Geek Stocking Stuffers
In the course of my on-line Christmas shopping and hunting for good gift ideas I’ve come across a few items that I think would make excellent stocking stuffers for any geeks you might have on your gift list. They’d also be good for any low-price gift exchange you might have at the office or school. Some of them I own so can review directly, others I’ve only seen but find appealing. In the spirit of “give a gift you’d like to have for yourself”, these are all items I’d love to find in my stocking on Christmas morning.
iBend
If you like to watch movies or TV shows on your iPhone or iPod touch you’ve learned to cradle it in your hands for long periods of time or rest it against something. On long flights you figure out some way to set it on the seat-back tray and prop it up. Instead, consider the iBend - a clever piece of small, flexible plastic that curls up to form the perfect stand. When not it use it’s small enough to fit in your iPhone/iPod case. For $5.99 plus shipping you get two of them and there are several colorful designs. I have one and it works great!
Emergency Flashlight Charger
There’s nothing worse than having your cell phone, GPS, MP3 player, or other critical gizmo run out of battery power while you’re on the road and away from an electrical outlet. External battery packs are readily available to help with that but you need to keep them charged too. I’ve seen a few emergency chargers that would take a AA battery, which is great, but now you can have one that’s also a bright LED flashlight. It comes with three connectors that fit a wide range of devices - mini-USB, BlackBerry, Motorola, Samsung, LGE, HTC, etc. The case is metal so it’s very sturdy (though that makes it a bit heavy.) It’s available from Wireless Ground, on sale for the holidays at $14.95 plus shipping. I have one of these and keep it in my travel kit. I’m not sure that it’ll charge an iPod but plan to see if I can make that work.
Monster Outlets-to-Go
Hotel and meeting rooms simply don’t have enough open electrical outlets. Even finding one to use can be difficult unless you’re prepared to unplug a lamp or alarm clock, and one open outlet is never enough. Carrying a regular extension cord isn’t an option, and simple outlet multipliers aren’t spacious enough to accommodate several charger plugs or power bricks. Monster Outlets-to-Go is just what you need. They come in 3 outlet, 4 outlet, or 6 outlet models in several colors and cleverly have the outlets on front and back to give more room for wide plug-ins. I don’t have one (yet, hint) but they look like a perfect addition to my travel kit. $15-$20 plus shipping from a variety of sources including Amazon.
Math Mug
I already have a cupboard full of coffee mugs but how could I not love this one? The Math Mug sports 20 of the most popular and important math formulas, including the one that is my car license plate (Euler’s Identity, eiπ+1=0), Dirac’s Equation, Newton’s Second Law, Schrodinger’s Equation, and many more. What a great conversation starter, too, as folks gathering for a meeting can ask you about each formula and you can give an impromptu math class to get everyone’s brain going. $12.95 plus shipping from Signals. (I don’t have one of these, either…)
Power Outlet with Built-in USB Charger
The outlet in our master bedroom is constantly in use to charge a steady stream of phones, MP3 players, headsets, and other gizmos. That means there’s also a pile of power adapters nearby cluttering up the counter. How nice it will be to replace that outlet with this one from FastMac, which has not one but two built-in USB charger ports. It’s $9.95 plus shipping, but alas won’t be available until sometime in early 2010 when certification testing completes. Still, you could pre-order it or perhaps wait until it’s ready and use instead as a birthday or anniversary gift.
