Here’s a very special post to the animal lovers out there who are caring for a feline friend or canine chum. For them, their beloved pets are part of the family, bringing smiles and laughter into the home, keeping their owners safe and always reminding them that no matter how bad the world treats them, they will always be loved by their furkids at home.

Whether you treat your doggies and kitties like royalty, like part of the family or need them to help keep you alive, you know for certain that they deserve your love and protection, and maybe some of these gadgets picked out especially for them.

We have a list of fun gadgets and toys that will keep your pets safe, happy and well taken care of. You can track your pet’s health, their whereabouts, ensure that they’re well fed and having fun, even when you don’t have the time to play fetch with them. Know of more gadgets? Share them in the comments section.

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1. FitBark

There are health trackers for humans in forms of wristbands, and then there’s FitBark: an activity tracker for your dog to wear around its collar. Whenever it’s near an authorized smartphone or a FitBark base station, it’ll send the dog’s vital information to their servers so you can view it on your smartphone in real time.

Your dogs will have daily health goals to achieve by being active and eating at correct times. FitBark will chart your dog’s progress and may even inform you when your dog is feeling sick due to lack of activity. [$99]

2. Halo Mini

The Halo Mini is an illuminated pet collar for pets of all sizes. Having it for night walks is great so motorists can see you and your pet under low-light conditions. Its rechargeable batteries can run its LEDs for up to 75 hours on flash mode on a single 2-hour charge.

Their Kickstarter project ended not too long ago so you’ll have to wait for it to be released to consumers. It’s available in Red, Green & Blue options and are weatherproof but not meant to be worn while swimming. [$45]

3. Dart Automatic Pet Laser Toy

Cat owners will know of the cat’s natural nemesis, the laser dot. The Dart is a fun way to give your furry little kittens a reason to catch some exercise. It comes with a 360-degree rotating and pivoting laser head. All you have to do is place it on a high surface with plenty of room to aim the dot at, and let it rip.

There are 16 speed settings and combinations and it can be automatically turned off after 10, 15 or 20 minutes of runtime. The auto off function is great for when you need to keep your overly attached pet from letting you leave home. [$29.99]

4. Petcube

Travel a lot? Then, the Petcube is a great companion for your pet. It’s a cube that sits on top of a table or shelf and has a camera so you can see your pets through the app on your smartphone or tablet. You can also speak to your pets and hear it through the app as the Petcube has built-in microphone and speakers.

If that’s not enough, there’s a laser pointer that allows you to play with your pet while watching them through the camera. Petcube aims to be social as you can allow your family or friends to use your Petcube. If you have the time, you can even search to access and play with other Petcubes. [Pre-Order]

5. Power Pet Automatic Pet Door

Have a cat/dog which can’t be tied down and goes about like it owns the place? This automatic pet door would really come in handy. Unlike the traditional type of pet doors, this one reacts to the sensor attached to your pet’s collar to trigger the door to open. This way you can prevent other wildlife or strays from entering your home.

The Power Pet door also can detect when your pet wants to enter (with its directional sensing system) and when it is just idly passing by. When your pet is back into the home, the pet door is securely locked to prevent any forms of home intrusion. [$222.54]

6. GoDogGo Fetch Machine

If you easily get tired of throwing balls for your hyperactive dog to fetch, then you can get this awesome fetch machine for it. It runs on battery power for 25 hours so you can bring it on the go. All your pup has to do is return the ball into the basket for it to shoot out again. GoDogGo also has a safety sensor that stops any shooting if it detects the dog to be near the ball outlet. Better be safe than sorry.

It has 3 distance settings and 2 different interval settings, suitable for dogs of any size. You can also use the remote control so your dog can do all the fetching without having to return the ball. Overall, a very fun-filled device for when you just can’t keep up with your ‘best friend’. [$139.99]

7. Pintofeed

Pintofeed is an automatic food dispenser for your pet which is controlled by its app on your iOS, Android or Windows 8 smartphone. The device connects to your home Wi-Fi so you can wirelessly dispense food for your pet whenever you can’t be home to do so. The app is feature-filled and you can even create feeding schedules based on your typical feeding times.

It can also send you notifications about when your pet is fed, as well as monitor your pet’s food intake. It also allows more than one family member to control it, and a dispensing mechanism that allows different food sizes, a good feature for owners with a few different pets at home. [$149]

8. Whistle

Whistle is another activity monitor for the collar of your dog where you can track its walks, play and rest. Using it over a period of time will give you analytics on trends, and you can even get alerts if there is any change in behaviour, which may indicate that your pet is sick. It is Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi-enabled to sync data to your smartphone (currently on iOS 6 or newer, and with Android on the way).

