Specialty online store JetPens sent me a couple of their products to check out. Yes, pens, but they import many of their products from Japan and Germany, so you’ll be hard-pressed to find most of these stateside. And yes, even when it comes to something as mundane as writing, the Japanese and Europeans have some different ideas than we do.

I received 2 products, the Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto 5 Color Multi Pen and the Tombow AirPress.

The Tombow AirPress

First, let me hit the Tombow AirPress. The geek factor in this one is that it injects air pressure into the ink cartridge every time you press the cap to keep the pen writing even on dirty or wet surfaces. Of course, I had to test out the ‘wet’ claim. I splashed water onto a sheet of paper, and before it was absorbed completely by the paper started writing. Well there was some ink bleeding of course (can’t help that), but sure enough, the pen wrote. Impressed. On the other hand, I can’t imagine having to write on wet surfaces too often.

The Tombow also wrote pretty nicely, although not as smooth as a felt tip pen, but then again a felt tip wouldn’t do well in water. I also found it a little short, but that’s personal preference that is heavily influenced by the way I hold my pen.

Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto 5 Color Multi Pen

The next pen took me back to my high school days when I had a similar, but much cheaper version ‘multi pen’ made by Bic. That one had 4 colors and they were pre-set. The Coleto takes 5 ink cartridges and you get to pick the colors that go into it, and you can replace the cartridges as needed. Love it. This one will stay on my desk, as I’m always looking for a black, red, blue or green pen, and now I won’t have to keep 4 or 5 of them around.

I found the writing to be a little scratchy, but that’s due to the smaller nib on these pens. I’m not about to write my next bestseller with it, so I can live with that in exchange for the convenience. Oh, also cool is that you can also insert a mechanical pencil or stylus as well. Take a look at the video to see how the 5 carts fit into the body.

While you’re persuing JetPens, you may also want to check out the Uni-Ball Kuru Toga that keeps the pencil lead constantly sharp. The Monteverde One Touch Ballpoint is a pen, but flip it over and you have a touchscreen stylus. Apart from pens and pencils and of course refills, they also stock specialty paper, journals and notebooks.

(Disclaimer: Gizmos for Geeks received a complimentary review copy of this product.)

Sci-Fi meets extrapolation meets imagination meets entertainment meets crowd-sourced blog is how I like to view PhutureNews. This site/blog is all about predicting the future but not in the boring “in the future, we think…” style, but rather as headlines and stories with future date stamps. Although they just launched, they have some rather interesting ‘stories’ like “Steve Jobs rising out of the iCryo”, “China wins the 2046 World Cup”, and or the more realistic “Self driving cars mandatory in California”.

Two suggestions for PhutureNews: first, please go buy the FutureNews.com (or dot whatever domain) and rename the site! The “ph” doesn’t quite work. And second, you absolutely need RSS feeds. Other than that, keep writing cool and interesting stories.

I’m sure you’ve heard about SOPA and PIPA by now, not to mention seeing the online protests in the form of blacked out websites, the most notable being Wikipedia. Here’s a cool infographic explaining what the bills are about and what their (unintended?) consequences are:




Brought to you by Lumin Interactive and Condor Consulting

Have you ever needed someone else to hold a flashlight for you in a badly lit location, despite how bright the room may have been? (Think inside of a computer case.) Well, startup MicroLite Tech has a solution – their self-named MicroLite. It’s an approximately 1 cubic inch cube that stores a small LED light that is turned on when you press on the top of the unit and pop out the light.

I tested it out behind my computer (of course!). It works as advertised. I only had 2 pieces of constructive criticism. First, I don’t care for the pop-out mechanism. It requires pushing in and then pulling out with your finger/thumb. When this gizmo is attached semi-permanently (via the 3M self-adhesive tape) somewhere, you’ll notice it takes some rocking for it to pop up. I’d rather it just be a simple push in to pop out, push to pop back in.

Second, I find it a bit pricey – $10 for a single unit or even $20 for 3 is a bit much. I think somewhere around $3 is probably about right. It does have a 1-year warranty and the lights last for 30 hours which should translate into much more than a year of use.

But I can’t complain about what it does. Definitely falls into the ‘hey, why didn’t I think of that?’ category, so well-done MicroLite. They’re also developing a magnetic one so that it becomes a lot more portable instead of having to stick and unstick. BTW, they’re always on the lookout for new and useful uses for the MicroLite, so let them know if you come up with one!

Unless you’ve been under a rock the past 2 years or so, you’ll know that HTML5 is the next generation of the markup language that has been powering the Web since its inception. Tech publisher O’Reilly has been busy ensuring that they do their part to educate the Web developers and programmers of the world and they accordingly have a slew of books on HTML5, one of which is in their Head First series.

Head First HTML5 Programming is really that – a book about programming, specifically in JavaScript. It is expected that you already know HTML and CSS, and while some JavaScript would be good, it’s not a requirement. The book starts off with a quick intro to HTML5, but by page 20, you’ll already have seen some JavaScript code.

