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belkin make one

https://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-...

i use this plus a dongle but i think they do a version that is lightning split with an audio jack too now

If I *need* to do some GPU work I can plug in an external GPU. Or gigabit ethernet or any other PCIe device.

Which means that your ZBook 15 G3 has a Thunderbolt-enabled USB-C port. But you've simply called it USB-C, which could also be merely USB 3 Gen2, USB 3 Gen1, or even technically USB 2. Which provides a perfect case study for Microsoft's point.

I bet they could have easily charged a surface on over USB Power Delivery.

Of course, you charge your device through the USB-C port, right? Nope! Your laptop still has a separate charging port. But USB-C should let you charge a device at up to 100W. Don't you have USB-C? You said it could easily be done. Why not?

Which is Microsoft's point...

I can go to my local hardware store and buy an Light Switch for £2.25 ($2.80) and it will sit, maintenance free, in my living room wall for several decades and uses zero electricity for the switch itself. Unless you are outside my house and can see the light that it controls you have no idea if it is switched on or off and thus if I am probably at home.

I can order one and buy one that connects via my wifi for $49.99 (£40.20) that I control via my mobile 'phone, so always using a not-disclosed amount of electricity. How long will Belkin support the switch through their servers ? If they did support it for 10 years I would be surprised, so in a few years I will need to replace it with something new. Some of these also demand some sort of subscription. Whoever operates the servers know the state of the switch and how it has changed recently and so if it is likely that I am not at home .... if not send round their mate Burglar Bill.

Barring that, maybe Apple should look at the design of their old PowerBook Duo. A thin laptop, but stick it in a docking station, and you gain a lot more ports.

There are docks for the new MacBooks, just not made by Apple. A quick Google search found me several different companies that make them, a few examples:
https://hengedocks.com/
https://www.landingzone.net/
https://www.elgato.com/en/thun...
http://zenboxx.com/
http://www.belkin.com/us/F4U08...

If you want a dock with a "decent" GPU then there are a number of combinations of PCIe cages and GPUs to choose from. That's getting into an odd place though since few people would go through the expense of getting a laptop and a dock with GPU, gigabit Ethernet, and all the other stuff you listed and not simply buy a desktop computer to host all that hardware.

I have to wonder if you have your head stuck in the 1990s. People aren't limited to one computer by cost, space, or company policy like they used to. Your 1990s thinking shows especially with your demand for a removable battery. Just why would you want to remove the battery? I remember those battery chargers for laptops that could charge four batteries at a time, those haven't been a thing in a long time. People will now just buy an off the shelf universal battery that has a USB power output port.

I also believe that your definition of a "dock" is so narrow that you lost what a dock was supposed to do for you. My brother wanted a "dock" for his laptop so he could plug in dual displays, Ethernet, printer, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. There's all kinds of USB "docks" that will do that. It's not a box that one would slide their laptop into like a PowerBook Duo but it'd be a box with all the stuff you listed attached which can be connected to the laptop with a single cable. One would then also have to plug in the power cable too but, "OH NOES!! Not another cable!" is not how one should respond to that. You should respond with awe in the large number of choices in docks available, from so many different vendors, and at such low prices.

They do, which were a result of Europe's power adapter laws if I recall correctly. Besides that, reputable companies like Belkin offer similar solutions.

Joke's on him, as airplane travel is one of the times I need both the headphone jack and charge port at the same time. When you have nothing better to do but play with your phone and listen to music for several hours straight, you're going to need to charge.

I vaguely recall a Samsung ad about how useful replaceable batteries are in that scenario as well, but they seem to have forgotten about that...

Joke's on you mindless AC. Do some research first, next time.

Here's One of the MANY options for wireless charging while headphoning with standard headphones for Lightning-equipped devices. Here's another one for $11 (I'm sure it's not MFi-certified like the Belkin is; but hey...).

Oh, and that search took 1 second on Google, and 2 seconds and one scroll-wheel-flick on Amazon.

Hatetard.

