Sunday, November 30, 2008

Gift ideas for you and the other sysadmins in your life

I meant to post this on Friday, but I was busy recovering from standing in line for a couple of hours to buy a new TV for $400.

Every Christmas people ask me what I want, and I always give the kneejerk response, "I don't know, nothing?". I usually can't come up with something that I genuinely need or want typically, though there are lots of things I'd be pleasantly surprised by. I'm really not hard to shop for, but I think that people think I am. I'd be happy getting nothing, or even just a card.

Anyway, I set out this year to try to compile a list of things that they can get without worrying whether I will like it. I found some neat stuff online, and thought that you might be interested in the same things I am, so I've compiled a list of stuff, or more like a list of lists. If someone wants to know what to get a geek, just hand them this page.

First, since I just got my brand new HDTV:



I'm a Browncoat and not ashamed of it. I've got the series on DVD and I watch it pretty often. Watching it on Blueray will be pretty sweet, and if that special geek in your life digs SciFi, you can't go wrong with Firefly. (click the box to go to the Fox store)


If there's anyone reading this who isn't familiar with ThinkGeek, you should click the logo and check it out. It's Geek nirvana. Everything is great there, and at one point most of my wardrobe was from their T-shirt section. I was going to give a couple of categories, but really, if it's on that site, there's a good chance your geek will like it.

Sysadmins as a general rule really like to learn. A lot. To that end, here's a link to every product on Amazon with the tag of sysadmin. Lots of great books. If you find yourself getting lots of stuff from Amazon, it's probably cost effective to subscribe to Amazon Prime, so your shipping is free or much cheaper.

Even Wired is getting into the season with this list of Geeky toys that will make you a christmas hero. Some of these are on the expensive side, but anyone who does manage to hack the triceratops gets kudos from me.

I'll end with one of the coolest lists I found: Make's Open Source Hardware 2008. If you're a hardware tinkerer, then this is your list. I'm *not* a hardware hacker, and I want to get some of these. Excellent stuff.

anyway, just some Sunday fluff to fill space. Hope you're having a good weekend.

[UPDATE]
Now with smaller inline image. Sorry!