Welcome to today’s installment of Cool Tool Tuesdays, where I feature a favorite item from my life and spotlight it so that others who are not familiar with the product may also benefit from it. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, hardware, material, or website that I have personally tried and love.

Do you have any questions about today’s cool tool? Would you like an item featured in the future? Please leave a comment to this post, or send me a message via my contact form. Enjoy!

Some people like to rough up their gadgets, add personalizations, and give it some character.

I am not one of those people. In fact, I am the complete opposite: I like to keep my gadgets looking as new as the first day I got them.

(This also helps tremendously with their resell values. I was able to sell my old 4-year-old PowerBook for $500!)

Loyal readers may remember that my beloved MacBook Pro died on me last fall. And when I finally got a replacement, I knew that I wanted to protect my investment. After all, it was THE biggest purchase I had made in years, in addition to being a fragile item I knew I would be using every day.

1. Protecting the Keyboard

One of the reasons I was so sad to have my old MBP die on me is because I vastly prefer the old body design of the MBP over the newer, unibody construction. (Anyone else with me?)

And the thing I hate the most about the unibody MBP? The black plastic keys.

A comparison between the unibody MBP (left) and the older model, which I had (right).
(image source) 

I loved the silver keys on the old MBP — a design which carried over from the PowerBook days, which was actually my first Apple computer back in 2001 — and believe that the black keys have a cheap feel to them compared to the silver ones. (Although to be fair, the silver keys were made of plastic too. However, they were sprayed with a matte silver finish that made them look metallic.)

And wouldn’t you know it — my fears were confirmed when, just TWO WEEKS into using my new MBP, shiny spots began to appear on the space bar and a couple of other most-used keys.

These shiny spots were not oil spots. Instead, they were “wear and tear” spots, from the matte finish on the keys wearing away.

A brief perusal of the web told me that indeed, this is a common problem among unibody MBP users and that the best course of action is to purchase a keyboard protector.

NOW YOU TELL ME!

I quickly discovered that best keyboard protector for the MBP is the Moshi ClearGuard, which is advertised as the thinnest keyboard cover/protector on the market at 0.1mm thin, or one-fifth the thickness of silicone protectors.

You might think that the $25 price tag is pretty steep for a piece of plastic. But I freakin LOVE this thing. It creates a bit more traction for typing, it allows for the keyboard lights to shine through, and I no longer need to worry about small spills, tiny particles entering the inside of my MBP through the keyboard cracks, or the dreaded shiny wear-and-tear spots on my keyboard.

The best part? It is washable and reusable!

As for the existing shiny spots on my keyboard? They were bothering me so much (yeah, I’m OCD with my gadgets) that I tried a potentially dangerous remedy: the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Because the Magic Eraser is a very fine abrasive, and because I would be wetting it before use, there was some potential for disaster.

However, I squeezed out all but the teeniest amount of water from the Magic Eraser before use, and very gently rubbed the offending spots. It took about 5 minutes of rubbing per key, but it worked. My keys looked brand new again. Problem fixed.

3. Protecting the Body

What about the rest of the MBP? I certainly wanted to protect it from scratches as well as dinges and dents, which are all very likely with a very clumsy owner and two young children at home.

I decided that a hard case — despite the extra girth it would add, in addition to covering the beautiful design of the MBP — would be best suited for my needs and decided on Speck Products’ SeeThru Satin Case.

Installation was a snap — literally — and I love that the material is a smooth, rubbery texture. It has already protected my MBP from a number of incidents which would have surely left ugly scratches on the beautiful aluminum finish, and the case doubles as a sleeve for travel purposes.

It is also transparent enough to let the lighted Apple logo softly shine through:

3. Cleaning the MacBook Pro

When I replaced my PowerBook with a MacBook Pro in 2008, I purchased an iKlear Cleaning Kit along with it.

And if you too, own an Apple product, you should get one too.

iKlear is the only brand that is used by Apple in its stores to get its products clean. It is both ammonia and alcohol free — both of which are chemicals that can damage your screen. (This isn’t false information to boost the sales of iKlear and other products like it. I have a friend who used an alcohol-based wipe on his MacBook Pro and it left a permanent streak.)

