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Spring Cleaning!
April 19, 2002
Sorry I haven’t written too much recently: the PocketGoddess has been Spring Cleaning and organizing her life! It’s funny how warm weather and sunshine make you want to clean out all of the nooks and crannies of your life, and I’ve been doing a lot of that recently. So I’m taking a break from my normal hardware and software reviews to talk a bit about some products that can make your life a lot easier to deal with.
For starters, nothing is worse than knowing that you have something but being completely unable to lay your hands on it when you need it. That’s where the Battery Holder from RS Innovative comes in. This handy little thing will hold a couple of AAA batteries in a minimum of space. It can either be attached to a keyring or simply used in your purse or briefcase to prevent those pesky things from rolling all over everywhere. And while you may be lucky enough to have one of the latest handhelds with rechargeable batteries, I’ll bet you can come up with some other devices that constantly need batteries, like mini recorders, electronic games, and the like. The craftsmanship and stitching are excellent, and you certainly can’t beat the price. You may not think that you need one, but if you find yourself constantly hunting for batteries you might want to pick one up at the RS Innovative web site for the introductory price of $3.95
Another source of clutter is an ever-proliferating array of memory cards. Since most handhelds, MP3 players, and digital cameras, today use expansion cards of one sort or another, such as Compact Flash, Secure Digital, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, etc. it’s almost impossible to get everything organized. And since the loss of one of those cards can very expensive, not to mention mean the permanent loss of unreproduceable data, it makes sense to take very good care of the. I’ve covered this topic before (see my PC Card Packaging review here), but a new product has recently come to my attention. It’s the SD/MMC Card Holder from rilydog. It’s quite small, credit card-sized in fact, so you can put it in your wallet. It holds two SD cards quite securely, so you don’t have to worry about losing them anymore. This is highly preferable to putting your cards in a case with your Palm OS handheld— most of the cases I’ve seen put the cards directly opposite the screen with little to no protection. The financial loss and chance of screen damage alone makes the SD/MMC Card Holder a no-brainer indeed. They’re a little pricey at $9.95 (or get the Bluetooth/SD version for $12.95) but if they prevent the loss of one expensive card, it’s worth it. Buy at the rileydog web site.
The last product for this organizational roundup is from DiscGear. This company makes a variety of products designed to organize CDs, be they music or software. I found their Discus product a few months back and finally invested in several just a few weeks ago. Each Discus holds 20 CDs in individual sleeves that both clean and protect each disc. The units themselves come in several bright and pastel colors to suit your sense of fun or your organizational style. You can also get a Docker to hold several Discus units, as you can see from the photo. The four units hold ALL of my computer software, Palm & Pocket PC software, and my gaming collection, with one of them dedicated to a few music CDs for the office stereo. They also have literature albums to store all of your booklets and Selector units to hold up to 100 CDs each.
While I haven’t taken that plunge yet and transferred my entire music collection (comprising about 300 albums) yet it’s only a mattter of time. I’ve seen an awful lot of music organization systems in my day, but nothing compares to the quality and flexibility of the DiscGear system. And as a special bonus, I’ve negotiated a special 10% discount for PocketGoddess readers. Just enter JW2020 on the online order form and you’ll save some cash. And if you hurry they’re having a special sale with specials like a free Docker with the purchase of 3 Docker 20s. You can check it all out at the DiscGear web site.
Hopefully this article has inspired you to do a bit of organizing and spring cleaning of your own. It’s just amazing how much clutter can enter your life as a result of getting a handheld device— cradles, power adapters, cases, memory cards, software CDs, and the like. But these products and others like them can certainly help you and your handheld get back to what you’re supposed to be doing— organizing your life instead of cluttering it up!
PocketGoddess rating for the Battery Holster: 
PocketGoddess rating for the rileydog SD/MMC Holder: 
PocketGoddess rating for DiscGear:
