Office Technology

This would be the Excalibur Electronic Executive Touch Solitaire from Macy’s.com. What this would not be is me suggesting that any of you take it to work. You leave it at home, no matter how badly it wants to go with you to the office. Sometimes, as the adult, you just have to be strong.

Solitaire is such an addictive game - I play it, without fail, everyday on the computer. I play until I win - but if I win too soon (which is the case because I’m that damngood) I play until I win again. If it’s been an unbelievably stoooopid day, I play until my eyes get so juggled that Jay Z starts to look like Jamie Foxx.

Of course, if you were to buy the Excalibur Electronic Executive Touch Solitaire, you’d have to fight the temptation to take it with you to the office. That just….well…it just wouldn’t be right.

What? Did you think I’d suggest you keep it in your drawer for those times that the boss (or if you ARE the boss, your secretary) is out of the office. Did you think I’d tell you something like “All work and no play makes blog reader a dull boy/girl.”?

I guess I could point out how stress-relieving and calming it is to play a handheld game such as this one. How it helps things to come back into focus, allowing you to see more clearly that which was getting dirt water cloudy. Well, that’s all true, of course. But you can’t take toys with you to the office. Gee Wally, if you do that, the next thing you know, you’ll be surfing the web on company time - going from one celebrity blog to the next…leaving a trail of bald Britneys behind you.

So, it stays home, right?

From the website:
Take solitaire on the road without having to play 52-card pickup in the process. This electronic solitaire game displays everything you need to play on a large touch-screen display. Just grab the included stylus, move cards across the screen and work your way towards sweet victory.

To make it all the sweeter, it’s only $19.98! That practically makes it a must have for taking to the office, to your in-laws for dinner, on long summer trips, etc. Talk about Fun on the Run.

And The Superficial is my favorite. Celebrity blog, that is.

I know none of you even think about surfing the web while at the office. But if you WERE to ever recover from workaholism and want to cruise the net without your boss being the wiser…check this out:

WorkFriendly.net transfers your favorite site into a Word file…..so if anyone were to peek over your shoulder (some people are just straight nosey), it looks like you’re hard at work.

Too slick.

My husband waxed brilliant a few weeks ago - blogworthy brilliant. Knowing my fascination with, addiciton to, and passion for all things coffee, he got me a new kitchen toy to amuse myself with. It’s the Toddy Cold Brew System. Like a kid with a new toy, it was of immediately course ripped out of the box!

The brewing process takes 12 hours, so I jumped right in and got 10 kinds of busy. tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock 12 hours later I was rewarded with the (I swear) the best coffee I can remember having in a long time. And this from someone who scouts out the best of the best and even toys with the rest. I KNOW COFFEE!

“(The Toddy) is the ultimate coffee maker.”
-The Washington Post

From the website:

As important as those fresh roasted beans are to your cup of coffee, it’s what you do with them that counts the most.

The Toddy coffee maker extracts the coffee bean’s true delicious flavor and eliminates much of the acidity, producing a bold, super-smooth coffee that can be served one cup at a time.

I haven’t tried it with tea yet, but apparently it’s just as heavenly.

Click the picture above to read all about a truly remarkable product. If, that is, you’re interested in the sexiest coffee ever!

Joi

We’ve been wanting a laptop for some time now. But it seems when we manage to put enough money aside, something else pops up. It’s just so hard to part with hard-earned cash, and laptops want so much of it! On the other hand, a Laptop would be more of a business investment than anything else - and anything that isn’t worth investing in isn’t worth much.

I just had an argument with myself. In public this time.

At any rate, PC World (demigods of all things wired) has a great article: How to Buy a Laptop. Lots of great information. Of course you’ll have to forgive them for using the ever-nerdy word tethered in the opening sentence. Once you get past that, though, the article’s a winner.

