iRobot is offering free shipping until Feb. 8 on Roomba robot vacuum cleaners.

From now until Feb. 8, you get free shipping from iRobot for any Roomba, Scooba, or other cleaning robot that you buy directly from iRobot.

• See the iRobot site for complete details »

I recently acquired the Roomba 770 robot vacuum cleaner. The 700 series Roombas (760, 770 and 780) are the latest and greatest models from iRobot.

I love my iRobot Roomba 770. It came with the base charging station, 2 virtual walls, a remote control, cleaning tools, and spare HEPA filters.

All 3 of the 700 series models include HEPA filters, automatic scheduling, a remote control, and the new AeroVac 2 bin, which is larger and easier to empty and clean than the bins on the older models. And all 3 are designed to be great at picking up pet hairs.

I bought the 770 because it seems to occupy the “sweet spot” of best combination of features and price.

I could have saved $50 by buying the Roomba 760. That model doesn’t include a full-bin indicator light, and it has the older “Dirt Detect” debris sensors, rather than the newer “Dirt Detect Series 2″ debris sensors. I’m not sure how much better the newer debris sensing system is, but I thought the full-bin indicator alone was worth the extra $50. The full-bin light lets you see at a glance if you need to empty the bin. If this thing lasts me 5 years, that extra $50 is an average of $10 a year, or less than $1 a month. Since the full-bin light lets me check the bin without bending over to remove the bin, it saves my back a lot of grief. At less than $1 a month, saving my back is a bargain. Both the 770 and 780 models have the full-bin indicator light, but not the 760 model.

Or I could have spent $100 more to get the 780 model Roomba. That would have bought me touchpad controls instead of buttons, and would have allowed me to use the “lighthouse” virtual walls to have my floorbot do room-to-room navigation.

The underside of my Roomba 770. Those offroad-looking wheels allow the Roomba to handle transitions from bare floors to rug or carpet. The counter-rotating brushes do a good job of picking up dirt and debris. You can see one of the HEPA filters in the lower left corner, inside the debris bin. The little brush at the upper left grabs dirt off to the side and sweeps it into the path of the main brushes.

Essentially, room-to-room navigation would allow me to program the system to have the Roomba do my living room, then my kitchen, then my office, then my master bedroom, then bedroom #2, then bedroom #3, and so on. The 780 is the only one of the 700 series Roombas that has that capability.

As it turns out, I’m glad I didn’t pony up the extra money to get that feature. Between the bin capacity and the battery time, my floorbot can’t do my whole house in one go anyway, so room-to-room navigation would be pretty worthless.

Instead, I just use the standard virtual walls to divide my house into appropriate-size zones. Every day it does my living room, dining room & kitchen, then it goes back to its base to recharge. Every couple of days I have it do my master bedroom & bathroom. Every couple of days I have it do my office, laundry room and bathroom. Every couple of days I have it do the extra bedrooms and bathroom. And so forth.

Having touchpad controls vs. buttons makes no difference to me at all. Room-to-room navigation and touchpad controls are the only features the 780 has that the 770 doesn’t. Your mileage may vary, but I don’t consider those features worth an extra $100 over the price of the 770.

The Roomba 770, which is the one I bought, has automatic scheduling, so that I can set it to run every day at a particular time, or at different times or not at all on some days. I can also run it manually by just touching the big “Clean” button in the center, or the “Clean” button on the remote control.

It has the newer Dirt Detect Series 2 debris sensing system, the HEPA filtration system, full-bin indicator light, the new AeroVac 2 bin, and is designed to be effective at picking up pet hairs. It came with the charging base, a remote control, 2 virtual walls, 2 spare HEPA filters, and 2 cleaning tools.

I’ve had my Roomba 770 for a little over a month now, and I absolutely love it. I don’t know how I ever got along without it. I’m planning to write a complete review shortly, but I saw iRobot’s free shipping offer and wanted to let you know that this is a good time to buy a Roomba. I recommend the Roomba 770.

• Visit the iRobot site to buy your Roomba today with FREE SHIPPING »

NexStar 2.5" external drive enclosure

I needed to replace the old 320G drive in my MacBook Pro with a larger drive, at least 500G. I ordered a new drive, and it arrived a few days later. As always it was a cinch to install in the MacBook.

The enclosure came with a USB cable and its own little faux leather case, along with a screwdriver (not shown) for the tiny little screws that hold on the end cap.

But now I had a perfectly good 320G 2.5″ drive that was too good to throw away. What to do with it? I didn’t really need another external drive, but the 2.5″ laptop drives are so small, I thought it would be nice to have a tiny little external drive to tuck into my laptop case when traveling.

I had never put a laptop drive into an external enclosure, but this seemed like a good time to try it. So I decided to spend a few bucks on an external drive enclosure.

I ordered the NexStar TX SATA-to-USB enclosure from Amazon. At about $8, the price was right, and if it was problematic or it didn’t work, that wasn’t a huge amount of money to risk.

Here's the enclosure with a Coke can to give you an idea how small it is.

I couldn’t believe how easy it was to install the drive into the enclosure. The enclosure came with with its own tiny little screwdriver, which is used to remove the screws that hold the end cap in place. You simply remove the end cap, slide the drive into the enclosure until it snaps into place, put the end cap back on, and tighten down the screws.

