12 Toys of Christmas for Techies 2002 Our annual 12 Tested and Suggested Xmas Techie Toy Gifts. Fifth Toy of Xmas Two for one, everyone like a great deal and that's what you get when you give Adobe's Photoshop Elements 2.0 for a gift. It's both Mac OS X/9 and Windows XP, on one disk!                   New for 2002, "PS" Elements has really grown up from its meager beginnings as a LE "limited version" of Photoshop and then a stand-alone product. It has some features that even Photoshop doesn't have, such as a "Wizard" that even my parents could use to fix any picture or graphic. Indispensable if your gift recipient is a dedicated digital camera user or a budding graphic artist. Our Tech Lab review staff gave it 5 thumbs up (five out of five) for user satisfaction, with a slight edge to the Mac version for ease of use. Amazon.com has Adobe Photoshop elements 2.0 for $39 after rebates and Amazons “special offers”. Sixth Toy of Xmas Does your husband, wife or a college-aged student in your family need a new Notebook computer? We highly recommend the HP (Hewlett-Packard) Pavilion ze4125 Notebook PC for Windows. Right now HP is offering a $100 Rebate off the bargain $1,399 list price through Amazon.com and other outlets like CompUSA, making the final price $1,299.              The Pavilion ze4125 is powered by the potent AMD Athlon XP 1600+ (1.4GHz) processor, a 15" TFT display, 256MB DDR SDRAM, 40GB hard drive and a DVD-CDRW "combo drive". Graphics are handled by our favorite, the ATI Mobility Radeon 4X AGP 3D card with 32MB of shared RAM. Gaming is even at quite an acceptable level! The only drawback is that there is no high-speed Firewire 1492 port, or USB 2.0 either. Seventh Toy of Xmas If your gift recipient is part of the now generation, really into productivity, audio, graphics and video production, or maybe you just want to "Switch" them from the demon Windows, may we highly suggest a new Apple iBook. It now has an even faster 800 MHz G3 RISC processor (equal to a 1.8GHz Intel Pentium), 14.1" TFT display, DVD-CDRW combo drive, ATI Radeon 7500 with 32MB of dedicated SDRAM, two USB 1.1 and one Firewire ports and 5.7 hours of battery life (our test).                   You can order the iBook for your favorite person with either the standard 30 GB HDD or an optional 40GB and while you’rr at it, get them the internal Apple Airport Card for wireless networking and surfing. The most popular notebook of 2001 and 2002, this iBook will cost you a total $1,599, but do some comparative online shopping because many dealers are throwing in free RAM or printers. Remember, Apple offer educational discounts too!				Budget alternative - If your wallet is already thin, consider the base model iBook with 12.1 TFT display, 700 MHz G3 processor, 20GB HDD, CD ROM only and ATI Radeon 7500 graphics for only $999, or $1,299 for a souped up version with the 800 MHz G3 and the Combo drive. This is the perfect travel notebook and very popular with students. Eighth Toy of Xmas For the budding Steven Spielberg directors (actually, I hope you're better), that might be on your Christmas list, nothing beats a professional DV Camcorder. Unfortunately, you really can’t afford to buy someone a professional model, but fortunately there are some super “Pro-sumer” DV-camcorder that will make any future Alfred Hitchcock beam with delight. Our choice is the best in it’s class, Canon’s GL-2 DV Camcorder.                 It has so many great features, we can’t give them all, but here are a few. The GL-2 employs L-Series Fluorite lens, optical image stabilizer, 1.7 Mega Pixel still images, 3 CCD Pixel Shift Technology, 20 optical zoom, Firewire digital output/input and MMC/SD Memory Card compatibility for still imaging. Fully Macintosh compatibility rated (see iBook above for editing) Wow, and all this at a remarkably low 2.5 lbs! The best price we could find online is $1,869. at PremiumPhoto.com. Remember always search for the best price you can find and check on the reliability of whom ever you are ordering from. Ninth Toy of Xmas D-Link AirPlus 2.4GHz Wireless Router & PC Card Adapter bundle $169.99 less a $50 rebate DI-614+ Router & DLW-650+ Notebook Adapter Up to 22 Mbps, Item # 488700 at Costco. If the rebate is over, it's still a great package deal.              Wireless LAN, also known as WiFi using 802.11b hardware is the hottest thing in business and home computer networks. Got a business or house where running Cat. 5 wiring is not an option? Then this “new user package” is the perfect introduction for you and contains all you need to start. The Wireless Router is compatible with all 802.11b devices and can even be setup from a Mac or PC via a HTML Browser interface. The PC card will only work in a Windows notebook. The D-Link AirPlus™ DI-614+ combines the latest advancements in 802.11b silicon chip design from Texas Instruments, utilizing their patented Digital Signal Processing™ technology and D-Link's own robust firewall security. The DI-614+ is ideal for those creating their first wireless network, as well as for more advanced users looking for additional management settings and policy-based content filtering. The DWL-650+ is a 32-bit CardBus adapter that installs quickly into any notebook PCs and when used with the D-Link AirPlus Wireless Router, automatically connects to the network. The D-Link wireless adapter can be used in ad-hoc mode to connect directly with other 802.11b cards or in infrastructure mode to connect with a wireless access point for access to the Internet in your office or home network. next
	about us | current articles | archive | home all right reserved copyright ©1999-2002.