Common Paradox Tech Blog

We certainly wouldn’t advocate turning your office, cubicle or home office into some kind of over-the-top dork theme park, but a few witty items carefully placed here and there can brighten up the dullest work space with some geek chic.

Having an office gives you the chance to display things you might not get away with (or indeed, want to get away with) at home. From magnificent magnets to clever clocks and wall decals, here’s a choice of ten products that will help you geek-pimp your work space in style.

1. iPhone Icon Coasters

These Meninos coasters are styled after the iPhone’s icons giving Apple fans somewhere cool to stick their cups. Made of medium-density fiberboard (MDF) with a durable vinyl finish and a rubber bottom to stop slips, the anally retentive among you could arrange them on the coffee table as precisely as they appear on the phone’s homescreen, while the rest of us can mix ‘em up as we see fit. Oh, and if the iPhone’s not your thing, then Meninos also offers an Internet-themed set too.

Cost: $59.99

2. Million Dollar Homepage Poster

As well as adding a splash of color to your office walls, this poster will serve as inspiration, reminding you that a small, simple idea can grow into big, fat success. The million dollar home page poster is an exact replica of the original Web page, measuring 60cm x 60cm with a gloss finish. Heck, if you’re feeling flush yourself, you could even frame it.

Cost: $30

3. Enter Key Doormat

Let your visitors know that they are entering a geek domain right from the start with this recycled rubber doormat that is modeled after the “Enter” key. Designed by Pieter Woudt, there’s also a “Home” key version if whoever you share a domicile with will let you get away with geeking out your porch.

Cost: $30

4. Photoshop Magnets

We can’t think of a better way to stick your team pics to the fridge or filing cabinet than with these Photoshop-themed magnets, another little gem from Meninos. The set comprises 13 magnets which will be very familiar to anyone who has used the photo editing software as they replicate the menus and tool bars found in the popular Adobe product.

Cost: $25.00

5. A Red Swingline Stapler

As any fashion-lover will know, it’s all about the accessories. In this case, the essential office accessory is the Red Swingline Stapler. Launched in 2002 after strong customer demand generated by the stapler’s appearance in geek cult classic Office Space, the desk tool will elicit knowing approval from fans of the film. Just be sure to hide it when Lumberg’s around.

Cost: $32.48 (on sale at the time of writing for $21.99)

6. Recycled Mac Clocks

What’s the time? It’s geek o’ clock with these recycled Mac clocks offered by Etsy seller Pixelthis. The version pictured ($59) is the side panel of a retired Mac G4, upcycled into a working wall clock. There’s a whole selection over on Pixelthis’ Etsy shop, while commissions and customization of anything you want to send in to get the timepiece treatment are offered too, with price by negotiation.

Cost: Varies

7. Pantone Mugs

Don’t put up with boring chinaware, or worse still, ugly corporate freebie mugs. These officially licensed mugs from Pantone will delight anyone with an eye for color, or even a passing interest in design. The espresso set offers appropriate shades of coffee brown, whilst the more colorful set provides 10 shades — all marked with their Pantone reference, of course.

Cost: $50 and $120

8. Google Bean Bag

By all accounts, the Googleplex is a place of wonder. You can emulate a little bit of that magic with the Google Bean Bag — the very same kind gracing the Googleplex. Who knows what kind of gProducts have been thought up while someone’s posterior was placed on one of these things? Inspirational, indeed.

Cost: $109.40

9. Orbiculus from Art Lebedev

The Art Lebedev Studio has transformed “Cancel,” “Play,” “Save,” “OK,” and other commands into real-life objects with a useful function — the thumbtack. You can opt for the mixed set, or if you’re feeling particularly positive, go for the “Everything Is OK” set which is made up, as you might have already guessed, of just the “OK” pins. We simply can’t think of a better way to secure items to a bulletin board.

Cost: Approx $6

10. Blik Wall Decals

Blik offers a way to geek up your blank walls that is ideal for the commitment-phobe: Vinyl decals that can be peeled off it you get bored of them, or if your office landlord has a tizzy when he/she sees them. There are a few designs available that will turn your wall into a scene from a Super Marios Bros. game, or the classic Space Invaders. There are some pretty cool robots, too.

Cost: Varies

More gift guide resources from Mashable:

- 5 Must-Have Geek Collectibles

- Twitter Gift Guide: 15 Ways to Shop for the Twitter Obsessed

- Mac Gift Guide: 10 Buying Ideas for Apple Fans

- 10 Great Digital Gifts for Social Media Lovers

- 10 Romantic Gifts for Your Beloved Geek

Tags: design, geek, gift guide, Google, iphone, List, Lists, office, shopping, shopping list

Google’s shopping spree continues. This time they’ve picked up a company called DocVerse, whose software will eventually allow seamless interoperability between Google Docs and Microsoft Office. That’s right, Microsoft… the call is coming from inside the house.

You can already store and share Office files through Google Docs, but DocVerse adds the functionality of letting users collaborate directly on Office documents. As the crowing Google Blog puts it:

DocVerse is a small, nimble team of talented developers who share our vision, and they’ve enabled true collaboration right within Microsoft Office. With DocVerse, people can begin to experience some of the benefits of web-based collaboration using the traditional Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint desktop applications.

