Christmas Gifts

Well, its Christmas time again, so once again, here’s some holiday recommendations from Rich. Hope you all buy early:
h3. Household
* Cusinart Classic Style 2-Slice Chrome Toaster with free shipping from MetroKitchen.com. This is $50. Interesting to see how retro is so in. Just look at what Restoration Hardware has done. Here’s a 1920s toaster about 100 years later. Or if you really want to go crazy spend $280 for a hand-made British toaster.
* “Chef’s Choice Sharpener”:http://www.metrokitchen.com/store/d-mart.asp?command=list&search=ccknfshrp. Besides amazingly great Wustof knives or All Clad cookware, nothing make cooking easier than a really sharp knife. The $129 CC-320 is a great unit. Three levels of sharpening and highly recommended.
h3. Office gadgets
Since I’ve been travelling quite a bit, I’ve been in tune with the latest time saving gadgets:
* “ipod”:http://apple.com/ipod/. Yes, they are expensive, but they are really so neat. The best price performance right now seems to 20GB at $280 street suffices for 99% of all people.
* “Zip Linq”:http://www.ziplinq.com/. They have a great set of retractable cables from “USB”:http://www.ziplinq.com/retractable-cable-usb.html to “Ethernet”:http://www.ziplinq.com/retractable-cable-modular.html. The coolest thing though are the USB to “cell phone chargers”:http://www.ziplinq.com/retractable-cable-cell.html, so you don’t need to carry a separate charger, but can just slave off of a laptop or a AC to USB charger.
* “Ultra Cord”:http://www.ultraproducts.com/index.php?cPath=26_55. Like the folks at Zip Linq, these guys also have retractable cables. I really like their “kits”:http://www.techniz.co.uk/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=88 as stocking stuffers that cost $50 and have 13 different components including a mini-mouse. “Zipzoomfly”:http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=373019 has it for $35.
* “iPod sync cable”:http://www.proporta.com/F02/PPF02P05.php?t_id=821&t_mode=des. Here’s a retractable cable for iPod synchronization.
* “Bluetooth Mouse”. For the person who doesn’t like touchpads.

2 responses to “Christmas Gifts”

  1. Rich Avatar

    The Mini iPod is certainly more convenient. I normally recommend the 20GB iPod because I don’t want to have to explain to folks how to cull their music collection. Easier to just put every song on it.
    I don’t find the time to download that long because most folks don’t add to their collection very much. The initial load is long though you are right. I have 5000 tracks so it fills about 22GB right now.

  2. cechen Avatar
    cechen

    Mini iPod is easier to carry (love mine), and 1000 MP3 favorite songs is plenty on a 4 GB hard drive (I only have about 450 songs on mine). 20 GB is probably overkill for most people (who has the time to download or copy over that many MP3 songs).

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