The enclosure also comes with a double-end USB cable. Because the enclosure is powered by the USB cable, the end that plugs into a USB port on your computer has two plugs to make sure it gets enough power. If you’re plugging it into a USB hub, or a USB port on a keyboard, it probably needs that extra power boost. But I can plug just one of those into my MacBook or Mac Pro and get enough power.

If the drive doesn’t get enough power from the USB port that you plug it into, and if your available USB ports are limited, it could be a hassle needing to use 2 USB ports. But a drive enclosure with its own power supply is necessarily going to be bigger, heavier and costlier than a USB-powered enclosure.

Since I have plenty of USB ports on my Mac Pro, and rarely use either of the 2 USB ports on my MacBook Pro, it wouldn’t be a problem even if I did need to plug in both of the USB plugs.

Also included in the box is a little faux leather case to slip the drive into. The USB cable will fit in there too, which is nice.

I’m pleased to have discovered how inexpensive and easy it is to give myself an extra external hard drive. This is a tiny little thing, not much bigger a thumb drive, but the 320G drive inside will hold ever so much more than a thumb drive.

It’s easy to take with me when I’m on the go, small enough to store easily when I’m not using it, and it hardly adds any weight or volume to my laptop case.

The NexStar TX 2.5″ drive enclosure is available from Amazon, and they are also usually readily available on eBay.

The Towel Jam is a super-easy towel holder.

The Towel Jam by Chef’n is a super-handy little kitchen towel holder. It has soft rubber gripper “teeth” that grab and hold the towel.

Hanging a towel — or dish cloth, wash cloth, or any other smallish towel or cloth — on it is as easy as shoving a corner, edge, or any bit of the towel into the grippers.

To use, just grab the towel and pull.

The Towel Jam is available in 2 sizes: A single-towel holder and a double-towel holder. I bought the single Towel Jam version from Amazon. If I had wanted to hang 2 towels right next to each other, I can see where the double-towel version would be nice to have.

It comes with a peel-off adhesive back so that you can just peel and stick it anywhere you want it, no holes or drilling required.

But it also has 2 screw holes in the back and comes with 2 screws, in case you want or need to anchor it in place with screws. I bought my first one about 6 months ago, and so far the adhesive shows no signs of coming off. I just left the screws inside the Towel Jam, so in case the adhesive does give up at some point I can just fish out the screws and screw it into place.

I liked it so much that I just recently bought two more. I put one on each end of my kitchen island, but I haven’t yet decided where I want to put the third one. Maybe in one of the bathrooms, or perhaps in my husband’s workshop, or in the laundry room. Maybe on our sailboat. There are so many places that it’s really convenient to have a towel holder, especially one without any hooks or hard edges to catch on things. It would be nice if Chef’n offered it in something other than avocado green.

The single Towel Jam is available from Amazon for about $5, and the double Towel Jam is is $6. You can usually find them on eBay, too, sometimes with better shipping prices.

The i1015 waterproof iPhone case from Pelican

I like to take my iPhone with me when out kayaking, sailing, or running around the harbor in our Boston Whaler. A cell phone doesn’t take the place of a VHF radio for marine emergencies, and I always bring my handheld VHF radio, too. But the iPhone can be super-handy to avoid Sea Tow fees by calling a friend with a boat if we happen to get stranded, or to call and let someone we’ll be later than expected getting in, or to check the weather on radar. So I needed a waterproof case for my iPhone.

Enter the i1015 waterproof iPhone case by Pelican. It’s exactly what I wanted and needed.

First off, it’s from Pelican. When Pelican says it’s waterproof, I know it’s waterproof. Enuff said. There’s no other waterproof case that I’d trust to be completely waterproof. To be clear, Pelican itself says the case is “water resistant,” not “waterproof,” but it has the usual Pelican o-ring and a good tight seal. I’m confident that a brief submersion wouldn’t allow water inside. You shouldn’t hook it to your belt and go swimming or scuba diving, of course.

Here you can see how the phone plugs into the internal plug, and the earbuds plug into the external plug.

The i1015 is specifically designed for the iPhone and similar-sized smart phones. Pelican says that this case fits the iPhone, iPhone 4 & iPod Touch, and that it also fits several other smart phones,  including the Blackberry Bold, Curve, Storm, & Pearl, the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G, T-Mobile G1, Motorola Droid & Cliq, and Nokia 5800/5530/E63/E71/E71x/E75/N97 & Mini/N79/N78 phones. I don’t have any of those phones, but if Pelican says it fits those, then I’d believe them.

This case is the exact right size for my iPhone and nothing else. A friend of mine has a slightly larger Pelican case that’s big enough to hold his iPhone and wallet, but this one has no room for anything besides my iPhone. The phone is snugged securely into the interior rubber liner, so the phone doesn’t move around at all inside the case. I toss it into the storage compartment of my kayak and it’s just fine.

The i1015 case comes with a small carabiner. You can hook it to your belt loop while out hiking, or you can hook it to something on your boat to keep it in place, so that you always know exactly where it is.

The case is ingeniously designed with a plug for your earphones so that you can listen to tunes or answer a call while keeping the phone safely inside the case. There’s an interior plug that you plug into the phone, and there’s an exterior plug that you plug your earbuds into.  So there’s no actual opening or hole that your earbud cord has to feed through. Pelican put a waterproof plug on the side of the case, which connects the interior plug to the exterior plug. Here’s a closeup of the plug on the side of the case:

The i1015 has a plug on the side for your earbuds, so that you can listen to tunes while keeping your phone safe and secure.

