I have a bit of a crowded mouth -- small mouth relative to jaw size -- so it's very difficult for me to scrub the sides of the rear molars. The Sulcabrush, which I've used for about 15 years, is still the only brush I've used that adequately cleans the far surface of my rear molars. The Sulcabrush works because it's thin, has a couple of good angles to it, and the bristles are medium stiffness, so they don't crap out very quickly. It's a pain flossing back there. Flosspicks (even the Reach flosser) are a little too big for my mouth. I've had some success with Reach toothbrushes and some Oral-B's with the stiffer bunch of bristles at the tip, but after about a week, these edge bristles splay and become less effective.

The Sulcabrush keeps working again and again. Since the Sulcabrush's bristle bundle is pointed, I think the total angle is a little more than if it were flat, and better than what I've experienced with average toothbrushes. I've found the pointed end lets me cover more of the molar sides (chewing surface is easily handled by regular toothbrushes). The downsides are that it's essentially another toothbrush to use and it's not particularly versatile -- i.e. I don't like using it to brush the rest of my teeth, because of the small area it targets and the stiffness of the bristles. However, I'm very happy with how it cleans the crud off the rearmost molars.

-- Ken Yee

Sulcabrush
$5
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Sulcabrush

All of you 220,000 RSS subscribers to COOL TOOLS should detect little difference, but all of you 450,000 unique visitors to the website should notice a redesign. This new layout tweak piggybacks on an upgrade to the Movable Type blogging software undergirding this site. Because of this upgrade we now have user comments available for each cool tool. Click on the blue COMMENTS button at the bottom of each review to see the comments so far, or to add yours. Yes, please add yours. We'll be moderating comments closely to be sure they are constructive. This is your chance to add your own experience, positive or negative, to the usual COOL TOOLS rave.

The new design also makes it easier to access the 5 year's worth of previous reviews on the site. We've devised a visual grid which should allow you to browse the back list quickly and smartly. Clicking on a category on the left hand list (in gray) will bring you to the grid.

If you prefer to see more of them in abbreviated form, click on the LIST view in the upper right. Or if you want to systematically study the archives in full-review mode, as one long scroll, click on the FULL view. (Currently, not all the thumbnails of past items have been upgraded and imported into the new design. That should happen soon. In the meantime they are rendered as gray boxes.) You can also choose to view the archives chronologically. The monthly pages permit the same three views: GRID, LIST and FULL.

COOL TOOLS' new design was created by Thomas Marban. Thomas is the genius behind Popurls, which, for the past two years, has been and continues to be the first website I visit each morning. In a previous review I raved about Popurl's fantastic dashboard for blogosphere. It is a meta-aggregator; it aggregates the blog aggregators. On one big page you can skim over what the major blogs are saying, and dip deeper with a mouse-over, or click on it for the actual story. It is much much faster than any  RSS reader. You can scan the major blogs in about 5 minutes. Marban's Popurls was the inspiration for many imitators, including Guy Kawasaki's AllTop, but Popurls is much more useful because it remains a well-design one page. So well-designed in fact that I asked Thomas to re-design COOL TOOLS. Besides the two improvements I mentioned, there are others sprinkled through the site. Like any redesign there are some implementation bugs; if you find one, let me know. Marban is now innovating other cool tools, which are worth inspecting.

Putting Marban's design into code was the job of MT-master Wayne Bremser. It's not easy overhauling a ship while it is still cruising, but that is what upgrading and redesigning a large 5-year-old blog site with no down time is like. Wayne is an ace programmer and designer himself. I recommend him highly.

Finally, we encountered some security issues in our site during the upgrade. There was a weird hack that was scary because even after inspecting the logs we had no idea how the leeches got in. It was very subtle. No one would see anything amiss in COOL TOOLS unless you googled a few common spam words. Then you'd see a parasitic page on our site that was pirating our Google-juice. We had deep parasites and we didn't even know it. Anyway, turns out when you have this kind of disease you need a specialist. Tony Hansmann is a UNIX security expert, who came, looked, saw, and made a few very select, very deliberate moves and sealed the holes. It was like watching a judo black belt make the exact minimal essential stroke. Or a doctor diagnosing the site's health. He can do a lot of other esoteric high-end cures, but Hansmann is basically a website doctor.  Also highly recommended.

