Lil' Gadgets on the Go!

Keep it Cool and Be Gelly

Around this time of year all students hit a hump ... Two suspicious viruses take over the general student population. “Senioritis” as well as “end of the school year craziness” begin to take a nasty gnarled grip upon any student it can find… No one is safe.

For those of us out there who are trying to fight the monster and need to complete massive amounts of work- We may find ourselves making a second home out of our computer desk. As we slave away reading until our eyes blur, typing until our fingers tingle and wrists begin to dent with marks from the keyboard or laptop, the thoughts “Something needs to change!” may come to mind.

So I studied my own predicament in search of inspiration. Everything I do for school and work revolves around my laptop.

Identify your Foe
So I’ve identified my problem, my laptop runs hot and I’m sporting the word Compaq imprinted on the sides with my wrists.

All Laptop computers, unless they have some super duper cooling mechanism, run from warm to hot. Running hot means that the computer gives off a large amount of heat, which is why there is a fan. The fan helps cool off the central processing unit (CPU). The cooler the CPU is, the better the computer functions. If the computer gets too hot, chances are the fan is not working right, and the CPU could burn out and the miserable BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH could appear.

If you Don’t know, Ask
There is a product that you could buy that can help your laptop keep cool. It’s called a cool pad. At the moment there are many out on the market. Ones that can be plugged in to a USB port on the laptop and have fans that disperse cooler air around the hottest portion of the unit and cool its underbelly.

However, I asked my friend, who is a Network Engineer and performs tech support for his company, for his opinion on the mechanized cooling pads. He said that the units burn out fairly quick and are a waste of money.

I agree with him, I think simple is best.

When in Doubt Go Shopping!
I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep your computer laptop cool. I’ve gone through 4 units so far, all different brands. All I can say is thank god for warranties. However, the one thing I learned from each computer death, my mother board burnt out. A cool laptop is a happy laptop.

The Cool Pad from Targus was recommended to me by my friend Joey who works for Best Buy in Florida. The CoolPad comes in a PC and Apple model.

Basically, it has adjustable posts which elevate the laptop off the desk allowing the hot air to circulate instead of gathering around the “vital organs of your unit”. Brilliant!

Below are the images of the Targus Podium and Apple CoolPads. As you can see the PC model varies from the Apple. I'm thinking the reason is because Apples tend to be wider compared to standard laptops.

Gellys from Heaven
So we fixed the pesky over heating problem for the laptops, but the sore wrists are still a problem… As I was poking around in cyberspace looking for new things to bring to you, my aching wrists got the better of me and inspired me to do something about it.

I kept wondering why there aren’t gel things for the laptop when they have them for keyboards and mouse pads. Then I found it!

GellyFish Wrist Pads come in four colors (Yellow, Green, Blue and Red) at the moment and are priced at $14.99. A set consists of two pads, which can be peeled and then reapplied whenever needed. This is great because everyone’s hand and wrist size varies. There aren’t many details on this product it is pretty self explanatory. But this is a great invention, and you can order directly from the website.

posted by Jaime @ 8:20 PM