When the zombie-pocolypse comes, and it will, you're gonna wanna be prepared. And there is no better way to be prepared than by reading The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. When should you flee and when should you fight? This handy survival guide will give you the tools and know-how to outsmart the living dead.

Found at Amazon

Just when I thought I had seen it all, I run into Craftsquatch's social networking pillows on sale at Etsy. Twitter, Facebook and MySpace are all represented. Additionally, you will find pillows which reference geeky things like RSS feeds and icons based on popular Adobe products.

You've got to be hardcore to own one of these, but aren't you glad there is someone out there thinking about you?

Found at Craftsquatch Etsy's Shop.

You've probably fallen victim to funnel overdrive, where you pour more than you've liked into a funnel. It is not a deal-breaker, but it's nice to know someone out there cares.

Zevro manufacturers what they call the Smart Funnel. Unlike regular funnels, the Smart Funnel has a handle for easy positioning and carrying along with a pour control system that allows you to control the flow of liquid or solid that will go into your container. When you have poured enough, you turn a lever and the funnel closes. Presto! Another much-appreciated feature is measurement marks along the funnel to indicate how much exactly you are funneling through.

Found at Amazon.

Divine Paper House is run by Matthew Scott, a ridiculously talented independent illustrator. Need proof of his skills? Dip into his portfolio to scope out some of the commercial work he has done, including stuff for Nickelodeon magazines, then visit his Etsy Shop to see what you can put on your wall.

If you've ever seen Ben Newman's work at one point, you'll likely think it is memorable. Fortunately for us, Ben has some of his work up for sale on his online shop. Our choice would be "My Dad Versus Your Dad in Space", a limited edition unframed Giclee print, printed with archival ink on thick somerset paper.

The piece will set you back £110.00 (or roughly $181 USD at the current exchange rates).

Found at Ben Newman's shop

Looking for a safe way to transfer your important files? Take a glance at the Ironkey thumb drive. The Ironkey is an AES 256-bit hardware encrypted thumb drive that offers protection without the need to install any software.

The Ironkey features a Level 3 FIPS 140-2 security, which is basically a tamper-resistant and tamper-evident design. The way that Ironkey achieves this is by coating the internal chips with a hardened epoxy potting compound. The Ironkey is even capable of self destructing -- like something out of the spy movies.



THE HARDWARE
There's not really much to say about the hardware. It's about as boring as it gets. Silver tin can comes to mind. Its body and cap are made of a hardened metal alloy that is virtually indestructible. The body has a little pin that holds a ring which can be attached to a key chain. The Ironkey label will peel off if the device is used heavily but there is no harm done to the device. The drive is also a little longer than its competitors but its nothing that we feel will drive business away. Take a look for yourself and be the judge. The one thing we didn't really enjoy was the removable cap that can be easily lost.

OUR IMPRESSION
There is not really much to set up on the device itself, which is great. Just like all other USB thumb drives on the market today, it is password protected so you will have to set that up. Upon insertion of the device into your USB drive you will get a password prompt just like all the other thumb drives. The difference with this USB drive is that it is hardware encrypted as opposed to software encrypted. In layman's terms this means that the device will be much harder if not impossible to hack into. The device was made for the government so you could just imagine the crazy security.

Check out the difference between the Ironkey menu compared to what we think is the most widely used and available thumb drive, the
SanDisk Cruzer Flash Drive.

Here is a screen shot of the Ironkey Menu:


Here is a screen shot of the Cruzer Menu:


From the menu you can see that they are both pretty similar. You can easily notice that although both are user friendly, the U3 device
(Sandisk) allows the installation of U3 applications. The Ironkey is not so friendly in this department. To our knowledge, you are not able to install such applications, at least not yet. It was a big no-no for us. The Sandisk allows you to download and install applications easily over the web. We thought this might be a security feature on the part of Ironkey to keep their device secure. Standalone executables however could be run from the Ironkey device without any problem.

The three demo units that we have are the IronKey "enterprise products". They come complete with web management and malware protection, although these options come at an additional monthly cost.



For large businesses or enterprise customers, the web management allows the administrators to view activity on the device, enforce rules, or deactivate devices at the touch of a button. The product allows a great amount of flexibility, giving administrators full control. We don't see the average user using this but it might be of high value to enterprise customers or businesses that require that kind of security. A good example of one of these rules is a rule that limits the attempts on the device by allowing the device to self destruct if too many attempts are made to log in. Once all attempts are made the device is destroyed never to be used again.



Another plus is what Ironkey calls their "silver bullet", basically it is protection against rogue employees. If an employee is let go or somehow runs off with your data you can send the device a silver bullet through the web. This will destroy the device instantly never to be used again. The administrator can set up a limit on how many times the device can log in without using the web. This rule will force the user to eventually use the Internet to log in to the device and detonate the silver bullet.

