Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We only post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted. Tell us what you love.
Yankz Sure Lace System
One day while being frustrated trying to install Speed Laces on a pair of sneakers with tiny fabric eyelets instead of larger, metal-rimmed holes, I searched around and found Yankz. Elastic laces, Yankz don't require you to install external fittings/hardware to your eyelets. With Speed Laces, you have to attach separate housings which lock the lace in place at each eyelet. With Yankz, you're simply lacing them through like you would a normal pair of laces and then locking them in place. Putting them on a new pair of shoes takes only a few minutes: begin threading them through from the top (ankle) down to the bottom (toe); lock the ends into the plastic clip that doubles as a loop holder for the excess length of lace that comes from the top of the shoe; adjust the loop with the slide lock and you're done. If the loop is long enough, hook it into the toe clip.
I'm on my fourth pair, most recently for a pair of hiking boots. It's a little more complicated getting them set up on boots using only five or seven pairs of lace hooks/eyelets, but it's do-able, and the result is hiking boots that go on and off almost as easily as bedroom slippers. Since the laces are a bicomponent (elastic core, woven outer), once they're adjusted correctly they stay put, no need to pull them tight when putting the shoes on. Plus, the woven outer creates a lot of friction so the laces resist being pulled through the eyelets. It's worth noting that the elastic does not hold forever. After two years, when my running shoes were worn out and I removed the laces, I noticed my first pair of laces looked over-stretched, much like the elastic waistline of an old bathing suit. Point being, much like a pair of shoes, the laces don't last forever.
$7.50 for solid colors (various available), $8 for reflective. Worth it.
-- Evan Marks
Yankz Sure Lace System
$8
Available from Amazon
Manufactured by Sporting Innovations Group, LLC
Comments (1)
Favorite (15)
Ryobi Cordless Saws
Cordless power tools are obviously the way to go. I have a drill but what I really wanted was a portable cordless circular saw and sawzall. All instant cutting, no cords.
After eyeing the pro tool sections for years, I've finally got my wish with an inexpensive set of cordless tools from Ryobi. For $150 I got an 18 volt system with a cordless circular saw, a cordless reciprocating saw, a cordless drill/driver and two batteries. (A lamp is thrown in, too.) The driver is standard but the saws are a treat. I grab a cordless saw and charge out to the backyard, or garage without having to unwind a trailing extension cord. Zip, zap. Then back in their box. Neither tool is super powerful or industrial strength. Just zippy enough for weekend projects (nothing thicker than a 2 x 4), but cheap! Fine with me since I don't use them every day.
The battery charge lasted beyond my usual chores of cutting up plywood, rebar or pipe, and so on. I have not pushed them to their limits yet. I have an issue with the buttons on the reciprocating sawzall, but otherwise each tool is easy to handle. They yield astounding quality for the price.
The handiness of a cordless power saw, like all great tools, urges me to take on stuff I would otherwise not do.
-- KK
Ryobi Cordless Saws
$160
Available from Home Depot
$150 (reconditioned, plus cordless shop vac)
Available from Amazon
Electric Sheep
This computer screen saver is incredibly beautiful, dynamic, amazingly hypnotic, free (!), and literally alive. You can get the full story here, but Electric Sheep is Scott Draves' open source, distributed computing project which creates and disseminates new user-generated and/or computer-generated fractals to everyone who's downloaded the screen saver. I've been running the Mac version for about four or five years and find myself involuntarily staring at it for long periods. Over time, you'll actually see it evolve, and get to know family trees. I sometimes recognize dynamic fractals patterns I've seen elsewhere in nature. I've seen fractals that resemble the inside of cells (my background is in biology). I'm also a scuba diver, and I've seen fractals that especially resemble lots of marine creatures, such as Nudibranchs and Barnacles and Sea Cucumbers and more. Plus, classic cloudscapes and NASA pics of galaxies forming as well as sliced/polished rock geological forms.
As I understand it, there are essentially three ways sheep come into existence. People can login to the website and use a GUI to create their own sheep to release into the 'flock.' Sheep have a finite lifetime, and users can vote on the sexiest/prettiest or least favorite sheep by pressing the up or down arrows when they appear on their screens. Sheep with favorable ratings get to 'breed' more. When they breed, sheep are genetically recombined to form diverse offspring, which resemble various aspects of each parent. There is also an automatic genetic algorithm that occasionally generates and lets loose new sheep with fresh DNA into the flock. Interestingly, just as in nature, when the algorithm is creating new sheep it analyzes them in various ways to make sure they aren't deformed or utterly pointless (i.e. just as embryos in the womb of mammals are eliminated if there are genetic or developmental problems).
You can get the screen saver for any platform. I've installed both Mac and PC versions a few dozen times on various friends' computers over the years and can assure you it's adware/virus free.
