programming and human factors
by Jeff Atwood
In case you hadn't noticed, it's that time of year again: let the wholesale buying of crap begin!
As a technology enthusiast with a bad impulse purchase habit, I get a lot of complaints that I am difficult to buy for. That's sort of intentional. I spent my entire childhood waiting to grow into an adult partially so I could afford to buy myself all the crap my parents wouldn't buy me when I was a kid.
I now regret that. Well, a little. Man, it's fun to buy crap.
So here are my favorite lists of cool, quirky, offbeat geek gifts for 2007:
Phew. If that doesn't give you some solid gift ideas for your favorite geek (or incite your own techno-gadget-lust frenzy), then I can't help you.
This year, I treated myself to the D-Link DGL-4500 Xtreme N Gaming Router.
Do I need a new router? Well, no, my DGL-4300 still works well enough. But just look at this thing -- it's bristling with awesomeness:
I loved my DGL-4300, and I love its big brother the DGL-4500 even more. I know QoS isn't exactly a new feature, but having it work out of the box is a huge perk -- I can saturate my connection with torrents and still experience perfect, lag-free online gaming. It's still amazing to me that this works. Although you pay a premium for a "gaming" class router versus a generic one, it's not too much of a premium -- the DGL-4500 is currently $169 at Amazon and that includes the well-reviewed World in Conflict real time strategy game. So, that's my indulgence, and I can recommend it.
Enjoy this year's crap-buying season. I'll leave you with one final bit of gifting advice-- if there's any serious doubt whether the recipient will find the gift useful, go for gift cards. The economics of gift cards may be a little wonky, but personally, I'd much prefer receiving a gift certificate/card over some physical item that requires trudging to the store to return.
You are incredibly lucky!
Wondering on December 10, 2007 2:30 AMwow, what a router!
Geeky on December 10, 2007 2:30 AMI spent my entire childhood waiting to grow into an adult partially so I could afford to buy myself all the crap my parents wouldn't buy me when I was a kid.
i can't wait to be an adult, all my parent could give me was a Toshiba laptop and 256kb DSl connection to go with it.honestly, who plays online games with that kind of connection (only me with at lot of lag).And also with torrents:a maximum of two would take all of my bandwidth (it sucks huh).i can't wait for the days of adulthood to dawn on me but first i must code well to secure those days .Happy crap buying Jeff!it is unfortunate i can't participate :(.A suggestion : maybe this season would be a good time to get a dedicated server and expand coding horror into a community or something like that.
gogole on December 10, 2007 2:37 AMIt seems weird to me that they would make the OLED display the color that lasts the shortest. (ie: blue)
Oh well, nice toy all the same. I'm getting myself an XO Laptop (http://laptop.org/) and the Celle (http://www.herman-miller.com/CDA/SSA/Product/1,1592,a10-c440-p217,00.html) I bought forever ago is coming in on the 20th. :D
Brennan on December 10, 2007 2:37 AMOr there's Oxfam Unwrapped, in case you can live without some new blinking lights.
Rik, is that what you tell your wife or significant other? :)
"Honey, I got you this beautiful symbolic gift from Oxfam Unwrapped!"
http://www.oxfamamericaunwrapped.com/
Jeff Atwood on December 10, 2007 3:15 AMSo apart from the the fact it looks a lot more sexy and has all the blue-ness, does it have much more in functionality of the DLink DIR-655?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127215Tpk=dir-655
From what I can see the specs look pretty similar.
Chris Mayer on December 10, 2007 3:21 AMBut you haven't hit the geek gift for the kid (in you) that has everything: urlhttp://www.firebox.com/product/1989?src_t=wnw/url.
I can't believe that it's impossible to buy this in the US.
Think about it: a combination of "sensible" and "stealth bomber technology." Perfect!
Well, I've already bought one for my fourteen-year-old nephew, anyway.
aardvark on December 10, 2007 3:37 AM@Chris
For one thing, the model you cited is not dual-band; it doesn't support 5 GHz. All the new Apple Airports are dual-band, for example.
@Dennis
Honestly, I'm wired 99% of the time at home, which is why gigabit is so important to me. The other 1% of the time I am using vanilla 802.11g from my laptop.
I should also note that "GamerFuel" QoS works quite well, but you DO have to give it a bit of breathing room. I tell my torrent downloads to use 90% of my bandwidth but not quite all of it.
