MindMaps are a tool for thinking. Instead of arranging your ideas in a sequence -- as a list of words -- you draw them in an arboreal fashion, radiating out from one starting notion. Mindmaps use pictures instead of words, radial branches instead of linear lists, starfish instead of ladders, and associations instead of priorities -- and as a result you think different. The visual trees you generate as you mindmap mirror the dendritic nature of our brain, and seem to flow more organically and (after practice) with less effort than the rigid discipline of making 1,2,3 textual notes.

They are easy to doodle. Anyone can make them. Kids and CEOs as well as creative types. I've come to employ this style of radial association in my own note taking and personal brainstorming. You don't need this book to do it, but the book will help you refine your style, and it will help you expend its use. The authors, who've been perfecting and evangelizing this technique for decades, offer advice on how to use mindmaps to teach, as a form of diary, and most importantly, as a group exercise, say in corporate brainstorming sessions.

There are software programs for mindmapping (which I have not tried), but for me the intensely kinetic mode of drawing ideas (if even on tiny scratch paper) is a great part of the technique's ability to produce new and different perspectives.

-- KK

The Mind Map Book
Tony Buzan with Barry Buzan
1996, 320 pages
$17
Available from Amazon

Sample excerpts:

Mind Map by the well known film and video producer Dennis Harris, summarising an entire programme on Memory.

*

Always use a central image

An image automatically focuses the eye and the brain. It triggers numerous associations and is astoundingly effective as a memory aid. In addition an image is attractive - on many levels. It attracts you, it pleases you and it draws your attention to itself.

If a particular word (rather than an image) is absolutely central to your Mind Map, the word can be made into an image by using dimension, multiple colours, and attractive form.

Use images throughout your mind map

Using images wherever possible gives all the benefits described above, as well as creating a stimulating balance between your visual and linguistic cortical skills, and improving your visual perception.

*

Variation in size is the best way of indicating the relative importance of items in a hierarchy. Expanded size adds emphasis, thereby increasing the probability of recall.

*

In order to develop a truly personal Mind Mapping style, you should follow the '1+' rule. This means that every Mind Map you do should be slightly more colourful, slightly more three dimensional, slightly more imaginative, slightly more associatively logical, and/or slightly more beautiful than the last.

*

Progression of noting a 'very unhappy afternoon' in which application of the Mind Map laws brings the noter much closer to the truth.

Standard phrase noting, which at first glance appears adequate, but which contains dangerous inaccuracies.

Note the full Mind Map guidelines, which allows the noter to reflect a more comprehensive, true and balanced picture of reality.

Addressing envelopes by hand is a drag, but sending them through the printer often involves manual feeding hassle and jamming. When I found the Dymo Labelwriter 400, my envelope-labeling problems were over: this baby will pop out an address label in (literally) one second (or sixty a minute, if you want), using a 300 DPI thermal-printing process. The unit plugs into your computer via USB and shows up as a printer; the included software adds barcodes automatically, and allows you to store addresses in an address book for even quicker future printing. The printed material is monochrome black-on-white, and you need to use the use rolls of thermal-printable labels instead of ordinary paper labels, but the Dymo is fast as hell and turns out crisp-looking labels in no time. You can get the labels in all kind of different sizes for different uses, and it's easy to swap rolls in and out. It works great to print out labels to put on folders and boxes too.

You can even print postage, stamp by stamp or a roll at a time, by swapping in the appropriate blank-stamp label roll and pre-paying over the Web.

I've got one Labelwriter at the office and one at home, and I use both of them just about every day.

-- Thomas Lewis

Dymo Labelwriter 400 Turbo
$109
Available from Labelcity

Or $123 from Amazon

Even the most sports-impaired among us can enjoy this well designed little toy: take a bean-bag, wrap it in grippy fabric, and add a tail: voila, the FlingSock. Better than other "flying tails", in my opinion. It flies amazingly far (sometimes too far -- be careful that it doesn't end up on a roof). Even when it smacks me in the head, the light polyethylene pellet filled bag don't hurt a bit. Doesn't bounce either, so it won't pop out of your hand or roll unexpectedly into the street. Easily sized to grab, with grippy rubberized fabric to keep it from slipping, and a fabric tail for second chance catches, as well as fabulous flinging...all in cheery, rainbow tie-dye colors. The mini size is perfect for slipping into school backpacks, flipping around in your yard, or to keep handy in the car for spontaneous flings -- rolled up, it's about the size of a small lemon. The regular size can and will go 30 yards and more -- better save that one for the park!

