Often when I’m sitting at my desk at work and I just need to work straight through something, I feel like there’s a giant, pink, neon sign that flickers to life above my head and invites everyone to please, stop right now and make sure that I get interrupted. And while I would love something high tech to take care of this problem (laser powered vaporizer, anyone?) it turns out there’s actually a decidedly low-tech, yet incredibly functional gadget to prevent these interruptions.

The CubeGuard is a retractable barrier with a message that stretches across the entrance to your cubicle. The banner says something like “do not disturb,” or more pointedly, “go away.” They’re also interchangeable, depending on your mood or what you want to say. The idea is that the physical barrier acts as a mental barrier for the people who approach you, and provided that they respect it, you should see interruptions stop, saving you time and frustration.

Should the standard “greetings be insufficient for you, you can also order custom message cartridges, brand them with your own marketing, or just make up their own message. We suggest, “My other gadget is a laser powered vaporizer.”

The CubeGuard is available at their website or at selected Fry’s locations, and retail at $20 for one message cartridge and mounting kit, and $15 for an extra message cartridge, and $25 for a custom message cartridge.

Logitech has announced a rather nifty new technology that allows you to use precise laser tracking mice of glass surfaces, something that until now has frustrated many an owner of IKEA’s Billsta glass top desk. The Logitech Performance Mouse MX and Anywhere Mouse MX will allow you to use your mouse on practically any surface.

Most laser mice work by reading the many tiny imperfections in a surface”"wood and plastic are absolutely full of them. Glass, however, tends to be much smoother, and you sand the glass, laser tracking mice just flat out will not work. Logitech’s new darkfield technology works by viewing the glass as a, well, dark field, and tracks the tiny minute imperfections on the surface of the glass as little bright spots. By tracking these spots, the mouse will be able to function where no mouse previously would.

The wireless mouse also comes with a tiny “unifying” USB receiver that also works with other Logitech devices, a micro-USB cord for recharging the batteries in the mouse even during use, and their fancy new “hyper scrolling mode“ that we’ve seen on their other mice. Retailing for $100 and $80 respectively, the Performance Mouse MX and Anywhere Mouse MX will be available this month.

While some people may only need their computers for checking their email and watching the occasional grainy YouTube video, there are some people who need an absolute powerhouse of a computer. Those people quite likely would shop at Psychsoftpc, headquartered close by in Quincy.

Psychsoftpc makes blisteringly fast and powerful computers built for users who need to do some serious computational lifting. While you’ll certainly be able to check your email, you’ll also be able to run the whole gamut of CAD, CAM, CGI, engineering and scientific programs out there, complete with enough graphic memory to make them fly. You also have the option of running a 64-bit version of Vista or Linux, depending on which flavor of OS you prefer.

Spec-wise, Psychosoftpc’s best computer offering is the announces that the Psyborg Extreme Graphics Workstation Master Edition with Core i7 975 Processor, NVidia Quadro FX 5800 Workstation GPU include and Quadro FX 4800 Workstation GPU. The former is the fastest desktop CPU available today, and the latter is one of the most powerful GPU’s available. Tack on the massive HDD’s and ample RAM along with how these computers are architectured to run seamlessly, and these computers are clearly among the front runners for power out there, essentially the closest you can get to supercomputing on a desktop.

Don’t let Psychsoftpc’s site scare you, because there’s a ton of good information there, and if you’re in the market for a powerhouse computer, these computers certainly deserve a good look.

Your desktop keyboard mouse set just got a bit fancier. Meet the MK 700 Wireless Desktop Kit from Logitech.

Designed with all the usual ergonomic accoutrements like “finger-cradling curves” and a cushioned palm rest, the glossy black keyboard also has a build in LCD screen to give you all of the keyboard’s status symbols, like caps and num lock, mute, and a battery status indicator in a dashboard style set-up.

Speaking of batteries, this one comes with a rather impressive lifespan, with up to three years on the keyboard and a year on the mouse. We don’t remember the last time someone quoted a battery’s lifespan to us in years.

The mouse comes with a “hyper-fast” scrolling mode where the scroll wheel will move “near frictionlessly.” While we’re all about defying the laws of physics with our desktop sets, the mouse also can scroll through documents at a normal pace too.

