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2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

Adam Engst - 12:10pm Nov 20, 2006 PST

It's time once again for our annual gift ideas special issue,
featuring suggestions from readers. These can be ideas that you have
for other people or things you'd like to receive, and if the item is
unusual, so much the better. Please try to suggest items that haven't
appeared in previous years - you can read the gift issues from
previous years at the URLs below.

<http://db.tidbits.com/issue/808>
<http://db.tidbits.com/issue/758>
<http://db.tidbits.com/issue/709>
<http://db.tidbits.com/issue/659>
<http://db.tidbits.com/issue/609>
<http://db.tidbits.com/issue/560>
<http://db.tidbits.com/issue/510>
<http://db.tidbits.com/issue/460>

As with previous years, I'm setting up multiple threads (others to
follow this message) as buckets for different types of suggestions.
The guidelines are:

1) One suggestion per message, and try to keep suggestions in the
appropriate thread. That will make it easier for us to weed out
duplicates and to work with the full set when it comes time to build
the issue or article.

2) Make sure to give the reason why you're recommending something -
one word recommendations aren't helpful to anyone.

3) Include a URL with each item, if one is available. If no URL is
available, include at least one of the following: an email address,
an 800 number and a non-800 number (for international readers), a fax
number, or a physical address.

4) Please recommend only others' products - if you want to plug your
own stuff, at least go to the effort of getting someone else to write
to us.

5) Let's try to keep the discussion of suggestions to an absolute
minimum. I don't want to rule out the possibility of posting a reply
to some suggestion with useful or appropriate commentary, but it's
best to stay on topic.

---

Please use this thread for posting hardware gift suggestions. Be sure
to note if a piece of hardware requires a certain type of port (USB,
FireWire, etc.). You can see suggestions from previous years at:

<http://db.tidbits.com/series/1249>

cheers... -Adam

Mark as Read

(older msg: 5)

Fearghas McKay (apparently) - Nov 27, 2006 6:41 am (#6 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 37

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

At 15:20 -0800 21/11/06, aaprjohn wrote:
>
>For other (even less expensive) mini camcorder alternatives see
><<http://www.aiptek.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=AS&Category_Code=DC1>>.
>Not sure how they interface with Macs, but it shouldn’t be a problem.

The Aiptek stuff that I have used in the past doesn't ship with Mac
drivers, only for Windows and they don't just work on a Mac :-( I haven't
used them for a couple of years as none of the usual third party drivers
worked either.

That may have changed but they don't seem to be publicising it on the website.

fe

jimcarr - Nov 27, 2006 6:41 am (#7 Total: 25)

Posts: 45

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

In 2004, there was a recommendation for Canopus ADC 100, now discontinued. Here is a link to current product lineup-- http://www.canopus.com/products/videoconversion.php

If you still have stuff on VHS, those tapes have gotten two years older. I don't own a product yet to do this, so no personal recommendation.

Lewis Butler (apparently) - Nov 27, 2006 6:41 am (#8 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 1048

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

On 23-Nov-2006, at 14:21, jimcarr wrote:
> Bigger and better internal hard drives. No specific recommendation
> except that SATA seems to be the new standard.

I think Seagate is the brand to go with. I used to buy nothing but
maxtors, but I've suddenly started having a rash of problems with
them (I've had 4 failures in the alst year, all on drives under 2
years old). Sure, they get replaced, but the replacement gains the
original's warranty with no extension, so now I'm looking at a
terabyte of Maxtor drives I don't really trust.

I've been about to click "buy" on a 500GB SATA for $150 all day. Not
that I NEED it. I just WANT it.

rick643 - Nov 27, 2006 6:41 am (#9 Total: 25)

Posts: 1

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

I just bought an HP LaserJet 1022nw and cannot say enough great things about it.

mostly, I will say it's really well priced, prints nicely, and is wireless!

I've had many Laserwriters in my life, small little Apple units, huge Canon multitasking digital printer/copier things, color units. the technology continues to get faster, print better, and the cost is amazing ($349 at radioshack.com). and now, wireless! it installed fast, saw my network, and shows up very nicely using Rendevous.

