A cost-effective method for binding reports, manuals, galleys, and booklets in a somewhat professional looking style. The hand-operated device cuts and then binds pages into a plastic comb binding. It has saved our household countless disruptive last-minute trips to Kinkos, and paid for itself after the tenth binding. It�s pathetically easy to peel combs off from booklets headed for the recycling bin. I�ve stock piled a wide assortment of combs that way. Get a variety of sizes (the combs are cheap); the largest size can handle several hundred pages.
�KK

Docubind Personal Plastic Comb Binder
item #379952893
$60
Office Depot

The Missing Manual is a trove of liberating remedies and deep understanding of the Mac. It's the best Mac self-help book in print. Don't even think of upgrading or switch to OSX without it. I find myself paging through it constantly and still uncovering essential knowledge. Half of my joy of owning a Mac is now soaking in these pages.

-- KK

Mac OSX: The Missing Manual
Panther Edition
David Pogue
2003, 761 pages
$27
O'Reilly & Associates
from Amazon

Excerpts:

Mac OS X brings to life a terrific idea, a new concept in mainstream operating systems: icons that tell you something. As shown here, for example, you can often tell documents apart just by looking at their icons. Some program icons, furthermore, actually change over time. The clock program (in your Applications folder), for example, is a living icon that actually ticks away the time, right there in the dock. The Mail icon (see Chapter 19) displays a live counter that indicates how many new email messages are waiting for you.

The Location feature lets you switch from one �location� to another just by choosing its name � either from the apple menu (top) or from this popup menue in System Preferences. The Automatic location just means �the standard, default one you originally set up.� (don�t be fooled: Despite its name, Automatic isn�t the only location that offers multihnoming, which is desribed later in this chapter.)

A sprained ankle on the trail or a weak knee in sports needs a really firm bandage that won�t move in strenuous activity. That�s what a self-grip bandage does. I�ve been amazed at how firm a purchase this tape can make against itself. It holds itself together much tighter than a velcro grip (and far better than any Ace bandage), yet is quite smooth against your skin (it only sticks to itself). In fact it is so steadfast that unwrapping can be a challenge. It even adheres (to itself) under water. Comes in colors, too.

��KK

SelfGrip
Manufactured by Dome Industries
800-432-4352

SelfGrip Self Adhering Athletic Tape/Bandage
$7
Walgreens

With proper guidance, any person in reasonable health can run a marathon. Jeff Galloway, a well-known running trainer, is that sane and wise guidance. Galloway introduces an amazing discovery: both novices and veterans can better their overall time and enjoyment during a marathon by walking at prescribed times. This counterintuitive technique is laid out nicely here with lots of expert encouragement, backed by Galloway's experience in helping hundreds of marathoners at sundry levels try the unthinkable: race faster by resting your legs.

-- KK

Marathon: You Can Do It!
Jeff Galloway
2001, 209 pages
$12
Shelter Publications, Inc.
415-868-0280
Also from Amazon

Excerpt:

Almost anyone can complete a marathon in six months!. Even if you only have 60 minutes to exercise during the workweek, you can train for the marathon. The minimum is actually better for insuring against injuries. During the week, you need to accumulate only an hour of running/walking. The long run starts at 3 miles and gradually increases by 1 mile each week until it reaches 10 miles. Then, you'll do the long run every other week, with a run/walk of half the distance on alternate 'off' weekends. Once you've completed the 18-miler, you'll receive two weekends off for good behavior, shifting to a long run every third week.

*
Walk break: Periods of walking taken on long runs. This is your secret weapon. Walk breaks allow your running muscles to recover before they are injured and conserve your energy so you can exercise for longer periods, which builds the endurance you need. In the beginning, your runs will actually be walks interspersed with short periods of running; over time, the running portions will become longer and the walk breaks shorter.

*
The Huff and Puff Rule may help: If you're huffing and puffing so much during the last 2 to 3 miles of a long run that you can't carry on a conversation, you went too fast from the beginning of that run. On the next run, slow down significantly, take walk breaks more frequently, or both. Remember to write a note to yourself, to be read just before starting your next long run.

