The Gravitas is an upcoming dock for iPhone and iPad that promises to be extremely stable even for one-handed docking and undocking. At first glance, it looks like it would be made of lightweight aluminum, but it's actually a much denser metal alloy. The resulting dock is one that has a small footprint but still weighs 2.54 lb (1.17 kg), which is…
I've always been kind of a sucker for geeky kid stuff. I grew up watching shows like Bill Nye the Science Guy and Beakman's World, and of course I had one of those Creepy Crawlers bug-maker kits. Now that I'm a dad, I like to keep an eye out for these same kinds of geeky things I can share with my son…
When Google Reader was shut down, the feed-reader market became a sort of gold rush for developers, resulting in the wide array of RSS services we have to choose from today. Now, I'm a Feed Wrangler guy myself, but MnmlRdr is also worth a look if you're wanting a more lightweight, minimalist reading experience. Once you've signed up, you get access to…
Following in the tradition of last year, we, the Tools & Toys staff, are here to share a few of our favorite... ahem... tools and/or toys from 2013. Let's get to it, shall we? Shawn's Favorites Seiko Automatic Watch Buying an automatic watch is an investment that takes research and money. The Seiko is great for dipping your toe into the world…
Anybody who's ever read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will tell you: a towel is one of the most important and useful things a traveler can carry. And if you're going to have one with you at all times, the Packtowl Nano Light Towel is an excellent choice. This thing can absorb just about any liquid you throw at it (up to…
MarkDrop is a new text editor for Mac OS X (10.8 and above) that combines Markdown with Droplr for easy sharing and storage. The left pane, with its monospaced text and format-highlighting, is where you'll do your writing. The right hand pane provides a real-time preview of your Markdown output. Once you've composed something in MarkDrop, it can be saved directly to…
If you're the proud owner of an iPhone 5/5s-compatible Mophie Juice Pack (and you should be, because they're awesome) then you should also look into getting a Juice Pack Dock. It bypasses the Lightning connector, using a special dock connector built into the bottom of the Juice Pack. And just like plugging the Juice Pack directly into a power outlet, the dock…
When I was in marching band back in high school, one of the ways my friends and I chose to pass the time during competitions (when we had nothing better to do than stand by the school bus and wait our turn) was play Hacky Sack in the parking lot. I still have one of my old hacky sacks from those days,…
If there's one thing we at Tools & Toys (and many of our readers) are not in need of, it's another coffee-making contraption. I mean, the lot of us are nearly full-on baristas at this point. But this beautiful, upcoming device called the Ratio Eight coffee machine definitely seems worth checking out. This machine looks like a cross between a Chemex coffee…
There's not much I can say about a playing card deck because they're almost all the same. I just thought this one by Best Made Company was cool enough to point out because of the excellent artwork on its cards. Great stocking stuffer idea, and at only $8 it's not too bad a deal.
I recently linked to a shave kit that was really only missing one key item: a razor of some kind. Now I've come across the Baxter of California Shaving Kit, which has a double-sided safety razor, as well as a nice Dopp bag to carry everything around with while traveling. Also, where the previous kit I mentioned had a simple boar hair…
I'm one of those people who always finds a way to lose pens, no matter what I do. I'll leave one in a specific spot, only to find that it was somehow magicked away the next time I need it. The Move Pen is a Kickstarter project that might help me out a little. With a built-in attachment point for keychains and/or…
My friend Patrick Rhone is known for many things, one of them being a to-do system called Dash/Plus that was designed for people who like to manage task lists with pen and paper. Think of it as a collection of various bullet points you can use to denote the status of items on your to-do list. Today, Patrick announced that the Dash/Plus…
When I go on trips that last a few days or longer, I typically just throw my dirty clothes back into the suitcase, but on the opposite side from my clean clothes. I know I can't be the only one who does this, but that doesn't make it okay. The Outlier Doublebag might solve this problem. It's essentially two bags in one,…
As someone who does nearly all of my writing from an iPad, I've been very happy with my Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover. I like the feel of the keys and the way it protects my iPad when it's closed, plus I haven't yet needed to charge the thing once in the six months I've owned it. But it's not without limitations. The…
Coffee and camping are two things that go together very well, but I feel like a lot of brewing equipment is too delicate for the outdoors. As much as I like my Hario V60, I'm not sure the ceramic would hold up well in my bag. The Snow Peak Coffee Dripper, another pour-over brewer, may be a solution to this problem. It…
We love a good camera strap around here, and the Killspencer Camera Strap looks to be a great contender. Like the DSPTCH Wrist Strap Shawn reviewed, the 48"-long Killspencer strap is made of super durable and virtually untangleable parachute cord, with the addition of stylish bridle leather accents at each end. There are three versions of this strap, based on the color…
Something I've noticed a lot of in the last few years is a renewed interest in the old-school, ritualistic style of shaving, often referred to as "wet shaving". Guys are tossing out their modern shaving stuff in favor of the kind of gear their grandfather might have used back in the day, and in turn they're getting a much more relaxing and…
Before the coffee geeks cry out with indignation: yes, I realize I am linking to a Nespresso product and Nespresso is a blight on the coffee-making world, but this is not one of their wasteful coffee pod contraptions. No, the Aeroccino 3 – no relation to the AeroPress – is merely a milk frothing machine, and a good one at that. It…
Barley is a WordPress plugin that allows you to edit your content – such as blog posts and images – directly from your site's front-end rather than from the back-end admin panel. This means that while viewing your site, you can simply click the text area you'd like to edit and begin typing. Our editor Shawn Blanc wrote a mini-review of it,…