The clear plastic cover lets you see the screen. There’s no access to the screen without opening the case, so you’d have to open it to make a call or do anything else that requires screen interaction. But you can start your playlist going and then close up the case, and you can answer and end a call by activating the little button on the earbud cord.

The case does add bulk to the phone, of course. I can’t easily slip the entire case into my pocket, like I can the phone by itself. But it’s still small enough that I can keep it almost anywhere on any of our small boats.

Also, I sometimes think I’d like to have a slightly larger case, so that I can throw in one or two other small items: wallet, keys, things like that. These small Pelican cases are inexpensive enough that it’s feasible to buy 2 or 3 in different sizes, and I might do exactly that.

The i1015 Pelican waterproof case is available from Amazon for around $23. You can sometimes find it for less on eBay.

This hook could hold several pairs of scissors without even trying very hard.

I had never even heard of neodymium magnets until I went looking for some strong refrigerator-hook type magnets. I’m always wanting to hang things on the side of my refrigerator: potholders and mitts, a notepad for shopping lists, scissors, and the like. I needed some hooks on my refrigerator, and so I went shopping online for some string magnetic hooks. All the ones I found were “neodymium magnets.”

It turns out that General Motors and a Japanese company discovered the compound in these magnetics in 1982. That explains why I don’t remember magnets like this from my childhood. But apparently these magnets are super-ultra-strong in relation to their mass. A very small neodymium magnet has a surprising amount of strength, and a moderately large one can actually be dangerous. They actually come with warnings!

Anyway, I went to Amazon and bought a package of 5 Neodymium Hook Magnets rated to hold 12 pounds each. I passed on the ones rated for 25 pounds or 50 pounds each; after all, I only want to hang some potholders and scissors.

They’re not very big; the base, which holds the magnet, is about the size of a nickel. Here’s a picture of one with a quarter next to it, to give you an idea of the size:

The base is smaller than a quarter, really about the size of a nickel.

The magnets I remember from my childhood wouldn’t have been very strong at that size. But these newfangled neodymium magnets are plenty strong.

I hang my kitchen scissors on one of these magnets on the refrigerator. The magnet doesn’t even notice the scissors are there. I hang 2 pairs of oven mitts on another one. It doesn’t notice them either. I hang a paper notepad on another one, and it doesn’t notice the notepad. Any of them could hold significantly more than what I’m hanging on them.

They’re not very expensive, only $15 for five of them. I’m probably going to order a couple more packs in different sizes, because they’re just so handy to have around. You can get neodymium magnetic hooks from Amazon, and they’re also readily available on eBay.

When they say large display, they mean large display! I can read this easily at night without my glasses.

My old alarm clock fell off the nightstand and bounced off the windowsill a few too many times. The outer case had cracked open, and the buttons to set the time and alarm were sticking and inoperable.

My favorite thing about my old alarm clock was that it had really big numbers. I have terrible eyesight, and without my glasses or contacts, I simply cannot read any normal clock. So a large display was my main requirement for a new alarm clock.

My second requirement was a battery backup to keep time even when the power is out. Here in south Florida, we get spectacular electrical storms every day all summer long. That means we lose power frequently. It’s usually only a brief outage, but my old alarm clock always went to flashing “12:00″ after even a very short “blink” in the power. (I bought the old one many years ago before they came up with the brilliant idea of including a backup battery in alarm clocks.) I lived with that for a long time, until the time-set buttons became so unusable. But for my new clock, a backup battery was a must-have.

I have to say, while I was browsing online for a new alarm clock, I was amused at the many claims of “large 3/4-inch display” or “super-huge 1-inch display” and the like. A 1-inch display is …. well, it’s not large. It’s not even medium. It’s more like the fine print on ibuprofen bottles: that is to say, it’s unreadable.

Then I found the AcuRite Thor Large Display Alarm Clock from Chaney Instruments, with a 2-inch display. Now this is a large display! Here she is with a Coke can next to her, to give you an idea of how big this display really is:

The Coke can should give you an idea of how big the display on this clock really is.

The clock has a backup battery, too, so it met my other requirement.

That slider switch on the bottom is the time zone selector. There are also buttons for setting the alarm and choosing whether you want the clock to adjust for Daylight Saving Time automatically.

But it gets even better. This clock has a built-in timekeeper so that when you plug it in, it automatically sets itself to the correct time based on the time zone you select. The time zone is selectable by a simple slider switch on the back; no secret, hard-to-remember sequences of key presses are needed. Just slide the switch to your time zone. And it automatically resets itself for daylight and standard time, too.

That’s it! Since the clock keeps time and resets itself automatically, there’s no need for manual time set buttons. (But there’s way to do that, in case you should need to.)

There is a giant “Snooze” button across the top of the clock. No fumbling around for that, and no accidentally turning the alarm off when you only meant to snooze it. The “alarm off” button is a slider switch on the back of the clock, so you won’t trigger that accidentally while fumbling for the Snooze button.

The giant snooze button is what all snooze buttons should be. No fumbling around, just slap the top of the clock.