A fine gift for under $400, to yourself, or any family needing a networked printer.

rick -- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * rick cricow voice:541-484-7323 net sales fax:541-484-3099 p.o. box 22438 orders:800-323-4463 eugene, or 97402 u.s.a. on the web:www.yujean.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

jsparks929 (apparently) - Nov 29, 2006 1:15 pm (#10 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 19

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

On Nov 27, 2006, at 8:41 AM, Fearghas McKay wrote:

> At 15:20 -0800 21/11/06, aaprjohn wrote:
>>
>> For other (even less expensive) mini camcorder alternatives see
>> <<http://www.aiptek.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?
>> Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=AS&Category_Code=DC1>>.
>> Not sure how they interface with Macs, but it shouldn’t be a problem.
>
> The Aiptek stuff that I have used in the past doesn't ship with Mac
> drivers, only for Windows and they don't just work on a Mac :-( I
> haven't used them for a couple of years as none of the usual third party
> drivers worked either.

Re the Aiptek stuff. I emailed them with the question of
compatibility as they appeared on a CNET article on after
Thanksgiving deals. This was before the tidbits question on hardware
came out. It's been a week with no response, not even an
acknowledgment of my inquiry.

Jean

Nigel Stanger (apparently) - Nov 29, 2006 1:15 pm (#11 Total: 25)

via email - Dunedin, New Zealand

Posts: 436

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

In the Just Plain Weird hardware category, how about a USB drive to match
your favourite food?

<http://gadgets.fosfor.se/the-top-10-weirdest-usb-drives-ever/>

--
Nigel Stanger, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND.
http://xri.net/=nigel.stanger

mmatty (apparently) - Nov 29, 2006 1:26 pm (#12 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 383

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

A few years back I recommended a multitasking hardware device that
I've become very fond of - a USB port that features a cup warmer:

http://www.usbgeek.com/prod_detail.php?prod_id=0195

Someone recently sent me a link to a product that extends the concept
to the dog days of summer, a USB port/cooler:

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1464

I put in on my list of things to buy if I don't get it as a holiday
gift.

Marilyn

mmatty (apparently) - Dec 1, 2006 6:34 am (#13 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 383

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

Dress up your Mac for the holiday season:

http://www.usbgeek.com/prod_detail.php?prod_id=0332

http://www.usbgeek.com/prod_detail.php?prod_id=0330

And for the iPod going formal for New Year's Eve:

http://www.plasticsmith.com/tux

Marilyn

mmatty (apparently) - Dec 2, 2006 3:12 pm (#14 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 383

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

I wasn't sure whether to put this in the Zune Doom thread or not, but
the new iPod Shuffle ad campaign (which I think is great) says it all:

http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/ads/

At $79 + free shipping from the Apple Store, it's a great gift for
anyone:

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/
RSLID?mco=3CE2BB6A&nclm=iPodshuffle

Marilyn

mmatty (apparently) - Dec 2, 2006 3:12 pm (#15 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 383

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

The flower shaped Spyro speakers + subwoofer from JBL look and sound
beautiful, with the added benefit of being . IMHO, they are
reasonably priced at $129. And added benefit is that they can be
tricked out with optional and interchangeable colored covers.

The basic iPod white model is available here:

http://www.harmanaudio.com/search_browse/product_detail.asp?
urlMaterialNumber=JBLSPYROWCH&status=

However, I'm waiting till after Dec. 19th to order the model in black
to match my beloved new video iPod:

http://www.harmanaudio.com/search_browse/product_detail.asp?
urlMaterialNumber=JBLSPYROBCH&status=

Marilyn

kevinv (apparently) - Dec 8, 2006 6:36 am (#16 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 1377

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

[FYI, all messages to this thread that you receive on or after 08-Dec-06 were not included in the gift issue, which went out last night. -Adam]

Thumb drives are always popular stocking stuffers and the best prices I've
seen are from MicroCenter -- $16 for a 1 GB thumb drive (or SD card) and
$30 for 2GB versions. Both are USB 2.0 for faster speeds.

<http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=242478>
<http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=250132>

fcchuan - Dec 8, 2006 6:51 am (#17 Total: 25)

Posts: 61

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

I have a ScanSnap 5110EOX which has changed my life. It's the 21st century version of the old Paperport scanners from 1995 (stop retching), with niceties such as colour, double-sided scanning, and USB 2 for speed. It only scans to PDF, and is not TWAIN-compliant. As sheet feeding scanner, it does not scan bound books/magazines. It is AFAIK a unique product on the market.