All the while Camille Cloutier made sure each day's review was up and in good order. I am constantly amazed at the amount of energy required to keep an active blog site going. It's like tending a zoo or garden. Not a day goes by that something falters, breaks, needs an upgrade, or tweaking, or some kind of attention.  Doing nothing is not an option because the world moves around us. New versions of browsers, no versions of readers, new gadgets, new features all require us to keep working on the site. Let us know how we can make it better.

Or in other words, how to have good clean fun. Directions for about 25 well-proven games for groups are succinctly supplied by this free PDF book. These games originated in church youth groups, but I've seen them used at camps, large family gatherings, company retreats, and even a few tech meetings. They are aimed at building community, and are primarily ones that can be run indoors. I've played a number of these games as an adult over the years and they really are deep fun. It is amazing how fast you can unleash your inner kindergartner. Some of this group fun, like Silent Football, have been around since ancient youth camp times. I wish more folks would enliven their stuffy meetings and offsites with a few of these games.

-- KK

Deep Fun
Free from UUA

Sample excerpts:

To make this book more user-friendly for youth and advisors, we decided to organize the games into five chapters, loosely based on Denny Rydberg's "Five Steps to Building Community." Introducing new games to your youth group or conference will work best if your timing is right--if you choose games that fit the level of community already attained and nudge the group on to the next level.

Hog Call
Parameters: 15 to 60 people
Have the group split up into pairs and come up with a matching set of words or sounds (i.e. "hic-cup," "peanut-butter," or "honey-bee"). Have each person choose one of the words as their own. Then have each person announce their word to the group, so that there are no repeats. Then instruct the group to close their eyes and start milling around the space with the goal of getting as far away from their partner as possible. Once the pairs are well-separated, announce that they are to find their partners without opening their eyes, by shouting their word. (If all goes well, Peanut will meet up with Butter).

Angel Wash Variations
Parameters: 15 to 60 people
(Remember anyone can opt out if they don't feel comfortable.)
Form two lines facing each other. Have one person from the end of the line (or two people holding hands) close their eyes and place their arms crossed on their chest. Direct them to proceed down the aisle of the double line with their eyes closed. As they pass, each person washes their aura with their hands, passing their fingers and hands lightly over their body, from the crown of their head to the ground, without actually touching them. If the person should stray, the people in the lines can gently direct them back on course. When they reach the end, their friends can communicate to them, with touch, that its time to open their eyes. Continue until everyone has had a chance.

Lehman's is a 50-year-old company in Ohio's Amish country, with a unique bunch of well-made, carefully selected and useful tools for "sustainable" living. Emphasis is on cooking, homesteading, farming, gardening, and doing things for yourself. Country living for sure, but some of this could appeal to urbanites who want to bring some country into the city. Kitchen equipment, canning supplies, copper kettles, cheese-making supplies, grain grinders, toboggans, kerosene lanterns, axes, water pumps. A large selection of wood-burning stoves, as well as cookstoves. Old-time farming and gardening tools (for old-time skills still viable)-on and on. Most of their items are USA-made.

The hard copy (172 pp. catalog) is way better than the electronic version. If you're into this stuff, and/or you live in the country, you'll end up reading it like a book. We've had their catalogs around for over 30 years and I still find myself leafing through one from time to time.

-- Lloyd Kahn

Lehman's Non-Electric Catalog
$3
Available from Lehman's

Or free w/any order

If you've ever tried to slit electrical cable very far without ruining the inner wires, you know how hard it can be. This amazing little tool does in two seconds what can take a frustrating five minutes with a knife or wire cutters. You adjust the blade to the outer jacket thickness, clamp the thing on the cable, revolve it around the cable for the periphery cut (it rotates 90 degrees), flick the lever with your thumb, slit the cable lengthwise as far you want it, and the outer stripped jacket just falls off. Otherwise, especially on a long strip length, you either have to yank the jacket off the wire by hand or try to slit it with a knife, which is when you start damaging wires. This works great on heavy rubber SJO cord, coax, multiconductor, you name it. No nicks or cuts on the inner wires. You can even remove the jacket from the middle of a length of wire by making two periphery cuts and slitting away what's in between.

