Dec 18 2011

The Ultimate Geek Gift Guide 2011

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.

For two years straight the iPad has been the most coveted piece of technology on most self respecting geek. The iPad is great for geeks no matter their expertise, music, photography, gaming, social media, etc. A geek that travels a lot or enjoys reading on their iPad when at a coffee shop 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 a envelope iPad cases from Poketo.

Poketo Envelope iPad Case

Poketo Envelope iPad Case

Over this last year there has been an explosion of tablets come into the market such as the Amazon Kindle Fire, and Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet. The Nook tablet at $249 is a great bargain but so is the Amazon Kindle Fire at $199. The Nook tablet is a bit faster and more powerful than the Kindle Fire, but if you already own a Kindle or have purchase Kindle ebooks then the Kindle Fire would be the obvious choice.

For the financial whiz in the family I would recommend the HP 12c Financial Calculator. The HP 12c Financial Calculator has a retro HP look and over 120 mathematical functions that would be appreciated by any business and finance power user.

Every engineer needs a notebook and there are no better notebooks than Moleskine notebooks. Moleskine has come out with a limited edition Star Wars notebooks perfect for that die hard fan. For the old school video gamer in the family, they also have a limited edition Pac-Man set.

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 2010, The Ultimate Geek Gift Guide 2009, The Ultimate Geek Gift Guide 2008


Dec 2 2011

Retweet November 2011

From time to time I just blast tweets about software development, project planning, team dynamics, or whatever else comes to mind. Here is a synopsis of recent tweets and rants. If you want to follow the conversation follow me at techknow and/or juixe.

Software Development

  • Making good UI means making ugly choices.
  • There was a time when having a computer made you a nerd. Today, people being “good on Facebook” does not make you a nerd.
  • Love working with jQuery Mobile.

Thought Leadership

  • Everyone has a vision, the difference is the scope, lens, and filter around the vision.
  • Tomorrow is a fresh opportunity to be amazing and amazed.
  • You ask stupid questions, you get stupid answers.
  • I’m not on StackOverflow, so when people ask for my SO reputation I instead give them the the monthly referrals I get from SO.

Product Placement

  • Sweet. Amazon just sent me a $5 credit because of a “technical issue on the Amazon.com website” that I am not even aware I encountered.
  • Found my first handheld device… An HP iPaq RX3715 running Pocket PC 2003 Pro w/ Outlook 2002. It’s still in great condition!
  • David Pogue wrote his review of the Kindle Fire, sounds like he wrote it from his iPad.

Overheard

  • OH: Don’t they have Cliff Notes for the DMV driving manual?
  • OH: Your brain cells are sexy!
  • OH: Sometimes when you put things in the closet it doesn’t mean you have a clean house.
  • OH: don’t do it but it you gonna do it make sure you get paid for doing it.

Thanksgiving

  • I’m turkeyed-out. I had all major food groups and at least four different meat groups.
  • McDonalds should have a McTurkey with McStuffing.
  • Thanksgiving is the time to eat food you don’t like, I mean why do you only have it only for Thanksgiving?
  • The holidays forces families to come together because everyone else is with their families.
  • I dislike food holidays. Especially when everything is so good.
  • Instead of counting sheep, I’ll be counting turkeys tonight.
  • Gobble gobble gone.

Nov 23 2010

The Learning Library

I’ve always been a book lover. I have a private collection of Ruby, Perl, and Java books, amongst other topics, that would make a public library jealous. In fact, I recently moved and was surprised that that the bulk of the items boxed up where books. I’ve been making the trend of moving my library to ebooks. I was an early adopter of the Amazon Kindle, I still use my first generation Kindle. Here are some books in my collection, which I’ve use as reference.

I’ve even dedicated a blog post to a few of my favorite books, such as the following.


Nov 22 2010

The Ultimate Geek Gift Guide 2010

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

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

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


Nov 16 2010

App Engine Learning Library

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.


Nov 15 2010

Android Learning Library

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.