Cory Doctorow is the Nerd Prince of Blogging: co-editor of the popular BoingBoing.net, acclaimed science fiction author, and advocate for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. A man this busy needs as much helps as he can get, and Cory isn’t shy about what gadgets he finds useful (or awful):
Fido Vtech prepaid mobile: this is the worst mobile phone I’ve ever owned. I have a bottom-of-the-line Nokia I use in Europe and a similar one that T-Mobile sold me in San Fran, and when I turned up in Toronto last week, I figured I’d just put a prepaid SIM into that one and go with it. However, the scumbags at T-Mobile *locked* the fucking thing, which meant that I had to go buy *another* phone (that’s THREE phones in total, now!) and I ended up buying the Vtech used for 60 Canadian pesos at a counter in a Chinatown mall. It receives and sends SMS, but it doesn’t have T9, so it’s basically impossible to use for texting. The UI is utterly martian, like something designed by throwing dice, and the phone itself feels like it’s made out of dried spittle and chewed-up paper. Worst. Ringtones. Evar. Oh, and it’s FUCKING LOCKED to Fido. Rilly. Christ.
Exilim EX-S3: This is the BEST camera I’ve ever owned. The 2MP version of this thing was the first camera I ever owned whose UI made perfect sense to me, the first one small enough to carry around in my pocket all the time. The 3MP version is every bit as slick (and now I’m lusting after the 4MP version with the fast mechanical zoom lens), but higher rez. My only complaint is that you can’t charge it off of USB — I try to charge all my devices off of USB from my laptop using ZipLinq retractable cables: saves on shlepping around a bunch of bricks and is a total lifesaver in Europe, where I need only adapt my laptop to the local plugs. The only downside of this thing: it is so GODDAMNED COOL that it’s impossible to just whip it out and fire off a couple casual shots: someone will always come up and ask to fondle it and get their DNA all over it.
iPod 40GB: I’ve taken to using this to store video as well as audio: I have about 30GB of music and audiobooks, and the remaining 10GB makes for enough storage for several DVDs’ worth of ripped movies that I can watch on the road when I tether the iPod to my PowerBook. (Indispensable iPod accessory: iSkinz rubber casing; friggin’ iPods scratch if you look at ’em crosseyed).
15″ PowerBook G4 1GHz/80GB: Bought an Aluminum Book last September (I usually kill about one PowerBook/year) and am still loving it. The weight is a little bit much — I’ve been a 12″ iBook and PowerBook user for 3 years or so, and the extra pounds really add up — but the screen real-estate and that high, high RAM ceiling, c’est magnifique.
Linksys WAP-11 and WS824: I’m trading this rig for the office I borrowed for the month of April. I think that the FCC made Linksys take the 824s off the market cos they put out dirty, lobe-y WiFi at distance, but this building’s got a stucco facade whose chickenwire guts act as a natural Faraday cage, so it’s not like my signal’s interfering with anyone else. Probably.
Roadwired RAPS laptop case: I love this vecro-y computer diaper. It’s wicking, padded, and sizes to fit any laptop (though the 15″ PB is a tight squeeze). Much nicer than any sleeve for my money.
RoadWired Ethernet cable: hands-down the best retractable Cat5 cable I’ve ever owned, and the RJ45-RJ11 adapters that hide in the case turn it into a phone wire for those craptacular 56K moments.
BohemianBag.com Czech Plumber’s Bag: The perfect-sized, durable leather shoulder bag. Looks like $106, and keeps on getting prettier the more I abuse it. Steel-reinforced handle is super-swell. I replaced the shoulder-strap with a RoadWired cushion strap for extra comfort between departure gates.
TokyoFlash OVO DecisionMaker watch: this is the dumbest and coolest watch I’ve ever owned (my grandfather was a watchmaker, so I’ve owned quite a few). It has a built-in fortune-teller and direction-suggester (buttons you press to make it do a little animation and then toss a coin or spin a spinner), and a bunch of really cute, faux-futuristic animation routines. The physical design is GREAT, just beautiful to look at, like something from the set of Rollerball, and I relish the impracticality of a watch that makes you sit through a 10-second animation before showing you the time, and which periodically goes into “naughty mode” where it distorts the time so that you can’t read it until you give it a “corrective shake” that’s hard enough to trip the built-in motion-sensor.
Backup drive: I put an old 40GB Powerbook drive into a no-name aluminum 2.5″ bus-powered 1394 enclosure, and run my daily backups to it.
Assorted ZipLinq retractable cables: USB chargers for my old Clie, my Nokia phone, my old Motorola phone, and a 1394 for my iPod and my backup HDD.
PDA: I had a second-hand monochrome Clie that died last week, just before I left San Francisco. I bought a $75 Palm Zire 21 (piece of shit, who ever heard of a modern PDA with no backlight, GMAFB) and promptly lost it in my move to Toronto. I’m in the market now — I want a monochrome, USB-chargeable, cheap PalmOS device that’s vintage enough that it runs Grafitti 1. I figger I’ll hit the grey-market stores on College Street and see what turns up.
48-page Canadian passport: OK, it’s not a gadget, but it’s brand-spanking new, double-thick, rife with hot-stuff high-tech anti-counterfeiting measures, has a decent photo for once, and I plan on filling it up with a LOT of stamps — betcha I need a new one in 18 months!
Multitool: from 1992 until last year, I carried a multitool all the time. The recent airport mishegas has broken me of the habit, and it pisses me off. I really miss my little tools — I reach for my belt a hundred times a day, like feeling for a missing tooth or a phantom limb. I used to carry the Gerber 800 Legend, which is a brilliant tool (Gerber has been my brand of choice ever since they got bought out by Fiskars, the legendary Finnish scissor-smiths, who have endowed all of Gerber’s tools with the best small-form scissors in the world), and I just happened upon the new Gerber Recoil, a tool that gives me all-over goosepimples from the sell-sheet alone. Damn you, John Ashcroft. I want my goddamned multitool back.
