Imation has just come out with a flash drive that purports to be about the size of a paperclip and that holds up to eight gigabytes of storage. While I was searching around for that on PriceGrabber (not there yet), I noticed this little charmer. It makes up for its lack of roominess (256 gigabytes) with its stylish design: Modeled after a Gumby doll, this one wraps around your wrist, so you’ll never mislay it.

The latter point is an important consideration. According to research from the Ponemon Institute, most people don’t think twice about copying corporate data onto a USB device to move it to another computer, but if that USB device is misplaced, unlike with a missing laptop computer, they won’t necessarily report it as lost to the enterprise security folks.

Eventually, maybe manufacturers will come up with access control cards that grant you entry to your place of employment and that act as a data retainer, allowing you to move information easily and securely.

In the meantime, a low-cost blue Gumby isn’t a bad idea. Wonder if it has “storestrong” imprinted on the rubber.

When a guy goes around the country showing off the fire resistant capabilities of his company’s new hard drive by throwing it in a barbecue and firing it up to 1,400 degrees for several minutes, those of us who monitor stuff you gotta have sit up and take notice.

The guy is Robb Moore, and his company is ioSafe, based in Auburn, California. ioSafe used to be in the business of creating products that sold for many thousands of dollars. But lately, they’ve come up with a multi-gigabyte hard drive that sells in the $350-$400 range.

The ioSafe Squadron is a 200-gigabyte internal hard drive will preserve your data from multiple disasters: server failure, fire, water, theft and building collapse. Inside is standard hardware from either Seagate or Samsung. That’s surrounded by a waterproof barrier which allows you to lose your computer overboard and still access the data later. That’s protected by another layer of insulation material, which preserves the components in the event of fire. All of that is placed inside a 3.5-inch enclosure, which makes it standard computer equipment.

In the grilling demonstrations, according to Sacramento Bee columnist Bob Shallit, Moore would cook his drive, then connect it to a notebook computer to show that the data on it was still quite accessible. (It required a bit of cool down time in the demo Shallit saw, but then the device pulled through.)

As Shallit concludes: “Don’t try [this] at home.”

There’s not a notebook bag in existence that takes into account that fact that you might be traveling with a mouse. The makers of these accessories must assume you’re relying on the computer’s built-in touchpad. Note me. I’m a big believer in copy and paste, and my fingers absolutely spaz when I try to do that quickly with the touchpad. Yet, packing that mouse — as modestly sized as it is — is no picnic. Face it. Mice tend to be bulbous.

If you’re looking for an alternative to the bulky mouse in your life, check out the Newton Peripherals MoGo Wireless Bluetooth Mouse.

This one is sleek — meaning flat — and about the size of a business card. Plus, it’s Bluetooth enabled, which means no cables, no wires. It recharges inside a PC card slot, not via USB. (I’ve always wondered what I could do with that PC card slot, which sits unused on my notebook.) That’s also where you can stash it when you’re traveling. If you don’t have a PC card slot, you might want to seek an alternative, because those tend to cost more than the mouse. It runs on both Macs and PCs and can be made to work for righties or lefties.

Best of all, as itsalesguru points out in his or her review on PriceGrabber.com, this device is a conversation piece. “Every time I bring it out in a meeting, people think it’s really cool.” I like that in a product.

Now that at least one major airline is charging for checked bags, we’re going to start seeing more creative solutions this summer to getting your stuff through security when you fly. The Targus 17” Flare Backpack fits into this category because it will let you haul your computer more comfortably on your back so that you can use your arms to manage your other luggage.

It’s designed to fit laptop computers up to 17-inches — like my favorite notebook, which is a horse of a machine and just as heavy. The interior of the pack has slots for ID, cellphone, keys, pens and mobile accessories. But here’s the magic: It has mesh padded shoulder straps and a back panel to help distribute the weight.

Water bottles — empty, of course — go into side pockets. Plus, it has cool rubber cords lacing the backside so you can tuck in extra gear — a paperback edition of Into the Darkness, your flytime bunny slippers – you know, the travel essentials.

It’s made of nylon, which could be a drawback. I’ve gone through three knapsacks in the last year that have started pulling at the straps. Not good when you’re hauling precious cargo. But only time will tell how well this one will wear, pass after pass through the X-ray machines.

As Crankshaft recently said a few days ago, “We’re lucky the shoe bomber didn’t hide the bomb in his underwear.”

I was once again putting out big bucks for ink cartridges and bemoaning the day I bought into the idea that color printing was a revolution in personal publishing. And a thought struck me: Who said I had to use a color printer for everything?

If you’re like me, it’s possible that color is rarely essential to your work. (In fact, the last time I needed to do color printing, it was because I was in charge of printing out flyers about the neighborhood springtime picnic potluck, and the person who made the flyers used red in the headline.)

HP puts out a slick little laser printer by the name of P1006, which reviewer hugocharmichael calls “an excellent black and white laser printer for the home.”

It connects via USB cable to your computer (Mac or PC), has a compact footprint and is engineered to use the smallest amount of power possible to get the print work done. Plus, it spits out up to 17 pages per minute. The warranty lasts for 12 months. The printer uses the 35A toner cartridge.

Geofreeyz2000 likes how it can produce that first page in “less than 4 seconds” from the time you turn it on.

Be forewarned: Reviewer Fastor says that the starter cartridge you get with the machine is only good for about 700 pages, compared to the 1,500 you’ll get with a replacement cartridge.

Have you checked out the Asus Eee PCs? My blogging buddy Mervyn over at BlogBytes has covered this device a couple of times (see “A Second Laptop” and “Budget Notebooks“).

The attractiveness of the Eee resides in its weight and its price. For $400, you get an XP or Linux notebook that weighs two pounds. A slice of pepperoni pizza from Costco weighs more than that! The display is seven inches on the diagonal — smaller than your desktop flat panel to be sure, but larger than that iPhone screen you squint at every time a new message comes in. RAM is 512 megabytes, a bit on the pokey side if you’re running major apps like Dreamweaver or Microsoft Office; but that’s where you have to think outside the box. The Eee isn’t intended to be a primary computer — it lets you compute on the go.

Storage comes in the form of a solid state drive — from two gigabytes to eight. SSDs tend to be hardier than standard hard drives, which means you can lug them around inside your notebook without being so concerned about the normal dings and dents of a life well-lived. Plus, they’re easy on power. The four-cell batteries in the Eee will give you about three hours of compute usage.

The WiFi 802.11b/g is built in for wireless connection. The system includes a bunch of software for writing (Google Docs), emailing (Web Mail), chatting (Skpe and Messenger) and listening (Internet Radio). It includes a built-in card reader, camera, speakers and microphone.

This is the kind of computer you could take with you on your travels around the world. You can post photos, do blogging, chat with family members, and stop worrying about whether it’ll get ripped off or dented on that crowded bus in Uganda.