The Fives: A dream of no more jumper cables and no more computer mice

By Todd Williams, Journal staff | Tuesday, October 14, 2008

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It's a sad truth to acknowledge, but the Williams family may make it through a full calendar year without buying a new gadget.

Last year, it was the iPod classic with its 160gb hard drive. Before that, it was the new iMac. Before that, a Sony Bravia 40-inch LCD flat screen. And this list goes on and on, probably back to that Walkman knock-off I got when I was a sophomore in high school.

But times are tougher, and that old couch in the family room isn't getting any younger. Still, a guy can dream.

Word out of the business sector is that retailers are starting earlier with the whole slashing prices for Christmas shoppers this season, which I believe began at closing bell on Wall Street last Friday.

Remember, I don't set the season, so if you're going to complain that it isn't even Halloween yet, don't yell at me. Yell at the folks setting up the Christmas displays at your area big box stores. Besides, they're used to it.

As for the odds of scoring an ubertechie, ubercool gift this holiday season, hey, a guy can dream. And here are five technogadgets that are the top of my list to the big man in red this year.

Granted, with a sliding economy, I don't know if I could accumulate enough goodness to score any of the cool tech goodies out this year as a Christmas present, but as I said, a guy can dream.

Porta-Jump

OK, so it's only about 33 percent as manly as pulling out the red and blacks, sparking off the battery and bringing a vehicle back to dead in the cold, still of a December night.

But if you're all alone and the only feasible way to get your vehicle jump started is to call AAA to make the 30 mile trip out to your vehicle, this little gadget looks down right cool.

And a a decent price

Powercup Inverter

The Powercup is a parents dream answered. Its dual outlet, USB charging capabilities are the things that peaceful long roadtrips with multiple kids are made of.

Oh, yeah, there was a time before the kids I would have thought such a device was downright decadent, a little overkill for the electronic generation. But after driving to such distances as Boise and Atlanta in the car with the significant aid of iPods and mini-DVD players, I can only tell you that they are a small slice of heaven to parents trying to maintain the peace on multi-day road trips.

Blackberry Storm

My wife, Heidi, has her eye on this one.

It's hard to deny the power of the BlackBerry, with it's multi-use platform of phone, e-mail, Internet, etc. She was a bit disappointed by the inability to get vCast service (Verizon's primary non-phone phone service for video, Internet, music, etc.), but the thing that intrigues me most about the Storm is its keyboard.

Lots of phones (including the much vaunted but unavailable in these here parts of the backwoods of South Dakoter) have virtual keyboards, but the Storm's virtual keyboard feels like a keyboard. You have to actually press down on the virtual keys and release the key (like an old-fashioned keyboard) to use it.

Kids these days may not need such features, having grown up with virtual keyboards. Old geezers such as myself who began to type on a manual typewriter think it's pretty cool.

HP Touchsmart PC

I admit, I used to have a severe case of computer envy about once every three months. But after getting an iMac with the Pentium chip, those days have passed. Of course, we have an Acer Tablet PC, and an old Vaio, and even a newer PC powered by Vista to take away some of the envy edge, but the touch screen computers coming certainly look inviting.

HP has a model out now that is going for over $1,000. It used to be that a $1,000 price was a slam dunk bargain, but that was when computers weren't as common as a Seinfeld re-runs or spam e-mail.

That being said, I think this kind of computer would be great for the very young and the old, people who haven't had a ton of experience with computers and need not be bothered with the impediment of learning how to use a mouse to navigate.

Oh, yeah, it all seems second nature now, but the learning of the mouse is half the battle with many computer systems today. This new kind of PC that responds directly to touch would get rid of all of that.

Or, maybe, I just think it's very cool. And I do.

iPod Touch

OK, so since my parents already have a computer (although I think my father would dig the interactive Touch PC) and both of my children have passed the age where they know less about computers than I (yes, they are both have already celebrated their fourth birthdays), the odds of scoring a Touchsmart are probably pretty slim around the Williams household.

A better bet may be the new iPod Touch. Oh, we have plenty of iPods, but the Touch has some great features that stand iPods don't.

For one thing, they have a touch screen. And they have a wider screen to play video. And they can use applications.

Of course, ideally, we would simply buy an iPhone, but as aforementioned, no AT&T cell phone service significantly limits our ability to jump on the iPhone bandwagon.

This is the next best thing, and if I were a betting man, I would say that it's next up.

I just wish Apple wasn't so good at making those commercials for products such as the Touch. Because it's a certainty there will be something cooler, something more useful, something oh so more "it" coming out soon. And by soon, I mean about two weeks after I buy the previous coolest tech toy out.