The dizzy, if arcane, world of time travel has never felt so appealing as when you’re sitting at your desk watching the clock grind round. This 4 port Tardis USB hub may not whisk you off to another dimension (more’s the pity), but it will, temporarily at least, divert you from the reality of an eight hour work day.

The Tardis has four USB ports, and every time you plug in some USB gizmo the light on the top flashes, and best of all, it makes that classic Dr Who Tardis ‘in a second this ludicrous machine will disappear’ noise that we know and love. You can turn the noise off if you like, but what would be the point of that?

Anyone who spent some or all of their childhood hiding behind the sofa at the sight of approaching hoards of malevolent Daleks or Cybermen, can now rest easy with a Tardis (albeit quite a small one) USB Hub on their desktop.

4 port Tardis USB hub from IWOOT

Cactus oil burner from alt-gifts

What better way to relax and help set a tranquil mood at your desk than with one of these funky USB powered oil burner/mood lights.

Technorati Tags: USB

Designed in the shape of a cactus pot, faux cactus included, its base doubles as an uber-cool mood light which can be set to phase through a spectrum of warm, cool or random colours, depending on your mood.

Just place a couple of drops of your favourite oil into the cactus pot and let this ultra cool cactus help you be at one with your Zen sense of inner calm, ohhhmmm. Zen Master Sken’s mantras of ultimate enlightenment not included, so the cactus will have to do for now!

Cactus oil burner from alt-gifts

USB Hamster Wheel from Feeling Chilled

This is a really fun computer accessory which will have you laughing hard! Ok so it’s not computer science, it’s simply a real looking hamster in a wheel. But when connected to your PC via the USB cable, the little hamster will run as you type – the faster you type, the faster the hamster runs! It’s hilarious, if a little distracting, but we love this none the less.

Technorati Tags: USB

Perfect for school kids to get them doing their homework or just for a little amusement in the work place – and let’s face it, most of us could do with that!

Features:

* Cute little furry hamster in a red plastic wheel.
* The hamster and its wheel are powered by USB.
* The hamster starts to run in its wheel when you start typing.
* An on/off switch on the wheel so your hamster can have a rest.
* A CD of software (it is in the box, just right at the bottom) to load onto your PC or Laptop.
* Compatible with Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
* Suitable for ages 10 years+.
* Requires 2 x AA Batteries (included) and a USB port.
* Size: 14 x 13 x 12cm.

The hamster is not a real hamster and is not suitable for your pet hamster due to digestion issues…

USB Hamster Wheel from Feeling Chilled

Instant Music Vinyl & Cassette Ripper Available from I Want One of Those

Years of teen angst slavishly devoted to making the ultimate compilations of all time on countless Memorex C-90s, – they were what Saturday and Sunday afternoons were for back in the ’70s and 80’s.

Technorati Tags: Cassette, Music, Ripper, USB, Vinyl

All that effort sadly went to waste with the advent of CDs and then MP3s, and for years now those treasured cassettes have sat in drawers, un-played, love and sweat shot down by technology. Well now at last they can be re-born, and you can re-incarnate all those tragic monuments to lost loves, and the best mod rock collection ever, with the Instant Music Vinyl & Cassette Ripper. Not a very slick name, but a very slick piece of equipment.

Dust off your old cassette deck and polish up your record player, they have one final task before they die. Simply plug the Instant Music Vinyl & Cassette Ripper into your PC or Mac and hook up your old kit to the Ripper (it comes with all the combinations of cable you could need to connect your dinosaur hi-fi to the unit).

Using your computer’’s USB port, the Instant Music Vinyl & Cassette Ripper starts recording from the analog audio source onto digital audio formats WAV, WMA, MP3 and AAC. So your 70s classics and homemade compilations can be made into shiny CDs and added to your playlists, you can even use the included Nero software for filtering out sound imperfections and restoring your favourite tunes of old. Use the LP or Cassette to Audio CD Wizards in the included Nero SoundTrax software to go from LP to CD audio in 4 simple steps; recording, track detection, noise reduction and burning the CD.

Re-live your youth without all the agonizing peer pressure and standing in the kitchen at parties. Nostalgia is what used to be.

