I prefer this Dato 100

We have 20 year old Kone elevators in our building. They have locks for the technicians, but they also have close door buttons.
Amazingly, these buttons work.
I think this will vary with the age of the lift and the manufacturer.
We have Otis lifts in one of the newer buildings, so I'll have to try it out there.

There are a lot of pushbuttons for pedestrian crossings in Sydney that were disconnected while there was roadwork and never connected again. Stumbling across one is both exciting and frustrating in roughly equal amounts.

I had the same problem with Sony Ericsson after buying a car kit off eBay.
Sony claimed that the antenna cable supplied in the genuine car kit was a forgery.

Why anyone would bother to place a fake antenna cable in a genuine car kit is beyond my comprehension, but Sony resolutely refused to replace the part.

It seems to be quite the scam.

I wrote about it all here: http://digital-diatribe.com/?p=32

I am practically convinced that much like the yo-yo, the umbrella was first developed as a weapon. Why else would it have so many needle like points with which to remove an eye? All one need do is walk down a congested city street and they will have rendered the majority of it’s altitudinous inhabitants visionless.

The umbrella really isn’t a useful tool in protecting oneself from imminent absorption of cloud juice so much as a multi purpose military aid. You can use it when it’s closed to stab people with tetanus infused ball bearings KGB style, you can use the hooked handle to sweep the legs out from under people and if that fails you can always open the thing and hide behind it like the umbrella wielding coward that you are.

Which brings on to my my main point of contention. The people that actually use umbrellas.
If you’ve got an umbrella I assume that unlike me you have purchased it with the main intention of keeping yourself dry rather than the unlikely yet more entertaining possibility that you will use it to viciously mutilate someone.
That being the case, why are you walking under an awning with it fully open? An awning that was specifically designed to keep the rain off people with enough sense not to go out and buy an umbrella.
There is a latch on the thing for a reason and that is so you can close it when you’re not using it to remove an eye.

I can also think of more enjoyable ways to turn myself into a lightning conductor, the main one being to paint my knob gold and lay on my back. The fact that were I to use a normal umbrella I’d basically become a mobile lightning rod does not inspire the least bit of confidence.

So between the actual device and the people that use it, the whole concept is a write off. It baffles me why people go to trouble of using it, when you have to carry it around everywhere, thus taking up a valuable hand that could be used to smack people in front of you for walking too slowly.

Which is why this umbrella is such an awesome idea.

But having said that, I’ll quite happily stick to my raincoat and gumboots, safe in the knowledge that if I do get stuck by lightning at least I’ll be well insulated and won’t have taken an eye out on the way.

Wiki answers says that 2.4% of Australians are Aboriginal, so I'd say the number of Australians that can throw a boomerang is over that.
I learned to throw them on a school camp, as did a whole bunch of other Australian school children. I'm not Aboriginal either.

The ones used by Australian Aboriginals for hunting were sharp, so you wouldn't really want them to come back. They were designed to fly straight so you could crack a kangaroo in the skull with it.

I'm in Australia, so you'd probably be better off with eBay, but AU$100 plus shipping will land you one 820 sans charger and backup battery. BYO flash card.

wallet-rogering is such an awesome expression.

I used a Jornada while I was traveling for keeping track of expenses and doing basic currency conversions. The keyboard is a joy to type on, it has instant on, and the old lucent/avaya/orinoco wireless cards work with it. Oh, and support for an external mouse. Brilliant!

My Dad bought a bulk lot of them off of ebay and has slowly been converting friends and family members by giving them away as presents. So far everyone seems to love them.

I'm not saying I don't like words. When I write, I use a lot of them too. But when you're writing for a blog about gadgets and you wander off into telling a story about how you once contracted hepatitis in the jungles of north vietnam in the midst of an article about the latest sony camera it doesn't make for a great segue.
And when each article seemed to fit the same pattern of wandering off randomly and then getting back to the point it was getting a little irritating.

But all your articles I'm reading now I really like, so it's looks like you've taken it on board.

I'll go back to reading spec sheet porn now.

Seconding comments from #5 and #8, John, your writing style is extraordinarily annoying to read for a gadget blog. All the extra words and wild tangents get in the way of the interesting parts of the article.
I only have to read the first two sentences to know it's you who's written the piece. If your style wasn't so grating, this would be a wonderful thing. Instead, it makes me wonder why your writing for a gadget blog instead of for grumpy old man monthly (now with extra vocabulary).

Looks like he succeeded in retaining the zebra crossing around his neck though.