*
The race was ten loops around Chastain Park. When I got to about 15 miles, I was pooped. the race director was on the course watching the runners, and I told him I was going to drop out. He said, "You can't, you're in first place!�"

"What about Ken�" I asked.

"He dropped out two laps ago."

Well all right, so on I went. I ran a few more laps, and felt awful. I came by the race director again and told him I wasn't feeling too good. this time he said "Are you sure you want to give up this trophy?" I'd never won a trophy before, so I went another lap. Now I was up to 20 miles and felt really bad.

Here was the director again. "Nothing you can say will keep me going here," I told him. he looked at his watch and said: "You're a half-hour ahead of second place."

OK, OK, that was enough incentive, so on I went. I ran and walked, struggling to the finish, and I won in 2:56:35.

It took me about two years before I felt like running another marathon. That experience kept playing over and over in my mind. Surely there's a better way of doing this, I thought, and it set me on the road to figuring out what I did wrong. How could this be done better, so it'd be easier and you'd feel stronger without having to struggle so much? Throughout the years, it led me into developing the walk break strategy that's the central theme of this book.

*
Elite African runners and other worldclass runners seldom run more than 200 yards using the same form mode. They're constantly alternating between race form, gliding, shuffling, and ERAs, as they race through the course.

A Beamo is somewhere between a flying hula hoop, a slow-motion nerf disc, and a gigantic frisbee. The doughnut design makes it easy to catch using any part of your body, and since it softly boings when it hits something, it's super safe. Also, being large (30 inches) and slow and reversible, it's slightly easier than a frisbee to maneuver. Perfectly sized for kids, and oodles of fun for adults, it WILL tire you out. I recently witnessed a conference of chair-bound nerds rise up and break out into sweat to play with a Beamo for hours on end. It's hard to remain motionless when this Clown Frisbee is in the air.

--KK

Beamo
$25
Available from, among others, Out of the Blue

Made by Beamo.com

Every pregnant woman eventually (and sometimes periodically) has the awful thought, "What if it died in there?" Most women at that point have to spend some time either distracting themselves from the awful notion or talking themselves out of it.

Not me!

That's because I have a fetal doppler, a gizmo that allows me to hear my baby's heartbeat. A fetal doppler is about the size of an old Sony Walkman tape player. Attached to a curly phone-style cord is a wand shaped a bit like a microphone. Smear some ultrasound conductive gel ( KY will work in a pinch) on the end and put the tip of the microphone against your abdomen about where you think the baby is, and, Bingo, instant mental relief. Safer than a sedative, faster than meditation, cheaper than therapy.

My fetal doppler device is manufactured by Danatech. While there are companies who are focused on selling and renting fetal dopplers direct to consumers, they are also widely available on eBay, where I got mine, and you may be able to find a bargain. I highly recommend getting a doppler unit with an LCD screen that includes heart-rate readout, as it makes it easier to distinguish the sound of your own heart rate (somewhere around 60-80 for most of us at rest) and your baby's (quite a bit higher, often 120-140).
Expect to pay between $150 for a unit without an LCD screen and up to $250 for one with an LCD screen.

-- Lisa Williams

Rentals are available at Stork Radio, starting at $14 per month

Made by Danatech

Precious Metal Clay lets you make fine jewelry with little experience or equipment. It works like Fimo clay, except it is more crumbly because it contains powdered precious metal, such as silver, or gold. (It will also dry out faster.) The organic clay binding burns off when you fire it and you end up with pure fine silver or gold in the shape of the clay you made. If you have jewelry skills you can keep working it from there, soldering, shaping, etc.. Since I don't have much skill I just polish up my pieces or antique them with silver black. There's an implication that you have to fire PMC pieces in a kiln (that would be nice), but so far everything I've done I've fired myself on the kitchen floor with a basic propane torch.

