Insider whimsy for the tech crowd

What: ComputerGear

Who: Terry Powers, founder and president, and her husband, Mark Mackaman, vice president of operations

What they do: Since 1992, the Redmond company has sold tech novelties in the form of T-shirts, gadgets and gizmos for the computer enthusiast — everything from desktop décor to cubical art.

Best seller: One of the first and most successful products continues to be the "Insufficient Memory at This Time" T-shirt.

Genesis: Powers said the idea came from her husband. "We started it almost as a dare," she recalls. "It was 1992 and computers weren't very friendly at all. My husband said there's got to be a way to make computers more friendly." ComputerGear was their answer.

A sampling: A man slamming his fist into a computer screen is the handle of a coffee mug. A denim button-up shirt has the pocket protector — calculator, pencils and all — embroidered on the pocket. There's the Internet bubble-burst shirt: "Will code for food." And the Microsoft bash: "The box said, 'requires Windows 98 or better,' so I installed Linux."

Bricks and clicks: Released its first catalog in 1994 and now sends out 2 million around the U.S. Launched a Web site (www.computergear.com) in 1995 and has a storefront at its Redmond headquarters, near Microsoft. Powers said they've had other physical locations in the past, but mainly during the holiday season in temporary locations.

Demographic: Most customers are age 25 to 55, and most are men or their wives or girlfriends, Powers said. "Since guys are so difficult to buy gifts for, almost every single year, almost on the same day, people will be buying birthday and Christmas gifts," she said. "It's almost eerie."

Secret sauce: Nearly all items have been trademarked, with most of the ideas coming from Powers and her team of 15 employees. Some ideas come from customers, including a T-shirt that says, "There's no place like 127.0.0.1." The reference is an inside joke. If you try to connect to that "address" through a network, you'd loop back to your own machine.

Feeling old: Some of the jokes have been retired — those involving floppy disks, for instance. Younger customers have "only known CDs," Powers said.

Growth prospects: Powers said revenue has doubled almost every year for the past few years. Even after the Internet bubble burst, sales were strong. "All those dot-goners bought a lot of our stuff to feel better about the time frame," Power said. "It's like candy; sales go up when it's bad. People are always going to do hair and nails no matter what. Our stuff still makes people laugh."

— Tricia Duryee