Newsweek, June 2, 2008

FlyLite
-clothing butler for frequent business travelers. New customers pay an initial $500 fee and pack their bags. FlyLite clean, press and store the clothes, polish the shoes and scan everything into a virtual iCloset. Each trip, travelers can virtually pack their suitcases by dragging and dropping clothing icons, after which Flylite delivers the bags to any US destination. After each stay, Flylite picks up the bags, cleans the clothes and stores everything for the next trip.

Cutting Water Consumption

Quench
-from Australia's HydroCo, first cycle is normal shower for sudsing, shampooing and rinsing that lasts two minutes, then it starts recycling the hot, suds-free water, saving about 30 gallons for a seven-minute shower, costs $4000.

Eco-Drop Shower
-from Italy's Tommaso Colia, floor mats with concentric circles that look like ripples in a rain puddle, the circles pulsate to become uncomfortable for a person showering too long

See-Through Bathtub
-from Belgian design student, the bathtub is marked like a measuring cup, the levels tell you how much drinking water you're wasting

Books
-How to be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work, Megan Hustad
-Escape From Corporate America: A Practical Guide to Creating the Career of Your Dreams, Pamela Skillings
-Millionaire by Thirty: The Quickest Path to Early Financial Independence, Douglas R. Andrew, Emron D. Andrew, and Aaron R. Andrew

Latin Links
-La Loma Club de Golf in San Luis Potosi: Jack Nicklaus Signature Course (www.lalomagolf.com.mx)
-El Camaleon near Cancun: Greg Norman-designed (mayakobagolf.com)
-La Paz Golf Club in Bolivia (lapazgolfclub.com)

Cookies That Cost a Fortune
-Parisian macarons, $72 for 48, lepicerie.com
-personalized fortunes on the inside of dark- or white-chocolate-coated Giant Wedding Fortune Cookies, $100, fortunatebiscuits.com
-Butterfles in Nature cookies, big, hand-iced sugar biscuits in bold hues at Eleni's in New York, $75, elenis.com

Rate Escapes
Inflation is on the rise, but there are ways to protect your portfolio and purchasing power

Look at traditional inflation fighters
-food, timber and non-precious metals might be safer than gold and real estate. Look to buy within inexpensive exchange-traded funds like iShares GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust ETF (GSG) or iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index Total Return ETN (DJP), and Black-Rock Global Resources Fund (SSGRX).

Don't go overboard
-keep 5% of your investment portfolio reserved for anti-inflation investments like T. Rowe Price New Era Fund. Don't plow all funds into commodity investments.

Buy stocks
-they usually do well in periods of moderate inflation (5% or so). Go for consumer-goods companies that have room to raise prices and solid blue chips with strong dividends.

Consider bonds
-Treasury inflation-protected securities and I bonds guarantee that yields will rise to match growth in the consumer price index, but yields are very low now (under 2%). Look for better yields in inflation-protected bonds issued by corporations (incapital.com) and other countries via a new exchange-traded fund, SPDR DB International Government Inflation-Protected Bond ETF (WIP), or Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities (VIPSX) and Harbor Real Return Fund (HARRX)

The Dumbest Generation? Don't Be Dumb
Really, don't we all know by now that finding examples of teens' and twentysomethings' ignorance is like shooting fish in a barrel? - Link

Photography Books
-The Family of Man, exhibition put together for the Museum of Modern Art by its photography curator, Edward Steichen
-The Americans, Robert Frank

Job-Hunting Teens
-snagajob.com, an hourly job-listing web site
-coolworks.com, for teens willing to travel for more interesting jobs

Bag It, With Style
-flipandtumble.com, folds like a pair of socks into a 3-inch ball in less than 5 seconds, the secret is a patent-pending sewn-in spandex pouch, $12
-chicobag.com, no-nonsense 16x14-inch nylon bag folds into 3x4-inch integrated pouch and can onto anything with its carabinerlike clip, also machine washable, $5
-envirosax.com, 44 different designs and certified up to 40 pounds, $8.50