Travel plans automatically generated
05-10-13

Giveaway! One-year Subscription to TripIt Pro

Cool Tools is giving away a one-year subscription to TripIt Pro ($49 value) to one person who signs up for the Cool Tools Newsletter between now and Thursday, May 16 at 10pm PT. (Current newsletter subscribers are automatically included in the running.)

Here’s my TripIt review on Cool Tools.

We’ll pick one newsletter subscriber at random to receive the giveaway. We hold giveaways every Friday, so if you aren’t selected this time, try again next week.

-- Mark Frauenfelder  

 
comments Comments
favorites Favorite (15)

Submit to Delicious Submit to Reddit Submit to Stumble Upon Submit to Digg


The third episode of our video review show
05-10-13

Cool Tools Show & Tell Video Podcast 003

Welcome to episode 3 of Cool Tools’ Show and Tell podcast! This time, I had a video hangout with:

Brian Heater, the Director of Media and Senior editor for Engadget, where he writes features, covers news and hosts the show and podcast. He’s written for Spin, Wired.com, The Onion, The New York Press, The Daily Beast, Entertainment weekly, Boing Boing, and elsewhere. His new podcast is called RIYL — and he says “it’s mostly just an excuse to interview people I think are cool.” He lives in Queens with a rabbit who was once featured on Boing Boing.

and…

Sean Michael Ragan, the technical editor for MAKE magazine and a long time contributor to Make’s online and print outlets. He edits the weekly “Toolsday” column online, as well as the Toolbox section of the print magazine.


Brian and Sean showed and talked about eight different tools they love:

Brian’s picks:

Skooba Cable Stable


Slingshot Organizer


Spinner Racks


Duolingo


Sean’s picks:

Vintage Easydriver Ratcheting screwdriver


Vintage Dymo Tapewriter


Solid Titanium soviet surplus crowbar


Full-page adhesive-backed printable mailing labels, used to print templates for all kinds of projects.


Since this is a show and tell, I recommend that you watch the HD resolution video here so you can see the things we talked about. But it’s also available as an audio podcast subscription, as an iTunes subscription or RSS.

Watch previous episodes here.

-- Mark Frauenfelder  

 
comments Comments
favorites Favorite (15)

Submit to Delicious Submit to Reddit Submit to Stumble Upon Submit to Digg


Tomato cage alternative
05-10-13

Cedar stakes for gardening

Growing tomatoes in a garden with limited space is a challenge, since the plants get tall, unwieldy and flop all over once the tomatoes start weighing them down. Keeping the plants off the ground is important, too, so your tomatoes aren’t in the dirt where they rot more easily or get eaten by slugs or snails. I used to buy tomato cages — open-ended, circular wire cages—to secure the plants — but they were never strong enough once the tomato plants got taller than 4 feet. The cages would slowly collapse, taking the plants with them, which was worse than if I hadn’t used anything.

Last summer I happened upon a simple, yet effective device to keep the tomato jungle under control: the cedar stake. Cedar stakes come in various lengths and can be found at any home-improvement or garden store. They are inexpensive, especially compared to tomato cages. I bought 6-foot stakes, one for each plant, and some stretchy vinyl tie that expands with the growth of plants. I jammed the stakes deep into my raised beds and loosely tied the tomato plants to them. As the plants grew, I would tie up the new growth. The stakes never once threatened to fall over, and even the bushiest, tallest tomato plants stayed in their allotted space.

This year I’ll be reusing the cedar stakes. They are naturally insect- and rot-resistant, so even though I left them in the ground much longer in the fall than I should have, they are as good as new.

-- Abbie Stillie  

Cedar Garden Stakes
12 4-foot stakes, $25

Available from Amazon

comments Comments
favorites Favorite (15)

Submit to Delicious Submit to Reddit Submit to Stumble Upon Submit to Digg


 
05-09-13

Cool Tools Wanted

I’m looking to fill some holes in our coverage. Here are a few questions I hope readers can answer. Comments will be turned off on this entry. Please answer in the Ask Cool Tools link. Comments there with sufficient helpfulness will count as possible reviews for the weekly contest of Best Review.

