At a recent holiday gathering I was asked to bring a gift with a story, meaning, and perhaps a life changing experience for whomever was to receive my gift. I generally custom make gifts for friends, so making something for a stranger was a bit tough. So instead I asked myself “what are life changing products that have made a huge impact to my lifestyle and would be useful for anyone”?(this gathering was a bit tech oriented). We’ll, here are two products that have changed my life drastically along with some software producs that have done the same.
Sonicare Electronic Toothbrush : It’s a massage in your mouth using this beauty. Once you go electric, it’s hard to go back.
Logitech 8-button mouse(MX510): Navigating will never be the same! I personally use the extra buttons on the mouse to, “go back, forward, scroll, close windows, and launch internet browser”. I rarely hit those backwards and forwards button on the nav bar, nor do I ever click on that “x” to close a window anymore…saves thousands of seconds daily.(their new “hyper-wheel” seems interesting)
E-mail Clients:Eudora, Outlook(or express), Mail, Opera, Thunderbird, etc:
It amazes me how many people don’t use email clients. I can’t imagine managing emails without them. It surprises me to see people typing in passwords to check mail only to find no mail at times. E-mail clients save loads of time if you communicate through e-mails. E-mail clients still have a long way to go, but the first jump has been drastic.
Digital Calendars: Outlook, GCal, 30boxes, Sunbird,iCal, etc:
Never forget a meeting, birthday, appointment, event, etc…even have the calendar send you a text message reminder! In the world of information overload, calendars will be playing a HUGE role in our everyday future of multitasking and managing ourselves.
Lots of other compelling products out there, but these are some that I bring up all the time. Do you have a life changing product story? Let me know..
Happy holidays!!
wet shaving…i can imagine though I dont need to shave that much(just a mustache)…but when a shaves good and smoothe…its’ awesome.
Funny thing you brought up food tools…one of my friends lives and worships a laser cut cheese cutter…i dont have the model on hand, but i think its an oxo.
another one of my friends, well several, worship the wacom tablets…I guess it’s one of those things that once you go there, you cant go back…i hear the same for the big trackballs you flick around..
thanks for your list!
Nice wrap up Tango! Although it took me a while to get used to it (and keep from shooting toothpaste all over the bathroom mirror), I too use and enjoy the Sonicare toothbrush. As for e-mail, I stopped using e-mail clients after becoming accustomed to Gmail and its list-view + email grouping features (I was using Hotmail and Outlook in the past). Plus, I’m usually pretty paranoid when it comes to my email, so having an email program ask for a password during startup is cool with me. 🙂
ah, yesh, i guess it depends how many emails you get a day…. At least you made the gmail jump which is an email client of its own in an online way…way cool, but I’m a hog at speed and I cant stand waiting those 1-2 seconds for refreshes…and I love dragging and dropping files right into the box… I’d switch over to gmail and gcal full-time if they offered desktop versions that synced for speed, but i think mac mail does that on and offline already, though I’m a pc person fro reasons…yes, I’m a designer, but I do 3D work, which macs dont support greatly(solidworks, maya, alias, proE)…
i think i’ll stick to gmail when traveling without my laptop…kindna like how I use meebo.com for IM’s when i’m traveling. check meebo out as well…basically an ajax of all you im’s in one window…nuthing to download, and always updated…pretty cool start up!!
I do switch between a laptop (work) and PC (home) on a daily basis and I do think that’s why Gmail has been such a blessing. Although I will say that being able to “tag” emails with labels has become much more useful IMO since an email can’t always be grouped under one single designation. For example, there are times when my fiancé sends me a song via email and it’s nice to be able to tag the email as “music” and “fiancé”. Although things might definitely be different if I were to use a laptop all the time.
Oh, and now since Macs have Core 2 Duo and can run Windows, you can switch to pure Mac and ditch the PC! 😉
yeah, i can see how that works for ya…but for them outlook users, you can get a MS exchange server, and everything exists online with a desktop version that syncs…i personally dont use it, but one of the firms i consult for does, and it’s great.
I never really botherd to tag emails..though i’m sure its good. I gerenally separate all my emails by folders, clients, etc..i learned this from a professor i once had that got like 600 emails a day(400+ of them being real)
As to the mac duo pd thing..hehe, I’ll can debate the mac vs pc thing forever..i’m not against or for either, but i’ll say this, the PC has always been more powerful and more useful for my needs…it took macs so long to switch to intel, and finally get the duo, but they have so much to catch up to… i love the mac designs, but I’ve never seen anyone sucessfully run solidworks on a mac without major glitches….one day i’ll own both, but for now, i gotsta stick to a pc. Maybe I should start a post about mac vs pc….i usually end up telling mac users ..”hey, if macs are that much better, why does only 4% of ppl use it”. Most mac ppl just debate, the macs look better, its easier, and its better…but they can never prove it to me, besides the looks.(personally the sony tx series are alot sexier than the macbooks)