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By Keith Shaw

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Keith Shaw is Network World's reviews editor. Contact him at kshaw@nww.com.

Cool Tools Video
Watch Keith's weekly product reviews.

One headset for two phone systems? That's Savi: 07/02/09; Savi Office, by Plantronics, combines the traditional desktop phone wireless headset with a VoIP headset connected to a PC.
Same mobile router, different approaches: 06/23/09; I've got the same complaints that I had with the Sprint version of the MiFi. There should be a signal strength indicator as well as some kind of LCD screen on the device that tells you how good your 3G wireless is in your location.
Palm Pre: The official Cool Tools review: 06/17/09; The touchscreen Pre is Palm's latest entrant into the smartphone market, and includes all of the features users would expect from today's smartphones.
Wi-Fi gets personal with Mi-Fi: 06/10/09; Sprint Mi-Fi 2200 has a 3G/Wi-Fi combination that lets users take advantage of 3G network access and provide Wi-Fi LAN coverage for as many as five other users.
More power for your iPhone or iPod: 06/04/09; The beautiful modular design of the battery and docking stations means users can put the wall charger in their home, the car charger in their vehicle, and the Reserve Battery can be charged by both docking units.
Bluetooth headset Battle Royale: 05/27/09; A few weeks ago I praised the Plantronics Voyager Pro high-end Bluetooth headset for its noise-reduction features and extremely comfortable fit (you really can wear it all day). Two other headset vendors wanted my opinion to see how they compare with the Voyager Pro, so let's check out these other contestants.
Interop journey lets me test new tools: 05/22/09; Last week's Interop Las Vegas 2009 show gave me a chance to break out some of the travel-related devices that have been around the office for a while. In the course of doing audio podcast interviews and videos, I took advantage of several gadgets to make my life a bit easier.
Seagate’s Replica: truly set and forget: 05/14/09; The Replica backup storage device, by Seagate, is a 250GB or 500GB hard drive that connects quickly and easily to your PC or notebook to provide instant backup of everything that you've got stored on the computer.
Voyager headset goes Pro: 05/06/09; The Voyager PRO Bluetooth headset, by Plantronics, is a noise-canceling headset designed to appeal to mobile professionals who spend a lot of time on their phones and want performance and a business-acceptable look and feel.
Wireless photo frame with a twist: 04/30/09; The Kaleido R7 digital photo frame, by IPEVO, lets you synchronize photos wirelessly from another computer on the same wireless network.
More iPhone juice, less bulk: 04/23/09; The Juice Pack Air, by Mophie, is a rechargeable external battery case that gives you extra battery juice will providing additional protection for you iPhone 3G smartphone.
Sharing USB devices easily: 04/17/09; The four-port USB Net ShareStation, by Iogear, is a handy little device that's designed to connect to your home router or a switch (either wired or wireless) and as many as four different USB-enabled devices.
Monkeying around with chi.mp: 04/09/09; Like many social networks, a chi.mp account gives you your own "Web space", letting you post status updates and photos, and link to other social networks or Web feeds.
Seagate's entertainment foray: 04/02/09; Seagate is best known for its hard drive technology, and it moves into the entertainment space with the FreeAgent Theater HD media player, which acts as a liaison between its FreeAgent Go portable hard drive devices and a video display, such as a TV or projector.
Livespeakr portable speakers are compact, powerful: 03/30/09; Livespeakr portable speaker system, by Digital Group Audio, is a small and compact speaker system that can be transformed into different positions for iPod and iPhone users.
RoadTrip-pin with the iPhone: 03/19/09; RoadTrip with SmartScan, by Griffin Technology, combines an FM transmitter for playing an iPod/iPhone through your car stereo speakers with a car charger.
A book-reading scanner; Kindle for iPhone: 03/11/09; The BookReader V100 scanner offers 1200 by 1200 dpi scanning resolution, as well as optical character recognition software that converts printed text into a digital format. In addition, text-to-speech recognition software reads the digitally converted text back to you with a "human-sounding" voice.
Checking the cool at DEMO 09: 03/04/09; Just like the Consumer Electronics Show in January, this year's DEMO 09 (produced by Network World's events division) in Palm Desert, Calif., was affected by the continuing gloomy economy. With only 39 companies debuting new products and services, the "glass half empty" people would likely say that there wasn't much to see in the way of innovations, exciting technology or cool products. While there was less to see, there definitely were some shining stars among the demonstrators at this year's event.
Refueling portable devices; a tuneful keyboard: 02/26/09; The Fueltank, by Callpod, is a portable device is about the size of a portable USB hard drive, and contains a rechargeable lithium ion battery, which the company says has more than seven times the capacity of a standard mobile phone.
BodyGuardz: Lots of work for iPhone protection: 02/19/09; In the nine or so years that I've been writing this column, I've come across only a few products that have looked good on paper, but after opening the box or trying out the device, things quickly go downhill.
More odds and ends from the office: 02/12/09; A lot of smaller devices have been piling up lately, so I'm going to do a bunch of quick mini-reviews to "clean out the in-box":
BlackBerry gets thin with the 8900: 02/03/09; The 8900 is UMA-enabled, which allows users to make phone calls over a Wi-Fi connection.
Octiv Air an impressive iPod streamer: 01/28/09; If being able to play music in one location and have the music emanate from another location appeals to you, Octiv Air is a very impressive system.
HyperSpace: More like impulse power: 01/21/09; Phoenix Technologies' HyperSpace lets you power up and power down your notebook more quickly.
Four things to watch post-CES: 01/15/09; As the dust settles from the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, here are four trends worth looking at based on some products that were announced at the show.