There are various iKlear kits available for sale, but all you really need are the basic three items: the spray, the antimicrobial microfiber cloth, and the chamois cloth. (The microfiber cloth is to clean the entire product in conjunction with the spray, while the chamois cloth is used dry, to buff the screen.)

If that isn’t incentive enough for you, I am still using the same exact kit I purchased in 2008. This stuff lasts a loooong time, and is completely worth every penny.

Which products, if any, do you use to keep your laptop — as well as other gadgets — clean and protected? Can you recommend any alternatives to the three I’ve listed above?

Last month, Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport became the first airport to install a BannerXpress kiosk and the banner printing machine couldn’t be more popular.

Installed at the airport’s arrivals area, BannerXpress allows friends and families of passengers to create and print “welcome home” banners with custom fonts, graphics, messages and background images. The kiosk accepts debit and credit cards and charges from around $5.30 for a small banner, to up to $20 for the largest option which are printed on a canvas material in just a couple of minutes.

BannerXpress has gotten so popular, in fact, that users began to seek it to print banners for parties and sports games. As a result, the company plans to expand its target locations to sports stadiums as well.

I have never been greeted at the airport with a sign — not even one from a paid driver — and have always looked to those who were warmly welcomed with banners with a degree of envy. (I always joke to J that the next time he picks me up from an airport, he better have a marching band ready like Marshall did for Lily on HIMYM. ) Something like BannerXpress would be the perfect solution for those who are short on time, creativity, or both to show their loved ones that they were missed. I can’t wait until these babies start making their way stateside!

Regardless of your stance on abortion, you can’t deny that these mock-ups, created in response to the reports of the iPhone 4S digital assistant’s inability to find abortion clinics, are pretty damn funny.

Via Happy Place.

I may be a geek and a gadget-lover, but I don’t always embrace new technology. I like to stay old-school in some aspects of my life, including my preferences of old-fashioned books over e-readers, physical keyboards over touchscreens, and even a pad & pencil over many phone apps.

And this is precisely why I love the Little Printer.

Created by London-based design firm BERG and running on BERG Cloud, a web-based system for controlling wireless products, the Little Printer is an adorable web-enabled printer that prints mini-newspapers containing content from the Internet. Users select the content — anything from news to puzzles to status updates from friends — using an iPhone or Android app.

In other words, it makes mini receipt-sized newspapers!

Check out these examples of what the Little Printer can spit out — birthday reminders, puzzles, news headlines, and  to-do lists…oh my!

For more uses (including a running coach), be sure to check out the website!

I know that some readers may see the Little Printer as a giant waste of ink and paper. But I know that anyone who prefers physical reminders and lists over digital ones — or even anyone with an often-used bulletin board, would greatly appreciate this little device.

Besides, it’s just so darn cute.

Pre-orders for the Little Printer will begin in 2012, at which point Little Printer will launch in beta form.

Via TechCrunch.

In this day and age, I honestly do not know a family (in real life, not ones I only know through the internet) who never lets their babies play with their touchscreen phones or tablets. In fact, the Nabi Tablet — the first Android tablet that is designed for kids — is currently at the top of my Amazon Wishlist!

In this guest post, Mrs. Zhukeeper (hilariously) gives us a run-down of popular accessories to keep your iPhone baby-proof, as well as a very good reason why the iPhone, iPad, and other similar devices may be GOOD for both you and your child. Enjoy!

Last year, at my cousin’s sixth birthday party, his parents gave him…an iPhone. At first, we thought it was pretty ridiculous, but then we found out that it was his father’s deactivated old phone, which was just sitting around since he’d bought a new one. And now that I have a one year old, my first thought has changed from “Really?? A six year old needs an iPhone?” to “Wow, I can’t believe they didn’t give him one until he was SIX!”

The Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Apptivity Case — pretty sure my son would chew
on this whether or not anything was inside

Which is to say, babies LOVE LOVE LOVE iPhones, or any touch screen device, or, well, anything with buttons. This is clear from the new rash of products designed to enable you to allow your baby to play with the iPhone without messing it up, by blocking the home button so the baby can’t close out the current app, protecting the screen with a plastic cover, and/or making the phone easier to hold or chew on.