-- Mark Lenhart
I'd heard about Electric Sheep through the years. Was always curious, but for some reason never bothered to try it until recently. Not long after installing it, I cut my screen saver launch time down to three minutes. I now find myself pausing regularly to gaze at the sheep whenever I get antsy or hit a wall while working. One unexpected side-effect: my Sheep-gawking moments also serve as much-needed stretch breaks.
-- Steven Leckart
Here are some fractals:
Here's a mini "Sheepumentary" about the project:
Yama Vac Pot
This glass siphon brews a smooth, strong cup of coffee with little to no bitterness. I started using one recently and right away the taste was just awesome. It's really an excellent, efficient brewing method, provided you want to get involved. You put the water in the bottom "globe" and coffee grounds in the top, then put the bottom unit on the stove with a medium flame. Once the water begins to boil, you place the top globe onto the bottom one, which allows the water to travel into the top chamber to begin brewing the coffee. You give the coffee a quick stir, cover the top with the lid and after maybe a minute, take the whole unit off the burner. As it cools, the coffee is siphoned back down into the bottom through a cloth filter, which helps extract most of the moisture and flavor from the grinds via a natural vacuum effect, rather than the force of a standard French press (step-by-step photos are available at Stumptown's site -- click on the link to "brewing guide"). You can also see vac pots in use at the Blue Bottle location near the Chronicle building in San Francisco. The $20,000 system they have there is just a fancy vac pot. While researching a coffee maker called the Clover, I went from addict to obsessive, so in addition to the vac pot, now I kind of want a Chemex and I definitely want a Burr grinder; once you notice the difference in taste, it's easy to get sucked in. Personally, I love this method. If you spend money on good beans, it's well worth the extra effort to brew a cup that tastes that much better.
-- Mathew Honan
Here's a video of the final siphon process. --sl
Sulcabrush
I have a bit of a crowded mouth -- small mouth relative to jaw size -- so it's very difficult for me to scrub the sides of the rear molars. The Sulcabrush, which I've used for about 15 years, is still the only brush I've used that adequately cleans the far surface of my rear molars. The Sulcabrush works because it's thin, has a couple of good angles to it, and the bristles are medium stiffness, so they don't crap out very quickly. It's a pain flossing back there. Flosspicks (even the Reach flosser) are a little too big for my mouth. I've had some success with Reach toothbrushes and some Oral-B's with the stiffer bunch of bristles at the tip, but after about a week, these edge bristles splay and become less effective.
The Sulcabrush keeps working again and again. Since the Sulcabrush's bristle bundle is pointed, I think the total angle is a little more than if it were flat, and better than what I've experienced with average toothbrushes. I've found the pointed end lets me cover more of the molar sides (chewing surface is easily handled by regular toothbrushes). The downsides are that it's essentially another toothbrush to use and it's not particularly versatile -- i.e. I don't like using it to brush the rest of my teeth, because of the small area it targets and the stiffness of the bristles. However, I'm very happy with how it cleans the crud off the rearmost molars.
-- Ken Yee
Sulcabrush
$5
Available from Amazon
Manufactured by Sulcabrush
Cool Tool Comments
All of you 220,000 RSS subscribers to COOL TOOLS should detect little difference, but all of you 450,000 unique visitors to the website should notice a redesign. This new layout tweak piggybacks on an upgrade to the Movable Type blogging software undergirding this site. Because of this upgrade we now have user comments available for each cool tool. Click on the blue COMMENTS button at the bottom of each review to see the comments so far, or to add yours. Yes, please add yours. We'll be moderating comments closely to be sure they are constructive. This is your chance to add your own experience, positive or negative, to the usual COOL TOOLS rave.
The new design also makes it easier to access the 5 year's worth of previous reviews on the site. We've devised a visual grid which should allow you to browse the back list quickly and smartly. Clicking on a category on the left hand list (in gray) will bring you to the grid.
If you prefer to see more of them in abbreviated form, click on the LIST view in the upper right. Or if you want to systematically study the archives in full-review mode, as one long scroll, click on the FULL view. (Currently, not all the thumbnails of past items have been upgraded and imported into the new design. That should happen soon. In the meantime they are rendered as gray boxes.) You can also choose to view the archives chronologically. The monthly pages permit the same three views: GRID, LIST and FULL.
COOL TOOLS' new design was created by Thomas Marban. Thomas is the genius behind Popurls, which, for the past two years, has been and continues to be the first website I visit each morning. In a previous review I raved about Popurl's fantastic dashboard for blogosphere. It is a meta-aggregator; it aggregates the blog aggregators. On one big page you can skim over what the major blogs are saying, and dip deeper with a mouse-over, or click on it for the actual story. It is much much faster than any RSS reader. You can scan the major blogs in about 5 minutes. Marban's Popurls was the inspiration for many imitators, including Guy Kawasaki's AllTop, but Popurls is much more useful because it remains a well-design one page. So well-designed in fact that I asked Thomas to re-design COOL TOOLS. Besides the two improvements I mentioned, there are others sprinkled through the site. Like any redesign there are some implementation bugs; if you find one, let me know. Marban is now innovating other cool tools, which are worth inspecting.