Any downsides to this clock? Nothing’s perfect, so what’s wrong with it? Well, it’s just a clock. If you want a radio, CD player, iPod docking station or any fancy stuff, you’ll want something else. This is just a plain old alarm clock.

You also have to be sure to change the backup battery only with the clock plugged in. The time is pre-set at the factory, and if you remove the backup battery without having the clock plugged in, that’ll mess up the factory-set time. The instructions say that the battery should be good for 3 years, but they recommend changing it after 2 years. I stuck a reminder on my computer calendar to pop up 2 years from now and remind me to change that battery. (The instructions do provide a way to manually set the time, in case the factory pre-set time gets messed up.)

Oh, and when there’s a power outage, the backup battery doesn’t display the time while the power is out. It’s only meant to maintain the time internally until the power comes back on. I believe that most battery backup alarm clocks work that way.

This alarm clock is designed to be nothing but a simple alarm clock, and it does that extremely well. I would buy it again in a heartbeat.

The AcuRite Thor Large Display Alarm Clock is available from Amazon, and you can also find the Thor large display alarm clock on eBay.

SimpleHuman upright grocery bag holder: Nice form factor, great size, but hard to keep clean-looking.

My old fabric grocery bag holder was coming apart at the seams, and the elastic at both ends was shot. eBay has a lot of those fabric bag holders, and I considered getting another one of those for a few bucks, but I’m not real crazy about the fabric bag holders.

I have liked the SimpleHuman upright grocery bag holder for a long time, and I decided it was time to splurge and get myself one.

You can get it from Amazon for about $24, and if you find something else you want to bring your purchase to at least $25, you get free shipping.

(As an aside, I have to admit that Amazon’s “Free Super Saver Shipping” on orders over $25 gets me every time. I can always find something else I need to bring my order to $25. I think I’m going to have to spring for the Amazon Prime membership, so that I get free 2-day shipping even without a $25 minimum purchase.)

The Simplehuman bag holder holds a lot of bags.

I really like it! It holds a lot of grocery bags. When this baby gets full, it’s just flat-out time to take some of my bags back to the grocery store for recycling, because it means I’ve got way more bags than I’ll ever use.

It’s also very sturdily constructed. Good strong plastic parts and stainless steel sides. I may never have to buy another bag holder.

I keep mine in my pantry. At first, I felt like it was a shame to keep it in there, hidden away, because I think it’s attractive and deserves to be displayed on a counter. But it turns out that the brushed stainless steel is hard to wipe clean of fingerprints. I’ve used the moist sanitizing wipes, damp paper towels, 409 spray cleaner, and even glass cleaner.

The stainless steel sides are covered with smears and fingerprints, even after cleaning.

At the top left at the beginning of this review, you can see the stock photo from SimpleHuman. At right are photos I took of mine, after touching and then cleaning the stainless steel sides. The fingerprints don’t really bother me, since I keep mine in the pantry. But if you would be keeping yours in view on the counter, you had better be better at cleaning off fingerprints than I am. Maybe Bar Keeper’s Friend stainless steel cleaner will work better.

The slot in the front that you pull bags from is easy to access, and the hole in the top that you use to stuff bags into it is also easy to get to. When it starts getting full, I can use a fair bit of force to shove more bags in, and it never feels like I’m about to break it.

I’d buy it again. It’s a tad pricey compared to the inexpensive fabric bag holders, but considering it might well last me the rest of my life, it’s a bargain.

The SimpleHuman upright bag holder is available from Amazon.

You can also find SimpleHuman bag holder on eBay, sometimes for less money, and eBay also has a lot of the wall-mounted Simple Human bag holders, too, which also look nice. The wall-mounting could be a real convenience, if you’ve got a good place to mount it.

Fire truck from Green Toys is sturdy, fun, and eco-friendly.

I bought the Green Toys Eco-Friendly Fire Truck for my grandson for his first birthday. His eyes got as big as saucers when he saw it!

I like it because it’s very sturdy. My grandson is a strong little guy, and he’s pretty good at bashing things around. I’m confident he won’t be able to break this thing, though.

It doesn’t have any small parts, so no worries there.

The ladder extends and turns, so that’ll help with hand-eye coordination.

The ladder extends and swivels.

His mother likes it because it doesn’t have a loud screeching siren or make any other obnoxious noises, and it doesn’t need batteries.

It’s just a plain old high-quality toy that allows the kid to use his imagination and make his own noises. Aren’t those always the best kind of toy for little ones?

We all like it because it’s made of recycled plastic, and even the packaging is made from recycled cardboard. And it’s made in the United States! How cool is that?

My grandson loves pushing this thing around and crashing it into the walls and furniture. He’s learning how to extend the ladder.

It’s not a ride-on toy, but it’s big enough that he can sit on it (and it doesn’t break!).

The wheels have a little trouble rolling on a bare floor, such as tile or wood. But they roll easily on carpet, so I don’t consider that a big deal. Plenty of rolling toys don’t roll well on bare floors.

We all know that kids outgrow their toys fast, but I’ll bet my grandson will still be playing with this fire truck 2 years from now. And it won’t surprise me if it’s still around for any future little brothers or sisters to play with, too.

This is the first product I’ve ever bought from Green Toys, but I’ll definitely be looking for more Green Toys stuff in the future.

You can get the Green Toys Eco-Friendly Fire Truck from Amazon, and it’s also available on eBay.

Lasagna pans are either too wide or not quite wide enough.

