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Sunday 13 January 2008, 9:41 PM
Gadgets to make you look cool(ish)
One of the things about being on the road is the amount of additional equipment you inevitably end up carrying with you. Laptop power supply, USB cable for my Treo (yes I know I can synch with Bluetooth but the USB charges the phone too which saves another charger), USB keys, modem cables (!) etc.
I'm an avid user of VOIP, I have a Skype In number for my business and use it on a daily basis but have always felt a little self conscious about wearing an earpiece or headset in public as (apologies to all those that do use these) I've always felt I looked like a bit of an idiot.
I also hate with a passion my Vaio "strokepad". It's not as bad as the IBM (Lenovo) "nipple" but for some reason I just can't get on with them. So I've always carried a small Kensington travel mouse with me when travelling.
Now I've killed the proverbial two birds with a mouse. Well a mouse-phone to be precise. For the last few months I've been using the fantastic Sony Vaio Mouse Talk Mouse and Internet Phone. It does exactly what it says on the tin (unlike most Sony product naming) and doubles as a Mouse and VOIP phone.
So now, I still feel like a bit of a fool when I get an incoming call, and I obviously have to use that damned strokepad whilst on the phone, but it certainly turns a few heads when I flip open my mouse and start talking into it!
PreviousComments on this post
I find the thought of picking up the mouse and talking into it to be very appealing - it sort of reminds me of Maxwell Smart talking into his shoe! I wonder, though, if they got the idea for this from Star Trek IV (Save the Whales), when Scotty tried talking into the mouse on a Mac...
Seriously, though, in the category of "traveling gadgets", Logitech has made three excellent traveling "pointing devices" over the years. The first was called the Trackman Voyager, and was actually a trackball rather than a mouse. The only really good implementation of a portable trackball that I ever found - and before long, they quit making it. I actually found mine again last week, when cleaning out a closet.
Then, a couple of years ago, they made the V500 laptop mouse, which had a very nice "stroking" system instead of a scroll wheel, and pressure-sensitive areas for buttons, rather than mechanical switches. That eliminates two of the most commonly damaaged parts of a mouse that gets banged around when traveling, and it was actually pretty cool to use. It was also symmetrical, so it could be used equally well by left or right handers, which is why I got mine back out recently when I had shoulder and wrist operations. Of course, it wasn't long before they quit making that one too.
Finally, in the current product line, the VX Nano has a very "cool" little USB receiver, feels good (at least for a right hander), and even has a couple of extra buttons. Now, if they would just put a microphone into it, so I could stop talking into my shoe...
jw