Features of the Instant Music Vinyl & Cassette Ripper

* The Instant Music Vinyl & Cassette Ripper converts your old vinyl and cassettes into MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC and CDs.
* Includes Nero SoundTrax to transfer your tracks onto your PC and to produce CDs.
* Includes Nero Wave Editor2 to enhance your recordings by filtering out sound imperfections. It also separates tracks and exports your files.
* A 6ft USB cable.
* An L/R audio cable with ground connector.
* An RCA (male) to stereo miniplug (female) adaptor.
* A stereo miniplug.
* Requires a USB port, computer with CD-ROM and a CD burner if you want to make CDs.
* Requires for Windows a minimum CPU – Intel Pentium 3 500 MHz or faster, Windows 98SE, WinME, Win2000, WinXP (Home or Professional) and 256 MB of RAM. For Macintosh; Apple G4, MAC OaS 10.X, An available USB port, Garage Band or Sound Studio 2.1.
* Suitable for ages 12 years+.
* Size: 14.5 x 8 x 4cm.

Instant Music Vinyl & Cassette Ripper Available from I Want One of Those

Doctor Who Tardis 4-Way USB Hub is available from Firebox

Today’s computers are triumphs of technology, but divvy designers always seem to scrimp on the USB ports. A shame because practically every electronic device on the market is now USB-friendly – from cameras and MP3 players to phones, lava lamps and drum kits. (If you don’t believe us, just type ‘USB’ in our keyword search box). And who can be bothered fiddling around the back of their computer looking for spare ports?

Technorati Tags: DR WHO, HUB, USB

Not us. That’s why we use USB hubs. But we don’t use any old hubs to bolster our USB connectivity. Good grief, no! We use ones shaped liked Doctor Who’s Tardis. Why? Well, for starters we love Doctor Who. But more than that we love the Tardis. This ingenious product of Time Lord technology is surely one of the most iconic objects in sci-fi history.

What’s more, the good Doctor’s Tardis (yeah, yeah, we know it stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space) is an obsolete Type 40 model with a jammed chameleon circuit, giving it the shape of a 1950s London police box. And it just doesn’t get any more eccentric or quirkily British than that.

The Doctor Who Tardis USB Hub boasts four ports in which to plug your various gizmos. Simply plug in and you’re away. But here’s the good bit: every time you connect or disconnect a device, the blue light on the top of the Tardis flashes and that unmistakable de-materialisation ‘worp, vworp’ sound starts sawing away at your lugholes. Thankfully it doesn’t actually vanish into the time vortex, so you can enjoy the classic grating din again and again by plugging in more devices or pressing the demo button.

Perfect for Doctor Who fans or those of you who want to increase your USB connectivity via a pretend Gallifreyan time/space machine, the Tardis USB Hub makes an eye-catching addition to any work surface. And with 4 metres of cable, you can easily slip it out of view when the boss, wife, or anyone else who might disapprove of PC peripherals disguised as dimensionally transcendental vehicles, is around. Vworp, vworp!

Doctor Who Tardis 4-Way USB Hub is available from Firebox

USB Cannon from Firebox

The battle for office supremacy knows no decorum: blowing soggy clumps of tissue through biro blowpipes, boinging rubber bands around, chucking cups of cold coffee over colleagues’ heads (or is that just us?). It’s almost enough to make you want to knuckle down and do some work. Almost.

Technorati Tags: USB

Of course the sophisticated executive warmonger wouldn’t be seen dead attacking workmates with such primitive ammo. Especially when the miracle of USB connectivity has rendered such weaponry obsolete. Step forward the ingenious USB Cannon.

It might look like one of those comedy circus cannons you see firing leotard-clad blokes with wax moustaches through the air, but this nifty little weapon of mass distraction is capable of raining punishment on your enemies with a mere flick of a space bar.

Powered and controlled by your computer, the USB Cannon shoots its squishy ammo broadside up to 10ft. Simply aim the cannon up, down, left and right using your keyboard and unleash hell. Well, okay, unleash three spongy projectiles and hide under your desk.

But what’s with all this ‘babe’ business, we hear you ask? Well, for some bizarre reason, the circus theme also extends to the ammo, because each foamy missile looks like a glamorous circus girl, albeit a rather strangely shaped one. Not that this makes a blind bit of difference when you’re zeroing in on an unsuspecting target and boinking them in the head with one.

