Gizmodo: pen holder

Femur Bone Pen Holder

Travis Hudson — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 15:45:29 EDT

Still stumped on what to get that orthopedic doctor in your life? How about a pen-holding femur bone? The femur bone is one of the best bones in the body because of it's size and durability, and now it can be the perfect accessory on your desk. Sit it on the desk, fill it up with pens, tell every sucker that asks that it is a real bone and then proceed to slap them in the face. –Travis Hudson

Femurs are great for holding pens [Medgadget]

Hands-On: Brando Penholder Rocks Out with Disco Blinkenlights

Charlie White — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 15:00:00 EDT

When we first saw this Colorful Light and Calendar with Penholder from Brando, we laughed at its tacky disco lighting. But then Brando sent us one for review, and we realized that a penholder, however tawdry, was a useful object to have around, especially when it had an accurate clock and calendar on the front.

When we unboxed the thing, we were pleasantly surprised. It actually looks cool. It works by shining red, green, and blue LEDs upwards, backlighting a transparent LED screen which displays the clock's numerals and day of the week. A button push gives you separate display of the date, which we wish were included on the primary display. But that's a nitpick. The rest was all good. Take a peek at the gallery below, and then jump for the review, showing you what else this baby can do.

We installed four AAA batteries, which were not included, and also plugged the unit into a USB port. The unit draws power from a USB port for its LED lights, and uses the batteries for its clock functions. If you don't have it plugged into a USB port or its optional AC adapter, it can use battery power to illuminate its LEDs as well. However, without batteries installed, the clock doesn't work.

Setting the clock and calendar is a daunting task; fortunately the awkwardly-written instructions are still able to explain how this is done. After navigating that settings labyrinth, it was a simple task to push the big round button in front labeled "Light," and those disco LED lights go to work. Night fever, baby. Of course, you can keep the lights off entirely, but what fun is that?

There are four settings for the LEDs: one with just single colored LEDs dissolving between each other, another with combinations of the red, blue and green LEDs shining together, another brighter mode with more of the LEDs lit at the same time, and then there's that obnoxious flashing light effect, certainly not recommended for epileptics.

Our only complaint is that there should be a mode where you can have just one solid color lit all the time, not cycling to other colors unless you push a button. In all modes except the off position, we found its color cycling distracting as it held sway over our busy desktop, but got used to it after a while. We did receive a number of compliments as it sat there being colorful and all, and no one actually told us they thought it sucked.

This is a surprisingly fun little desktop USB toy for $15. It does have a degree of tackiness, but doesn't look as cheap as we thought it would. It's well worth the money, and actually helps reduce desktop clutter by giving you a place to put all those pens and pencils you probably have lying around. Despite its slight shortcomings and kitsch factor, we dig Brando's Colorful Light and Calendar with Penholder. We like it a lot. – Charlie White

Product Page [Brando]

Rainbow Pen Holder Clock Tells You What Day It Is

Charlie White — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 08:24:36 EST

If you're using an old tin can to hold all those pens that you hardly use but still need around, the Rainbow Pen Holder from Brando might be just the solution to that problem. Besides functioning as a desk caddy, it's got a stacked-up clock and calendar to earn its keep on your desktop.

The icing on the cake: its tacky flashing lights that distract you from the task at hand, sucking its power from your PC's USB port. Tin cans are no longer good enough for us. We want the disco pencil can. – Charlie White

Product Page [Brando]

USB Pen Holder Does Exactly What It Says

Jason Chen — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:40:03 EST

Consider this. You're short on USB ports. You also need a place to put your pens. Sound familiar? Sure, we've all been in this situation.

Hi, I'm Rick Brawn, founder of USB Pen Holders International. Here at USB PHI, we know it's hard finding enough ports to plug in your USB gadgets. And we also know that you've only got two ears to stick pens behind.

With three easy payments of £3.32 ($6.50), you can be the proud owner of your own USB pen holder. As you can see, I'm not only the president. I'm also a douchebag. – Jason Chen

Product page [Phatphones via Gearlog]

Low Tech Gear: The BookSling

Jason Chen — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 15:15:39 EST

For those of us that can pry ourselves away from our electronics to do some reading—gadget manuals perhaps—here's a low tech device to keep things organized. The BookSling's a bookmark and pen holder all in one, which means you won't forget where you left off or where you left the highlighter.

Nothing extraordinary, but neat nonetheless. Plus, if you enter in "FREEPICO" during checkout and spend more than $20, you'll get a free PicoPad—an in-wallet note pad. – Jason Chen

Prduct page [Every Day Innovations]

Pico Pad [Every Day Innovations]