The web browser that is available on the personal and enterprise versions forces encryption, and has a monitor for spoofing web sites to keep you safe. The browser always keeps its files on the thumb drive so you will never leave any trails behind. We have been using the devices for about four months now and are happy with them so far.

The enterprise version also allows VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP), RSA SecurID ready, CRYPTOCard One-Time Password which are amazing forms of security on their own.

The Ironkey allows you to store an encrypted backup on your cpu and restore your drive at a future date.



It also features a pretty fancy password manager that is great to keep all 6000 of your user name and password combinations for your favorite web sites or accounts. The password manager will even generate strong passwords if you are having problems creating one. If that's not enough it will automatically fill out this information when you visit the website with what you have stored.



All in all it's a strong device that offers great peace of mind knowing that your files are virtually indestructible and secure. Can't decide which one? Ironkey helps you decide. Take a look here.

The current prices on Amazon are as follows.
1GB ~ $60.00
2GB ~ $80.00
4GB ~ $130.00
8GB ~ $199. 00

Note: If this is for enterprise use you will need to consider the charge for remote administration and extra services, but you will need to contact a vendor for a quote.

Check out the Demos
Basic / Personal Version for the average
Enterprise Version for business or Enterprise customers

IN THE BOX
- Ironkey USB Thumb Drive with Cap
- Key Ring

THE GOOD
- Strong design
- Offers ultimate encrypted protection for any type of file
- Malware Scanner
- Web management for enterprise users
- Web backup available
- Encrypted backup feature
- Password Manager
- Silver bullet feature (Allows admin to destroy a device remotely to protect data)

THE BAD
- Cap is easy to lose
- Expensive for home user
- Not very easy to find applications that can run on the device.
- Devices are currently only available in 2,4, and 8GB sizes

Get yours on Amazon

MANUFACTURER
IronKey

The Show Me How book is one of my most precious finds. The completely illustrated, sometimes hilarious, how-to-book that teaches you from the most useful to the downright wacky. Learn how to iron a button-down shirt; remove old (tacky) wallpaper; pull a perfect espresso; perform an awesome keg stand; or evade a panther attack. Without a doubt one of the greatest coffee-table books you could own. Head-on over to the publisher's web site for some how-to craziness.



Find it at Amazon.

Come on, admit it, you saw the image above and were immediately grabbed by the powerful orange and black combination in Hair Like a River by Sloe Gin Fizz. The artist describes it as an inspiration taken from a line in a poem by Rita Dove. The work is printed on textured Epson Velvet Fine Art paper with archival pigment inks.

Show this print some love, hang it on your wall.

Found at Sloe Gin Fizz's Etsy Shop

#5. 80's Cube Clock
An alarm clock designed to work almost like a rubik's cube. You twist the top and the display changes between date, time, alarm and temperature. The tamest of the bunch, but one that brings back nostalgia.

Found at Amazon


#4. Sonic Bomb Alarm Clock (AKA "The Bomb")
Designed to wake-you-the-hell up, the Sonic Bomb alarm clock puts out an ear-piercing 113 decibels at the highest setting. In other words, its like being in a front row of a rock concert, but a thousand times more annoying. If sound doesn't phase you, perhaps the included bed shaker will do the job.

Found at ThinkGeek


#3. Puzzle Alarm Clock
For those of you with Josh Nash Jr envy, the solution to waking up perhaps involves a bit of mental stimulation. The puzzle alarm clock wakes you up by ejecting into the air four different puzzle pieces scattering them everywhere as the alarm is blasting. In order to shut the alarm off, you must put all 4 pieces of the puzzle back in the right place.

Found at Bam Bam Banana


#2. Clocky Alarm Clock
Clocky is an alarm clock on wheels. When the time comes (and it will), Clocky starts up his wheels and runs around your house like mad (steer clear of lamps and cats) as the alarm beeps over and over. The only way to stop the mayhem is to get your lazy bum off your bed and turn Clocky off.

Found at Amazon


#1. Flying Digital Alarm Clock
And the overall craziest alarm clock is the flying digital alarm clock. Though not the prettiest of the bunch, it certainly presents the biggest challenge. Be ready in the morning because as soon as the alarm goes off, the propeller is launched up into the air and it flies around the room. Your only recourse is to put the propeller powered device back into the base. Good luck staying awake after that.

Also found at Amazon

The fact that Cat Bishop makes sculptures out of recycled materials is nothing entirely unique. What blows our mind is how good she is at it. Take for example Leo, the suave camera robot. Built out of a bakelite Kodak Brownie 127 body with domino and dice legs and a #6 bakelite poolball, this retro-matic robot conquers our heart.

Check out Cat Bishop's Etsy shop for a ton of other crazy recycled sculptures.