There's an emerging new media I use more and more: an online summary of a conference. Known as liveblogging, it presents a synopsis of each presentation, talk-by-talk, in nearly real time. This saves you time and money traveling to distant cities, and suffering through introductions and equipment failures. At its best, reading the liveblog can be better than attending the talk. All the chaff has been winnowed, and almost every talk captured. (Most conference attendees don't even get to every talk.) Video recordings of conferences are becoming more popular, but a good liveblog is much quicker to scan and digest. But at its worse, a liveblog will offer little more than snarky comments about the speaker.

At the creation end, you need some skills to separate the best from the worst. Ethan Zuckerman, of Geek Corp, is one of the best conference bloggers alive. He teamed up with Bruno Giussani, another star liveblogger, to produce this free short 6-page PDF booklet on how to blog a conference with effectiveness. When you blog a conference it forces you to pay attention. My first book Out of Control began as an online blog of every talk at the first Artificial Life Conference (although no one called it blogging in 1987). The requisite focus of summarizing each talk clarified many ideas for me, and the response to the "blog" of the conference encouraged me to write a book. Other livebloggers find the same. They listen harder, and remember more.

Get good at this and you have a free pass to many high-priced conferences. Organizers are increasingly looking for first-rate livebloggers to generate press and future attendees. Or, like Ethan you can generate your own audience who follow you because your liveblogging skills.

This is the third version of a guide I have been developing for the past 5 years. It takes the 200 best documentaries I have reviewed on my website True Films and puts them into one handy book. For an explanation of why I bother to order the content of a website into a book see the previous entry.

In True Films, I cover only true films: documentaries, factuals, non-fiction, reality-based series, and some instructional how-to. You can get a sense of what I like from the site. I love documentaries that 1) surprise me, and 2) inform me.

Each review is a rave review; that is, I only review films I love and believe others will enjoy. Merely good films are left unmentioned. I also include what no other film review source does: I provide 4 to 5 screen shots from each documentary to give you an idea of what the texture of the film is. And I only review documentaries that can be seen easily on DVD or tape at consumer prices (either as Netflix rentals, legal downloads, or online purchase). Documentaries available only in theaters, or as high-priced "educational films" are regrettably ignored.

Earlier editions of this book have been available on Amazon, Lulu, and as a cheap download from my site. But with this new version 3.0 I am trying something new. I am offering this 200-page full-color guide (perfect as a companion if you have Netflix) as a FREE download. It's in PDF format, but with a twist. To help offset the significant bandwidth costs of these downloads (I hope my server can take the wave), I have appended advertisements to the PDF book. Here is how the ads work:

If you choose to see the ads, they will appear in a gray sidebar on the right, adjacent to the pages of the book, just outside the frame of the page, as shown below:

These ads are inserted into the PDF by Adobe (using the Yahoo ad network) when you open the file. Like Google Adsense ads, they are contextual. That is, Adobe/Yahoo tries to match the content of the ads with the content of text on the the pages, in my case, text about documentaries. The ads I see at this moment of writing are mostly about apartment rentals, but they change each time one opens the book. The way Adobe/Yahoo "knows" about the content of the PDF is not by crawling the web, but by the author (me in this case) submitting the PDF to their machine the first time, which then stamps it with a registration code, so it can remember what's in it when someone far away opens it on their machine.

Like Google, no money flows unless someone clicks on them. If a reader of the True Films PDF books clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays Yahoo, who in turns gives me some small percent, around 5 cents (I think).

But because the PDF file must reach out from your computer to the Adobe server to get the ads, an action that some readers may not approve, seeing the ads is an opt-in default. You have to agree to see the ads before any will show up. You will also need the latest version of Acrobat Reader (8) to see them. If you use an older version no ads will show up, and you'll see only the free book. Since the ads are adjacent to the book, whether you see ads or not will not affect the design of the book itself.