-- Barbara Dace

Mini FlingSock
$7
Avialable from FunAttic

Regular FlingSock
$8
Available from FunAttic

I was recently travelling in Norway, and found that the construction workers were almost all wearing these unique pants made by Blaklader. I found a pair in a hardware store, and have barely taken them off since. They have ingenious pockets, bombproof construction, and are completely unique from anything else I've ever seen. The pants are like wearing a toolchest wrapped around you. All the front and rear pockets have bellows. The big pouch pockets pull out and essentially replace a toolbelt. They have a great set of cargo pockets that are attached to the waist belt that can be tucked into the front pockets when you aren't using them. They can at least replace a set of nail bags. The pants have hammer loops, and knife pockets and a cell phone pocket and chisel pockets and pencil pockets. They've got a ruler pocket, and as best as I can tell a calculator pocket (mine fits perfectly). The knee reinforcements have a gap in the bottom where you can insert a set of kneepads too (which they make in two different thicknesses).

They make my Carhartt pants seem so *useless.* They are reasonably priced too. I brought back extra pairs as gifts to a couple of friends of mine in the construction industry and they are really happy with them. The pair of Blakladers I purchased were the Heavy Duty Work Pants, in two tone khaki and black. I think they are #1680 in the catalog. They are almost a little too heavy, and I'll probably order a pair of the cotton ones #1630 later this week from their distributor in Minnesota. Indeed they aren't exactly fashionable. While Carhartt pants can be worn around town, these are a little too much for casual wear. It's workwear for sure. I'm planning on giving mine a coat of waterproofing and trying them at the ski area where I volunteer in the winter.

-- Craig Davis

Blaklader Heavy Duty Work Pants
#1680
$80
Available from New Worker

Manufactured by Blaklader

After a telescope, this is the best astronomy educational tool I've seen. At night this AAA battery powered green laser pointer can seemingly touch the stars millions of miles away. Compared to a red laser pointer, the green beam remains visible and penetrates the air much farther. Because of its particular spectrum you see the beam and not just the end dot. Also, it's about 50 times brighter than an ordinary red laser pointer -- using the same safe low power. On a clear night it can easily shine a dot a mile away. With its sharp laser beam you can pinpoint the exact star you want, which greatly accelerates mapping and learning the constellations. I've been amazed at how much faster I've learned the heavens with one of these in hand.

The problem with green laser pointers has been their stiff price. Only recently have they dropped below $50, which is still a lot for an educational tool. Manufacturing green laser engines is more art than science so their actual power output varies by final pointer. The lasers are sorted after they are made. The select ones near to the legal "pointer" limit of 5 milliWatts are labeled as such and are priced around $100 these days. The others are labeled as "less than 5mW" or "guaranteed to be up to 5 mW" and are priced as cheap as $40, but their actual power is not stated. For a star pointer all you need is one of these cheap ones. I've been using an in expensive "up to 5mW" version that works wonderfully.

Incidentally, you can purchase higher powered green lasers from Wicked Lasers that exceed the mandated 5 mW. Their 15 mW green laser (6 mile range) goes for $100 and their scary/astounding 300 mW for $2000. These are incredibly bright at night, but overkill for an astronomy aid.

-- KK

BTG-2 Green Laser
<5 mW
$42
Available from Amazon

Starpointer
Full-powered 5mW
$110
Available from Sky Pointer

Wicked Lasers Classic
15 mW
$100
Available from Wicked Lasers

It finally happened, an off-the-shelf household robot that works and pays back even the early-adopter price.

For less than $200 you get a vacuum cleaner the size of coffee-table book (though round) which has robotic smarts and its own battery. The main thing is, it works. It cleans rooms.

What makes it work is the combination of clever robot design AND clever vacuum cleaner design. Its job as a robot is to cover an entire room and not get trapped somewhere or wander off where it's not wanted. The first time you use it, you watch with fascination as the Roomba goes through its repetoire of exploration (spiral till a wall is encountered, then scrub along keeping the wall on the right, etc.) and avoidance of trouble (detect drop-offs and deflect; when blocked, keep rotating and trying again; etc.) It will happily go places that most vacuums don't, like under beds. For keeping it from openings into other rooms or from entangling wires or such, the Roomba comes with a separate device which puts out a keep-away beam up to 13 feet.

