Juixe Techknow

This geek gift guide is not so much for geeks and techies but for those that have geeks and techies in their life and need a little help in finding the right geek gift this holiday season. If you want to wow the geek in your life with the latest technology gadget you need to look no further.

The hottest piece of technology this year has been the Apple iPad. The iPad is great for geeks no matter their passion, music, photography, gaming, social media, etc. A geek that travels a lot would enjoy the 3G iPad so that they can always be connected no mater where they are. Whether you give the geek in your life an iPad or if they already have one, there are a ton of great accessories such as the iPad cases. I have been happy with the standard Apple iPad Case but for something more eye catching then consider the DODOcase. I also enjoy this leather portfolio iPad slipcase.

Targus Hughes Leather Portfolio Slipcase

To get the most out of an iPad you need apps, for stocking stuffers you can consider getting a few iTunes gift cards which can be used to purchase apps, music, books, and movies from the iTunes store. I’ve already written regarding my favorite iPad apps.

Not every geek is into Apple products. Fortunately, there are other viable touch-based tablets such as the Google Android powered Archos 9 PC Tablet or the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

For the avid reader in your life, nothing beats the Amazon Kindle. There are other electronic book readers but the Kindle is the most wished-for and most gifted ebook reader. The latest generation of the Kindle is smaller than previous versions and Amazon provides just about every top book in the Kindle format. What I love best about the Amazon Kindle is that your digital library is available to you in just about every device, iPhone, iPad, desktop, Android mobile device, and more.

This holiday season the most sought after family oriented game will not be on the Wii, it will be on the XBox 360. The XBox 360 has a set of games that do no require a controller to play, instead you play them by controlling the game play with your body. The Kinect Sensor has a series of camera’s that capture your body movements and uses that information to control the character in the game. The best game on for the Kinect Sensor has to be Dance Central. Dance Central doesn’t require any controller or pad for you to get down with your dance moves, you just dance in front of you television set.. The other games to look forward to is DJ Hero 2 and Rock Band 3.

Xbox 360 250 GB Kinect Bundle

As everyone already knows, the standard geek uniform is jeans and a t-shirt. Any self respecting geek needs to have some ThinkGeek shirts in his wardrobe. ThinkGeek gear is like Armani Exchange for geeks, binary fashionable and geek chic.

If you need more suggestions, take a look at previous years geek gift guides: The Ultimate Geek Gift Guide 2009, 2008

Just like opinions, at the end of the year everyone has their own predictions for the new year. I came to these predictions by reading the back of caps of green tea bottles. If you like to see my accuracy with past predictions see the predictions for 2009 and 2010.

• Mark Zuckerborg will be summoned by congress for a congressional hearing to clarify privacy settings and violations when some White House intern force checks in the President at a Hooters.
• Digg will buy Reddit from Conde Nast and rebrand the merged organization as Reddigg.
• DVDs and Blu Rays sales will slow as users switch to on demand streaming service such as Netflix and Apple iTunes.
• Groupon will be purchased by Yahoo for $1.5 billion dollars.
• Facebook will have a major privacy and security flaw but non of its users will notice because they all found a pony in their stream.
• Google will allow its developers to only use cheap commodity Linux machines. Google employees will no longer be allowed to program in Macs.
• Google will start to aggressively push and market the Go programming language as an replacement of the Java programming language in the enterprise.
• Google will buy PostreSQL.
• Google will buy the Library of Congress.
• Quora will buy the domain ask.com.
• Ticket Master will buy Eventbrite.
• Rupert Murdoch will sell MySpace for $35 million.
• Mashable will be sold to Rupert Murdoch for an undisclosed $50 million dollars.
• Michael Bay will write, Steven Spielberg will direct, and Johnny Deep will star in Zynga: The Movie.
• Zynga and Rock Star Games will co-develop a crossover game called Grand Theft Auto: Farmville.

Very rarely has Amazon ever let me down.  I have always viewed Amazon as an innovator in their industry and ahead of the curve in technology.  But a recent experience made me rethink their customer support. I recently ordered Village Naturals Body Soak blend of bath minerals, salts, and vitamins. The body soak comes in a plastic jar is made of fragrant sea salt sized minerals. When the FedEx delivery person dropped off the package, it was in a plastic bag. I immediately knew something was wrong, why would the delivery service place a Amazon package inside a plastic bag for delivery. I opened the Amazon package and it all became instantly clear as the strong fragrance of the body soak fills the room. The lid from the body soak jar had opened during transport and all the contents had spilled out. The reason FedEx had wrapped the Amazon package in a plastic bag is because the body soak salts and minerals had spilled out of the Amazon box.