I hope you get the updated version of the Reader and click to see the ads. (A little box pops up and says "the author has added sponsored content which requires connecting to adobe server. OK?" Say yes.) Why? Because my hunch is that books-supported-by-ads is one way to extend the FREE. I would love to produce books for free, outside of big publishing, just as this recommendation site is given away for free. Cool Tools has continued for free for five years because it is funded by the ads on this site. There is a chance we can develop a similar culture and business model around FREE books. The engine would again be ads.

The Ads for Adobe PDF program is an experiment. It takes all of 10 minutes to sign up and send your PDF through. If it works with you readers to the same degree that ad-supported blogs have, it is not hard to imagine thousands of books being released for free with ads on the side. To some in publishing this prospect is the end of the world. The final stake in the heart of good old books. Ads-in-books specifically have been a bogeyman too horrible for them to even think about.

I am more pragmatic. I actually like the Google contextual ads on Cool Tools. They bring up choices I would have never encountered, yet they are fairly unobtrusive until you are looking. Why not do the same for books?

Well, I have. Several years ago I added Google contextual ads to the digital versions of my books, Out of Control and New Rules for the New Economy. If you look at the books' website the books do the same cool magic as Cool Tools. At the bottom of each page of text in the book, there are somewhat relevant ads (their relevancy wavers depending on the stars).

It seems a logical next step to try ads in free downloadable books. This is an experiment. Opt-in for the ads and let me know if they work for you. Or if you have trouble with the PDF scheme itself.

If all else fails, think of it as a Christmas present. Spread the word that your friends can download a free 200-page guide to the world's best documentaries. In fact, I have a better offer. You are welcomed to host and serve up the file yourself. Indeed, I hope that others will, viral-like, post the PDF elsewhere, wherever they want to. Put it on YouTube, iTunes, etc. You have my permission, as long as the content remains intact. If you do forward and share this PDF -- and you are welcomed to -- please explain to the giftee the opt-in ad function.

In the meantime I'll serve as many of these as I can while my bandwidth lasts. I'll also post the results once the traffic plateaus.

If I have missed any great documentaries, let me know.

This week I review five ebooks, or to be more precise, five books available in PDF format. That means you can download them instantly, and in four of the cases, for free.

In the emerging world of digital books, PDF formatted books is not really considered an ebook variant because they don't work so well on a handheld ebook device, such as the new Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader. Most PDFs are designed around a letter or magazine page size, which means they are easy to read on a desktop or laptop monitor, but not quite transferable to a smaller screen. That's okay with me because despite trying a few of the ebook readers, I still read digital books on my computer screen. To date I have not been willing to carry around yet another device to read books with.

If you are reading on a computer screen, then why even mess with PDFs? And for that matter, why even mess with a book? I recommend both books and PDFs because they offer several advantages over a web site.

1) A book (even without its paper pages) is a long argument that coheres as a whole, and whose argument or story is made by integrating well-selected parts. When a book works, it contains a satisfaction and thoroughness that comes from the completeness of a book, a wholeness that is rarely found in the assembled pieces found on a website. A book, unlike a website, tries to embrace a particular subject and say: here it is, at least as of now. Not every query needs or deserves a book, but often I find a book -- not necessarily one bound in covers -- an ideal guide to a subject or story.

2) A PDF is able to retain the highly evolved grammar, design and syntax that one thousand years of bookmaking has attained. Because of the idiosyncratic way web browsers work, designers do not have full control of what you as a reader see on the web. The web page, including its fonts, font sizes, and placement of material and size of the window, partly depends on the viewer's preferences. In my experience as a reader, a web designer, and a book designer, the reading experience on paper -- and PDFs -- is much more refined and elegant. As a publisher and designer I can direct the flow of attention with better tools (font choices, rules, lines, columns) and better control. The benefit to me as a reader is that this sophisticated design translates into increased clarity, smoothness, comprehension, and enjoyment.

3) A PDF book provides both the holistic virtues of a book, and its highly-evolved design, but also offers three of the advantages of the web: instant access, hyperlinking, and the potential to be free (see my discussion of True Films in the next entry).

