Are you still trying to listen to your music at work with some pair of cheap Sony earbuds? How are you ever going to both enjoy all those tunes you’ve illegally downloaded on comapny time and also drown out the drone of your co-workers trying to “work?” Isn’t it time to move up to professional quality sound?

The Audio-Technica ATH-A900 have an aluminum housing and use the company’s Double Air Damping System to reproduce the music (or your gaming explosions) exactly as they were recorded. Want some deep bass? These will make you feel like you’re inside the drum. They’re also huge, so everyone will know that you’re not to be disturbed for anything except an emergency — like lunch.

$179.00 at AudioCubes.com

If there’s one mobile phone company that’s stretching the boundaries of what a mobile phone can be, that company is Nokia. The sleeping giant has awakened in a big way after being overshadowed by sexier albeit dumber phones from Motorola, LG and Samsung. Their N line contains some of the cuttingest of cutting edge technologies with some nice, sleek, simple design to boot.

The N93 came out this year to great fanfare, based mostly on its ability to shoot DVD-quality video with a quality lens. The bad news turned out to be that the form factor left something to be desired. It was a nice camcorder, but a lousy phone.

Back from the drawing board, Nokia’s next-gen N95 has everything the N93 had, but it comes in a slimmer, sexier body with an all-new dual-slider mechanism. It’s a world phone that runs on all the networks, including HSDPA for high-speed data (an important consideration when you’re uploading your next YouTube memetastic capture). The 5-megapixel camera will capture your life through a Carl Zeiss lens, and you’ll cruise the Web on a 16-million color display when you’re not GPSing your Flickr shots. WiFi 802.11g helps synch you to your computer, and a TV-out plug (in addition to USB) means you can point, shoot and play video in nothing flat.

Oh, it also plays music. MP3, WMA, AAC, whatever. So, who’s buying me one for my birthday?

$799.99 at Mobilebee.com

Not everyone wants or needs a big bunch of flat black metal boxes covered in knobs to prove they know a thing or two about getting the most out of their music. Sometimes all you need is a nice, small, integrated, elegant box of electronics and a slim remote to fill your room with tasty tunes.

Like Bose and a host of copycats that followed, now Tivoli Audio has an all-in-one tabletop system that pumps out amazingly lifelike sound from two speakers and a small footprint. What separates Tivoli’s offering is its glossy dark walnut cabinet, a down-firing built-in subwoofer with separate volume control and a front-loading disc player that supports CD, MP3, WMA, CD-R, CD-RW and CD Text formats. All this and beautiful, too? Did I mention that the LCD display automatically dims in darkness? Whoa.

$599.99 at Amazon.com

The introduction of the PlayStation 3 is imminent, and for those willing to spend $500-$600, they’re going to get beyond next-gen gaming with some amazingly smooth graphics and hundreds of things all happening on their wide screen HDTV monitors at the same time via digitally pristine 1080p streams.

But what about all the PS2 games you already own? Just going to throw them out when you upgrade because they look crappy on your 42”? Fret not! Xploder’s HDTV Player for PS2 pumps up the visual volume on the little black box, giving you resolutions up to 1080i on your existing game library. You just load their CD-ROM into the PS2 before playing your game, pick your resolution of choice off the Xploder menu and, voila, instant HD for your Okami habit.

$39.99 from Xploder Online

My friend Brian commutes from Palm Springs to Mountain View every week for his job. Yes, people actually do that. He loves his job, and he also loves living in Palm Springs, so what’s he going to do? Anyway, Palm Springs tends to be, you know, warmish, so when he’s telecommuting in from home he really wanted a notebook that wouldn’t necessarily die when you brought it next to a body of water, like a swimming pool in a backyard, say.

Panasonic’s CF-Y5 is a low voltage Core Duo notebook with a 14.1” SXGA+ screen and a listed 9-hour (stop rolling your eyes) battery life. You can pump the RAM up to 2Gb, stuff in a 120Gb hard drive and it comes complete with the usual set of USB2 ports (4 in all), WiFi, Bluetooth and its full-sized keyboard is spill-resistant, including a drainage duct to keep the insides dry. The hard drive is shock-insulated and the 3.3Lbs notebook can withstand 110lbs. of pressure.

