gifts : Computer Hardware Buyers’ Glossary

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 Discs) 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.

  Shopping for Gifts

  $19.41

  electronic link to Dymo DYM1768960 LabelManager PnP Label Maker

  	recommend electronic⇒Dymo DYM1768960 LabelManager PnP Label Maker
  	asin	B00464E5P2
  	dim	16 × 6.35 × 15.49 cm 6.30 × 2½ × 6.10 in
  This is the perfect gift for the nerd or nerdlet in your life. The unit plugs into a PC or Mac USB port. You compose your sticky labels with computer software. This design fixes so many of the problems of traditional label makers. Advantages You now have a huge, high res computer screen to compose the label. You have a proper keyboard to compose the label. You save the cost of six AAA batteries at a pop since it charges from the USB port. You have access to any conceivable font — anything installed on your computer. You can include any accented letter, symbol, image, logo, bar code, layout… It behaves for all practical purposes like a tiny thermal printer printing on special tape. You can buy tape cartridges in five widths. You can get various combinations of clear, black, white, red, green, blue and yellow tape. You can get standard, permanent adhesive or flexible for labeling cables. There is less to malfunction. It does not tack long blank leaders and trailers to sell more tape. Disadvantages It will not produce address or shipping labels. It cannot print in colour, other than the two colours built-in to the tape. The backings are still just as hard as ever to peel off. There need to be an accessory for peeling off the backs that does not require you to have your fingernails professionally sharpened. You need a computer nearby to use it. Tape cartridges are relatively expensive — about $19 though you can find them discounted on the net. As a printer, 12 mm/sec is pretty slow, but more that adequate for making one-off labels. It is noticeably faster than a hand-held unit. Random Observations It has a strangely-shaped lithium-ion rechargeable battery. You have to experiment to figure out how to orient it. To add to the confusion, the battery cover has a decal that suggests you need to insert a traditional C-cell. There is a plastic cleaning wand you can store on the inside of the case on a rectangular peg. The tape that comes with it is only 10 feet long. It behaves like a USB flash drive, with the software built-in. You just plug it in and run the Dymo Label Light software. You can then download a fancier 114MB version. The firmware version has no support for accented letters and glyphs that you cannot directly key. You can copy and paste them from my HTML entities page. The fancy version handles bar codes and clip art and multi-line labels. You can download a free, fancier version of the software which lets you preview the fonts and includes two extra fonts DYMO Symbols and DYMObvba which it automatically installs. The fonts just support the usual ISO-8859-1 8-bit encoding symbols, not all the proprietary symbols you find on the hand-held units. The downloadable software is harder to use. You must first click the compose box before you select a font. You must select a font before you type. You cannot type then apply a font the way you can in a word processor. The selected font often changes by itself. You have to keep an eye on it. You can then copy paste any characters you want into the box. To do bar codes, click bar code which puts a generic bar code on the label. The right click properties to select the type, data etc. The unit is bigger than I expected. It is about the size of a 1950s movie camera. Cutting is done mechanically. It is 100 times easier to prepare a label than on my old Dymo Pocket handheld electronic unit. I don’t think it has sensors to tell the software the width and type of tape installed. Tape Lengths Dymo Tape Lengths Dymo Tape Lengths Type Meters Feet Standard 7 23 Permanent 5.5 18 Flexible 3.5 12 Sample 3 10 The theory is, instead of charging different amounts for the different types of tape, they charge the same for all types of cartridge and give you less tape for the costlier-to-produce types. You can buy one cheaply from Label City or on eBay. Amazon has recently been effectively giving them away for less the cost of a tape cartridge. Specs. There is also a deluxe WiFi version, model DYM1812570, for simpler sharing.
  Online electronic stores carrying Dymo DYM1768960 LabelManager PnP Label Maker amazon.com bestbuy.ca amazon.ca canadacomputers.com amazon.de ncix.ca amazon.es newegg.ca amazon.fr www.staples.ca amazon.it tigerdirect.ca amazon.co.uk bestbuy.com junglee.com ncixus.com other stores newegg.com www.staples.com tigerdirect.com
  Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

  $99.98

  electronic link to Texas Instruments TI36X Scientific Calculator

  	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.
  Online electronic stores carrying Texas Instruments TI36X Scientific Calculator amazon.com bestbuy.ca amazon.ca canadacomputers.com amazon.de ncix.ca amazon.es newegg.ca amazon.fr www.staples.ca amazon.it tigerdirect.ca amazon.co.uk bestbuy.com junglee.com ncixus.com other stores newegg.com www.staples.com tigerdirect.com
  Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

  $117.01

  electronic link to Texas Instruments TI84 Plus CE Gold Graphing Calculator

  	recommend electronic⇒Texas Instruments TI84 Plus CE Gold Graphing Calculator
  	asin	B01DZRY4HE
  	dim	4.57 × 19.05 × 27.43 cm 1.80 × 7½ × 10.80 in
  Scientific graphic calculator with 15-colour display. 320 × 240 pixels. Do not confuse with the TI84 Plus which has a black and white display and smaller memory. It works internally to 14 significant digits, and displays 10 digits. 8-line by 16-character display. 3 MB flash ROM memory for storing formulas. Uses math textbook notation. Shell comes in black, green, pink, white, blueberry, denim, gold, lightning, plum, radical red and silver. Oddly, different colours are different prices. It is not solar powered. It uses a non-standard rechargeable battery, included. USB port. Programmable in Basic and ASM. This as not a programmers’ calculator. It cannot do hex. Oddly, if you buy a ten pack, instead of giving you a discount, they charge you considerably extra. specs. manual.
  Online electronic stores carrying Texas Instruments TI84 Plus CE Gold Graphing Calculator amazon.com bestbuy.ca amazon.ca canadacomputers.com amazon.de ncix.ca amazon.es newegg.ca amazon.fr www.staples.ca amazon.it tigerdirect.ca amazon.co.uk bestbuy.com junglee.com ncixus.com other stores newegg.com www.staples.com tigerdirect.com
  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. They are sometimes called multipurpose attachment ties.
• 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 synced 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.