These five qualities make PDF books pretty attractive to me. In addition the five PDF books I review below (in the next five entries, including Tips for Conference Bloggers, The Personal MBA, HDR, and Motion Mountain) represent the best in the instructional arts. They tackle subjects that paper books are to slow to attend to, or too niche to bother with. That fact they are free (with one exception) is just a sweet bonus.

If you like creating little DIY booklets or zines, but have been frustrated by the short arm length in standard staplers that forces you to curl up (or worse, fold) your notebook pages in order to get a center saddle staple, this two-way stapler is a terrific little solution. It looks just like your ordinary handheld personal stapler, until you twist the upper portion: it twists all the way perpendicular to the body of the stapler, so that you can easily staple booklets at the center fold. When I found it, I was kind of surprised I'd never seen this before. It's sheer genius and simple. I'm a huge pocket notebook fan. I have a boxful of Moleskines, which I love, but I've been playing around with crafting my own Moleskine-size blank notebooks for keeping notes on small projects or short trips. In the past, I've had to either fold up the pages a bit (and carefully unfold and smooth out the crease). Or I waited to go to someplace like Kinko's that offers saddle staplers. Neither was a very convenient solution and I didn't want to spend lots of money on an expensive "long reach" or saddle stitch stapler of my own. This one's not as small as a micro stapler, but it's as lightweight (plastic body) and is just a bit longer than the palm of my hand. No unnecessary bells and whistles. When you move the swinging piece, it snaps into place, and you can twist it either left or right. The loading area is very easy, not tricky at all. The only drawbacks are that it uses mini staples and can only staple 15 pages at a time. But as long as you don't have a really thick stack, it works like a charm. I'm almost tempted to buy a second one to keep at home, but it's small enough I can just carry it with me.

I make my living with words, more or less, but from time to time, I mix metaphors, indulge in incorrect idioms, and certainly fall back on tired phrases, believe it or not. This book of short explanations of thousands of clichés is a handy, quick reference any crossword puzzler, Scrabblehead, blogger, editor, or copywriter will enjoy. It's like the Cliff Notes of what's buried deep in the OED. I've always been into etymology -- after all, it's history for word nerds -- so the best aspect of this text, to me, is getting at which clichés are Shakespearean, Biblical, Great Depression-era, etc. We're often taught in English classes to avoid clichés and hackneyed phrases like the plague. Thumbing through this book, you realize they're so ingrained in our everyday discourse that it's easy to forget some are even clichés (i.e. "no problem"). When push comes to shove, no matter how you slice it, I'd wager you'd be hard pressed to write or say anything of length that doesn't have at least one. Surely identifying them would be a good way to temper usage. Live and learn!

The Universal History of Numbers

Dictionary of Symbols

How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle

The problem I have with regular knitting is getting started. With a hat, for example, I have a lot of trouble getting my size just right and having the first row look neat and not sloppy. Knifty Knitters completely eliminate the size problem and allow you to make the first row just as neat as every other row. Each loom is basically a round circle with pegs on it. Since you are wrapping the yarn on preset pegs, the problem of keeping the stitches the same length is eliminated. I have the round set for hats and the long set, which is mainly for scarves and blankets. Each set comes with four looms. The round set labels the looms by size: baby, child, adult and the largest is either for a big-headed adult or for other projects (like ponchos). They come with directions, which are really easy to follow. I made my first hat while watching a movie. As you work, your hat starts to build up and hang down underneath as you go, which is pretty neat to watch. When it is long enough (the directions tell you how long for different sizes), you use this plastic needle to thread a piece of yarn through the loops at the end and drawstring it tight and tie. Then you use this little hook to pop it off. Done.

I totally recommend these for the serious and the totally not serious crafter. They're pretty cheap. They're easy. And even on your first try, you end up with a really good finished product you can wear or give to someone. I have about a dozen friends who have gotten them since my recommendation and all of them are really into them. Even my husband made a hat for his sister's kid while watching a movie and it came out perfect. The looms are made for thicker yarns, but if you have tons of old thin yarn you can double it up and use two strands as one (or even three) and that makes it so you can do all kinds of color combinations.