It does not mix well with pets or little kids, who torment it. It is perfect for bachelors of either sex who put off vacuuming chores for months (like I do in my office and storage container). Plugged into a wall socket for battery charge, the Roomba is always ready to grind away diligently in a room. Weekly, daily, who cares? After the first time, you'll leave it to work alone, or you'll find yourself giving it advice, which it does not need.

-- Stewart Brand

Roomba
4100
$144
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by iRobot

Moving Men Furniture Sliders are smooth frisbee-shaped polymer disks, either 7" or 3 1/2" in diameters, filled with a spongy material (they call it a special grip pad). They are an improvement on the "furniture coasters" my mother used to put under the sofa in that the special grip pad does really work, allowing you to move furniture easily. They work on carpet, though our experience has involved sliding things over berber and low-ply (we've never owned shag).

We have moved some pretty heavy furniture using them. You *might* be able to slide an upright piano this way -- but I would leave moving a grand piano to the professionals.

These also work well for slipping under boxes on moving day.

-- Martin Schwimmer

Moving Men Furniture Sliding Set
8 pieces
$10
Available from Amazon

Those of us who use little or no chemicals in our grass yards have to manually weed if we wish to maintain our landscaping. By trial and error I have settled on using 'Grandpa's Weeder'. This tool has been around for decades, and works as advertised. With a simple two step process you can manually pull weeds, roots and all, from the ground without having to bend down. There are similar items available, but none have worked as well for me as this old timer.

-- Sean Wylde

Grandpa's Weeder
$27
Available from Garden Hardware Company

This book by Ian Cramb is a classic. Straightforward and elegant, everything you need to know about putting one stone on top of another. I've been through many tons of stone with only Ian's stern Scottish advice to guide me. Never looked back.

I don't remember where I heard it (this book doesn't cover drywall), but the best short course I've seen on dry-stack stonework is this:

1. Gravity always works.
2. If a stone can move, it will.

That sums up pretty much everything you need to know to ensure a wall will still be there for people born after you die.

-- Matt Thornton

The Art of the Stonemason
Ian Cramb
1992 (updated 2006), 174 pages
$17
Available from Amazon

Sample excerpts:

*

The most reliable test for stone is to examine an old building nearby that has been built of the same stone. The arrisses (edges where the surfaces meet at an angle) should be firm, fine, and the members of moulds sharp and clean. The lines of stratification should not be prominent. The faces must be hard and solid when struck with a chisel. A loose or spongy appearance would denote decomposition of the chemical constituents.

The following are some specific tests for stone.

Water test -- A few stone chippings are placed in clean water and stirred about. If the water becomes muddy, the stone should be rejected.

Chemical test -- Immerse a stone in a solution of 1 cup sulfuric acid, 1 cup hydrochloric acid, and 1 gallon of water for a few days. When taken out and dried, the grains should be sharp and firm. Loose sand would mean the stone could dissolve in a polluted city atmosphere. NOTE: These acids are very dangerous. Every precaution must be used in handling and disposal.

To detect the presense of lime -- If a few drops of acid are placed on a stone and the drops cause effervescence, carbonate or lime is indicated. Such a stone would not weather well.

Absorption -- A sandstone shell should not absorb more than 10 percent of its weight in water; a limestone not more than 17 percent.

*

*

Points to remember

All random rubble is built in courses. This is the traditional method; there is no such thing as uncoursed random rubble.

A hole for every stone, and a stone for every hold. What you lift, you build.

*
To fit your center key stone, spread mortar on each joint surface of the stone already in position ("h"). Lower the stone into the opening -- do not use a hammer -- until it rests on your sand-lime mix. If joints are too slack, adjust each joint a little to make them all look equal, then flush point the face joints, pressing the mortar in gently. The stones of the arch are now in position, with the face joints pointed. Add a touch of water to your mix, making it into a grout or slurry. Pour this into the back of your arch stones and into any voids in the joints, making sure it does not push out your stones. The lime mix the stones are resting on will prevent the grout from running through. Once your joints are filled up, insert small slivers of stone into each joint, pushing them down gently into the grout, until they are tight. These small stones act as a wedge in each joint.

*

*
In grouting stonework, I use a lime-based grout, not a strong cement grout as some recommend. Open up a wall that has been cement-grouted, and you will find little adhesion to the surrounding material. Examine any cement pointing on stone, and you will see hairline cracks between the pointing and the stone, allowing for penetration of water.