I’ve been making lasagna more often of late…. My friends and family love my lasagna — and a big pan of lasagna makes it so easy to feed a crowd. When I make lasagna, I generally make two pans; I cook one right away for eating, and I stick the other in the freezer for unexpected company or spontaneous parties.

I’ve never been thrilled, though, with my lasagna pans. I have a metal roaster that I use, and a slightly smaller glass casserole dish. I don’t like making acidy, tomato-based dishes in the non-stick metal roaster, and the glass casserole isn’t quite deep enough. Well, neither of them is deep enough, but the glass casserole barely allows me to squeeze in 3 layers — I want room for at least 4 layers, preferably 5 or 6 layers.

I decided I needed a new lasagna pan — two new lasagna pans, actually — and I’m willing to spend some decent money if I can find the right lasagna pan. I’ve been scouring the internet for the perfect lasagna pan. I’d buy two, if I could just find the right pan.

I haven’t found it yet. The big problem is the dimensions of the pans.

Your standard, garden-variety lasagna noodle, as purchased from the grocery store, is about 9 3/4 inches long, and about 2 1/4 inches wide. The interior of the lasagna pan should be wide enough to accommodate 3 noodles side by side, or possibly 4 for a really big pan, and long enough to accommodate the length of the noodle, or the length of the noodle plus the width of another noodle, or the length of the noodle plus the width of 2 additional noodles. Here are 3 examples of perfectly sized lasagna pans. I had to draw these, because they don’t exist in real life:

The perfect lasagna pan would perfectly accommodate 3 noodles side by side, or 4 plus an additional noodle at right angles, or 4 plus 2 additional noodles at right angles.

So this “perfect lasagne pan,” if it existed, would have the following interior measurements:

Smallest pan: About 10 inches long (just long enough to hold the full length of the lasagna noodle), and about 7 inches wide, just wide enough to hold 3 noodles side by side.

Medium pan: A little over 12 inches long — to accommodate the length of a lasagna noodle plus the width of an additional lasagna noodle — and about 10 inches wide, to hold 4 noodles side by side.

Largest pan: About 14 1/2 inches long — to accommodate the length of a lasagna noodle plus the width of two additional lasagna noodles — and about 10 inches wide, to hold 4 noodles side by side.

Remember, those are the interior measurements we want. The exterior measurements depend on the thickness of the side walls and the size of the handles.

My ideal lasagna pan would of course be deep enough for at least 4 layers of noodles and sauce, with some extra depth to avoid the sauce and cheese from overflowing the pan and making a mess in the oven.

It would also have sides that run pretty straight up and down, and corners with very little rounding to them. Lasagna noodles need to fit in the pan in layers — the top layer needs the exact same amount of room as the bottom layer — and the corners of the noodles are squared, not rounded. There’s absolutely no reason for a lasagna pan to have flared sides or rounded corners, and in fact it’s counter-productive, because it prevents the lasagna noodles from fitting perfectly in the pan.

Instead, what I mostly see are pans like this:

Most lasagne pans are around 14" to 15" long — long enough that you need to lay an extra noodle cross-wise — and about 8" to 9" wide — not wide enough to actually hold an entire noodle cross-wise.

All the different brands of lasagna pans — All-Clad, Le Creuset, Calphalon, Pampered Chef, Cuisinart, Rachael Ray, all of ‘em — are like this. They’re long enough that you need to lay one or two extra noodles cross-ways. They’re a little wider than you really need for 3 noodles side by side, but they’re not wide enough for that extra noodle to lay cross-ways. You have to break off part of the noodle.

And most of ‘em have rounded corners, and too many of ‘em also have flared sides.

This article started out as a review of the Rachael Ray lasagne pan, which I recently bought for my daughter. The Rachael Ray pan is a very nice baking pan; I would like to get one for myself, for general baking and roasting. But it is no closer to being a perfect lasagna pan than any of the others.

Here, take a look at this Rachael Ray lasagne pan:

The Rachael Ray lasagna pan is too wide for 3 noodles side by side, but not wide enough for that extra cross-wise noodle to fit.

It’s a very nice pan. But: It’s too wide for 3 noodles side by side and not wide enough for 4 noodles side by side. It’s long enough that it needs an extra noodle placed cross-wise to the others, but it’s not wide enough to hold the entire cross-wise noodle. You can see in the photo the bits that I had to break off to fit in the cross-wise noodle. I like the Rachel Ray pan…. for general casserole usage, it’s a great pan! But it’s not (IMHO) a very good lasagna pan.

If anyone knows of a perfect lasagna pan, please let me know. I’m on a hunt for the perfect lasagna pan.

The Acme 635 is a very loud whistle, although apparently not a SOLAS-approved whistle.

When we go out in one of our small boats, my husband’s “small boat toolkit” includes a tiny little plastic whistle that counts as the Coast Guard-required “noise making device.” So we typically don’t bring an air horn or any other type of horn or whistle. But the toolkit is always stuck away in the bow locker or under the console or somewhere that it’s not very accessible, so I started thinking that we really should get in the habit of bringing an air horn to keep handy.

The 636 is SOLAS-approved, and is also tiny and easy to carry.

