Awesomeness for the Officeness

I am continually trying to pimp out my home office, in any which way I can (when my bank account permits), and there are just so many cool accents and gadgets that you can get nowadays to either bump up productivity, or possibly lessen it, but overall make your working environment a little more enjoyable. In this monthly Awesomeness for the Officeness series I will be showcasing some of the awesome stuff I find throughout the net, and stuff that you guys send me to spread the word to other fellow office nerds to decorate our sanctuaries.

Geek

This beauty debuted at CES 2008 and dear lord, I can’t wait to have one of these. The coverage came from Gizmodo, and apparently this monitor is lit by LEDs, has a resolution of 2880×900 and is over three feet wide! This could eliminate dual monitor setups, or perhaps become the new norm for us screen space whores. They aren’t yet for sale but can you imagine rocking two of these suckers with a 6 foot wide screen-span? You might have also seen NEC’s version of this, found here via Gizmodo for a spendy $7,999.

I already ended up spending around a hundred dollars on VGA, audio, and USB extender cables, when if I would have only known about this magical piece of equipment, it could have been so much easier. IOGear has this wireless kit that lets you plug a transmitter into a desktop or laptop and send the signal to a receiver that is hooked up to your TV and stereo system to allow you to work directly on your TV instead of routing cords all over your house. IOGear’s website has an awesome product tour and a price of $299, but you can get it on Amazon for a hundred bucks less.

I saw these covered on Attack of the Show the other day, and it pretty much blew my mind. It’s a fully wireless (except for the Powermat itself) charging station for things like iPhones, Blackberrys DSi’s and more. Upon further inspection, it is pretty well made, with adapters for all of today’s popular gadgets, magnetized alignment, a cool looking design and it even comes with fitted receiver cases. Check out the website for interactive tours and videos, otherwise they only run about $100, and you can pick them up at any Best Buy or Target store.

Visuals

DMO has a very cool product calle Flat Lighting… which is exactly that. They are lamps, but without the bulk, they are essentially flat pieces of wood or plastic that have embedded LEDs that light up the area around them. They might not be the most powerful lamp, but for a smaller office it could be quite the accent. Check out DMO’s website for details.

Personally I am not that huge of a fan of big ugly looking white boards, so why not switch it up a bit? Pottery Barn has a nice looking piece of frosted glass enclosed in a dark wooden frame that will look a lot better on you wall for those brainstorming sessions. You can grab it for $129.

Personally, I could never afford one of these clocks, but they are just really freaking cool. Boasting a steampunk-ish style it would look amazing in my office. They range from $100 – $500 depending on the style, but you are guaranteed to be the only one of your friends with one! Check out the site with a video showing what they look like with second-by-second changes.

Storage

Now almost everyone knows what Drobo is, and it is quickly becoming one of the most popular storage backup plans available on the market today. If you are one of the few that haven’t seen or heard of the Drobo, you need to head over to their site right now, and educate yourself. Drobo offers single, quad, and octo-enclosures for backing up your data on your computer with anywhere from one to eight disks at a time, depending on the enclosure using BeyondRAID technology. Not only are they heavily reliable, they look awesome as hell. They are a bit spendy, up to $1,500 for just the 8 disk enclosure, they are well worth it if you have sensitive data that you can’t afford to lose.

Forget about those 4 WD MyBooks you got laying around, grab one of these External USB SATA Drive Docks. You can hot swap your SATA drives on the fly, and connect this puppy via USA or eSATA for access just like you swap out your SD cards with your camera. This could be a perfect solution if you have a client with a ton of assets, quote them for a drive, go out and grab a 250GB drive and have that be for that job. Hot swap when you need it, and work directly off the drive, easy as pie… only $77.99.

So that’s it from me guys, let me know if you have any other gadgets or awesomeness laying around that you think should be in the next Awesomeness for the Officeness installment, and I’ll be sure to spread the word!

Nom Noms

Nothing says badass on a Monday morning like a pair of brass knuckles. Now think about that… but carrying a hazelnut latte. Yeah that’s what I thought. I found this beaut’ over on Design Spotter and you can pick it up for an easy £10.95.

Who doesn’t want a mini-fridge right in reaching distance? I mean, it’s hard enough to muster up the energy when you’re knee deep in editing mode, and you just need a soda that second. Well no fear! This thing holds 20 liters and even better yet, it not only cools to 44 degrees Fahrenheit, it can heat as well up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit! Its also got an LCD readout for the temp, and comes with a car adapter too! It’s everything I’ve ever wanted for under a hundred bucks!