Hasta La Gadget!

Oh, man. What is it about clever stationery that gets us geeks in such a froth? Pens, notepads and even – yes – paperclips are all enough to awaken a desire normally only stirred by a hot new slab of electronics from Apple or Art Lebedev.

Thus, I am far too excited by these hanger-shaped paperclips, called “PhotoHangers.” In shape, they’re like regular paperclips combined with coat-hangers. In practice, you combine them with pushpins and you have yourself an instant photo-gallery.

It would also be a great way to keep bunches of paper neatly filed, but close to hand. I say “would”, as these are clearly priced to be fancy display hooks and not practical office stationery: you’ll pay a crazy $9.50 for just seven of the things. That’s $1.36 each. Still, it has inspired me to roll my own. Surely a plain but oversized paperclip could do the same thing without modification?

PhotoHanger product page [Arango via Oh Gizmo]

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Skunk Juice. It’s a name that makes me nauseous just to write, and embarrassed to say out loud. But the earbuds that the company makes are actually pretty neat.

They work a lot like the mag-safe connector on a MacBook, only with two sections. Plug the jack into an MP3 player or computer, and plug the earbuds into your ears. The two sections snap together with magnets, letting them break apart when the cord gets tugged. As someone who has killed more than one pair of headphones by snagging them on a passing piece of street-furniture, I can dig this feature.

There’s another side-effect of this magnetic coupling. The termination of the ‘bud section is double-sided, so you can stick and stack more headphones on top. Thus you can snap your headphones onto your buddy’s headphones and share (up to four people can hook up together).

The idea is a good one, but the Skunk Juice earbuds look cheap, and come in at $36 a pair (extra connector sections are $13 apiece). It’s a better solution for sharing than those two-into-one adapters, though.

Skunk Juice product page [Skunk Juice via Macworld]

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Nixon’s Trooper headphones are worth a look for many reasons, but the one that really stands out is the giant volume-knob. It’s not clear from any of the product shots, but around one of the ear-pieces is a ring that twists and adjusts the volume, just like the one on your dad’s big old stereo back home.

Apart from this big knob, the award-winning design also has some nice portability features. The earpieces hinge in two directions, adding a twist to the usual up-down adjustment. This, combined with a folding band, lets you collapse the cans down for stowing in a back. They also have a jack-socket instead of a hardwired cord so you can avoid braking the cable when in a bag, or replace it when it breaks.

They’re also cheap, if you look in the right place. The Trooper Three Button (with inline mic and redundant volume buttons) are listed at $70 on the Nixon site, but opt for the mic-less version and you can find them for as little as $15 on Amazon.

Finally, they look cool, and as your wear headphones like you’d wear clothes, that’s important. In fact, the only thing stopping me from buying a pair is the stack of headphones I already have. Like bags, it seems you can never have enough.

Trooper Headphones [Nixon via Core77]

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I have been skeptical of iPad and iPhone styluses in the past, but the Alupen, a chunky, pencil-shaped, rubber-tipped pen arrived in the mail today, and it has changed my mind.

The whole point of the iOS user interface is that you can control it with a fat finger. A stylus is necessary on a Windows tablet, as you need to hit targets designed for a pixel-sharp mouse pointer, but on the iPad, it’s superfluous. As Steve Jobs has said, “if you need a stylus, you’ve already failed.”

But it turns out that the iPad is also great for painting, drawing and writing, and the fingers are hopeless for these tasks (unless you are daubing paint in kindergarten). I have tried a few styluses in the past, with too-grippy rubber tips, or floppy foam nibs, and hated them all. Then I ordered the Alupen, for around €20 (the US price is $20). I have been drawing all day.

The Alupen is a stubby aluminum stick, shaped like a thick pencil. A rubber core runs through it to add heft, and the tip is a squishy rubber bobble. The hexagonal cross-section keeps it from rolling away, and the thickness makes it comfortable to hold.

The first test was the tip. I have owned another rubber-tipped stylus and it was impossible to use, the rubber sticking to the iPad’s glass. The Alupen’s tip glides across the screen, and the fat bubbled shape lets you press without the metal touching it, a problem with foam tips.

The weight is good. An aluminum tube would be too light and cause cramp. Like a fountain pen, the Alupen presses itself down for you. At first look, the pen seems to be too short for comfort, like one of those free pencils at Ikea. In use, it is actually long enough (and I have big hands).

In fact, the only fault I can find is that the metal pen gets icy cold when left on my desk. But then, my desk is marble, and my apartment has no heating, so it could be that.

$20 may be too rich for some, although a good fountain pen is much more, and with a stylus you never need to buy any ink. Available now, in silver and a range of anodized candy-coatings.

Alupen product page [Just Mobile]

Photo: Charlie Sorrel

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Truco is a modular carry-on case, designed to be split and concatenated to fit even the oddest space in the overhead locker. It should guarantee that your precious gadget-filled suitcase never gets tossed into the hold.

I first flew on a U.S domestic flight a few years ago, and it sucked. Every idiot was milling around, and stuffing way too much carry-on into the overhead lockers. I got on with my small hold-all and ended up having to stow it under the seat in front, thanks to all the scofflaw morons before me. And don’t get me started on the game of whack-a-mole the flight attendant had to play just to get these bovine idiots to sit down for long enough to, you know, launch the plane.

The Truco comes in three parts. An undersized roller-case, a briefcase which clips to its front and a tote which slides on top. When joined together, they make a regular-sized carry-on, like a luggage version of the Shining Optimus Supreme. When split, the various sections can be squeezed into any available space. The front briefcase section sounds pretty useful for organizing gadgets and cables, too.

The Truco (Travel Utility Carry On) is available now, for $200.

Truco product page [Balanzza. Thanks, Pedro!]

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