INEXPENSIVE TECHNOLOGY GIFT SUGGESTIONS
Once again the season Is upon us so here are
some more of my inexpensive technology gift suggestions that will
make any geek in your life jingle his bells.
 Say it With a Speaker
Nothing says it better than better sound. While we may have iPods,
computer media centers and other devices that play our favorite
songs, it's for naught if the speakers or headsets that produce
those sounds don't measure up. Of course there are the big-name
speaker brands with which we're all familiar but there are some
really great speaker systems out there that will blow you away when
you see and hear them. Do yourself a favor and check out the
offerings from The Speaker Company. They have put together their own
line of speakers but they just don't find something already
assembled and slap their name on them. They spec the whole thing
out, finding the best loudspeaker companies that manufacture the
needed components. Then they tweak the drivers and other electronic
components, even design the enclosures. The results yield high-end
quality speakers at affordable prices. Check out their TST1 High
Performance Tower Speakers for example. These 4 foot tall speakers
look like the ones costing thousands, sporting a beautiful black ash
vinyl finish with inlaid glass tops. They are magnetically shielded
with tweeters, midrange cones and side-firing woofers. People will
think you paid a fortune when they see them and hear their glorious
sound. Only you will know you paid $199.98 for the pair.
www.thespeakercompany.com
 Thumb Your Nose at Hackers
There are lots of thumb drives out there you can get for next to
nothing these days but if security is high on someone's mind, check
out the IronKey. This impressive-looking, brushed stainless steel
finished flash memory device is available in 1 to 8 gigabytes of
storage and it protects what's in there with military-strength
encryption via a hardware encryption chip that scrambles the data so
as to be completely unreadable without a password. And a hacker
won't get that either. The built-in password manager application
first locally encrypts with 256-bit AES using randomly generated
keys encrypted with a SHA-256 hash of your device password, and then
it's doubly encrypted with 128-bit AES hardware encryption. After 10
incorrect password attempts, the encryption chip self destructs
making the contents of the flash drive totally unreadable. And if a
physical attempt is made to get inside, the unit is filled with
epoxy so the internal chip would just be damaged making it all
worthless. It's even electron-shielded so a scanning electron
microscope can't see inside the thing. In other words, your data
inside is really, really safe. Works with Windows, Mac and Linux.
$69.99 to $249.99.
www.thinkgeek.com
 Desk Cover a Better Way
You have a laptop but your lap's top may not be up to holding it.
Check out Logitech's Comfort Lapdesk for Notebooks. Its four-layer
heat-shielding design protects your delicate lap from overheating so
you can work and play with your portable computer in comfort and
style. The Comfort's soft, air-mesh fabric underneath its rigid
surface fits snugly and feels really good on your legs without
slipping. It looks really cool to boot. And at $39.99, your wallet
will feel great as well.
www.logitech.com
There's still time to shop so stay tuned for some more hot
technology gifts in next week's column.
| Craig Crossman is
a McClatchy-Tribune newspaper columnist writing about computers and
technology. He also hosts the nation's longest running nationally syndicated radio talk show on
computers and technology, Computer America, heard on both the Business TalkRadio
Network® and the Lifestyle TalkRadio Network®, weeknights at 10PM Eastern
time. Visit his website at http://www.computeramerica.com |
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