We’re needing to replace one of the phones in our home and I’m thinking that this sleek ‘n sexy AT&T cordless speakerphone would make a nice choice. We already have one cordless phone that I’ve become pretty addicted to. It’s awkward now to talk on a phone with a cord, it takes away my roaming rights. I’m one of those people who likes to case the house while on the phone - I freshen my coffee, pet the cats, stroll onto the patio, water flowers, lie across the bed, look out the window, check up on the refrigerator (after all, someone could’ve slid a cheesecake in there while I wasn’t looking)…. If I had a treadmill, I’d even get a little healthy, life-extending exercise. That would be a hint to the husband. Admittedly, “healthy” and “life-extending” were cheap shots, but I’m nearing the desperation stage.

Here’s what I love about the AT&T E2520 2.4GHz Expandable Cordless Speakerphone:

• As we already determined, it’s cordless - allowing Joi the mobility she craves.
• You could easily add up to 8 handsets. Not sure why this impresses me, but it does.
• 2.4GHz FHDSS means all my conversations would be crisp and clear.
• Battery-powered handsets allow an average of 7 hours of continuous talk time and 40 hours of power when the phone’s in standby mode. Standby mode? What’s that like? We have three daughters, so that’s a new one on me.
• You can use the speakerphone and dial-in base to make phone calls while you’re busy at the computer or with other tasks (cooking, writing, etc…). Being a being that works at the computer all day, I like the thought of freeing my hands up while talking and gesturing.
• Call waiting and Caller ID. I’d never, ever want a phone without Caller ID. I just don’t need the drama of wondering who’s on the other side of my “Hello.”
• The handsets lighted LCD tells time in a large graphical display.
• The intercom can be used to communicate between handsets, or between the handset and base. You can tell your coworkers or family members when they have calls. The paging locator helps you find misplaced handsets. If it rounded up lost remote controls, I’d order one today. Why must those things always disappear, and usually just when you need them the most?!?!

For more info, clicketh the link ——->>>> AT&T E2520 2.4GHz Expandable Cordless Speakerphone with Caller ID/Call Waiting.

Have an amazing Sunday!

I just added another blog to out Friends of The Freaks Blogroll. ePublishing Daily, a blog that’s going to take eBooks to a new level, was recently launched by our good friend Martin Neumann.

Martin just completed the changeover from Home Office Voice to ePublishing Daily and I am really excited about the new blog, because we have so many ebooks that are in one stage or another and I believe Martin is going to be part of the reason we get them done.

It’ll take ” Action ” on our part and we can’t blame Martin if we don’t exhibit any of that.

Click thru and let Martin know you’re there and subscribe to his RSS feed while you’re there.

There’s a new ebook sherrif in town !

I hate wires. I really, really hate them. The most annoying wire is the one connected to my mouse. I’ve tried a few mice and found some I really liked but the damned cords drive me crazy. They catch on everything! So I decided to pick up a cordless mouse. I wasn’t sure about this because in the past cordless stuff was all IR, which sucks, or the batteries would die so quick it made them useless. I picked up two different cordless mice.

First up is the Kensington PilotMouse Wireless Laser Mouse which was on sale for $24.99, normally $51.99 (odd price). I got this one for work since it was cheap. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it takes batteries, however, they do last a while. The mouse also has some real heft to it, which I like. I’ve got big mits and I like for my mouse (and game controller or whatever else) to feal “real” in my hands. I hate how fake cheap things feel. This mouse doesn’t have a lot of features. It’s a laser mouse which means it’s very accurate and it has your standard 3 buttons (left, right, scroll) and I love it. It just works. It also has an on / off switch and smart power to help conserve batteries.

I got a little more serious for the home office. I picked up the Logitech MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse which runs about $79.99 and has a few extra features. The big plus is this one has a recharge cradle and uses a lithium ion battery. Like the Kensignton, this one features an on / off switch as well as smart power usage but also has a 3 level battery indicator, which rocks. It’s also got some real heft to it and works like a dream. It has a forward / back button (I haven’t figured out how to use yet) and up / down / left / right scroll wheel, a “page up / page down” button by the wheel and on the left side (easy for thumbing) is a quick access button to Logitech’s task switcher. For those of you with Expose on the Mac, well, this isn’t anywhere near as good, but it’s a much better task switcher than the default. It doesn’t look as good, but it works and is pretty fast, which I like.