In addition to everything else Amazon sells, you can now secure small portions of materials and mechanical parts suitable for building and repair. Amazon has teamed up with the supplier Small Parts (reviewed in Cool Tools previously) to supply a huge variety of metal tubes, springs, raw materials (titanium, nylon, polycarbonate, glass, etc.), gears, plastic parts, fasteners and bins of other stuff that tinkerers and mid-night engineers might need. Of course you can order from Small Parts direct, but Amazon's option takes advantage of their incredibly handy interface and billing system. Go to their "Industrial & Scientific" tab.

-- KK

Available from Amazon Industrial and Scientific

Most useful farm tool No.1 is a pair of Fencing Pliers. These little beauties cost me about $13 and represent the best value for money of any of my tools. In one device it is a wire cutter, a staple puller, a hammer and a great source of leverage on any object unlucky enough to be in it's grasp or impaled on it's horn.

While most multi-function tools tend to be a jack of all trades and master of none, the fencing pliers hardly compromise at all. They will cut high tensile fencing wire (including our famous New Zealand#8 wire) that would simply blunt most plier-design wire cutters. When it comes to removing staples, they don't only excel at pulling staples that are proud of the post. The flat hammering face can be hit with another hammer to drive the horn into a staple that has been driven too far into the wood. Once you have hooked the staple, levering it out is pretty simple. Try that with a hammer or nipper-design staple puller. The jaws can also be locked over the head of a nail for the same leverage effect. As a hammer, they work pretty well and have a nice weight balance. The only negative is the smaller striking surface, but you can't have everything!

My pair is about 5 years old and despite a few signs of wear and tear, they still function perfectly well. They rate #1 in my farm tool arsenal. When you factor in the relatively low cost, they are an absolute essential in any tool kit.

-- John Hart

Fence Pliers
10 inches
$10
Available from Amazon

By some material genius, this pad holds stuff on your dashboard so it doesn't fly off as you drive. Non-adheasive, non-magnetic, it grips cell phones, PDAs, sunglasses, GPS, binoculars, CDs, anything that you want to grab quickly and easily. I have no idea why it holds things so firmly, but it does without adhering to the object or your dash, keeping all in place on curves, hills, and sudden stops. After a year or two in the sun it will accumulate dust and grime, diminishing its effectiveness. The pad can be restored to most of its grippiness by washing it off with detergent and water. If you can keep out of direct sunlight, it will last longer.

-- KK

Sticky Pad
$4
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by American Covers

I'm in research mode, interviewing experts for my book. I had been using an Olympus mini-cassette recorder, and wasn't too unhappy with it, but a few years ago professional journalists convinced me to try out a solid-state digital recorder. I settled on an early Olympus Digital Recorder and it's been pure delight. There are many more models to choose from now. Each is solid state and essentially a small capacity MP3 player with a built in microphone.

The advantages over the mini-cassette: 1) Ultra-tiny and light, it's truly pocket size, only as long as your finger, but twice as fat. It's only weight seems to be the two AA batteries. 2) Digital sound; the built-in mike is fantastically keen and sharp. I usually don't need the lavaliere mike I used to use with the analog machine. 3) No tapes. I can get up to five hours in this little thing; other versions can get 11 hours. 4) Easy download. After each session I merely plug it into the USB port and it dumps the recording to my hard disk. (Has a nice MacOSX version!). 5) Best part, the files are easily scannable, and bookmarked on my computer. I find I can more readily zip back and forth through an interview to find the parts I want, rather than have the whole affair transcribed. 6) But if I want to, the files are easily transmitted to transcribers via email or the web. No more packaging up tapes. 7) Lastly, the audio files can be easily posted for general archival purposes on the web or elsewhere.

Downsides: Olumpus does not record in MP3 but its own compressed format. It's more compressed than MP3 and so files are easier to email, but you have to convert them if you want to share them openly.

I carry mine in my bag, next to a Radio Shack itsy bitsy lav mike for extra sound quality in noisy rooms.

There are many Olympus models, some as low as $32, but those don't have a USB plug -- they are listen only. The cheapest one that has a USB outlet to move the digital files is, I believe, the 960PC for $80. But this model does not work with the Mac for some strange reason. The least expensive Olympus model I found that will work with the Mac is the DS-2, which goes for about $100.

None of these models remain in production long.