The kicker is that this baby isn’t even available in the U.S. You’ll have to order this from an importer to get your hands on all its toughness. It comes in a bright shiny silver shell, but you can special order it in black, gunmetal gray, metallic blue or vibrant red.

$2,499 - $3,149 depending on configuration at Dynamism.com

Did you know there’s a keyboard war on? I know! I mean, the lowly keyboard elevated to the class of other tech goodies like MP3 players and in-ear headphones? Who knew?

Logitech may be taking the early lead with the diNovo Edge, available next month for around $200. I know! For a keyboard! What makes this one so special?

Looks, for one. This thing is sleekly sexy — at least, as sexy as a computer keyboard is likely to be. It features a laser cut plexiglass surface mounted on an aluminum body. Each key is mounted on “a precision micro-scissors mechanism” so every punch of your digit yields equal typing force, the backlit features for media control and function keys only appear at your command, and it sits upright in its gleaming black charging base overnight so the lithium batteries will keep you typing for weeks at a time.

$199.99 from Logitech

Now you’re going to be downloading entire movies to your computer! Good golly Miss Molly, what are you going to do? How can you fit all your digital pictures and your digital music and your digital movies all on your slim little laptop?

Here’s how: Buy a 1 terabyte external drive from Western Digital. Just out, their brand new gleaming silver-coated My Book Pro Edition II is a RAID system that sits on your desk and plugs into your computer via USB 2.0, Firewire 400 or even Firewire 800 — your choice! And with a full terabytte of space, you can stow away 125 hours of HD movies, or 75 hours of DV video to create your own film magic.

$549.00 direct from Western Digital

As we all move slowly but surely into the fully digital realm of audio and video, our options are are confusing as ever. Often, the solutions the hardware makers (e.g. Sony, Pioneer, Denon) come up with are huge black monolithic boxes with hundreds of lights and dials all glowing in unison, distracting you from your lovely 42” flat panel 1080p LCD screen. What’s a lad or lady to do?

Aesthetically speaking, Outlaw Audio’s Amp/Preamp solution is hard to beat. The 970 (above) offers the usual gamut of audio options for listening to your sources (all the flavors of DTS and Dolby - including “Dolby Headphone” so you don’t bother the neighbors) in a sleek, simple, agreeably weighty duo. The amp has only a softly glowing button to indicate it’s working, and the preamp offers just enough buttons and one huge volume knob in addition to an actually helpful blue LED display.

Outlaw is decidedly high-end, but it’s budget high-end if such a thing exists. Getting audio separates like this yields cleaner sound, for those whose ears can discern the differences, and your packing 75 watts per channel so when the jet blows up in The Incredibles, you’ll feel like it’s in the room with you. Now that’s sonic impact!

$1,298.00 for the set direct from Outlaw Audio.

You know that you’re nothing if you don’t have the coolest tools, right? Your friends will point and laugh as you struggle with your horribly trendy and out-dated Moto RAZR, your pets will no longer want to be touched by the same hand that touches old technology, and oh my God but that thing is huge. Huge!

Luckily, those Korean wizards at Samsung have somehow managed to cram a 1.3 megapixel camera (with LED flash!), an MPEG4 video player and recorder, Bluetooth, USB, 80Mb of memory and space for 200 SMS and 1,000 phone book entries into their SGH-P300 GSM tri-band phone. And get this, my salivating geeksters — it all comes in a super-duper slim 9mm package. The RAZR is a fat 1.4cm thick! Might as well use it to prop open your doors.

$469.00 at www.plemix.com.

You’ve got your groovy glasses, you’ve got a well-stocked bar… now if only you could remember how to make a perfect Fuzzy Navel. You’re certain somebody once gave you a bartender’s guide and you put it — somewhere so you wouldn’t forget it. But now you’ve got guests ordering everything from Mojitos to Singapore Slings. Now what?

Grab your ever-ready iPod and dial up Enrique Quintero’s Podtender. This tiny database contains over 900 drink recipes so you’ll never have to remember them all, and you can stop looking the fool when you put Gin in that Manhattan. Which, incidentally, sounds revolting.