I found the long set a tiny bit harder when I got started (i.e. figuring out the corners), but after a few minutes messing with it I was rolling out a scarf. There are other looms I have not tried from Knifty Knitters, like a flower one and a rectangle one, which all make different things. They also have pompom and tassel makers and one that lets you make tube scarves. But there are tons of other things you can do with the same hat loom, too. My friend got a great book from her library; Knifty Knitters' web site has a few ideas; and I recently found a sock pattern on the Internet and made pair using the smallest loom in the round set. It was way way way easier than it looked and they came out perfect.

Knitting Without Tears

Brother Sewing Machine

Fresh Fruits

As a flashlight enthusiast, I review many lights on CandlePowerForums.com, a site for "flashaholics." So I'm often asked which flashlight I reach for the most. My answer: the Fenix L1D-CE, a pocket-sizeLED light that uses only a single AA battery. At one time, LED lights were considered very efficient but not really bright enough, especially when compared to the ultra-bright, xenon bulb, 2x lithium CR123 battery specialist lights like the SureFire 6P, SureFire G2 and Streamlight Scorpions (the ones frequently used in CSI). The Fenix L1D-CE uses a newer Cree 7090 XR-E LED that is spec'd to produce 90 lumens at its maximum brightness, some one and a half times as bright as the typical xenon 2x CR123 lights, which are about 60 lumens. That's brighter than the typical 3D cell flashlight -- amazing for a single AA battery!

The L1D-CE has become my EDC (every day carry) because of its versatility. Being bright and compact (about the size of a Swiss Army Knife) is a plus, but for closer tasks, a blindingly bright light is not really suitable. Most of the xenon 2xCR123 lights are just way too bright for close up work, as is the L1D-CE's Turbo setting (90 lumens).The L1D-CE also has a general mode that has 3 levels of brightness: Low (9 lumens), Medium (40 lumens), High (80 lumens), all accessed by a simple untwist of the head. This allows one to use the light at more appropriate levels for different tasks. Also, the head from the Fenix L1D-CE is fully interchangeable with other models. Fenix sells "powerpacks" with different combinations of heads and bodies, but they also let you purchase the bodies independently. Thus, the strategy is to buy one full flashlight and then just pick up the bodies as you go, like Fenix's L2D-CE (a two AA light) and even the P2D-CE (which takes a single CR123). By having the Fenix L1D-CE, I can also get the larger L2D and P2D bodies, which means having a 2x AA light that can manage 135 lumens and run on low for 55 hours. Or I can also use an even more compact 1x CR123 lithium light. So you can get three lights with one head and satisfy more needs. Like having your cake and eating it, too. Still, I always return to the L1D-CE configuration because it's just the right handy size, has brightness levels appropriate for most of my indoor uses, and I can use one rechargeable AA battery for almost no cost and environmentally-friendly illumination.

-- Vincent Tseng

Fenix L1D-CE Flashlight
$52
Available from Amazon

Also available from Fenix-Store.com

Manufactured by Fenixlight Ltd.

Related items previously reviewed in Cool Tools:

Stanley Tripod Flashlight

StylusReach Flexible Flashlight

Solar BoGoLight

Getting sweat in your eyes isn't fun. And in some sports, such as cycling, it can even be dangerous. Halo headbands provide a heavenly solution. They're made out of a thin, stretchy fabric with a linguine-sized, soft plastic strip affixed inside that acts as a kind of gutter. This strip (combined with the qualities of the fabric itself) keeps your brow dry. An unexpected side benefit: The headband serves as a gasket to keep your bike helmet snug and comfortable no matter how sweaty the conditions. I've been using them for a couple of years down here in Florida and wouldn't cycle without them.