All PMC shrinks significantly when fired. However since the shrinkage is proportional, jewlers use this shrinkage to produce very fine detail that would be difficult if you had to work at full size. PMC comes in various formulations with different shrinkage rates. The original PMC shrinks 30%, while PMC+ and PMC3 shrinks only 10%. (I've never tried using the torch on anything except silver PMC+ and PMC3
because I prefer the lower shrinkage of these.)

My one piece of advice about firing PMC with a propane torch: This stuff is very expensive (it's silver or gold, remember!) so take a small piece and sacrifice it to learn how to heat evenly first. It is very easy to overheat it which will melt the silver into a blob., which is bad. If you aren't sure if it's metal yet (it'll be whitish), pick it up with needle nose plier and drop it very gently on the metal surface you fired it on. It should make a satisfying metal-on-metal thunk. When I am feeling more flush, I'll find out if gold PMC can be fired this way.

-- Quinn Norton

PMC3
$14 for 7 grams
PCM+
$21 for 18 grams
Available from PMC Supply

An ordinary tool with extraordinary utility and ruggedness is something called a McLeod. It's a heavy duty combination rake and hoe with a 12" steel blade, introduced to me by friends in the US Forest Service who use McLeods for a variety of firefighting tasks; I use mine for gardening and landscaping (and fire protection, too). It does almost everything I need outside, from chopping weeds to smoothing planting beds, cutting trails, and raking up leaves and brush. A McLeod eliminates the need for dragging around a shovel, and a hoe, and a rake and a pick. There are multiple vendors online. Recently we bought one to be used at a remote cabin for $60 from Baileys, suppliers of a wide range of professional fire fighting tools.

--Mike Liebhold

McLeod Fire Tool
$75
Available from Baileys

We now know that mercury is a potent neurotoxin, too harmful to keep around the house. When mercury thermometers get broken or are tossed in the garbage, toxic mercury is released. So you may want to swap out your old mercury thermometer for a non-mercury model at one of the many drugstores that now offers a thermometer exchange program. (Nine of the ten largest drug chains currently do so�for details, see noharm.org.) Or take your old thermometer to a local mercury-recycling site. Safer options include an inexpensive alcohol glass thermometer from your local drugstore or a digital oral thermometer�Vicks makes a good one for about twelve bucks. And with squirmy youngsters, an electronic ear thermometer like the Braun Thermoscan can be a godsend.
��Tom Ferguson

Vicks Digital Thermometer
$12
from Amazon

Braun Thermoscan Ear Thermometer
$50
from Amazon

Inspired by Ray Jardine, this backpacking supplier makes commercial versions of his ultralight designs for tarps, backpacks, sleeping bags, etc. and now is prospering from equipping the various "Eco-challenge" type racers plus lazy people like me. Though I had no use for the Jardine approach to sleeping bags (top layer only; I'm happier with a North Face Cat's Meow), all the other products I've tried have been exceptional. I can particularly recommend:

-- Stewart Brand

Go Lite
888-546-5483
303-546-6000

Umbrella

Jardine is right: for sun and for rain, nothing beats the convenience of a light, simple umbrella. I take it along for everything but night hiking.

Dome Umbrella
(RAY-WAY)
$20.00

*

Daypack

It feels positively wispy empty, but reinforced with Spectra thread it's strong enough for all you'll need or want for a day, with particularly convenient mesh pockets on the back and sides.

Breeze Ultra-Lite Hiking Pack
(RAY-WAY)
$69.00

*

Tarp

Perhaps the most radical Jardine item, this little handful of silicone-impregnated ripstop nylon replaces everything but a winter tent. No poles---you tie to trees or to any-length sticks you find in the woods. It is dramatically more flexible than a tent, pegged tight to the ground for a storm or poised high overhead as I did once for the nicest night I've ever spent in a light rain. I found it worth replacing some of the dark tie-lines with bright yellow lines now available in outdoor stores, so you don't trip in the dark.

