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What we bought: How DeWalt's 20V Max cordless drill became my most versatile home-reno tool
I bought the DCD771C2 20V max cordless drill from DeWalt. Let me tell you a bit about it.
Mac power tools: charge up your workflow
I recently bought a new Mac, and I decided not to migrate years of cruft over to a pristine Snow Leopard install. I also decided to shed years of stale workflow and adopt a new way of doing things. Enter the power tools: software that augments the power and performance of OS X to do things faster and smarter. I'll examine some general system enhancements and look at a couple of powerful Mac/iPhone app combos that really work well together. Step one was finding a replacement for my beloved QuickSilver. I had abandoned QS well over a year ago due to performance issues on most of my Macs, but after a nagging pain in my wrist surfaced, I realized I had to find more keyboard shortcuts. Enter LaunchBar, which fills in for 90% of what QuickSilver used to do for me. LaunchBar is one Ctrl-Space (configurable, of course) away from Spotlight searching, Google searching, application launching, math calculations and much, much more. LaunchBar is $25 around $35 per seat, and worth taking 15 minutes to learn the basics. Go ahead, hate me for giving up QS, but try LaunchBar before you hurl the insults. Next I needed a better way to juggle 3 Gmail accounts. But I also needed a way to track the metric ton of inbox items that flow through those email conduits. The solution was the combination of MailPlane and Things. I had really dedicated my heart to Toodledo, but there's one trick I couldn't replicate on any setup (The Hit List included): when I get an email in MailPlane, I can select some text and press Shift-Ctrl-Opt-Cmd-0 and the Things HUD pops up and autofills the notes section with a link to the email itself. It is awesome. Not perfect, mind you, but a huge thing for me. Read on for more power tools and tips.
Porsche swerves to the power tool realm with P'7911 Multihammer
We've noticed that the folks at Porsche Design have been branching out to new endeavors of late, but this joint venture takes brand extension to an entirely new level. The group has apparently partnered with Germany's Metabo to unveil the Multihammer P'7911 power drill, which "combines all the essential functions of a drill with the power of a pneumatic hammer," sports a carbon fiber / aluminum housing, and includes an impeccably balanced grip that makes this bad boy easier to handle. The 705-watt device has no problem with scratches here and there from drilling through concrete, stone, wood, and steel, and the five different function settings allow you to tweak the tool for the job at hand. No word just yet regarding the (presumably lofty) price, but be sure to leap on through to see this luxury power tool hard at work.[Via Sybarites]
Power tool drag racing -- why didn't we think of this?
As much as we support the use of power tools in safe, supervised areas far away from us, we can't help but admire the crazies responsible for this year's Power Tool Drag Racing event. The basic idea is to take a hand-held power tool, mod it up a bit (or a lot), and let it race against other devices in its own class down a plywood track. Hilarity ensues, and the contestants have some pretty amazing entries this time around. MAKE is on the scene, and the event seems to be providing just as much mayhem and adult beverages as were implied. If you didn't make it down Sunday you'll just have to hope they make this an annual event, since it really is so totally punk rock.[Via MAKE]