Even among electricians who strip cables for a living, this tool is surprisingly lesser-known. I've shown this to guys who wire up large industrial machines for a living and had their jaw drop open. And then I never see my slitter much after that anymore since it's always out on loan. It's a hard tool to find at any store (Berlands house of tools used to carry it). I discovered his tool in 1993 or so. Usage seems to go in spurts, depending on projects and which phase of machine building we are in (I design custom automated machinery for a living). Sometimes these five-foot tall electrical cabinets will have 100 wires running out of it, each having to be stripped & terminated. The electricians I work with especially love this tool.

-- Jon Kroninger

$26
Available from Altex

Manufactured by Paladin

When we moved out to a farm, we decided to line dry whatever we could, but handwringing all our clothing, linens and towels is time and energy consuming. And the hand wringing was hard on my more delicate clothing. These electric-powered spin dryers do a fantastic job; the clothes come out just slightly damp and dry quickly. The dryers are also much gentler on stuff like sweaters, delicates and lingerie. Two years ago we bought a small counter-top dryer for the apartment we keep in the city (to avoid schlepping linens and towels). It worked so well and we were so impressed with it I then bought a larger one for the farm. The smaller one spins at 1600 RPM and the larger one at 3600 RPM, so they greatly reduce the time needed for line drying (probably only 1-2 minutes on average). They also help get much more water and detergent out of our laundry than a conventional washer does. There's much less detergent smell. We are most definitely not into the fragrances put in many detergents. It usually smells like nasty chemicals to us, so the more we can get out of our clothes and linens, the better. And avoiding the dryer frees us from that "cooked" smell.

Both systems are completely contained and the water drains into a sink or bath tub. We put the mini one on the kitchen counter (on the dish drainer tray) so we can load wet stuff right from the sink into it. It has a flexible hose that comes out of the bottom in the back, and you just snake that over to the sink and the water goes right back in -- makes it easy to use the same wash water and detergent several times, saving on water and detergent. The large one has a spout in the front at the bottom, which we position over the bath tub. My husband actually built a plywood triangle fitted with some rubber matting on the underside (so it wouldn't mar the tub). The larger one is especially great for cleaning and freshening up bed pillows. They're almost completely dry after only spinning a couple minutes! A couple caveats: you can't turn them on and go off and leave them unattended. And you do have to ensure they're balanced -- if the big one ever got away on you, I'm sure it could do some damage. But after using it a couple times, you get onto how to load for balance.

-- Christine Mank

Spin Dryer
$135
Available from Laundry Alternative

Mini Countertop
(pic at top)
$70
Available from Laundry Alternative

Thrift store hunting isn't just a pastime. It can be an honest living. Finding and flipping used goods for profit has been the main source of income for one of my friends for more than a decade. Though picking through racks of clothing, bins of electronics and boxes of watches -- or trolling eBay and Craigslist -- can be fruitful, another weekend-thrifter friend also swears by Goodwill's online auction site, which features 18,000 items daily that have been handpicked by several stores nationwide. You're getting access to the cream of the crop, but not every storeworker knows the value of what they have or how to describe it -- and every bidder doesn't necessarily know either (the market for vintage Levi's has become so lucrative that people try to pass off faux-jeans to less-discerning eBayers).

Whether you're looking to join the flip economy or you enjoy stumbling on old, rare, cheap stuff, Goodwill's site is a great resource. Here's a bit of what I found recently (followed by current bids): Kodak Colorburst 50 Polaroid ($4.99), Ronco Rhinestone & Stud Setter ($5), Harley-Davidson Men's Boots - size 11 ($11), Nintendo 64 System ($15), Hohner Student IV Accordion w/Case ($9.59), and a Minolta Hi-Matic F 35mm ($8).

Warning: shipping can be expensive. Also, items are purchased 'as is' and cannot be returned.

-- Steven Leckart

Goodwill Online Auctions

Backpackers, canoeists, campers and scouts have two basic ways to stock their food supply: classic prepackaged freeze-dried meals or building your own menu. Commercial freeze-dried camping food is expensive, limits menus choices and is hit or miss in the flavor department. Most of us have learned to shop carefully at the grocery store and put together a fairly lightweight, nutritious menu for weekend trips. But add a couple of people and extend the trip for two or three days and grocery store options get a bit heavy. Supplementing with bulk freeze dried or dehydrated food expands the choices and cuts down the packed weight while developing a tasty, nutritious menu without blowing the budget. If you are planning an extended trip, I highly recommend assembling your menu with these two suppliers in mind.