And to round out the productivity of having a cordless mouse I got me a jumbo sized mouse pad for both work and home. Aeryn already had one and I thought it was a pretty good idea. It takes up a lot of desk space but it’s well worth it. I couldn’t take another day of my mouse catching on the edge of the mouse pad. I’ve tried mouse bungies and other contraptions but nothing works as well as a cordless mouse + a jumbo mouse pad. I can’t find the link to it, but most office supply stores carry a jumbo or XL sized mouse pad, somewhere in the 17″ by 24″ range (or larger). It may seem big but once you try it you probably won’t go back. I know I won’t. I love it!

I was reading a nasty little article about bills and was fascinated to see how many people actually pay their’s online. According to researchers at the Gartner Group, 27 million Americans are saving on stamps by going online. It’s up from 10.6 million in 2001. That sort of interested me, so I started reading up on the subject.

Most large banks and credit unions offer the service to customers free of charge whereas CheckFree.com and Paytrust.com charge a fee. Of course, you can also use pesonal finance software like Microsoft Money or Quicken.

One of the biggest benefits is the fact that you can arrange for recurring payments to be sent automatically. You can even schedule payments up to a year ahead. (That’d make it kind of handy when it comes to things like renewing domains.)

Another benefit is the ability to make money hop from your savings account to your checking account during non-banking hours - in the middle of the night or on one of the countless holiday’s that bankers cool their heels.

If your bank offers the service, all you need to do is set up an online user ID and password on its website. From there you create a payee list from your list of bills. Apparently not every biller is set up for online payment, however, so you have to plan accordingly.

Apparently there are still a lot of skeptics around. Many people still believe the risk involved ranges from financial theft to identity theft. However, proponents argue that the risk isn’t any greater online than off. For anyone who isn’t convinced, maybe you should hang onto your stamps a little longer. A finger-print-scanning device is in the works which will load directly onto your computer. Fascinating, in a James Bond kind of way.

The HP 12C Financial Calculator is prepared to do all the thinking and figuring for us if were so inclined. Since I do well to add and subtract, this might just become my electronic baby.

Special Keys

• Over 120 built-in business functions
• Financial: Time, value of money, amortization, bond price and yield to maturity, register-based cash-flow analysis
• Statistical: standard deviation, mean, weighted mean, linear regression, forecasting and cumulative statistical analysis

Display

• 1-line, 10-character LCD screen

Memory

• RAM
• Converts register memory dynamically into program memory as the user enters additional program steps
• When all 99 program steps are used, 7 data registers still remain available for storage
• Keystroke programming — enter a series of keystrokes into the memory, then execute your program at the touch of a button

Additional Features

• Reverse Polish notation
• Long battery life

This particular electronical genius (the HP 12C) is the accepted calculator of the New York Stock Exchange, and is available by clicking HERE!

The winter rain has really set in here in so-called “sunny” California (hate to burst your bubble, but it ain’t all movie stars and palm trees out here!) and I’ve just stumbled upon what must be the most creative use of your computer’s USB port yet…it’s a USB powered cup warmer!

Yep, forget about those constant trips to the office microwave – now you can keep your coffee (or green tea in my case) hot, hot, hot, right at your desk.

What’s there to know about this amazing gadget? Not much – it apparently fits most standard mugs, works with any USB port, doesn’t require any batteries (that’s what the USB is for, silly!,) and it comes with the all-important 1-year manufacturer’s warranty. Oh, and it looks like it’s set to start shipping at the end of January 2006...just a few weeks away.

Get the latest price on the Discovery USB Beverage Warmer

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