After my ride, I just rinse the Halo and hang it to dry. Once in a while, it goes in the wash. I have a couple of Halos, so I'll always have one dry when I start out for a ride. Neither shows signs of wear after hundreds of rides and thousands of miles. I've grown so attached to my Halo that I accept the few seconds it takes to don it when racing in triathlons. I'll go without gloves and socks, but my Halo always comes along. (Besides, my transition times are laughably slow anyway.) Halos come in a tie version, which I prefer, but also in solid pullover bands and in a few other varieties. Well priced and made in San Diego.

Custom fit insoles created by professional podiatrists and orthotics constructors can make running faster and safer, walking more comfortable, reduce back problems, and improve agility and precision of movement. Unfortunately, this sort of work can costs hundreds of dollars per shoe. The SOLE Ultra SOFTEC bring the benefits of a custom fit insole at a mass production price. You simply trim a pair of insoles to fit, briefly heat them, then fit the insoles into your shoes and stand in them in a neutral, well-balanced position for two minutes. At the end of that time you have a pair of custom fit insoles with excellent Poron cushioning and exactly the fit you need; my friends and I found that SOLEs provided optimum arch support for high, normal, and low arched feet. At $45 they're excellent insurance against running injuries (especially the low arch that eventually afflicts most runners) and a great way of getting extra safety, comfort, and performance for snowboarding, hiking, soccer, or skiing.

I have a high arch, which means I have a greatly increased stress on footfall, with energy being lost from the gait cycle into impact force. The SOLEs corrected this not so much through cushioning, but through restoring correct contact of the load bearing areas of my foot -- more energy is now transferred from one step to another instead of into impact. A friend had the opposite and more common problem of a low arch, meaning that he constantly risked knee and soft tissue injuries, and the soles corrected that problem, too. This is the secret to how both the high-end custom orthotics that athletes use and the SOLEs work: your feet are designed to transfer energy from one step to another. When this goes wrong, old style insoles try to fix the problem by adding cushioning, but any amount of cushioning that could make a real difference would rob too much energy from the system (imagine walking on marshmallows). Instead the SOLEs fix the real problem and put the energy that was doing damage back where it belongs, bouncing you into your next step. Other benefits: Custom arch support stops the arch of the foot dropping, leading to a permanently low arched and injury prone foot. This is a real risk for people who run, spend a lot of time on their feet, or carry heavy loads.

I first noticed these insoles recommended on a famous mountain climber's site. At the time, I was about to spend $400 on either Kiper custom silicone orthotics or even more on gait analysis and custom insoles at an athletics center. They've made an amazing difference to me in the six months I've been wearing them. If you're not impressed with the difference they make, they come with a strong money back guarantee; they're endorsed by both the American and Canadian Podiatric Medical Associations; and I hear they're favourites of American and British infantrymen.

I've been using this cream for a couple of years to get a mirror polish on all the vintage bicycles I collect. Before discovering it on a listserv about classic bikes, I tried various buffing and polishing compounds (usually automotive) and Nev'r Dull, which worked fine but requires a lot of effort. Simichrome seems to work magically, with very little elbow grease needed to dissolve/remove surface stains and oxidation (the main ingredient is aluminum oxide). The results are astounding. I've used it primarily on aluminum, and a few chrome pieces. In my experience it works best on aluminum. Recently, I revived a set of oxidized aluminum cranks in under an hour all told -- sanding and steel wool to remove scratches and then less than 10 minutes (and minimal effort) polishing with the Simichrome. For aluminum parts that don't need scratches sanded out it takes about 30 seconds to watch a small section go from dull, oxidized metal to mirror finish (that's not hyperbole). Of course it depends a bit on the finish of the underlying metal, how big and complicated the part is and so on. I've tested it on brass, and though it wasn't as easy on that as it was the aluminum, Simichrome was still much quicker than anything I'd used before (Turtle Wax, buffing compound, Ajax, steel wool).