On nice week-ends, our harbor gets really busy with casual boaters. Sometimes, when you need to make a loud noise in your boat, you need to make a loud noise right now before that idiot in the other boat who’s not watching where he’s going runs over you. If we’re anchored in the harbor to fish, or we’re making 4 knots in our little sailboat, we can’t necessarily get out of the other guy’s way fast enough, and all the navigation rules in the world that say we’re the stand-on vessel don’t mean a thing if we’re dead.

The T2000 is SOLAS-approved. It's a little bulkier because it has 3 chambers for high and low frequencies.

Anyway, the whistle my husband has is always tucked away in the toolkit which is tucked away in a locker, and I didn’t really trust a whistle anyway. I mean, how loud can a little plastic whistle really be? I decided that I wanted to keep an air horn handy in the cockpit. I picked up an air horn at Wal-Mart, and I took it along with us a few times. But within weeks, it had lost its charge, and when I tested it, I got …. nothing.

My husband insisted that his whistle was plenty loud enough, and he pointed out that whistles don’t lose their charge the way air horns do. I had to admit, he had a good point. It was disheartening to trigger the air horn and get no sound at all. So I got his whistle out of the toolkit and tried it, and yep, it was very loud. Ear-splittingly loud. Definitely sufficient to serve as a noisemaking device on a boat. But I still didn’t like the fact that the whistle was not readily accessible.

So I got online and went looking for marine safety whistles. I found that there are lots of different whistles to choose from. I learned that you typically want a pea-less whistle, as the pea in conventional whistles tends to deteriorate over time, and water or spit can interfere with proper functioning.

I discovered that there are whistles that are SOLAS-approved, meaning they meet the Safety of Life at Sea requirements — a SOLAS-approved whistle is much, much louder than any human’s shout for help. I definitely like the idea of having a SOLAS whistle. My husband’s old whistle meets the Coast Guard requirements for a noise-making device, but so far as I can tell, it’s not SOLAS-approved. Of course, the SOLAS whistles are somewhat pricier than non-SOLAS whistles, but none of them is very expensive.

I was curious about the different types of whistles, and so I ordered several different marine safety whistles, all pea-less, all made by the ACME whistle company.

ACME Tornado 635 Whistle

Here's the Acme 635 shown next to a quarter for scale. It packs an extremely loud sound for such a tiny whistle.

The one my husband keeps in his toolkit is the ACME Tornado 635. I couldn’t find anything stating that the 635 is SOLAS-approved, but I already knew for a fact that this whistle is extremely loud, because I had tested the one my husband had. Also, it’s cheap and it’s small, and so it’s easy to keep one handy wherever I might want a whistle. I couldn’t believe that any whistle could be louder than the one I tested, so I was partial to this one and bought 4 of them. It’s available in black or orange. I bought them in orange, because I like bright fluorescent colors for marine safety products.

It turns out that ACME is one of the earliest manufacturers of marine safety whistles, and are considered by some to be the gold standard for such whistles. So I decided on a couple of other ACME whistles as well.

ACME Tornado 636 Slim Line SOLAS Whistle

I attached one of the Slim Line 636 whistles to the lanyard on our handheld VHF radio.

I bought 2 of the ACME Tornado 636 whistles, which is very similar to the 635, except it’s flat — it’s called the “Slim Line” — and it’s SOLAS approved.

It’s approved by SOLAS regulations for life jackets, immersion suits, life rafts and rescue craft. The 636 Slim Line comes in black, orange, white, pink, yellow or green.

This whistle is extremely loud with a very high pitch, designed to pierce through any background noise, such as the rumbling of a boat engine or the roar of waves. It’s easy to clip to your pfd, or to keep in a pocket so that you always have it on you.

ACME Tornado 2000 T2000 SOLAS Whistle

And I bought 2 of the ACME T2000 (Tornado 2000) whistles. This model is also SOLAS approved, but it’s a little bigger than the 635 and 636. It has three chambers: Two ultra high frequencies to cut through background noise, and one low frequency to carry over longer distances. This whistle is billed as the “world’s most powerful whistle,” and I believe it. This thing is flat-out loud! Piercing! The package includes a warning: “Very loud. Use ear protection for prolonged use.”

Two of the Acme 635 whistles just hang around the house on lanyards, so that they're handy anytime I should need a loud whistle.

I love all of these whistles, and I’m going to end up purchasing more at some point. I realized that they’re useful far beyond making noise on a boat. If you ever need to get attention fast, anywhere, any of these whistles will do the trick.

I stuck one of the 635 whistles on my keyring, so I always have a whistle handy if anything should happen when I’m out and about in my car. We keep one in the golf cart that we use on our property. If my husband is out and about on the property and something should happen, he could definitely get someone’s attention with one of these whistles. And I have a couple that I’ve clipped to lanyards that just sort of hang around around the house, so that they’re handy when I need a loud whistle. They’re a great whistle for getting the dogs’ attention; our dogs roam across several acres, and they don’t always hear a human voice calling, but they always hear the whistle.

Here's a pic of all 3 whistles with a quarter in the picture for scale.

I gave one of the 636 models to my daughter to keep on her keyring, and I attached the other one to the lanyard on our handheld VHF radio. The radio is generally within arm’s reach on the boat, and if anything ever happens, the VHF will be one of the first things I grab. So the little 636 will always be readily available.