Enrique also offers Podgourmet with 260 recipes, and Podgourmet Vegan Edition with 277 more meatless meals.

$10.00 at Enrique Quintero Design.

Sometimes, all you need is a little radio. You know, you don’t need an entire system, with separate speakers and blinking lights and dials with nubbins on them and wires and so on — just a radio.

Lexon has a new radio that’s perfect for places like your bedroom or the office where you don’t want to hassle with trying to figure out how to operate the thing, you just want to turn it on and listen to it, but it helps if it looks good doing it. The Dolmen AM/FM digital radio is housed inside a wooden cube with good old reliable rotary tuning knobs and a nice big speaker up front. Simple, elegant, useful.

$120.00 at retromodern.

I just had to show this to you because I can’t decide whether this is the most ridiculous early-adopter product I’ve ever encountered or the coolest — but I’m leaning toward the former. What you see before you is the Philips iPronto TSi6400 Home Entertainment Remote Control. This, my friend, is the last all-in-one remote control you will ever have, because if you buy this one you won’t be able to afford another one.

What does it do? Well, everything… and some things it doesn’t even do yet but soon will. This isn’t just an electronics remote, this baby has WiFi, USB and MMC/SD support built-in. It uses an Intel X-Scale 400MHz processor and has 64Mb of flash memory coupled with 64Mb of RAM. The VGA color touch screen displays its fully customizable user interface for controlling everything in your home. WiFi connects it to the Internet where it gets an automatically-updated electronic TV program guide with personal filters.

It has a web browser. It has built-in speakers and a headphone jack. It will operate up to 33 feet from any device and has a universal infrared code database from over 500 brands. It will upgrade its own software automatically from the web. I’m surprised it won’t get up and make you breakfast in the morning, but I suppose that if you can figure out how to automate that process, this thing will allow you to control that, too.

List price: $1,699.99. Factory refurbished price: $810.00 at Philips Electronics Outlet.

Since this is the Web and you’re on it and you have a computer and read blogs, let’s assume that at least some part of you is made of nerd. You may argue that you’re a geek, but geeks bite the heads off of chickens in sideshows, so this is probably not a product for you.

Now, nerds like computer stuff, and what we have here is the Binary Code Watch. The face is made of that familiar green circuit board you dream about at night, and there are some small blue lights on it. How does it tell time? Another thing nerds like: secret computer crap only they know (or think they do).

$82.00 at UncommonGoods.

Everyone knows that Apple doesn’t know how to make earphones. The white buds that come standard with every iPod suck badly. The sound is bad, your neighbors can hear that you enjoy ABBA when flying to NYC and even their in-ear upgrades are uncomfortable and don’t really improve on sound quality an iota. So what should you do to get the most from your several-hundred-dollar portable music vault?

Buy better headphones, of course. Ask any audiophile what you should splurge on to get the most from your music, and they’ll tell you “speakers.” It’s what’s delivering your tunes to your ears that counts most. You can spend beaucoup bucks on your audio hardware, but if your speakers suck then what good is all the rest?

Here we have Etymotic Research’s built-for-iPod model ER6i Isolator Earphones. These babies not only rock, but they also roll as well as jazz, classical, electronica, lounge and disco. Normally they’ll cost you $149.00, but go grab a set at Buy.com and save $70.00. You might also want to buy a box of Q-Tips — in-ear headphones, while they sound amazing and include every audio nuance of every song you play, also have a habit of eating ear wax. Eeeyoooo…

$79.99 at Buy.com

If your spending time in your Flickr account and your contacts’ pictures look decidedly better than yours, maybe it’s time for you to move up in class with your digital photography “hobby.” Currently, the line is drawn between two standard classes, the Nikon people and the Canon people when it comes to prosumer cameras in the near-$1k range.

Color me a Canon fan. I’ve been consistently happy with my Canon photo and video camera choices, and the Digital Rebel EF-S is my current “big time camera” when I want clear, concise, beautiful pictures. I still keep my two other Canons handy for quick snapshots because they’re easier to carry and hide in a pocket. But the Rebel, with a decent lens attached, a big fat Compact Flash card and a steady hand, allows me to take the best pictures I can.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no shutterbug, but when you want to archive digital images to last a lifetime (new baby, anyone?), this would be my camera recommendation — and right now it’s not too expensive to get your own. This kit from dbuys.com comes with the Rebel, a Canon 18-55mm lens, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and the usual Canon accoutrements (battery, charger, camera strap, cables, etc.) for about $300 off list price.

