Building on our recent obsession with geeky kitchen products, we bring you a step closer in your quest to eventually have the ultimate geek’s kitchen – presenting the PacMan oven glove.

We’re sure you don’t need an explanation on how oven gloves work, but this one is uniquely geeky – not only is it in the shape of PacMan, but there’s a mini 2D PacMan game going on inside his mouth! It is based on the original 1980s PacMan and will protect your hands from temperatures as low as -58 degrees to 450 degrees.

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Price: $13.78
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

You know when you’re vacuuming the house and someone decides to trip over your cord and hurt themself? What we really need is a socket that easily detaches at that point so you don’t get caught out. Stanley Tools have got the answer – their Stanley Safety Socket.

A little bit how Apple’s magnetic cords plug into your Mac, simply tug on the cord and the socket breaks away, meaning no accidents and no stretched wires. You can have this safety for just $20.

We’ve been holding onto this gem for a long time now hoping that Stanley would release this widely, but we still can’t seem to find it on the Interwebs for sale. If you spot it somewhere, drop us a line so we can update the rest of our readers. Thanks!

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More info from the manufacturer
Price: $19.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Over the last two years we’ve brought you the Livescribe Pulse and Livescribe Echo smart pens, and now in 2011 comes news of Livescribe Connect. While the previous pens were pretty amazing in their capabilities (refresh your memory: they record exactly what you write and you can sync audio with this, and a few neat apps such as playing piano with it) but they were a bit incomplete in their ability to post this data online. Not anymore!

When writing your notes just draw an underscore and then write “Twitter” or “Facebook” or an email address, select the bit of work you want to share using your pen and then away it goes via Wi-Fi! Livescribe Connect is actually a software update to the pens themselves.

When you next dock your smartpen, your notes and audio will be automatically sent as a pencast. You can also use Livescribe Connect within Livescribe Desktop by dragging and dropping pages of notes to connector icons.

Unfortunately this won’t be available on previous versions as they don’t have Internet support, so we’re going to have to wait until Livescribe brings out something new. Until then – watch this space!

The pivoting rapid roller from Black & Decker brings the paint roller into the modern day. You fill the pot attached to the roller and get painting. This eliminates the need for a cumbersome paint tray and applies the paint straight from the container to the wall.

Other nifty little features include a kickstand so you can keep the paint off the floor when you put it down, a pivoting head for easy access to almost any spot and a splatter guard to protect you from paint splashes.

If you’re doing a lot of painting then you should find the $45 price tag quite fair.

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More info from the manufacturer
Price: $45.00
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

If you’ve got a case of OCD and like to have your vegetable cut up perfectly, or if you’re just having guests over and want to make your dish perfect, then the OCD Chef Cutting Board is exactly what you need.

The wooden chopping board has a grid printed on it so you can chop the vegetables to precise lengths, or dice them in perfect cubes. If it’s that perfect angle you’re after then don’t worry as this is catered for (pardon the pun) too – lines and arcs come out from one of the corners of the board for you to get that perfect slice on your cucumber.

The last feature that makes this chopping board just right for perfect-vegetable-lovers everywhere is the ruled scales on the edges of the chopping board. Only $25 to get your food perfectly cut!

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Price: $24.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that sometimes we do get real mail – you know, those paper letters that end up in our mailboxes. If you want your mailbox to behave more like your email inbox though you don’t need to look much further. This wireless mail chime will let you know when you’ve got mail just like Mail or Outlook.

To set up the mail chime you stick a sensor on the inside of your mailbox door, and place the receiver in your house somewhere. When your mailbox door is opened, the box will beep and light up red, alerting you to the fact you have mail.

Under ideal conditions, the receiver should be able to work about 450 feet away from the mailbox, and could also be used to find out if someone is tampering with your mailbox or stealing your mail. You can alter the volume to your desired level.

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Price: $45.94
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Pest control is a tough nut to crack sometimes, but an ultrasonic pest-repelling device might just do the job for you (I’ve had good results myself with one). This one in particular is a nightlight and repeller – when the device is plugged in it lights up with a blue glow, and emits an ultrasonic sound that will scare away any pests in your house.

The design of it makes it look just like an ordinary nightlight and no one visiting your house would be able to tell its actual function.

It is recommended that you use one device per room, or at the very minimum 2 per floor. No batteries to replace and it should last virtually forever.

Finally, the pest control device won’t affect any pets you have in the house with the sound it emits.

Buy now!
Price: $17.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

It can be a tricky decision choosing which tools to invest in for DIY projects at home. While there are three main choices available: buy on a budget, splash out on top name brands or simply rent, it is far from crystal clear which option is going to offer the best value for money and achieve the best results.

The success of the supermarket budget range has led to a bargain hunting culture. Whether it’s clothes, shoes or food, the modern day attitude is to buy cheap, cheerful and in plenty; regardless of the quality we’re getting.