Next up, it gets into the DOM (Document Object Model) that modern browsers are based on, and then you’ll naturally learn how to manipulate the DOM to get those fancy effects that you see Web2.0 sites sporting. After that, it goes full steam through the highlights of HTML5/DHTML features, programming, and techniques that power today’s Web2.0. For example, Head First HTML5 does a good job of devoting entire chapters to discussing some of the compelling multimedia aspects of HTML5 including video, and the Canvas tag. And it also covers advanced topics such as Geolocation, JSON and even Web storage.

As with the other Head First book we’ve seen (Head First WordPress), this one has you interacting with images, photos, call-out boxes, cartoons, and much more to keep you engaged and active. I can’t say enough good things about it, and I’d like to see other publishers ‘steal’ the technique!

If you’re looking to learn HTML5, I can highly recommend this book, but keep in mind that this is not meant to be a reference or a cookbook but a learning book; there are lots of others out there that that fill that function.

While you’re at it, you should also consider getting an up-to-date CSS3 book like Gasston’s The Book of CSS3. While it’s more of a reference than this text, it covers the bulk of CSS3′s new features including new text styling, positioning, gradients and 2D & 3D transformations, and it includes enough examples to help you better understand the material.

(Disclaimer: Gizmos for Geeks received a complimentary review copy of this product.)

This is one product category that has tons of nondescript entrants, and for the most part, they all do the trick more or less, and that’s to wipe your gadget’s screen. Kimberly-Clark decided to try something a little different – make them dry, disposable and inexpensive.

The KIMTECH Touchscreen Cleaning Wipe are made especially for touchscreens, which we all seem to be adopting at a rapid rate. I tried out a sample and wasn’t disappointed. These come 10 to a pack, and while dry, they are soft, and had no fear of using it to wipe the screen on my iPad or smartphone.

It got rid of my fingerprints and smudges. Now if you have the kind of grime that has built up over weeks, you may need a liquid cleaner, but if you’re good about keeping your screens clean, the KIMTECHs should usually do the trick.

A 10-pack is only $3 and you can get them in dollar-stores and at Amazon; actually, Amazon has a 2-pack (so 20 wipes) for $5. Even at $3 for a 10-pack, it’s a good deal, and that way you can have a wipe everywhere you need it – in the car, in your bag, on your desk at home and in the office, with some to spare.

(Disclaimer: Gizmos for Geeks received a complimentary review copy of this product.)

During the holiday season, many tech-oriented shoppers will be scrutinizing the market for the best valued tablet. While most analysts point to the iPad as the pinnacle of current tablet design and functionality, consumers have one big beef with the product: its price. The iPad 2 starts at a whopping $499, a price that most consumers simply can’t afford in this economy. So let’s set aside the iPad 2 and consider some of the more economical tablet options for the holiday shopping season. Of course there are the other most talked about tablets to consider, Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Now that both tablets have been released, analysts expect the competition between the two to be fierce since they come in at similar price points and offer comparable features. But which of these tablets would work best for you, dear consumer?

Amazon’s Kindle Fire

Amazon and tech bloggers did a good job of building up the hype behind the Kindle Fire prior to it’s release in mid November. Even before its formal release, millions of people had pre-ordered the tablet without ever personally seeing it work in real time, and for good reason—the tablet starts at $199.

Amazon was true to their word about the Kindle being a new kind of tablet. Shoppers should note that the Kindle Fire is unlike an iPad in a number of ways. For one, its specs are much more limited than those on the Apple tablet: the Kindle Fire has a 1GHz dual core processor with 512MB of RAM, and 8GB for storage of music, movies, etc. It’s the perfect tablet for consuming mass quantities of digital media—the tablet it built around the user’s ability to download songs, films, or books on Amazon—without too much effort. Silk, Amazon’s newly minted browser for the Kindle Fire, helps users surf the web without taking too much of a toll on the tablet’s functionality. And you’ll need Silk for all the tasks you put to the Kindle Fire. For instance, if you purchase Amazon Prime, you get access to unlimited streaming of the latest television shows, movies, and music for duration of your subscription. You’ll be able to toggle between watching the latest blockbuster, reading your favorite fantasy novel, and listening to a blues album with just a few simple taps. And rest assured, the interface on the Kindle Fire is very simple to understand.

On the downside, the Kindle Fire has been criticized as being too limited for tablet. True, you can’t do all the things on it that you can do on an iPad, but what do you expect in a $199 tablet? Maintenance on the Kindle Fire is another issue, as there isn’t a physical store where you can have your tablet serviced. Theoretically you’d have to ship the tablet to Amazon if you need it fixed. The device has also been cited as being a little bulky and aesthetically rougher than the iPad.

Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet

If you’re not sold by the Kindle Fire but you still want to save money on your tablet purchase, definitely consider the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. At $249 it’s a slightly more expensive machine, but you get more for your money. For starters, the specs are better than the Kindle’s; it has the same processor, but boasts 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage space. What’s more, the Nook Tablet has a slot for portable memory cards up the 32GB in size, something lacking on the Kindle Fire.

On the hardware and functionality side of things, the Nook Tablet certainly has loads to offer. It features two screens, a large LCD screen for displaying content and a much smaller touch screen to interface with the tablet. This setup stands in contrast to the Kindle Fire’s all-in-one touch screen interface, but fans of the Nook Tablet don’t seem fazed by the difference in design.

The Nook Tablet similarly gobbles up eBooks, video content and music files with the same voracity as the Kindle Fire, but the dual screen feature may entice consumers looking for a more dynamic device. The Nook Tablet will also have the advantage in customer service, since people can go to their local Barnes and Noble store whenever they have a question about their tablet. Some analysts even speculate that the stores will install a type of Apple Genius Bar for Nook Tablet customers, built solely to accommodate their concerns.
While the Nook Tablet has plenty of enjoyable features, consumers won’t be able to tell much difference between it and the Kindle Fire after a quick comparison. It certainly stands alone as its own tablet, but the $50 price differential may sway more consumers to Amazon.

Norton, a consumer-oriented Symantec brand, has a new advertising campaign for their security products that centers on protecting your data, appropriately called “Protect the Stuff that Matters”. Apart from their website which explains what their software does, has tools, and trial software downloads, they also have a number of videos.

Here are 2 of the videos, and the one with the babies is a must-watch!

This post was sponsored by Norton.

Unlike the FoneStand which does not fold up, the next gadget, the Mobile Multi-Stand 360, is a portable smartphone stand that folds flat and slips into your pocket/bag, etc.

The MMS360 as it’s known for short, requires a little installation. You first need to take one of the 3 included self-adhesive foam dots and stick it to the back of your phone. These protrude perhaps 1/8″ and have a lip that allows it to slip inside the stand itself.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth what, a million? Take 45 seconds to watch how the stand works including how it rotates, and then I’ll tell you more about what you can’t really see in the video.

First of all, you do have to spend more than 10 seconds up front to ensure you stick the other half (the dot) on your phone, or you won’t be able to use all 3 of the positions on the MMS360 without your phone tipping over. Unfortunately, repositioning the lip means getting some adhesive remover to take it off as it’s a fairly strong bond.

Unlike the FoneStand, the MMS360 has more than just 2 possible positions and angles – although you can rotate the stand 360 degrees, it practically only has 2 angles – the 2nd being 90 degrees out of phase with the first. So with the 3 angles, you really have 6 positions, which is nice depending on your preference (from almost vertically standing to almost flat).

But that’s not the real value in this – it’s super light; put it in your pocket and you’ll forget it’s there, so it’s one more gadget accessory you can carry around without a weight worry.

Given how light it is, I really would have liked it to be wider, because I found that with my somewhat heavy phone, if I didn’t take an extra second (yes, I’m impatient sometimes!), the phone would tip over. A wider stand would be a quicker balance.

The MMS360 is only $5-6, and you can get it directly from the vendor, Amazon or eBay.

Now that memory cards are no longer the tiny, pricey luxury enjoyed by the few, manufacturers are looking for new ways to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack. Samsung thinks it has found a way – create SD-type cards that are supposedly waterproof, shock and shatterproof and magnetic proof.

I took an 8GB microSDHC card for a spin, and really only cared about one test in particular – whether or not it’s water proof. In case you’re wondering, I figured that the risk from magnetism-caused data loss was pretty low, and as for being able to survive being run over by a car, if I’m in a situation where I pull out my memory card and it gets run over by a car soon after, I’m doing something wrong and have more to worry about than the survival of my SD card.

So my test was pretty straightforward – I loaded up the card with a bunch of data – photos, files, etc., then I dunked it in a cup of water and let it sit for an hour, which I thought was more than enough time for water saturation. Incidentally, this card is supposed to handle up to 24 hours in sea water which has to be more damaging than mere fresh water.

I let the card sit overnight to dry out after yanking it out of the water. (No, I didn’t expect to just plug it back in and get it working!)

And what do you know? My data was still there. I’m usually wary of things advertised as waterproof or worse, water-resistant, so it was nice to see something like this work well.

These Samsung SDHC cards come in sizes 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32GB. The 2 and 4GB models are class 4 devices; the 8 and 16GB can be found in either class 6 or class 10 models; and the 32GB is a class 10.

One other very nice feature is the that it comes with a microSD adapter and a clear plastic case. You can find these cards at Amazon and lots of other retailers starting at under $13.

Our thanks to MemoryCardZoo.com for the review sample.

(Disclaimer: Gizmos for Geeks received a complimentary review copy of this product.)