The two T2000 whistles are designated as our personal safety whistles, one for my husband, one for me, to keep on our persons at all times when we’re out in any boat. So it won’t matter if the VHF is handy, or if the toolkit is stashed away somewhere, or if any other whistles or horns are not in their designated spots. Or if we’re out on someone else’s boat. We will each always have a SOLAS-approved marine safety whistle on our person.

I’m probably going to buy a few more of the 636 Slimline models. I like it that they’re SOLAS approved, and I especially like their size and shape: They’re so small, you can easily slip one into a jeans pocket, into the side pouch on a camera bag, keep one on your keyring, keep one in your car, slip one into your computer bag…. If you ever need to get attention really fast when you’re out and about, this whistle will do the job — if you have one handy. They’re so inexpensive, there’s no reason not to buy several, so that you can have one at hand anywhere and everywhere you go.

There are several other ACME whistles available, for safety and survival, for refereeing, and for other uses. And there are several other brands of safety whistles. I haven’t tried all of the others, but I know for certain that you can’t go wrong with any of the ACME whistles that I’ve discussed here.

Here's Libby chasing a palm frond. Look at the muscles in her legs and flank!

My large main dog, Libby, is about 85 pounds, and as strong as an ox. I’ve taken her to obedience school, but I clearly haven’t worked with her enough to distraction-proof her. She’ll walk on a loose leash very nicely when there are no distractions, but when there’s something that she wants to go see, or a person or another dog that she wants to go say hi to, she’ll about pull your arm off pulling on the leash.

Enter the prong collar. These collars, also known as pinch collars, may look like something out of a medieval torture chamber, but they are actually safer and more humane than the older choke chains that were commonly used for training. The collar spreads out the pressure across a greater surface area, and is designed so that it absolutely cannot choke the dog in the way the old choker collars could. To the dog, the feeling is similar to what they experience when “mama” grabs them by the neck with her teeth when they’re pups. Yet they are extremely effective. Some people call the prong collar “power steering for dogs.”

When Libby’s wearing the prong collar, she walks calmly on the leash and simply does not tug or pull, period.

Last Thanksgiving, we took Libby when we visited some friends on Captiva Island — but I didn’t take the prong collar with us. One night, we all went for a walk on the beach to see the ghost crabs. Libby nearly pulled me off my feet several times trying to get to the crabs. I finally had to hand her off to my husband, who later told me, “We’re never taking Libby anywhere again without that prong collar.”

I made sure I ordered the Herm Sprenger brand stainless steel collar. It’s made of high-quality stainless and won’t rust or deteriorate. Spare links are readily available in case you need more length, or conversely, if the collar is too long, you can easily remove one or more links to make it exactly the right fit.

Prong collars are available in a wide variety of sizes for small, medium and big dogs. As noted, the length is adjustable by adding or removing links. The fit should be snug, so that the collar sits up high on the dog’s neck, just below/behind the ears. And a prong collar should never be left on an unsupervised dog; only put it on the dog when you’re actively walking or training him.

My All-Clad stainless steel cookware is the best cookware I've ever owned.

My new All-Clad stainless steel cookware set is by far the best cookware I’ve ever owned, bar none. It cooks evenly and cleans up easily, and the 14-piece set includes pretty near all the pots and pans I’ll ever need. Two frying pans (one of them is gigantic!), two saute pans (one of them is gigantic!), two sauce pans, a stock pot, and a chef’s pan. Plus lids.

I’ve always made do with inexpensive cookware from Wal-Mart or Target, but now that I’ve used my All-Clad stainless, I’ll never go back to that cheap stuff. It almost makes cooking fun. I particularly like the large chef’s pan. It’s great for so many uses, and it’s large enough to hold plenty of food. I had never even used a chef’s pan before, but now it’s one of my most-used pieces.

The high-quality stainless steel ensures even cooking, and is perfect for my induction cooktop. All-Clad incorporates a three-ply bonded design: an aluminum center core clad in stainless inner and outer layers. This produces very good heat distribution, with the durability and safety of stainless on the outside.

This is the kind of cookware that will last forever and can be passed along for generations. As soon as I can afford it, I’ll probably get a set for my daughter, and years from now, my set can go to a grandchild. I don’t want my daughter to have to wait until I die to have her own set of All-Clad. Yes, this cookware is that good.

The 14-piece All-Clad stainless steel cookware set is available from Amazon. You can often find excellent bargains on eBay for All-Clad stainless cookware sets.

My 22" flat-panel monitor from Acer gives me lots of screen real estate at a surprisingly affordable price.

I’ve been using dual monitors for many years — since around 1990 or so. My need for screen real estate has continually increased, to the point that I recently went to a dual 22″ system. I have two 22″ Acer widescreen monitors on my desktop right now, and I frequently find myself wishing for even more.

I had been a die-hard Viewsonic user for a long time. Prior to my current set-up, I had a 19″ Viewsonic CRT alongside a 19″ Viewsonic LCD. But the old CRT was fading away, and my husband wanted my 19″ flat-panel LCD, so I went looking for replacement monitors.

I was astounded at how much the LCDs have come down in price for big 22″ widescreen flatpanels, and I realized I could have 2 of those babies for a reasonable price. So I went for it.

They include software with the monitors, but like most things with my Mac, it was a simple plug-and-play to hook them up. I did a little fiddling with the monitor calibration in my system settings to get the brightness and color the way I like them. There are also controls on the monitor itself to adjust the color balance, etc., and they were easy enough to figure out.

