Cool Tools

Snappi Diaper Fasteners

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:00:00 -0800

We buy cloth diapers for our baby, as a greener, cheaper and healthier alternative to disposables. Several companies make cloth diapers with snaps or Velcro fasteners, but those can hit $20 apiece or more.

Flat diapers are much cheaper, and can be folded to fit any size baby, but there’s no built-in fastener. The traditional approach used to be safety pins, but it’s a daunting task to pin a diaper without stabbing the baby or yourself with the sharp point.

The Snappi diaper fastener is a rubber elongated “T” with plastic teeth at each of the three ends. The teeth hold the diaper securely, but are too short to go through the diaper and into the baby. Putting the Snappi on is about as easy as using Velcro, and taking it off is even easier. It’s simple to clean and has a lifespan of about six months.

We tried an off-brand version first, and it nearly sent us back to pins -- the teeth wouldn't hold, and the plastic bits that connect the teeth to the stretchable body of the “T” always separated from the rubber. The Snappi brand fasteners never gave us any trouble.

-- Scott Noyes

Snappi Diaper Fasteners
$2

Manufactured by Snappi Baby

Available from Amazon

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Spring Tools Combination Nail Set

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:00:00 -0800

I’ve had the same one for almost ten years. Sometimes called the “two-bit snapper,” it’s a very simple and clever spring-based hammer that you use instead of the nail set-hammer combo normally used to pound in finishing nails. It’s excellent when you need to put up molding in tight spots and corners. Its compact size means that it can always live on your tool belt. You just pull back one end and the spring does the hammering for you.

It seems to be a lot more accurate than a center punch-hammer combo, since one hand holds the tool and nail together, while the other pulls back to snap the spring; you get fewer errant holes around the nail you’re trying to punch in. It’s one of those tools that is so simple, I wonder why more people don’t have one. I’ve only used it for finishing nails, but Spring Tools makes it in other variations, as well. This tool is just so elegant: simple, functional and as utilitarian as a bicycle.

-- Erik Knutzen

SpringTools 32R12-1 1/32 to 2/32-Inch Combination Nail Set Spring Impact Tool
$10

Manufactured by Spring Tools

Available from Amazon

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Sugar Dispenser

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:40:52 -0800

I bought this sugar dispenser from King Arthur Flour a couple of years ago, and it’s been a sturdy, reliable tool. It’s sized to accommodate a five-pound bag of sugar. You slide the bag inside, open it up, trim the bag top to the level of the top of the container, and put on the lid. There’s a little flap on the inside of the lid that fits right inside the bag of sugar, holding it open and keeping the sugar from sifting down the sides. The lid has two openings, one is a small pour spout, and the other is large enough for scooping out sugar with a measuring cup. The spout is slightly flexible, so if a lump clogs it I can squeeze the sides of the spout to crush the lump. The whole thing is ant and waterproof when sealed shut.

This is not a sexy matte-black high tech kind of tool, just a solid, well thought-out container that makes working with, and storing, sugar or flour much simpler, easier and cleaner. Using it makes me very happy.

Also, King Arthur Flour’s online store and print catalog are packed with tons of nifty cooking tools. The King Arthur Flour’s Cookie Companion and Baker’s Companion books are fabulous cookbooks.

-- Amy Thomson

Sugar/Flour Dispenser
$8
Manufactured by Buddeez

Available from Amazon

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Create an Oasis with Greywater

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0800

Greywater is the term for all household wastewater except for the toilet and kitchen sink. This is the only comprehensive book I know of on the subject, and in this fifth and expanded edition, Art Ludwig explains how to choose, build, and use a variety of simple greywater systems. There are clear drawings for sending washing machine water into the garden (with or without a drum), for putting diversion valves on bathtubs or showers, for creating “mulch basins,” for ultra-simple setups like “Garden Hose Through the Bathroom,” and “Dishpan Dump (Bucketing)” -- the latter of which I've been practicing lately to the great benefit of both septic system and compost piles.

There’s a large section on branched drains -- splitting the flow and dispersing greywater to a number of mulch basins in the garden -- using gravity flow, no pumps or electricity. Mistakes made in greywater systems over the years are documented here, along with suggested improvements, and there's a two-page System Selection Chart with a comparison of 18 different systems.

-- Lloyd Kahn

[Complete plans for one of the book’s most broadly appealing projects -- a Laundry to Landscape Grey Water System -- are available, free, on the Oasis Design site. -- ES]

The New Create an Oasis with Greywater
Art Ludwig
2009, 144 pages
$21

Published by and available from Oasis Design

Or $15 from Amazon

Sample Excerpts:

Simple Laundry Drum with Rainwater Harvesting

Figure 7.6: Laundry Drumless Laundry

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Gorilla Gripper

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:11:55 -0800

I have the Stanley Panel Carry, previously reviewed on Cool Tools, but greatly prefer the Gorilla Gripper, which works with panel widths from 3/8 to 1 1/8 inch. It is about six times more expensive, but it works significantly better for moving large panels.

