Great Gadgets Make the PC Livin' Easy

My wife, Judy, never has a problem wondering what I want for Christmas. She knows I'm such a gadget freak that I can't get my hands on enough of these technological marvels. But the five devices I've been whiling away the hours with lately aren't just playthings, no matter how much I enjoyed them. They'll make your home-office computing a lot smoother, and maybe a lot more fun, too. (For more cool hardware, see our list of this year's " Cheap Champs.")

Sound switcheroo: When I work late, I like to listen to music playing on my PC. I don't want to disturb my wife, but I'm too lazy to crawl under the desk, disconnect my PC's speaker cables, and connect a headset. That's why Plantronics' $20, mouse-size Audio PC Headset Speaker Switch is so handy. With a flick of its button, I'm listening to Brubeck without waking up the household.

Ports to the fore: Imagine never having to hunker down under your desk searching for ports and fussing with cables. With IC Intracom's $39 Multimedia Control Panel, you can bring two USB ports, as well as ports for a FireWire link, a joystick, a microphone, speakers, and other connections, to the front of your PC. The panel fits into any free 5.25-inch bay inside your system's case, and its connectors snake through the back of the PC into the corresponding backward-facing ports.

Power shots: My digital camera is great, except for the dozens of AA batteries I've had to schlep to keep it powered. Now I use DigiCom's $30 Digital Camera Auxiliary Power Pack rechargeable lithium ion battery, which links to the camera via a cable. It's about the size of a small cell phone, and in unscientific tests using my Epson PhotoPC 3100Z, I took 212 pictures before it ran out of juice.

Digital video snipper: After a day of using a mouse to edit the video from my trip to China last spring, my hand and shoulder ached. And no wonder--I was using the wrong tool for the job. Contour A/V Solutions' $90 ShuttlePro Multimedia Controller is a trackball-size device with a knob that rotates 360 degrees, making precise frame-by-frame movements easy. The shuttle control has seven forward and reverse speeds, as well as 13 buttons preprogrammed for popular video editing applications. The ShuttlePro connects via a USB port and works with all current Windows versions.

Take a good look: Pull out your checkbook for the ProScope--a handheld, lightweight digital microscope from Bodelin Distribution. I used the scope to inspect items around my home office--leaves, feathers, and bugs (so I'm a little late on the spring cleaning). Go to PCWorld.com's Downloads to check out some of my images. The ProScope looks like a doctor's otoscope (the thing they use to look in your ear), only a little bigger. Aim the device at anything and see it on your PC's screen; click a button on the scope to take snapshots, time-lapse photos, or videos. The $229 ProScope (no, I didn't say it was cheap) has a 50X lens, which is more than adequate for seeing the individual cells of a leaf, for example. On a Windows XP system (the device also works with 98 SE, Me, NT, and 2000), the ProScope took 10 minutes for me to install and start using.

It broke my heart to return these products after testing them. But no worries--my wife reads the column, and she knows it's almost stocking-stuffer time.

Contributing Editor Steve Bass runs the Pasadena IBM Users Group. Reach him at homeoffice@pcworld.com; visit PCWorld.com for more Home Office columns.