-- Clarke Green

Honeyville Food Products

I've organized six days of food for 18 people in two crews for a canoe trip (18 meals, 324 servings), which would have been impossible -- or just plain expensive -- had I not ordered Honeyville's goods. They offer a wide variety of vegetables, fruits and other foodstuffs in bulk (#10 tin cans, and cases even). While a single-serving package of freeze-dried strawberries (.06 oz.) from Mountain House is $3.00 ($50.00 an ounce!), Honeyville's #10 can of freeze-dried strawberries (6 oz.) costs just $17.00 ($2.83 an ounce). They will ship an order of any size anywhere in the continental U.S. for under five dollars -- just a little more than a gallon of gas!

Available from Honeyville Food Products

Harmony House Foods

Soups, vegetables, fruits and textured vegetable protein (i.e. soy-based meat substitute) in large AND smaller quantities so you customize freeze-dried meals for long, big, short and small trips. They also offer a Backpacking Kit, a pre-selected assortment of dried foods that will make a variety of dishes. Don't miss these two very helpful PDF files: Using Dehydrated Products and a Serving Size Chart.

Available from Harmony House Foods Inc.

Deluxe sampler
$60
Available from Harmony House Foods, Inc.

The Figure 9 carabiner lets you quickly fasten -- and quickly loosen or adjust -- a small-diameter rope to a fixed point without a knot deploying a clever combination of friction and angles. To those of us with knot-dyslexia, this is a real boon. The only requirement: your fixed attachment point must feature either a place to clip the carabiner (i.e. a metal loop in a pick-up truck bed or a thin, sturdy tree branch), or something around which your line can be looped. That could mean securing a Tarptent to a tree, improvising a handle around a bundle of cables, or securing a travel clothesline between window-grate and curtain-rod.

All you need to do is pull the rope through in the right sequence and finish with the rope's loose end tugged into the notched “V” section to keep the rope attached and taut. There are actually multiple sequences and ways to work the geometry. Three methods are diagrammed in the instructions that come with the carabiner (see below).

Thus far, I have used the devices only with standard-issue parachute cord, but they're sized to work with a range of small-diameter ropes. Though the tying system looks suspiciously wimpy, I've found it is as robust as promised. I ordered the Figure 9s to replace the mesh netting that came with the roof-rack basket on my car. Not only do these make a decent replacement (i.e. riding around with a kayak strapped to my car this summer), but tying one more knot under the car is something I'm glad to skip. Note: the device is anodized aluminum and weighs a bit more than I expected (slight downside to ultra-light hikers); still, "Not for climbing" is printed on the packaging, repeated in the instructions, and emblazoned on each carabiner. I think they mean it.

-- Timothy Lord

Nite Ize Figure 9 Carabiner
$5
Available from Amazon

Also available from Think Geek

Manufactured by Nite Ize

Whippersnappers have been skating around on these single-wheeled skate shoes since the early 00's. Seeing them coast through mini-malls, supermarkets and movie theaters, I started to get jealous/curious. Turns out we don't have to let kids have all the fun! They come in adult sizes, too. I had to special order mine and they didn't arrive for a few months, but it was worth the wait. Gliding across the pavement is every bit as glorious as it appears. Kids make it look deceptively simple. I've really had to work to balance (Ironically, I've tended to stumble more while simply walking in them -- and yes, these things are potentially dangerous, so be wary). My friends think I'm crazy, but there's certainly something to be said for not letting yourself feel too old to try new things.

-- Steven Leckart

Check out this video for a Heely-er who is way more skilled than I am.

Heelys
$54+
Available from Zappos

Manufactured by Heeling Sports LTD

Feet swell during long bouts of confined sitting. If you’ve ever taken your shoes off during an overseas flight, you've likely noticed they no longer fit when you put them back on for landing. To remedy this, I found my first pair of compression socks in a medical supply store. The owner, an old Russian gentlemen, said “It's like strong cup of coffee,” which is kind of true. They really do work wonders for your feet and circulation, especially for long periods of sitting. But being made of heavy-duty nylon, they were not particularly comfortable. It was always a pleasure taking them off after long flights.

