I've been using Storus' simple wallet/money clip for four years now, and highly recommend it. It's just enough wallet to qualify as one, but no more: light, simple, minimalist. The money clip is great, and the other side can hold five credit cards. The cards are wedged in there -- the channel gets narrower as the card slides in. I carry my ID facing out, plus four credit cards. It's a bit tight like that, but it works. As few as one or two cards still works fine, though, and they won’t slide out.

-- Luke Kanies

I have used the smart money clip for six years. No more wallet, just the five cards I use all the time, and a little bit of cash if someone doesn’t want to take my MasterCard. It keeps my pockets free, and I have never seen anything else like it.

-- Jeremy Sluyters

Free is tricky. Free is great for consumers but difficult for business and creators. It is becoming a serious economic force (thanks to digital technologies and automation) but no one is really sure how to use free to, well, make money. Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired, offers the best utilitarian knowledge about the economics of the free I've seen yet. I believe this book will clear up many misunderstandings about this "radical price" and assist creators (that's us these days) in pricing our offerings in a world of "freeconomics."

The hardcover book costs $27, but of course if Anderson is serious about what he is saying the book should be free somehow. And it is, in many versions. You can get free versions on the Kindle, you can get a free unabridged audio version on iTunes or Audible (but note the shorter abridged edition is not free. Time is money!). There are free ebooks on Google, and on Scribd. You can get a free paperback version in the UK. Some of these offers are time limited (that is called a "freemium", free first pay later), others are indefinite. New free versions will be announced on the author's blog at The Long Tail.

You need to take the free seriously. Pay attention to this book, and to Anderson's experiments in practicing what it preaches.

This web-based dashboard gives me an elegant overview of all my financial accounts in one screen. I've been using Mint for the past 6 months and it is marvelous. It is super friendly, quick, and illuminating. It makes me smart.

Mint will aggregate any money or spending account with online access -- which is basically all financial accounts by now. In ten minutes or less I added our bank, credit cards, mortgage, cars, 401k, credit union, checking, and Etrade accounts to Mint. That's the last input I ever had to do. From then on Mint automatically updates all the accounts, sucking in their data with the correct passwords, and integrates this diverse information into a single unified realtime snapshot of our finances. At once glance I can see where we are spending too much, or how we actually allot our income. I no longer have to hunt for my password and numbers for different accounts, say checking our bank balance, or a credit card purchase. It is much much easier, and far more pleasant, to simply log into Mint, where I can see everything. There, in clear presentation far superior to most banks, are all my accounts informing each other. One window to watch them all!

Mint is a read-only interface. There is no way to move money, or reconcile accounts, or pay bills, or calculate taxes (for now). That is also why it is safe. In fact it is probably safer than most banks because fancy algorithms at Mint similar to credit card fraud detection software will alert you when your finances show an unusual pattern. This is one of its cool features. It will gently inform you (at your choice) that say, based on your past months’ expenditures, you've overspent your grocery budget this month. It also makes a fairly good guess at categorizing your expenses on its own. It can then make comparisons of how your budget stacks up to other aggregate users in your area, and offer budget suggestions (which we have not followed). We rarely use cash for anything so Mint gives us a very complete picture.

Some people will not be convinced by any reasoning or proof that having a single window into your entire financial situation is safe. If you are of that type, don't use Mint. But for the rest, who long ago realized that using credit cards online is far safer than using one in a store, Mint is a fabulous cool tool. And it is free. Available anywhere the web lives.

There are a couple of similar sites, such as Wesabe and Geezeo, which emphasize sharing budgets, sort of like a Weight Watchers for finances, but I find their interfaces far less elegant. However this niche is evolving fast, and features expand. Mint has a good head start, a winning design (I love the pie charts!), and a sizable user base, so I think it will be around for a while. (If it did disappear, no loss because it does not store any unique data.)

With a copy of your eyeglass prescription in hand you can order inexpensive glasses online. For about $40 you can get a decent pair mailed to your house in 3 weeks. The optics are fine; they even do progressives. The frame styles are limited. The quality of construction is decent. Of my many friends who have purchased glasses this way, only one had any fitting issues. The rest, like me, love them. I got a solid pair of prescription sunglasses (above image) from Optical4less, and for the first time my daughters called me cool.

The way I figure it, compared to the $400 glasses often cost, it is worth the small risk of these cheap glasses not working out because you don't get to try them on first. Even compared to the inexpensive options at Costco, they are half the price. But so far, they are as good as anything 10 times the price. (Of course, you can make online ones more expensive by upgrading lenses, etc.)

Enough folks are comfortable buying glasses remotely that there are dozens of vendors. The website Glassy Eyes reviews different online eyeglass vendors and favors Goggles4U (based in California). I've had good luck with Optical4less based in Hong Kong and these are the outfit most often recommended by others to me.

One note: to order online you need your PD, or pupil distance, or how wide apart your eyes are. Some mainstream optical offices, like LensCrafters, don't surrender this information easily. It's not hard to measure it yourself.

Crazedlist is a simple, free site that lets you search -- and get RSS feeds for -- multiple cities, regions and categories on Craigslist. I've been using it the last three years to find used sports gear, tools, etc. Recently, when I read about the previously-reviewed Bike Friday, I checked on Craigslist to see if there were any in San Diego. Nothing. Then I went to Crazedlist, where I was able to search the entire West Coast in about the same length of time and came up with at least half a dozen used Fridays for sale. (I still don't have the money, but Crazedlist can't fix that problem).

One of my best finds was an inflatable kayak that I purchased and had shipped from Washington a couple years ago. Craigslist is much more of an imperfect market than eBay, but good if you think you are smarter than the other guy. Like any search tool, Crazedlist's effectiveness all depends on the effort you put into it on the front end. It could probably be very useful searching for a specific job description for someone willing to relocate. I also suppose you could use it to search the personals for a particular quirk or trait, but I haven't tried that; my wife would probably take a dim view of this.

-- Peter Valleau

If you measure value in decades and don't care about appearances then industrial supplies are always the way to go. The previously-reviewed McMaster-Carr Online Catalog is the granddaddy of all industrially-minded geeks, but their focus is on tooling and indoor industrial items. If I'm considering anything for the outdoors, Ben Meadows is the first catalog I pick up and the only other paper catalog on my shelf I use regularly.

Its categories span the spectrum of possible industries: loggers, farmers, ecosystem scientists, surveyors, animal control & management, spelunkers, cable locators, miners, hydrologists, oilfield workers -- and dozens of other areas. It's a weird and wonderful combination of both rugged equipment for burly log-throwing types as well as instruments, equipment, and books that the more scientific-minded person would be interested in. This is the place where pros (or their purchasing departments) come to find the best gear, and I suspect much of it is worth the cost and slight delay even for an amateur.

The inventory of the Ben Meadows catalog is impressive: Six pages of pH meters! Seven pages of measuring tapes! Five pages of arborist ropes! Portable lightning detectors, safety equipment of all types, windsocks, night vision gear, throw nets, waders, fire jumper supplies, forestry cruising equipment -- there is no way I could do justice to the huge variety. I've been getting the catalog for 10 years, and every year find a new person who has never seen it and been just as excited with all the stuff they have never known where to get ("So THIS is where I can get bright green non-toxic water dyes!"). Keeping this catalog handy is a dangerous thing. You'll almost certainly find that tool that makes you think: "If only I knew this existed last summer when I needed it!" And then you'll go order whatever it is so next summer's job is much easier.

The descriptions of certain tools give quick insight into how things are done by the professionals. It's like seeing a shadowy, partial image of an instruction set of how to perform certain tasks. For instance, there is a "Plant Tissues Color Chart" book which allows comparative color examinations of certain plant leaves to determine soil nutrient or toxicity makeup. Well, there's something I didn't know you could do, and now I know how to get more information. Looking through the field test kits, I was surprised to see how many possible test elements there are for groundwater; maybe now I'll test the spring in my backyard to see what kinds of mineral content it has. I would be very surprised if you couldn't find a significant portion of previously-reviewed Cool Tools in this catalog.

-- John Todd

Ben Meadows Catalog
Print
eCatalog

The Cash Can is a small brass tube just big enough for a rolled-up bill. The tube can't be opened unless you remove it from your key ring. It's as easy to remove from the keyring as your keys are. It's also unobtrusive -- the whole thing is shorter than most of my keys. Even though I live in a city with an ATM on every block, I'm big on always having a spare $20 bill at hand. I've usually got one stashed in my car and another in my gear bag, and a third tucked into my wallet. The advantages of the Cash Can are its workmanship and stealthiness -- unless they read this review, few people are going to know what's inside the brass tube. It just looks like a key fob. Plus, if I lose my wallet, at least I've got the cash attached to my keys.

-- Mike Everett-Lane

Cash Can
$18
Available from Sunshine Products

Black Friday has come and passed. The holiday shopping season is in full swing. By now, you're either finished (congrats) or catching up. Here's a few gift guides we recommend, because unlike a lot of year-end round-ups, they don't simply list what's new or flashy, but in most cases make a compelling case for why the stuff's interesting, fun and worth considering. If you have any other great guides you'd like to share, please let us know which ones and why via the submit page or the comments below. Happy hunting, giving and getting!

-- Steven Leckart

Uncle Mark Gift Guide and Almanac

The latest iteration of this previously-reviewed guide is chock full of truly satisfying variety: boardgames, spatulas, watches, child strollers, iPhone apps and more. Plus, a few tips and How-To's that have nothing to do with shopping or consuming.

*

Make Magazine

This year the makers of the DIY bible have fine-sliced the zine's goods and content into a few little fun guides, including those for Music Makers and Chemistry. There's some overlap here and there, but nevertheless, each are worth a look...

Robots!

Everything from fully-assembled $300 bots to $25 DIY solar-powered cars and various other automata kits.

$20 Gift Guide

Little, inexpensive DIY trinkets galore. Build your own LED felt tree ornament, LED mini menorah or both.

Arduino Gift Guide

DIY microcontroller kits and boards for as little as $12! Plus, a Getting Started guide for beginners.

*

TreeHugger

One of the RSS feeds I regularly check offers up 11 different giftee categories like "health nut" and "foodie" all viewed through the lens of modern green. Like a museum gift shop, there's something for pretty much everyone.

*

Scott Kelby's Gonzo Holiday Gear Guide

Kelby's third annual list of high-end cameras, lenses, portable drives and accessories for photogs and aspiring image jockeys, plus his short take on why they're worth the high price tags.

Cabela's started out as a premier mail-order source for hunting gear. It is still known for that, but its coverage has expanded far beyond hunting, far beyond camping, to include anything remotely connected to the outdoors. Its pages overflow with boating tools, trailer hitches, smokers, meat processing equipment, kayaking stuff, binoculars, remote cameras, tent gadgets, tons of clothes, pet gear, RV supplies, and so on. The range of tools sold is staggering. It is a catalog of outdoor aspirations. In general the stuff they sell works as advertised, so one can use them as a pretty good guide to what's useful.