So go buy one of these, or something analogous - charge & listen at the same time.

Or just accept that wireless is the way forward, and go buy a decent fucking pair of bluetooth headphones. I have a pair of J-Lab Epic2 BT earbuds, and I rather like them. Use them every day at the gym, and whenever I'm walking around. I have a separate set of over-the-ear phones I use at work, but the buds have also served quite well on occasion, as well.

Every other manufacturer is waiting for someone else to do this; I give it a maximum of 3 years before "no headphone jack" is the standard for phones. Apple is pushing the envelope on dropping the jack, but make no mistake about it - they're only the first, and everybody else will follow soon.

Well, that is one very cynical view. Of course they might have reasons that benefit users.

Everything you can do with the new headphone-jackless iPhone 7 could have been done with the previous models. The iPhone 5/5S/6/6S, and SE all have Lightning ports and bluetooth, so there was zero reason Apple had to remove the headphone jack if they wanted to start shipping dongles and AirPods instead of wired earphones.

They didn't do anything with the space the 3.5mm jack was before, just added a (non-functional) speaker grille for aesthetic reasons. They could have added a second Lightning port to the phone, so you can use the headphone dongle and charge your phone at the same time. But why spend a couple dollars more in parts when you can make the consumer spend $40 to do the same thing instead?

Belkin has already announced an adapter for this: http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F... And no doubt that won't be the only one.

The fact that they offer an adapter rather dispels this theory.

Hardly, the adapter they give you for free lets you do exactly 1/2 of what you could before.

Today you can plug in an aux cable into almost any recent smartphone as well as another cable to charge when going for a drive. You will have to spend at least $40 more for an awkward, third party adapter (plus another cable) to do the same job... once the adapter is released.

Get good Bluetooth headphones and you won't want to go back

Tell you what... I'll do that... if you agree to pay for every ticket and auto insurance bump I get from using them in the car when driving (where I normally care about using an aux jack).

I could go buy some BT adapter (yeah! spending even more money to get back to where I was!!!) for my 2011 vehicle (which has BT, just not A2DP), however I've yet to find one that doesn't suck big time.

Or... I just won't buy an iPhone 7.

Lightning Audio + Charge RockStar

I hear you like dongles, so with the belkin dongle attached to your analog dongle, you can dongle while you dongle.

I think what will kill iot is that it's just frankly too expensive. A perfect example is the Belkin WeMo line of iot enabled products.

* 150 dollars for a slow cooker

* 150 dollars for a coffee maker

* 200 dollars for a humidifier

* 40 dollars for a plugin relay switch

And the list goes on. The nest costs 5x-10x more than a low end digital thermostat. I have a sneaking suspicion as with almost all other home automation, upper class people will buy it for the novelty but the rest of the world will keep to their "dumb" devices.

I'm an owner of three low-end programmable thermostats. They work just fine. 2 of them are 4x7 which means, 4 programs for each day of the week. The third is a Mon-Fri *4 and Sat-Sun * 4 programs . They work just fine.

In heat mode, they have a tiny resistor near the thermistor sensing room temperature. That is an anticipator circuit.
As the thermostat is located distant from the heat-source, to prevent overshoot of heat setting, that resistor serves to add bias to cause the heat to turn off a half degree before the setpoint. It takes about an hour for the resistor to transfer about 0.5 degrees of bias to the thermistor. When the thermostat calls for topping up, there is somewhat less bias due to the resistor itself having thermal inertia.

I think what will kill iot is that it's just frankly too expensive. A perfect example is the Belkin WeMo line of iot enabled products.

* 150 dollars for a slow cooker

* 150 dollars for a coffee maker

* 200 dollars for a humidifier

* 40 dollars for a plugin relay switch

And the list goes on. The nest costs 5x-10x more than a low end digital thermostat. I have a sneaking suspicion as with almost all other home automation, upper class people will buy it for the novelty but the rest of the world will keep to their "dumb" devices.

Seems to me that it would be a faulty design that requires a 'cable' to need any electronics at all.

