Two More Book Lights for Travel

Before I reviewed the innovative LightWedge book light, but here are two that are new interpretations of the tried and true design.

The Spike Light dispenses with any kind of clip and in theory allows you to flip pages without ever having to readjust the light. The "spike" is inserted over the book's spine to anchor the light. This works great if you are reading a big fat hardback with a real spine, but it doesn't perform so well when you've got a regular trade paperback. The light works great though. The flexible neck has two bright LEDs that light up the page without shining a light in the eyes of your bed or seat partner. It supposedly goes for 20 hours on a single AAA battery, so it's stingy with energy too. The Spike Light goes for $12.99 retail.

My favorite of the three turned out to be the cheapest (but maybe I'm just cheap). The Flex Neck light goes for ten bucks, but it's the most versatile and useful for travelers. It weighs almost nothing and the design is great: the hole in the clip holds the head of the lamp, so it takes up almost no room when packing. The little LED lights are quite bright, so it does a good job of putting focused light on the book and it will double as a flashlight.

Get them here:
Bedtime Bliss Book Lights $2.95 shipping, everyday!.



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Another Skype Phone Option from Philips

I've written previously about the cool Ipevo phone for Skype that's light and compact for traveling. This week I've been trying out another option from Philips and in some ways it's an improvement.

My Ipevo phone didn't come with a case, which this one does, plus there's one small design change that makes a huge difference: There's a slot going all the way around the phone so you can wind up the cord when you're packing it away.

For some reason my XP desktop took two reboots to get it installed (there's no CD driver), but after that it worked fine, with as good a clarity as you would expect from Skype and buttons that perform the functions of a normal phone. I made a long SkypeOut call to Costa Rica for 6 cents a minute then did another Skype to Skype one for free. The phone is incredibly light, so I'll be glad to pack this when I head to Europe for two weeks next month on a writing assignment.

The Philips VoIP080 is available at Skype Store USA or your own country's equivalent. Right now it's selling for $29.99. If you're traveling with a laptop, it won't take long to make that pay off by using Skype instead of making regular phone calls.

Audiobook Downloads, Sometimes Free

There are times when listening to a book makes more sense than reading one, like when you're on a winding road through the mountains on a bus, or when you're on a long car trip by yourself. Or you're on a plane and have already been reading for four hours while you waited for your delayed flight to get moving.

If you want to get the latest bestsellers without buying physical discs for keeps, try Simply Audiobooks

They have a set-up like Netflix for movies, but on two paths. You either get the physical audio books in the mail, getting a new one when you send the old one back, or you register for a certain number of downloads per month, which you can then listen to on a normal (as in non-Apple) MP3 player or can burn to a Windows Media CD.

The cool thing is, if you want to just try it out, they offer one free download each month. Last month it was The Art of War and this month it's T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland. Sometimes they run trial offers too.

I think eMusic is going to give this company some heavy competition though. They offer a free trial where one book is free, then after that it's $9.99 for any book they offer. Overall, it's a better deal if you're a frequent audiobook listener and there's nothing to ship.

Here's another option for older classics: your local library. I don't know about yours, but mine has a ton of audiobooks on CD and thanks to them I learned some Spanish with Pimsleur without spending a few hundred bucks to buy the tapes and CDs. Mine also has free audio downloads of some books. Again, you can't play them on an iPod, but you can play them on a lot of other devices including cheapo MP3 players.

Instant Pen and Paper Access from PicoPad

The PicoPen comes to the rescue with a brilliant design that fits in a wallet.

How many times a week do you hear someone say, "Hold on, let me find something to write this down with." Especially with those of us who don't carry a purse around all day, finding a pen and some paper is not always easy when we need to jot down a phone number, e-mail address, or "note to self."

This little $3.99 contraption is a great solution. It's small enough to fit in a wallet or camera case, yet when you pull it out you've got a working pen and 15 sticky notes. It's got a little tab that helps you hold onto the tiny thin pen and another tab on the top of the case so you've got something to grab onto to pull it out of your wallet.

In my tests it fit in both the out-facing credit card slot of my wallet and also in the inside stash space. If you're a wallet-less long-term traveler, it would easily fit in a small camera case pocket or your chosen money stash product. Then when someone gives you a recommendation for that perfect $5 bungalow in the next town, you don't have to commit it to memory.

Get it in a variety of colors at the Everyday Innovations site or buy PicoPen at Amazon.

Book Light Review - LightWedge

For the last couple of nights I've been trying out an unusual book light called the LightWedge. This testing required kind of a role reversal, because usually I'm the one trying to sleep while my wife is reading with the bedside lamp on. Bedside lamps aren't very efficient of course: they send light into all kinds of places we don't need it, like in my eyes. Some book lights aren't much better since they're using bright traditional bulbs perched over the book.

I'm not sure this particular book light is the complete answer, but they get points for approaching the problem from a different angle. It does ably solve the scattered light problem by putting lots of light on the pages you're reading, but nowhere else. The "wedge" in its name comes from the innovative design where tiny LED lights push light out of the base and through the glass. So the page you're reading is completely illuminated, with no dark spots, and there's no eye strain. This would work well on a plane, train, or bus if you're trying not to annoy your fellow passengers.

The downside is, you've got to do some extra work. Since it's a wedge that goes between the pages, that means each time you turn the page you have to pull out the LightWedge, turn the page, and then stick it back in. (But hey, it doubles as a bookmark when you turn it off.) To me this was a minor inconvenience, but to my wife this was a dealbreaker. So now I've got her trying out another one...

The LightWedge retails for $39.95 and uses four supplied AA batteries. A smaller light for paperbacks has a list price of $24.95. (Those two links take you to Amazon, where it's a few dollars cheaper.)




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SuddenStop for Your Car

While many people worry about flying or traveling abroad, it's the trip to the local grocery store in your car that's far more likely to get you killed or injured. Although our cars have gotten safer, our drivers haven't, especially when you add in the distractions of mobile phones, crackberries, iPod's hooked up to the stereo, and idiots doing text messaging.

Here's a simple solution that could save your bumper and your forehead: the SuddenStop license plate frame. When you slam on your brakes, it flashes, which should wake up the driver behind you and give them precious extra milliseconds to stop. (Just .25 seconds equates to 20 feet of stopping distance.) This is a simple and inexpensive device that requires no wiring to work. You just remove the screws from your license plate, put this under the plate, then screw it back in. It just "knows" when you've suddenly stopped and it flashes with long-use LED lights.


I got a sample one in the mail last week and gave it a whirl over the weekend. I'm happy to report it works, so hopefully now I've got a better chance of not being rear-ended by a chatty soccer mom in the SUV behind me.

The SuddenStop retails for $29.95 and you can buy it at their website or at auto parts retailers like Pep Boys. You may want to measure your license plate space before ripping open the packaging though. This fit on my car fine, but not in the indented enclosure of my wife's Mazda 626.