Cave 1 One-Two Person Tarp
(RAY-WAY)
Price: $125.00

*

Stuff Sacks

Also of silicone-impregnated nylon, they are light and slippery. I got the smallest for stashing my groundcloth (see below), and the largest works as a waterproof liner for the daypack.

Landlubber's Stow Sack
(RAY-WAY)
$21.00

This is the first place to look when you need a hard-to-find or exotic material in small portions. Experimenters, researchers, and prototypers patronize this outfit. Beryllium Copper sheets, form-remembering Nitinol wire, Teflon needles, Titanium bolts, small diameter Tungsten tubing, Polypropylene ball bearings, Nylon gears � stuff like that. Their paper catalog is downloadable.
��KK

Small Parts, Inc.
800-220-4242
305.557.7955

Two rotating wheels slice paper the way an open scissors does occasionally. Absolutely marvelous for cutting wrapping paper or making lots of long cuts. Also great for kids who don't quite have the coordination to use scissors well. We keep ours in the gift wrap box.

-- KK

Olo Rolling Scissors
item #9709826
$15
Nasco Arts & Crafts
800-558-9595

How to make a Farmers' Market in your town succeed for everyone. Selling on your own is scary; and buying at a stall is different. This fun book is chock full of great advice about market smarts, guerilla marketing, niche marketing and having fun peddling good food to eager customers. Tons of "what's worked" for many others. And if you haven't been to a local one lately, check one out.

-- KK

The New Farmers' Market
Vance Corum, Marcie Rosenzweig & Eric Gibson
2001, 257 pages
$18
New World Publishing
Available from Amazon

"Making Lemonade from lemons." For example, when drought in '91 left the couple swamped with golfball-sized potatoes, they promoted them as gourmet "PeeWee Potatoes" in $2 pint boxes. The lemonade theory worked in other ways, too. They put 8-10 peppers of various colors that were too small to sell individually into $1 "Bag O'Peppers." They almost always sold out, Peterson notes.

*

Farmers' markets offer:

minimal marketing start-up costs - requires only truck and selling area;
exemption from standard size and pack regulations (at most markets);
little or no packaging, advertising and promotion costs - farmers' markets are usually well established and centrally located;
better prices - substantially higher than wholesale; and
immediate, direct feedback. Customers are the best ones to tell you about price, quality, variety preferences, and ideas for other crops to plant.

*

One Southern California farmer was considering pulling out his exotic chocolate fuyu persimmon trees, but when he tried selling them at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market, at least 80% of those who tried his samples bought a bag! Instead of ten flats a week on the wholesale market, he was moving a full truckload because of direct consumer contacts and aggressive sampling.

An intriguing press release may focus on a unique, humorous event which has human interest. Be sure to set the scene with a specific reference to the visuals that a photographer or news team can capture as at this individually oriented, all-you-can-carry pumpkin contest (Santa Monica FM) for $5.

Modern quilting bees. How (splendid detail in color here) and why (because you make more community than quilt).

-- KK

Community Quilts
How to Organize, Design & Make a Group Quilt
Karol Kavaya and Vicki Skemp
2001, 136 pages
$28
Lark Books
Asheville, NC
Also available from Amazon

Excerpt from book:
One advantage of group quiltmaking is that one person doesn't carry the entire load. The desire to create and the willingness to work with others are all that is needed.

*

Some of these quilts took hundreds of hours to complete, many of those hours spent in the convivial company of old and new friends. The subjects that we covered in conversation while quilting allowed us to get to know each other, and sometimes ourselves, better.

Every year we have a party in the spring. We gather the quilts together and hang them up for all to see. It is our time to remember, to reminisce, and to celebrate where we come from and who we are. These quilts are a record of our lives as a community.

*

In general, we think it is a good rule to allow participants no less than two weeks for completing and returning an easy pieced block, and not more than six weeks for a difficult block involving fine embroidery. When you give participants more time than that, blocks seem to get forgotten, lost, or eaten by the dog.

*

We often hang the quilt rather than gift wrap it. This provides for a
wonderful shock effect. Furthermore, people are able to enjoy and admire the quilt all through the party.

