Personal Tech Guide 21Personal Tech Guide 21

Gimme Some Skin

Give your cell phone a bold, new look. SkinIt offers a wide selection of cool designs printed on professional-grade vinyl to protect and customize the look of your phone. It will even make a skin out of a favorite photo. Also available for MP3 players, PDAs, XM radios, video-game devices, and more. Prices start at $9.99.

Child Care

Now when it's 10 p.m., you'll know where your children are, as long as they're carrying the Chitter Chatter GPS tracking phone from Hop-on. Worn like a wristwatch, the device features a "Track Me" button that lets kids send the address of their location via Short Message Service to their folks' cell phones. At less than $50, peace of mind was never so affordable.

Easy Access

For the stylish pocketbook crowd, the Delapod line from Delacrew Designs features a clear window for easy access to MP3 player controls. A headset access hole guides the earbud cable neatly, tangle-free, out of the bag. Prices range from $49 for the Jocee purse to $92 for the CarryPak, which, at 15 inches, accommodates most laptops.

Functional Fashion

Headsets just got fashionable. The Swapset from Steffi Thomas is wearable technology that offers interchangeable hair bands, headsets, and headphones created especially for gals. Choose from 30 headbands ($25 to $30) and 12 headset/headphone designs ($30 to $34).

Pocket Keyboard

Eleksen's Elek Tex Smart Fabric wireless keyboard has an advantage over most other keyboards: It can be rolled up and put in your pocket. The Bluetooth-equipped keyboard works with smart phones, PDAs, and other handheld devices, and its full laptop size supports easy editing and typing. The $149 keyboard is made from water-repellent fabric and weighs just 2.4 ounces.

Identity Crisis

It's a pocket PC! It's a GPS device! The MIO 168RS from Mitac is both. Not only can you get point-to-point driving directions, U.S. maps, and automatic route recalculation, you also can launch Microsoft Word, Excel, Media Player, and Explorer. The $450 device runs Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition and has a 3.5-inch LCD display.

Grab That Remote

If you're considering upgrading your home theater, gaze upon the $4,800 Denali Edition High Definition Media Center, which has a rack-mounted stereo look, is extremely quiet, and sports a DVD player, music and photo players, three different TV tuners (including one in high-def), eight-channel high-definition audio, and up to 2 terabytes of disk space. The upshot: With a single TV, you can record hundreds of shows and movies.

Rise And Shine

SleepTracker from Innovative Sleep Solutions is a watch-type device that monitors your body activity while you sleep and continuously looks for your best possible waking times. You program a window of time that you want the alarm to sound, and SleepTracker will go off the first instance during that window in which you are nearly awake. Worn like an everyday wristwatch, the $149 SleepTracker uses an internal accelerometer to track movements and determine moments of restlessness. Now, if only you could program it not to wake you up in the middle of a great dream.