Jiminy! Cricket is an Apple’s Best Friend

By Jeff Zbar 
www.chiefhomeofficer.com

I get some fairly benign submissions for my annual Holiday Gift & Bribe the Boss Product Review. There’s productivity software, and (yet) another camera, and external hard drives, and all those MP3 docking stations-turned-boom boxes. It’s all cool stuff - cool enough to make you want to blast Cream while shooting a video of yourself backing up your music library while doing lord knows what with that productivity software.

Suffice it to say, some just aren’t compelling. They don’t jump out at you. They aren’t - as Tom Peters once enthused in Fast Company about initiatives that embolden and enliven the spirits of those behind them - Wow! Projects. Then, one jumps right out.

Makers of Cricket claim it’s the first laptop stand that’s both fully adjustable and insanely portable (my emphasis on ‘insanely’). Tilt it up and your laptop (any size laptop up to 12 pounds - for you ITers and Gamers with your luggables) stays propped, cooled and totally viewable. It even works with Tablet PCs. When you’re done, fold it up and it’ll slip in a pocket of a computer bag (that liter of water you’re carrying around weighs more than this 0.375-lb critter). Coming out this fall, it’s yours for $39.95. OK, it may be a bit pricey. But if you’re lugging stuff and want to lighten up, this is your critter…

Since the '80s, Jeff Zbar has been a writer, speaker and spokesman on all facets of working from home and entrepreneurship. His columns and blogs have appeared via Entrepreneur, Success Magazine, Home Office Computing and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and he has been a small business expert on national television and radio. Learn more at www.chiefhomeofficer.com.