Ismael Ghalimi of IT|Redux fame and producer of the Office 2.0 Conference emailed me with a $100 discount for any GearFire readers wishing to attend this year. The conference runs in San Francisco from September 3-5. This year’s theme is enterprise adoption and the opening keynote will be given by David Allen with other notable speakers including Robert Scoble.

The Office 2.0 Conference is a collective experiment organized every year in San Francisco, CA and aimed at discovering the future of online productivity & collaboration. It is a unique gathering of visionaries, thought leaders, and customers using innovative online services for getting things done at the office, at home, and on the go. Please register before August 31st to benefit from the online rate. All paying attendees get an HP 2133 Mini-Note PC.

University starts on September 2nd and I won’t be able to attend myself, but for any readers in attendance, feel free to provide us with a trip report.

Snag-it is an extremely useful piece of software that captures sections of a screen, scrolling windows, menu items, etc. and allows you to fiddle with the images, including call outs, effects etc.  I use it all the time, particularly for putting together presentations.  If you can find it somewhere and show it on your screen, you can capture it and use it easily and elegantly.

GTDWannabe posted about it today.  You can get a fully licensed version of the software for free.  Now, it’s a version behind, but it is fully and legally licensed.  You can try it out for as long as you want.  If you decide to buy the upgrade, the price is half the new purchase price.

You can download (English version) and request a license from TechSmith’s site.  I have done everything I’ve ever needed with the version they are now giving away for free, so while I will be evaluating the new version the free version is fully featured and includes most of what a student will ever need.

Make the most out of your home electrical system with these three useful gadgets:

The 360 Electrical outlet

This handy electrical outlet cover (correct me if this isn’t the official name) allows the single outlets to rotate which gives you the potential to connect even your two bulkiest transformers on one cover. (North American outlets only)

PowerSquid Surge

This gadget holds the slogan: “A power strip minus the strip.” The PowerSquid is an amazing product that makes five outlets out of one. The best part is, that it isn’t like traditional power strips/surge protectors; you have use of all five plugs regardless of the size of the transformer. With a $100,000 limited connected equipment warranty you can be pretty confident that the surge protector will work. (again, North American outlets only)