In that case USB 3.1 must be a terrible design. A full spec cable doesn't just require a resistor or two, it needs a PCB: http://cache-www.belkin.com/resources/img/overview/f2cu029/USB-C_CableExploded_v01-r01.png. That cable is only rated for 3A. A full spec cable can carry 5A. I'm surprised they only cost $20.

Mind you, I'm not complaining. $20 sounds like a cheap price to pay if I get to throw out the rats nest of cables I carry around now.

Indeed, inline one of these with the door opener.

It can probably be rigged to automatically disable at night. Even better would be to disable anytime the controlling phone is out of WiFi range (not sure if that's possible).

Use a Belkin Wemo switch: http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F...

I've written a simple utility to switch them on / off based on serial number:

See: https://github.com/d-w/toggle_...

Works for me.

Cheers,
Dave

PS: For extra points, wear & monitor a Neurosky EEG monitor: http://neurosky.com/products-m...
Write a listener to recognise when you want the switch on (easy to recognise certain meditation patterns) and then use this to toggle the wemo switch closest.
(I've done this - just not on Github ... yet)

You can buy non-Apple chargers, but they meet Apple's spec:

http://www.belkin.com/us/Device/iPhone/d/IPHONE?q=::categoryPath:/Web/WSPWR

Apple is asking people not to buy counterfeit or unauthorized ones that don't meet the specs.

No, he's tacitly admitting he doesn't know what Balkanization is. I'm guessing he doesn't live in a Balkan state....

Okay, I thought it said Belkinization and wondered what electronic accessories had to do with it. Whew. [ Must get more coffee... ]

I'm surprised two people told you it was a relay, so it didn't matter. Relays have amperage (and voltage) ratings too. Anyway, it's a 15 amp plug and they're be hell to pay if it didn't handle 15 amps, so it does. I agree, it's strange they don't have any specs online for it.

Who says the gamepad is the preferred way that things should work? This is a question about whether or not there should be more methods for input in general. The keyboard/mouse combo is great, since it's INCREDIBLY versatile, but it's shoehorned into all sorts of places where it may not be the best option available, or else where its widespread adoption has actually stunted the growth of better alternatives.

I'm curious how gamers using a keyboard/mouse would compare against gamers using something like a Wiimote in an FPS where each group was equally proficient with their input method of choice. When I played through the Wii version of Metroid Prime, it just felt like the natural way that FPS games should be going for their controls, and with a bit of a reduction in latency and gamers putting as much time into honing their craft using that tool as opposed to a keyboard/mouse, I could see it being a much more capable system as measured by your metric. It retains nearly all of the benefits afforded by the mouse (e.g. ability to move the reticle as fast as the hand can move, pinpoint targeting, etc.) while being entirely more natural since it does not involve an extra mental abstraction (i.e. you're actually pointing at your target).

And even if the Wiimote shouldn't replace the mouse, why should the keyboard remain untouched? With its binary on/off keys, it seems like a prime candidate for getting replaced by an analog controller of some sort. Why not make something that looks like a combination of a Wii Nunchuck and an n52te? It may look like a monstrosity, but it might be far more capable of enabling solid gameplay than the keyboards being used by many gamers today, which is what you seem to think matters.

All of this is to say that we should be looking for more input methods that may be better than what we already have. While the keyboard/mouse really is the undisputed king of FPS input today, we should be trying to find whatever is next. The keyboard/mouse is an extremely versatile general purpose tool, so if we put some thought into the design of something new and gave it the practice time it needed, I wouldn't be surprised if we could come up with something significantly more capable and more fun for many gaming needs.

Cable management at the desktop is pretty simple. But the submitter was asking about MDFs, IDFs, and comm closets. You should really avoid velcro and cable ties there.

Start with good comm layouts. We use 48-port 3750s with a 48-port patch panel right under the switch. Then, 1' CAT-6 cables are used to patch all the drops hot.

