Adhesive Backed Cord Clips
Today’s feature is one of the simplest products we carry at CableOrganizer.com, but if you ask me, it’s also one of the most useful. I don’t know about you, but I can think of more than a few uses for adhesive-backed cord clips. I’ve used them both at home and at work for hanging Christmas lights (indoors), routing a ridiculously long phone wire around a doorway, and even running cables along the underside of my desktop.
These self-stick clips are small (only ⅝” or ¾” square, your choice), weigh practically nothing, and have a strong adhesive that hangs tenaciously onto walls, furniture, or any other flat surfaces you need them to grip. As far as design goes, our adhesive-backed cord clips are basically tiny plastic square bases that have round-contoured retaining clips molded right into them. They’re very low-profile, so they won’t draw much attention, and are super easy to use – just peel the backing off, stick to a flat surface, clip your cable in, and you’re done.
Cord-It™ Cord Manager
Filed under: Cable Ties, Clips and Grommets, Cable Wraps
For any of you out there who want to get rid of extra cord length with minimum effort, let me introduce you to the Cord-It™ Cord Manager. This compact cord winder requires so little exertion that it can actually organize your cables with no more than a turn of the wrist.
The key to the Cord-It’s simplicity is its unique design. It’s basically a hard plastic case with a slotted, rotating top. To put it in action, just insert any cord up to 5mm in diameter into the slot, turn the top, and watch as the cord is magically shortened to the exact length you need. Okay, so maybe you can’t attribute the cable management so much to “magic” as you can the hidden inner spool. The turning action draws cords inside the case and neatly winds them around the spool at the same time, in one simple motion.
Aside from being easy to use, the Cord-It™ has the added benefit of keeping all of that excess wire clean and free of dust. At only 3″ and 4″ in diameter, both medium and large Cord-Its are perfectly compact, which makes them as great for travel as they are around your home or office. Choose form black, beige, clear or white.
Flexible Desk Grommets
Grommets – they may just be little plastic rings that we never give much thought to, but believe me, a lot of us would start noticing if they suddenly disappeared from our desktops. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of working at a desk fitted with a grommet, then you’ve probably found that computer, keyboard, mouse and speaker cables have a nasty habit of getting in the way. They snake all over your work surface, and then spill over the side of your desk on their way to you computer tower. Sigh.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Ever try routing cables through your desktop? Many desks are available with a small hole drilled through the top, and if your desk didn’t come that way, you can make the hole yourself, provided that the desktop is wood or particle board. These holes are perfect for running cords through, but there’s just one problem – they’re usually very rough or sharp around the edges, which can cause damage to your cables. This is where grommets enter the picture. Grommets snap into these holes, lining the sharp edges and providing a smooth buffer to protect power and data cables.
Our flexible grommets take things one step further by sending your cables in the right direction. The flexible slits cut into the top bend to let your cables pass through, but also hold cords snugly in place anywhere along the grommet’s circumference, so that they end up wherever (on your desktop) you need them to.
In Command
Ever been limited in your decorating because you couldn’t put holes in your walls? I’ve known that frustration more than a few times, and that’s why I’m now such a die-hard fan of 3M’s line of Command™ clips and hooks. Command™ is 3M‘s proprietary silicone adhesive, which has become famous for locking onto walls and other smooth surfaces, then removing with no trace of damage or residue. The hooks are perfect for hanging up everyday household items like keys and potholders, and the smaller clips are great for routing wires and cables. But don’t stop there — use your imagination.
I, personally, have found that the Decorating Clips – typically suggested for use with Christmas lights — are also fantastic for decorating with ribbon and flower garlands. Not too long ago, I was trying to decorate a church for a wedding, but hit a few snags in my plan when I had to find a way to hang flowers and bows without putting tacks or nails into the churches’ wall or kneeling bench (hadn’t thought about that). So I improvised with the clips, and they worked perfectly. I was able to stick them onto any surface I needed to, and then wire the flowers and ribbon to them. Everything came out looking great, and when it was time to break down, the clips came off without a hitch, leaving smooth, undamaged surfaces in their wake.
Cable Turtle
This blog has been up and running for less than 2 weeks, but I’m still amazed that it’s taken me this long to get around to my absolute favorite, the Cable Turtle. Make no mistake: there’s nothing remotely reptilian about it. This sleekly cute cord organizer is easy to use, extremely versatile, and comes in a rainbow of colors — form and function in perfect combination. As a matter of fact, it’s functionality and aesthetic qualities actually landed it in the Museum of Modern (MoMA) Design Collection. Starting to feel interested?
To put it briefly, the Cable Turtle winds up and hides excess cord length you’d rather not deal with. Since it’s available in 3 sizes (mini, small, and large), it’s perfect for shortening everything from earbud cords to USB cables to lamp cords. It makes perfect sense almost anywhere, including home, office, school, car, purse, laptop bag… you get the picture.
Now let’s talk about how it works. First of all, you flip the flexible “shell” open (this is a Turtle, after all). Next, wrap extra cord length around the inner spool. And last, snap it closed again. Not to be terse with the instructions, but that’s really all there is to it!
Judging by how many of my co-workers own a Cable Turtle, this has to be one of the most universally-purchased items among CableOrganizer employees: sooner or later, everybody buys one. And why wouldn’t we?
ONE-WRAP®, a thousand uses…
One of the first products I got to play with in my early days at CableOrganizer is still one of my favorites: the Velcro® ONE-WRAP® wire wrap. Yes, you heard right, a Velcro® cable tie. I’ve been a big Velcro® fan for most of my life, starting with the hook-and-loop fastened sneakers in my pre-shoelace-tying days, and proceeding all the way up through my college years, when double-sided Velcro® tape stood in for nails when I wanted to hang things on my dorm room wall.
Fast forward to 2006, when I found out that Velcro® is also terrific for bundling cables into neat coils. These little belt-shaped wraps loop around extension cords, computer cables, ropes, and really anything else that you can coil up and bundle. They adhere to themselves, so they’re incredible easy to use, and you can reuse them almost infinitely — it seems that no matter how many time you fasten and unfasten them, they never wear out.
Needless to say, it didn’t take me long to start converting my friends and family to Velcro-ism… so far, my Dad carries them along anytime he needs to take computer equipment on the road, my rock star Bro uses them to manage the cables on his recording equipment, and my friend the aesthetician finds that they keep the cords hanging off a laser machine perfectly tidy.
So, what will you use them for?