Candid customer reviews of purchased items makes shopping at the Cabela's website almost as good as Amazon's. But you really should get your hands on their 500-page master paper catalog. No one is as keen on web shopping as I am, but the Cabela's master catalog is prime evidence that sometimes a big fat paper book is better. You cannot grasp the totality of what Cabela's has to offer on its website, nor can you zip through it in browse mode as you can while flipping through its 500 crammed pages. It would take days to do the same on the web, and you'd still miss stuff.

A big fat paper catalog can be a big environmental waste mailed out each season. Cabela's has engineered an interesting experiment wherein they display scans of the catalog pages with embedded links to the online item. You get the browsability of the paper catalog and the convenience of web ordering. What you don't get is speed. This method is currently too slow to be enjoyable, but it is a handy option. I still take the paper version.

-- KK

Cabela's

Request for Master Catalog

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

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

-- Lloyd Kahn

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

Or free w/any order

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

Packing material is part of a vicious cycle. No matter how much holiday shopping and shipping my household does, the supply of bubble wrap and Styrofoam peanuts stashed in our garage just keeps replenishing. Hate to throw it away, but can't toss it in the recycle bin either. ExpandOS, on the other hand, are 100% recyclable. Essentially small cardboard pyramids -- made from 30% recyclable paper -- the shapes are engineered to fit together to create a stable environment for whatever's being shipped. As the picture above shows, each pyramid has ridges along its edges and holes in the face of each side, allowing a box of these suckers to lock together into a lattice-like structure.

ExpandOS are intended for commercial use, but I'm posting this in the hope that more businesses will give it a shot.

They way it works is you a purchase large flat sheets of specially-cut cardboard (made from 30% recycled paper). Each sheet gets fed into a special machine that separates and crimps small strips and spits them out in their folded, triangular form. You lease an "Expander" machine (pictured below, note: there are various size units). The machine is free to use if you order four or more pallets of sheets per month. If you order less than two pallets per month, you pay $300 for the machine. One pallet = $1800 = 16,660 sheets. Depending on the size of an order, the cost supposedly breaks down to about $1.50 - $1.80/cubic foot.

I discovered ExpandOS when my wife ordered a piece of pottery from Heath Ceramics in Sausalito. When I emailed Heath, a rep for the company told me they've been using ExpandOS for a year with a very low breakage rate. They say they've eliminated all peanuts, bubble wrap, foam inserts and pillows, and that they're budget for packing materials is roughly the same as it was before (if not reduced). Better yet, their packing time has dropped "dramatically." When they ship multiple items in one package, all they do is place a cardboard sheet between items in a stack, tape them together and surround them with ExpandOS.

-- Steven Leckart

ExpandOS

Savings Calculator & Other Info

Ticketmaster sucks. Consumers hate having to purchase tickets through them because of their outrageous pile of excessive and phony fees. Hosts hate them because Ticketmaster's effective monopoly demands everyone play by their heavy-handed rules. Venues and fans feel totally stuck with them.

However if you are putting on an event and want to sell tickets, you have an alternative that will be cheaper, better, faster than Ticketmaster.

Brown Paper Tickets is one of several alternative online ticket vendors for anyone hosting a ticketed event. Might be a ball, a fundraiser, a race, a concert, or an exhibit. At Long Now we've used them and can recommend them highly.

Brown Paper Tickets bills themselves as "fair-trade" ticketing. What that means is that they offer a fair deal to both the consumer and the venue. BPT provides the lowest consumer fees on tickets (99 cents and 2.5%), with no add-on overcharges, and free first class postage. For hosts setting up an event, they offer fantastic 24/7 live-person phone support, a clean usable website, and cheap (10 cent) printed secure tickets. They offer venue hosts other goodies too. You have control over when to stop sales, how to customize the ticket, ways to manage multiple events, means to offer media tickets, assigned seating, and so on.

Plus, they give you real-time sales, and pay up promptly! Try that with Ticketmaster.

If you are running an event, it's crazy to use the old monster; if you are a fan, petition your venue to switch to Brown Paper Tickets.

-- KK

Brown Paper Tickets

Instead of an uncomfortable wallet in my back pocket, I use this rubber band to carry all of my essentials -- credit card, debit card, driver's license, work ID, insurance card. I really was skeptical of spending $3 for a 5-pack* of rubber bands, but I gave it a shot. The bands are a bit shorter than the standard office variety, so you can put one around your credit cards on the narrow end without having to double it over. As is, it provides a snug fit. They're also very tough, about as thick and robust as the kind used on lobster claws. I've been using my original band for the past seven months. My "wallet" can now fit easily in my front pocket at all times with no discomfort.

-- Eric Doherty

Money-Band
$6 (includes shipping)
Available from Money-Band.com

*NOTE: The manufacturer indicated a newer version of the Money-Band is available for $3 for one single band, not a 5-pack. Additionally, the manufacturer indicated the newer vision is a bit thicker little and about 1/8-inch wider.

I moved to California hauling a lot of boxes still unopened from at least two previous purges of epic proportions. Sound at all familiar?

It's All Too Much is a terrific book that inverts the typical approach to dealing with existential kipple. Rather than helping you find new places and novel ways to "organize" all your crap, author Peter Walsh encourages you to explore why you ever kept all that junk in the first place. Does it reflect a fantasy waistline or a long-abandoned career? What about this "priceless" relic of a late loved one that's been sitting in a moldy trash bag for 10 years? Be honest: what place do these things have in the life that you imagine for yourself? Because, if the stuff you accumulate isn't actively helping get you closer to a life you truly want, then it's getting in the way, and it needs to go. Period.

The biggest change in attitude this book made in my life was to teach me not to generate false relevance by "organizing" stuff I don't want or will never need. Organization is what you do to stuff that you need, want, or love - it's not what you do to get useless stuff out of sight or to manufacture makebelieve meaning. For me, this is about the opposite of organizing; it means disinterring every sarcophagus of crap in my house and, item by item, evaluating whether it's making my family's life better today. And if some heirloom really is precious to me, can I find a better home for it than a shelf in the back of my garage?

You can't believe how emotionally complex this process is for a craphound like me, but once I get started, it's completely exciting - the illusion that all this junk is making me happy melts away with every scrap of paper or broken piece of equipment I can get out of the way.

That's been this book's revelation for me: this is about calculating the very real cost that clutter incurs every day, then deciding what you can tolerate _not_ doing about it. The mindless junk of your past crowds out opportunities and sets pointless limitations. Move out the junk, and you create room for the rest of your life. Ultimately, it's not just a question of tidying your house; it's a question of liberating your heart.

-- Merlin Mann

Merlin Mann's review turned me onto this fantastic book. We've rethought our household because of it. We were reminded that life is not about stuff; it's about possibilities, which the right tools can enable. For a world of expanding stuff, this book is the necessary anti-stuff tool. If you are reading Cool Tools, you need to read this. It will help you distinguish between that which is fabulous for you personally and that which is just more junk to organize. I've learned so much from the author that I've excerpted it generously in the hope that even if you don't read the book, you'll glean a bit of its wisdom.

--KK

It's All Too Much
Peter Walsh
2006, 240 pages
$15
Available from Amazon

These days there's a glut of first-person reportage centered on alternative lifestyles. Some narratives can come across as self-righteous and self-indulgent. This book is not one of those. When 30-something journalist Doug Fine buys a plot of land in New Mexico and vows to live as "green" as possible, his self-deprecating, humorous outlook kicks in. He never denies he's in over his head. Quite the opposite, which makes every misstep and subsequent triumph all the more gratifying. From rearing goats found on Craigslist to garnering rainwater harvesting tips via -- what else? -- http://harvestingrainwater.com, and Googling a VegOil auto mechanic, Fine's journey is exactly what it professes to be: "green, Digital Age living." No substitute for the rigorous how-to's penned by experts, this entertaining, heartfelt journey is a testament to what's possible with a Web connection and heaps of determination. Indeed, the path to alternative living truly begins at our fingertips. Even if you could care less about going green, living local or starting-up solar, there's inspiration to be had. Plus, delicious recipes highlighting some of Fine's homegrown stuffs.

-- Steven Leckart

Farewell, My Subaru
Doug Fine
2008, 224 pages
$17
Available from Amazon

Sample Excerpts:

I had been reading almost nothing but goat literature for a month, much of it contradictory. As usual, books failed to prepare me for real life. The classic goat-care bible is David Mackenzie's 1957 tome Goat Husbandry, and thanks to the line: "The nature of the goat is disciplined, co-operative and intelligent," I had started my career as a gentleman rancher naively thinking that raising dairy goats would be easy. I mean, I'd throw them some hay, breed them, and soon enough they'd be giving growth hormone -- free milk, with enough left over for me to barter locally for things like hay, buffalo meat, and massages. How hard could that be? Now, with five minutes under my belt as a goat owner, one of my kids was kicking me in the pelvis as I tried to get her into my car.

*
I don't like to think about dying, either. But if I had stopped to look at my overall survival ability when I embarked on this experiment, I concede that it would look like a I had a death wish. Without any of the skill sets that allowed earlier pioneers to eke out a life here, I chose New Mexico for the project, both because I love the mellow culture and vast wilderness, and because I thought it would have some of the best solar power potential on the planet... Extremely hot weather actually makes solar panels operate less efficiently -- you get about 0.5 percent less production for every degree centigrade increase in temperature.

Related items previously reviewed on Cool Tools:

Natural Goat Care

AgriSeek

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century

Scott Kirsner has compiled an online list of the best ways to sell your video creations online. Everyone is making video, but few figure out how to sell them. Kirsner gives you 21 different sites that pay videomakers and dissects the monetary deal each one offers. I haven't found anything as useful anywhere else. It is the equivalent of the first version of a "Writer's Market" for digital video producers. This list is free, part of a longer downloadable e-book he hopes you will buy, the Future of Web Video. I did; the rest of the book is a bargain for anyone serious about peddling a video of whatever length. I hope he keeps the list updated.

-- KK

Getting Paid: Sites that Help Filmmakers and Video Producers Make Money
Free
Available from Scott Kirsner

Related items previously reviewed in Cool Tools:

Spiderbrace Video Camera Stabilizer

The DV Rebel's Guide

The Complete Animation Course * The Animation Book

Eight years ago Cool Tools started out as short email messages containing my personal recommendations for cool stuff. I occasionally emailed these quick raves to a very small circle of friends. Several of my friends asked me to add their friends to my list. Soon there were several hundred readers. In the winter of 2000 I published 90 or so of my tool reviews in an issue of Whole Earth Review. This was not much of a surprise since I used to edit the magazine, and the reviews were clearly written in Whole Earth style -- short, always positive, useful. I kept reviewing a tool or book when I thought of it, but after several years of adding folks to the list (which is still going) it occurred to me that with a small amount of extra work I might as well post my recommendations on a blog. On April 17, 2003, five years ago, I posted the first review on this site. (It was the Utili-Key, a sharp blade built into a key, a tool I continue to use and get past airport security.)