Sigvaris cotton support socks are rated as 15-20 mmHg, the same level of compression as my older pair (higher levels require a prescription). However, this pair is soft and comfy. I travel overseas monthly, maybe more. Putting these on still requires some wrangling, but after a recent 12-hour flight preceded by a one-hour shuttle, upon arriving home there is no burning desire to remove them (though when I do, my legs thank me!). They come in men’s and women’s sizes, in various colors, and are half the price of my original medical compression stockings. Though the instructions say delicate machine wash is OK, I've been hand-washing my pair to prolong their utility.

-- Michael Naimark

Sigvaris Compression Socks
$22 - men's
Available from Amazon

Also available in women's sizes from Amazon

Manufactured by Sigvaris

When I used to work on cabling (fiber optic and copper) in the field, I found the most frequent tool I reached for was my electrician's scissors. Over the years, there have been a few "improved" versions, but nothing is nearly as comfortable and useful as the old, all-metal kind. Heavy, thick and blunt, these can take a lot of abuse and can do a lot more than cut. They have two notches for stripping small cables jackets. The edges on the backs of the blades are great for filing and scraping.

Since they are very rounded and short you can carry them in your pocket easily, but they're still big enough to hold comfortably. A shortcoming of Leatherman-like tools is that getting out the scissors can be a pain. When you need scissors, usually you only have a single free hand. These fix that problem. I always have a pair on me. I now mostly use them for clipping cable ties, cutting lengths of string and rope, opening boxes, trimming plants around the house, and especially opening blister-packs. For my work, they were perfect for lacing down structured cabling and dressing cables into a computer or telco rack. We have to scrape paint from the racks to get to bare metal in order to fasten grounding cables, so the filing part of the scissor is a real help. Almost nothing does as good as a job at quick paint-scraping for small areas -- and I've tried everything from 5-1 tools to a Dremel.

There are a variety of brands that still manufacture old-fashioned electrician scissors. Klein's are easy to find in Home Depot, etc. The Jonard's aren't as common, but they're a bit beefier, have a blunted point that won't snap off, and a real nice edge on the back side.

-- Andrew Metcalf

Jonard Electrician Scissors
$11
Available from Grainger

Previously available from Amazon

Manufactured by Jonard Industries Corp.

Tide data, like time and gps coordinates, now flows freely almost anywhere you desire, so there is no reason not to tap into this stream. Plugged into the data I feel more in tune with the outside, and better prepared when I head to the shores.

Downloadable applications like Mr. Tide 3 for the Mac can chart tide highs and lows on any day you want anywhere in the world. Mr Tides displays results in a brilliant visual graph (image below).

But usually all I want to know is what is the tide right now, and for that purpose widgets are perfect. One keystroke and the answer pops up on my screen. There are two free tide widgets for the Mac. In both you set your preferred default place, and then when you invoke the widgets screen it will display current tides and highs and lows for the day. Tide Widget is simplicity itself and works better on my PowerPC version Mac, while Tide App shows the sunset and sunrises as well but prefers an Intel Mac. For 99% of the time, Tide Widget gives me exactly what I need instantly. (Tell me which Windows widgets are best and I'll append them here.)

Yes, you can get the Tide App for your iPhone (I haven't used it there yet), or the previously-reviewed Tide Tool for your Treo.

-- KK

Tide App
Free, available from TideApp

Tide Widget
Free, available from August Hahn

Mr. Tides
Free, available from August Hahn

(top pic via National Renewable Energy Lab)

In the 1970s British bus driver Ken Fern went back to the land. Twenty-five years later he published the first edition of this now-revised compendium, a catalog and guide to a staggering number of mostly-perennial plants that can be harvested for food and other uses. Literally, thousands of seed, root, fruit, flower and leaf crops from a range of bulbs, trees, shrubs, climbers, bamboos, water plants and more. Beyond climatic needs and appearance, plants are described in terms of their taste and, often, highly-specific use (e.g. Asarum canadense. SNAKE ROOT: "a ginger substitute in flavouring cooked foods."). The index is conveniently broken up into edible uses (like condiments and egg and salt substitutes) and non-edible uses (like basketry, disinfectant, and tooth care); for more, check out 100 Other Uses. And actually, the Plants for a Future web site offers a searchable database of 7,000 plants. While much of the info from the book is available online, the printed format can be easier to parse and digest. There are sections on "green manures" and how to mulch with cardboard boxes or newspaper and straw, as well as how to make a pond. Despite all the ideas and potential outlined in the book, the final chapter, "Future Possibilities," truly emphasizes the magical allure of cultivation and experimentation.

