Comments on: Gadgets of the decade that helped unclutter our lives

By: Cowboy Bob

Cowboy Bob — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 03:26:28 +0000

Gadgets work both ways, cluttering and uncluttering at the same time. For instance, digital storage. Flash drives hold quite a bit, but they are relatively inexpensive, so we can have a flash drive for pictures, another for music, another for videos, another for my PowerPoint presentation on the plight of the Tibetans (yes, I do have one). Then a zippered case to hold them in.

Since external and portable hard drives cost less per meg than flash drives, I have two. One to hold the good stuff, another to back up the first one. Sure, everything is on two inconspicuous drives, but they are cluttered inside, and I have to create folders to put things in. Lots of time lost (the down side), but I have my digital treasures stored (the up side).

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:15:29 +0000

The standout items on the list, for me, were:

Tivo. Our original Tivo has gone to the Great Recycler In The Sky, but we have a Comcast DVR which fulfills the same function. We get all the local radio stations on it as well. It has replaced all that home video/audio gear completely.

USB thumb drives. Sayonara, floppies! CD’s and DVDs are beciming rarely seen around our house too – we copy them to our network fileshare, and back to a thumb drive if we need them.

Kindle. I see lots of Kindle dislike here, and I can only say: don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. I do have some books I’ll keep, but a lot of my reading is more or less throwaway paperbacks. Kindle kills a LOT of clutter there. And I can have the book within a minute of deciding to buy, no matter where I am. I *love* my Kindle.

iPhone stands out, though I actually have a WinMo phone. Still have not found another smartphone which syncs my Outlook tasks (in a GTD’ish workflow) properly, and without Outlook tasks I’d be lost in the world.

Same goes for the Apple Airport – it’s slick, but any wireless router does a lot of decluttering!

By: Mark Carter

Mark Carter — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:24:29 +0000

ooh yeah …. the Wii. Don’t know about uncluttering my life, but getting the family together and doing something physical and fun. Unbeatable.

By: Beverly D

Beverly D — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:57:45 +0000

I thought I wanted a Kindle until DH and I discussed getting it. What we discovered is that we share books, (and we read avidly, 2-3 books/week) so we would both have to get one. He doesn’t like the keyboard feature, and I’m not too thrilled with it either. We just want something that shows the pages and turns them. No bells and whistles. Then I thought I wanted a Wii, and the more we talked about that the more we think it will go the way of all the other exercize related equipment we’ve had. I love my Ipod, but I still haven’t mastered the art of playing it in my car (it’s a 2003 so maybe when I upgrade it will be easier). He loves his GPS but I like a paper map. It’s all so individual.

By: gypsy packer

gypsy packer — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:51:02 +0000

The queen of secondhand ponied up the bucks for a new iPod Classic, and not the cheapest one, either. Folks still ask me what kind of medical device I’m wearing on my arm, so help me.

The iTouch was a reconditioned model, and does everything I want, except shoot pictures. I do not need a $150/month phone contract from a company which bills Americans but hires overseas tech support.

Both of these little beauties have uncluttered my life enormously. I can read ebooks on the Touch without bearing extra weight on an arthritic right hand. The newspaper app gets me most of my news without allergenic inks and mildewed paper dust.

Nobody mentioned the solar flashlight. Put it in the window and leave it ’til ya need it.

Somebody just came out with $29.99 software which provides streamed satellite TV on computer. I’d love to get rid of another multitasker.

As for the rest–my two-buck garage sale Koss noise-cancellers have their own volume controls and are way cheaper than the Bose. And no screen is quite large enough to give me all of the back roads and small towns that an oversized atlas provides. When an app comes out with all of the paved, gravel, and dirt roads, I’ll check it out. Until that time, my paper dinosaur will have to do.

By: Linda

Linda — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:12:33 +0000

Love this post. I live in a small space and one way to survive small space living is through gadgets — I have a Kindle instead of millions of books, a DVR/on demand instead of DVDs, IPOD instead of CD’s, etc.

By: joss

joss — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:15:54 +0000

I have a GPS and a road atlas in the car; much like the idea you don’t go camping without more than one way to start a fire, I don’t travel long distances without more than one way to navigate. The GPS has led us astray a couple of times (patiently recalculating to no avail when we wouldn’t take it’s advice to turn left into what was clearly a field) and it’s not hard for me to imagine the battery dying and realizing I left the car charger somewhere else (like in the other car, maybe).
As for e-readers, I imagine those co-existing with printed books the way Amazon co-exists with a brick-and-mortar bookstore. I use Amazon when I want something very particular because their search makes it easy to find and their selection is far larger than any bookstore’s. I go to a bookstore when what I want is the pleasure of leisurely browsing and just seeing what I find. There are books that I must have in my hands (particularly reference books), but an e-reader is brilliant for me for eliminating pounds and pounds of read-it-once fiction (especially in an airport when there is not a single appealing new read to be found).