Originally the blog was not called Cool Tools but Recomendo (you can still get to Cool Tools from Recomendo.com). I added only one new tool a week since I wrote most of the reviews. In either a stroke of genius or a stroke of luck I asked anyone who wanted to join the list to submit a cool tool recommendation first. (To join the list now, go here.) These reader-supplied reviews were so good, and so frequent, that I was able to post a review per day. While the reviews are primarily written by reader/users each one was edited, checked, polished, researched, packaged and designed by me. When it worked, none of that effort was visible. As the site's traffic grew the name Recomendo was needing too much explanation so after a few months I changed it to Cool Tools.

After years of editing/writing this blog myself, I found relief in Steven Leckart, who has been doing the hard work of researching, double-checking, editing, and presenting the reviews written by readers. Before Steven began editing the site in January 2007, Charles Platt guest edited Cool Tools for four months. And for the past two years Camille Cloutier has been posting entries and managing the blog's health, stability, technical improvements, while adding new features and extinguishing bugs, all behind the scenes. She is this site's vital webmaster. (Thank you, Camille.)

Now that Cool Tools is five years old, it is ready for its next stage. In a month or so I will be turning on a redesign of the site. The idea is to acknowledge the community of readers who have developed Cool Tools, and in the spirit of the times, harness more of that collective wisdom. So version 2.0 will have member's comments, discussions, and more direct means of feedback. It will look a little different, too. I am very leery of messing up something that works, but change is your friend. There is a lot more traffic to the site, so just to keep up with that load requires new tools.

To give you an idea of where Cool Tools is right now here are some stats from February, 2008:

Number of readers on email list: 2,829
Number of RSS subscribers: 187,000
Number of unique visitors per month: 225,000
Number of page impressions per month: 492,000
Technorati rank: 2,824
Amazon's Kindle blog rank: 7

This is a readership that is larger than Wired when we first started it, and 10 times as large as CoEvolution Quarterly and the Whole Earth Review at their peaks. And Cool Tools is run by three part-timers, instead of a staff numbered in the scores. To do that it uses a lot of cool tools.

What follows is the kit of webtools that powers Cool Tools. You could think of it as Cool Tools' cool tools. This is the stuff we use everyday to make the site run. As we like to remind readers, if you know of something better, please let us know.

From day one, Cool Tools has run on Movable Type. MT has handled this traffic easily. We recently upgraded to version 4.0. We also have installed Movable Type's new Community Pack, which will provide the community functions such as member profiles, forum areas, ratings, etc. MT has been a very reliable workhorse. I don't believe we've had any down time due to the software.

However while I eagerly recommend Movable Type it has one fault that is shared by other non-hosted blogging software such as WordPress: it is lousy in handling images to be posted. I am a drag-n-drop guy, a spoiled Mac user, who refuses to code HTML. I also post a lot of images from all kinds of sources. I don't want the extra step of having to upload images to the blog. I feel I should be able to simply drag an image copied from wherever and have it land in the right spot in my blog entry. MT doesn't make it that easy, but the Boing Boing crew turned me onto a tool that I use for all 9 blogs I contribute to: ecto. They call it desktop blogging for Mac and Windows.

I compose all my entries in ecto, (I am typing in it right now), then I drag my image icons to where I want them to appear in the text and then hit publish. I can switch between blogs fast, and very importantly, I can also post to other blogs, including those on other platforms, from ecto as well.

A recursive moment. Here is the page I am composing in ecto. WYSIWYG.

This allows me to cross-post entries to Wired's GeekDad, or Long Now's Long Views. (There are other blog composers that have fans like MarsEdit, and Abode's Contribute, but I haven't found them superior for what I do. I should also clarify that hosted blogging systems like Blogger and Typepad have much better interfaces and don't require the friendly composers that way industrial-level blogware hosted on your own server does.)

Other tools: I use EasyBatchPhoto to resize my images to a proper blog-specific size. It's a little Mac utility. I don't know if it is the best, but it works. I drag an image into it and it resizes it and dumps it in the right folder. It'll also add a watermark for my Asia Grace images.

For outbound RSS feeds we use Feedburner. It has a pleasant management interface, and gives me handy stats about readership and what items are read. It has a lot of other tools, which we don't use out of laziness.

Half of Cool Tool's income comes from ads, as served up by Google Adsense and FM's ad network. The other half comes from Amazon purchases. We are enrolled in Amazon's Affiliate program. That means that when a reader clicks on a red link to Amazon, and actually purchases the item, Cool Tools gets 8% of the purchase price. We don't have an affiliate relationship with other vendors, except Netflix. But Amazon's deal is interesting because Cool Tools will get a fractional cut of any thing else a reader purchases on a visit initiated by a link in Cool Tools, whether or not they purchase the linked item. If you go to Amazon to check out a pair of tweezers listed in Cool Tools but end up buying a $24,000 tractor for the backyard, we get a fraction of the tractor purchase.

Cool Tools and all KK* blogs are hosted by WestHost, who are headquartered in Utah. Over the years we've outgrown the small-time web hosters we once used. Because of our traffic is hefty enough we have our own dedicated dual processor machine at WestHost, although they offer many options for lower traffic sites.

Their minimum package starts at $4/ month. We are happy with them. Prices are reasonable, downtime negligible and service excellent. They claim 99.9% uptime and that matches our experience. We can reach a capable human on the phone or via chat any time 24/7 almost instantly. We also run our mail through them, and they also handle our domain registrations. And they include AWStats for monitoring traffic.

For web stats that we really think about, that is, for keeping track of the number of visitors, what is being read, and all that, we use Google Analytics. This is a wonderful free service. There is so much power and depth in this tool, and Google Analytic's interface is so elegant that one could mine it full time. You get what the web has always promised publishers -- an exact picture of how your content is used. But frankly, I hardly delve into it because I am not really trying to optimize traffic. (I am trying to optimize usefulness of the content.) I dip into once or twice year just to see what's going on. Sign up is quick and painless. You simply need to insert an invisible pixel on all your pages.

Google Analytic's results for Cool Tools.

I need to search Cool Tools all the time. I am constantly trying to find a tool in the archive, or researching similar past tools. The standard blog search function included in Movable Type was pretty spotty and never worked very well. We've found that Google's search of Cool Tool pages was far more responsive and practical. So now we use another fantastic service from Google, Google Custom Search. Google offers this as a free custom search box which you can install on your blog. This tool will provide readers with very fast, excellent search results of just your blog. You can install a free dedicated search for as many blogs or sub-groupings of pages as you wish. (In fact you can gin up your own "search engine' for any set of websites you want.) The free version of Custom Search displays Google branding and ads and has limited design possibilities. We use a pro (paid) version on most of the KK* blogs (but not Cool Tools yet) which removes the ad and allows us to style the results in line with the rest of the site's design.

I still maintain the original Cool Tools email list. Members of the list get a weekly email with the 5 cool tools that week before they are posted on the website (usually). To get on the list you sign up here and provide a cool tool you love. I've been using a bare-bones email list manager called Minimalist. It really is minimal. You can only interact with it via email (!!), it is currently unsupported, and it was written eons ago. But it was free and worked. However lately we've had a few hiccups with it, so we will be moving onto a new mail list program, Dada Mail.

-- KK

Related items previously reviewed in Cool Tools:

KK* Lifestream

Peopleware

Money for Nothing

These reusable nylon bags are about the size of a plastic grocery bag, but are stronger, can hold a lot, and they pack into a self-contained pouch attached to the bag. They become very small when collapsed/packed and are very lightweight (1.5 oz). It takes me around five seconds, to stuff one back into its pouch (I think I've even done it in two). I find I can easily keep three ACME's in my not-huge handbag so I don't have to remember them; a lot of my shopping is done walking, so the car isn't the best place for them. I use them multiple times per day because of their convenient size and weight. Unlike the reusable shopping bags sold at grocery stores, these don't have a logo emblazoned on them, so I feel comfortable bringing them into any store. They're cheaper than similar bags of this nature I've seen. They also come in subdued colors -- I have three in black (I originally ordered four, but my boyfriend nabbed one as soon as he saw them! I also just ordered four more in a different color). Before purchasing I was concerned that they don't have a flat bottom -- I thought they might spill all over when I do throw them in my car. Turned out not to be a problem, because it's very easy to knot and unknot the handles. Because ACME's handles are part of the body of the bag, there are no seams to get stressed by the load. I definitely haven't maxed mine out, but ACME advertises it can hold up to 25lbs. I've mainly put things like a gallon of milk, plus other stuff - definitely things I would have doubled up a regular plastic bag for.

I save about 3-4 plastic bags or 2-3 paper bags each trip to the grocery, about 12 plastic bags per week, not counting all the other non-grocery places I pick up additional bags. I used to have a few of the Whole Foods-style reusable bags, but don't use them at all now. The ACME bags are far more portable. Helping the environment feels good, and I find the concept of reusable/self-contained things to be elegant, but the main reason I am so happy with the ACME bags is how much they've reduced the clutter in my life. I have a tendency to carry a lot of "junk" from place to place--home to car, work, and even within my house--and then I end up with large numbers of bags hanging around the house/car/work. Having only three ACME bags in use at once forces me to empty them immediately so I can use them again. And then I don't have to wonder what to do with the plastic bags I get from the store.

-- Maria Blees

ACME Workhorse Bag
$8
Available from ReusableBags.com

Or $24, buy 3/get 1 free from ReusableBags.com

Related items previously reviewed on Cool Tools:

Gossamer Whisper Uberlight Pack

Ikea Tote Bag

Grocery Bag Panniers

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.

-- KK

True Films 3.0
By Kevin Kelly
2007, 198 pages, PDF (Acrobat Reader 8)
Free
Available (for as long as bandwidth lasts) here.

If you have trouble downloading it from my site, readers have generously mirrored the file here or here.

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

Since it debuted a few years ago, I've eagerly awaited the arrival of these product-packed issues of Wired. Tested, reviewed and rated are pretty much every gadget imaginable in every category imaginable (much of it very newly-released, too). Again, exclusively for Cool Tools readers, Wired's editor in chief Chris Anderson has graciously provided a pdf of the Fall issue (on newsstands today). What you get: 125 pages of solid content broken into specific sections and spreads, everything from A/V to office to kitchen to automotive to garden to gaming equipment and accessories. This means: flatscreens, laptops, lawnmowers, headphones, pocketcams, DV cams, blenders, cell phones, wine openers, strollers, and more, ranging from cheap to relatively affordable to the 'yeah right.' Items are rated on 10-pt. scale with "Editor's Picks" and specs-comparison "Scorecards" for the quick take away. Of course, the highs and lows for each and every product are detailed, warts and all, from the most minor annoyance to the biggest bonehead oversight. As a consumer, I value and crave the details. I read a ton of reviews prior to any purchase, especially those on Amazon and Epinions. There's still just something about glossy photos and thorough, thoughtful editing that makes a 'professional' guide like this virtually irreplaceable. File under: porn for consumers.

-- Steven Leckart

Wired Test
Available at Wired.com

Available for download (8MB PDF)

[DISCLOSURE: I contributed one short review to Fall Test; otherwise, I had absolutely no hand in its creation --sl]

Related items previously reviewed in Cool Tools:

A Review of Review Sites

Pricenoia

Guides to Gear

I have mixed feelings about U-Haul and their prices, but one thing they have done that is priceless is create and maintain a surprisingly helpful Box Exchange forum. It's a standard web forum divided into geographical areas so people can request free used boxes or make theirs available for free or cheap. We just saved ourselves $250. After responding to two posts, we had something lined up in no time. We drove into the city (Manhattan) the next day from where we live in Jersey City and picked up a bunch of boxes in various sizes that were practically brand new -- all for free. I basically ignored the "buy" forum as the "free" one was successful in under 24 hrs. We first tried Craigslist, but found that most people in our area at the time wanted money for boxes. From our experience, people on the U-Haul forum seemed willing to go a little out of their way to get rid of their boxes. Most of the posts are definitely from individuals, but interestingly, there were a couple of business disposing of boxes (we got ours from an electronics importer in Chinatown). We have not yet completed our big move to Wisconsin, but will be giving away our boxes the same way when we do.

-- Guil Barros

U-Haul Box Exchange
Available from U-Haul

[The site does not have anywhere near the critical mass of a Craigslist, but if you're looking to save $ and/or recycle, it's worth having another resource in your arsenal -sl]

Related items previously reviewed in Cool Tools:

Forearm Forklift

Freecycle


Nylon Hand Truck

This book will make you look at every store-bought item you own or debate owning with a curious skepticism that -- after reading the book -- won't seem too unwarranted. It was published two years ago (a cheap paperback came out in the fall), but if you've yet to explore the fascinating, potentially paranoia-inducing, world of RFID and you want the cautionary, consumer-advocate perspective about the Radio Frequency Identification tracking being proposed -- and used! -- by certain companies (for instance, Gillette, Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart), I highly recommend this one. I've been meaning to read it for a while and so some of the stories were familiar (i.e. the nightclub in Spain that chips its members), but there were plenty of bits that were new and interesting to me (i.e. all the patents IBM has applied for, including one for an RFID-enabled closet). Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre take a pretty sensationalist tone -- "Big Brother" is mentioned a number of times -- but the scope of the research is impressive (lots of endnotes) and their insight into how this tech could be abused is thought provoking.

-- Steven Leckart

Spy Chips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Purchase and Watch Your Every Move
Katherine Albrecht & Liz McIntyre
2006 (paperback), 304 pages
$11
Available from Amazon

Sample Excerpts:

While it may occasionally occur to workers that their [employee ID and access] badges can squeal on their movements, there's one place they probably don't expect to find an RFID reader: the bathroom. But a company called Woodward Laboratories has found a way to embed a tag reader into a product they call the "iHygiene Perfect Pump." It's a liquid soap dispenser that doubles as an employee badge reader and monitoring device. To unsuspecting employees, the device appears to be a perfectly normal soap dispenser. But hidden within its sleek plastic exterior is an electronic spy that captures the ID badge number of the person standing at the sink...The handwashing surveillance system requires employees to wear RFID-enabled badges, but soon employees' actual uniforms could report on them instead. The nation's top two uniform rental companies, CIntas (which clothes workers at Starbucks, Disney, Sears, and Wal-Mart) and Ameripride (with clients like Ooutback Steakhouse, 3M, and Cherolet) have quietly begun slipping spychips into employee uniforms to keep track of washing and rental logistics. The tags come encased in sealed plastic disks that can withstand years of commercial laundering, yet still beam out their unique ID numbers whenever they come within range of a reader device.

After minor successes chipping nightclub revelers [in Spain via Applied Digital], the RFID industry turned its marketing efforts to an even more acquiescent crowd: the dead. They were on hand with microchips to implant into the corpses of the victims after the devastating Southeast Asia tsunami, and they're ready to help should research organizations like the University of California decide to embed RFID chips into cadavers and associated body parts. The school is considering microchips as one possible way to stop the illicit trafficking of human remains donated to their school in the wake of lawsuits by donor families.

I normally steer clear of overview texts, but I have to say this book, part of the "Rough Guide" series, is an excellent, refreshingly straightforward resource on how to consume with higher ethical standards. Granted there is some overlap with Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century, but this book -- a cheaper paperback (printed on paper made from 100% recycled fiber) -- focuses less on interesting cultural tidbits and inspirational sketches of specific communities. Instead, it's a no-nonsense look at the in's and out's of the plethora of choices you can make to change and manage your impact. There are very concise, instructive passages on topics like ecotourism, local vs. organic, clean cosmetics, socially responsible investment (SRI) -- including a four-step plan for "Greening your pension fund" -- as well as the benefits of switching to solar, wind and/or micro-hyrdo systems (For instance, did you know the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy [DSIRE] maps the tax incentives and grants available in various states?). Overall, it reads like one of those "Complete Idiot's Guide" books, which is precisely why it's so useful. The sections are short and the language is clear. Considering how much info is floating around online, this book could really help cut through the noise and arm you with the basics.

-- Steven Leckart

Shopping with a Conscience
Duncan Clark & Richie Unterberger
2007, 344 pages
$12
Available from Amazon

Sample Excerpts:
The 'e' word is without a shadow of a doubt subjective, morally loaded and often problematic. And it's easy to make ethical consumerism sound laughable by taking it to its apparently absurd logical conclusions. But, while you could spend hours arguing over the subjectivity of it all, semantic nit-picking is not really very good grounds for ignoring the effects we have on the rest of the world. And, while we have all our own specific ideas of what should and shouldn't count as accepted standards, it's probably fair to say that we all aspire to some common idealsŠIt's surely more constructive to ask how these standards can be achieved than to argue over whether or not ethical shopping is an oxymoron.

*
The mortgage industry is a huge part of the US economy; in 2002 alone, it financed $2.5 trillion in loans. Considering what a massive business it is - and how the building of "green" or environmentally responsible real estate is itself a rapidly growing field - it's rather astonishing that there are virtually no companies or financial institutions specializing in "ethical" mortgagesŠThere is one company that does make a clear commitment to supporting environmental and social causes as part of its standard operation. MortgageGreen based in Marin County near San Francisco, earmarks 10% of its profits for a dozen organizations devoted to environmental sustainability and progressive social change, including the Rainforest Action Network, Environmental Defense Fund, Earthjustice and Adbusters. As with socially responsible credit cards, this could take a while to add up to a substantial sum, though as the company points out in its literature, if just one in a thousand US mortgages were funded through such a program, $5 million would be generated annually. MortgageGreen says it will beat any mortgage lender's total loan package cost, and contribute $400 to its social and environmental activism fund in the borrower's name if it can't meet that obligation for any reason.

Chasing a guilt-free, consumption-rich lifestyle can be exhausting. Managing your ecological footprint, however, isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. It starts with incremental change(s) - or, as this book suggests, it first necessitates a certain awareness of your environment, the objects in it, and the origins, travels and projected lifespan of said objects. Fittingly, the book begins with a chapter on "Stuff" (and, incidentally, the Guide was printed on recycled paper and wind power credits were purchased to account for the energy it took to print each copy). One of seven sections transposed from the Worldchanging blog (Shelter, Cities, Community, Business, Politics and Planet are the other six), "Stuff" alone left me dumbfounded as I perused my home. Nevertheless, the book's steadfast optimism and do-what-you-can attitude rescues it from the preachy, doom-and-gloom self-righteousness that can plague a lot of 'environmentalist' works. The Guide also provides informative sketches of communities far and wide that are exploring and enacting change of all types. It's a good introductory resource on a staggering range of material -- everything from biomimicry to freecycling, citizen science and social entrepreneurship to prefab and Brazil's telecentros. If you happen to know each of those in detail, there's more than 500 pages of other ideas (plus dozens of other books and sites highlighted within). Sure you could just tune into the blog, but owning a physical, inspirational snapshot of where we're at now means you can revisit it in time, if only to see what sticks.

-- Steven Leckart

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
Alex Steffen (Edited), Al Gore (Foreword), Bruce Sterling (Introduction)
2006, 608 pages
$25
Available from Amazon

Also independent bookstores near you

[DISCLOSURE: Kevin Kelly's name is one of several that appear on the jacket cover of this book and within.
Yes, he publishes Cool Tools. No, he didn't give me the book or suggest I cover it. -- sl]

Sample excerpts:

Good intentions are great, but remember that only passion changes the world. There are more avenues for action than even the most motivated overachiever among us could ever pursue. So we shouldn't try to do everything: we should try to do the right things. When we seize the chance to make changes that are both important and speak to us as people, we transcend good intentions and more meaningfully express who we are. Why be boring? Why follow other people's instructions for designing a better life? The world needs more passionate people, deeply engaged with the business of designing their own lives in ways that speak to them. From passion comes creativity, and from creativity come better answers.

The equation we should all follow is this: do the easy things, then do a few more challenging things that we really believe in and enjoy. If we're home repair geeks, we should green our homes. If we're policy geeks, we should find the best practices around, adopt them, and improve them. If we're fashion geeks, we should show the world exactly how fabulous dressing green can be. If we're business geeks, we should make our fortunes selling a sustainable product the world really needs. If we're gardening geeks, we should make the yards in our care thrum with life. The world doesn't need our suffering, it needs our shining examples, and every one of us has an example to set.

*

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, Communist Cuba not only lost its biggest buyer (the Soviet Union had paid above-market rates for Cuban industrial-agriculture products such as sugar), but it also found itself faced with a U.S. embargo, and at a distinct advantage in the global economy. As a result, Cuba had no money with which to buy oil, fertilizers, or pesticides - the main ingredients in factory farming.

One result was hunger. In 1989 Cubans were consuming an average of 3,000 calories per day; by 1993 that number had dropped to 1,900 - the equivalent of skipping one meal. The Cuban response to this crisis, born out of necessity, was to create a system of sustainable agriculture that was not reliant on fossil fuels or global shipping systems...

