Cool Tool: Smart Power Strip: A very cool idea for a power strip.
You plug your PC into the main socket, and then plug your printer, scanner, monitor etc into the other sockets. When you turn off your computer, the smart unit shuts the power off to the other sockets.
But is the cord long enough?
Cool Tools is a great blog, by the way. Very much worth subscribing to.
Is it too much to ask accessory manufacturers to put the length of the cord on the box? Is this too complicated or something? My wife is slowly coming to grips with our digital camera. She knows how to attach it to the computer, but she doesn't like that…
Sears (and others) have had something like this for a long time to turn vacuum systems on & off at the same time you turn power tools on & off. With high-current items like that it's pretty easy to do, but with computers the current draw is so low it's gotta be a bit more difficult/expensive to do.
For me, I just leave the computer running all the time anyway.