Wireless Solutions to Cut Dad Loose

Has the dad in your house become part of the furniture? Is he tethered to his computer? One of the goals of this year's Father's Day celebration should be to set him free. Go wireless.

I've put together a few ideas with various price tags, all designed to give dad some oft-needed mobility.

He Can't Miss the Game

Excuses, excuses. Slingbox is a favorite of the Yahoo! Tech Bloggers, and for good reason. You can watch TV on your laptop in some exotic locale, but still be receiving the programming from your home TV halfway around the world. You're using the Internet to send the signal from one location to another, which means that even the NBA Finals can't stop dad from traveling with the family.

The Auto Audiophile

I like HD Radio because it doesn't require a subscription and you can listen to stations all over the country via their digital stream. The Alpine Tua T500HD is one of the first HD tuners for the car. It brings you near-CD quality sound from any participating AM/FM station. (You do need to buy the Alpine stereo as well.) If you haven't a clue about what will work in dad's car, then head over to Crutchfield, where you can type in the car's year, make, and model, and get product compatibility listings.

Look, No Hands Dad

If dad doesn't have hands free driving yet, he ought to. Products like the $129 BlueAnt Supertooth 2 use Bluetooth technology to allow cell phones, MP3 players, and other Bluetooth devices to connect to the speaker. It offers 20 hours of talk time and 800 hours of standby off with its lithium ion battery.

Not Just a Suit Dad

Ben Patterson, our Yahoo! Gadget Hound, got to play with the BlackBerry Curve from AT&T. It is the smallest BlackBerry to use a full QWERTY keyboard and the first BlackBerry with a 2-megapixel camera. BlackBerrys are no longer the sole province of the corporate dad.

Teach Your Dad New Tricks

Family still arguing about who got you lost on the last family trip? Don't want to shell out dough for a GPS just yet? The next time you're in a pickle, impress dad by searching the web on your mobile phone to get the address or number of a place. Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft each offer a way to send them a text message on your phone; they'll send you back the address and phone number of your destination. And sending a text message gets you a faster response than surfing the web on your cell phone. To find out more read this blog.

Buy Dad Some Ringtones

Maybe dad hasn't had much of a chance to download his favorite tones yet. Surprise him. The best place to buy ringtones is on your phone carrier's web site. You can go to other web sites, too, but many of them are of questionable origin. Be sure to check them out carefully with a tool like SiteAdvisor. I've used ThumbPlay, which has a good reputation. Sites that sell ringtones usually have games, too. Get him some of both?

A Man and His Tools

Here's a tool recommendation from the playful folks at Makezine. They call it the Squirt E4 Ultimate Warranty Voider.  It's a specialized Swiss Army knife-looking gadget that includes spring loaded electrical wire cutters, wire strippers of various gauges, a straight knife, three screwdrivers, and more. Don't leave home without it.

Bookworm Dad

Sometimes you can cut the wires and still not get him out of the house. Often there's a good book behind this. The folks at TechNewsWorld rave about Andy Ihnatko's new book iPod Fully Loaded for everyone who's ever used an iPod, beginner through advanced. And for dad at the beach, Matt Richtel , a New York Times technology reporter, makes his debut with Hooked. It's a thriller that begins with an explosion in an Internet café and gallops right on through our frenzied digital age.

Wireless Weather

The dad in our house is in love with his Wireless Weather Forecaster. Five-day, real time reports from AccuWeather, all delivered without wires.

Powerful Thirst Quenching Dads

If it's wine he fancies, try the Sharper Image ice bucket. Plug it in and choose from 10 presets to set your wine chilling (or your sake warming). LEDs let you know when your wine has reached its temperature. The Beer Pager (she says with tongue firmly implanted in cheek) is for dads who are forever picking up the wrong one. Wrap the gadget around the beer and you can find it because it answers to your call.

Running Man

Dad will feel like a million dollars as he works out with the wrist-top Garmin Forerunner 305. It's a GPS and heart rate monitor all in one, and can pinpoint the location of the wearer. It tracks heart rate wirelessly, and you can use it calculate things like consumed calories based on the user's weight and, with the optional Foot Pod, track distance and pace. ($259.99.)