Here it is again. That time of the year when you are expected toprovide gifts for certain people whether you want to or not.Abstaining is an option but will do little to further youracceptance into the good graces of friends and family. I hope toprovide some recommendations for appropriate gifts for thosetechnology geeks in your life. I will try to refrain from statingthe obvious. We probably already know that everyone who doesn'talready have one would enjoy an iPad.

I will first postulate a couple of caveats. When I saytechnology geek I am referring to individuals who are trulyimmersed, fascinated, and driven by technology. If your spouse orsignificant other is mad about Crazy Birds but is challenged whentrying to access their Gmail account from a computer other than theone you configured for them, they do not qualify as worthy of acool tech gift. Try the "under $25" display near the game sectionat Target for them.

Second, any tech gift worthy of giving is one you would want foryourself (or probably already own and use). Here again we have madean assumption—that you are in fact worthy of a cool tech gift. Wewill give you a pass on that one just by virtue of reading this inTech Decisions…although that is open to discussion.

The third and most important caveat is this: Do not under anycircumstances give someone a cheap knock-off of a real product. Weare not dealing with purses here—no real geek could ever tell thedifference between a $500 Dooney & Bourke and the lookalike yougot at the flea market for $33.50. But my wife could.

This rule is even more important if you are giving a tech giftto a child. If your nephew says he wants an iPod Shuffle, that iswhat he wants. He knows the difference between what he asked forand that inexpensive generic MP3 player with the really crummyheadphones you found at Odd Lots.

If you give a colleague a cheap substitute for a real item theywill just think you are cheap. A child will think you are stupidand will know you really don't care about them.

When I was about 11 or 12, I was given a new baseball glove toreplace the glove that I had outgrown. This was the glove I wasgoing to use through junior high and into high school. I was notgiven the opportunity to help in the selection of the glove, whichgiven the criticality that a baseball mitt plays in your fieldingskills should have been a red flag. The mitt I was given was aWinston. No, that isn't a typo. I didn't get a carton ofcigarettes. What I received was a Japanese baseball glove with alogo that was a looked a little like the premier American brand atthe time—Wilson.

Lest you think I am disparaging Japanese products you need toknow that there really was a time when Japanese exports to the westwere inferior to the products they were competing against. This waslong before the days of Sony or Toyota or Lenovo.

So there I was with this Winston baseballmitt—a giant super stiff monstrosity that I was never able to breakin properly or enjoy. So, long story short, kids are not stupid.They know the trends and what's cool better than you do and it ishorribly unfair to give a child something that their friends willmake fun of.

One more thing about kids: They know what's cool but that doesnot mean that everything a kid knows is cool also is cool foradults. Adult trends should not mirror kid trends. That translatesto something like don't wear anything Aeropostale if you are over25.

Cool…Not Just Functional

There are a few other things to consider when selecting techgifts. Great functionality is not enough; a really great gift alsohas to be cool. Everything tends to go in cycles with certainhipper areas of the country or demographic segments of thepopulation picking up on things before the rest of the world. Thosetrends tend to spread pretty quickly these days so there is a timelimit on cool.

One indicator that has always worked for me is that when I seesomeone with Elvis sideburns who drives a really big pickup truckusing or doing something that once had a certain panache, it's allover. Case in point—bluetooth headsets.  We have all hadone or more of those geeky things that slip over your ear and allowfor hands-free talking on your cellphone. Very useful, but totallyun-cool.

Yesterday I noticed the guys painting my neighbors house all hadbig ugly Bluetooth headsets (and big ugly pickup trucks). Let'sface it, most of us conduct a lot more business using email,instant messaging or text messages than we do using voicecommunication anyway. It's still OK to use your headset in your carbut let's refrain from gifting these things.

Headphones/Headsets

The whole headset/headphone thing has gotten weird. I used totravel a lot so like everyone else I purchased a set of those veryexpensive noise-reducing headphones. There was a time when youwould look around the business section and everyone had them. Theyonce were cool. You would notice who had the real ones (Bose) andwho just had a set of bulky headphones. Not cool anymore.

Less is better. I find that when I travel I want to carry fewer,smaller things and those noise-cancelling headsets arehuge.  My recommendation for this whole headphone/headsetdilemma is a wired headset with ear buds and inline controls forcontrolling your phone and/or volume. They are lightweight,portable and also provide much better acoustics than any headphonethat come with your smart phone or other portable device. Mypersonal favorites are the Bose MIE2i mobile headset for an ear budmodel or the Sennheiser PMX 680 for a sport neckband model.