One of the first things you notice is that the display is bright! So bright that, for the first time in my entire life, I have the brightness set below its maximum setting. I like bright, so this is a good thing for me, but people who don’t like their monitors so bright can adjust the brightness down a few notches.

About the only thing I don’t like about it is that base isn’t adjustable. That’s not a big problem; I just stick a couple of books underneath to raise the monitor to the correct height.

Neither of my Acers has any dead pixels, which is an important point. Most warranties don’t cover dead pixels unless you have several of them, and whenever I order a new monitor I always hold my breath and hope for the best. A single dead pixel down in a lower corner wouldn’t bother me, but a couple of dead pixels smack-dab in the middle of the screen would bother me a lot. I’ve been lucky so far with these Acers and with the Viewsonics I’ve had previously.

The 22 inches of screen real estate is fantastic, especially for the price. At any given time I’m likely to have a lot of windows open in a lot of different programs: My main mail window plus one or two individual emails, at least 2 or 3 browser windows, my text editor, images in Photoshop, Finder directory windows, Skype, various utilities such as Yojimbo, my FTP program, my calendar and address book, a couple of Terminal windows, and frequently Windows™ windows (via Parallels on my Mac). So I need lots of screen real estate, and these 2 22-inch monitors give me what I need (most of the time, anyway).

You can find Acer 22″ widescreen monitors at Amazon, and bargains on Acer monitors can also be found on eBay.

My Cuisinart 2600 makes up to 14 cups at a time.

I love my Cuisinart coffeemaker! I used to love my Braun, until it had a meltdown and nearly set my house on fire. It turned out to be under a recall from Braun, but their solution was to have me send it back, and they would repair or replace it and return it to me.

I guess Braun doesn’t realize that anyone who is serious enough about their coffee to have a Braun is serious enough that they will not be willing to be without their coffeemaker during the time between sending it in and getting it back. I decided that Braun coffeemakers are not for me, ever again.

So I went shopping for another coffeemaker. This time, it would be ABB (Anything But Braun). I read a lot of reviews and compared features, and I settled on the Cuisinart DCC-2600.

I specifically wanted a coffeemaker that would make a fairly large quantity of coffee, and I love that this coffeemaker will make 14 cups at a time. The newer model DCC-2650 has a self-cleaning feature but makes only 12 cups.

I love that it has an auto-off feature with a user-selectable time setting. I can set it to turn itself off after 1 hour, 2 hours, or 4 hours (or never), and it beeps to let me know when the auto-off activates. I never worry that I’ve left the house and forgotten to turn off the coffeemaker.

I like that it has charcoal filtration, since our water isn’t the best. It has a good, large, sturdy handle, and an adjustable burner temperature control. And it has a visible water-level indicator so that I can tell if and how much water is in the reservoir without standing on tiptoes and leaning over to peer down into the reservoir.

It has a timer, which I would use if I got up at the same time every morning, and if my husband didn’t always get up before me and start the coffee. When I lived alone and worked regular hours, the timer feature was very important to me, but not so much anymore.

Mostly, I love the great coffee it makes. I buy whole beans and grind them fresh, and a poor coffeemaker can ruin that effort. This coffee does a wonderful job.

I bought my Cuisinart DCC-2600 coffeemaker at Amazon. They are are also readily available on eBay.

Panasonic's Lumix FS15 compact digital camera takes high-quality photos and is easy to use.

When the zoom feature on my old digital camera started malfunctioning, I decided to buy myself a new one. On my previous camera, I had an optical zoom up to 7x, but because the lens needs to be bigger for that amount of zoom, the camera was on the large and bulky side.

The LCD screen is large and the controls are easy to use.

I found that I often didn’t have the camera with me when I needed it, because it was so large and heavy to tote around. So this time I went in the other direction, and began looking at the ultra-compact digital point-and-shoot cameras.

When the optical zoom lens isn't sticking out, the FS15 is very thin. It slips easily into a pocket or purse, so you can keep it handy.

I ended up purchasing the Panasonic Lumix FS15. It’s a very compact, lightweight little camera that packs a big punch. It can create high-resolution 12-megapixel photos that look great at full size on my 22″ monitor. Yet the camera is small enough to slip into my pocket, and I’m barely even aware that it’s there.

With an optical zoom of up to 5x (and digital zoom even higher), I can get up-close shots even when I can’t physically get close to the subject.

With a few clicks of the buttons, you can choose from multiple “scenes,” which automatically sets the optimum settings for things like nighttime, party, beach, portrait, sports, etc. It’s easy to select a specific scene with a couple of button pushes, but the iA (intelligent auto) feature works so well on its own that I rarely bother with scenes.

When I’m in “replay” mode to review pictures on the LCD screen, I can use the zoom button to zoom in close, so that I can make sure I got the shot that I think I got.

Of course, like any modern camera, there’s auto redeye reduction, the ability to toggle flash between auto, forced-on and forced-off. There’s a macro setting for super-close-ups. It has all the usual features you’d expect.

The camera connects to my computer with a USB cable, and I can either manually copy the files over to my hard drive, or let iPhoto automatically import them. I believe there was some software that came with the camera, but who needs specialized software just to transfer photos from my camera to my computer?

I really like this camera, and I don’t for one minute regret my choice. The Lumix FS15 is available from Amazon and eBay.