With crunch time on the doorstep and finals fast approaching, Biz & Tech editor Ian Vandaelle has hot gadgets and cool toys to make your life a little easier
Lexar Jumpdrive Secure II Plus
This little baby can hold 16GB of important, ground-breaking assignments, or alternatively, the entire first season of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Hey, I’m not judging. This flash drive makes things even easier for you with an external capacity meter to show you just how much space you have left. To boot, it has a number of spiffy features, including a digital file shredder to completely erase any traces of incriminating files and quick transfer speeds to ensure a quick turnaround so you can make it to class after an all-nighter.
$39.99, Futureshop.ca
Caffeine Mug
Exam season is fueled by late-night junk food, a lack of sleep and mainlining caffeine. In that spirit, may I introduce the caffeine coffee mug. For everyone who isn’t a chemistry major, yes, that’s the caffeine molecule represented on this mug. It’s heat resistant, easy on the eyes and best of all, lets your inner nerd out while feeding your crippling addiction.
Recklessly charging towards a potential caffeine seizure never looked so good!
$6.99, ThinkGeek.com
7 Port USB Hub with Power Switches
You can always track down a powerbar to juice your gadgets from a wall outlet, so why not offer you USB-powered devices the same courtesy? This handy little USB hub lets you charge up to seven devices at once, and as soon as they’re at full power, you can easily kill power to the port.
$19.99, ThinkGeek.com
Moleskine iPhone Case
Sometimes appearance is more important than reality. Such is the beauty of this spiffy iPhone case that disguises your handy smartphone as a staid, mature moleskine. With this classy case, you can pretend that you’re perusing your notes with vigor. No one has to know that you’re actually trying to top the high score in Fruit Ninja. Cases are available for both the iPhone 4 and the 3GS.
$39.99,
PadandQuill.com
Refurbished Kobo e-reader
Yes, these neat little e-readers were all the rage this time last year, but prices were a little high when they were going for $150 a pop. Fast-forward to the present, and refurbished e-readers are hitting the shelves for more reasonable prices. Instead of having to carry a ton of heavy novels that you just have to know because it will totally be on the final, you can just load up your Kobo and go-go.
The six inch screen is easy on the eyes, glare-free and makes page-turning easy. The refurbished models come pre-loaded with 100 books and have 1GB of storage space, which is enough to store 1,000 books in total.
$69.99, BestBuy.ca
Flying Alarm Clock
It’s late. Or early. You’re in that grey area of nighttime where you’re not sure if you should stay awake or go to bed. You decide to catch a few minutes of shut-eye and suddenly, you’ve slept through your alarm!
Such a situation would never happen with our final entry, the flying alarm clock. Unlike your old brick of an alarm clock, with it’s conveniently placed snooze-button, shutting off this clock requires you to actually get out of bed.
This neat doohickey launches its helicopter portion into the air when the alarm goes off and won’t shut off until you secure it to the base. Never again will you shut off your alarm without waking up!
$19.99, ThinkGeek.com
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