Upon receiving the package I opened it, and noticed the damage. I took several pictures of how I have received my items and immediately called customer service. Amazon customer service apparently follows Hollywood’s old adage, “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” You can enter your phone number and they quickly call you back. I spoke with the customer service rep and told him the problem. At first I had difficulty understanding him because he masked his voice in an unnatural way that made him sound like robot, kinda like Calculon. I explain to him that the jar in which the bath salts where packaged in opened during transport and spilling all the salts which leaked out of Amazon box. What struck me was when he asked, “can you use still use it?” I explained that the bath salts also scraped and damaged the front and back of a book I also had purchased.

Half Empty Jar of Fail

The Amazon customer support did refund me for my products and said that I had to mail back the damaged products as soon as possible or else they will charge me for it. I joked that he is getting an empty jar, because all of the bath salts where lost during transport. In fact, I eventually tried to place all the remaining bath salt that were in the Amazon box into the product container and I didn’t even have 20%. After all that was said and done, this is the details that the Amazon customer representative wrote on the return details for the body soak, “the top of the jar is somehow opened. and theres a leak on it. all the content came out.” For damaged book, the description read, “the pebbles soaked the book. and the book is damaged.”

I don’t mind that Amazon, and other companies, outsource customer support functions to other English speaking countries. I am by no means, a xenophobe, especially since I myself can be considered a xeno. But I am a idiotphobe. That said, I dislike how customer support outright lie about their identity. In a fake American accent but with hints of post-colonial Indian accent the customer service agent greats you as, “Hi my name is Steve.” I feel like saying, “Hi Steve, my name is Raja Shankar Ramachandra Maximus Decimus Meridius IV.” Why the false identity? It’s fine that they take “American jobs” which most American’s wont want but do they have to take fake American identities too? Business is usually based on trust, and when your company representatives misrepresent themselves how can customers trust you.

On last customer service pet peeve, the last thing I want to hear from customer support is “how is your day going?” when they are trying to stall for time while they look some information in some screen. Worst still is when they put you on hold for no reason other than they don’t want to have you on the line, like they are uncomfortable by you waiting for them to finish with your request.

One of the most interesting technologies right now is Google App Engine. Google App Engine is a framework that runs Google’s cloud. Developer and programmers can program in Java or Python and upload their applications to be hosted in Google’s infrastructure. Google has a generous free plan, but if your application picks up traction you to buy additional bandwidth. Google App Engine has some decent documentation but I also like to follow in a book or two. Here is a short list of books on Google App Engine in hopes to get you started.

• Using Google App Engine
• Beginning Java Google App Engine
• Professional Google App Engine Programming with Java
• Programming Google App Engine: Build and Run Scalable Web Apps on Google’s Infrastructure
• Developing with Google App Engine
• Hello, Android: Introducing Google’s Mobile Development Platform

I’ve started learning and developing for the Android platform and I found the best way for me to learn is by learning from ebooks. I’ve long ago stopped buying physical copies of technical and programming books. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to learn about digital technology from a dead tree technology. Here is a short list of the best Amazon Kindle books to learn how to program for the Android platform.

• Beginning Android 2
• Pro Android 2
• Pro Android Games
• Building Android Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• The Android Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the Android SDK
• Professional Android Application Development
• Unlocking Android: A Developer’s Guide

I’ve always loved to read collections of inspiring quotes. For one, you can read one quote at a time and you don’t have to worry about following a plot or losing your place in the book because each quote is self contained nugget of wisdom. At least that is how I felt when I first read Words I Wish I Wrote: A Collection of Writing That Inspired My Ideas by Robert Fulghum. Since first reading Words I Wish I Wrote, I have collected programming related quotes from blogs, books, and articles that I’ve read. Many, but not all, of the quotes that I’ve collected have ended up as a blog post here.

• Favorite Programming Quotes 2010
• Quotable Calacanis 2010
• Favorite Programming Quotes 2009
• Quotable Calacanis 2009
• Quotable DHH 2009
• Favorite Programming Quotes 2008
• Juixe TechKnow Quotes 2008
• Favorite Programing Quotes