Building a boat together has proven to be a community and family builder because it allows a bunch of novices to jointly create something they didn't think they could -- and to make something immediately and wonderfully useful. WoodenBoat magazine publishes this handy booklet presenting the experience of about a dozen communities and schools who have tried this. It includes suggestions of boat plans that are doable. Each year the magazine itself has hosted a family boatbuilding weekend. It's a sight to see 20 families end the weekend by launching, in unison, a simple boat they've made themselves.

-- KK

Community Boatbuilding Manual
$13
Wooden Boat Books

Excerpts:

Problems can crop up when you have too many kids for the boat you've chosen. Younger students are not as well equipped as older ones to handle the idle time that comes with too many people working on a boat. An ideal class size might be 10-12 if you had three boats under construction, but putting that number on a single boat is a strain.

*

Participants in the program are generally lured by a photo advertisement in the local newspaper. Some children and teens come to build with a parent, but most participants are adults -- either individuals or couples. Over the years they've built an estimated 60-70 small craft, most of them skimming the coastal waters from Boston to Portland, Maine.

Sales Ranking of my book New Rules for the New Economy

Authors and journalists take note. Here is a way to track the Amazon sales ranking of a book or product over time. One can follow the ranking of your own novel, or CD, or you can collectively track the rise and fall of an idea, or group of items. I still haven't figured out why Amazon itself does not offer this service since they could do it so much better (all that data, and world-class skill in interface design), but in the alternative this cool free website does a good job. Junglescan does not track all possible items, only the ones they are asked to. If someone else has already signed up your item, you can simply extract the chart. If your item is new to the site, you can add it and start tracking. I picked up this tip from the fabulous book Amazon Hacks, which I feel any serious user of Amazon should read.
--KK

This site is now defunct. In its stead I am now using Rankforest

Amazon Hacks
$18
Amazon

The one baby gift that every parent needs: The Happy Baby Food Grinder. This mill lets you make your own baby food --basically, you pitch a few table scraps into the tube and hand crank it, while pushing the plunger. Baby food is magically extruded. Easy to tote, clean and it lasts many lifetimes. Our kids were eating stuffed cabbage before they had teeth. You can usually find this grinder at health food stores. The only downside to this perfect baby shower gift: It's cheap, around $14.

-- Josh Quittner

Happy Baby (KidCo) Food Grinder
$15
Available from Amazon

Because I've worked for years at the edges of computer research, and have grown accustomed to flakey and fragile gadgets that only work intermittently, then crash, I have for my private life adopted a farmer's' frugal aesthetic when selecting durable tools. I favor poet Gary Synder's measure of dependability*:

I lie in the dusty and broken brush
Under the pickup
Already thought to be old -
Admiring its solidness, square lines
Thinking a truck like this
Would please Chairman Mao

My own people's pickup is a 1996 4-cylinder Toyota Tacoma 4x4 with 110,00 miles. Toyota pickups were widely visible during CNN coverage of the middle east as the vehicle of choice in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Indeed you find these almost anywhere in the world where reliability is difficult but critical. My mechanic for years, an expatriate Iranian, says that every mechanic he knows admires, and many own, the Toyota 4 cylinder trucks for their durability and reliability.

I use mine to haul feed for the animals, to clear brush from the pastures, to haul firewood, to traverse the high country through deep snow, and for regular commuting over mountain roads and congested freeways. Despite only 4 cylinders, power is ample for any use on or off-road. A used Toyota like mine would sell for $6,000. But I'm pleased to see that prices for a new one are about the same as I paid in '96: dealers sticker is under $18,000, retail around $19,000. The basic four cylinder engine is unchanged throughout the years. It's a classic, like the old GMC/Chevy straight six, and the Dodge slant six; only the running gear and comforts are improved.

It is a truck, I bet, that would have pleased Chairman Mao.

