Hasta La Gadget!

The Pogoplug got an update this week that will let you, with an e-mail from any computer or mobile device, print a document on any printer you have connected with a Pogoplug.

The Pogoplug’s simplest use is for accessing your stored files over the Internet. The $130 device plugs into your Ethernet connection, and has a USB port – plug in a hard drive or a USB drive, and the Pogoplug puts all those files on the web for you to access via the Pogoplug site or the company’s iPhone and Android apps. You can also e-mail files to your Pogoplug – if you’ve got a file on another computer, you can e-mail it straight onto your hard drive instead of attempting any of the other, universally obnoxious options for getting a file to your computer.

The latest Pogoplug update lets you connect a printer to the Pogoplug, instead of just a hard drive. That means that any printer with a USB port can get connected to the internet, and you can print something just by e-mailing it. Need to print from your iPad or cell phone? Now you can.

HP announced the same feature a few weeks ago, but you’ll need to buy a new HP printer in order to print by e-mail. Pogoplug supports all HP printers and all Epson printers made since 2005 right out of the box, with more likely coming.

More and more companies are likely to adopt this same kind of feature, and printing’s going to get a lot more convenient, no matter your location or device of choice. As the world goes mobile, printing’s catching up, one funny-looking pink device at a time.

Sometime my email brings me nothing but endless useless PR pitches, offers to talk with an “expert” on iPad cases or just the usual offers to help export $6 million worth of Viagra from Nigeria. I live through these for the occasional Perfect Storm, a product that makes my gadget-sense tingle, something which not only ticks, but tickles every box on my emotional gee-gaw checklist. Today is such a day.

The product is, obviously, a power-strip. It is also from Quirky, the community-driven product makers that seem to hit almost as many product home-runs as Apple. Third, it is a product that I actually need. So much so that I ordered one before writing a word of this post.

Pivot Power is a flexible power-strip, its jointed sections rotating around one another to accommodate six plugs. Sure, you may have a 6-plug strip already, but how many gadgets can you actually plug in? My 8-plug strip is full with just five items, most of which cover up an adjacent socket. The caterpillar-like Pivot-Power lets you twist to fit and therefore fill every electrical orifice.

The strip is on pre-sale for $23, rising to $25. When all 960 orders have been taken, the production lines will roll and the strips will be cranked out, and a big chunk of the profits will go to the main designers and “influencers” of the Quirky community. I’m number 405 in line.

Pivot Power [Quirky. Thanks, Tiffany!]

See Also:

• Quirky Switch, A customizable Multi-Tool
• USB Cable Organizers Marred by Childish Design
• Quirky's iPad Case With Two-Way Kick-Stand

Those waiting on the popular and good-looking Dodo iPad case, the high school cheerleader of tablet-carriers, might instead consider the equally pretty The Case from Pad & Quill. Similar to the Dodo case in design, it is clearly inspired by the Moleskine notebook, with its faux-leather cover. Then things start to get different.

The Dodo has a bamboo frame inside the card cover, and The Case is fashioned from Baltic Birch, routed to within 1/20,000th inch of its life and then stuck with rubber bumpers to keep the iPad snug inside. It also has cutouts around the edge so you can reach the iPad’s buttons and holes.

The Case also ditches the Moleskine elastic band in favor of a press-stud closing strap like that found on a Filofax, and adds an ingenious way to get the iPad back out. Instead of just holding the case upside-down and shaking, a red-ribbon book-marker lies underneath the iPad. Pulling on the exposed end lifts the tablet from its case.

You can also buy a smaller version for your iPhone from the Milwaukee-based company. This will cost you $40, and the iPad version is $55, $5 more than the Dodo, and will rise to $65 sometime in the future. Because they are hand-made, these cases too have a waiting period, although it is just 2-3 weeks compared to the 4-6 weeks for the Dodo. That could all change now The Case has made its way into these pages.

The Case [Pad & Quill. Thanks, Brian!]

See Also:

• Moleskine-Shaped, Bamboo iPad Case
• Kindle Case from Moleskine Mixes Paper and E-Ink
• Leather Cases Turn iPad into a Book

The Hug-A-Plug Dual Outlet Wall Adapter not only doubles the amount of sockets into which you can plug your appliances, it flips the outlets through 90-degrees so you can use them easily, even when hidden awkwardly away behind furniture. It’s also called Hug-A-Plug, which along with its surprised-looking Mario-cloud face, is just plain cute.

The adapter is just $5, right about what it should be – I’ll admit to having a thing for plugs and adapters of all kinds, but anything over $5 takes them out of the useful category and into the “boutique power” category, a category which I just made up.

Bonus feature: the rounded ridges up top make a great thumb-grip for when you need some purchase to yank out a cable. Sexy? No? Useful? Hell yes!

Hug-A-Plug Dual Outlet Wall Adapter [Cyberguys via Coolest Gadgets]

See Also:

• Revolutionary British Power-Plug Can be Yanked by its Cable …
• Plug-Watch: Cute Power Cube, The Best Adapter Yet?
• Fold-Flat Concept Fixes Bulky British Power Plug
• Modular Power Strip with Ejector Slots
• Gallery Of The World's Power Sockets

Last night I went to see Bob Dylan in concert. The audience for the rock legend has probably changed more than Bob himself. I saw a lot of Cuban cigars, dads with binoculars and mumsie types waddling what I expect was meant to be a sexy dance. I also saw a lot of cellphone and camera screens a-glowing in the wind.

Thankfully Bob couldn’t see that the majority of his audience was happier watching him via a tiny LCD, but if he had cared, or wanted to join in, he could have used the Guitar Sidekick, a guitar headstock-mounted holder for smartphones.

The Sidekick clamps onto the strings behind the nut (the bit the strings pass over before running down the fretboard) and your device slides in and can be twisted to sit where you want it. The specs say “smartphone”, the pictures show that it is clearly meant for an iPhone, but you could probably even squeeze an old-school tuner in there.

Now, the Sidekick isn’t just for checking Twitter while you’re on stage trying to keep up with Bob’s creatively arrhythmic solos. It could also be used with any number of smartphone apps, whether for tuning, recording or even displaying musical notation or guitar tabs. You could even use it to remember lyrics, although if you are a 69 year-old with a voice that makes Tom Waits sound like a castrato, you probably don’t need to actually form real words anymore.

The Guitar Sidekick costs $30, and will work with any guitar that has strings. It needs just one more, tiny, feature: an Eric Clapton (or God) attachment for holding burning cigarettes.

Guitar Sidekick [Castiv via Macworld]