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2005/03/04/review_dgl4300/page9.html
Jeff Atwood on December 10, 2007 3:38 AMHehe, funny crap is rule) like this: http://www.x-tremegeek.com/templates/SearchDetail.asp?productID=12253
sweet post, though if my significant other got me a piece of paper with the url for reflector printed on it, no matter how cool that program is, i'd be liable to flip.
burnside on December 10, 2007 4:23 AMThanks Jeff
You just cost me 1h of valuable work time...
Jonas on December 10, 2007 4:31 AMwoo definitely three antennas! I'm not buying anything I'm hiding out this christmas
owen on December 10, 2007 5:13 AMHere is a link to what gamefuel is: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1746080,00.asp
Sameer Alibhai on December 10, 2007 5:21 AMMore USB!!! MORE MORE MORE!!! I have 2 7-port hubs ... and need to fill them up.
PaulG. on December 10, 2007 5:25 AMDD-WRT.
That's all I have to say on the subject of the router.
I encourage people to buy me stuff I collect - coffee cups and pens. Partially because I freaking love both, but also because I'll buy just about anything else I want for myself, myself. Yup, if it weren't for my ever expanding coffee cup collection (did I mention I love coffee cups?), I would be a huge pain to buy for.
And for those that say there is no surprise in it obviously aren't collectors. Each and every cup is a different and unqiue surpise! Tall, short, big, small, with logo, without, witty quips, clear, colored, clay, porcellain, glass, hand made, factory pressed, dollar store specials (they get some MIGHTY cool cups in for a buck or two!)
Plus, it could be a pen! (and man, oh man, the potential there is practically limitless!)
Err, but I guess that divurged from my original point.
DD-WRT. Don't be on the internet without it!
Xepol on December 10, 2007 5:28 AM@Rik - one of the celebrities appearing on the advert in the UK also does the voiceover for iwantoneofthose.com who sell more tat than anybody else
Paul on December 10, 2007 5:52 AMJeff,
That is one nice router - what games will you be playing through it?
Gogole sez : "and 256kb DSl connection to go with it"
You are lucky you don't live in Ireland - 256kbps is the standard from our incumbent Telecom monopoly which costs about US$ 55 per month for the privelege!
Mark on December 10, 2007 6:01 AMI have avoided D-Link for years ever since I had a router that was locking up when my wife and I would have two VPN sessions going - one to each of our respective employers. I went to LinkSys routers, and never had any parallel VPN trouble. Now though, I am having a little trouble keeping up with the torrents. Too many connections, I guess, so I'm investigating solutions. Will your DGL-4500 handle the simultaneous VPN? Just out of curiosity, will it isolate the wireless network from the wired? I would LOVE that feature.
Ben on December 10, 2007 6:02 AMOnce again, as soon as you mention the word Geek, this blog engine adapts to it by generating a binary post ID.
danijels on December 10, 2007 6:24 AMMoney is a far superior gift than a gift card. While it may seem like a heartless gift at first - it also says, "I want you to be able to buy whatever you actually want without the hassle and tie-in of a gift card"
Richard on December 10, 2007 6:24 AMHey Now Jeff,
Some good gift ideas.
Coding Horror Fan,
awesome, i just emailed the link to my mom and girlfriend. :)
Dan on December 10, 2007 7:03 AMI was looking at this router just the other day. I was having a lot of trouble trying to figure out what it had over the cheaper and newer DIR-655 model. The DIR-655 marketing blurb says, "Need to give voice, gaming, or media streaming priority over other data? The DIR-655 has integrated Intelligent QoS (quality of service) technology to do just that." Isn't that the same thing as the gaming router claims to do?
In the end I couldn't decide so I just bought an extra Ethernet card for one of my Linux boxes. I'm sure using it as a router will be superior anyway and still cheaper even if I have to hook a wireless AP in later. I didn't feel the need to agonize over the details of a 10$ Ethernet card like I did over 100$ routers.
a on December 10, 2007 7:37 AMArgh! I've been remiss in not mentioning Ron L. Toms' store, another great source of geek gifts:
Catapults ho!
Jeff Atwood on December 10, 2007 7:37 AMJeff:
I'd be surprised if your router actually works right out of the box. If you - like many of my neighbours - just plug it in, then you're probably connecting to "dlink".
I'm actually a little more surprised as well that you'd install a driver for a router, which is a stand-alone device that you can configure without having to put yet more "crapware" on your machine!
themagni on December 10, 2007 8:33 AMIf I may be so bold, I had fun writing up this (mostly useless) guide: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/12/07/home-is-where-their.html
Joel Johnson on December 10, 2007 9:24 AMI read your post then saw this. I thought it was funny seeing as what your company does.