The MK700 will ship before the end of the month to your favorite electronics store.

While there isn’t exactly a shortage of portable HDDs on the market, there some products are clearly better choices than others. Depending on if you want a simple backup solution or data storage on a hard drive that’s tougher than your organic chemistry exam, Hitachi has announced its new portable HDD line with something for everyone.

Until now, Hitachi has only manufactured the hard drives inside your computers, but after acquiring Fabrik, Hitachi has announced a new line of external HDDs. The first, the SimpleTOUGH is a ruggedized HDD wrapped in rubber to protect it from up to three meter drops, water, ‚ or “" like the Hitachi rep we spoke with did “" if you drive your neighbor’s one ton truck over it. The unit still manages to remain sleek though, which is no small feat.

The other HDD Hitachi announced is the SimpleDRIVE Mini, a small “" as in size, not capacity “" HDD that’s designed with making backups simple and painless. The drives come in multiple colors come with free backup software for users, as well as 2 GB of online “cloud” storage. Both drives come in 250, 320, and 500 GB sizes for various prices.

On top of these two big announcements, Hitachi also dropped this little gem: the SimpleNET USB/NAS adapter turns any USB device into a networked drive. While it’s not quite capable of streaming HD video, the device can still move files about efficiently from any USB drive, no matter the formatting of the device, useful in our Windows/OS X mixed computing home and office. Hitachi is also openly attracting hackers by installing SHFS server utility which allows any intrepid hacker to edit the underlying Linux code on the device. It’s a simple device now, but who knows what it could become.

These are solid products for Hitachi’s entrance into the HDD market. Hitachi will be expanding their product line over the coming months, rebuilding it so that the entire product line will be new by 2010. While HDDs may not generate a ton of excitement, it’s good to see a big name with quality products enter the market.

Some people like style, some people like substance. Sometimes, you can get both.

Today, GammaTech debuted their Durabook D14RM notebook, a rather stylish yet rugged laptop. How tough? Beyond having a spill resistant keyboard, touchpad and switches , components are capped for dust-proofing. Everything then comes packed inside a magnesium alloy case twenty times stronger than ABS plastic, the industry standard in shock proofing plastic that comes in at 5.5 lbs. At over 1.6 inches thick, it’s not exactly a slim beast, but she’s tough.

If that was all lost on you, try this: the laptop survived being dropped on concrete 26 times from a height of more than 2.5 feet. That’s pretty tough. We’re sure as hell not dropping our laptop to see what it can survive.

The laptop still isn’t short on other gadgets either, still managing to pack in 4 USB ports and an HDMI port, a webcam, GPS, smart card reader, fingerprint scanner, and a TPM 1.2 encryption package. Clearly aimed at mobile professionals, the Durabook is a solid piece of electronic equipment.

Today, Microsoft confirmed the existence of the Zune HD, which had been rumored for weeks now.

While details for the device aren’t plentiful, we do know that the device will have an integrated HD radio receiver, a 480 x 272 pixel OLED multi-touch screen, and is Wi-Fi enabled with a web browser optimized for multi-touch browsing. But perhaps the biggest announcement is that the device will integrate with the Xbox Marketplace, allowing users to transfer items purchased there to and from their devices.

Looks-wise, the Zune HD is clearly going after the iPod touch, and now that users can transfer files between the Xbox Marketplace and a device, Microsoft has the Sony PSP arrangement in its sights too. While we may have wanted to count the Zune as a has been, it’s still fighting to stay alive. We’ll have more next week from the E3 convention when we can (hopefully) get our hands on one.

On October 9, Indianapolis-based EnerDel unveiled a new Lithium-ion battery pack for hybrid-electric vehicles.

“We believe that our battery technology is a pivotal advancement that will enable HEVs and eventually PHEVs (plug-in hybrids) and EVs (electric vehicles) to become the predominant forms of transportation in the world,” said Charles Gassenheimer, Vice Chairman of Ener1, EnerDel’s parent company. “Over the next five and ten years, we expect that the conversion of the consumer automobile fleet to HEV, PHEV and EV will have the single greatest impact on the reduction of fossil-fuel energy consumption and greenhouse gases of all alternative energy technologies. EnerDel has developed a safe, high-powered Lithium ion battery for HEVs that we will manufacture in the United States, creating ‘Green Collar’ jobs for our economy.”