$647.00 at dbuys.com.

P.S. Dell currently has all Canon lenses at 10% off as well as Sandisk 2GB Compact Flash cards for $159. (Additional 20% off when you use code B?WV2VX0N$C512 at check out! Save another $20 with a mail-in rebate! Final cost: $107.99!)

So you want to be a Podcaster, huh? And you’re all set to impress your friends and enemies with all the interesting things you have to say and the music you want to share and the thing you did last night at that place with the stuff and that dude and how everyone thought it was so hilarious? But how is your voice going to sound on that MP3 after you’re done? What other noises is it picking up, and what about that weird electronic buzz coming from your sound card?

Logitech to the rescue! Whether you’re using a PC or Mac, the USB Mic just plugs and plays. No drivers, no set-up, no nothing. And because it’s going into the USB port, everything is pure, clean and digital. It also includes built-in noise cancelling to record your voice and nothing else.

$17.96 at Buy.com.

A bedside clock radio is a very simple need. You don’t necessarily need a whole bunch of buttons and sliders and capabilities, what you need — if you’re like me — is one that will reliably pick up your wake-up radio station of choice (KQED here in San Francisco, for those keeping track) a clock that’s easy to read when you’re not wearing your contacts and good sound.

The Henry Kloss-designed Model Three clock radio from Tivoli fulfills all those needs, and it helps that it looks great doing it. This is a mono unit with a single speaker (again, keeping things simple) and a nice, big snooze button located on top. You set the wake-up time with a red needle on the clock’s face and turn on the alarm by pushing a single small button. A signal light tells you when your radio station is tuned in.

If you still think you need a CD player and another speaker and dual alarms — even a subwoofer — you can add those to your otherwise very simple and great-looking clock radio. And for those who simply have no radio anywhere near them? Try Model Satellite with Sirius Satellite Radio built in. Same great look, new modern space-age appeal.

$199.00 at Tivoli Audio.

Are you the type to sit for hours in front of your computer with headphones plugged in, listening repeatedly to your iTunes purchases until your ears bleed and you’re sick to death of them?

Why not let someone else take the driver’s seat for your ears? SomaFM, direct from San Francisco to you, offers seven different non-commercial streams you can mix and match to your heart’s content. Whether you dig stylish lounge, ambient grooves or indie pop rocks, you can find something to end your endless boredom at last.

If you do find something you like, pitch them a little PayPal, won’t you?

SomaFM: Listener Supported, Commercial Free Internet Radio.

If you wanted a truly original timepiece, it would be hard to beat Think The Earth’s WN-1. Made in conjunction with Seiko, the watch face features a view of the earth looking down on the northern hemisphere through a crystal dome. The mini Earth inside the watch rotates counterclockwise at the same rate as the big Earth upon which we all live.

A time zone indicator on the rim shows you what the hour is where you are, and a small orange dot shows the passage of minutes. The piece is powered by a 10-year Lithium battery.

Think The Earth, based in Japan, is a non-profit organization comprised of artists and “founded to promote Earth awareness and provide aid for distressed children.”

$595.00 at Lost Times and other authorized dealers.

So, you’re starting to really get into video production on your computer. You’re thinking, “Gee, it would be great if I could get a 24” wide-aspect LCD screen, except most of them would run me at least $1,700, all the way up to a couple grand! I can’t afford that!”

Howzabout $1,200, then? Yeah, it’s a buttload of cash for a computer monitor, but until you’ve experienced using a widescreen LCD of size at home, you don’t know what you’re missing. Dell’s newest big daddy comes outfitted with every kind of video input you’d ever need, including DVI-D, and with 1000:1 contrast ratio and a maximum resolution of 1920x1200, what couldn’t you do with it?

$1,199.00 at Dell Accessories

See also: Dell’s slightly smaller 20” widescreen LCD in their refurbished inventory at a much more affordable $473.00. Sold out! Available new for $636.65