It handles receipts to A4/foolscap/letter paper. I use it to archive paysheets, invoices, statements etc for storage and filing on the hard disk.

Note #1: the available models vary around worldwide. In some countries Fujitsu has released the Mac-specific 5100EOXM which includes Mac Adobe Acrobat Standard 7. There is also a EOX2 model but I don't know what the extra "2" signifies.

My plain 5110EOX came with PC software, and was much cheaper. However, I needed to download the Mac driver off the Japanese Fujitsu site. After installation, one can live with the Japanese instructions, or splice the english.lproj resource folder from the English EOXM driver into the Japanese EOX driver. That step is not hard, and is optional. The driver is universal binary.

http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/peripherals/scanners/workgroup/fi-5110eoxm.html

Invaluable discussion here: http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=32046&pp=20

Note #2: A new version has been announced: Scansnap S500M, but I do not know the benefits.

Note #3: The scanner pairs well with PDFPen: for filling out scanned paper forms, deleting unwanted pages (for archival), and annotation. PDFPen is also scriptable (unlike Apple's Preview), and I have some Applescripts that e.g. rename the files after scanning (for easy searching).

http://www.smileonmymac.com/PDFpen/index.html

fcchuan - Dec 8, 2006 6:51 am (#18 Total: 25)

Posts: 61

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

Flash memory cards are ubiquitous, but only useful if you carry them around. They are now small and cheap enough to put on your keyring. Useful, and yet generic enough to be a good gift. 1-2GB variants provide enough elbow room for photos, movies, and even application suites from:

Mac http://www.freesmug.org/portableapps/

PC http://portableapps.com/apps

My personal favourites are:

OCZ Mini-Kart Similar form factor available in Australia as the Aigo flash drive.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_ultra_slim_mini_kart_usb_2_0_flash_drive

OCZ Roadster Similar form factor available in Australia as Shintaro Mini Pocket Disk

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_roadster_usb_2_0_flash_drive

cdevers (apparently) - Dec 8, 2006 7:08 pm (#19 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 145

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

On Dec 8, 2006, at 8:36 AM, Kevin van Haaren wrote:

> Thumb drives are always popular stocking stuffers and the best
> prices I've
> seen are from MicroCenter -- $16 for a 1 GB thumb drive (or SD
> card) and
> $30 for 2GB versions. Both are USB 2.0 for faster speeds.

Perhaps I got a bum one, but I bought one of those $16 1gb drives
from Microcenter a couple of months ago, and it certainly doesn't
seem like USB2 speeds. It isn't always this bad, but I've seen it
take a couple of minutes to transfer really small (e.g. 500kb) files.

If it's supposed to be USB2, maybe I should go back to them to
exchange it. The store display when I got it didn't say anything one
way or the other about transfer speeds, and they were just loose in a
big can with no packaging stating anything at all, so I figured that
this was just the drawback of getting something so cheap.

In any case, if you get one of these, make sure it works as well as
you're hoping for before the return period runs out. I can live with
it running slowly, as I don't use it very often anyway, but I'd
probably use it more if it works as you're suggesting it's supposed
to work.

--
Chris Devers

kevinv (apparently) - Dec 12, 2006 12:57 pm (#20 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 1377

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

--On December 8, 2006 6:08:16 PM -0800 Chris Devers <cdevers

pobox.com>
wrote:

> Perhaps I got a bum one, but I bought one of those $16 1gb drives
> from Microcenter a couple of months ago, and it certainly doesn't
> seem like USB2 speeds. It isn't always this bad, but I've seen it
> take a couple of minutes to transfer really small (e.g. 500kb) files.

Hmm, I've got one too and have never run into that slow a speed. I haven't
used it much with my mac, I've got it loaded down with Windows apps from
PortableApps.com and use it at work.

<http://portableapps.com/>

Some of the installs with lots of little files (Portable Firefox seemed to
be the worst) can seem slow but not minutes per file.

> If it's supposed to be USB2, maybe I should go back to them to
> exchange it. The store display when I got it didn't say anything one
> way or the other about transfer speeds, and they were just loose in a
> big can with no packaging stating anything at all, so I figured that
> this was just the drawback of getting something so cheap.