– KK

Does anyone use Sirius XM radio? If so, for what? (Answer at Ask Cool Tools)

What is the best music scoring software? (Answer at Ask Cool Tools)

Looking for a great laptop MIDI keyboard. What’s a great buy? (Answer at Ask Cool Tools)

Need a guide to math software. (Answer at Ask Cool Tools)

What is the best digital motion sensing camera for wildlife? (Answer at Ask Cool Tools)

Are there any productivity apps that you’ve used for more than a year? (Answer at Ask Cool Tools)

Best aids for learning acting? (Answer at Ask Cool Tools)

Anyone have experience with crowdsourced design services? (Answer at Ask Cool Tools)

Super pogo sticks? (Answer at Ask Cool Tools)

Help me sort out the streaming music services. What’s what? (Answer at Ask Cool Tools)

 

comments Comments
favorites Favorite (15)

Submit to Delicious Submit to Reddit Submit to Stumble Upon Submit to Digg


Unclog Drains with Water Pressure
05-09-13

Clog Hog

I have a home that has a septic system. Living in MN, this winter was very cold. The pipe from the house to the septic tank froze and water backed up into the house. The plumber wanted $200 just to come out (I am in the middle of nowhere), plus he didn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t have to dig up the yard. My wife found the Clog Hog. It only cost $130. (less than the plumber’s trip.) Compared to the cost of a plumber, I had nothing to lose. The Clog Hog connects to your power washer and uses water to cut through ice and other clogs in pipes. It took me about an hour to get through about 6 ft of ice in the pipes. It didn’t damage the pipes and worked fast. All I needed was patience.

-- Jim Sauber  

[This requires a pressure washer to use (not included). -- Mark Frauenfelder]

Clog Hog
$99 – $149 depending on hose length and type of pressure washer you have

Manufactured by Clog Hog.

 
comments Comments
favorites Favorite (15)

Submit to Delicious Submit to Reddit Submit to Stumble Upon Submit to Digg


Tricks of the Trade from a Professional Sign Painter
05-08-13

Sign Game

It’s always fun to cruise through Fantagraphics’s store in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. You never know what you might stumble across amid the new comics releases, independent zines and assorted odd runs and old stock there. I happened upon a copy of Justin Green’s Sign Game (ST Publications and Last Gasp Of San Francisco). It’s an 80 page paperback collection from 1995 of the monthly comic strips Green did for the sign painter’s trade newsletter Signs of the Times from back in the 1980s and 90s.

As detailed in Green’s comics, that was a turbulent time of transition for sign painters. Just as desktop publishing and digital photography transformed the graphic design and photography businesses (ask bankrupt Kodak about that!), the dawn of the computerized vinyl letter cutting machines undid the business of hand-lettered and painted signage.

Each densely rich comic takes on one arcane aspect of this dying art, from the ins and outs of doing gold leaf lettering, or how to wield a mahlstick, to the fine points of font design and brush technique needed for painting on the corrugated surface of metal trucks. Green’s sardonic tone and hilarious perspective also illustrate each hard won lesson of running a business, filled with characters like hard-boiled artists, chiseling customers, and back-biting competitors.

As a comic, Green’s one-page masterpieces employs a myriad of graphic techniques: send ups of Johnson Smith & Co. catalog layouts, Goofus and Gallant-ish profiles, Dick Tracy Crimebsuters comic crooks, and an endless supply of cartoon lettering intro panel gimmicks that ape plexiglass, peeling vinyl letters and stencils.

One installment is most telling: his predictions for the sign biz from 1994. Many were already coming true then, like computer-less mini vinyl letter-cutting systems. One thing he did NOT foresee: the current hipster renaissance for all things artisanal—like hand painted signs and lettering! A brand new book and documentary film Sign Painters by Faithe Levine and Sam Macon promises to tell that tale, and I hope it will be as funny and informative as Green’s Sign Game.

-- Bob Knetzger  

Sign Game
Justin Green
1995, 80 pages
$12 and up (out of print)

Available from Amazon

Sample Excerpts:


 
comments Comments
favorites Favorite (15)

Submit to Delicious Submit to Reddit Submit to Stumble Upon Submit to Digg


Best Bookmaking Guide
05-07-13

Making Handmade Books

While traditional paper-book publishing declines, personal paper-book making ascends. Books have gone from industrial commodity to precious hand-made artifact. There’s a renaissance of handcrafted book-making by enthusiasts and Alisa Golden has played a key role in documenting and teaching this makers’ art. I have a number of book-making books, and this one by her is by far the most complete and thorough. Her diagrams and instructions are very clear. This hefty how-to manual gives directions for creating over 100 different types of books, book bindings and book-ish things. It incorporates her previous two how-to manual, adds new material and will guide anyone through the process of making a paper book by hand. Even better, it will prompt you to experiment with your own book-making designs.