Putting Marban's design into code was the job of MT-master Wayne Bremser. It's not easy overhauling a ship while it is still cruising, but that is what upgrading and redesigning a large 5-year-old blog site with no down time is like. Wayne is an ace programmer and designer himself. I recommend him highly.
Finally, we encountered some security issues in our site during the upgrade. There was a weird hack that was scary because even after inspecting the logs we had no idea how the leeches got in. It was very subtle. No one would see anything amiss in COOL TOOLS unless you googled a few common spam words. Then you'd see a parasitic page on our site that was pirating our Google-juice. We had deep parasites and we didn't even know it. Anyway, turns out when you have this kind of disease you need a specialist. Tony Hansmann is a UNIX security expert, who came, looked, saw, and made a few very select, very deliberate moves and sealed the holes. It was like watching a judo black belt make the exact minimal essential stroke. Or a doctor diagnosing the site's health. He can do a lot of other esoteric high-end cures, but Hansmann is basically a website doctor. Also highly recommended.
All the while Camille Cloutier made sure each day's review was up and in good order. I am constantly amazed at the amount of energy required to keep an active blog site going. It's like tending a zoo or garden. Not a day goes by that something falters, breaks, needs an upgrade, or tweaking, or some kind of attention. Doing nothing is not an option because the world moves around us. New versions of browsers, no versions of readers, new gadgets, new features all require us to keep working on the site. Let us know how we can make it better.
Deep Fun
Or in other words, how to have good clean fun. Directions for about 25 well-proven games for groups are succinctly supplied by this free PDF book. These games originated in church youth groups, but I've seen them used at camps, large family gatherings, company retreats, and even a few tech meetings. They are aimed at building community, and are primarily ones that can be run indoors. I've played a number of these games as an adult over the years and they really are deep fun. It is amazing how fast you can unleash your inner kindergartner. Some of this group fun, like Silent Football, have been around since ancient youth camp times. I wish more folks would enliven their stuffy meetings and offsites with a few of these games.
-- KK
Deep Fun
Free from UUA
Sample excerpts:
To make this book more user-friendly for youth and advisors, we decided to organize the games into five chapters, loosely based on Denny Rydberg's "Five Steps to Building Community." Introducing new games to your youth group or conference will work best if your timing is right--if you choose games that fit the level of community already attained and nudge the group on to the next level.
Hog Call
Parameters: 15 to 60 people
Have the group split up into pairs and come up with a matching set of words or sounds (i.e. "hic-cup," "peanut-butter," or "honey-bee"). Have each person choose one of the words as their own. Then have each person announce their word to the group, so that there are no repeats. Then instruct the group to close their eyes and start milling around the space with the goal of getting as far away from their partner as possible. Once the pairs are well-separated, announce that they are to find their partners without opening their eyes, by shouting their word. (If all goes well, Peanut will meet up with Butter).
Angel Wash Variations
Parameters: 15 to 60 people
(Remember anyone can opt out if they don't feel comfortable.)
Form two lines facing each other. Have one person from the end of the line (or two people holding hands) close their eyes and place their arms crossed on their chest. Direct them to proceed down the aisle of the double line with their eyes closed. As they pass, each person washes their aura with their hands, passing their fingers and hands lightly over their body, from the crown of their head to the ground, without actually touching them. If the person should stray, the people in the lines can gently direct them back on course. When they reach the end, their friends can communicate to them, with touch, that its time to open their eyes. Continue until everyone has had a chance.
Lehman's Non-Electric Catalog
Lehman's is a 50-year-old company in Ohio's Amish country, with a unique bunch of well-made, carefully selected and useful tools for "sustainable" living. Emphasis is on cooking, homesteading, farming, gardening, and doing things for yourself. Country living for sure, but some of this could appeal to urbanites who want to bring some country into the city. Kitchen equipment, canning supplies, copper kettles, cheese-making supplies, grain grinders, toboggans, kerosene lanterns, axes, water pumps. A large selection of wood-burning stoves, as well as cookstoves. Old-time farming and gardening tools (for old-time skills still viable)-on and on. Most of their items are USA-made.
The hard copy (172 pp. catalog) is way better than the electronic version. If you're into this stuff, and/or you live in the country, you'll end up reading it like a book. We've had their catalogs around for over 30 years and I still find myself leafing through one from time to time.
-- Lloyd Kahn
Lehman's Non-Electric Catalog
$3
Available from Lehman's
Or free w/any order