If you are stuck with an older layout where switches are in one rack and patch panels are in another, then get some vertical and horizontal cable raceways. I *love* the ones with little plastic "fingers" that have a plastic cap over the front.

http://www.belkin.com/IWCatSectionView.process?Section_Id=43

Get loads of pre-fab cables in every length you can think of. I find 3', 5', 7', 8', 14', and 20' are most used.

I have tried labeling individual cables, but I found that it's better to have a cut-sheet inside the rack describing the patches. Write this in *pencil*.

Real gamers map all their keys to a nostromo anyways... or whatever they're calling it these days. Who needs more than a few buttons on the mouse?

http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=390404

But kill-a-watts are becoming more mainstream.

I've had friends who would never have looked at it until they had trouble with power bills > $500.

As devices like this appear:

http://www.belkin.com/conserve/insight/

that just have a money readout, it will make more sense to non-nerds.

And hopefully one day: kids.

I was thinking something more along the lines of this little toy, only better quality of course. Standard access to necessary keys, with the addition of a second analog control to complement the mouse. Much simpler than a wiimote headband, wouldn't you say?

I understand what you are saying: RS232 ports suck for any number of reasons.

But there are a few why it is still often used.

First, it has been ubiquitous for 20 to 30 years. When I started my first development job in 1982 - everything talked to everything else via RS-232. Back then 9600 baud was considered fast. At 8 bits per character with no parity and one stop bit, 9600 baud could paint a screen with characters in one second. Yes, we thought that was fast. Things got better as baud rates improved - but RS-232 remained everywhere - it was the one constant universal interface. Even though it is incredible antiqued, it is still in many PCs.

Second, RS-232 (and its many cousins like RS-422) are very, very easy to use in software. The simplest I/O can be done in a few lines of code. Its easy to put RS-232 code right in firmware. This makes it easy to write bootstrapers, boot consoles, debug consoles etc.

USB would be a poor choice for a replacement. The reason is that it isnt peer to peer - it is a master/slave architecture. There is always one master -usually a PC, and one or more slaves (keyboards, mice, printers, scanners, cable modems, disk drives, storage keys, cameras etc).

It requires a special cable to make to client USB devices talk to each other. This cable has a small do-dad that looks like a master to both ends. This works ok, but it requires special knowledge of this USB end point to work correctly. Note, Windows began to support this in Vista for migration. Its called Windows Easy Transfer/a>.. There is a version for XP too (downloadable/a>). It actually works very well, but the cables were not cheap. Note that the cables really are not cables - but a dual-headed master USB controller with two ports - it just looks like a cable with a lump in the middle - Belkin sells one for $40.

LLike a few other posters have said - USB is much more complex to use in software than simple RS-232. Ive written code for it and I find it more complex than Ethernet at the MAC level.

I think Ethernet is the real replacement. A little TFT or Telnet server / client is really trivial to write. This can (and often has been done) in firmware. For example, most (all?) home Ethernet and wireless routers dont have a serial port. Their management is over Ethernet - works great.

-Foredecker

if the assumption is that you're guilty and need to be proven innocent, like in france, then canada should go ahead and charge a tax on all automobiles because they could be used as getaway cars. And may as well tax chainsaws because they could be used as murder weapons.

in the 1980's, president bush instituted a tax on blank cassettes in america because it was assumed that all blank tapes were used to duplicate copyrighted material. what a moronic idea. the cassettes i bought were for my 4 track so i could record MYSELF writing MY OWN FUCKING MUSIC. and for mixdowns to give to my bandmates to lose. i have read we also have a similar tax on blank cd's, although most of them I use to back up MY OWN FUCKING DATA not some stupid commercial recording. Whatever, I'm sick of paying taxes on the assumption I'm a thief, and having that money go to idiots like madonna, michael jackson, and the RIAA fuckers.

