The Slate Mobile AirDesk is a Kickstarter project for a small, portable "desk" that sits on your lap. Cut from a block of premium bamboo and large enough to fit 13"-17" laptops, the Slate sports several rows of ventilation holes in the section where your laptop sits and the bamboo absorbs any remaining heat, so your legs stay cool during use. The…
JOBY, makers of the popular GorillaPod tripod, have teamed up with GoPro to develop some cool new tripods and mounts, which they've dubbed the Action Series. There are four items in this series: GorillaPod Action Tripod: Essentially the same as the normal GorillaPod – meaning the sturdy-but-flexible legs can be wrapped around objects – but specifically designed to hold a GoPro, Contour,…
The original version of the Glif – a tripod mount and stand for the iPhone – has long been a favorite item of ours. Just this morning, the guys at Studio Neat released a new version of the Glif that sports an adjustable slider, so now it works with a wide range of smartphones in addition to the iPhone. They've put together…
I'm a big fan of Dan Benjamin's Bacon Method site, which describes how to make perfect bacon every single time using an oven pan rather than a skillet. (Admittedly, I still like to use my cast iron skillet for this sometimes, but that's beside the point.) The site just went through a redesign this week, and now they've included a page of…
I own a set of Skullcandy headphones and I've also listened to friends' sets, and while they usually look pretty cool, I would never have describe them as having "top-notch" sound. So when I heard about the Skullcandy Aviator Headphones and their supposedly awesome sound the other day, I was a little dubious. But apparently these things really do sound good! The…
Some photographers like to lug a ton of their gear around in a big fancy camera bag, but I typically only carry my DSLR and a single lens, so a bag like that would be overkill. I can just toss my camera into a bag with my other stuff, but it would be nice to have some kind of divider to keep…
Podcasting is something I've been considering getting into lately, but I primarily work on-the-go from my iPad and most of the setups I've read about are designed with a stationary Mac in mind. Now, thanks to a recent blog post by Fraser Speirs – co-host of the Out of School podcast with Bradley Chambers – I've been made aware of the Samson…
The latest edition of the Field Notes COLORS lineup is here just in time for the holidays, and it's called "Cold Horizon". With glossy blue covers whose colors blend into one another across the set when they're arranged side-by-side, these notebooks certainly evoke the winter spirit. The pages of each book – which are tinted light green, light blue, and cool gray,…
AppViz is a popular sales-tracking tool for iOS developers that I believe dates back to 2009. Yesterday, The Iconfactory announced AppViz 3, the latest and greatest iteration of the service yet. The Mac app has been completely redesigned, with easy-to-understand graphs and statistics about how your apps are doing on the App Store. You can monitor in-app purchases, read reviews of your…
Dartstrip is a Kickstarter project that aims to make the process of hanging art, photos and posters super easy. It's an 8ft-long strip of white steel, scored in one-inch increments and backed with a non-residue adhesive, all stored in a tin that would fit right in at the tuna aisle. The strip is dispensed from the side of the can like scotch…
FiftyThree has just made another leap into the world of physical goods with a gadget called Pencil. Pencil is essentially an iPad stylus, but one with special features designed for use with their popular sketching app, Paper. Simply touch the stylus tip to the screen while Paper is open, and it will automatically pair via Bluetooth. From there, the app will be…
Speaking of travel, the Hudson Laptop Briefcase by Timbuk2 looks like a very nice option for anyone toting an up-to-15" laptop through airport security. It unzips flat so that the entire bag can be sent through a TSA scanner — no laptop-removal necessary. It also has two other gadget compartments, one for an iPad and the other for a power brick and/or…
I wish I'd known about the Bellroy Passport Sleeve Wallet before the cruise I went on recently. A wallet that can hold my passport, boarding pass, credit cards, and a tiny pen would have been tremendously helpful at the time. Alas, I only found out about it this morning, but perhaps a Tools & Toys reader might find it useful for an…
The PocketPlug is an iPhone case that comes with a built-in set of power prongs on the back, allowing you to charge your phone without having to carry an extra cable around with you. When not in use, the prongs fold flat and the PowerPlug acts as a normal case, providing some protection for your iPhone. Available in black for the 5/5s…
News about an upcoming product simply called Coin spread through the internet like wildfire yesterday, but one more mention won't hurt. Coin aims to let you condense all those credit cards in your wallet into a single, digital device that swipes like any normal card would. All you have to do is open the Coin app on your smartphone, swipe a card…
We're no strangers to Hard Graft's excellently-crafted products around here. They've produced some of the finest bags and device cases around. And now, they've decided to show photographers some love by releasing a series of awesome leather camera accessories to their 'Heritage' collection: Hold Camera Handle — A 15cm-long camera handle for comfortably holding your camera while shooting. ($78 / £49) Hang…
Released just this morning, Jony Ive by Leander Kahney (editor of the Cult of Mac blog) explores the meteoric rise of Apple's famous product designer, Sir Ive himself. We're really looking forward to reading this. While this is not a book based on direct conversations with its subject in the way that Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs was, it does cover…
If you travel a lot, there may be times when you won't want to carry a full-on messenger bag or backpack full of gear — you just want something to carry some essentials for getting work done. For those times, the E. Holmes Laptop Case is a fair choice. Slim enough to hold a laptop, some paperwork, and a charger, this case…
Shooting with a Micro 4/3 camera is already a lot of fun, but now it can be even more so by equipping your rig with a lens from the Lomography Experimental Lens Kit. For $89, you get three lenses that will fit any Micro 4/3 camera: a standard 24mm lens, a wide angle 12mm lens, and a fisheye lens. Each lens allows…
The COBURNS iPad Stand is a new Kickstarter project that caught our eye this morning. It's comprised of two wooden blocks, each with a pair of magnets and a slot — if one didn't know what they were, they might think they were looking at some sort of puzzle. The magnets hold the blocks together when not in-use, and when separated, the…