-- KK  

Making Handmade Books
Alisa Golden
2011, 256 pages
$10

Available from Amazon

Sample Excerpts:

binding-1

Top:
Watercolor pencils

Second row:
Colored waxed linen, natural linen thread and bookbinding needle, beeswax, binder clip, Japanese screw punch

Third row:
Bone folder, archival superfine black pen, pencil, stencil brush, assorted papers, craft knife, awl, scissors

Bottom:
Metal ruler; cutting mat under all

*

binding-2

binding-3

binding-4

binding-5


 
comments Comments
favorites Favorite (15)

Submit to Delicious Submit to Reddit Submit to Stumble Upon Submit to Digg


DIY Tours Based on Professional Tour Itineraries
05-06-13

Hack Your Own Adventure Tours

Packaged adventure tours can be fun and useful. A guided hut-to-hut walk in the Italian Alps, or a bicycle tour around the villages of Rajasthan, or a kayaking cruise between Caribbean islands are fantastic journeys that can be hard to program yourself. A good adventure tour agency knows how to smoothly sequence events like this, and on higher-price tours you may get a guide as well.

But I prefer to create my own adventure tours, because I can save many thousands of dollars that way. I use the commercial adventure tour itineraries as a basis for my own travels, and then modify them as needed. The way I figure it, if they can move a dozen people along the route, I should be able to do it with one or two. The most reputable agencies publish their itineraries online in great detail as a sales incentive. But to complete many of the routes they are selling requires private transportation or special accommodations. You might need a pick-up or delivery at a trail-head, or a jeep to reach a village, or even a plane flight, etc. This is where many budget travelers stop. It took me many years to realize that in most places in the world today — even developing nations — it is not hard, or very expensive, to arrange private transportation or expert help. And with the internet, these arrangements can be made beforehand. I’ve pre-arranged jeeps, vans, buses, and boats. The simple rule of thumb is: if a US-based tour agency can pre-arrange it, you can too, and at a great savings.

It will take some time and googling to arrange all the parts of an adventure tour, but the payoff is that you can replicate the same tour for about 1/5th the cost of the glossy professional version. So now I page through the adventure travel sites discovering all kinds of nifty tours I would have never thought about doing. Unlike the unconnected places in a guide book, there’s a logical flow to an itinerary, and because of their high prices, these agencies will hone and optimize a trip for peak experiences. A key thing: pay attention to the time of year they run a tour, which is again highly optimized. Still I wind up modifying them in some way for my own use. I usually chop off the leisurely entry in a big city and head directly to the adventure (see my Laser-back travel advice).

Adventure Tour Agencies

Some famous adventure travel companies specialize in highly-refined premium tours around the world, but they may be low on actual adventures. For instance I find National Geographic Expeditions’ trips (better than their Adventure trips) involve more car and plane travel than suits me, but occasionally they’ll have a nice gem worth replicating. Wilderness Travel gets you walking or kayaking a bit more, but still cover more miles in vehicles than I want, but I have used their itineraries a few times with great success.

Geoex offers pretty cool offbeat trips I’ve not seen elsewhere, but they also have plenty that are too mileage-hungry to count as an adventure. AsiaTranspacific specializes in Asian trips, a few of which stay close to the bone. For Africa and animals I look to Africa Adventure; they have a really good season chart for best times of year and parks for wildlife viewing. I like Zegrahm for inspiration. They do real off-the road adventures, including trips one might describe as “expeditions” which is more my kind of adventure travel.

But of all the tour sites, the one that has provided me with the most appealing itineraries is Journeys International. They emphasize in getting you to walk, hike, bike and kayak and this is really the way to go anywhere. Almost any one of their itineraries would yield a fantastic adventure.

Remember, I have no personal experience with the tours given by any of these outfits. I only use their freely published routes. All these tours are super expensive if you buy them but I would bet they would be really fun and generally well done. I recommend them here only as models to assemble your own.

If you have a favorite adventure tour agency (especially if it is not mentioned here) that you’ve used in any way, leave a comment.

