Gadgetory

we haven't done a handy check under $100 in a while and not because there hasn't been any handy technology in the last little bit because we've been so incredibly busy with other projects so I guess it was a bit of a blessing in disguise that I came into the office this morning having forgotten the microphone I was supposed to review today at home because now we get handy tech that SL 600 microphone review will be coming soon by the way so we'll find out if a dedicated single condenser module cardioid mic can dethrone the jack-of-all-trades Yeti Pro but first this video of course there's a che di GT and h100 I GTX all-in-one liquid coolers improve both the appearance and cooling of your PC click my face to learn more as long as Nik doesn't forget now our first handy tech under a hundred today is one that I actually dug my heels in about buying Brandon really wanted one though so basically I finally said okay look fine if I never have to use it and I don't have to see you wasting time thinking around with it because there's a thousand other useful things you could be doing you can get one it's a label maker specifically the brother Pete uh CH D 200 so to give some background Brandon is a bit of an obsessive about putting labels on things and while I see the benefit for things that belong to him and he brings to the office he can label those at home and it seems like a waste of time to run around the office labeling things that belong to the company since you can pretty much assume anything unlabeled belongs to line.this Media Group and besides for my point of view printers or printers they never work their upkeep is expensive and they almost always end up wasting more time than they save since a piece of tape and a pen is just as functional to me as a label maker at least that's what I thought a standalone single purpose label maker like this that requires no wireless connection no computer and just generally takes a text input on its built-in keyboard and spits out a label within a few seconds is actually a godsend for everything from organizing which SD cards are for which cameras and which power adapters go with which laptops or network switches to well that's actually the only thing I use it for but it's definitely worth the 35 bucks for that alone it's not perfect the side margins are too big so it wastes some paper the replacement cartridges cost a third as much as the entire device and the menu system isn't exactly revolutionary and awesome but I am officially converted I thought it was useless when I bought it but it truly is a handy piece of tech my second handy tech item today is well let's start with this every day I get companies sending me their latest Stu Bluetooth doodad that for some reason they think makes my life easier but it's actually just another confounded gadget to remember to charge from my perspective but this one is actually surprisingly cool it's called the gatekeeper and it has the same functionality as those Bluetooth proximity tags where there's an iOS or Android phone app that lets you know if your luggage or your purse or whatever this is attached to moves too far away with an audible alarm but that's not that cool and I said this thing was cool the cool part is that it comes with a USB lock dongle that allows you to automatically lock or unlock your Windows or Mac based PC simply by moving near it or away from it the app is super simple to install on your computer and set up you just pair the lock and key by putting them next to each other set up a proximity threshold I found somewhere in the middle was good for having the lock plugged into my keyboard although if you had it inside your case with one of those little dongles that we actually introduced in the last handy tech then you might want to set it a little bit further away then all you do is move away from the PC and it locks in toward it and boom it unlocks by the time you've put your butt in your chair usually now to be clear Windows passwords are pretty easy to defeat on their own so if you're just using a gatekeeper on its own then it's not much of a deterrent for someone who has unlimited time to access your computer and is trying really hard to steal your data but what it does do is prevent casual eavesdropping from coworkers or or other patients in a setting like a doctor's office or hospital and much much more and if that's not enough for you you can actually set your system up to require both the keychain key and a typed password for unlocking so two-factor authentication and then if you combine the gatekeeper with other security measures like BitLocker full drive encryption it can actually be fairly difficult to defeat it with you know a couple passwords and the physical item in the way of all but the most dastardly data thieves my last handy tech item is one that many of you will already actually already own and the vast majority of you will already know about at the very least but it's the kind of thing where it might take a video like this to make you think oh snap I gotta go order a couple of those so next time I'm running all over the place looking for one when I have a Skype meeting in five minutes that I'm supposed to join I'll know where it is now pretty much everyone knows that the vast majority of personal audio devices use a female three-and-a-half millimeter or eighth inch jack but what some people don't know is that in addition to their actually being some wiring variations they can actually have three or four contact points depending on whether they're designed to accommodate a pair of headphones or speakers a microphone or both of those things yes the popularity of smartphones and ultrabooks with no physical space for two separate Jack's has skyrocketed the popularity of four pole three and a half millimeter Jack's but if you happen to have a headset for Skype or gaming or whatever else it is that doesn't have four poles you can plug it in and just use it as a headphone or you can get one of these little puppies to split the audio output and input for you now there's not a whole lot to say about these other than that I ordered a couple from Amazon a star tech one for a few bucks and a Sennheiser one for a few bucks more and they both work about as expected the Sennheiser one has more supple thinner wires and features gold plating on the connectors inside and out a longevity booster but given that I could afford literally twice as many of the cheaper ones I think I lean towards those or if there's something on monoprice that for whatever reason I couldn't find and is cheaper then that's good too since functionally they are exactly the same but like super handy and that's what this video series is about speaking of functionally exactly the same most portable battery banks except this one from cheero power the world's first battery for ingress agents officially licensed by neon tech Niantic whatever Niantic labs i'll start-up within google dedicated to creating mobile apps that connect people with the real world like ingress so ingress if you're not familiar with it it's kind of this unique entertainment experience known as real-world game and all new style of game featuring innovative massively multiplayer mobile gameplay which transforms neighborhoods and cities around the world into the welded interactive gaming experience there's like 9 million downloads there's a huge community around it and this battery bank is for ingress agents okay so it okay so it's not that functionally different from other battery banks it features an ultra high-capacity battery so that's 12,000 milliamp hours it's compatible with regular one amp charging devices it's got a one amp port for those and it's got a quick charging 2.1 amp port allowing an iphone for example to be charged up to five times on a single charge and quickly something that's definitely handy when you're out and about with your phone constantly powered on and in front of you speaking of powered on it in front of you it comes with a nice supple USB cable so you go ahead and pop that baby in your back pocket you got your phone in your other hand and you can go around and do your ingress things now where it does get difference is that it does have a variety of lighting pattern so you press the power button press the power button oops that's not the power button not so you press the power button and the lights light up you can short press the LED control button and change the color of the center logo you can long press and these other LEDs around it are gonna light up and looks pretty cool and I guess that's pretty much all there is to say about it it's outfitted with the usual automatic shutdown protection and automatic overcharge prevention and short-circuit protection all that good stuff and I think that pretty much wraps that puppy up you can check out the link in the video description if you want to pick up one of those bad boys for yourself or someone you know who's like really into angrist so the last thing for this video is the full disclosure part that I like to include with handi tech the cheero ingress charger was one of our usual sponsor spots the label maker and the headphone adapters were purchased for youths at Linus Media Group here and the gate keeper was provided by cool cat electronics for evaluation even though I told them at the time I probably wouldn't review it but then I liked it so I did thanks for watching guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment if your feelings were more complicated in this as always linked in the video description you can support us with a monthly contribution you can buy a cool t-shirt like this one and you can change your amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code so we get a small kickback whenever you buy portable battery banks these doohickeys or the duty keys go in them so you can print more stuff with them adaptors and do whatever the heck thanks for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe