John Sisler

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Most small iPod-friendly speakers use crappy plastic cabinets that usually sound worse than they look, which isn’t saying much. Evergreen, a company out of Japan, is making these wooden speakers that also have a digital clock that seems to glow right out of the wood.

There are two models — DN-WSP1406 looks like a single block of wood with speakers in each end for stereo playback, or the more traditional The DN-WSP1802 stereo pair. Both use a 3.5mm input from a portable audio player. The digital alarm clock has basic features such as a snooze function. Right now, both models are only available in Japan for about $25 each.

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You could play Rock Band or Guitar Hero through your TV speakers, but your classic shredding deserves better. If you don’t have your gaming console jacked into your home theater system, try Altec Lansing’s Stage-Gig, a 40-watt pignose amp putting out an ear-splitting 100dB through a 1-inch neodymium tweeter and a boom-a-licious 6.5-inch woofer.

Like any good portable speaker/amp, Stage-Gig has standard RCA audio jacks (but no 1/4-inch jack, which makes it tough to plug in a real Les Paul Gibson, Fender Stratocaster or Rickenbacker 12-string) and an independent volume control, a handle and padded corners so you don’t hurt yourself, furniture or whomever you accidentally brush up against as you wander.

Stage-Gig is a mono speaker, but you can daisy chain two of them to create a phony stereo plus increase the likelihood of roommates or parents yelling at you to turn that damned thing down and hasten the onset of tinnitus. Altec won’t help you avoid either — the Stage-Gig is just $100.

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The art of portraiture, once reserved for the rich, the royal and the holy, has found a new mass appeal online. Some avid social-network users are commissioning artists to create small digital images to represent themselves in the online world.