I bought this jacket three years ago while shopping for welding supplies, but it now doubles as a motorcycle jacket. Convection is the enemy of anyone on a motorcycle. Leather is naturally wind proof, so its brown cowhide suede finish has kept me warm while riding around on my Harley. The jacket's really well made and an amazing value for about $55. I'm just learning how to weld (my particular interest is to build furniture), so my experience is rather limited. However, it's my understanding the sparks created from arc welding have a tendency to melt through most synthetics, and that heavy cotton and leather seem to work best at shielding sparks. The cheaper welding jackets made by Black Stallion are made of cotton and may work fine, but because they can allow air to pass through, they wouldn't work well as a motorcycle jacket. With this one, I get two jackets for the price of one.

Still hunting for the perfect gadgety gift? Looking to treat yourself to what you actually want but didn't know you need? You're bound to find something truly wonderful with one of these stores or catalogs previously reviewed in Cool Tools. I read magazines and blogs. I enjoy reviews and recommendations. Sometimes the best stuff materializes via happenstance clicking, especially if you know where to look.

-- Steven Leckart

X-Treme Geek

Like its competitor Think Geek, X-treme Geek favors products that are high tech, slightly unusual, maybe hackable, and certainly ingenious. However X-treme has a wider range of stuff than Think Geek... -- KK

Available at x-tremegeek.com

--

McMaster-Carr Online Catalog

The best way to describe McMaster is to say that they carry everything you need to build anything. Items that you could normally only order through factory distributors, or materials that could only be ordered in large quantities, are easily available in any size and quantity, no matter how small. (No minimum order, either!) Their prices are excellent and they tend to only carry good merchandise... -- Alexander Rose

Available at McMaster.com

--

Dynamism

The Japanese consumer often gets futuristic gadgets years before the American does. For those who can't wait, Dynamism.com imports advance Japanese goods. Their prices include appropriate duties, warrantees and modifications for the US market; for that service they charge about 30% more than the same device would demand in the Akihabara electronics mall of Tokyo. Dynamism.com specializes in ultra-lightweight laptops (like the coveted Libretto) and ultra-small digital cameras. Tomorrow's technology today. -- KK

Available at Dynamism.com

--

Gemplers

The most he-man cool tool catalog I've come across yet. Gemplers began by supplying the hardware needs of commercial farmers. It now also serves gentleman farmers and dude ranchers, and anyone else working outside -- like contractors, surveyors, landscapers and groundskeepers. The catalog is huge: 563 pages of outdoor gear and heavy-duty tools that real men covet. Many of these tools are specialized or little known. Not just another industrial supply catalog, it's the ultimate backyard wishbook. Their service is good. -- KK

Available at Gemplers.com

--

Harbor Freight Catalog

Both a web presence and a store chain with a mail order catalog, Harbor Freight imports really inexpensive machine, automotive and woodworking tools from the People's Republic of China. It's the first place to go for tools which are needed for one project but you don't anticipate a huge use for afterwards... -- Thayer G.

Available at HarborFreight.com

Related items previously reviewed in Cool Tools:

Google Catalogs

Guides to Gear

A Review of Review Sites

My new year's resolution is to be a better-equipped urban commuter, so I've been assembling a compact, but thorough emergency/repair kit. Aside from safety lights, my Multi-19 tool is the most essential item I now carry with me at all times. It has the same chain tool as the previously-reviewed Multi-17. The two are nearly identical, except the Multi-19 has double the number of screwdrivers (two flat, two phiilips). Plus, in addition to the following hex keys (2, 2.5, 3, 5, 6 and 8), there's also a 4m, which just so happens to be the size needed to adjust my rear derailer's pulley bolts (can't imagine I'll ever need to do that -- let alone on the road -- but it's comforting to know I'm carrying a hex that's pretty much suited to every inch of my bike). The Multi-19 is slightly wider, 7g heavier (still only 175g), and the same length. It comes bundled with an ultra-light "flask" case so it doesn't get snagged on anything in my bag.