Same way I picked mine up. No markings just loose in a bin by the cashier.
I also picked up an SD card that has been working in my camera without
issues. I'd definitely exchange it. Fortunately if you want to give one as
a gift you don't have to rip apart a bunch of packaging to test it before
giving it away.

Steve McCabe (apparently) - Dec 12, 2006 12:57 pm (#21 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 29

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

I'd have thought it would be obvious. Give a Zune ‹ that way you can be
guaranteed that you're getting them the gift that nobody else is getting
them, and you can be sure it won't be returned, because you can bet your
life the shop won't take it back.

Get a Zune. Because... Because.... Errrrmmm....somebody help me out
here....

Steve

polaro (apparently) - Dec 14, 2006 3:18 pm (#22 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 3

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

One of the things I asked for this year is a Lacie Ethernet Disk.

<http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Ethernet-Disk-mini-300951U/dp/B0009K3IGE/ref=cm_lm_fullview_prod_7/002-3016334-1968058>

Basically its a networked hard drive. I haven't used this model so
can't comment on it specifically but from its specs it seems to have
what I am looking for.

Both my wife and I have laptops but like to share our music
collection. Currently that's done via an external FireWire hard
drive, but what we find is that we never quit sync up as much as we
would like. My podcast listening suffers especially due to this.

Our hope is that we can keep our iTunes music library as a network
disk that's always available. I'm sure there will some hoops to jump
through, but I expect they will be less than the current process.

The Lacie drive appears to fit my needs:

Networked
Explicit Apple File System support
Maximum file is 2GB, which should be an issue since I won't expect to
do video editing over the network
Some built in security.

Regards,
Jeff

---
Jeff Luszcz
http://www.luszcz.com

Chris Pepper (apparently) - Dec 14, 2006 4:06 pm (#23 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 843

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

At 11:57 AM -0800 2006/12/12, Kevin van Haaren wrote:
>--On December 8, 2006 6:08:16 PM -0800 Chris Devers <cdevers

pobox.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Perhaps I got a bum one, but I bought one of those $16 1gb drives
>>from Microcenter a couple of months ago, and it certainly doesn't
>>seem like USB2 speeds. It isn't always this bad, but I've seen it
>>take a couple of minutes to transfer really small (e.g. 500kb) files.
>
>Hmm, I've got one too and have never run into that slow a speed. I haven't
>used it much with my mac, I've got it loaded down with Windows apps from
>PortableApps.com and use it at work.

What computer is it connected to? Older Macs (iMac G3, most
PMG4s, etc.) are USB 1.1 only, and their ports are 12mbps, even if
you plug in a faster device.

--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
<http://www.extrapepperoni.com/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

Mike Cohen (apparently) - Dec 14, 2006 4:06 pm (#24 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 133

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

Giving someone a Zune... is the equivalent of giving them a lump of coal :)

cdevers (apparently) - Dec 14, 2006 8:21 pm (#25 Total: 25)

via email

Posts: 145

Re: 2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

On Dec 14, 2006, at 6:06 PM, Chris Pepper wrote:

> At 11:57 AM -0800 2006/12/12, Kevin van Haaren wrote:
>> --On December 8, 2006 6:08:16 PM -0800 Chris Devers
>> <cdevers

pobox.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Perhaps I got a bum one, but I bought one of those $16 1gb drives
>>> from Microcenter a couple of months ago, and it certainly doesn't
>>> seem like USB2 speeds. It isn't always this bad, but I've seen it
>>> take a couple of minutes to transfer really small (e.g. 500kb)
>>> files.
>>
>> Hmm, I've got one too and have never run into that slow a speed. I
>> haven't
>> used it much with my mac, I've got it loaded down with Windows
>> apps from
>> PortableApps.com and use it at work.
>
> What computer is it connected to? Older Macs (iMac G3, most
> PMG4s, etc.) are USB 1.1 only, and their ports are 12mbps, even if
> you plug in a faster device.

Multiple computers, Mac and PC.

My two computers are a dual 2.3ghz PMG5 and a black 2.0ghz Macbook,
but I've also had it plugged into everything from original iMac
233mhz and similar vintage PCs on up to other current stuff.

It isn't the computer. It's the flash device. Good thinking though.

--
Chris Devers

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2006 Holiday Gift Ideas: Hardware

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