[advertisement] Axosoft OnTime 2007 is a bug tracker that manages requirements, tasks, and help desk incidents. It's designed to help teams ship software on time. Available for Windows, Web, and integrated with VS.NET 2005. Installed or hosted. Free single-user license.
i wanted to get this for xmas, but i don't think it's quite out.
a href="http://www.geekologie.com/2007/10/man_trappped_in_box_game_looks.php"http://www.geekologie.com/2007/10/man_trappped_in_box_game_looks.php/a
Jin on December 10, 2007 9:47 AMJoel: so *that's* how it is at your house, eh? Xmas prison rules?
Jeff Atwood on December 10, 2007 10:01 AMAfter this weekend's experience of gaming over a $40 Belkin Wal-Mart special, I think I'm going to consider this D-Link.
Mattkins on December 10, 2007 10:16 AMThanks for the links. Although I must say this looks like a list geared towards the 20 percenters. Where is our list - the 80%er list :-)
The wi-fi finder T-shirt is super cool.
FlooNet on December 10, 2007 11:01 AMIt's too bad that in Argentina, only a very rich guy can buy as much as you ;). A high end computer is 1000 dollars, and that only has like 2GB RAM, pirated Windows, Core 2 Quad Q6600, and Geforce 8600. But of course, some of us nerds are much devoted to overclocking.
Alex on December 10, 2007 11:10 AMJeff,catapults....catapults!Do you want to start a Roman conquest? Neighbours of Jeff BEWARE!
gogole on December 10, 2007 11:35 AMWhat do you use on the client end, Jeff? I want to make the plunge to 802.11n (especially for browsing photo collections -- when they're 10MP pics, it really shows the bandwidth limits navigating through them, at least when depending upon the client to resize instead of resizing on the server-side).
Dennis Forbes on December 10, 2007 12:02 PM...sorry, didn't actually regain the original thread after existing the parenthesis there: Anyways, I'd have already made the transition if these Dell laptops came with draft 802.11n. The dongle route just isn't appealing.
Dennis Forbes on December 10, 2007 12:10 PMYou geek!
:)
"So it's like money, but not as good?"
- Dogbert, talking about gift cards
At the risk of seeming like even more of a shill than I already am-- and because Brian, who asked for this post, had already purchased the router-- here are two other gifts I can personally recommend:
Koncept Z-Bar LED Desk Lamp (LEDs!)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000BMBV5K/codinghorror-20
La Crosse BC-900 AlphaPower AA battery charger (fancy! digital!)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00077AA5Q/codinghorror-20
I own each of these, and I'm really loving both of 'em. Everyone needs light, everyone needs rechargable AA batteries..
Jeff Atwood on December 11, 2007 2:53 AMFunny...as I bought this router a week ago as well. I thought D-Link was the KMart of networking equipment. With a name like Cisco slapped on the Linksys routers, I went that direction prior (WRT54G treated me well). I read all kinds of good reviews on this router and the specs just amazed me. The LCD was the icing on the cake. I also heard good things about the 4300. I'm loving this router so far...and I picked it up at Circuit City for $180 with a free Lexmark printer (which I promptly sold to bring down the router costs).
Brian Swiger on December 11, 2007 7:17 AMThis site is blocked by the SonicWALL Content Filter Service.
URL: http://www.rlt.com/
Reason for restriction: Forbidden Category "Weapons"
I obviously am not allowed sharp things here .....
Francis Fish on December 11, 2007 12:30 PMThat LED lamp looks mighty awesome!
Xepol on December 13, 2007 11:24 AMBecause every man, woman and child on Earth deserves a USB Humping Dog.
12 Great Geek Gifts for Under $30
http://dvice.com/archives/2007/12/12_gifts_that_d.php
What do you use on the client end, Jeff? I want to make the plunge to 802.11n (especially for browsing photo collections -- when they're 10MP pics, it really shows the bandwidth limits navigating through them, at least when depending upon the client to resize instead of resizing on the server-side).
http://alfaprotect.ru
Nice try and interesting. Thanks for sharing Jeff. =)
______________________
http://ca-drugstore.com
Think Geek's Binary Wrist Watch. Greatest gift to give.
Brandon on February 6, 2010 10:14 PMThe comments to this entry are closed.
Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe via email
|
|
Traffic Stats |