Last time I moved I threw out my back repositioning Grandma's china cabinet for the 10th time. My latest (and hopefully last) moving experience was a dream because of the Lay-It-Out furniture templates. These unique life-sized paper furniture templates are the shape of your bed, sofa, tables, chairs, rugs, billiard table. After trimming them to the appropriate size (measurements are in inches and centimeters), we placed them on the floor and -- as I was directed to the appropriate location -- continued moving them around with no effort. I had the whole house planned out before the moving truck arrived and it cost less than the physical therapy and pain killers I had to use before. They are a breeze to use. Measure, trim, position, then reposition and reposition and reposition again... You could buy a roll of something like cheap brown crate paper of course, but I liked that Lay-it-out was ready to go, sizes already measured, and in pretty colors. You can buy a "Total Home Package" or purchase smaller packages specific to the Living Room, Dining Room, Bedroom, Game room, Accessory Tables or Rugs packages. I purchased the whole house package and used most of the pieces, except the billiard table, which I kept pinned to the wall for two weeks as a piece of pop art.

-- Rick Sievering

Lay-It-Out
$15 - 40
Available from Lay-It-Out

Related items previously reviewed in Cool Tools:

Furniture Sliders

Forearm Forklift

At Work at Home: Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace

These ingenious collapsible baskets are made out of recycled chopsticks. Beyond the "green" aspect, we love them because they fold flat, so they're easy to put away. Very transportable for camping and potlucks. They come in four sizes. We have a Large Tea Stained one that is out on the kitchen counter year round for fruit and veggies, and a Medium Natural basket for the overflow during the summer. They hold a lot of fruit, which doesn't seem to spoil as quickly because of the airy design -- makes it easy to clean, too. We have given several as gifts and notice they get used.

Millepede is a refastenable cable bundling tie that is very different from the Zip ties we all know and love. It's essentially a flexible plastic strip of little boxes separated by larger D shapes. The strip terminates in a narrow "needle" that can thread through any of the D shapes and be pulled through to a snug connection around a bundle of cables. The holding strength is amazing. I use them for all my wiring harness applications, but I've also connected multiple ties (the larger burly ones) to fasten down car-top luggage. You undo a Millepede by running the same needle backwards through the same D opening, and if you're fastening something small, you can also pull almost the whole strip through, cut it off at the non-needle end -- unlike the cable clamp -- and then reuse the remainder as many more times as it will fit. They're available in a wide variety of sizes and colors and are also produced in various versions for special purposes (think integral vinyl eyebolts, hooks, baseplates etc.). One bag of 100 might be the proverbial lifetime supply.

These woven vinyl floor coverings are synonymous with high-priced "design" boutiques and museum gift shops. Translation: $$$$. But boy are they resilient. After three years of countless beverage spills, dirt, dust, mud, food, foot traffic, and housebreaking a dog, the 5'10" x 9' rug we keep in our living room looks as pristine as the day we first laid it out. I thought a rubbery rug might feel a bit too industrial. It's functionality won me over. The entire backing is vinyl so it never slides around on our hardwood floors. Best of all, in the event of a spill or restless canine bladder, you wipe it down with a damp cloth. No trips to the cleaners, and less likelihood of stains, depending on the color (our tan/dark brown one has yet to harbor a permanent spot *knock wood*). You vacuum it as you would carpet or a hardwood floor. The only other maintenance is to scissor the edges if part of the weave frays (we've done that maybe three times in three years). Though we scored a substantial discount, I'd pay full price if another room in our home ever calls out for a rug. Chilewich also makes a variety of indoor/outdoor mats, coasters and place settings. The small kitchen mat we've had for two years has been sprayed with dishwater, food droppings, you name it, and it still looks great. It's also much kinder to bare feet than our home's frigid, wintertime tiles.

My 14 month-old daughter has been wearing these noise-reducing headphones for 9 months, give or take, ever since a friend in Norway sent us a pair (they're made in England). As a touring musician and the owner of a record label, I go to a lot of shows. Now not only can we hang out together, but my daughter's even performed with me. She loves the earmuffs, or seems to. She hates hats, but whenever we put these on -- even at home where it's quiet -- she doesn't want to take them off. They seem comfortable (they fit kids up to 7 years old). I also trust my kid's ears are safe because she freaks out over noises and things normally, but doesn't at all when she's at a show wearing these. Plus, in my travels, I've a seen a lot of kids wearing these exact earmuffs.

