This summer, don't deny your notebook an Evercool

NOTEBOOK COOLERS were all the rage when introduced about two years ago. Our Charlie said back then, referring to Antec's offering at CES: "an X shaped flat, perforated panel with 2 fans in it. Powered by a USB port, it blows cool air in from under the laptop, keeping the underside ventilated, and the user with less potential for burned thighs. While this was one product I was not expecting, I came away impressed."

The Evercool NP-101 is a bargain at $16

As happens with everything low-tech, prices plummet once brutal competition kicks in. And this week, I found that while the Antec model mentioned by Charlie two years ago is now cheap but at $32, it's still not good enough for the real cheapskate that reads this semi-monthly column.

The four USB powered fans inside the Evercool NP-101

Instead Evercool's first entry into this market, the model NP-101, -originally introduced in late 2003- is being offered, probably because of it's overstocked nature or because it's a model three years old, for only $15.98 at Amazon.com in new, factory sealed shape.

I can vouch for the quality of Evercool's NP-101, as I've been using one since mid 2004 with good results. It's particularly handy when typing while lying flat in bed, as the sheets won't clog any vent spaces of your notebook puter. It also happens to have more fans (four) than Antec's offering mentioned by Charlie -which according to him, only has two. The NP-101 has a speed control knob and ON/OFF switch, by the way.

Cooling the Gateway 7422GX Athlon64 notebook running 64 Studio Linux

Finally, and speaking of summer in the northern half of the Globe, and since we inhumans also get hotter during that season, here's a good cure for nosy bosses that do not allow his employees to break from the stressful work environment by looking at web photos of scantly clad women: a $24.95 piece of USB kit dubbed the "Desktop Cloaking Device". Basically it seems to be an "emergency foot pedal" that you can sneak under your desk or computing place and at the hit of it, a driver and associated software previously installed into your PC will immediately minimize all application windows - or just leaving a few "legit" apps of your choosing.

It's priced at $14.95 after a $10 mail-in rebate. The offer from Geeks.com expires on May 17 and the rebate form can be found over here. Interestingly, the same item is selling at $21 by Geeks.com themselves when the order is placed using Amazon.com. So that would make it $11 after the mail-in rebate, but I'm not 100% sure if you can use the rebate form if you place the order through Amazon.com, better check with the web store first.

In any case, these are two good and cheap deals to get ready for the coming summer. Enjoy! µ