however, ipods are now used not just for playing music, but for playing back podcasts and as the hard disk for recording live audio. if i'm using my ipod to record my buddies playing D&D, why the fuck should a penny of my money go to the RIAA and MPAA? because _they're_ the evil fucking asspirates.
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=277661
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=460128
http://www.belkin.com/tunestudio/

if the assumption is that you're guilty and need to be proven innocent, like in france, then canada should go ahead and charge a tax on all automobiles because they could be used as getaway cars. And may as well tax chainsaws because they could be used as murder weapons.

in the 1980's, president bush instituted a tax on blank cassettes in america because it was assumed that all blank tapes were used to duplicate copyrighted material. what a moronic idea. the cassettes i bought were for my 4 track so i could record MYSELF writing MY OWN FUCKING MUSIC. and for mixdowns to give to my bandmates to lose. i have read we also have a similar tax on blank cd's, although most of them I use to back up MY OWN FUCKING DATA not some stupid commercial recording. Whatever, I'm sick of paying taxes on the assumption I'm a thief, and having that money go to idiots like madonna, michael jackson, and the RIAA fuckers.

however, ipods are now used not just for playing music, but for playing back podcasts and as the hard disk for recording live audio. if i'm using my ipod to record my buddies playing D&D, why the fuck should a penny of my money go to the RIAA and MPAA? because _they're_ the evil fucking asspirates.
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=277661
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=460128
http://www.belkin.com/tunestudio/

if the assumption is that you're guilty and need to be proven innocent, like in france, then canada should go ahead and charge a tax on all automobiles because they could be used as getaway cars. And may as well tax chainsaws because they could be used as murder weapons.

in the 1980's, president bush instituted a tax on blank cassettes in america because it was assumed that all blank tapes were used to duplicate copyrighted material. what a moronic idea. the cassettes i bought were for my 4 track so i could record MYSELF writing MY OWN FUCKING MUSIC. and for mixdowns to give to my bandmates to lose. i have read we also have a similar tax on blank cd's, although most of them I use to back up MY OWN FUCKING DATA not some stupid commercial recording. Whatever, I'm sick of paying taxes on the assumption I'm a thief, and having that money go to idiots like madonna, michael jackson, and the RIAA fuckers.

however, ipods are now used not just for playing music, but for playing back podcasts and as the hard disk for recording live audio. if i'm using my ipod to record my buddies playing D&D, why the fuck should a penny of my money go to the RIAA and MPAA? because _they're_ the evil fucking asspirates.
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=277661
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=460128
http://www.belkin.com/tunestudio/

Yes and No. Some of the 'home network over power line' systems do have the ability to encrypt data between trancievers. of course it isnt enabled by default.

This Belkin product page shows the encryption ability.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=495008

(i dont buy their stuff, it was just the first one i found that DID support encryption)

Seriously a good idea. I got a bunch of these http://www.belkin.com/surgeprotection/concealed/

They are great, I have just one box on the floor under my desk, easy to sweep around, doesn't collect dust and looks tidy.

Looks good, but I use 2 UPS systems to protect my routers, computer, and monitor. I wish that the UPS people would have a solution that looks like the Belkin.

I work in IT over at Arizona State University and had to cable manage hundreds of computers. What we used was super Velcro which allowed us to connect switches, hubs, etc. to the underside of desks and then we used this spiral cable wrap to wrap all the cords together. It was the first time I had seen anything like it but it worked wonders. I don't know where you can get it the cheapest but this website carries it http://cableorganizer.com/richco-flame-retardant-wrap/ so check it out. Once the cables are bound (which can be undone relatively easily) you can then zip tie or Velcro them under a desk or against a wall. It keeps everything nice and tightly. I noticed in the store the other day a great option that may help in your desire to reduce power usage by AC adapters that are not currently plugged in to anything. It is a special surge protector that has two outlets that are âoeAlways onâ and then several others that are connected to the on off switch on the surge protector. This allows you to give certain components (i.e. routers, NAS boxes, etc) constant power while other components (i.e. AC adapters) can be turned on an off at the flick of a switch. You can even control the on off with a remote control which I thought was pretty cool, save on having to bend down underneath a desk just to turn on your power strip. You can check it out at http://catalog.belkin.com/conserve/features/ so that may help your endeavor as well. Good luck!