The government instituted a program that turned Havana's many vacant lots into farms or community gardens, virtually handing the land off to anyone who agreed to turn it into a viable food source. This scheme was so successful - many neighborhoods were able to produce at least 30 percent of their own food - that it quickly spread to other cities. Today, Havana's crumbling buildings are stitched together with farms and gardens. Forty-one percent of Havana's urban area is used for agriculture, and the city generates 51 percent of Cuba's vegetables...

Best of all, most of what Cuba produces is de factor organic, because the lack of available pesticides and fertilizers meant that scientists and farmers had to devise ways of protecting and controlling crops using only what nature provided.

This is a behavior-changing book. It explores the origin of modern North American food and challenges you, the reader, to confront the genesis of what you eat. It does not begin as you think it does. Author Pollan, now an enlightened omnivore, challenges everyone to take responsibility for their food -- no matter what it is -- by tracking its path back to the sun. If you can face the path of your food in full knowledge and be at ease with it, then happy eating! If not, then Pollan traces out interesting alternative food paths, pioneered by memorable characters full of great stories. For instance he feels obligated as a meat-eater to not only to witness the slaughter of his meat, but even to kill it himself if he can. He leads us steadily all the way down this road without ever scaring us off. As one experiment, he prepares a meal with food that he either hunted or grew himself, and again tracks its moral and energetic path to the table. Almost everyone I know who has read this book, including our family, has altered their eating habits in interesting and unexpected ways.

-- KK

The Omnivore's Dilemma
Michael Pollan
2006, 451 pages
$18
Available from Amazon

Sample excerpts:

Descendants of the Maya living in Mexico still sometimes refer to themselves as "the corn people." The phrase is not intended as a metaphor. Rather, it's meant to acknowledge their abiding dependence on this miraculous grass, the staple of their diet for almost nine thousand years. Forty percent of the calories a Mexican eats in a day comes directly from corn, most of it in the form of tortillas. So when a Mexican says "I am maize" or "corn walking," it is simply a statement of fact: The very substance of the Mexican's body is to a considerable extent a manifestation of this plant.

Though it was only the third week of June, the pasture beneath me had already seen several rotational turns. Before being cut earlier in the week for the hay that would feed the farm's animals though the winter, it had been grazed twice by beef cattle, which after each day-long stay had been succeeded by several hundred laying hens. They'd arrived by Eggmobile, a ramshackle portable henhouse designed and built by Salatin. Why chickens? "Because that's how it works in nature," Salatin explained. "Birds follow and clean up after herbivores." And so during their turn in the pasture, the hens had performed several ecological services for the cattle as well as the grass: They'd picked the tasty grubs and fly larvae out of the cowpats, in the process spreading the manure and eliminating parasites. (This is what Joel has in mind when he says the animals do the work around here; the hens are his "sanitation crew," the reason his cattle have no need of chemical parasiticides.) And while they were at it, nibbling on the short cattle-clipped grasses they like best, the chickens applied a few thousand pounds of nitrogen to the pasture -- and produced several thousand uncommonly rich and tasty eggs. After a few week's rest, the pasture will be grazed again, each steer turning these lush grasses into beef at the rate of two or three pounds per day.

[Note: the most recent edition is the True Films 3.0 ebook]

This is version 2 of my reviews of the best documentaries and factuals available. This time I review 150 of the best true films and list two dozen others which I deem only "good." For each film I present 4 or 5 screen shots, and captions, which I snagged from the film to give you some idea of their texture. As before I only review films that are easily available at consumer prices. That means films in theatrical release or locked up in "educational" pricing schemes are not included.

You have about 5 different ways to get this book. I designed the book in color, but you can buy a black and white softcover version from Lulu.com, where it is the cheapest, or for a bit more from Amazon, where it is the easiest to order. Or you can buy a luxurious 156-page full color softcover version from Lulu. Or you can buy a dirt cheap color version as a PDF download, and get it instantly. In a few weeks you'll be able to get versions for e-book readers and PDAs.

Now here is the thing. In each mode, I make exactly the same profit: $1.50 per book. In an experiment in new publishing I have priced each version $1.50 above my costs. So the different prices merely reflect the different costs of that venue. This means I don't care which edition you choose! Whether you buy the $2 PDF version, or the $30 color Lulu print version, or order from Amazon, I make exactly the same $1.50 per book. As I add other options for purchase the same process will apply: my total markup will be $1.50 above my costs.

Do I need to mention there is the free website version? Not as handy as a book, but updated with my latest additional reviews. However, I'm partial to the book version. It is a great browse, very concentrated and accessible and as it says on the cover "Perfect for Netflix."

-- KK

PDF Download
$2
Available from me via PayPal
$1.88
Available from Lulu

Black and white softcover book
$10
Available from Lulu

Black and white book
$20
Available from Amazon

Color softcover book
$30
Available from Lulu

TrueFilms website

Since I'm in the gear business, I pay attention to the many End of the year Gift Guides that pop up now. Most of these collections are filled with stuff that doesn't interest me. For some reason editors, and maybe consumers, are entranced by gear that looks cool. You know, very design-y. These fashionable objects don't work better, and often work worse, than what is already out there. As utility objects they are junk. Most often the editors haven't even handled, let alone used, the object they are listing. It's inclusion is simply based on the clever look and concept. And what is not fashionable, is electronic. Most holiday lists are full of all kinds of the latest cell phone/camera/DVD player/PDA and so on. As far as I can tell these items are selected for their features -- as listed on the product's spec sheet -- and not by any trial or use. Their supposed advantage in reality has a half-life of about 3 months, as their feature list is topped by the next model.

There are a few seasonal lists that don't get sucked in by these temptations and actually try hard to uncover new cool tools. Here are a few that I find have a high ratio of hits to junk. The primary quality they share is that the reviews have used the thing and demonstrate some passion and intelligence for it.

-- KK

Uncle Mark 2007 Gift Guide & Almanac
Mark Hurst runs the Gel Conference in NYC and every year writes up his personal recommendations of what you should get -- along with some other tips. He offers this advice in a very smart, succinct and well-crafted PDF, which is a joy to read.

*

Wired's TEST
It's a lot more work than you'd think, but Wired actually tests the contenders in two dozen gadget catagories and comes up with clear suggestions of the best gear to get. You'll get the magazine-like issue if you subscribe. If you don't, you can get the web version for free here.

*

NPR's Great Gadgets
NPR's daily All Things Considered program has a small segment where gadget experts rave about their own favorites. Called "Great Gadgets" it lets various gadget aficionados rave about their favorite things. You can listen to those segments online. [Thanks to Gregg Lewis for the suggestion.]

*

2006 Street Tech Holiday Gift Guide
Gareth Branwyn collects the best of the stuff he had seen in a year of reviewing gear for his online site Street Tech and distills the best for the year. It is a personal selection, of (mostly) stuff that he uses, which gives the recommendations some clout.

I come from a long line of women whose lives were one long austerity measure, and I understand a lot of the basic principles for getting by with a smile: save cash, spend downtime increasing household efficiency, make your own stuff, and hang tight.

But it can be hard to change any habit, including habits about how we spend money. It's easy to slip into a rut of buying the same stuff all the time at the grocery store without noticing weekly price fluctuations. Using the Handy Adder is an effective and weirdly fun way to reconnect your attention with every item and not get hosed or miss big price increases. It's the grocery store version of Be Here Now.

Onward, Mighty Bargain Hunters!

-- Lisa Williams

Handy Adder
$5
Available from The Five and Ten

The source for all your nursery, grounds-keeping, and landscaping needs. Pages and pages of every variety of rakes, rows of shovels, more carts than you knew, sprinklers, clippers, pruners, and so on. These tools are aimed at pros, but creative and diligent amateurs will find plenty of interest here.

-- KK

Right:
Toolite Shovel, $58
Super Pole Saw, $146

These and more at A. M. Leonard

Yokel makes finding local "things" less time-consuming and more cost-efficient (especially with the gas prices these days). Similar to GoogleMaps and YahooLocal but with more relevant results. And the Yokel search engine helps comparison shop online for things you want to buy offline at local stores. All you need to do is type in what you are looking for and the city or zip code you want to buy it in and Yokel provides the results. It seemed really helpful for items you wouldn't want to ship or more abstract items like a motorcycle trailer.

-- Kate

Yokel

This on-line DVD publishing option just changed the world of self-distribution of videos and documentaries. Put a DVD online at Lulu. They take orders and professionally print, package, and mail the dvd. They automatically calculate royalties and send them to you. Their cut is 20% of royalties, or a minimum of 20 cents per DVD whichever is more.

After setting it up, all you need to do is give your potential buyers a web address and lulu takes care of everything else. I'm going to put a short hospice documentary on Lulu in a couple weeks, where it should sell for about $8, shipping included. That's about the minimum cost for a single DVD.

You don't have to manage the copying, packaging, shipping or billing.

-- Tony Levelle
[Kevin Kelly's recommendations for self-publishing on Amazon.com were distributed in a previous Cool Tools dispatch, archived here. Amazon takes a bigger percentage than Lulu, however. -- CP]

$ price varies
Available from
Lulu

I weld, build, and purposely tangle myself up in lots of computers/servers. I discovered two surplus stores that not only provide material fuel for all of the aforementioned activities but at a great discount no less. Both stores are open to the public and offer everything from large precision machinery to fiber optic cables to airplane leather by the roll (!). I spotted a Herman Miller Eames molded office chair at the Boeing store (sold tag on it) while I was walking out with my $15 in purchases, an IBM M-series (clickety) keyboard, and a portable DIGITAL anti-static electronics workspace circa 1970. If you are a grade school science teacher with a dwindling budget for demonstration instruments, or an art teacher in need of found objects for your class on sculpture or still life drawing, these places might be useful. Perhaps you're just in need of milling equipment, pneumatic tools, safes, drafting tables, powered work carts, or raw sheets of aluminum, mild and stainless steel, titanium even. It's there if you ask. Oscilloscopes are often for sale at less than $50. I recently acquired another Sun Microsystems Ultra-x, which was one too many, and I saw that the laser printers which I ought to have bought instead were on sale for $10 that day.

Too good to be true? Sometimes. While there are online listings, there is no online purchasing so one is bound by geography and you have to go often as the good stuff rapidly departs. Take your time on a nice day to explore both the inside hanger and outside lots for things. Bring a truck and some friends to help you move the stuff. The large equipment goes quickly and the electronic and computers/peripherals are usually untested. Drill bits and calipers are plane- and submarine-building size, though great candidates for creative adaptive reuse reincarnations into your latest robotics project. The best finds are sometimes boxes of widgets that, when asked what they are, the staff smirk, shrug, and tell you they can't remember. Respect that most of the people there, at P&W certainly, seem to know what everything is to insure that the stuff gets priced accordingly and, more importantly, to make sure nothing whose purpose was previously classified, is marked or misplaced.