-- Mike Liebhold

Toyota Tacoma 4-cylinder 4x4
New $18,000
Used $5,000 on up
ebay

*'Working on the '58 Willys Pickup' from Axe Handles, North Point Press, 1983

Maxit is an amazing material for workouts (and staying warm and dry in general). Maxit is what NFL players wear under their uniforms in winter games. It's a stretchy 92% polyolefin, 8% lycra material that looks like tights you can get in running and biking stores, but it's a different product and not easy to find. My friend Bob Anderson (of Stretching fame) lives in the Rockies near Colorado Springs and goes on 5-7 hour bike rides and all he generally wears is Maxit. I wear one layer when the temp is as low as the '40s. It's a bit cold starting out but as soon as your blood is moving, you're warm (and dry). I think it's better than any of the Pategonia, North Face etc. type hi-tech clothing. I have hats, zip-up shirts, gloves, and tights. My favorite is what's called the QBZ, long-sleeved with neck zipper. Bob sells Maxit gear, along with other body tools.

-- Lloyd Kahn

Full Length Motion Tights
$54
QBZ Long Sleeve Zippered
$70
Maxit

Available from
Stretching.com
Also from Amazon

My fingers are too broad and my precision too challenged to use the little keyboard on my Sony VAIO laptop effectively. Stuff I write in a coffee shop or when on the road ends up with tons of mistakes to straighten out when I transfer it to our desktop G-4. I recently bought this hokey looking rubber keyboard and it works amazingly well. You can roll it up, bend it, spill water on it, plug and unplug into a laptop at any time and it works great. My one objection is that it has no mouse, so you have to go back to the laptop for mouse movement and clicks.

-- Lloyd Kahn

GrandTec Virtually Indestructible Keyboard
$35
TigerDirect.com

Previously available from Amazon

If you're into wine, you need a Screwpull Lever Model Classic S1700. The original Screwpull with the teflon screw made pulling corks the traditional way a lot easier. But it's still work using the two different pieces, driving the screw into the cork, turning the cork out of the bottle, then turning the cork off the screw. The Lever model has makes pulling corks a literally four second operation: clamp it around the neck of the bottle, pull the lever down, pushing the screw into the bottle, pull the lever back up, pulling the cork out of the bottle, open the clamp slightly to remove the bottle, then close the clamp again push the lever back again, removing the cork from the screw. There are cheaper models than this one -- Rabbit comes to mind -- which may be good, and even really cheap models which are distinctly inferior, but at around a $100 this one is still a bargain for how simple it makes getting between your intention to have a glass a wine and actually sipping it.
-- Louis Rossetto

Screwpull Lever Model Classic S1700
$90
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Le Creuset

This is a great composter, made out of a recycled pickle drum. It comes via UPS and you assemble it. It has end-over-end tumbling action (unlike the larger, more expensive drums that roll horizontally) and it has solved the problem I've had for years of composting kitchen scraps and fending off coons, skunks, foxes, and possums. Here it's locked up and impenetrable. It takes a while to get it working right, with the proper amounts of green stuff, dry stuff, and soil organisms. I've transferred some worms from my old compost bin into it, to get them processing the organic matter.

--Lloyd Kahn

Urban Compost Tumbler
8.5 cubic foot
$150
Urban Garden Center
Also from Amazon

The German company Ortlieb produce a range of waterproof items. These are excellent for use while trekking, motorcycling, bicycling, caving, canoeing, etc. I usually put clothing and sleeping bags in Ortlieb dry bags inside my rucksack. I am guaranteed that stuff will keep dry, and it makes it easier to organize the backpack.

I also have a larger Ortlieb bag which I use when I go on motorcycling trips. Useful stuff, and excellent quality/durability. They produce a range of items.

--Helge A. Gudmundsen

For instance:

PD-350 Dry Bags
$19+

Packman Pro
$132

Ortlieb USA

Cutaway view of boxed wine.