On the power side of things I'm a big fan of Belkin's Conceal Surge Protectors.

For everything else I use a mix of common (and cheap) cable management stuff.

Seriously a good idea. I got a bunch of these http://www.belkin.com/surgeprotection/concealed/

They are great, I have just one box on the floor under my desk, easy to sweep around, doesn't collect dust and looks tidy.

What I think fiber to the desktop needs is the equivalent to 10baseT - an open, low cost standard that is cheap and easy to use. Right now you have a dozen of propriatary connectors. Some are tougher, some are cheaper, etc... We need the equivalent of the RJ-45.

I worked through college at a networking lab dealing with Gigabit Ethernet, but 10Gig, but while there are tons of connectors out there, but only two are really ever used on the NIC: SC and LC

A link from Belkin on the types of fiber:
http://www.belkin.com/networking/fiber/

SC has historically been used more, but LC has taken over as the dominant interface, because you can have a much higher port density; with LC, you can have a 48-port 1U switch, and you can have a 4-port NIC in a standard PCI/PCIe slot.

Personally, I think if you wanted to use fiber in a home or small office setting, 1000BASE-SX will be the best choice for a while. SX (850nm light) is cheaper than LX (1310nm), and it'll work well over any distance you'd see inside a building. Also, it's "fast enough" for most applications, especially since you're unlikely to have anywhere near 1Gbps to the external network in that kind of setting.

Download the free shoutcast app:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=299647180&mt=8

Get a Tunebase-FM

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=257270

Load up shoutcast (or whatever other streaming radio app, there are probably hundreds by now), stick your phone on the tunebase (or other charging fm transmitter), pick/tune a proper frequency.

Done. I personally use last.fm and the tunebase, but it works anywhere there is coverage.

I enjoy at least 1 Belkin product: Nostromo SpeedPad n52

And while Belkin does not pay me, I can say good things about it. I think it's their most popular product, as it's a big hit with the WoW crowd as well.

I abuse my Belkin Speedpad N52 in this manner, quite extensively. It's a "dumb" device, but for text macros or even single-key assignments it can be rather helpful. Its software recognizes which app is active and loads whichever keymap you've assigned to that app.

So I program keys for my games, and also a few handies for Photoshop, my PHP IDE, and (blasphemy) the command line. It supports 3 shift-states, so you can assign 70+ commands per profile.

Your history of Belkin's sins omits the most amusing one: At one point, they baked firmware into their routers that would, from time to time, jack an http request from a machine on the lan, and feed them that image instead. Major WTF. Slashdot had the story back in the day.

I've got a Belkin Skype phone, which judging by pictures and reviews is nigh-on identical to the SMC model - and while looking for updated, marginally less buggy firmware a while ago, I noticed that Belkin had 'GPL Downloads' available for their own product.

No idea what's included (there are two versions of a ~100MB .tgz), but there's definitely something.

Now to get the bloody thing to talk WPA to my (also Linux-based) router thingy...

I've got a Belkin Skype phone, which judging by pictures and reviews is nigh-on identical to the SMC model - and while looking for updated, marginally less buggy firmware a while ago, I noticed that Belkin had 'GPL Downloads' available for their own product.

No idea what's included (there are two versions of a ~100MB .tgz), but there's definitely something.

Now to get the bloody thing to talk WPA to my (also Linux-based) router thingy...

I think it's interesting what this study showed, however I wish it would have included other forms of hardware other than the typical/standard pieces. Examples are specialty keyboards Wolfking Keyboard or gamepads N52te have any impact on gaming performance. I have the later and refuse to go back to the traditional keyboard for my gaming. I'd be curious to see how his k/d ration improves or worsens with one of these.

