The Gadgets Page

Buglabs creates little electronic boxes that click into a computer/power module and can be used to create gadgets.

The tagline needs a little work though:

Buglabs is a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine.

Rather than soldering LEDs, transistors and resistors onto a circuit board, you can choose a completed circuit, like a motion sensor or a digital camera and mix it with other complete gadgets to create your own.

I first saw Buglabs last year at CES, but they have been steadily growing their community, so now if you buy a Bugbase, there are tons of people out there who can tell you how to create the gadget you want to create.

• BUG Community | Bug Labs

Here’s a video intro:

You aren’t limited to their pre-made modules either. This is entire system is open-source, so if you have a modicum of electronics training, you can create your own modules. You can find out more about that here:

• Bug Blogger

We’ve come a long way from soldering resistors onto circuit boards and Buglabs has made the barrier to entry even lower for us.

There were a lot of people displaying iPod cases and USB drives in The Sands at CES this year, but the cutest of them all was from Bone Collection.

They had these adorable penguin USB drives. They were 4GB, which is enough for the transfer of some personal documents. It’s even enough to load Linux onto and run from the USB drive instead of the hard drive.

Mostly, they were just CUTE!

When I worked in an office, there were some personal documents that I used to work on during my breaks or lunchtime. I would keep them on a USB stick so I wouldn’t have to save them on my work computer or keep emailing them home to myself. This little penguin would have been perfect for that.

The USB is under his head, so you DO have to decapitate a penguin every time you use the drive, but most of the time, he can just sit on your desk looking cute.

These little guys are actually available for purchase NOW. You can buy them at X-treme Geek here:

• X-tremeGeek.com – Bone Collection DR07021-4BK 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Penguin Drive, Black
• X-tremeGeek.com – Bone Collection DR08031-4BK 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Santa Penguin Drive, Red Hat/Black

I’m alright with Roomba vacuuming my home. I don’t own one, but I wouldn’t fear it if I did. The Husqvarna Automower, however, isn’t something I’m comfortable handing over to a robot. I don’t want to explain why my lawn mower killed my neighbor’s cat. It’s just a conversation I’m not willing to have.

All joking aside, I AM tempted by it. The idea of being able to just set the lawnmower out on the lawn and letting it take care of the grass is very appealing. If the Roomba is any indication of how easy the Automower is going to be, however, I don’t think it will be very useful unless you arrange your yard so that it will never get stuck between the doghouse and the bushes.

Unfortunately, the Automower isn’t quite ready for a set it and forget it person yet. After watching the demonstration, it was obvious that the Husqvarna Automower uses the same driving algorithm as the Roomba. This is fine for vacuuming up the floor, but for cutting the lawn, it’s just not an option. The lawn cutting would show the nearly random path that your Automower took.

When I was a child learning how to mow the lawn, my grandfather was VERY particular about how it should look. One week, we would cut the lawn horizontally. The next week, we cut the lawn vertically and the third week we cut the lawn diagonally. After that, we would go back to the beginning. Part of the reason we did that was to prevent grooves in the ground where the lawn mower wheels ran, but there was another thought at play in my grandpa’s mind. Cutting the lawn in these patterns was aesthetically pleasing. You could tell how we cut it for a day or so and it looked pretty. I especially liked the diagonal weeks and wondered why he would never let me do circles.

The pattern of cutting on the lawn left by the Automower, however, would be anything but aesthetically pleasing. Honestly, lawn mowing is ALL about making the home beautiful. If the Automower can’t do that, then you might as well use ForeverLawn and be done with it.

Over the next week or so, we’ll be showing you the cool things we saw at the Consumer Electronics Show two weeks ago.

CES was quiet this year. Less people attending and less companies exhibiting. CES tried to hide that by making the aisles WIDE and spacing out the exhibitors. We noticed, though. When it’s possible to see all the booths at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Hilton and the Sands all in one day, it’s hard NOT to notice.

I found the lack of crowds disturbing, but helpful. Since there were a lot less people, I was actually able to see products at the booths. I could walk up to an exhibitor and find out what they were selling without anyone pushing me around. I was even able to see things at the Microsoft booth, which is usually so crowded that I can’t even bear to walk in there.