The Stanley tool goes under the bottom edge of the sheet. This can be awkward if it’s heavy material, such as plywood, and seems more likely to result in damaged corners. Using the Stanley holder, I had to bend my back at an awkward angle to pick up the sheet -- the length from the tray (where the bottom edge of the sheet rests) to the handle is too short. The Gorilla Gripper lifts from the top of the panel, so there’s less need to bend before lifting, and I can keep my back straight. Also, with the Gorilla Gripper it's easier to adjust your balance, since you don't have the friction of the material moving the tool from side to side.

-- D.A.

[Video of the Gorilla Gripper in use here. -- ES]

Gorilla Gripper
$46
Manufactured by Landon Innovations

Available from Amazon

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Homegrown Evolution

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0800

Mead making, beer brewing, bread baking, urban poultry raising, container planting, pirate gardening, foraging, pickling, bicycle-powered hauling, solar-oven making and anti-car culture ranting are just a fraction of what you’ll absorb plumbing the archives of HomegrownEvolution.com. Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, husband and wife urban homesteaders, guide those of us who can’t make it back to the land on how best to incorporate aspects of it into our modern city-bound lives.

They’re encouraging, but don’t preach or pretend to be perfect, and therein lies their appeal. Erik and Kelly are friends of mine, and over the past few years their website and their book, The Urban Homestead, have led my household, step by small step, to be less consumptive and more productive.

-- Elon Schoenholz

Here's an instructional video on how to make your own self-watering container. If you plan to undertake this project, be sure to use a food-grade bucket, as the authors recommend in The Urban Homestead. SurviveLA was the original name of the Homegrown Evolution website. -- ES

Homegrown Evolution
Free

Sample Excerpts:

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Field Notes

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0800

I’ve tried lots of different small notebooks. Field Notes are the best ones I’ve found, small and thin enough to really have with you all the time, in a shirt or pants pocket. I’ve carried them for over a year, and my small notebook is used every day for ideas, shopping lists, account numbers/passwords (coded, of course), design sketches, references.

I am now laminating the covers with simple self-seal lamination sheet to lengthen the life of the cardboard cover.

I love leather, but all the leather and Moleskine notebooks (previously reviewed on Cool Tools) are simply too thick for me to carry all the time in a pocket, which is where the Field Notes pads have made the difference.

-- John C Moore

[I’ve been using Field Notes lately, and a laminating them as John suggests would be a great improvement. Moleskine makes a similar soft cover product, and competitively priced, too. Both are fine choices if you get around without a bag. --ES]

Field Notes 3-Pack, 48 page memo books, ball point pen, pencil
$10
Manufactured by and available from Field Notes Brand

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Haws Watering Can

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0800

When I began gardening I used a generic plastic watering can from a hardware store, but it didn’t give a gentle enough flow for newly planted seeds, nor a fast enough stream for larger plants that drink a lot. The polyethylene Haws can’s separate spout attachments—right angle downspout and oval brass rose—are outstanding features that make it a versatile performer. The right angle is useful for pinpointing the spot I’m aiming to water and also for avoiding watering a plant’s leaves. The brass rose angled upward lets forth a gentle rain for delicate seedlings; angled downward it gives a still-gentle but stronger dispersed stream. With both spouts removed, a solid stream shoots straight out of the can for deeper watering and hitting the tough-to-reach corners of my raised beds. Two “parking spots” on the body of the can hold the spout attachments not in use, so they’re never misplaced. Changing modes -- and changing back -- couldn’t be easier.
The only drawback I’ve encountered is that the fine holes in the brass rose clog easily and need to be cleaned regularly to work well. But until I graduate to drip irrigation, this is the perfect tool.

-- Elon Schoenholz

Haws 6-Liter Practican Watering Can
$39

Manufactured by Haws

Available from Amazon

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A&P Mechanic's Cable Key Ring

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:12:13 -0800

I carry a ton of keys. I’ve tried standard metal key rings in a few sizes, mini-carabiners of various types, and dual rings with a quick-release between them, and they all have problems. The A&P Mechanic’s Cable Key Ring, by County Comm, is made of strong stainless steel cable with a screw ferrule closure, is very light and the screw-apart fastener makes adding new keys a snap.

The give in the cable allows each key to flex in place a bit when under tension, so keys and ring together conform to my pocket and make less of an uncomfortable, unsightly bulge. The fact that it’s both handsome and just a couple of dollars doesn’t hurt, either.