The Boeing store is the larger of the two and Pratt & Whitney is only open 3 days a week. I'm sure there are more of these shops around but I've only just found these.

-- Shin Ae

Boeing Recovery and Surplus Sales
Kent, Washington

Pratt & Whitney
400 Main Street
East Hartford, CT
06108
(860) 565 6850
Tues, Thurs, Sat 8-4:30pm
860-557-1255 fax
[There is currently no website for the P&W Surplus Store]

There are indeed other great surplus stores. Ebay is great for everything, but sometimes you just need to wander around a huge warehouse full of old junk just to see what's there. The most comprehensive listing of large and unusual surplus gear stores state-by-state can be found below. (If there is a better national list, please let me know.)

Also, a tip I heard: Almost any college or university has a place for getting rid of old stuff. A well-known sculptor who was often asked to lecture at various schools across the country, always made sure he requested to see the school's surplus facilities while he was visiting. At one university where he had just given a paid talk he found his usual request led to a large closet filled with steel balls that NASA had rejected after testing, but were ideal for sculpture. "Needless to say I spent my whole paycheck there."

-- KK

National listing of surplus stores by state

Eastwood is primarily an auto-body parts and tools supplier, but oh what tools. For example, welding equipment. You might not need TiG welding equipment, but you might find use for the gloves (fireplaces) or the jeweler's torch. Or painting equipment. You probably don't need to powdercoat brake calipers, but you *could* powdercoat your grill, lawn furniture, whatever.

Or maybe you need shop tools. Specialty tools like garage wheel alignment on the cheap, or your own garage lift (user-installable!). Wheel dollies for moving cars in your multi-car garage laterally. I first encountered the catalog because I needed tracer dye for a head gasket leak; I ended up buying hard-to-find 3M abrasive pads for removing the old gasket material as well as the dye and the UV lamp. Best thing about it? Buy something once and you get the catalog for well over a year. There's always something in it if you're a handy kinda person....

-- Christopher Wanko

Eastwood has long been one of my favorites. I have found their stuff to be just what they say it is, and their service all one could ask. I have especially liked their lineup of tools that are very hard to find elsewhere. Many times, just seeing items in the catalog has enabled me to come up with design solutions, and let me make the parts I need. Yummy Yum.

-- J. Baldwin

Eastwood catalog

Sample item:

I released a small number of this self-published book on Amazon, but they are now sold out. Because of the demand for the book, I've now made an inexpensive PDF version available.

What it is: "True Films" contains the best 100 documentaries I've reviewed here as of December, 2004. I winnowed some from the larger list, and came up with an alphabetical collection of 100 documentaries I feel are worth your time. Most people will enjoy the majority included. There's been one private film club launched around this list.

What you get for your $3: a downloadable PDF file of a color version of the book (which was printed in B&W).

Enjoy, and let me know what great documentaries or factuals I've missed.

-- KK

True Films 1.1 -- PDF version
2004, 52 pages, 15 MB
$3
Available via PayPal

I love this catalog. It takes DIY to a new level. Lindsay is the mother-lode for information about making your own stuff, including tools, from scratch. They publish recipes for melting metals in your backyard -- and then bootstraping the metal into a lathe which can make all other tools. Now that is cool! They've got it all covered: Amazing shop books from the past (metal hasn't changed much), and how-to-manuals from contemporary eccentrics who cobble together blast furnaces. They specialize in hacking metal. But why stop there? The same skills apply to hacking with chemicals, electricity, and home-made versions of big science equipment. In fact, if it is big, heavy or dangerous, Lindsay will tell you how to do it.

-- KK

Lindsay Publications
Free catalog

Sample books:

Building Small Cupola Furnaces

"A book on home metal casting and building your own foundry."
Now here's an excellent self-published book about melting iron in a cupola. It's a bit on the expensive side, but Marshall knows what he's talking about. And the book is worth every bit the price if you're serious about melting iron. It's one of the best I've seen. There are no photos, but lots of informative drawings, and most important, lots of operational detail. In other words, you get hints and tips that can only come from someone who has done it. If you want to melt iron, you must have this. Expensive, but it delivers. Get one! 8 1/2 x 11 wire spiral binding 100 pages
No. 1442 ... $25.00

Metal Lathe

Build a 7" capacity metal cutting lathe accurate to .001". 12" between centers. 5" swing over saddle. Uses castings produced by the charcoal foundry. Cost only about $50 (fifteen years ago). Some incredible lathes have been built as a result of this classic book. You can do it, too. Detailed, proven how-to. 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 softcover 128 pages
No. 177 ... $9.95

Build A Carbon Arc Torch

Put a large electrical current between a slightly separated pair of carbon electrodes and you get a 9000 F flame useful for melting metal, welding and brazing. Meador will show you how to build a carbon arc torch using wood, tubing and commonly available carbon electrodes. You really don't need much money or expertise to build an excellent working torch. You do need a source of high-amperage current such as an arc welder, or use the simple water resistor below. 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 booklet 30 pages
No. 1349 ... $6.95

The most he-man cool tool catalog I've come across yet. Gempler's 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

Gempler's
Catalog free with order
Gemplers

Their 2005 paper catalog is reproduced at
Google Catalogs

For several years I've been producing books, CDS, and DVD in small quantities for small audiences. Micro-publishing. Or to use the apt phrase of Chris Anderson at Wired: mining the Long Tail, a place where the little that sells a lot is equaled by a lot that sells a little.

I've had numerous requests from readers for the secrets of getting their self-published material on Amazon. It's no secret, but here is what I have learned in the last few years about how to get your book, CD or DVD listed on Amazon.

First, why? I began listing self-published material on Amazon because I wanted a way to reach the wider public with my stuff but I did not want to have to deal with shipping out copies to each customer who ordered on my website. For a small-timer like me, mailing out, and keeping track of onesies and twosies is very disruptive for my day job. By having my stuff on Amazon, Amazon's mighty enterprise became my shipper (they are very good at this), so the only place I have to ship my copies to is to their warehouse.

More importantly, as popular as my website may or may not be, it doesn't compare to the traffic headed to Amazon to search for books and DVDs. By having my stuff pop up among the big publisher's offerings for "similar books" or even in reader's lists and guides, my titles gain a greater chance to be seen and ordered. In a certain way, unless your stuff is available on Amazon, it ain't available. In fact for better or worse, the only way you can purchase my books is via Amazon. As a side benefit, by focusing all my sales via Amazon, tiny advances in sales are magnified by Amazon's sales rank, which garner it more attention, more links via recommendations, which increases sales in the hoped for virtuous circle.

The cost of using Amazon is high. They take 55% of the "official" price (not the sale price but the price you originally determine). That means that even if they discount the book (good for sales), the discount is coming out of their half. But it means you are only getting 45% of your listed price. In addition you pay for shipping books there, and of course for printing them, so the math does not encourage fortune making. Most self-published books are in the "long tail" zone, selling only a few copies per month. I've done better, selling several thousand copies over a couple of years, but still: This is not a way to make money; this is a way to distribute your message.

In 8 easy steps, here is how to get your book, CD, or DVD listed on the long tail of Amazon:

1 Get an ISBN (for a book), or a UPC (for a CD or DVD). For one book it costs $125, for one CD, $55, for one DVD, $89.
2 Get a bar code based on the ISBN or UPC. Costs $10, or may be included in UPC.
3 Sign up with Amazon, $30 per year.
4 Duplicate your stuff; include the bar code on the outside.
5 Ship two copies to Amazon
6 Send cover scan
7 Track sales
8 Resgister it (optional)

-- KK (with Michele McGinnis)

The full details, with how-to tips and links to recommended sources, are as follows.

For $3.50 you can get a full-color, indexed, hot-linked version of the Cool Tools book.

This 140-page collection of cool tools very much resembles the old Whole Earth Catalog in style and substance. If you liked those old Catalogs, you'll find this one just as invigorating and chirpy. It's compiled from evaluations taken from this site.

But with a copyright date of 2003, some reviewed items are now stale, outdated or obsolete. However, many more -- probably most -- remain the best things to use and won't be easily superceded. I still use the book myself. If you want a black & white version you can order one from Amazon (below).

But I have a better offer: a digital download. Halfway between a book and a website, PDF digital books are pioneering a third way. With this Cool Tools PDF you get several things the printed version does not have (but the web does): an index, clickable active hyperlinks in the text, and glorious full-color. At the same time the PDF version retains the easy to browse design and rapid navigation of a book, which the web does not have. And it is a lot cheaper than a book, immediate in its delivery, and smaller to store. I find myself reading a lot of PDFs and growing comfortable in their habits.

The form is still experimental; I'd love to hear your feedback.

-- KK

Cool Tools
2003.1 PDF version
146 pages, 24mb
$3.50
Available via Pay Pal

Cool Tools
$17
Amazon

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. They also have beguiling assortments of clamps, safety equipment, casters and consumables. Not everything smacks of first rate quality but the tools generally are sturdier than the lightweight offerings from the likes of Black and Decker, and still significantly cheaper.

-- Thayer G.

Harbor Freight

Costco is the Ur warehouse club store. They have a decent choice of one model for each type of product, but at jaw-dropping prices.

My allegiance to Costco is a running joke between me and Stewart Brand. He finds it funny that I buy almost everything I can there. Let's see, I recently got a fine leather jacket I wear all the time ($89), a DVD player, batteries by the score, an okay digital camera, and real Vermont maple syrup by the gallon ($12).

Costco has become my personal shopper. I do some research, then I buy what they sell. Like all discount chains they have professionals working full time looking for deals/quality. But what I like about Costco is their niche -- which is my niche. They consistently find a bargain in the "highest common denominator" bracket. What they seem to aim for, and what I am happy with, is the highest quality common quality. Not the very best, not the cheapest, and not mediocre either, but a good brand-name bargain in the high middle. They consistently deliver a great price on a very popular and competent item. It's neither optimization (the top model with the most features), nor is it minimization (cheapest per feature) nor plain thriftiness. Rather Costco aims for some sort of consumer satisficing, to use Herb Simon's term: a high quality that is just good enough, but at a low-end price.

They make shopping easy by eleminating the tyranny of non-essential choice. You don't have to waste cycles trying to scrutinize similar models or brands. They do that for you: "here's the good enough one you need" they say. The typical Wal-Mart store will have 80,000 unique stock items; the typical Costco will have only 3,500.