What was good for me, however, wasn’t good for the exhibitors. There was a slight air of desperation among some of the companies. The big guys like Intel and Motorola weren’t even phased by the slack in the crowds, but the smaller businesses and OEM manufacturers from China and Taiwan had an air of panic mixed with boredom. Every keynote mentioned the slower economy.

I’ve seen this market spike and valley many times now. I wanted to reach out and give the entire industry a big bear hug and reassure them. I wanted to tell them to hold on. The companies that can ride these valleys are the ones that get to be the monoliths during the good times.

Hold on there, my friends.

In 1948, General Electric came out with this refrigerator/freezer with revolving shelves. You can see the full advertisement here:

I am continually surprised at products that DON’T survive. This fridge seems like the PERFECT solution to that bowl of moldy leftovers that got shoved into the back. Why don’t all of our refrigerators have revolving shelves?! The revolving shelf seems like the killer app for the refrigerator world. Why didn’t this feature survive?

Also notice that not one of those bowls of food have plastic wrap or lids on them. Is that just for aesthetics or did no one cover their food in the fridge back in the Forties? Nice to know that potato salad with boiled eggs looked EXACTLY the same as it does now.

Another difference between this fridge and the current ones is the size of the freezer. It’s TINY! The frozen TV dinner was invented in 1945, but it didn’t really catch on and become a fad until the mid-Fifties, so maybe they didn’t need big freezers back then. Or maybe everyone had a separate huge freezer appliance and this one was just for more immediate frozen food needs.

In the end, this refrigerator would fail miserably in present day with no can dispensers for sodas and a freezer that can’t hold even one frozen pizza. Still, I’d love to see a present day refrigerator include revolving shelves. It’s a feature that should have thrived.

Via: Found in Mom’s Basement: 1948 ad for General Electric refrigerators

The computer bag industry hasn’t quite caught up to the netbook fad, so if you’re looking for a bag for your new little netbook, you might think that you’re out of luck until they catch up, but I have an option for you. Most personal DVD player cases out on the market are about the size of your typical netbook, so you can buy them and use them for your new laptop bag. I found this Denali Sport Deluxe PDVD Bag at Target for twenty bucks. It fits my new Acer Aspire One PERFECTLY!

The thing that I love about this case is that it comes with a variety of straps and loops on the bag to hang it from the backseat of a car, but I can use them to make a convenient backpack out of this tiny bag. The Case Logic In-Car DVD Player Case has the exact same setup (without coming in fashionable colors like red). Since it’s so much easier to carry things on my back than just on my shoulder, I LOVE a backpack design. The fact that I have that option with the Denali bag (and the Case Logic) blisses me out.

I used to use a Targus Sport Portable DVD Player Case for my old Acer mini computer. It worked very well for me and I included it with the computer when we gave it to Mike’s dad. I was wishing for it back when I bought the Aspire One, but now that I’ve found this Denali case, I don’t miss it so much anymore.

Eventually, laptop bag manufacturers will catch up to the netbook fad, but until then, you can find a good case for your netbook right next to obsolete personal DVD players in your favorite department store for about twenty bucks.

For the last two years, I have used my Apple MacBook for travel and home computing. It has been a great computer, but with the introduction of the netbooks, I wanted a sleeker machine to travel with. Last week, while I was in Las Vegas covering CES, I took a detour to the Las Vegas Fry’s Electronics and purchased an Acer Aspire One. Here is a photo of it compared to my MacBook.

When the MacWorld announcements were so disappointing, I realized that Apple is never going to make me a netbook. They are too in love with their full sized keyboards and 13 inch screens. Sorry, Apple, but THIN isn’t necessarily SMALL. The Acer Aspire One can fit in my purse. The MacBook Air cannot.

I don’t mind Windows, and honestly, I’ve had some difficult problems with the Mac OS that just DIDN’T work. Going back to a Windows machine is merely a training of my hands to use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V instead of Command+C and Command+V. Other than that, there is little difference. That’s why it was so easy for me to switch from Windows to Mac. It’s just as easy to switch from Mac to Windows, especially on a travel computer.

Plus, I want to try out all the cool Linux stuff that Ubuntu offers. With the Acer Aspire, I was able to create a USB boot drive following these instructions:

• USB Ubuntu 8.10 install from Windows (non Persistent) | USB Pen Drive Linux

It was easy to follow the instructions and I was able to do it without too much help from Mike. I haven’t been able to get my wireless to work yet, but it’s fun to play with a new operating system and I like the idea of running a computer with open source software.

