Geek Noun/g?k/

-An enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity

Minimal (Adj  \?mi-n?-m?l\)

- Barely adequate, the least possible

It’s hard out there for a geek. Not only do I find that statement to be true, it’s even tougher for a geek who loves gadgets, yet has little to no money to purchase any such technology. Consequently, I call myself a “Minimal Geek.”

I love technology and I don’t remember a time where electronics weren’t on the top of the list of things I wanted to own. To this day, I find myself wanting gadgets and gizmos aplenty before I even think about buying other things I might actually need; like clothes. With all the passion I boast for technology, there’s one little roadblock that gets me every time. I don’t have the money to buy ANYTHING expensive, and electronics/gadgets (whatever you like to call it) tend to be on the pricy side.

As a “Minimal Geek”, I’m slightly forced to keep my collection of technology, well, minimal. I own a four-year-old MacBook Pro, an iPhone 4 and an Xbox 360. I would love an iPad 2 and a new MacBook Air, but that’s just not going to happen anytime soon. If I was to add just those two products together, that’s roughly $1,500, and that’s if I get the cheaper forms of the products! These prices may not sound ridiculous to some people, but I can’t drop a cool thousand ever time a new gadget hits the scene. So, as broke as I am, I try to keep the technology I do have nice, so it never craps out on me. I hope to get a new laptop soon, but seeing as my cash flow is more minimal than my electronics’ collection, I’ll have to save up for a long time.

As simple of a choice I have to whether I’ll be able to make a big tech purchase (an easy yes or no), it still seems to be a tough decision either way. Until the day I’m filthy rich, without a money problem in the world, I shall geek out with the best of them and plague my mind with wishful thinking of sparkly new tablets, laptops, and electronics galore. It sure doesn’t help that I have expensive taste. Thanks a lot Apple.

With many of us trying to be more secure online by choosing better, less redundant and overall more secure passwords, the real question is “How do we remember them all?” Atek, a California based company, thinks they have a solution with their Logio Password Organizer Device.

It’s tiny –‚  only 1/8″ thick. The device reminds me of a cheap oven timer, and with that take on things, it’s very disappointing with flimsy thin plastic that almost breaks in half if you type with firm pressure.

The keyboard is somewhat acceptable yet very cheap-feeling again. I’ve found most of the other buttons take a few presses to get the unit to respond.

I found performance to be below average but manageable when you apply heavy pressure to the keyboard, which is really just a pain. I also found the interface to be very slow, and it often took a few seconds to respond to basic commands.

The simple menus are, well, simple. However, it is extremely tedious to keep pressing the down arrow to get to your listing at the end of the list when you store many items. The unit can store up to 200 records, but I couldn’t imagine pressing the down arrow 200 times to get to the last listing.

Two hundred is also a small number, considering several gigabytes of data fit into tiny secure digital cards these days.

The Logio stores all your passwords behind one AES-encrypted master password. Try not to forget that one.

I’ve always believed that as consumers, our pockets are filled with devices. We have our mobile phones, iPods, flash drives and more strapped onto our belt and stuffed into our pockets. Smartphones are beginning to get more and more advanced and with Apple, RIM, Palm and Windows Mobile taking new approaches we might finally be able to free our pockets.

With this in mind, the Atek Logio Password Organizer seems like a safe way to organize passwords and is defiantly more secure than your traditional pen and paper, but it contributes to the device clutter problem. I believe that the prototype would be far more successful if the company could develop mobile applications with this same functionality in mind for Smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s Backberry devices and Windows Mobile Smartphones.

The product retails for $29.95 and is available at http://www.atek.com/

Ok, so maybe you can’t have Skype on your PSP just yet. Are you going to let that get you down? Hell no.

Especially when you can easily make free Skype calls from the privacy, security and solitude of your own computer keyboard.

Japan-based Buffalo has a product in their inventory that does just that.

The BKBU-SKJ109/SV keyboard/Skype phone juxtaposition is a full 109-key input device with a fully compatible phone. Just plug it in.

DVICE says it’s coming out in October, but Buffalo’s roughly and loosely translated website says the product has been available since 2006 in Japan for 6,600 yen, or about $61.50.