-- KK

Olympus Digital Voice Recorder
VN 960
$55
Available from Amazon

DS-2
$119
Available from Amazon

This is an RJ45 cable tester, which recognizes particular kinds of cable (ethernet, rolled, ethernet economisers, audio cables), both 4-wire and 8-wire. If you only ever need to test a few single cables a year, you won't need this. However if you're trying to test more than one cable at a time, particularly if they are long runs or hidden, this is great. Normally ethernet testers come in remote/master pairs, so you have to
- go to remote site (attic, patching closet, whatever)
- attach remote terminator
- go to local end
- test
Rinse, lather, repeat. One trip per cable.

The nice thing about this tester is that with the numbered terminators, you can test several lines at a time, without having to dash up to the attic each time to change the remote terminator. You can also see easily when you've mislabelled cables. ("Patch panel port 2 has terminator 8 on it? Bugger. Time to re-label...") It's also useful when you have a mixed bag of cables which you need to identify and sort into boxes. As a network engineer, this is something I have to do quite often...unfortunately.

Oh, and one other thing -- if you switch it on without a terminator, it will show you how to wire ethernet patch and crossover cables, including the cable colors. It's kinda shiny. Yes, it's more expensive than the kind you get for cheap off Ebay, but it also does so much more.

-- Donal Cunningham

Atlas IT Network Cable Analyser
Model UTP05
75 Pounds (~$159)
Available from Peak Electronic Design

Winding Road is a free digital car magazine that arrives once per month -- you can either view it online in flash or download it in PDF. Apparently the magazine hired away some of the good writers from the other well-known car magazines. They are doing a pretty decent job. The magazine has cool videos and audio interviews throughout, and the photos are very good. They also have a daily news site. With Winding Road I can get all the car magazine stuff I need, without having to pay, and they never asked me for a credit card number or any of that. I've cancelled my Car and Driver subscription because I don't need it anymore.

-- Roy Nesseth

Winding Road

These stoves are great for backyard cooking, partying, tailgating, car camping, and/or power outages. They're too big for most backpacking, but for most other uses they're much more convenient than larger propane and or liquid fuel stoves. They come in their own lunch box sized plastic or nylon carrying case. The hair-spray-sized butane cannister is contained within the stove instead of sticking out on the side like most propane stoves, and it just drops in. They all have piezoelectric ignition. Most models are dirt cheap. I bought mine at Target a few years ago for $30, but Big 5 had them on sale for $16 a few weeks ago.

-- Bruce Bowen

GStone Butane Burner
$15
Available from Amazon

Micro-Surface makes the finest sandpaper around: Micro-Mesh abrasives. I originally used their sanding pads to get a perfect finish on a plastic model car by sanding each layer of spraypaint I applied to the model. Their finest sandpaper is rated at an incredible 12000 grit. (Although that number isn't using the same ANSI scale as commonly available sandpaper).

I was amazed that I was able to sand a scratched plastic window to perfect clarity, although I shouldn't have been surprised: micro-mesh is used to repair the acrylic windows used on many airplanes. I've since used the same hobby kit for repairing scratches in the clear coat of my REAL car. I've even carefully polished out deep scratches in the bottom of several CDs. You can also polish out scratches on reading glasses.

Micro-Surface makes a wide variety of abrasives, in every size and type I can imagine needing.

-- Mike Gebis

Micro-Mesh Abrasives Kits
$15+
Avialable from Micro-Surface Finishing Products

Excerpt from the website:

20X Sandpaper 400 grit       20X Micro-Mesh 1500

Micro-Mesh is what we like to call a non-abrasive abrasive. It is considered a cushioned abrasive in fact. Conventional sandpaper is designed to be aggressive so that it will dig deeply. In its manufacture the crystals are electrically charged so that they will stand up. They are locked into a hard resin and when you apply the paper to a surface it will literally tear in and remove the substrate of the material you are sanding. The crystals cut in a negative raking motion, leaving inconsistent scratch patterns.

Micro-Mesh does the opposite. The backing is long lasting cloth to which an ultra-flexible cushioning layer is applied. This cushioning layer will determine how far forward you can push crystals before they will penetrate the cushioning layer. On top of this layer, we have a very resilient glue, not a hard resin, but a completely flexible glue that will hold the crystals while allowing it to move and rotate. The crystals can turn in any direction without coming loose. When you start to apply pressure to sand with Micro-Mesh, the crystals will go into the cushioning layer while beginning to cut a bit. If you push harder, they will go further into the cushioning layer, which serves as a safety valve. It determines how much pressure you can exert in a downward direction. Instead of a deep scratch that sandpaper makes, Micro-Mesh produces a refined scratch that is close to a RMS of 1.0. The cushioning layer also allows the crystals to cut with a planing motion that leaves an extremely consistent scratch pattern and allows you to achieve extraordinary levels of gloss.

