Read About Featured Gadgeteer - Mike Oetting

Gadgeteer Article

April 27, 2005

Name: Mike Oetting
Location: Kansas City

I suppose it all started nearly 10 years ago in 1996 with the launch of the Palm 1000. I remember reading the press leading up to the launch of this product, and I was hooked. I thought it was the first PDA which seemed to have a fair amount of functionality, offered the possibility of 3rd party development yet was inexpensive enough to be a reasonable choice for the average person. I bought one shortly before it was announced, and before Comp-USA even had them in stock. Since that time, I have been captivated by gadgets of all types. For some reason, I derive great joy in researching them, testing them, purchasing them and recommending them to others based on their individual needs and desires. The Gadgeteer site has been helpful to me over the years as I explored this hobby.

My gadgets have included PDA’s, digital cameras, music reproduction equipment, computer hardware and many single-purpose devices too numerous to mention. I thought I’d provide a list of my eight favorite gadgets (in terms of how useful and enjoyable they were at the time of purchase). They include inexpensive items that could fit in most budgets, to those which are difficult to justify on price. They are listed below in reverse order of merit:

8) Palm V: I’ve had a number of PDA’s over the years on the Palm and Pocket PC platforms, including products made by Palm, Toshiba and Compaq. I think that this particular product had the best form-factor of any of them. It was truly pocket sized and surprisingly thin. Of course it was hampered by a monochrome screen, but that was fairly common in those days. The battery lasted forever and it felt great in the hand.

7) Oregon Scientific BAR338 CableFree Thermometer/Weather Forecaster with ExactSet™ Projection Clock:
I love this gadget. Perhaps it’s the height of laziness, but there’s something rather compelling about being able to see the time and temperature in the morning without even having to turn your head 90 degrees. This device offers a lot of flexibility in the projected image, including focus, rotation etc. This is not true of some of their lower-price projection clocks. http://www2.oregonscientific.com/catalog/1_2_402.asp

6) Etymotic ER-4P MicroPro Earphones:
Wow. With the right music source, these earphones really bring detail in music to life. They are not unlike the B&W (manufacturer of highly accurate loudspeakers) of headphones -- very analytical and adding little color to the sound. If what you’re listening to is poorly recorded, you will be able to tell. But the plus side is – you will hear things in your favorite songs that you may never have heard before. I highly recommend these for frequent travelers (they isolate you nearly completely from outside sound) and for audiophiles on the go. I suggest getting the ER4P along with a converter cable which effectively makes an ER4S. The difference is that the 4P sounds arguably better with no additional amplification, and the 4S sounds superior when you add a headphone amp. The ER4 series is described at the Etymotic Site: http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er4.asp. A great place to find general information and discussion about headphones and headphone amplification is http://www.headfi.org/.

5) SLIMP3 (reviewed here by Julie) http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/slimp3-review.html. This small box with a bright display caught my attention when I was looking for a way to play my iTunes library on my home stereo system. When I learned that music could be streamed from my Mac to a network device which connected to my stereo, I was elated. I placed my order, and when it arrived, I was pretty excited. I suppose it had to do with being able to listen to the bulk of my music without getting up to change discs. It wasn’t until I moved away to attend graduate school that its value really became clear. Rather than carting boxes and boxes of discs and transporting them across the county, I could just pack my Mac and my SLIMP3 and be done with it. The newest version of this product, known as the Squeezebox, offers a wireless connection, which could be invaluable to a WiFi household. http://www.slimdevices.com/

4) Palm Portable Keyboard: I have noted a specific model in this case, but this entry really applies to the whole category of portable keyboards for PDA’s. I’ve owned three different keyboards over the years, and while I have found them to be very useful from time to time, they weren’t really essential until graduate school. Rather than take notes in my admittedly poor handwriting, or deal with the bulk or lousy battery life of a notebook computer, I found that the combination of my Palm Portable Keyboard and Palm Zire 71 PDA was pretty much ideal. I could quickly type notes on the full-sized keyboard, running into problems only when graphs and charts were displayed. Once I synchronized with my PC at home, I could rest easy with the knowledge that I didn’t have to worry about dropping a notebook on campus and losing my semester’s work. I highly recommend a portable keyboard to all students and frequent notetakers. http://www.palmone.com/us/products/accessories/keyboard/ For more information on how personal electronic devices can enhance learning in a university environment, please see a site, entitled Gadgets in Higher Education which I created in support of class devoted to Literacy in the Information Age. http://www.oetting.org/491/.

3) Garmin GPSmap 60c: This was my third GPS device. There’s something sort of comforting about knowing absolutes. Like clocks synchronized with atomic time servers to tell you exactly what time it is within a fraction of a second, GPS units provide the same sort of reliable information. You get to know exactly (actually within 10-15 feet or so) where you are on the earth. This information is only of limited value when you are only presented with a set of latitude and longitude coordinates, but in the case of a color mapping GPS like the Garmin GPSmap 60c, this information can really be useful. This is one of the better multi-purpose units out there, feeling equally for hiking off-road, or for street directions. The color display is bright and clear, and requires no backlight under typical daylight conditions. http://www.garmin.com/products/gpsmap60c/
Perhaps the best site to help you decide which GPS to buy is by Joe MeHaffey: http://gpsinformation.net/

2) Princeton Tec Aurora: This 3-LED headlamp is really excellent. I use it around the house when connecting cables on the back of the TV, when looking through boxes in dimly lit rooms, while scanning the carpet for a dropped screw and for any number of other situations where a normal flashlight might be normally used. The freedom that a head-mounted flashlight offers is significant. You have two free hands instead of one, which makes a significant difference in many tasks. The Princeton Tec model which I have is based on LED, rather than incandescent light. This means that it will burn longer and cooler than the technology which older headlamps used. I load mine up with rechargeable NiMH AAA batteries, and say goodbye to the never-ending stream of alkalines. http://www.princetontec.com/outdoor_aurora.html

1) Apple iPod: My initial foray into high-capacity (hard drive based) portable music players was the Creative Nomad Jukebox. At the time, I thought it was pretty decent, offering 6GB of storage in a portable-cd-player-sized package. When I was watching the live webcast of the MacWorld Keynote Address on October 23, 2001, Steve Jobs caught my attention in a big way. He unveiled the iPod, which was an order of magnitude smaller than my Nomad Jukebox and undeniably more elegant. I placed my order the same day, put my Jukebox on eBay, and have been a happy camper ever since. The iPod completely blew the Jukebox away in terms of user interface, industrial design and sound quality. While it was smaller in capacity at 5GB vs. 6GB for the Nomad Jukebox, I felt it was a small price to pay for such high-quality portable sound. For me, there’s no other choice. If you do portable music, and you have the cash, you simply must have an iPod. The interface really IS that much better. More iPod information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#First_generation

Many of these gadgets are still available in one form or another today. If your needs are anything like mine, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of my favorites.

Brief Bio: A recent graduate of library school at the University of Illinois, I currently live in the Kansas City area. I’ve worked as a Web Manager and as a Human Resource Management Consultant prior to entering librarianship. My interests include photography, reading, travel and personal electronic devices (obviously).