-- Steven Leckart

Plants for a Future:
Edible & Useful Plants for a Healthier World
Ken Pern
2000 (2nd edition), 300 pages
$20
Available from Amazon

More info available from Plants for a Future, including lists of the best 143 plants for edibility and 54 for medicinal uses. --sl

I'm of the belief that if cyclists want to be treated as vehicles, they should make every effort to be visible at night. I chose Dinotte because their LED tail lights alone are, by far, brighter than any others I've tried. Although they actually sell a 600L tail light (that's 600 lumens!), the 140L tail light, which I use in combination with a 600L headlight, is bright enough for my purposes. My 19-mile commute is on rural roads that are dark in the fall and winter. More dangerous than dark is dawn and dusk. People can see you if they are looking for you, but a lot of drivers on my route are in a hurry as they rush to and from work, so they cut across the country roads looking for a shortcut, talking on their phones, eating breakfast, etc.

Now that I have my lights, I run them on flash mode when it is dusk -- the bicycle equivalent of daytime running lights. I notice cars pass at a greater distance than bikes with standard blinkers. I have also found I get comments from people. One person actually thought there were police flashers coming from around the bend in the road! The instructions even caution you to mount the tail light to prevent aiming it directly up at the drivers behind you. After years of wondering if the cars coming up behind me actually notice my tail light (and me), I now have confidence they do. With the blinking headlight, I can see speed limit signs 200 meters ahead flashing in the distance.

The big advantage of the 600L over HID and halogen systems is the battery life -- 3.5 hours on high and 7 hours on medium with the rechargeable lithium ion batteries. Since I have two battery packs -- one for the front and one for the rear -- I feel good that should I have any problems in transit, I can always string a cord and tap into the other. Bulb life of an LED is also a big advantage to these lights, obviously. One of the questions I had when ordering the headlight was whether the beam pattern would be wide enough to take a steep downhill S-turn that is part of my route. I considered the wide lens option, but the company's excellent support counseled against it for road use. When I first took that S-turn at 25 mph one night during a new moon, I was impressed. Unless you're a mountain bike rider, the wide lens isn't too necessary.

The biggest downside to these lights is the cost. Cheaper lights are certainly adequate, depending on your situation and usage. I admit these are an awful lot of money, but people spend much more money on cars with power doors, locks, and windows. Add in cruise control and keyless entry. These are all conveniences. By comparison, a reliable and powerful bike light set is very practical. I think of it as insurance. In a few years, these lights will likely come down in price substantially as LED technology improves. If you can wait, you'll be able to save money. I simply didn't want to wait for the market to mature. My lights prevent accidents and they provide a degree of independence, allowing me to bike places I wouldn't otherwise be able to go.

-- Tim Langeman

Dinotte Bike Lights
$145
(rear: 140 lumen - red)
Available from Amazon

$400
(headlight: 600 lumen - white)
Available from REI

Manufactured by Dinotte Lighting

The Kahuna Big Stick is a lightweight wooden shaft with fixed rubber wheels that allows a skater to push and pull while keeping balanced with both feet as opposed to pumping with one foot. On the level, it is way superior to foot-pumping. Even on uphills, I've found if I do a few foot pumps, then follow with a few paddles, it's faster and smoother. On slight downslopes, I can now get a lot more speed by not having to foot pump. It's got me skating a two-block section in town that used to be too slow. Plus, it adds an upper body workout to a sport that, traditionally, challenges your legs mostly. Surfers see me with it and invariably break into a grin; they instantly get it and are charmed. It really is incredible. The day I got my 5' 6" Big Stick, I tried it out in a parking lot while getting gas. Boy! After about five tentative strokes, I started reaching out as far as I could, zooming around. Later that night I decided to skate in the streets (no cars). I got in a bunch of half-mile downhills in an hour. It is insane fun. One disadvantage: you're carrying this stick rather than free skating down hills.