-- KK  

Sample Excerpts:

From Journeys International

big-bhutan


 
comments Comments
favorites Favorite (15)

Submit to Delicious Submit to Reddit Submit to Stumble Upon Submit to Digg


Best Small Carry-on Luggage
05-05-13

L.L. Bean Carryall Rolling Underseat Bag

One of the perks of my job as a television news & documentary producer is I get to travel a lot. Then again, when I’m waiting in an airport security line, I’m reminded that travel is also the worst part of my job…

So, when I hit the road I try to pack as much business into the shortest amount of time possible — and pack all my clothes into the littlest bag possible. And this little LL Bean suitcase is ideal for trips 2-3 days long: I can fit a toiletry kit, Keen’s sandals [which I wear as exercise shoes in hotel gyms], socks/underwear/t-shirt/shorts, 2 dress shirts, a sweater, and a pair of dress pants. There’s even room for a full-size laptop. My reading material, sunglasses, chargers, snacks, water bottle, DSLR, and sundry gadgets go into a Patagonia Lightweight Travel backpack — though the Bean bag can usually hold most of these items too.

If I need dressier clothes, I go with an Eagle Creek 22″ roll-aboard with a Pack-It suit folder. But 90% of the time this little bag does the trick — and there’s never a problem finding room for it in the overhead bins. With regional jets taking-over more and more short routes, traditional carry-ons almost always have to be gate-checked; I can often slip this one on-board.

For that reason, I can’t speak to how this thing will hold-up to regular abuse by baggage handlers. But I’ve flown with mine at least twice a month for the last three years without any sign of wear on the fabric or wheels.

I know that many will object to having wheels on a small bag, but the fact is I’m rarely moving across unpaved surfaces. Why schlep when you can roll?

Compared with other big-name brands (Travelpro, Briggs & Riley, Tumi, Eagle Creek, Victorinox, Delsey etc), I’ve found this bag has the best weight-to-size ratio and the most useful features for the money. It’s looks are kind of frumpy – hardly a cool design. But as a tool that quietly performs a vital job for me, it’s very cool.

-- Ed Forgotson  

L.L. Bean Carryall Rolling Underseat Bag
$129

 
comments Comments
favorites Favorite (15)

Submit to Delicious Submit to Reddit Submit to Stumble Upon Submit to Digg


Guide to edible wild plants of texas and the Southwest
05-04-13

Foraging Texas

Organic and natural food tends to cost a lot, but I recently went to a class on using wild edibles. It turns out that some wild edibles were brought here to the USA by immigrants, but their use fell out of favor over time. They only became weeds by abandonment.

Wild edibles have an amazing amount of vitamins and minerals. For example, Lamb’s Quarter is higher in vitamins, minerals, and protein than spinach. Considering that Lambs Quarter could be transplanted to your backyard, and grown free of cost, it is hands down a better choice than spending money on “organic spinach.”

My favorite resource for finding out about these things is Foraging Texas. They have a smart phone version, photos, and explanations about the legalities of foraging.

The site’s editor, Dr. Mark Vorderbruggen, gives classes at the Houston Arboretum. I had my first experience with edible plants on one of his tours at a nature preserve. It was a bit strange to see a group of people following a man around who would reach down and pick up a weed, pop it in his mouth, and say, “Yes, that’s almost ready!” and see everyone else follow suit, as if it were a cooking class.

Foraging is not gardening, which works for me. It’s finding plants that like to grow in the wild and don’t need to be mollycoddled and tended constantly. I even found several edible plants in my own backyard, like spiderwort and pony’s hoof. You know that plant you just tried to kill with Roundup? It might have tasted great in a salad!

-- Carl Mixon  

Foraging Texas

Sample Excerpts:

henbit

Henbit
Scientific Name(s): Lamium amplexicaule and Lamium purpureum
What: leaves, stem, and flowers
How: raw, cooked, or tea
Where: sunny yards, urban areas
When: late fall, winter (in Houston), spring
Nutritional Value: vitamins, iron, antioxidants

Henbit is in the mint family. It likes yards and other open, sunny areas where it can grow dense mats. The whole plant is edible either raw or cooked. Tea made from dead nettle may induce sweating.


comments Comments
favorites Favorite (15)

Submit to Delicious Submit to Reddit Submit to Stumble Upon Submit to Digg