This old-school government manual for flight instructors is the best how-to guide I have come across for teaching, learning, communication and professionalism about any subject. It says almost nothing about aviation, and everything about how to teach. It's called "The Aviation Instructor's Handbook"; the full text is available for free as a PDF download.

-- Ronald Fuller

It's really pretty good. Covers all kinds of pedagogical approaches, and is especially good for teaching material where both head and body skills are needed. Think of it as a general "Instructor's Handbook." Short of signing up for a teacher's degree, I haven't seen anything else as thorough, explicit, and succinct in how to teach teaching.

-- KK

The Aviation Instructor's Handbook
Available from the FAA

Sample excerpts:

Student Tells -- Instructor Does
This is a transition between the second and third steps in the teaching process. It is the most obvious departure from the demonstration-performance technique, and may provide the most significant advantages. In this step, the student actually plays the role of instructor, telling the instructor what to do and how to do it. Two benefits accrue from this step. First, being freed from the need to concentrate on performance of the maneuver and from concern about its outcome, the student should be able to organize his or her thoughts regarding the steps involved and the techniques to be used. In the process of explaining the maneuver as the instructor performs it, perceptions begin to develop into insights. Mental habits begin to form with repetition of the instructions previously received. Second, with the student doing the talking, the instructor is able to evaluate the student's understanding of the factors involved in performance of the maneuver. According to the principle of primacy, it is important for the instructor to make sure the student gets it right the first time. The student should also understand the correct sequence and be aware of safety precautions for each procedure or maneuver. If a misunderstanding exists, it can be corrected before the student becomes absorbed in controlling the airplane.

*

*

Trick questions, unimportant details, ambiguities, and leading questions should be avoided, since they do not contribute to effective evaluation in any way. Instead, they tend to confuse and antagonize the student. Instructors often justify use of trick questions as testing for attention to detail. If attention to detail is an objective, detailed construction of alternatives is preferable to trick questions.

*

Questions containing double negatives invariably cause confusion. If a word, such as "not" or "false," appears in the stem, avoid using another negative word in the stem or any of the responses.

This is a very convenient way to produce large-scale hi-fi color prints from digital images. You email them a digital image file; in a few days they mail back a magnificently large, utterly crisp, remarkably stable, frameable print.

There are a number of web-based photofinishers, but these guys specialize in ultra-large-scale prints. By large-scale I mean a photo up to 4 feet by 10 feet - if you have a wall that big! Or any size smaller, say 2 feet by 3 feet. The display-quality prints are made using Fuji archive paper, and Pictopia's up-res software. The archive paper gives a photo-chemical image stable for 75 years, which is hard to do with ink jets now; the up-res software ingeniously fills in the pixel gaps that would ordinarily occur when you enlarge an image beyond the resolution it contains. For supreme accuracy this outfit use a military-grade helical laser printer, designed to print satellite images without moving the paper. The print quality is superb corner to corner, which is not true in almost any other method of printing except ink-jet. (Of course, not every image can survive such magnification.)

Compared to other processes for making large images, their prices are cheap. For instance, a hefty 16 x 20 inch print is $25, while an impressive 2 foot by 3 foot print is $65, and a maniacal 4 foot by 8 foot print is $370. Couple that with their handy online ordering process, speedy delivery, it's a deal. I am currently using this service to fulfill customer orders for Asia Grace images from my website, and I've been very happy so far.

You can of course send Pictopia other kinds of non-photographic files, like maps, charts, or computer renderings. For big pictures, per square foot, this is the way to go.

-- KK

Available from Pictopia

HVLP means High Volume Low Pressure. It's a more efficient way of spraying. More media (paint) gets deposited than the old style sprayers. The difference is the air. It's not run with a high pressure compressor (like you use for filling up your tires) but a low-pressure blower making a large volume of air (essentially a reversed vacuum motor). Works fine, it's portable, and inexpensive. You can get a generic HVLP sprayer for $99, but some places are selling them for $79. I wouldn't paint a house with it, but for small furniture projects, it works great.