The EnerDel battery pack is a green technology. It could reduce pollution. It’s shiny.

“Next on the agenda is to deliver a working HEV with our battery pack in late December 2007 for on-the-road testing,” said Ulrik Grape, Chief Executive Officer of EnerDel.

EnerDel is a relatively new company, formed in 2004 when Delphi and Ener1 joined their lithium battery divisions.

“This product protects the electronics in portable devices — cell phones, PDAs, whatever — from damage from electrostatic discharge,” said Michael Markowitz, spokesman for STMicroelectronics.

I would never have guessed what the 600W high-temperature clamping diode does. I just know it’s shiny.

Electrostatic Discharge, or ESD damage is a significant danger to electronics. High voltages generated by quick static buildup and discharge can destroy semiconductors and leave your favorite gadget worthless. That’s where the 600W high-temperature clamping diode comes in. It’s a static defender, right when you need one the most.

“The product might be purchased by consumer electronics manufacturers or the contract assemblers, for inclusion on the circuit boards that they build,” said Markowitz. “In practice, any electronic circuit could use a clamping diode like this to protect it from damage.”

Unlike the devices it protects, the 600W high-temperature clamping diode only costs about a dime, and it’s a small price to pay if you ask me.

Sun Microsystems recently completed energy efficient data centers in US, UK and India, reducing Sun’s energy costs by 60 percent and earning the company nearly $1 million in rebates and awards, a company statement said in August. They’re also shiny.

“Put into operation between January and June of this year, all three data centers were built using breakthrough designs and next-generation energy efficient systems, power and cooling,” the statement said “Sun estimates that the company’s data center efforts will save the planet nearly 4,100 tons of CO2 per year and trim 1% from Sun’s total carbon footprint.”

The 76,000 square foot Santa Clara center is the largest of the three. The efficient data center greatly reduced power consumption while actually increasing the computing power there.

“There are many projects, big and small, that businesses can begin today to make a difference,” said Dave Douglas, Vice President of Eco Responsibility for Sun Microsystems. “It doesn’t have to be complicated and the ROI can be larger than you’d imagine,”

The push for efficiently led Sun to reduce its 267,000 square feet of data center space worldwide into approximately 133,000.

“New standards in data center design and management are not only good for the environment, but they are also good for a company’s bottom line,” said Bob Worrall, Sun’s CIO “Most CIOs don’t even see an energy bill, which makes little sense given that data centers can consume a significant portion of a company’s total energy draw.”

In the Sun Eco Innovation line, the Sun Fire/Sparc Enterprise T1000/T2000 server is three to five times more energy efficient than its nearest competitor, Sun says. The new data centers run Solaris on T1000/T2000 servers as well as x64 servers. For more info and even more pictures, take a look at this.

I’m pleased to announce a new component to Blast Magazine. For a bonafide nerd, there’s nothing exciting than a bunch of circuits, wires, boards, lights and plugs — especially when you have no idea what they do.

That’s just what we’re going to celebrate. Our new feature “Shiny Things” looks at all things in the realm of complicated technology and showcases them in photo and in easy-to-read words.

That brings us to our first contraption; 10-Gigabit enterprise-level fiber optic networking devices from CXtec.

“These are products that fit in the Data Center environment. This environment usually houses a company’s storage area network, mainframe, or other mission critical applications and devices,” said Lisa Belodoff, Director of Strategic Marketing for CXtec.

These types of products, branded under the CABLExpress name are used by large financial institutions, phone/cable companies and others that have the need for this type of thing. “Even smaller and mid-sized organizations are finding a need for these products, traditionally found in the larger data centers,” Belodoff said. If you’re really interested in learning more about the finer points of fiber optic networking, peruse this article.

Besides being shiny, these products don’t run cheap. A full-scale system runs $12,000 and up, while smaller units can run you $2,000.

“The unique thing is that we also have an asset recovery program where customers can trade in their old Cisco, Nortel, 3Com and HP gear for credit towards this type of product or other products we sell (network equipment, cables, etc.),” Belodoff said. “Typically we look for networking – switches, routers, etc. Or voice products – phones, line cards, pbx components, etc.”

Mmm…more shiny things.