mouse

Yuck! This month's Marie Claire pinpoints the dirtiest things on your desktop, and what were at the top of the list?

Your mouse, at 846 germs per square inch, and your keyboard, at 719.

It's not that shocking considering that these are the two things you constantly have your hands on all day (minus points if you, like me, ever eat at your desk). And if you ever sneeze or cough with your hand over your mouth while sitting at your computer, you can't always get up and wash your hands right away — but the polite move of covering your mouth just became a germ-spreader when you put that hand back on your mouse and keys.

Are you a little bit leery to click and type now? Bust out some baby wipes and use my other gadget cleaning tips and keep your area germ free!

• Arriving later this month are Microsoft's Arc Mice in four new colors that will cost $50 each.— CrunchGear
• If your Gmail wasn't working this morning, it may have been a result of the outage , which made Gmail unavailable to a small percentage of users. — BBC News
• There's now an official American Idol iPhone and iPod Touch application, which costs $1.99 and offers exclusive video, news, and the AI blog post you can find online. — CNET News
• Learn five easy ways to make over your home office and make it a well-designed space. — Unplggd
• Many schools across the country are hoping to use the government's stimulus money to make buildings more energy efficient. In turn, it will save local districts thousands of dollars. — Forecast Earth

• The mouse had a big birthday yesterday and Wired put together a beautiful and geeky retrospective of 40 years of mighty mice. — Wired
• Power up with the sun! The Voltaic Generator solar bag is now shipping and capable of charging a laptop. — Boing Boing Gadgets
• Need a little vintage geek pick-me-up? Check out old computer ads to make your machine look shiny and new. — Gizmodo
• Google has added several magazines to its searchable book cache, complete with decades' worth of archives. — Switched
• It's easy to let a salesperson convince you that you need to buy a $50 HDMI cable to make your new gear work. Save yourself some dough with a $10 version! — Crave
• There's nothing better than getting a brand new functional and chic computer for the holidays, which is why we have teamed up with our friends at HP to give one lucky geeksugar reader a HP Mini! — geeksugar
• Feeling crafty at the office? Binder clips make the perfect iPhone stand. — Unpluggd

• I just found a way to feed all the geek jokes my family is going to make at Christmas! Apple Apple Pie — Unplggd
• Do you spend all day on Gmail? You can make use of that time by utilizing the task manager, which is a fancy way to say to-do list. Just click in an empty part of your list and start typing. No buttons to click and it's saved automatically. — Gmail Blog
• The first editor of Computer Shopper shares tale of the early Apple years — the first support call may have been answered by Steve Jobs himself! — Gizmodo
• Sony's TVs were named most reliable by PC World readers — PC World
• There's nothing better than getting a brand new functional and chic computer for the holidays, which is why we have teamed up with our friends at HP to give one lucky geeksugar reader a HP Mini! — geeksugar
• The mouse turns 40 years old today. Time to give it some cheese. — Lifehacker

These star and strawberry mice look more like something you'd hang from a Christmas tree or even put in your mouth rather than connect to your computer! I guess there's nothing stopping USB wackiness, but could you imagine using one of these mice as your everyday mouse? Yay for fun factor and cuteness, nay for practicality and being ergonomically-friendly. These European beauties cost $44 each.

The touristy shops in San Francisco's Chinatown are teeming with gadgets, but it's usually overpriced cameras and items of questionable authenticity. But in one of my favorite fun crap stores, I found a variety of gadgets that will shock you — literally.

I knew the geek prank of late was shocking gadgets, but I had only seen the games, as evidenced by the Sugar office showdown! I didn't know there was a whole world of punkings to be had with hand-shocking gadgets, but in Chinatown, I found them.

Boss bugging you? Give him a USB stick with your latest "project" on it and watch his palm buzz. IT guy making fun of you again? Put this mouse on your pad and shut him up right away. Annoying little brother that keeps asking for an iPod? Give him this one!