-- James Crum

Wagner Control Spray
$64
Available from Amazon

This is a very cool tool. Its a boat that folds up. It really works great. I wanted a little boat I could keep on my larger 24-foot boat so I could take me and my dogs ashore. This boat is perfect. Very stable and folds up when not in use. I tie it down on the bow when not in use. I have seen a lot of people use these with RVs, mounted to the side. You can use paddles or a small electric or gas engine to get around. It handles great and is easy to plane with a small engine like mine -- a 4-horsepower gas engine. The other great thing is that I know the hull is not going to be punctured by my dogs or anything else. Its very stable with 2 people and two small dogs.

It's very easy to fold up, takes less than 5 minutes. The seats act as braces to hold the boat open, so when you take them out the boat folds up. The boat is made of Polypropylene and has a 10 year warranty. I have the 8 foot model (smallest), which I got for $900 years ago but now goes for $1,250.

-- Bart Snyder

Porta Bote
$1250 and up
Available from Porta Bote

Here's a cool tool that I stumbled upon. It's called ZYB (quite uninformative name, but typical web 2.0 lingo I guess). It's a free backup service for your mobile phone. Quite impressive what you can do on that site -- back up contacts, etc. and actually it's a bit strange that they even can get the backup to work over the mobile's GPRS connection. I've used it for a month now and I'm impressed that it's even possible to make a backup of your mobile that way. I don't know how they do it or why it hasn't been done before!

-- Roar Nilsen

ZYB

I've been hanging out with serious craftsmen/carpenters and virtuoso builders in Canada and ended up buying 4 different Japanese saws they were using. At top is a gem of a keyhole saw. You'll never use an American keyhole saw again. Next down is a springy, elegant razor-toothed saw for flush cuts. Next is the traditional Ryoba, with two different types of teeth. It's the main saw of seasoned Vancouver Island builder Bruce Atkey, what he uses in place of an American saw. It's a joy to use. The last one, the Silky with the black handle, is the gardening saw I should have had 40 years ago. It cuts green (and dead) branches with amazing dispatch. Silky has a great catalog of gardening saws. These tools have got me fiddling around in my shop (and garden) a lot more these days.

-- Lloyd Kahn

Japanese Keyhole Saw
60T08.01
$17
Available from Lee Valley

Japanese Flush-Cutting Saw
60T19.01
$28
Available from Lee Valley

Traditional Ryoba
60T01.01
$49
Available from Lee Valley

Silky Folding Pruning Multi-Purpose Hand Saw GOMBOY 240 Large Teeth
$35
Available from Amazon

I bought a souped-up Mini Cooper from a car-enthusiast friend. As I sat for the first time in the driver's seat, I noticed what looked like an irregularity in the top of the windshield. Peering more closely, I saw it was a little Fresnel lens. "What's that for?" I asked.

"It's the coolest thing," he said. "I found it on one of the Mini sites. It lets you see when the light turns green without having to crane your neck."

Sure enough, it does. Another friend was riding with me a few weeks later became so enamored with the device, I peeled it off and gave it to him. While waiting for a replacement I had to bend my neck sideways and lean forward to see the light when I'm first in line. What a pain compared to just sitting back comfortably and waiting for that little red dot in the lens to go green.

The manufacturer says Light In Sight works for all kinds of vehicles and is "especially helpful for taller drivers, drivers in smaller cars, delivery vans and trucks, and drivers with a mobility problem, such as a neck or back problem."

LightInSight is self-adhering (assisted with a wet paper towel), easily removable and reusable. It measures 7" by 1-1/2."

-- Steve Leveen

LightInSight
$18
Available from LightInSight

I like to clip items from the newspaper or magazines that are relevant to my clients and prospects. This tool makes that task simple - just grip between thumb and forefinger and trace the outline of the article you want to clip - you even leave the underlying pages intact!

-- Bruce Bradford

Levenger Single Sheet Cutters
$14 for 2
Levenger

I don't consider myself a great cook but I've found that for a multitude of kitchen activities, scissors are important. Whether for cutting cooking twine, small bones, chicken breastbone, etc., they can be very useful. Normal office scissors don't have the right length of blade and the joint can harbor germs and food residue. The Fiskars are just one of any number of scissors (although one of the less expensive ones) specially made for the kitchen with shorter blades and a take-apart joint for cleaning.

-- AK

Fiskars Kitchen Scissors
#9474
$11
Available from Widget Supply

Manufactured by Fiskars