Right now I shop there almost weekly. Costco has a reputation for bulk food items, but many of these are slow perishables, and many items are not that bulky. Since we have a large household, their food prices are simply too inexpensive to ignore; we buy 25 lb. sacks of flour and rice by for almost nothing per pound. Milk in 2 gallon cartons, eggs by the 18, fruit by the crate, drinks on pallets, etc. We get our eyeglasses and contacts there. I buy film and get it processed way cheap on Kodak paper. And car tires! It's crazy to think about getting tires anywhere else. Plus they increasingly have great tools, and if you are willing to adopt the satisficing mode they excel in, you can get the best deals on electronic gizmos like walkie talkies, refrigerators, vacuums, kitchen gear, office furniture and so on. If the store sells gasoline, they price it a dime cheaper per gallon than anywhere else in town. Some of their best deals are one-offs; items that appear briefly and then are gone forever: over the years I've seen fantastic (not corny) authentic stain glass windows for cheap, great wet suits, new hot tubs about half off, and I kid you not, funeral caskets (where I would hope "good enough" would suffice).

One other thing about Costco which they don't advertise. They will take any item (except computers) back any time. People do abuse this, but it makes shopping there a no brainer.

-- KK

Costco
$45 per year membership

This little site is an international Amazon stores comparison engine.

Amazon has 6 stores in the world: USA, UK, Germany, France, Canada and Japan. A lot of products are offered in all the stores, or many of them. Well, prices vary A LOT between stores. If you are from the US, you can get cheaper products from Canada (music, dvs) or UK (import music mainly). If you are from somewhere else, it's even better! People tend to think that the best store to order from is the nearest one. Well, that's absolutely false. Europeans can usually get stuff cheaper from the US (including shipping) than from any other European store. And for other countries, this site shows you many Amazon stores to check and it sure can have nice surprises.

The site gets prices, puts them in your currency and then adds shipping cost to your country (looks like they get it from your IP).

Pricenoia has a couple of nice add-ons. A bookmarklet that lets you compare prices when you are looking at a product page at Amazon, and a graph of the price evolution over time for every product in every store.

A great tool for the holiday season, and a good reference for the rest of the year!

-- Leon C.

Pricenoia

Wow! What a treat. TEST is a trial publication from Wired magazine featuring Consumer Reports' type testing on fast-moving electronic gear. TEST comparatively evaluates a surprisingly thorough range of gear, and their judgements seem to be reasonable, rather than just fashionable. The best surprise of all is that TEST does the one key thing so many magazines dare not do -- that is, they actually say: we tried all of these and this one is the best. Why is that so hard to do? Because it steps on advertiser's toes. So, may the force be with TEST. Out of all the many year-end holiday lists of gadgets I've seen online and in magazines, this is the only one I think has any merit as a trustworthy guide. Great job.

BTW, this special issue should not be confused with the annual roundup of gadgets and gifts in Wired's December TOOL issue, although it will be. And I had absolutely nothing to do with TEST's creation and no foreknowledge about its appearance. I'm just a happy reader.

This first issue of TEST was printed in limited quantities, but Wired's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson has made a PDF of its content available online exclusively for Cool Tool readers in case you can't find it on your local newsstand, where it should be until the end of the year.

-- KK

Wired TEST
PDF download
If that site is overloaded, I have a mirror of the PDF here.

It's still in beta but I find it indispensable. You tell Google where you live. Then you type in what you are looking for locally -- say Indian food, or passport photos, or chair rentals -- and then it gives you the shops and services in your area, with links, displayed on a map. You can narrow the range you want to travel. That's where most yellow pages stop, but Google Local goes further. Like in Froogle, you can type in very specific items like balloon helium, or garden topsoil, or ski boots -- not just the thousand common headings found in the yellow pages -- and Google Local will steer to you it in your city or county. (It still has trouble finding products by brand in a store, but maybe it will someday.) When you click on a source, Google gives you the reference pages on why it suggested that company, which is often helpful in evaluating whether they do indeed have what you want. Unlike the yellow pages, they include all stores,not just paying clients (although they have advertisers, too) so you get a much broader selection. It is not foolproof by any means, but it is now my first stop for local shopping.

-- KK

Google Local

Consumer Search isn't a review site per se but rather a metareview site, similar to Rottentomatoes.com. They spend the time running around the net, digging up reviews of items, rate those reviews on objectivity and completeness, then correlate them all.

It's not as up-to-date as I'd like it, nor does it cover every item that I'd like to buy. Nevertheless, it's always worth a quick driveby when considering any item over $100.

-- Joshua Keroes

Many Cool Tool readers alerted me to this fantastic supermarket of comparative reviews; I somehow missed this essential site in my previous roundup. They do all the hard work I wish I had time to do for Cool Tools. For each kind of consumer product (say bread machines, or roller skates) Consumer Search aggregates all the reviews that appear elsewhere on the web, and then extracts and unifies the results. Their final report is pretty comprehensive, although quality varies according to topic: The entry on home furnaces is (not surprisingly) thin compared to say, home sound systems. When they are good, they are very good.

-- KK

Consumer Search

Scattered throughout the web are small islands of sleepless enthusiasts who have much to say about their passions for new stuff. They aim their opinions into review sites of varying quality.

There are two kinds of review sites: ones run by know-it-all individuals, and one powered by the peer review of a community of users. Of the first type: The advantage of a single voice is that -- at their best -- they make outright recommendations. The downside is that they have trouble keeping up with an expanding or fast-moving field with tons of new gear.

The advantage of the second kind built on peer reviews is that the collective can keep up with change; the fault of user reviews, however, is that they often have narrow experience and no sense of what else is out there. This is the chief weakness of Amazon and Epinion reviews; they judge too much on an item's own merits and not on how it compares with similar products or substitutes. Clear recommendations are scarce.

What I want from a review site is an informed judgement. Ideally I'd like a very smart friend online who can give a single word answer when you asked him/her what you should buy: "Get this," they would say. The wider the range of uses, the more choices in models, and the faster the innovation in that area, the harder it is to get a definite answer.

My model of the ideal review site then is one built on a broad base of user reviews, in addition to a field of experts conducting uniform and comparative reviews, and ends up with an extract of top picks or other recommendations of what to get. I have not yet seen a perfect site. What doesn't work for me is a site sporting a vast matrix of all products and their features, or a site recommending a few products --ones that they happen to also sell, or a site with evaluations of gear they happen to get free from cooperative manufacturers, or heaven forbid, a site that has a few feeble reviews and is supported by a zillion ads.

There are some wonderful review sites. I found the following to be useful. For the most part they have what the weak review sites don't have: a minimal ad environment, no direct connection to sales, a means to extract recommendations and not just feature lists, and users with enough experience to indicate how tools live up to others like it. I've ranked these "best of reviews sites" from 1 to 5 stars, listed here in descending usefulness to me.

I believe I have only touched the tip of all that must be out there. Where is the ideal review site for coral aquariums, horse riding, knitting, woodworking, cooking gear, kites, scuba diving? Not to mention a fair and practical review site for your own current obsession.

Send 'em to me and I'll add the ones that work to this page on COOL TOOLS.

-- KK
_______________________________________________

Better View Desired

Perhaps the best review site I've seen. This guy reviews birding binoculars. He tests them all, very thoroughly, in the field, over time, and he measures each one against his published "standard" pair -- the model to beat so to speak. You get detailed and useful reviews, and a very clear nod towards the binoculars he thinks are the best in several categories. He is as close to that ideal reviewer: an extremely informed friend who has seen them all and can tell you which one to get.

How I use it: I use his standards as the ones to get.

5 stars: *****
_______________________________________________

Moutain Bike Review

Mountain bike gear reviewed by mountain bikers. Lots of forums, classified ads, and plenty of hard-hitting user reviews based on experience. A wonderful addition are thousands of bike trails reviewed by users. All-in-all a fantastic review site; one of the best!

How I use it: The first stop for advice on anything mountain bike related.

5 stars: *****
_______________________________________________

Digital Photography Review

This is one of the first online review sites, and by now the best known. New models of digital cameras and printers are vetted with systematic, technically rigorous, scientifically fair and precise testing. Products are compared to previous models. No aspect of a camera is left untested. DPReview deserves its reputation as *the* place to keep up with the incredible swift moving frontier of digital media. In fact for most photographers this site has rendered photography magazines as superfluous. The site also boasts extremely active discussion boards for the die-hard enthusiast, and really great buyers' guides. I wish there was a site like this for every vocation.

How I use it: I troll for the latest and greatest by checking out which models are used as the comparison standard (a sign its the one I want) and dipping into the chat boards.

5 stars: *****
_______________________________________________

Flashlight Reviews

Because of rapid advances in LEDs, fiber optics and batteries, the state of the art in light sources changes quickly. Reviews here are rigorous technically, pretty consistent, very thorough, fair, and quantifiable. Lots of close-up photos. They rate the lights in an easy to compare chart, which you can sort by rating, and they thankfully indicate "top picks" with a easy to spot thumbs up. It's a great service.

How I use this: My first stop when I want to find out the best in lights, flashlights and torches.

5 stars: *****

[as of June 08, 2007, this site ceased publishing new content; archives are available -- sl]
_______________________________________________

Backpacking Light

Not just any backpacking but ultra-lightweight hiking. Gear here is only considered worthy if it does its job and weighs less than the previous champ. More and more gear is going radically featherweight. Rather than a user forum, this site is a magazine. Reviews are primarily written by an editorial staff and a subscription is required to read them in detail. The reviews are thorough, nerdy, informative and extensive. Great stuff and well-worth the price of $25/year if you are dedicated to losing pounds.

How I use it: For formal reviews of the latest and greatest innovation in backpacking gear.

4 stars: ****
_______________________________________________

Bent Rider

A marvelous review site for recumbent bicycles. Rather than offer an endless list of features, the reviewers on this site attempt to make a judgement about the value of the bike in context of other bikes they have known. There is a good buyer's guide that puts different makes in relation to each other.

How I use it: I'm presently shopping for a recumbent bike and this is the place I hang out for the real scoop.

4 stars: ****
_______________________________________________

Find a Scope

An opinionated single-author site which reviews, guides, and advises you how to select a home telescope. He does a commendable job in covering the major brands of commercial telescopes, and bless his heart, he does a great job in comparing them in context of each other. He's really good at explaining what value and dangers lie in bargain scopes. He even tells you which telescopes to avoid.

How I use it: To get a first-class orientation and specific recommendations of good scopes.

4 stars: ****
______________________________________________

Equipped to Survive

Serious reviews of the serious gear of medical aid and search and rescue missions, as well as individual survival tools. This site considers low tech first aid kits and high tech location beacons and everything in between. As far as I can tell all reviews are written by one obsessed and highly informed guy, and his crusade is operated as a non-profit. While these reviews are not searchable in a comparative way, the summaries are excellent and extremely helpful for potential buyers. For an example of this detail check out the roundup reviews of pocket survival kits here: http://www.equipped.org/prsnlkit.htm#new .

How I use it: As a one-stop reality check for any tool related to first aid and survival.

