.

Now, the really neat thing about this device, is that it requires NO SOFTWARE AT ALL!! If you wanted to turn on or off, or just turn off then right back on a lamp, or a radio, or a toaster oven, you could do so.

I have used this many times, when receiving a call at 5:00 am (when my dept starts the day) or on an evening or weeking, and instead of having to go in and re-boot the pc, I can do it remotely from home.

This works even if the PC is frozen, or caught in a loop, or otherwise hung, beacause it just cuts power to the power cord.
Before I had this, I think about how many times, I had to go to work, just to turn off, and then turn back on an automated PC.

Great stuff!

OK. my 7 in one remote is pretty cool too, with macro buttons to program, so that, with one button, I can turn on my tv, receiver, vcr, dvd, staalite, all with one push of a button!

And another cool thing, is that the volume always works the receiver volume, no matter what device I am using.

That's it. I have to go to bed now!

Originally posted by Saaby:
Craig...not trying to snub or snob you but I have one of those CD Walkmans too with a really cool inline backlit LCD remote. It's cool.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Mine doesn't have any backlighting or a remote, I guess it's a pretty basic unit. But it's my first CD player with an anti-shock device in it.

Originally posted by Saaby:
and Craig...you forgot to mention the Prometric system and your wheelchair! Still have the backlit LED keyboard??

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I didn't mention any of the items needed for my work (meters, analyzers, computers, cameras, keyboards, etc.) or items needed for my basic existence (the chair). Those are necessities, not gadgets.

Grahm you mentioned,

At the moment I'm looking for a pair of good quality, compact binoculars actually. Preferably with good bright lenses which perform well in low-light conditions. Any suggestions appreciated..

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Binoculars.com

I have had a pair of these, Celestrons for 2 years, and need to get another for the wife, whose Nikons broke.
She likes these better. They are now, here, 1/2 what I paid for them. They are are also backordered.
Very bright, with lots of adjustment for poor eyesight. Really nice in my opinion.

Thanks! Binoculars.com - doh, should have thought of that..

I hadn't looked at Celestron before - I didn't know they did binoculars, although I've heard the name in telescopes..

Graham

Budd...X10 is a beautiful thing!

Phillips Expanium EXP401 is a CD walkman that takes the small disks only and plays MP3's.

Very kewl.

Oh, I like my CJ-100 Digital Camera. (Do a google search).

Small, portable, and DOUBLE A BATTERIES.

Don't even think about the Axia Eyeplate Camera or the Logitech Digital camera. Resolution SUCKS, no LCD, and pics are too dark.

Now, the Casio Exilim... Hmmm.. Small Digital Camera, Screen, and MP3 player.

Or the Minolta Dimage X.

Nice cameras.

Oh, and the Valentine 1 radar detector. Yum!

Mmm, digital cameras...

That CJ-100 looks pretty good. I had a Takara Stickshot, but photo quality was quite poor, and batteries ran out fairly quickly.

I have an Olympus C700 Ultra zoom, but for various reasons decided to move on, and just recently got a Canon G2. A bit larger, but a pretty serious camera. Lots of very useful features.

A small compact one is nice though - the Canon Ixus ones are good.

Graham

Canon Ixus still too big.

Get Minolta Dimage X. ($400)

Get CJ-100 ($115)

Get Minox DLX (Right...)

But, the Axia Eyeplate and Logitech Digital Partner are the size of 6 credit cards stacked.

Originally posted by PhilAlex:
Phillips Expanium EXP401 is a CD walkman that takes the small disks only and plays MP3's.

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">"Small" discs? I thought CDs only came in one size... the size of a CD.

Originally posted by PhilAlex:
Oh, and the Valentine 1 radar detector. Yum!

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I want one...I er, need it for my Saab

Craig there are these CDs that are about half the size of CDs and you can put them in any CD device with a tray...trayless devices like most car head units (minus the new Sony models with G-Protection not unlike that on your CD player) need not apply!

Originally posted by Saaby:
Craig there are these CDs that are about half the size of CDs and you can put them in any CD device with a tray...

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I've never heard of such a thing. I guess they won't fit in my walkman either, as it doesn't use a tray.

Oh it'll fit your Walkman too...it'll fit anything but the type that "eat" the cd if you know what I mean...I'll post some pics as soon as I find the time, trying to fix chat and all

Originally posted by PhilAlex:
Canon Ixus still too big.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Ahh, but they are about as small as you can go and still have a good brand quality full-featured camera, which is 2megapixels or so.

Originally posted by The Led Museum:
"Small" discs? I thought CDs only came in one size... the size of a CD.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It is possible to get small 8cm(?) "CDs". They've been pretty popular here in Japan as CD 'singles'. Quite cute. Most CD players can play them - you can also get CDR versions which can hold about 180MB of data I think. http://www.maxell-data.com/cgi-bin/products.cgi?parent=48
Not to mention the CD 'business cards' you sometimes see.

Graham

Originally posted by Graham:
Not to mention the CD 'business cards' you sometimes see.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">CD business cards?!?
What am I missing here? I feel as though I just came out of a cave, with all this optical disc technology I've never heard of.

Craig...DVDs look like normal CDs to the human eye, only a lazer can tell the difference (Shining your greenie at it won't help) I'll send you a pic of post card and 1.5" CD as soon as I fix the chat room