In preparation for taking on more work from home (more details on that soon), I've been getting my office ready. What this really means is geek shopping spree. Yes, I'm still smiling about it.

New purchases include:

1. Belkin USB Hub. New four-point hub because really, you can never have too many USB ports. Actually, I'd run out of spots a while ago and had been switching back and forth. What a pain. No more.

2. Pocketec Datastor 20GB USB 2.0 Hard Drive. Since my livelihood is increasingly dependent on little bits of data, it seemed prudent to arrange offsite storage. Since I always have my purse with me, and in the event of a fire it's likely the only thing other than my dog I'd grab on the way out the door, it seemed realistic and a lot more reliable than CD-ROM backup. Plus it's plug-and-play with most Windows machines, which means I can take it to client sites or to the office and share, share alike. It's also tiny - the same size as my Handspring Visor, which ironically only has 8 MB of storage. :)

3. Logitech Cordless Elite Duo. I like to think of it as getting my toes wet in the wireless world. Both keyboard and mouse are wireless for the first time in my life, and I'm still dealing with the cool factor. The mouse is optical, which I've coveted since I first saw them on Macs, and the keyboard has a nice big "mute" button and volume control. Very nice for when I have the music cranked up and the phone rings - because the most frustrating thing in the world is hunting for Microsoft's tiny little volume control which seems to take for-freaking-ever to pop up when I need to hit the mute in a hurry. The receiver also connects with a PS/2 adapter. This may not seem like a big deal, but for some reason my standard Dell issue USB keyboard was never recognized by Microsoft's boot manager, which meant I had to switch to an old clunky PS/2 keyboard if I wanted to switch OSes on boot.

Amazing what a few little geek toys will do for my mood. Some girls get that high shopping for shoes or a new purse. I'll take new technology any day.

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