gifts : Computer Hardware Buyers’ Glossary

gifts

If you are looking for a gift for your parents, I have written an essay on how to create one guaranteed to knock their socks off. When my father was breathing his last, he disposed of all his possessions, except that gift.

This entry is about suggestions for inexpensive gifts for your computer-programming friends.

Gift certificate to a bookstore that carries technical books, (possibly a university bookstore), or an online store such as amazon.com or Chapters.
A few LightScribe CDs (Compact Disks) or DVDs (Digital Video Discs) that let you label them photographically without sticking on a label. This requires a LightScribe capable drive, but the gift can be useful even if the recipient has to borrow time on a computer with such a drive.
If you are buying for several people, buy boxes of several types of ink-jet-printable Avery sticky labels, and make up a sampler.
Ditto for various types of stock, business cards, tent cards, greeting card stock, colours… You an get these at Office Depot or Staples.
Some money put in the person’s PayPal account and tell him to buy some software or hardware.
Foam pads to stick on the keyboard to rest his wrists on. You can get foam feet pads for the job.
A keycap puller
A 15” clear plastic ruler with markings in cm, inches, 1/10 inches, 1/12 inches and 1/6 inches. These are very hard to find. If you ever run across some, snap them up.
An ink cartridge for his particular kind of printer. Make sure you have the exact model number of his/her printer or a spent cartridge. There are hundreds of different kinds of printer cartridge.
A mousepad
New mouse feet. These make a mouse glide smoothly. You will need to know the make and model of his or her mouse.

A pocket calculator that can do hexadecimal and octal. These are hard to find. There are plenty of virtual calculators you can run on desktops, but a hand held works anywhere and when your computer is booting or otherwise impaired. The Sharp EL-9900 Graphing Calculator is one of the few left.

recommend electronic⇒Sharp EL-9900 Graphing Calculator

asin

B0002I8VNS

Works in decimal, hex and octal. Draws graphs. Lets you edit equations.

	amazon.cn	amazon.ca
	amazon.de	bestbuy.ca
	amazon.es	newegg.ca
	amazon.fr	tigerdirect.ca
	amazon.it	amazon.com
	amazon.co.uk	newegg.com
	junglee.com	tigerdirect.com
	other stores

Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

recommend electronic⇒Texas Instruments TI36X Scientific Calculator

asin

B00000JBNM

This is solar powered scientific calculator that does the necessary programmer and scientific/mathematical tasks you would want including hex, binary, octal and bitwise logical functions. It is not programmable, though it can do some statistical functions. It calculates accurate to 12 digits and displays up to 10. That will display 32-bit ints quantities, but not 64-bit longs. It is quite inexpensive, and known for unusual durability. You can read the manual online to learn precisely what it can do. Compare it with its brothers to be sure you have the best fit. Be careful, just because another calculator is more expensive does not mean it has all the same programmer features.

	amazon.cn	amazon.ca
	amazon.de	bestbuy.ca
	amazon.es	newegg.ca
	amazon.fr	tigerdirect.ca
	amazon.it	amazon.com
	amazon.co.uk	newegg.com
	junglee.com	tigerdirect.com
	other stores

Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

Sharpie fine tip permanent marker.
Velcro straps or deer tag plastic ties to wrap and tidy cables. You can get these very cheaply at Canadian Tire.
Blank CDs and DVDs.
CD/DVD case.
Interesting condoms.
Keyboard cleaning kit or contact cleaning kit. You can’t buy these ready made, but you can fairly easily put one together in a little plastic case, perhaps with a laminated printout of my cleaning instructions.
Print out several sets of carol sheets including the recipient’s favourites.
Radio Synched Clock: clock that stays accurate by tracking radio signals from an atomic clock.
Wall chart: commonly used computer reference information in the form of a poster.
fine art print or poster, perhaps one used as the image of the day on the Canadian Mind Products home page.
Get the PosterJack people to inexpensively make any computer image file into a wall poster.
A USB Flash drive aka memory stick, thumbdrive. Get one fast enough to support ReadyBoost.
Some full spectrum desk lighting.

	available on the web at:	http://mindprod.com/bgloss/gifts.html
	optional Replicator mirror of mindprod.com on local hard disk J:	J:\mindprod\bgloss\gifts.html
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