-- George Cochrane

I only picked up this key ring a month ago, but I have sworn never to return to the old style of key rings again. I got so tired of breaking nails prying the ring apart and then forcing my keys on to it and wiggling them around the ring until they were completely secured. This key ring simply uses a very secure barrel screw to hold the two ends together. The end that pulls out of the barrel easily threads through all of my keys at once and then securely screws back into the barrel.

-- Debra Williamson

[These two reviews highlight similar products with a slight variation. The ring by County Comm is made from stainless aviation cable with brass screws and barrels; the Hy-Ko Products ring Debra uses has a nylon-coated cable. Of the two buying options below, both include shipping costs two- to four- times the item price, so it only makes sense if you have something else to buy. Maybe it’s time to finally get those EMT shears for your grab-and-go bag. -- ES]

A&P Mechanic’s Cable Key Ring
$2
Manufactured by and available from County Comm

Cable Key Ring
$3
Manufactured by Hy-Ko Products

Available from Aubuchon Hardware

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Mint

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:46:19 -0800

This web-based dashboard gives me an elegant overview of all my financial accounts in one screen. I've been using Mint for the past 6 months and it is marvelous. It is super friendly, quick, and illuminating. It makes me smart.

Mint will aggregate any money or spending account with online access -- which is basically all financial accounts by now. In ten minutes or less I added our bank, credit cards, mortgage, cars, 401k, credit union, checking, and Etrade accounts to Mint. That's the last input I ever had to do. From then on Mint automatically updates all the accounts, sucking in their data with the correct passwords, and integrates this diverse information into a single unified realtime snapshot of our finances. At once glance I can see where we are spending too much, or how we actually allot our income. I no longer have to hunt for my password and numbers for different accounts, say checking our bank balance, or a credit card purchase. It is much much easier, and far more pleasant, to simply log into Mint, where I can see everything. There, in clear presentation far superior to most banks, are all my accounts informing each other. One window to watch them all!

Mint is a read-only interface. There is no way to move money, or reconcile accounts, or pay bills, or calculate taxes (for now). That is also why it is safe. In fact it is probably safer than most banks because fancy algorithms at Mint similar to credit card fraud detection software will alert you when your finances show an unusual pattern. This is one of its cool features. It will gently inform you (at your choice) that say, based on your past months’ expenditures, you've overspent your grocery budget this month. It also makes a fairly good guess at categorizing your expenses on its own. It can then make comparisons of how your budget stacks up to other aggregate users in your area, and offer budget suggestions (which we have not followed). We rarely use cash for anything so Mint gives us a very complete picture.

Some people will not be convinced by any reasoning or proof that having a single window into your entire financial situation is safe. If you are of that type, don't use Mint. But for the rest, who long ago realized that using credit cards online is far safer than using one in a store, Mint is a fabulous cool tool. And it is free. Available anywhere the web lives.

There are a couple of similar sites, such as Wesabe and Geezeo, which emphasize sharing budgets, sort of like a Weight Watchers for finances, but I find their interfaces far less elegant. However this niche is evolving fast, and features expand. Mint has a good head start, a winning design (I love the pie charts!), and a sizable user base, so I think it will be around for a while. (If it did disappear, no loss because it does not store any unique data.)

-- KK

Mint
Free

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Hack Alert

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:03:00 -0800

We are aware that some visitors to Cool Tools today encountered a warning that this site had a link to a malware site. Last night the site was hacked into and a link to a malware site was inserted into the source code of the pages. We've cleaned it up, and have repaired the breach and are working on making the site more secure. I apologize for the inconvenience. We are now back to your regular scheduled cool tool of the day. Thanks to those who sent messages alerting us of the trouble. -- KK

Frame Saver

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0800

Frame Saver is an aerosol that coats the inside of a steel bicycle frame to prevent rust. Carbon fiber and aluminum frames comprise most of the bicycle market share these days -- have for a while -- but many cyclists still prefer the ride quality of steel frames. Also, the fixed-gear trend has granted a second life to thousands of ’80s-era steel bikes over the past few years.

While the paint on the exterior of the bicycle frame's tubes prevents rust, there's no rust-protection on the inside unless Frame Saver, or something similar (such as Boeshield T-9), has been applied. It's arguable that if you take good care of your bike, pull the seatpost and let the bicycle dry upside down after rain rides, rust won't be a problem, but using Frame Saver is inexpensive insurance for what can be a costly investment. I've applied it and found it solidly in place, with no trace of rust, many years later.

The easiest route is to apply Frame Saver (or have your local shop do it) before your bike is initially built up. A can generally coats two frames, and it can extend the life of your frame/fork indefinitely. If you’re going to use it on a bike that’s already built, it’s best to strip the bike completely before applying; the bottom bracket and headset regions are particularly vulnerable to moisture.

Peter Weigle, the manufacturer, is a highly regarded framebuilder and has posted some beautiful photos of his handmade bikes on Flickr.