A few of the options on the market now are:

• The Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Apptivity Case — has grippy handles & rattle attachments for teething, as well as protecting the screen & blocking the home button
• The Woogie — a stuffed animal thing with bendable legs & a cover that protects the screen
• The BubCap — simply covers the home button to prevent the baby from accidentally closing out the current baby-approved app, while allowing a (stronger) adult to still push the button (so it doesn’t have to be taken on and off, unlike the other options)

The BubCap — which I’ve heard other moms rave about

All of which begs the question, should we be handing over our iPhones to our babies?  Cracked recently ridiculed the Woogie in its Twelve Great Parenting Products for Traumatizing Your Baby, saying:

As most moms today will gladly tell you, one of the best ways to shut your kid up is to hand her your iPhone. Kids LOVE those things. Unfortunately, iPhones don’t come cheap, nor do they work so well after being sucked, bitten, smeared with grape jelly and farted on repeatedly, which is what we presume happens every time you hand an iPhone to a kid.

Admittedly, the Woogie is pretty ridiculous looking

Enter the Woogie, half stuffed animal, half protective pouch, all electronic babysitter. Your iPhone fits snugly inside, safe and sound, and there’s a screen protector to keep sticky little fingers off. And, if your little princess is too young to hold it herself, the Woogie’s legs will prop it up. Balance it in her lap, put Sesame Street or some shit on there and grab a few precious moments to go out and get a latte or whatever.

Never mind the haters who suggest you might be introducing gadgets at too young an age or should be actually interacting with your child. They’re probably just jealous that your iPhone does a better job of parenting than they do. Idiots.

However, in the midst of such products as a bite counter and a tube to help boys learn how to aim when they pee, there are a few less ridiculous products mixed in. In fact, an earlier article on the same theme ridicules the much beloved NoseFrida, which makes it pretty clear that the Cracked authors couldn’t be parents themselves. Sure, using your mouth to suck snot out of your babies nose through a tube doesn’t sound like a good idea, but thousands of parents swear by it.

Okay, yes, this one is just crazy

Likewise, a lot of parents I know would vehemently disagree with Cracked‘s take on iPhone toys for babies. The number one reason for this is what I call The Break. As anyone who has ever spent any substantial amount of time alone with a baby could tell you, it is extremely physically and emotionally draining — even when you’re having a wonderful time! What I finally realized not too long after my son was born is that if you make a few minutes for a Break when you start, um, going crazy, then everyone is 1000000x happier. So maybe grabbing “a few precious moments to go out & get a latte or whatever” isn’t something we should be mocking so much as saying “YES!! TAKE A MINUTE TO YOURSELF ON OCCASION!!!”

Parenting can make you do crazy things

Like, well, pretty much everything in life, tools such as iPad baby apps should obviously be used in moderation, but for the life of me I cannot come up with a single argument against letting your baby play with an educational app for 5 minutes once or twice a day. Sure, a reliance on electronic toys or television could inhibit a child’s imagination, creativity, and/or attention span, but…seriously? Five minutes? And that’s all it really takes (usually) for a parent to breathe and reset and get back in the game.

My son enjoying Peekaboo Barn on the iPad

Obviously it’s bad to leave a baby alone with an iPhone for hours, or alone in front of a TV for hours, but you know what? It’s also bad to leave a baby alone with an extremely safe educational toy for hours! Point is: it’s a BABY! Babies require supervision! So if I’m desperately in need of 5 minutes to clear my head, sue me if I’d rather take that mental break while my son happily plays with an educational app in my lap instead of leaving him alone in his crib to cry. Parents have to take breaks sometimes, and this seems like as good or better a way to do it as far as I can see. Plus, super handy at a restaurant or on a plane or when I’m on the phone to keep him quiet! But again — in moderation.

So as far as I’m concerned, order whatever you want to make you feel more comfortable about handing over that iPhone, take a Break — and get a latte, why not?! — and interact with baby again in a few minutes. Your baby might need a Break from YOU too!

Mmmmmmm latte

Disclaimer: I was not paid to review any of these products and have in fact never used any of them! But I do let my son play on my iPhone & iPad…

About the Author:

Ms. Zhukeeper blogs about her 1 year old son, cat, husband, and whatever else strikes her fancy over at The Zhukeepers. Currently a stay at home mom, she and her family have just purchased their first home and made the move from New York City to Philadelphia.