At the Cool Tools website, we post just one review per work day, five times a week. Not just kitchen stuff, but all kinds of useful things. One day you’ll hear about a solar-powered flashlight. The next, a book on how to build an igloo, or the best heart rate monitor. We pride ourselves on the mix.
The Cool Tools website began in 2003. However Cool Tools started even earlier, in 2000, as an email list run by Kevin Kelly, a founding editor of Wired Magazine and, prior to that, publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog and its quarterly journal. The Whole Earth Catalog was a reader-written publication, with no ads, long before the web. Much of Cool Tools’ DNA stems from the passionate amateur’s spirit of the Catalog. As Catalog founder Stewart Brand wrote in in the first Whole Earth Catalog in 1969:
An item is listed in the CATALOG if it is deemed:
- Useful as a tool,
- Relevant to independent education,
- High quality or low cost,
- Easily available by mail.
We continue to uphold this standard and sense of community. It is that lineage which attracted me to Cool Tools in 2007, when I became its editor. Web culture is obsessed with the latest and, supposedly, greatest. But bloggers and writers may only briefly test an item before submitting a review. They don’t know what came before. Therefore, they are primarily concerned with what is new, rather than what is best. In contrast, the Whole Earth Catalog and, therefore, Cool Tools only draws attention to what works and stands the test of time.
That means that if you buy an item or try a tip included in this ebook, you should count on it. If, for whatever reason, our recommendation doesn’t quite satisfy, please let us know. If you use an item that’s superior to anything we’ve featured in this ebook, please let us know. If you have any questions or comments about this ebook, please let us know.
We hope this ebook is the beginning of how we can help you. Our website, which now has over 2,000 tool reviews, remains perfectly searchable and free. We encourage you to click around to discover some great classic tools and uncommon gems. Suggestions for tools much better than what we recommend are always wanted. If you use an item that’s superior to anything we’ve featured online, please let us know.
In case you couldn’t tell, Cool Tools thrives on feedback. Readers like you keep improving our recommendations, which in turn inspire others to recommend something better yet. In fact, if it weren’t for contributions from the readers below, this ebook wouldn’t exist. We thank the following readers for their submssions:
Aaron Scrignar, Adam Fields, AK, Amy Thomson, Aryeh Abramovitz, Bob Callaway, Brad Zebal, Bruno Teersteeg, Bryn-Ane MacKinnon, Chris Hecht, Chris Lewis, Christopher R. Carlson, David Jacoby, David King, Debora Dekok, Dudley Irish, Ellen Rocco, Ethan Stettner, Gareth Branwyn, Ginger Cooper, J. P. Roosma, Jay Allison, Jeff Jewell, Jeff Zimmerman, Jim Rubel, Jon Braun, Jon Margolis, Kelly Spitzer, Kurt Bollacker, Mark D. Esswein, Mark Frauenfelder, Marsh Gardiner, Matt Field, Michael Ham, Michael Krakovskiy, Michael Raab, Patrick Handley, Paul Knuth, Paul Saffo, Pen Duby, Raquel Maria Dillon, Rene, Robert Narracci, Sam Putman, Sessalee Hensley, Steve Allen, Steve Golden, Stewart Brand, Ted Boydston, Tim Plumley, Tom Lundin, Tom Streeter, Walter Susong III.
In addition, there are a handful of other people who’ve had a hand in keeping Cool Tools alive and well: Oliver Hulland is the site’s current editor; Wayne Bremser masterfully implements all changes to our CMS (Movable Type). Over the years, Cool Tools has been helmed by these previous editors: Elon Schoenholz, Bruce Sterling, and Charles Platt.
We’d love to have you among our future contributors. Tell us what you love.
December 2011