Whereas most glue sticks are designed to permanently stick paper to paper, this glue stick is designed to create instant, repositionable sticky notes out of just about anything (Scotch specifies fabric or paper). A swipe or two (they recommend at least two) with this stick, and your self-printed content/form/memo will stick temporarily to any flat dry surface without residue. I love this stuff and use it to make my various Getting Things Done/43 folders items and tasks stay put in my handheld binder. I jot my items and tasks down on variously colored pieces of paper of whatever size I need, rub the magic stickum on them, and they stay put in my binder until I decide to move them around. My inner child is happy because I get to play with stickers and glue; my inner adult is happy because I can continually and easily refine my GTD system until it is transparent to the tasks at hand; my inner artist is pleased by the happy riot of colors and shapes that my 'organization' system has become; and my inner accountant is happy that I'm not wasting so much money on little pads of sticky notes. And when it's time, it can all be peeled up and recycled. Although this stuff is more expensive than regular glue sticks, a little goes a long way. If any gets where it shouldn't, it washes off with water.

Now that my daughters discovered I have one of these sticks, I have a hard time getting it back. They are fond of making up board games out of pen and paper, which guarantees lots of little bits in the carpet as the game pieces fly around on the slightest breeze. Now they stay put. Ditto for the print-and-cut-apart paper games like Scrabble variants, chess and checkers that you can print from the Web: playability is greatly improved when the playfield can be held on a clipboard in your lap with sticky pieces that won't budge until you want them to. Next big trip we're taking, the girls are getting clipboards with a stack of these things printed out, cut apart, stuck down and ready to play.

Reader-diners know the pain of trying to balance a thick book and a meal without losing your page or spilling food. As a regular lunchtime reader, I went searching online for a tool that would allow for comfortable hands-free reading -- and eureka! Cleverly designed, this diminutive device is replete with intelligent features: a little pull-out stand supports the book, two sturdy clips hold the pages in place, a pair of pull-out legs holds the book upright on a table. Best of all, spring-loaded page holders on either end make for simple page-turning without the need for repositioning the text; you just grip both holders with one hand and squeeze. I've used the BookGem with a variety of types of books -- everything from thick hardcovers to slim-ish paperbacks -- and it's adapted marvelously. And because it folds down to a pocket-size rectangle, I can easily tuck it in with my book wherever I go.

Tourist Remover is one tool in a suite of free online image editing tools in futureLAB's Snapmania. I used it recently on some pictures I took in Moab Utah to remove people and cars from the photos I snapped. The only thing you need to do is take 3-10 pictures of the subject (by hand, no tripod required), and then Tourist Remover averages the pictures and removes anything that only appears in one of the shots (such as moving people and cars). The tool will not remove anything that appears in two of the shots, such as a parked car. So when taking the pictures and when selecting the ones to use the tool with, make sure the items you want removed only appear in one shot. The rest of the imaging suite is pretty interesting and also does things like stitch panoramas together from several images. The interface takes a little getting used to, but basically once you learn the convention of dragging the images you want to edit onto to the tool you want to use, then it's all pretty easy.

A hand-powered drill allows a subtlety and control you don't get from a power tool, so very much more direct and satisfying to use. From a sheer utilitarian perspective, my Schroeder 1/4" drill is a wonder to behold and use. The gearing is all-metal, so it's built to last. For the price, you won't find a tougher drill. I've used it for building cabinets and tables, puttering around the house and garden, pre-drilling screw holes, and mounting things to walls, etc. and it works like a champ. I used Fiskars hand drills for years but their inner gears are made of plastic and will strip out if you apply too much torque. They also can't be opened up for repair either, so once that happens it goes straight to the landfill, which is really disheartening. With the Schroeder, the solid, single gear is right there in the open. You have to hold it in your hands to appreciate it. Like the engineering in a 1970's Beemer or a piece of Shaker furniture, it's logical and simple, direct and pure. It makes me happy just to spin it.