And while this might be fine for a cheap meal to fill a hole at night, or a budget outfit for an evening on the town, when it comes to tools, it is nearly always advisable to consider quality over price.

The problem with low quality tools is that they are almost guaranteed to achieve low quality results; regardless of the skill of the hands they’re in. They are also not built to last. While this might not seem like a problem if you’re only carrying out the odd job here and there, cheap tools are still likely be a waste of money.

For instance, quality tools (as an example, Teng Tools, Snap-on, Drapper, and C.K. are all very high quality brands of tools which are worth investigating), are not only built with maximum precision to ensure they will achieve the cleanest and most accurate results, but they are also created with the highest level of safety in mind, as well as being built to last well into the future. This means that regardless of how much they are intended to be used, they will stand as an investment, able to retain most, if not all of their value should the products be sold on.

However, an alternative to splashing out on the highest spec tools on the market is to hire them. While in many cases this is a suitable substitute, should the tool only be required for a solitary job, the success of said job could result in a new found passion for DIY, meaning that the tool will need to be purchased at some point anyway. What’s more, while initially inexpensive, hiring tools could lead to hefty overdue fines, should the tool be in your hands longer than at first intended.

Therefore, hiring tools is a great way to get use of high quality tools at a limited cost, but the practice is only really suited to one time DIY’ers and those who are able to accurately estimate the amount of time said job will take.

Yet one thing that puts people off from purchasing high quality tools is the false belief that a full set of tools is required before they can start getting involved in DIY. However, most jobs will only require a small selection of tools, so it is highly advisable to plan in advance in order to establish the exact tools that are needed then shell out for these – choosing the best quality products you are able to afford. Then when the next DIY job surfaces, any additional tools required can be purchased in due course. By employing this method you will find that over time, a full tool kit of high quality tools will be accumulated, with the cost spread out so that there are no huge, hard, hits on the wallet in one go.

Therefore, the main thing to remember when purchasing tools is to simply buy the best you can afford. While it might be tempting to purchase a bargain starter set, the products within are not only going to achieve substandard results, but they will become tired and worn very quickly, resulting in the need for more money to be spent in order to replace the products. Buying the best you can afford will work out better in the long run, not only because of the cost saved when tools come affixed with lifetime guarantees, but also because of the superior results achieved.

Recently we featured the Herman Miller SAYL Chair which claimed to be one of the comfiest available in the world. We’ve now got a new contender for this – the Gravity Balans by Varier. The chair is designed to make you feel like you’re free of gravity and is shaped to make you feel like you’re actually floating.

When you lay in the chair, your body gets suspended at such an angle that you have a feeling like you’re in a space shuttle. If you don’t feel like having a power nap (falling asleep is necessary in this chair) then you can rock it forwards to sit on and enjoy a book or a drink. Leaning somewhere in between the two allows you to recline slightly.

All chairs are handmade in Norway and from fine oak, beech and walnut. You pay $2,000 for this quality.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $1,995.00
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

In late 2009, the Geeks reviewed an Epson WorkForce 600 multipurpose printer/fax/scanner printer and we thought the WorkForce 600 was an excellent all-in-one printer. Fast forward a year and the Geeks received an Epson WorkForce 635 to review and several months and after testing every feature on the all-in-printer, we’re still impressed with the quality of prints, copies and scans not to mention the quality of the device.

The list price is $199 (but you can find it for much less at Amazon.com). The device has Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity, automatic (no hands needed) two-sided printing, copying, faxing and scanning. The 4 ink system uses DURABrite Ultra ink which does not smudge even when touched directly after being printed and the ink does not bleed through even with plain paper printed double-sided.

Another major plus besides the two-sided or duplex printing, built-in wired and wireless b/g/n networking and non-smudging DURABrite Ultra ink is the speed of print. The WorkForce 635 produces 15 black and white pages per minute and around 7 color pages per minute (and you can cut that in half for duplex printing).

So what’s new? Well first, you’ll notice that the printer seems a bit larger overall and the control panel is also redesigned and includes a prominent 2-sided printing button. The larger body is mainly for the now-automatic 2-sided (no manual page flipping) printing.

This model has 802.11n WiFi, so that’s a step up in networking speed, although honestly, unless you’re printing a lot of high-density graphics, you probably won’t notice a difference and the printer would be the bottleneck at any rate.

Surprisingly, print speeds aren’t up; in fact the color printing speed is a tad bit lower at 7.2 ppm (pages per minute), but a quality color page every 9 seconds doesn’t faze me.

After our great experience with the 600, the 635 lives up to being a quality follow-on product at a (still) excellent price.

Not only is this printer a great choice for a small business or home office, but the personal user will enjoy the flexibility of this all-in-one Epson machine.

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