I bought LG's GSA-E50l external DVD drive. It was inoperable out of the box: a circumstance so baffling I briefly wondered if it required drivers or some such, heralding a new era of basic in-out hardware that doesn't work until after an OS is loaded. Ah, but no! It's just a lemon.

I tried it on four computers, including a desktop, a laptop, a Zonbox and an iMac. Not one machine could see it. The power light came on, but the disk tray wouldn't eject and it is not detected as a USB device.

Staring at the little 5"-square slab on the desk, I realized that I was in a pickle. I wanted a slimline bus-powered optical drive, and this was the only one that the local brick 'n' mortars carried. Suspicion was strong from the beginning: whereas most such things are plain, sleek rectangles, LG's GSA-E50L is overdesigned, resembling a giant squashed suppository. It is what Charlie Sorrel at Gadget Lab would describe as "plastic tat."

Alas, it is therefore unrated and unreviewed, but can hardly be recommended. I shall endeavor to find out if this is a common problem with bus-powered optical drives: most such models require external power, even with dual-USB Y cords.

Puck, our elderly german shepherd, went missing. Some local kid reached though the gate, unlocked it and let our dogs out for his or her own amusement. After a morning spent searching, one question kept returning to me over and over again: "Why do GPS dog collars cost six hundred dollars?"

Times have changed, and Zoombak now offers a GPS-based dog locator for a much cheaper $200 — definitely worth it, as you will discover if a beloved pup ever goes off for a dangerous jaunt around the block. The flip side is that you need a subscription, costing $15 a month, with cancellation fees if you want out.

This is perhaps because it uses assisted GPS, which adds a cellular transceiver to improve performance, and because the service includes a web-based tracker you can access whenever you want, notification via SMS if the wearer leaves designated "safe" zones, and 24/7 emergency support.

From pics, it looks about the size of an MP3 player or pager; it's likely just marketing that has it as an animal tracker, and I see no reason it couldn't be used to track youngsters, cars, or anything else you might slip it into. Its battery life is OK: about 5 days on standby, with alerts sent to cellphone or email when it needs juice. A full week would have been nice, but it would then probably weigh too much for small dogs; as it is, Zoombak already recommends it for animals 15 lbs or larger.

By the way, Puck was found safe and well, having managed to travel more than three miles in just a few hours. A kindly person saw her wandering, braved a look at her tags, and gave us a call. Even now, though, I'd love to know how she got from one side of the city to the other.

Product Page [Zoomback]

Computer speakers are like icebergs. Look at the ad shots (example to your right), and you mostly see delicate spires dressed in fine fabrics, flanking iMacs, pointing to the heavens just like Plato did right before he pushed Aristotle down the School of Athens' stairs.

But it is below the desk that their true presence is felt: giant, unweildy subwoofers spilling wires and cords like a dreadlocked Hutt. The MM226 from Boston Acoustics is no exception. In fact, it seems to revel in it: there's no attempt to conceal its bulk with clever design. Instead just sits like a giant melting block of grey ice, woofing away happily, content with its corpulent state.

Of course, the topside speakers are very pretty, with exchangeable faceplates in Glacier, Rosebud, Onyx, Pearl Gray, Caramel, Chocolat, Silver and Chili Pepper. They're lovely, though they do cost a little extra (and actually live up to the silly names, inasmuch as they're mostly odd colors that might be hard to match to existing decor)

Anyway, all such things fade to irrelevance before the quality of the sound, and the MM226 was pleasant enough. The big woofer throws out plenty of bass, but the stereo pair is good enough to stay afloat on it. It belts out lots of volume without too much effort, and that's all it really needs to do. I couldn't imagine that music lovers would even look at something like this, so didn't worry about how danceable the cables were.

The wiring is simple, with a desktop volume module making physical control a snap—it also has microphone and headphone sockets, too. At $150, it's not too expensive, but pricier than cheapie models in its class.

Only one flaw really got on my nerves: the desktop volume control unit was sensitive to interference from my cordless phone, a Dect 6.0 model from Panasonic.

Although the iPhone handles just wonderfully without a stylus, there is a small but vocal contingent of people who want one.

Perhaps these people do a lot of text entry on their iPhones and require an instrument of heightened dexterity. Maybe they are old Palm Pilot or Pocket PC users who just miss the feel of a stylus in their hands. Or maybe they are people who regularly need to hand their iPhones over to friends who cover the sleek touchscreen with their foul drippings... the sort of friends who don't wash their hands or wipe properly, yet are always touching your stuff, covering your pretty things in their fecal encrustations, until you just can't STAND it anymore and you just want to put your hands around their gobbling thoraxes and squeeze, squeeze, SQUEEZE until their faces go purple and their protruded eyeballs flop around their bloated cheeks and you NEVER have to worry about them touching your stuff EVER again.... for ever and ever and ever FOREVER.

For people like that, enter the iPhone Soft-Touch Stylus. It's an aluminum stylus with a soft rubber tip guaranteed not to scratch or damage your iPhone. I like the picture of it in action: it looks delightfully smooshy to use. $12.99 will get you one, although without a little stylus holster drilled into the iPhone itself, you're just going to lose it.

Soft-Touch Stylus [Daydeal.com]

This otherwise generic flash memory card reader includes a small mirror, the better to give your makeup a little touch-up before you load your self-portraits into your laptop. Or if you're a girl, to adjust the fit of your engineer coveralls.

It's $15, plus shipping. And unbelievably, it doesn't come in pink. I would never buy this unless it came in pink.

Catalog Page [Gadget4all.com via Oh Gizmo via Pocket Lint]

Brando's "Mulit [sic] Purpose Solar Charger" is hard to criticize. It's a 15% efficient solar panel on top of a 1,350 mAh battery, capable of outputting power via a set of cell phone adapters or good ol' USB. It appears you can also charge via USB, then keep it topped off during the day via solar. Best of all, it's just $25 plus shipping.

It has a strange, clear plastic clip on the back that Gizmodo implied was to hold batteries for charging, but I don't see any electrical leads in the plastic, so I'm guessing it's just some strange Chinese design affectation.

Solar + batteries is where it's at. You could leave this thing in the window of your workplace all day, then plug in your phone on the way home and never hit an outlet for months. There are the production and environmental costs of the unit itself, of course — especially the battery — but it's great to see something like this showing up so inexpensively.

I ordered one. It won't be around by the time I'm ready to go out into the woods — next week! — but it still looks like a worthwhile thing to have on hand. I've got some more solar projects coming throughout the summer, too.

Product Page [Mobile.Brando.com.hk via Gizmodo]