Current DocVerse users won’t be affected, but you won’t be able to sign up for a new account until Google figures out exactly how they’re going to incorporate the company. Of course, Microsoft was moving Office to the cloud on their own anyway; it’s just that it’ll be a bit more crowded there than they’d thought. It’s official, though: even productivity software is a battleground now. [Google Blog via TechCrunch]

This upcoming Patch Tuesday won’t be anything like the one last month, in which Microsoft plugged 26 security holes with 13 bulletins, some of which included critical vulnerabilities for Windows.

Those numbers are way down, according to Microsoft, who announced on Thursday it will issue two bulletins to fix just eight vulnerabilities, all of which are being rated as "important."

"We recommend that customers review the Advance Notification webpage and prepare to deploy these bulletins as soon as possible," Microsoft wrote in an official blog post. "To provide additional guidance for deployment prioritization, customers should note that both bulletins will address issues that would require a user to open a specially crafted file. There are no network based attack vectors."

In addition, Redmond said it is continuing to monitor a VBScript issue disclosed on Monday. The software maker said there are currently no known attacks, but is "encouraging" customers to apply the suggested workarounds in the advisory nonetheless.

We heard some big news about Documents To Go Premium today at Mobile World Congress. Big news for other platforms.  DocsToGo for iPhone is getting local sync and Google Docs Sync. DocsToGo for Android is getting those sync options and also printing and projector support.

When we asked about an ETA for DocsToGo Premium for webOS, however, DataViz wasn’t able to say, nor even confirm that the first half of 2010 (the last delay) is still the target, although DataViz’s product page still lists "early 2010" as the expected date.

It’s a major bummer, given that Documents To Go Premium is stellar on BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, PalmOS, and Symbian (click the image above to expand). DocsToGo Premium is also the number one paid business app on the iPhone App Store and DataViz has sold over 50,000 premium licenses on the Android Market. DataViz wasn’t this blunt but we will be: a developer’s gotta eat.

Palm simply hasn’t sold enough webOS devices to force developers to sit up, take notice, and feel compelled to adjust their schedules and develop for the platform. We can’t say for sure that other platform priorities have pushed back work on the webOS version – but it wouldn’t shock us and as much as it pains us to say it, you can’t blame a developer for working on what’s hot.

We just finished having a sit down with the fine folks from DocsToGo and they shared some exciting news about DocsToGo Premium: Desktop Sync and Google Sync are en route! They expect they’ll be submitting the app to the Apple in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned for the release. DocsToGo is currently $14.99 [...]

Documents To Go for iPhone to get Google Docs, Desktop Sync is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Yesterday, we saw Microsoft shamelessly go after the iPhone with a video which played at Mobile World Congress for its new Windows Phone 7 Series. But it’s not just Apple that Microsoft is taking on with videos, it’s competitors like Google and OpenOffice.org as well.

On the Microsoft Office Videos channel on YouTube, you’ll find a series of videos which find Microsoft aggressive going after its competition. For example, here’s one in which Microsoft Office is compared to Google Apps and specifically, Google’s “low-cost” email service. Office, it seems deals with “real world” issues, Google Apps (and specifically Gmail) do not, according to the video.

Yesterday, we saw Microsoft shamelessly go after the iPhone with a video which played at Mobile World Congress for its new Windows Phone 7 Series. But it’s not just Apple that Microsoft is taking on with videos, it’s competitors like Google and OpenOffice.org as well.

On the Microsoft Office Videos channel on YouTube, you’ll find a series of videos which find Microsoft aggressive going after its competition. For example, here’s one in which Microsoft Office is compared to Google Apps and specifically, Google’s “low-cost” email service. Office, it seems deals with “real world” issues, Google Apps (and specifically Gmail) do not, according to the video.

So the preceding tweet from Office for Mac’s official Twitter account asked for Macworld attendees to swing by the Microsoft booth and say “I love Office for Mac,” but to an uninformed reader, that reads like something else entirely. [ChrisPhin]

According to the gadget website T3, Microsoft Senior Product Manager Mike Tedesco recently let it be known that the Seattle based company is currently toying with the possibility of creating a version of their Office suite for Apple’s iPad.

“Yeah, it’s something that we’re looking at,” said Microsoft’s Mike Tedesco, who is the Senior Product [...]

Microsoft’s Office Suite Coming to iPad? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

The WSJ says Google’s launching an online store to sell software add-ons and bonus powers for Google Apps written by third-party developers—like more, um, secureness and other enterprise features—which Google’s announcing in March.

At the beginning, it’ll be just enterprise stuff that are add-ons for Gmail and Docs, etc., sold through a now conventional setup: Users buy the apps, written by other developers, through Google’s store, and Google takes a cut. To be clear, it’s a move intended to bulk up its assault on Microsoft Office with more features and capabilities, more than anything else. (Is extensive modularity and add-ons, which introduce more potential points of failure what businesses really want in their enterprise apps? Hmm.) But don’t worry, Google wants to keep giving you, the normal person, their software for free, to make money on advertising. So click click click away. Google won’t be selling you apps anytime soon. Probably, anyway. [WSJ]