Data collected can also be sent to your vet to keep the vet abreast with your dog’s state of health. It’s fully shockproof and waterproof so your if your dog is a swimmer, it doesn’t even have to take it off. You can now only pre-order it and shipping will start in the fall of 2013. [$99.95]

9. Go-Go Dog Pals

The Go-Go Dog Pals is a toy that both the owner and pet would enjoy. It’s a remote-controlled device fit for the pet who loves a good chase. Unlike conventional remote controlled cars, the outer shell of this device is sturdy and durable for dogs bites and ‘accidents’.

It has a top speed of 22 mph, can move short grass or turfs, but has a less-than-desirable battery life. Batteries will only run for 15 minutes, although for some pets, that is more than enough for a full cardio session. [$229.99]

10. Tagg Pet Tracker

The Tagg pet tracker is an accurate GPS system for your pet that only works in the United States, including Hawaii and certain parts of Alaska (see coverage map). The collars work with a docking station that also acts as a charger for the battery in the collar. The docking station also acts as a virtual fence with the feature to notify you when your pet is out of this fence.

It can send you an email, a text and let you track your pet’s activities via the smartphone app. The collar is also waterproof and batteries only require recharging once, or twice a month. It’s an advanced system for serious pet owners and requires a monthly subscription for the service. [$99.95]

Tom Eckert is a sculptor who embraces traditional methods to carve and paint wood pieces into sculptures, except you can’t tell that his sculptures are made of wood. You see, he has this amazing ability to make them look like other materials, most amazingly silk! I know it’s hard to believe, so I will let these sculptures prove it to you.

(Image Source: Tom Eckert)

Below we have selected 10 superb examples of his skill from his gallery. To show you that these sculptures are made of wood, check out this video. Stop rubbing your eyes and start hitting that Share button. Show Eckert your love for his maddening superpower.

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Camisia. This is made of wood. ‘Nuff said.

Marcel’s Shovel. Yup, still wood.

Martyl’s Purse. Eckert can transform the wood (mostly basswood, linden and limewood) into anything he wants.

Night Watch. Part of the magic is made possible by traditional painting techniques to emphasize the object’s physical characteristics, such as the softness of cloth.

Conjuring Book. Mind you, there’s no any support under the book, it’s ‘levitating‘ aka held up by the stiff cloth over it. Looks like magic, doesn’t it?

Rising of the Sphere. Like I said, magic!

Stratagem. Tom Eckert will always go one step beyond to trick the audience, and this masterpiece is the best evidence for his work principle.

Twisted. From a visual perspective, it looks like this napkin is frozen in time, but they are in fact, a single wood sculpture.

Wall Rags. The reason that most sculptures are in cloth form is because cloth has completely opposite characteristic to wood, thus it’s easier to achieve visual deception. But only if your name is Tom Eckert.

Still Life. It all started with a passion to always create something, then it’s turned into sculptures, then magic, then legen-wait-for-it-dary.

Impressed? You can visit Tom Ecker’s gallery for more.

Slicing your Photoshop layers to web elements is indeed tiring. And if you aim to translate all those Photoshop layer effects into CSS, it could be even more tedious. “What CSS properties should I use to replicate these effects?” and “What vendor prefix to include?” would probably be some of the questions that might pop-up in your mind during the process.

Recently, we came across a tool called CSS Hat. It’s a Photoshop plugin that turns your layer effects into CSS3. Let’s take a look at how it works.

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The Features

As mentioned, CSS Hat translates your Photoshop effects, like Gradient Overlay, Drop Shadow, and Inner/Outer Glow, into standard CSS syntax in only a few clicks.

CSS Hat also supports translation into CSS-Preprocessor syntax like Sass, SCSS, LESS, and Stylus.

One thing to note, however, is that the generated output of LESS code uses LESSHat mixins library, CSS Hat’s sibling. So, to ensure that you can use the output, download the library, and include this line at the top your LESS stylesheet.

 @import "lesshat.less"; 

CSS Hat uses Compass to generate CSS3 mixins for SCSS or Sass.

Output Option

There are several options included to allow customization of the output. You can add comment to styles generated from the layer effect, include the vendor prefix, translate the layer dimensions into width and height property, and wrap the style rules in a class selector.

Unlike the previously covered CSS3Ps, which generates code output on the Cloud, CSS Hat on the other hand runs the process locally in your machine. To see more how this plugin works in action, watch the following video.

Conclusion

Great products rarely come for free; currently CSS Hat is priced at $29.99. Furthermore, CSS Hat could run both on Windows and Mac, but you need Photoshop CS4 and above to be able to use this plugin. If you are still running on CS3, perhaps it is time for you to make an upgrade.