Essential hacker stocking stuffers

Technology

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Like most of us, you’ve probably got some last-minute shopping to take care of. Or maybe there’s a special someone in your life who keeps asking you for gift ideas and you need to start dropping hints to avoid another button down and a neck tie. Whatever the reason, here’s a quick and dirty hacker gift guide with a variety of gift ideas that should put a smile on someone’s face.

Make sure to add your own favorites to the list in the comments area and pass it along. I’m focusing primarily on smaller items that are available in local stores, but feel free to toss in whatever you think is important and shouldn’t be missed.

Reading Material:

Gadgets:

Toys:

  • Air Hogs Havoc Heli Laser Battle – remember the Picco-Zs and their clones from last year? Here’s two of them in a single package, enhanced with a trigger that let’s you zap your friend’s heli down.
  • E-Sky Lama V4 Helicopter– Yeah, I’m crazy for helicopters right now. The counter-rotating models like this one are about $100, ready (and easy) to fly, and very hackable.
  • WowWee RoboSapien V2 – fun for the kids. More fun with a soldering iron – Hacks

Gear:

  • 2GB or larger micro SD card, plus various SD and USB adapters – perfect for scooting files around, the size of a finger nail, and you can put a full Linux distro, anti virus software, or a Puppy Linux virtual machine on it – Hacks
  • Mini Multimeter – always handy.
  • Bike Multitool – a good one will pack allen and hex wrenches, screw drivers, and a knife into a pretty small package. Perfect for voiding warrantees in a pinch. Oh, and there’s a chain tool, too – Link, Link
  • Soldering Tools – whether it’s a new Weller or just a pair of helping hands, it’ll be welcome in any stocking – Link, Link

What have we missed here? Add your wishes to the comments. Then find a completely non-tacky way to get this list into the hands of someone who wants you to be a happy hacker.

7 thoughts on “Essential hacker stocking stuffers

  1. MakeFan: says:

    Nice hack, although not very useful.

    It would be very useful on one of those HP non-touch convertable laptops. However, if you can’t convert the screen, that is fold it back like on tablet PC’s, what would be the point?

    Yes, you can touch instead of using the mouse, but you still have a keyboard/touch mouse sitting in front of you, taking up space, getting in the way. You can probably use handwriting recognition, but again, you still got a keyboard protruding.

  2. SirAthos says:

    Not useful for one person does not make it useless for every person.

    Simple scenario: you have an old laptop sitting around, and your kids love to paint/draw. Only, it is no fun with a mouse, and only limited fun with a pen/tablet. And, too expensive to buy a new touch screen just for that. Go figure what the solution is…

    Very useful for some of us. Thank you.

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