-- Lloyd Kahn

Kahuna Big Stick
$ 90+
(5' - 6')
Available from Kahuna Creations

(image via Stand Up Paddle Surfing Magazine)

Raven maps are artwork. They are the most detailed US state maps you can find on one sheet. Printed in exquisite detail on heavy paper, they radiate clarity. Their colored shaded relief highlights the topology of their place with intelligence and precision. Unlike most maps, Raven maps deliver two perspectives at once -- an expansive overview and tiny close-up details -- a very rare combination you won't find in an atlas or road maps.

These single sheet maps are also huge -- the California map, for instance, is more than 5 feet high. If you have a blank wall, the blend of art and science in these wall maps can't be beat. They act like a doorway or window. I've found that most folks can spend hours studying their home state, reveling in the vast overview and minute discoveries -- "hey, I didn't know about that!" -- of their own turf.

They also make fine gifts. If you get the laminate version you don't need a frame.

-- KK

Raven State Maps
$50 laminated
$30 unlaminated

Available from Raven Maps

Camping beside a windblown lake or a tundra riverbank, where the wind never really stops, is hard on tarps: grommets blow out, seams pop, and there never seems to be enough spots on the tarp to attach a line. Tundra Tarps are terrifically versatile, stout tarps. Instead of grommets the tarp is ringed with 3/4" nylon ribbon with loops sewn in every two feet on the outer edge and interior seams. The sil-nylon material is stitched together using a single needle lockstitch with double stitched lapped ends -- in other words, the cloth will fail long before the seams. The most delightfully ingenious innovation is a central "quad loop" that captures the end of a pole, staff, stick or paddle and hold it firmly in place so that when the wind lifts, the center support does not fall out.

After three years of canoeing, camping and backpacking with the Tundra, the tarp is still one of my favorite pieces of gear. I originally purchased one 10' x 16' tarp for a canoe trip to Canada with a crew of nine Boy Scouts. The tarp has sheltered a crew of nine in violent thunderstorms and been a palatial home for one on backpacking trips. There are cheaper options out there, but from my experience, none matches the true versatility and quality of the Tundra Tarp. Weighing a mere 2 pound 10 ounces, it does not add substantially to the load; there is also a 1 pound 10 ounce version available for an additional $80.00. Each tarp ships with 80 feet of polyester cord, a tube of SilNet sealant and a stuff sack. They are sized from 8' x 10' to 15' x 15'.

The company will also sew your choice of colors, either a single color for the whole tarp or multicolored panels. My tarps are multicolored -- orange, red, blue, and yellow -- which makes them very easy to spot when canoing back to camp. I purchased a second tarp this summer when we added a second crew to our annual canoe trip. We're going to get three more to outfit our entire Scout Troop this fall.

-- Clarke Green

Tundra Tarps
$80+
Available from Cooke Custom Sewing

Manufactured by Cooke Custom Sewing

Quad Loop

We heat our home with wood -- four full cords per year -- and began to feel guilty about borrowing our neighbor’s wood splitter for our annual restocking project. We don’t have room to store a full-size splitter, so I researched and found the Brave EZ split log splitter. At about 1/3 the size and 1/4 the weight (140 lbs) of a standard splitter, it doesn’t take up much more space than a lawn mower and can handle all but the most gnarled logs. The splitting wedge is quite narrow, so sometimes it actually cuts through the log rather than splitting it apart. A full cycle is about 18 seconds, so it's not as fast as a full-size splitter (closer to 12 seconds). Since the wedge isn’t as tall as on a full size splitter, I occasionally have to turn the log over to get a complete split. Also, the splitter only takes logs up to 18 inches long, but these are small trade offs for the ease of storage and transport. If someone wants to borrow it or if there is a downed tree that someone is willing to let us have, we can put it in the back of our van and not worry about a tow-behind-splitter bouncing all over the road. The engine, which runs on regular gas, always starts after one or two pulls.