By: Daniel Ho

Daniel Ho — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:29:50 +0000

I’m amazed at what gadgets have accomplished, and how far they still need to go. I think encumbrance like cash, a set of keys, a wallet, and a camera/camcorder will go away into a single smart phone with heads up display (a genius phone?). I’m still waiting for an aerogel-based winter coat with the bulk of a windbreaker. I look forward to driving a solid-state electric vehicle one day. And every back issue of magazines or tv programs available for perusing at my leisure on a tablet-like PC.

By: Laetitia in Australia

Laetitia in Australia — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:45:13 +0000

It would be nice if the editors of “Paste” could count from 1 to 10 and realise that the first year of the new millennium was 2001 (2000, being 20 x 100 was the last year of the 20th Century according to our standard of counting years).

As for the top 20 list – I have only one of the 20 – a flash drive (in fact, I have more than one).

And as for multitasking devices removing clutter, there is something to be said for good uni-taskers like cameras. A decent camera doesn’t pretend to be a phone. Cameras in phones generate quality poor pictures because they’re trying to be too much. It’s useful for showing your spouse at home what item you’re looking at in a supermarket but I wouldn’t try hanging phone pictures on my wall.

By: Judy

Judy — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:40:06 +0000

Re the Kindle, I received the smaller one as a gift and hardly knew what to say–we have a large home library and LOVE books. But I find that I also love the Kindle. I use it with a leather cover (feels more book-like) and slip it into my purse. Will never give up my books but, for anyone who travels a lot, spends time waiting for appointments, etc., the Kindle is wonderful.

Re the GPS, I map my route at home but keep GPS in car–was sure glad to have it when I got lost, alone, in downtown Los Angeles very late one night.

@WilliamB–I agree that Bluetooth doesn’t improve safety but it keeps Californians from getting tickets for using cellphones in the car. ;-}

By: Catherine

Catherine — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:30:30 +0000

I’m glad to see there is still a lot of support for paper maps. I would hate to see them stop being produced. I also prefer to see the big picture and draw all over my maps. I would also much rather pay $20 to update my map directory than $200 to upgrade a GPS subscription.

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:49:33 +0000

And another thing: if we were honest most of the gadgets on this list would qualify for the Unitasker Wednesday list too…

By: Lori Paximadis

Lori Paximadis — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:48:45 +0000

I love my paper maps. I have a need to know the big picture, not just blindly follow directions. And I don’t always want to go the fastest/most direct way. But I also love my husband’s GPS, which is really handy when you’re going somewhere totally unknown. (But I still take a look at a paper map while he’s fiddling with setting the GPS.)

I love the idea of a Kindle, especially for newspaper subscriptions, but until the price comes down and they come in full color so I can get my magazines that way too and not lose anything, I’m not all that tempted to actually get one.

But overall an interesting list. And count me as hardcore in the iPhone cult.

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:37:23 +0000

Like some others, I actually own few of the listed gadgets. The ones I do have are the source of most of the clutter in my house! Batteries, chargers (why isn’t there a standard charger for all rechargeable items!) and masses of cords… some of these have influenced my life indirectly, but GPS is a no-no, it simply cannot replace paper maps because as many others have pointed out there is no feeling of scale or totality. Handy sometimes, yes, and the technology in a GPS has revolutionised surveying and air and sea navigation, but in cars they are just another gadget. Kindle – well I use an old PDA to replace some books, and some people use their I-phone. The kindle is just a good bit of marketing really, good luck to Amazon but it is not really a life-changer.

By: gerette

gerette — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:32:34 +0000

I’m a print designer and do a fair amount of book production. Not surprisingly, I was pretty opposed to the idea of reading a book on-screen–and I didn’t want to spend $300 or whatever on a Kindle. My iPhone eliminated the cost argument, and once I saw that I could sample the first chapter of a book, I was hooked. I have too many books on my shelf that looked like winners, but ending up sucking. Reading the first chapter lowers the chance of losing money on a bad read.

Like @RCcola said, I now differentiate between types of books. For some, those by my favorite authors which I will read again and again or for those where the illustrations/diagrams are key, only paper will do. But for the run-of-the-mill paperback, business/productivity books (like Erin’s), or sampling before buying, I’m now a fan of the Kindle (or at least its software).