Keyboard + mouse

(or this + this)

There are so many better, cheaper alternatives. This one from Belkin comes to mind. Even at it's full retail price (though you can find them for as little as $20 online) it's a better value for the number of outlets. I certainly think it's more attractive, and it's definitely a better design with regard to the use of space for the big wall warts than the rotating ones on this $120 strip.

I think the only reason this got a real mention on Tom's Hardware and here on /. is because the outlets on the sides rotate, and Geeks tend to be suckers for anything that reminds us of the needless complexity of the Transformers. :)

This power strip design is interesting: http://www.belkin.com/surgeprotection/compact/

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=357371/

If you want to go for something more elegant, take a look at the Belkin Cushtop. It's a rigid pillow that you rest your laptop on, and it has space for you to shove in your power adapter. I use it all the time while sitting on a couch, and it even angles the laptop towards you to reduce wrist strain... which is something my dad's old beanbag+board combo could never do.

I like the Belkin Cushtop http://www.belkin.com/laptopathome/cushtop/. The empty space in the middle keeps it from getting too hot, and the angle it places the keyboard and screen work well for me. It lacks space for using a mouse however.

Wristwatches have forgone user-replaceable batteries for ages.

Come again? Every wristwatch I've ever seen (even a $3.50 budget watch from Wal-Mart) either has a pop-off back or a back held on with small screws. Either way, the average time to replace the battery is maybe a minute or two in my experience.

If you were going to pick a consumer device that doesn't have easily replaceable batteries, you'd have to pick something like a rechargeable electric toothbrush. Those typically have nonstandard, often soldered-in batteries in a hard-to-open package. Ditto for most rechargeable flashlights, rechargeable mini-vacs, etc. Still user-serviceable, but only if you are a very above-average consumer.

Would a user-replaceable battery in the iPhone have been a nice feature? Of course it would. Will I stop using my iPhone because it doesn't have one? No. Do I think this case has merit? Hell, no---and particularly not in light of the iPod having expensive, hard-to-replace batteries for almost six years....

BTW, I predict third-party expansion pack batteries that snap onto the back within six months, e.g. an iPhone model of the TunePower. Reportedly, the iZap already works, though I'd imagine it would block the camera.

My favorite old keyboard was made back in the mid-1990's and has an old "AT" style connector. To connect it to a slightly more modern PS/2 style connector, I had to use a adapter. I use yet another adapter to connect that adapter to a USB port on a computer which lacks a PS/2 connector. I also have a KVM switch in the middle too, so that I can control both computers with just the one keyboard, monitor and mouse. Only one of the two computers lacks the PS/2 connector and needs the second adapter.

The old keyboard with the "AT" style connector requires only a very light touch, clicks nicely, and feels just right when typing. It also uses a split spacebar to place an extra backspace key at a more convenient, but non-standard location. I like it so well, that I bought several spare keyboards, just before they stopped making them, so that I could keep using them for the rest of my life at both home and work. With adapters connected to other adapters, I should be able to keep using the old NMB model RTB255CW+ keyboards for decades.

Recently, a couple of the keys stopped working as reliably on one of the keyboards. To solve the emergency, I snapped off the plastic cover on each key and used a brush to remove the years of accumulated hair, lint and small bits of shredded wheat from under each key. I then washed years of grime off of each plastic cover and then snapped them back on. Free of the hair and lint, the keyboard is now working perfectly and looks like new. I heard about doing that from a woman who's job is to clean keyboards, computer screens and printers at a local VA hospital. I bet we all have millions of dust mites living our keyboards.

• AT to PS/2 keyboard adapter
• USB to PS/2 Converter

I wonder if there's an Expresscard that can handle the requirements for a monitor or two.
belkin do an expresscard docking station that includes a graphics adaptor.

http://www.belkin.com/highspeeddock/howitworks/
http://computers.pricegrabber.com/docking-station/ m/28171911/

from a quick perusal of the manual ( http://www.belkin.com/support/dl/P75420_F5U273_doc king%20station_mnl.pdf ) it seems it uses the PCI-express part of expresscard for the video and the USB 2 part for everything else.