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BUSINESS 2.0:

Favorites

The business tools you can't work without

By Carlos Silva, Jeremy Toeman, Danny Sullivan and Peter Han

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Breezy Rider

Vanson Streamliner Heated Vest; $160; www.vansonleathers.com

CARLOS SILVA President and COO, World Champion Sports

If you ride a motorcycle, this vest is a godsend. I live in Washington, D.C., which means riding got very cold come wintertime--until I found Vanson's heated vest. The Streamliner is made with Dupont ComforMax nylon to protect against wind and has built-in heating elements to keep you toasty. A cord attached to the vest plugs into my motorcycle's 12-volt battery plug to keep the heat flowing. Depending on the weather, you can wear the vest alone, but I usually layer mine under a leather jacket for extra warmth. Either way, it's amazing how comfortable the rest of your body feels when you don't have to worry about warming your core--on a 45-degree day, it's almost like riding in summertime. Now, if only Vanson offered a gizmo to prevent helmet hair.

Power Pack

Sony Vaio VGN-SZ270P/C; $2,350; www.sonystyle.com

JEREMY TOEMAN Vice president for market development, Sling Media

After my last computer died, I needed a new laptop to take on the road. My requirements: a Centrino Duo-powered machine that was fast, expandable, lightweight, and able to endure at least three hours of heavy use while running on battery power. After a thorough search, Sony's Vaio made the cut. It's a beautiful piece of hardware that weighs less than 4 pounds and is about an inch thick. The incredibly bright screen is perfect for watching DVDs or TV broadcasts on the road, and the fingerprint sensor--which I thought was a bit goofy at first--turns out to be a great feature because I no longer worry about remembering all my passwords for different websites. Battery life clocks in at just three hours, so I also bought an extended-life battery that provides more than six hours of juice in energy-saving mode. This is one of the best--and best-looking--laptops on the market.

Window on the World

Philips Digital Photo Display; $200; www.philipsusa.com

DANNY SULLIVAN Founder, SearchEngineWatch.com

Digital photos are easy to store, but they can be hard to show off. In theory, a digital picture frame would be ideal, but most suffer from clunky styling, low storage capacity, and cumbersome image uploading. Philips's digital frame is the exception. Its screen resolution is superb. It can store up to 80 photos internally or 300 saved to a memory stick or SD card. (I'm currently using a 512MB SD card to store 130 photos.) There's also a USB port to download photos directly from a computer or portable drive. Photos can be displayed horizontally or vertically and the frame can be programmed to play a looped slide show. I take mine with me on trips to display on hotel nightstands--so I can always travel with my family.

Made With the Shades

Oakley O Rokr Sunglasses; $250; www.oakley.com

PETER HAN Group product manager, Microsoft

I love finding devices that simplify my life by combining multiple functions in one package. I never thought of my sunglasses as a device, however, until I switched to Oakley's O Rokrs. Good shades are an essential piece of equipment, of course, and the lenses on the O Rokrs filter out 100 percent of UVA and UVB rays. Yet these sunglasses also have a built-in Bluetooth headset, so I can make voice calls and listen to MP3s streaming from my cell phone. I use the tiny buttons on the frame to take calls or adjust the volume, and the sound quality is loud and clear. The O Rokrs offer five hours of talk time and 100 hours of standby, although I still sometimes enjoy just turning everything off to retreat behind the privacy of my darkened glasses.

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