Until now I didn't drink. Never liked the taste of beer, and wine didn't tickle me either. Hard stuff had no appeal at all. But recently the medical benefits of wine have become so established that it's hard to ignore. One respected study published in JAMA in December 2002 claims that not drinking at all was as bad for the heart as morbid obesity, and that moderate alcohol has health benefits equal to one hour of physical exercise a day. Take that you gym rats! And just this summer another high-profile study at Harvard published in Nature revealed that an ingredient in red wine -- resveratrol -- carried huge longevity effects, extending the life of yeast 60-80%.

I decided that I would take one glass of wine a day, as medicine.

Unfortunately, resveratrol is easily oxidized, disappearing within hours of opening the bottle. Since my consumption was so low, the medical effects I wanted from the wine would evaporate quickly, to say nothing of the wine's taste. I discovered however, that boxed wine retained the freshness of wine almost indefinitely. By means of a tap on the bottom, and a collapsible bag, the wine is never exposed to air at all before it is dispensed. I can drink at a nibble and retain the goodies. Even better, the economics are impressive: about 35 cents per glass. No one should depend on my evaluation of taste, but several wine connoisseurs, including ones in the New York Times, have declared their surprise at how good the box wines are. A few upscale wines are now being package this way, too. I find the tap extremely handy to use (no drip) so the box sits on a shelf in the pantry awaiting my daily draft. Here's to taste, longevity and the good life!

--KK

Box Wines are in supermarkets and beverage stores. The elixir of youth I am drinking:

From Bevmo.com

Almaden Burgundy Box (5 liters)
$11

[When this review originally posted, KK recommended Franzia's Cabernet Box (5 liters); though BevMo no longer carries that particular wine, they do sell a 5-liter Cabernet from Almaden for $12 --sl]

List of Box Wines

Nature article abstract

JAMA article abstract

For those wine snobs that must drink wine from a bottle, there is one tool that can prevent oxidation in bottles fairly well. Devices that try to make a vacuum often don't succeed for long, but an inert gas called Private Preserve can make a useable seal. A few zips of this mixture of heavy inert gases (nitrogen, carbon dioxide, argon) down the neck of the wine bottle creates a barrier to oxygen which preserves the wine's freshness for up to a year. Each seemingly weightless can holds enough for more than 100 applications. Easy enough to use when boxed wine might embarrass the guests.

--KK

Private Preserve
$10
Available from Amazon

If you think duct tape is useful, try Gaffer's tape, known by the brand Permacel (P-665). It's the standard film industry tape. Easy to rip with your hands yet very strong. The adhesive is designed to not rip off paint. My film teacher stuck some on the school wall and left it sit for the whole day under a kilowatt of light a few inches away. The next day it peeled right off leaving the paint on and no adhesive residue.

Standard practice is to roll smaller amounts of the tape off onto a film core for use during the shoot. It comes in many colors and is easy to write on. Uses include sealing film cans and labeling them, marking spots on the floor for measuring, labeling of all kinds. This stuff is really strong. I've heard it referred to as "hundred mile an hour tape" used by NASCAR racers. Also nice is that it comes in a one inch width which I usually have to rip duct tape in half to get. Comes in 2", 3" and 4" widths as well.

Another tape, P-672, is about double the price of P-665 but is weatherproof, twice as thick, and the adhesive is designed for low temperatures. It's the real Gaffer's tape. Sealing in the cold is important as film cans generally get refrigerated or frozen.

--Monty Zukowski

Camera Tape, P-665
Small core, 1", 20 yards
$4.50
Available at here or any local lighting and sound supply.
Large core, 1", 180 feet, multi colors
$8.50

Manufacturer's by Permacel

Tecnu (reviewed last week) as a remedy for Poison Oak is ok, but for really allergic folks like me, it's not enough. I'm a regular mountain biker, and in Northern California, we have a ton of poison oak in the summer.

I discovered Ivy Block which came out a few years ago, and haven't had a problem since. You apply it to your arms and legs **before** going out, sort of like putting on suntan lotion, and voila! -- no poison oak. Really works great. Check it out.

--John Zeisler

Ivy Block
$10
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Enviroderm