To add to the infantile nature of your cross-departmental battles, the USB Cannon comes with several pre-recorded sound effects as well as software that enables all you wannabe warlords to download your own, less-whimsical faves. We’re currently using the riff from The Final Countdown to coincide with every missile launch. Boy George was right, war is stupid!

USB Cannon from Firebox

Roll-Up Electronic “Calypso” Keyboard from Gadget Universe

Whether you want to show off your already honed musical skills or simply want to practice, our electronic keyboard gives you everything you need. This is one keyboard that doesn’t skimp in musical styles and sounds.

You’ll never run out of ways to learn new music. Forty-nine keys provide more octaves than most compact keyboards. It plays 128 different timbres and rhythms, and it offers 60 demonstration songs. Its titillating tones simulate piano, organ, glockenspiel, acoustic and electric guitar, acoustic bass, violin, saxophone, flute, sitar, drums and a whole lot more. It also can be programmed to make sound effects including a ringing telephone, applause, tweeting birds and a helicopter. And talk about compact: Roll it up! The Calypso Keyboard is less than a yard long. Novices can learn to play without investing in bulky, costly keyboards. Experts can practice their skills anywhere. Become the next Van Cliburn, or Jerry Lee Lewis with the Calypso Keyboard.

Roll-Up Electronic “Calypso” Keyboard from Gadget Universe

USB Doomsday Device Hub is available from ThinkGeek Electronics

The secret to the USB Doomsday Device is very simple – it has three levels of failsafe protection. In order to arm the Device, you first need to activate switch one. Then, you need to activate switch two. Then (and stay with us here, because this is where it gets a little crazy), you need to activate switch three. Switch three is a key switch, and only authorized personnel should have a copy of the key. Once all three switches are turned on (in order) the Main light will glow red. This means the Device is armed and very dangerous.

All that is left to do is flip back the plastic shield and press the red button for an explosive sound effect. But what really happens when you press the button? We’re not sure. Perhaps 15 kittens explode; perhaps your bank account lowers by a fraction of a cent; perhaps you start an interplanetary war trillions of parsecs away by blowing up the caravan of Queen Knorb’l. But one thing is clear – before pushing the button, you must ask yourself, “Do I feel lucky, punk? Well…do I?” Because, who knows, the explosion you hear from the USB Doomsday Device might just be the sound of your brain vaporizing.

Oh yeah, and you can also use the USB Doomsday Device as a 4 port USB hub. No one will mess with you with this baby on your desk.

USB Doomsday Device Hub is available from ThinkGeek Electronics

USB Podcast Kit is available from I Want One of Those

It’s an indisputable fact that our own lives, thoughts and insights are considerably more important and fascinating that anyone else’s. Thanks to the internet, we can now enlighten the world with our wit and wisdom by producing our very own Podcasts. At last someone has put together the ultimate Podcasting kit that comes with everything you need to broadcast professional and fascinating (well that bit’s up to you) podcasts to the planet.

Behringer (a name to be reckoned with) have bundled a studio-grade USB audio interface with comprehensive DAW and podcasting software, and also thrown in a professional 5-input mixer with 2-band “British” EQ, high-quality headphones and a dynamic broadcast-style microphone plus cable and stand. All you need is something interesting to say – though that doesn’t seem to be a pre-requisite anymore either – and you’ll be ready to educate, fascinate, amuse, and possibly enrich us all. Tell it to the world!

USB Podcast Kit is available from I Want One of Those

USB Chameleon is available from I Want One of Those

If the Culture Club worked in an office (now there’s a thought) then the place would be stuffed with tunes “Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon” and PCs would be decked-out with USB Chameleons (and possibly some rather dodgy wardrobes).

Technorati Tags: USB

Yes we agree it would be quite Chameleon themed but still, we can’t see Boy George in a faceless cubicle just doing the accounts, can you? Ok we got a bit distracted there. The USB Chameleon is a bizarrely loveable desk buddy. Pop him on your computer screen, plug him into a spare USB port, and watch as he randomly rolls his eyeballs in opposite directions, and sticks his tongue out to catch passing flies. Utterly pointless, endlessly diverting.

USB Chameleon is available from I Want One of Those