GPS Devices

GPS devices have been around for quite a while now. They aren'tparticularly cool, but they have become an absolute necessity. Thedays of picking up a free roadmap or directions at a servicestation are long gone. Unless you've spent the last 20 years in thesame location, commuting to the same employer, you need a GPSdevice. The problem is there is a broad range in price, though notnecessarily capabilities.

I was looking at one for my motorcycle that was over $700 whileon the same Web page one was listed for $89.99. I have a built inGPS device in my car. Last year I received a DVD in the mail toupdate the maps on my device, but I had to cough up something like$300 to activate the DVD.

I am still using last year's maps. My smart phone has a numberof excellent GPS applications I can choose from at a reasonableprice (often free). Most of them work well and the maps theyprovide are at least as current as that DVD I received. It is kindof a no brainer to use a smart phone for mapping and directions.But no matter how many cup holders your car may have it probablydoesn't have a nice dashboard cellphone holder. A quick searchshows dozens of such devices most of them available for under $35.And that is a very useful tech gift.

Fast Boot

Solid state hard drives are reaching the tipping point whereprices are starting to decline as availability increases. At onetime the Apple MacBook Air was the only real player. Now all themajor manufactures are offering SSD options. There is something socool about a very light, very thin laptop that boots right now. Iam not suggesting that these are appropriate gifts as they are forthe most part very pricey. What would make a very cool gift forthat geek on your list is a solid state drive. I have a 2-3 yearold net book that I got for about $300. It is an adequate machine,is light enough, and has a good enough battery life that it is agreat travelling companion. It currently runs XP on a single GB ofRAM. I would love to upgrade that machine with a couple of 2 GB RAMmodules and a SSD hard drive. Prices for 128 GB SSD's are less than$250. So if anyone likes me enough to fork out that kind of lootthe SSD would make an excellent gift. I can spring for my ownRAM.

Power

Every real geek has a plethora of portable devices…tablets,smartphones, media players, etc. And everyone seems to forget toeither keep all their devices charged or doesn't bring enoughcharging devices to keep them all running. Portable battery packsare a must. These are small, portable devices that are usuallychargeable using a wall socket or by connecting to a USB port on arunning computer. They have one or more USB output ports which canbe used to charge or run portable devices that have run out ofjuice. I never seem to have enough of these things as I am always"lending" one to friends or family who left their charger at homeand. Do yourself a favor and gift these to the folks you will endup lending yours to. You get a lot more points for giving thanlending.

Read Only

Paper is dead. It has taken about 15 years but eBooks arefinally here to stay. I used to have walls and walls offloor-to-ceiling book shelves. All gone. I now read everything onan electronic device of some sort. My smart phone and tablet workgreat everywhere but in bright sunlight. For reading on the beachor porch I needed a "real" e-book device that uses ambient lightinstead of back lighting. It is a tossup between the Kindle or theNook device as far as the basic models go. I use a Kindle because Ialready had one-click shopping set up at Amazon. Everyone else inmy family uses Nooks. If you don't want to spring for a reader foryour geek gift recipient, gift cards are good choices. And don'tforget the third caveat: If your significant other asks for an iPad2 don't surprise them with an e-reader. Big mistake.

Other Tablets

The Kindle Fire looks like it might provide real competition tothe iPad but choose the recipient carefully. If your geek friendhates the big guys such as Microsoft and Apple—and already has anAndroid phone—then a Kindle Fire would be a reasonable gift (andreasonably priced as well at about $200).

Speaking of tablets I saw an article posted on November 25, 2011recommending the BlackBerry Playbook as one of the best tech giftsfor dad. A few days later RIM pulled an HP and started sellingPlaybooks at a $300 discount. I don't know about you but this feelslike RIM doesn't have a lot of faith in the future of the productand is trying to generate some cash before the bottom drops out. Myadvice is steer clear of the Playbook. No Playbooks on my gift listthis year.

Stocking Stuffer

Portable USB flash drives are past the tipping point. I pickedup a 64 GB model for less than $100 recently. You can never havetoo many of these because they have a limited useful life andbecause they have a tendency to disappear. Remember, these are fortransferring files, not permanent file storage. One thing I ask ofyou is please, please do not give someone the thumb drive thatlooks like a thumb. That is unless the recipient is in pre-school.Or drives a really big truck. Or both.

HoHoHo! Happy Holidays!

Please address comments, complaints, and suggestions to theauthor at [email protected].