Future's Holiday Gift Guide

I thought to myself this morning, in the -20 degree temperatures here in Chicago: self, how do you combine your love of technology with the holidays? Well, I think it's pretty obvious… Gift List! So, read on to find out what I think you should buy for yourself, or someone else who loves geeky gadgetry.


For stocking-stuffers or cheap friends (actually, you'd be the cheap one):
SanDisk Cruzer Micro 16GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive

I use my flash drive almost everyday (waka waka), so a guy like me would appreciate having a 16GB flash drive since they're so easy to lose. Memory is cheap these days, so 16GB for around $30 aint bad.

Power Support Air Jacket for iPhone 3G/3GS

I've never been a fan of putting cases on electronics, especially anything that's made by Apple, but the Power Support cases are fantastic. It has a soft-touch material, so it's not as slippery as the phone itself. It only covers the back, and comes with a protective clear sticker to go over the screen. For those that hate cases, but really need one, this is the best case out there for the iPhone.

For the 50-bucks-should-do-it crowd:
Double Horse Chinook R/C Helicopter

There's something about flying aircraft indoors that just satisfies everything in life. I'm sure every one of you at some point in your life (probably when you were 5) wanted a remote control car/airplane/helicopter/robot. This gift will definitely fill that void - for about 2 weeks before it breaks into pieces. I've had 2 R/C helicopters in my life, and the average lifespan for both was about 2 weeks… but those two weeks were so fucking fun.

Google Storage + Free Eye-Fi memory card

Ok, not really sure how you can gift this to someone, but I suppose you could give them the money to do it (since you need a google account). Basically, when you sign up to add 200 or more gigabytes of data from Google, you get a free Eye-Fi card. What the hell is an Eye-Fi card? It's actually pretty cool - it can be used with any camera that accepts SD memory cards (most cameras, but make sure they don't have some other memory card requirement, like Sony's Duo Pro cards). When you pop the 4GB memory card into your camera, you can wirelessly transfer the songs onto your computer, or directly to Picasa/Flickr/Facebook. Pretty awesome for people that like taking pictures and using Facebook (which is like, every single girl in the world). Anyways, click here to learn more. Oh, and to check camera compatibility, click here to learn more.

For the I-still-have-an-income crowd:
Canon PowerShot S90 Digital Camera

At $399, its a pretty expensive point-and-shoot camera, but it's the highest quality camera out there for the size. 3" LCD screen, 3.8x optical zoom, high-iso, and a quality 10MP sensor make this camera the best picture-taking pocketable-device. For those that are more interested in the big boys (DSLRs) I highly recommend my camera: the Nikon D90.

Barnes&Noble Nook eBook Reader

Ok, this isn't really a Christmas/Chanuka gift because they're sold out through mid-January, but its still a great gift. In the eBook world, there are three major players: the Amazon Kindle, the Nook, and the Sony eBooks. Never get a Sony, since they aren't tied to the massive collections of books that Amazon or B&N have. The reason why I picked the Nook over the Kindle is because the Nook has an awesome feature - a full color touch screen powered by Android located directly below the e-ink screen. Having this screen opens the door to countless possibilities with this device; for example, listening to pandora while reading a book (maybe I should read a book about grammar, cause I have no fucking clue why we even have a semi-colon).

So that's my list… I hope you don't think less of me. For those of you that just want to give something free, go and bake some cookies or something. Since most of you are on the East Coast, I can't do that for you, but here are my free gifts to you:
Evernote.com
I use Evernote every single day. Basically its a cloud-based note taking application. I have it on my iPhone, PC, Mac and work computer. I use it for keeping an up-to-date To Do list, flight confirmation numbers list, apartment dimensions list (for when I'm at Home Depot or Ikea), holiday gifts list, and more… Seriously, you should start using this right now if you don't already - ITS FREE!

Mint.com
Some people have issues linking their bank accounts with online services, but Mint is one of those things the internet has brought us (like Pandora) that's truly wonderful. I have all my checking and savings accounts, credit cards, Schwabb, and even 401k accounts. The iPhone app is awesome, and I check it everyday for monthly budgeting purposes.

Dropbox.com
I started using Dropbox about a month ago, and I love it. The free account gives you 2GB of space in the cloud. What it does is sync a folder on your hard drive with the folder on their servers… which means you can share your files across multiple computers easily (and since it's syncing the folder on your physical drive, you can still access these files offline after syncing). As mentioned above, I lose my flash drives pretty frequently, so using dropbox to transfer stuff from computer to computer is a great alternative.

Happy Holidays!

- Future