3 stars: ***
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Backpack Gear Test

Nerds on this large site conduct extremely thorough, if not obsessive, testing and documenting of every type of gear needed for camping and hiking. While many reviews are written by enthusiasts who bought their own gear, most are based on free samples donated by gear companies. Like many detailed gear sites, this one lacks comparative awareness -- how this pack compares to all other packs. Evaluations are markedly ignorant of other stuff. There is no rating scale either, or even a "best of" hint.

How I use this: When I have a candidate item that I want to get great detailed user feedback on.

3 stars: ***
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The Gadgeteer

Two women personally review neat new gismos. Each selected item (often sent by a manufacturer) gets a detailed breakdown and opinionated review. Lots of close-up photos are used to dissect features. They like unusual but practical items. Recently they seem to be into wearable accessories. Reviews are generally positive, however -- sometimes a problem if you are spending your own money.

How I use it: I go to the index of their reviews by subject, where I often find a few cool tools.

3 stars: ***
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Coffee Geek

Yep, caffeine-high coffee geeks rate loads of coffee grinders, steamers, drippers, holders and beans -- commercial as well as household. This obsession may be too deep to help the ordinary coffee addict searching for the perfect grinder. I find the reviews here hard to navigate at times, but they do cover most anything coffee related. In addition to an official in-depth review, they catalog many user reviews and ratings, which are the most helpful. It's the best coffee gear site.

How I use it: By sorting user reviews in a particular category by highest average rating (and number of reviews), I can get a good sense of what is best.

3 stars: ***
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Whole Latte Love

Another coffee gear review site. They have a "compare-o-matic" which lists all reviews by product type. These folks encourage user tips on each product -- a helpful feature worth imitating by other sites. And they have really good buyers' guides. However I feel they are a bit compromised by the fact this site directly sells all this gear. In this sense it is a catalog with reviews (like Amazon).

How I use it: For a great orientation and buyer's guidance. And a good place to find user tips on a product you already have.

3 stars: ***
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Telescope Review Site

More comprehensive than Find a Scope, this review site is less comparative. It's aimed more at the hard-core telescope enthusiast who already owns more than one scope, and less at the ordinary buyer looking for "the right one." Still, the reviews (also all by one guy) are informative and complete.

How I use it: For second opinions on a potential telescope, and to see what is new.

2 stars: **
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Ecoustics

They started out reviewing hi-fi components and now cover most consumer audio/visual gear (TV, video, home theater). No reviews originate here. Ecoustics cleverly gathers user reviews from many sites like Amazon, Epinion, Pricegrabber, etc and collates them by product item. Ditto for editorial reviews, which they also aggregate from the expected magazines online. Despite this wealth of info, finding the best is difficult.

How I use it: Mostly as a way to hunt down less reviewed items.

2 stars: **

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One Bag

One guy's reviews and tips for traveling gear and resources. I pretty much agree with his selections and you won't find such good advice in a more compact form. However, this is not a proper review site since actual reviews of specific brands of luggage or whatnot are rare.

How I use it: I stop by every now and then to hunt for a well-worn cool travel tool.

2 stars: **

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Great Battery Shootout

Not a site, but a long page that reviews new versions of consumer batteries. It would be great if Mr. Battery kept it updated.

How I use it: For guidance in selecting rechargeable batteries, since they are not all the same.

2 stars: **

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Boardgame Ratings

Theres' not a lot of action here, but new and classical board games get a systematic review and a rating. The owners also go out on a limb and provide their "top picks." My one caveat is that they also retail sell the products on the site.

How I use this: About once a year I check in to see what's new and great.

2 stars: **
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Gear Review

These guys are trying hard, but their selection of outdoor gear items is arbitrary, and their reviews are adequate yet neither comprehensive nor comparative. It is no help in pinpointing the best item.

How I use them: As a second opinion for a particular item.

1 star: *

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Everything USB

We are talking computer peripherals: Obvious ones like USB flash storage , nonobvious ones like digital cameras, and the whimsical ones like USB powered coffee makers. There are no formal reviews here, but busy user forums dispense chat on USB products and USB tutorials, and there is a very handy comparative shopping matrix, which offers some relief in deciding which model of a USB device is best.

How I use this: I'm interested mostly in cheap storage so I check here for the best bargains.

1 star: *
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Trusted Reviews

A team of geeks review computer hardware and peripherals. No attempt is made to be comparative or comprehensive. They tend to review the newest stuff -- but at least they review it, unlike most sites featuring new gadgets.

How I use it: Not very much, since I'm not that interested in gadgets.

1 star: *

The worldwide Freecycle Network is a grassroots movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is run by a local volunteer moderator (them's good people). Membership is free. To sign up, find your city on the Freecycle website. Can't find your city? It takes about ten minutes to start your own (click on "Start your own" for instructions). One rule: everything posted must be free. Whether it's a chair, a fax machine, piano, or an old door to be given away, it wants to be free!

-- Verdean Ackerson

[A very cool service. In my neighborhood (the peninsula coast south of San Francisco) the following free items were recently listed: camper shell, mirror, working computer monitor, rusty motorcycle, linoleum remnant... -- KK]

Number of cities freecycling: 1021. Number of people freecycling: 237,168.

Freecycle Network

For Amish goods, you can hardly do better than the incomparable Gohn Brothers. They're the real old school. Need diaper pins, buggy robes or, oddly, LA Gear High Top Leather shoes? The Gohns got 'em. Probably their most well-known items are the broadfall drop-front work pants and old fashioned colonial shirts, which are popular with the Revolutionary and Civil War re-enactment people. No web site, as you might expect, but call or write for a catalog.

-- Edward J. Murphy

[Now 100 years old, the catalog itself hasn't changed any in the last century. No pictures, no drawings, only simple line descriptions and prices on four stapled sheets. Prices for such standards as rubber boots, Hudson Bay blankets, wool socks, etc. are a bit lower than on main street. -- KK ]

Catalog free from
Gohn Brothers
Box 1110
Middlebury IN 46540-0111
(574) 825-2400
(800) 595-0031

--

What an amazing, behavior-changing service! Google has scanned in the pages of hundreds of mail order catalogs. This means you can search for anything you can think of and Google will bring up a picture of the item on the actual catalog page. In my experience browsing these scans turns out to be better and faster than scrolling through a company's website. Because catalog pages are generally better designed than web pages, they are more informative. And because you can keyword search for items, it's superior to the actual paper catalog. The way I use this is whenever I am beginning to search for an item I need to buy, I'll start with the Google Catalog and immediately I'll find more and more appropriate sources for it than I would by going through long lists of Google web pages. I then use the phone to place my order - faster and more reliable for most catalogs. The real surprise has been the number of specialty mail order catalogs Google has rounded up. I have yet to stump this machine. It has immediately found sources for the most obscure objects (a 25-foot VGA cable, a Quail weathervane, processed lichen for model tree-making). You can also search on past catalogs, a very useful service for catalogs with seasonal versions. This hybrid of old and new is exactly why the web is so vital.

-- KK

Google Catalogs

A monthly for the hardware hackers. Lots of electronics, robots, and small mechanical projects. Informative ads, too.
-KK

Nuts & Volts Magazine
12 issues; $25
909-371-8497
800-783-4624
Subscribe via Amazon

On average I've ordered from Amazon once a week for the last eight years or so. Not just books, but power tools, toys, kitchen stuff, the whole lot. Given the volume of my orders I think their customer service is super great; it sets the gold standard for other companies. No other merchant online or offline has provided the ease and accuracy of ordering as Amazon does. Still, in my experience there are occasionally glitches that their email-bots can't deal with, usually entailing a minor billing snafu. In these rare cases you need Amazon.com's almost-secret real-person customer service telephone number. You won't find it on their website. I once got it by calling 800 directory assistance. In any case, they make it hard to find because a call costs Amazon more, so you should jot down these numbers for those special moments when only a human will do:

1.800.201.7575 (Toll free, US and Canada)
1.206.346.2992 or 1.206.266.2992 (Outside US and Canada)
1.877.586.3230 (Canada only)
0.800.279.6620 (with UK for Amazon UK)
44.20.8636.9451 (outside of UK)

And while I am at it, here's two more hard to find numbers:
e-Bay 1.408.376.7400 and 1.800.322.9266 (Toll free US)
Pay Pal 1.888.221.1161
--KK

Sales Ranking of my book New Rules for the New Economy

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

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

Amazon Hacks
$18
Amazon

CafePress is a way of setting up an online store for logo-imprinted merchandise very fast and for free. You can upload your own graphics and then just pick which products you want them printed on. (They also package custom music and data CDs.) They print everything on demand and host the online store for you and then you just say how much to mark up each item. You get to keep the profit as they sell the merchandise.

For an example of how quick this is, I set up this store in 15 minutes to sell gear displaying the logo of my team: http://www.cafeshops.com/inertialabs. Since everything is made on demand, anyone can order as few as just one copy of a product. This makes CafePress a convenient way to outfit a small group, or just yourself, with no up-front investment.

The only major limitation of their otherwise great service is that you can only print on white or light-colored fabrics. But hey, where else can you get a thong with your robot team logo on it?
-- Alexander Rose

CafePress

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

Dynamism.com
800-711-6277
312-587-0402

The Cubik is the world's smallest megapixel digital camera. Its 1.3 million pixel CMOS captures images at 1280x1024. Its on-board 16mb RAM stores 50 1280x1024 or 99 640x512 low-res pictures. You can even capture a 90 second movie (no sound, though). Although not as small as the Spyz, the Cubik is small enough to fit unobtrusively into your pocket. And, thanks to an aluminum alloy casing, it can also survive your pocket. The Cubik also works as a web cam. The standard package is only $169 and includes the Cubik camera, USB connection cable, English software and manual, and a 1 year warranty through Dynamism. We have the Cubik in-stock and available for same-day shipment.

I figure everyone must use Froogle by now, but in case you don't here is the scoop. As a tool and product junkie I can't live without it. It's simply the first (and usually the only) place to go to find out where to get hold of anything sold. Rather than winnow through web pages refering to some product, use Froogle to select only sites that are actually selling the thing. Simple, powerful, brilliant. It's Google's better half.

-- KK

The fetish aspect of new gadgets leave me cold. I much prefer to hear about stuff that people have lived with and worn down, but still find love for. The web tends to offer sanctuary to the former, and not the latter. In my constant search for a decent web site that tracks and review gear with street cred I have only landed a few keepers. My favorite all-around gizmo site right now is Gizmodo. Run almost single-handedly by a freelance Wired writer, it is a simple blog detailing the newest gadgets each day. Occasionally he will review a particular item, but most times he is merely pointing to a product release. The chief attraction to me is the broad scope of his collection, and a sensible restraint of enthusiasm.

Gizmodo

The ever-innovative Amazon has a cool site that is little known, and is somewhat helpful in tracking what's new in gear. Their "Early Adopters" page automatically generates a list of new stuff they are selling. It's naked data, but cleanly delivered.

-- KK

Amazon Early Adopters