In the end, I felt frustrated waiting for Apple to deign to give me a netbook computer. I wanted a small computer that I could take traveling and to coffee shops. As many times as Mike said that my MacBook was “small enough,” seeing it next to the Aspire is a shocking reminder that it’s possible to upgrade by downgrading in size.

Update 12-08-10:

It has been nearly two years since I wrote this entry. In the end, the Acer Aspire is in Kristen’s room, relegated to kid’s computer status. I’m STILL using that MacBook as my heavy duty travel computer, but more often than not, I don’t even bring that and just use my iPad wherever I go. While even the newest MacBook Air STILL doesn’t fit in my purse, the iPad does.

Apple DID make me a portable computer that lets me blog, write, read books, watch videos and play games on the go. I guess I should have been patient and saved myself the money I spent on the Acer…

When things were just getting set up at CES last week, I snapped a couple of photos. I like how this one turned out.

We’ll be writing about our favorite highlights from the Consumer Electronics Show over the next few days. Stay tuned for the newest in electronic gadgets!

Sometimes The Onion makes videos that are too close to reality. This parody shows an imaginary Apple product called the MacBook Wheel:

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

For $2599, all you get is a screen and a round click wheel. Sounds like a deal, right? I love the quote from the Apple User:

I’ll buy almost anything if it’s shiny and made by Apple.

After watching last week’s lackluster footage from MacWorld, this parody from The Onion hits too close to home.

Via: Apple’s “Other” Announcement at Macworld | 2009 MacWorld, Apple, funny | geeksugar – Technology, Gadgets, & How Tos.

I’ve always been skeptical of USB docking stations because USB technology is too slow for video. USB 2 is less than half the bandwidth of a gigabit network adapter, and its speed has to be shared amongst all connected devices. It’s more than fast enough for keyboards, mice, and even network adapters, but video is another matter entirely—video needs a lot of speed.

But I’ve also got a new netbook that desperately needs a docking station, and netbooks don’t come with or support docking stations. And most netbooks only have USB ports, so there’s no option: It’s either a USB docking station or none at all.

So with some trepidation I hooked up the StarTech USB 2 Graphic Docking Station and gave it a spin. Installation was simple after copying the drivers to a USB flash drive (because my netbook has no CD-ROM reader)—just run the setup program, tell it to continue three or four times for driver install, reboot as indicated, and plug the dock in. Each of the devices came up in turn: A USB 4-port hub, network adapter, audio adapter, and VGA adapter. My monitor woke up and displayed the blue background of my desktop, and a new tray icon appeared that allowed me to set the monitor to be the primary display. With no trouble at all, I was up on my external keyboard, mouse, display, and wired network connection.

Knowing that bandwidth would be an issue, I immediately set out to test the performance of the dock. I set the resolution to my monitor’s maximum of 1600x1200x32 bits, and started browsing the web. To my surprise, the video was quite usable—yes, dragging windows was choppy, and occassionally the mouse cursor would flicker, but overall there were no usability issues. Annoying motion banner ads were just as annoying as usual, and web flash video ran without any significant degradation. I was surprised by that. So far, so good.

So I hit it with a real test: Netflix streaming video. This would surey tax the USB port because the inbound network data and the outbound video and audio would be going over a single USB connection. Sure enough, it did. Full motion video ran at about two frames per second, which was completely unusable. I was able to get the framerate up by switching to the internal wireless adapter and disabling the dock’s wired network adapter and by moving audio back to the laptop’s internal sound card, but never to the point where it would be consdidered even remotely acceptable. But then, I knew that would be the case.

What really surprised me was how useful the dock was for everything but streaming video and gaming—any typical office task, web, and email will be just fine with this dock—that’s pretty much what Netbooks are good for anyway. If you’ve got a laptop that lacks a dock, and you’re not using it to watch movies or shoot aliens, the StarTech USB 2 Graphic Docking Station will do the job for you with no hassle whatsoever. When you do need to watch video or shoot aliens, just undock it and use the laptop’s own devices.

Disclosure: StarTech was nice enough to send us a docking station for this review.