-- Elon Schoenholz

JP Weigle's Frame Saver
$13

Manufactured by JP Weigle

Available from Amazon

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GB Wire Stripper and Crimper

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0800

A tool I love is the GB SE-94 Automatic Wire Stripper and Crimper. The Kronus Wire Stripper, previously reviewed on Cool Tools, used to be the bane of my electrical-work existence. It would only properly set and strip the wire in one quick motion half of the time, and the other half I’d have to spend a few minutes fumbling around getting the clamp to hold on tight or the blade to cut deeply enough to strip the wire. Averaging out the two amounts of time, it really wasn’t any more effective than the classic manual strippers. When I got my hands on the SE-94, it was as though someone gave me a hammer after years of driving nails in with rocks. It can grab and strip a wire with just a simple clench of the fist. It’s also been extremely handy in those cramped-in-a-sink-cabinet-wiring-up-a-garbage-disposal situations, when I don’t have the time to comfortably mess around with an inconsistent tool to get it to do what it was designed to do.

-- Cavan Gahagan

GB SE-94 Automatic Wire Stripper and Crimper
$19

Manufacturd by Gardner Bender

Available from Amazon

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Portable Apps

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0800

I have my home desktop set up with applications for a variety of tasks, but when traveling, at work or at a friend’s house (I’m often de facto IT for friends and family) I never seem to have the tools I need. I used to carry around a book of CDs with various applications, but that was bulky and required installation on someone else’s machine. About three years ago I discovered PortableApps.com and now I just carry a thumbdrive with the PortableApps suite -- a downloadable collection of freeware and open-source utilities (for PCs only, not Macs) designed to be loaded onto a removable drive.

The “Portable” in PortableApps means that no installation is required and no data is saved to the host machine. You don't need to be logged in as an account that allows software installs (i.e., an admin. account). Your data is stored on the flash drive, so when you load Firefox Portable Edition, you have your bookmarks and passwords at hand. When you load your FTP client, you have your saved IP addresses.

With PortableApps your data is not stored on the host PC. The advantage of this is that data such as browsing history, temp. files and config. files are not stored on someone else's computer. That has privacy and security benefits, and could keep you from getting blamed for problems because you installed unfamiliar programs on someone else's computer.

A huge range of useful applications is included. Some standouts are Firefox Portable Edition, Pidgin Portable (a multi-IM client), OpenOffice Portable, GIMP Portable (image editing) and Firebird Portable (e-mail). Also included are FTP clients, media players and DVD authoring programs.

Aside from the benefit of portability, PortableApps is a curated list of legal, free products. Application versions are kept up to date. The suite is downloadable with one click, and there's a categorized menu to access the files

This suite has come in handy so many times I’ve lost count. I even keep a folder on my regular hard drive because the apps are so useful. I also appreciate that PortableApps.com continues to update the list of applications and their versions. It’s even possible to manually add applications to the suite, but I haven’t needed to do that yet.

-- Mark Groner

PortableApps.com
Free

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Canon G10

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0800

I haven't enjoyed using a camera this much in years, and I take pictures for a living. Smaller than a digital SLR but larger than an ultracompact point and shoot, Canon's G10 is portable yet substantial enough to hold steady. I've had other point and shoots in the past, but this is the first that's given me the right combination of intuitive exposure control and ease of use, so that I actually make the effort to grab it and use it every day. The big bright LCD allows me to forgo the optical viewfinder entirely (something I never imagined I'd do), and the exposure-indicating display is similar enough to those found on the analog cameras I used years ago, with the bonus of its histogram preview. Setting shutter speed and aperture manually makes sense as it would on a full-size DSLR. With the G10 I don't have to be bothered to choose a lens to mount on the front of the camera before stepping out of the house, so I do step out of the house with it, daily. And yet when I'm pushing pixels later on, I'm not disappointed by files that are sub-par.

Traditional camera lovers tend to enjoy the subtly classic design of the G10, reminiscent of the Contax G2 35mm rangefinder, and those same photographers might also enjoy the Panasonic LX3, with its wide Leica lens and sleek body, which is more compact than the G10 and a close competitor. l prefer the G10, partly because its greater telephoto capabilities allow me to take snapshots of unfamiliar birds while out hiking, so that I can identify them later. And it is $200 cheaper than the LX3.

Image quality from its 14.7 Megapixel CCD sensor is impressive, particularly in daylight settings. Movie quality is very good (640x480 px. @ 30 fps), though zooming capability while shooting would be a welcome enhancement. The macro feature is outstanding. Full manual controls are available, as are RAW files, necessary for getting the most out of any digital camera. The G10's predecessor, the G9, is also a worthwhile buy (check eBay, since the G9's no longer on the market), though the pending doom of obsolescence is one step nearer.

-- Elon Schoenholz

Canon Powershot G10
$460

Manufactured by Canon

Available from Amazon

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