-- John Savereide

E-Z Split
$700
Available from Northern Tool

Or $716 from Amazon

This microwave popper is simplicity itself: 1/2 cup of corn, a little oil (or not), and a little time in the microwave yields a healthy, low-cost, low-cal snack you can eat right out of the popper's bowl. Unlike other microwaveable poppers or Tupperware containers, the Nordic Ware's top cover has nifty ridges that facilitate comfortable removal after popping (i.e. when everything is very, very hot). If you don't remove the cover immediately, the popcorn gets too moist. I've tried a variety of devices on my long march to the perfect popper... table-top poppers often made a mess (and big noise) and they're not machine-washable. Some microwave poppers require pads that deteriorate with use and need to be replaced, but are difficult to find. The stove top method, I just could never fully master: burned pans, burned corn, mess to clean. Lastly, those convenient microwavable bags of popcorn: if you eat a lot popcorn, you'll be spending exorbitant sums and -- depending on which brand you purchase -- consuming chemical additives. The Nordic popper does not require oil, if you so chose, so the end-product is essentially the same as an air popper. The Nordic can go in the dishwasher -- or just be wiped clean. Plus, the Nordic is perhaps the least expensive one out there. I paid less than $10 for mine. As of late, we've been producing popcorn five nights a week.

-- Daniel Wilson

Nordic Ware Microwave Corn Popper
$8
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Nordic Ware

This small unit measures the effects of breathing on the parasympathetic system in order to help you feel calm and relaxed. My doctor actually prescribed it for me. The results are subtle but pretty amazing. My major successes have been trying to get to sleep at night. I fire up the small playing-card-pack-size box, which runs on two AAA batteries. Then I insert my finger into the trap door on the top left and begin working to control my breathing pattern. If you haven't used it in a while, it coaxes you to reset date and time. Then it begins with a straight line.... and you begin to breath. What the manual recommends is that you breath in through the nose and then exhale from your mouth. What's different from some other meditation and yoga methods is the StressEraser doesn't want you to count on the inhale, but just to breathe in as deeply as you can. On the exhale you should do it slowly with a count to three, four, or five. The idea is to create a curving graph of regularity that can be worth 1 or 3 points on the device. A meditation session can total as many points as you want. Usually I shoot for 30. It takes a while to get into the rhythm of deeply breathing in and then slowly breathing out with a pause at each end point. It takes me about 15 - 20 minutes to get into the pattern and then complete the breathing session. When I finish, I don't feel much different. But when I climb into bed I find it amazingly easy to fall and stay asleep. It's not cheap, but I paid $200 for a returned model at Sharper Image. My friend gave one to her father, who uses it after watching the evening news. She says it's worked well form him, too.

-- George Brett

StressEraser
$180
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Helicor, Inc.

This two-color LED light is geared toward us aircraft owners and pilots, but it's also popular with hunters or anyone else working at night or in conditions where they need to preserve night vision. It has 26 LEDs -- 20 are bright white and six are a less-obtrusive red. The push button switch alternates between the colors. I use mine when I'm preflighting the aircraft and also during flights if I need something more powerful than the existing interior lighting inside the plane. I also know some law enforcement people who use them in vehicles at night. The light is sold by the big aviation supply houses like Aircraft Spruce, but also on Amazon. It's very inexpensive, especially considering how effective it is.

-- Robert Cullinan

Pilot's Flashlight
$18
Available from Amazon

I've made four kinds of alcohol stoves: the previously-reviewed Pepsi Can Stove, the Turbo Cat II, the Peyo Revolution, and the Super Cat. Of the four stoves I built and tested with a stopwatch (in my 60-degree garage), the Super Cat boiled water the fastest. While one of the others took as long as seven minutes to boil 500ml of water, the Super Cat did it in roughly 4 minutes and 30 seconds, and required no fuel re-fills to do so. Your use may vary, but regardless, the Super Cat called for the least number of materials and tools to make. A lot of tin can stoves require assembly with JB Weld, as well as cutting apart cans with scissors and X-Acto blades, which can lead to getting cut on sharp aluminum. To make the Super Cat, all you need to do is open the can (cat food, hence the name), dump the contents, and drill or punch holes in the prescribed pattern. Since it's just a simple dish of fuel that you light in the middle, the stove does not require a primer dish to pre-heat the stove, nor does it require a pot stand. The stove is actually designed to have the pot sit on top. Without the pot on top, it burns much less efficiently; it needs it there to force the fire out the side holes. In the field -- once on a summer mountaineering trip and twice camping -- it's held up and functioned great. It definitely seems more crush-proof than the other stoves. The only disadvantage: I had to throw out the cat food because I don't have a cat!

-- Steve Schmitt

Super Cat Alcohol Stove

Related items previously reviewed on Cool Tools:

Sierra Stove

Wall Tent Stoves

JetBoil